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misscorn · 18 days ago

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Day 3 Time/Change

time just gives me the excuse for time travel bullshit teehee @sihjrweek

***

“This better be a nightmare because I’m not dealing with any kind of time travel bullshit.”

Perhaps it was a…blunt and harsh reaction, but the response was automatic when Takano came out of his bedroom in the morning after getting ready for work and spotted a familiar brat sleeping on his couch.

Said brat started to stir, sitting up and processing his unfamiliar surroundings. When he noticed Takano, he quickly stood and put additional distance between the two of them.

“Who the hell are you?” Saga demanded, “Where the hell am I?” Did he get kidnapped?! He didn’t even remember leaving school, the last thing he remembered was walking into the library to go see a certain underclassman and then…nothing! His mind was totally blank!

“This isn’t real, this can’t be real.” Takano started to pinch himself several times in an effort to make this illusion disappear. “I’m a busy adult with actual things to do, I don’t have time for whatever this is.” Rather than fascinated or intrigued by the situation, he could only feel confused, burdened, and annoyed. Things were going really well for Takano: he was at the top of his game at work, he quit smoking, Ritsu was officially his boyfriend, Yokozawa and Ritsu weren’t fighting nearly as much as they used to, Ritsu was officially his boyfriend, and Ritsu was starting to seriously consider Takano’s offer to move in together because Ritsu was officially his boyfriend. He didn’t want anything to get wrecked because of this nuisance suddenly appearing in his living room!

However, despite Takano’s efforts, the image of Saga remained. “Fuck, I guess this is really happening…” Takano murmured, running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“If you don’t want me here I’ll be only too happy to get the hell out.” Saga said.

“Wait, wait.” Takano sighed. “This is going to sound insane, but I’m you - an older version of you.”

Saga blinked and stared in a mixture of disbelief and anger. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that?” He asked. Sure, this guy looked a bit like him, but Saga wasn’t buying it.

“No, cause I wouldn’t believe it…” Takano crossed his arms, trying to figure out how he could prove it. As much as he didn’t want to deal with this, he also felt it would be wrong to just set this teen loose in a future timeline with nothing but the clothes on his back. “How old are you at this point, 17? 18? You’ve met Ritsu already, right?”

“What do you know about Ritsu? Is he here too?” Saga’s tone became accusatory. “If you’ve done anything to him I swear I’ll-”

“I haven’t done anything to Ritsu and he’s not here - at least - well - your Ritsu isn’t here.” Takano said.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Take a wild guess. If I’m you from the future then that must mean…” He trailed off, letting Saga fill in the blanks.

“I still don’t believe you’re me from the future and now you want me to believe that future Ritsu is also somewhere around here?” Saga asked.

“Yes. I need to go get him soon, actually, so if you could hide somewhere until we leave for work-”

“Wait, if this future Ritsu is real then I want to see him.” Saga said a little too quickly for someone who didn’t believe in the time travel scenario going on around him.

“...Of course you do.” Takano frowned, shaking his head. “This isn’t really something he needs to be stressing over, though. You and I can figure all this out after I get back from work.” That was only partially true. Takano also didn’t need Saga cozying up to the lovely adult version of Onodera Ritsu. Takano didn’t know if he could stand to see how Ritsu would behave around his beloved ‘Senpai’. It might actually drive him insane.

Before Saga could continue to argue, there was a knock on the door.

Damn it! Takano thought. Usually he would be over at Ritsu’s place to collect him and start their day together, but this unexpected guest had naturally delayed him.

“Is that him?” Saga took a step toward the entrance, but Takano quickly moved forward to grab him by the arm and hold him back.

“Will you just listen for once in your life?” Takano complained, trying to drag him back further into the apartment to hide him somewhere.

“There’s no way you’re me cause you sound just like mom.” Saga said, fighting against his grip and refusing to budge.

“I do not sound just like mom.” Takano gritted his teeth, his temper quickly rising with that one comment.

“You furrow your brow just like her too, you’re gonna get wrinkles, old man.” Saga continued, sensing that he had struck a nerve.

“You annoying brat, I don’t know what Ritsu ever saw in you.”

“I don’t know what Ritsu could see in you.” Saga retorted. “What would he want with a bitter, perverted freak?”

“Perverted? What the hell?” Takano never thought he’d hear anyone but Ritsu call him that. He shouldn’t even be entertaining these insults, he should be shoving Saga into a closet somewhere so Ritsu wouldn’t see him, but this kid kept pissing him off.

“What else do you call a weirdo that goes around kidnapping teenagers? Let go of me.” Saga said, the two still in just a bit of a physical altercation

“I didn’t kidnap you, if I had things my way you wouldn’t be here at all.”

“Then why won’t you let me go, pervert?”

“That is not what is going on!”

“Then just what the hell is going on?” A third voice piped up.

The fighting stopped as soon as the third voice joined in, both Masamunes looking toward the source.

Ritsu was trying to process what he was seeing, having let himself in with the copy of Masamune’s apartment key he had in his possession. He’d gotten a bit concerned when Masamune hadn’t come over - and then he became even more concerned when there wasn’t an answer at the door. He had started to suspect that maybe Masamune had slept in - or worse, he was sick.

Out of everything Ritsu had been expecting, it certainly wasn’t this.

Takano let go of Saga immediately. “Ritsu-” He stepped forward to go to his side, but Ritsu wasn’t even looking at him.

“Saga-senpai?” Ritsu choked out, naturally staring at this vision of the past absolutely shell shocked. He’d had plenty of dreams in which he came face to face with Saga again, but this felt far too real to be a dream! There had to be some kind of reasonable explanation, but Ritsu couldn’t think at all - he could barely stay standing. Ritsu visibly swayed, unsteady on his feet.

“Hey, Ritsu, breathe.” Takano instructed, blocking Ritsu’s view of Saga with his own body as he cupped both of Ritsu’s cheeks in his hands.

“W-Who the hell is that?” Ritsu asked, still not quite breathing as he was instructed.

“I take it you didn’t also wake up to your younger self on your couch and this is just an issue I’m dealing with, then.” Takano said.

“Will you be serious for once? What is happening?!” Ritsu demanded, starting to spiral. Everything’s blurry, I think I’m going to pass out, Ritsu thought, his mouth dry and his forehead damp with sweat.

“I think you should sit down.” Takano said, starting to lead Ritsu to his couch, but then he spotted Saga again and he couldn’t help but to naturally scowl. “Will you scram for a second? You’re freaking him the hell out.”

“He’s freaked the hell out? I’m freaked the hell out!” Saga shouted, the situation getting to be too much for him to contain the emotional outburst. “I just woke up in the middle of some asshole’s apartment with no recollection of how I got here and said asshole is claiming that he’s me from the future and none of the adults in the room have any idea what the fuck is going on!”

Takano felt a twinge of sympathy as Saga’s age and vulnerability in this situation was showing more clearly. Takano certainly hadn’t been helping at all with his abrasive attitude…

“Okay, maybe you should both sit down.” Takano said, continuing with his mission to help Ritsu to the couch.

Ritsu didn’t fight against it, mostly because he was too busy staring at Saga again.

Saga was a bit reluctant at first, but soon sat down next to Ritsu. “You’re staring at me…” He mumbled after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

“Sorry - sorry - I just - you’re really - “ Ritsu couldn’t form a proper sentence - nor could he bring himself to tear his eyes away from Saga.

Maybe he really is my Ritsu, the way he keeps looking at me, Saga thought, leaning in closer to him. “So you’re really Ritsu?”

“Hey, get out of his face.” Takano scowled, not liking the lack of distance between them. He shouldn’t have invited Saga to sit down too!

Saga ignored his older self, carefully observing all of Ritsu’s features to determine once and for all if this was in fact Ritsu. His face is flushed that same shade of red…and his eyes are the same green too…really looking at him like this, I can see he hasn’t changed all that much.

"Um, y-yes, I'm definitely 'really Ritsu'." The brunette answered, leaning away from Saga's intense gaze. How could it still make his heart flutter after all these years?! Ritsu was being ridiculous, this whole situation was beyond ridiculous! How was this even possible?

“So, Ritsu and I stay together after high school?” Saga said, looking toward Takano.

“Yes.” Takano answered, deciding not to give the more honest and complicated story. “Did you have any doubt?”

“No.” Saga answered, flopping against Ritsu to rest his head on his shoulder, feeling exhausted from all of this and wanting to take comfort in his boyfriend’s presence. Ritsu couldn't help but to jump a bit at the surprise contact.

“Scoot over.” Takano scowled, wanting to sit between them.

Saga just pressed more firmly against Ritsu. “I’m a kid in crisis clinging on to the one familiar thing I have.”

“Kid in crisis my ass.” Takano sneered.

“Be nice.” Ritsu scolded Takano after taking several deep breaths to try to calm himself down.

“Me be nice?” Takano balked.

“Yes. You shouldn’t be picking fights with a kid - plus he’s you. You should be nicer to yourself.” Ritsu said, slowly starting to get a hold on the situation. Even though all he wanted to do was panic, he knew that wouldn't actually help.

Saga smirked at Takano in victory, hugging Ritsu’s arm.

Oh, I’m killing this brat, I don’t care if it causes me to stop existing, Takano thought, any hint of sympathy he felt previously quickly dying out.

“Him being me is all the more reason to be mean…” Takano said, crossing his arms.

“Are you hungry, Saga-kun? Do you need anything?” Ritsu asked, ignoring Takano’s comment.

“I could eat.” Saga said, mostly just looking for an excuse to get rid of Takano.

“Then go to the kitchen and get something yourself.” Takano said.

“Ta - Masamune-san.” Ritsu stumbled a bit, not wanting to confuse Saga by using the differing surname. “Saga-kun needs our support right now until we can figure out how to get him home.”

Takano was super annoyed that this was the situation in which Ritsu was willing to call him by his first name, but Takano didn’t want to argue and give Ritsu even more reason to take Saga’s side considering that Saga already seemed to be winning Ritsu over with very little effort.

“...Fine.” Takano reluctantly went to the kitchen to prepare something for Saga to eat - quickly, so that the two weren’t alone for too long.

“You know, you can call me by my first name too.” Saga said, his head still on Ritsu’s shoulder as he looked up at him.

Ritsu’s brain finally processed the snuggly position and he tried to subtly put some distance between them, feeling embarrassed and strange about being this close to Saga.

“It would probably make things even more confusing if I did that.” Ritsu said.

Saga didn’t think that was fair, not letting go of Ritsu's arm. “Then if you’re only going to call one of us by our first name it should be me.” He insisted.

I think I’ve made a mistake, Ritsu thought, detecting that classic ‘Masamune Jealousy’. Of course he’s jealous of himself…has he always been this possessive? Even at this age?

“I think we have bigger problems to focus on.” Ritsu said, managing to pull away from Saga to angle himself on the couch and face him. “What’s the last thing you remember before you got here?”

“I was going to the library to see Ritsu - my Ritsu.” Saga said. “And I guess in a way I’m still seeing my Ritsu.” He added. He’s still cute, even as a grown man - but also handsome. I wonder if kissing him would be different. Wait, would that be considered cheating? It wouldn’t be, right?

“That’s it?” Ritsu said. “You don’t remember anything weird?”

Saga shook his head. “Nope.” He said, losing interest in this conversation as he started to try to think of ways to convince Ritsu that kissing him would be okay.

Ritsu sighed. “Well, we’ll figure this out, okay? I promise.” He said, reaching out to give Saga a comforting pat on the head, not at all privy to Saga's silent scheming. Ritsu did see his Senpai while looking at Saga, he also saw a kid that was in a stressful and potentially even dangerous situation! Ritsu wanted to try to be a sensible, stable and reassuring adult. Especially since it seemed like Takano wasn't going to be stepping up to take on that role.

Saga leaned into his touch, not in too much of a rush to get home if being here meant he had constant access to Ritsu’s attention. Back in his timeline, he and Ritsu (mostly Ritsu) still had their parents to answer to. But here, Saga could probably stick to Ritsu's side more freely.

“Here, eat.” Takano stood behind the couch, leaning down over it to force himself between the two of them. He had made some toast and quickly scrambled up some eggs.

Saga scowled at him and Ritsu being separated, but took the plate. He wasn’t that hungry, but he didn’t want Ritsu to realize that Saga had only used food as an excuse to make Takano leave them alone. He wasn’t gone nearly long enough, though, Saga thought with irritation as he started picking at his breakfast.

Takano quickly sat himself down between Saga and Ritsu, wrapping an arm around Ritsu’s shoulders possessively.

“So, let’s start brainstorming how to get this brat home.” Takano said.

Brat? Saga thought, holding back a huff. I wish he'd get his hands off him, Saga stared hard at the way Takano purposefully gave Ritsu a squeeze. “In the meantime, I think I should stay with Ritsu instead.” Saga spoke up. He'd get a lot of alone time with Ritsu if he went over to his place, right?

“And just why the hell would you need to stay with Ritsu?” Takano frowned, not liking that idea at all.

“Because I don’t like you. Pervert.”

“Pervert?! Did you do something?!” Ritsu said to Takano in horror. Saga bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from smiling in satisfaction, instead maintaining his perfectly aloof expression.

“Of course I didn’t!” Takano said. Ritsu didn’t really believe that Takano would make a move on a minor, did he? Not to mention this minor was literally him! “If you’re staying here then you need to stop causing trouble.” Takano said to Saga. Takano wouldn't let Saga turn Ritsu against him!

“I’m not staying here, I’m staying with Ritsu.”

“Like hell you are.”

“What? Worried he’ll like the younger version of his old man better?”

“I’m worried he won’t see your tricks coming because of his rose-colored vision.” Takano said, reaching out to give Saga a firm poke on the forehead.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t piss me off.”

Ritsu was coming to the realization that this was going to be a lot more difficult than he anticipated.

#misscorn #day 3 2024 #writing #sekaiichi hatsukoi #onodera ritsu #takano masamune #saga masamune

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thebookofeibon · 10 months ago

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a sweeter alternative

Rating: T Chapters: 1/1 Words: 6868 Fandom: Ensemble Stars Ships: ReiKao Relevant "tags": blood time. uh sex mentions and allusions i don't write it though i'm not at that comfort level yet.

“You know how he uses it in place of blood?” Kaoru kept his eyes on Rei, catching Adonis’s nod in the corner on his eye. “Well the past couple of months, it hasn’t been doing the job.” “Huh? What do you mean past couple of months?” Koga eyed Rei. “He’s been drinking twice the amount he usually does, he’s been drinking different brands, and he’s still slow as if he’s low on energy.”

i'll add squidgeworld link when i post to there

for now u can read under the cut!

i suppose i can start putting my notes here in the mean time. uhhh this one's been in the works since october, just chipping away at it here and there. idr what the inspo was i think i just wanted to address the vampire thing.

his vampirism works how i want it to work bc it's a disability and i am also disabled and that's that. idc that vampirism isn't real

this is in my little series i had on ao3 where they live together in an apartment and i don't know the timeline for realsies i'm making shit up. this is actually the first one in the series to not have a pinocchioP title and it's bc. i couldn't find one. what can i say he doesn't have any vampire songs. the vocaloid vampire song also didn't fit but it was the working title of this.

i'll also make a page for this series on this blog since. gestures to no longer using ao3

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Rei-kun.”

“Mmm.”

“Don’t ‘mmm’ me, you heard exactly what I just said.”

Rei doesn’t answer, entirely pissing Kaoru off. “You have had two large containers of tomato juice this week and you’re still falling asleep in random places. It’s not working the way it used to.” Rei’s grip on his pillow grows tighter as he really pushes the limits his face can go into it. “It’s 8pm, and I’ve been trying to wake you up for almost two hours.” He walked over to the bed to take the pillow, only to find Rei’s resistance to be much stronger than it should be. “This. Has been happening. For two months!!!” He tugged at the pillow with all of his might, though he really couldn’t get anywhere with it. “You need blood!” A final tug that still resulted in nothing causes Kaoru to let go, huffing as he caught his breath. “I don’t pretend to know your condition, but I fear that staying strictly with tomato juice isn’t going to work anymore!”

Rei stayed with his head buried in the pillow, only letting out a groan in response.

“You’re acting like a child.”

Rei mumbled a response into the pillow, completely inaudible.

“I can’t hear you.” A beat. Two. “You are impossible.” He huffed, walking with a little too much force out of the room.

Only when he was sure Kaoru was out of sight did Rei lift his head to look out into the living room. He frowned, eyebrows scrunched together in…it’s not anger, it’s not disappointment, dismay?

He didn’t really want to accept that Kaoru was right. Rei has known for a few months now that something was wrong with his juice intake, but he’d hoped that it wasn’t obvious, and it hasn’t really been to the kids. But Kaoru? Of course he’d figure out, it was dumb to even entertain the idea that the man he lives with and sleeps next to wouldn’t notice something was wrong. He laid his head sideways on the pillow, still looking out into the hallway. He was still tired.

He even tried changing brands, thinking maybe his default brand was the problem, but after trying all the ones available on the market, something else that Kaoru for sure would’ve noticed, he also began to come to the same conclusion.

This vampire does need blood to survive.

He began questioning family members after the first month, especially those he knew took alternatives for blood. But he didn’t receive answers he liked.

“Yeah, it stopped being viable after I turned 25, like its good when I’m in a pinch but I don’t rely on it anymore”

“I stopped relying solely on tomato juice when puberty hit, it’s still my primary source but I do need actual blood every other month to be at top shape.”

“There’s no alternative that’ll provide you accurately with the amount of iron our bodies need. As an idol, I’m surprised you’ve made it this long before realizing the faults in your juice alternative.”

Rei’s brought out of his head by the sound of a loud “clink” on the bedside table and he looks up to spot Kaoru, placing a full glass of tomato juice on the bedside table.

“Decided to show your face after all?” Kaoru teased, ruffling Rei’s bed head.

“You just said the juice isn’t working.” Rei grumbled, eyeing the damned glass. He hates this brand, he’s learned. Too sugary for his tastes.

“Well, you have a whole thing still and you’re fighting this theory so it's the best I can do.” He shrugged and walked out again.

Rei watched him with a scowl. “Come back here.”

Kaoru turned his head back pensively. “Hmmm? Does his wicked highness finally see fit to have my offering?” He turned around with a grin and a bow.

“What’s wrong with me just wanting to have you near?” He didn’t let up on his scowl. “Senior year you would be appalled by this behavior.”

“Hmmm? Why are you so caught up with how senior year me would feel? This is nothing! What senior year me would be devastated by is the amount of time we spend making out. Or how much sex we’ve had.” Kaoru smiled as he walked back into the bedroom. “Seriously Rei-kun! My one time of being pissed off at you for biting me has been waaaaay overshadowed by how many times you have given me head in the last, what? Four years? Since that whole ordeal.”

Rei buried his face again by the end of Kaoru’s ramble, burning red ears all that’s visible of his immodesty. He was right, technically speaking. High school Kaoru is at this point a different person than his current partner, that Kaoru would faint if he even knew they lived together.

“Honestly, Rei-kun?” Kaoru was next to his ear suddenly, causing Rei to jump and look over to catch the smug grin spreading across his tan skin. “I think it’d be suuuper hot if you took my blood during sex.”

“Gross, did talking about my mouth get you horny?” Rei pushed Kaoru’s face away and reburied his own.

“Hmmm? You act like you’ve never thought about it~.” He can hear the grin he still has. Hands grasp at his shoulders and begin to rub. “Like you don’t linger when giving me hickeys, or when you can’t help yourself and still bite slightly too hard.” He pressed harder into the knot Rei had there, the vampire letting out a moan.

“You almost sound like you want me to feed on you for your pleasure more than my well being.” He grumbled into his pillow.

“I can bring up non-sexual examples too~” Another tight push against Rei’s shoulder has the vampire letting out a small whimper. “Whenever we cuddle, you always nuzzle into my neck at least once. In fact, it’s more rare that you don’t immediately bury your face into my neck. I’m always thinking, wow, I feel super vulnerable with how close his mouth is to my neck!”

Rei whined into his pillow, half in embarrassment, half in pleasure from the massage. He turned his head so he wasn’t talking into it anymore. “Really? Always?”

Kaoru laughed. “So you don’t even do it on purpose?”

“No!”

“When I wear my turtlenecks, sometimes I catch you staring at my neck when I move in a way that exposes more skin.”

“Kaoru-kun, this is embarrassing me. I’m going to cry. Do you want me to cry?” He pouted, holding back a whine when Kaoru removed his hands from him. “Why do you hate me? What did I ever do to you?”

“Not drink my blood.” The pillow Rei had been attached to this whole time quickly left his hands and collided with Kaoru’s face.

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

It was a bad day from the minute Rei woke up, but they had an important media interview today so he really pushed himself to get out of bed and face the day.

Honestly? It’s been a bad week for the vampire. With no real reason for his energy to be completely depleted, he understood what it meant. He really didn’t want to admit it though, he really didn’t want to have to rely on blood.

“Hey, Rei-kun.” Kaoru nudged at him on the couch, gaining only a groan from the vampire. “I know you’re tired, let’s try and get some food in you before we have to go.” Rei opened his eyes at that, already concerned.

“What time is it?”

“Really? It’s only been 20 minutes since you woke up.”

“…Really?” He almost wanted to cry at that, it’s felt like an hour.

Kaoru frowned at him. “Seriously…I know it’s an off day for you but even that’s a little concerning. Come on, let’s go eat.”

They stopped at a diner nearby that Kaoru likes, ordering something small each with some coffee. Coffee doesn’t usually work on Rei unless he’s really lucky, but it’s the thought that counts here.

“Oi-hey! No falling asleep.” Kaoru tapped on Rei’s plate with his fork to make noise, startling Rei from what he supposed was dozing. “Finish eating, maybe that’ll keep you awake.”

He stared down at his half-eaten omelette with a frown, picking up his fork again. Every little bit helps.

“We’re here, wake up.” Kaoru nudges Rei awake again. The cab had come to a stop and Kaoru was in the middle of paying her. Rei seemed to be only capable of frowning today, mainly at himself. Kaoru glanced to him, offering a smile as he started to push Rei out the door.

“This is the fourth time in the last two hours he’s fallen asleep.” Kaoru sighed. “I know I shouldn’t complain, it’s out of his control, but it’s really frustrating today.” Rei blinked his eyes open, watching Kaoru and Koga talk in the waiting room outside of the recording studio.

“Maybe once he gets talking he’ll stay awake.” Adonis shrugged beside Rei on the couch. “Oh, good morning Sakuma-san.” He smiled at him, and Rei couldn’t help but return the smile.

Kaoru sighed again, much more audibly than before. He dug into his bag and pulled out a juicebox, tossing it to Rei. “Please, this is just an hour and a half, Rei-kun.”

Rei fumbled to catch the juicebox, but he did nonetheless, and he carefully detached the straw and stuck it into the top. “I’m sorry, you know I’m not usually this bad…” He sipped slowly on the box.

“The weather’s kinda whack right now, more than usual, s’probably what’s affecting you.” Koga crossed his arms. “Plus the thing you were complainin’ about the other day with your juice.” He gestured at him with his chin.

“Yeah…” Rei deflated a bit into the couch, feeling everyone’s eyes on him.

“What’s wrong with your juice?” Adonis tilted his head.

“You know how he uses it in place of blood?” Kaoru kept his eyes on Rei, catching Adonis’s nod in the corner on his eye. “Well the past couple of months, it hasn’t been doing the job.”

“Huh? What do you mean past couple of months?” Koga eyed Rei.

“He’s been drinking twice the amount he usually does, he’s been drinking different brands, and he’s still slow as if he’s low on energy.” Rei tried to shrink down as much as he could in the couch, trying to avoid eye contact. It’s embarrassing. Kaoru tutted. “You are so annoying sometimes.”

“Then…are you saying he needs blood?” Adonis tilted his head.

“Exactly. And he’s refusing to take any.”

Koga clicked his tongue, then finally brought his eyes off Rei to look at Kaoru again. “We can’t really force him.”

Kaoru kept his eyes on his partner however. “…No, I suppose not.”

“UNDEAD?” A woman’s voice called out, breaking the tension. “We’re ready to get you guys set up.”

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

Rare, these days, for Rei to turn down showering with Kaoru when they got home, and with how his health has been, he really should’ve taken the opportunity to share the shower with him. But he wanted time alone to think.

He’d really been trying to ignore it, not even out of pride really. He’s grown accustomed to admitting when he needs help. He has friends willing to accommodate his needs and he couldn’t be more grateful for them because of it.

It’s not pride, it’s…arrogance. That’s it. The refusal to admit that he’s wrong. It’s been several months now, at this point the tomato juice hasn’t been helping longer than it has this year. It’s at least worth a try now to take blood, no matter how little he actually wants to do it.

It partly has to do with Kaoru’s refusal that Easter, the fear of hurting him always at the back of his mind, but a lot does have to do with how he just doesn’t want to drink blood. He’s trying so hard to be human, he’s doing everything he can to be human. Drinking blood is not a human activity!

And he hates the taste of it!!! That’s why he settled with tomato juice, because it actually tastes good!!! Why should he have to do something he can’t even-

“Your turn.” Kaoru walked past Rei brooding on the couch and ruffled his hair, drawing him out of his thoughts for the moment. He looked up, lifting his head out of his hands, just when had he slouched over? He probably looked just as crazed as he felt. “Don’t think too hard in there, you might overheat.” Kaoru smiled.

Rei huffed a laugh, relaxing his shoulders a bit. “Yeah, of course.” He stood up with a few joint cracks and began to walk up the bathroom-

“I’m serious though. Try to sit while you’re in there, and leave the door unlocked, okay?” Kaoru dropped his smile. Ah, alright.

“Mm, of course.”

The shower was nice, he supposed, though it would be quicker to stand, sitting at least gave him time to think again. He really could just ask. It doesn’t need to have some special occasion. Though it’s kind of embarrassing at this point to admit defeat, after being urged to do this from family and friends for so long now. And again, sometimes just the smell of blood was enough to upset his stomach, thinking about the smell is even-

A trail of blood running down the drain with the water appears and it startles him, jumping back a bit to try and locate where the bleeding is coming from, knocking some bottles down in the process. He lifted a hand to his face and sighed as he drew it back. A nosebleed. Okay, sure, this might as well happen.

The bathroom door opened a crack. “You alright?” Right. The noise.

“Yea-” A cough, “Yeah I’m fine- Nosebleed.” He breathed in, head going light. “Could you come turn the water off, dear.” He lifted a hand to his head. A vampire who can’t even look at blood, how inane.

Kaoru opened the door further and walked in, opening the curtain on the side closer to the valve to shut it off. “Are you alright?” He asked again.

“A bit lightheaded is all, mind getting me some tissues?” He did his best to keep his head tilted downward until Kaoru pulled the curtain back, sitting on his knees, with a few tissues in hand. Instead of letting Rei take them from him, he instead reached in himself to block the nostril the blood was coming from.

“I told you not to think too hard.” Kaoru laughed, using his other hand to cradle Rei’s head. Rei leaned into his touch instinctively, doing his best to keep his head lowered. “It’s hot in here too, were you trying to instigate a nosebleed?”

Rei glowered at him, taking a deep breath in. It was a joke, he understands, and Kaoru simply chuckled at the stare. He pulled the tissue away momentarily to assess the bleed, then quickly repositioned it to a cleaner area to hold against the nostril again. Rei sighed, his health was never going to be easy, was it?

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

Rei lie on his back on the bed, shirtless as he didn’t want to risk staining any shirts, fingers interlocked over his chest as he stared up at the ceiling, wad of tissue paper plugged up his nose to get the remaining blood taken care of. Kaoru entered the room after a few more minutes, bringing with him some tart slices that he had bought earlier that day.

“I got one for both of us~! Recovering from a shower nosebleed seems fitting time to eat it!” He smiled and sat on the edge of the bed. “Usually eating in bed is against our rules but what’s the harm in bending this once?” He set the plate down on his lap and patted the spot next to him. “Come, sit.”

“…I…” Rei squinted with tightly knit brows, not looking away from the ceiling.

“Hm?” Kaoru was already picking up his slice to eat.

Rei stayed silent a moment before finally shifting his gaze to Kaoru. It softened when he saw how content he was with the bite he’d taken, a small smile stretching across the blond’s lips that he probably didn’t even notice he had. He opened his mouth again, then closed it when nothing came out and turned back to the ceiling.

Kaoru’s head tilted. “Babe, I’m not a mind reader, and if I was, your’s would be impossible anyways.”

“…” Rei turned his head completely away, embarrassed just a little. “I need blood.” It was quiet, small, not meant to leave this one piece of furniture. He refused to look in Kaoru’s direction. He could already feel his gaze on him and he wasn’t really keen on the teasing that would follow.

But there wasn’t a verbal response, he heard some movement, likely Kaoru setting the plate down, then felt the bed move as slowly his light was obstructed. Kaoru’s hand landed next to his head and he frowned, still refusing to look up at him.

“You open yourself up to me and yet refuse to look at me? You wound me, Rei-kun.” Kaoru sighed. Using the hand on the opposite side of Rei’s face, he lifted Rei’s chin to face him upwards, smiling a little at the blush covering his cheeks, then frowned when Rei still focused his gaze on the wall. With a huff, he pulled his waist up further onto the bed and placed his legs on either side of the vampire, sitting down onto his stomach. “What’s a guy got to do to get even a glance, huh?” He scowled as he watched Rei’s gaze shift not towards him, but upwards to further avoid looking at Kaoru.

Rei’s hands fidget on his chest, unlocking themselves to tap idly without thought. Kaoru clicked his tongue watching them, evidence that Rei isn’t entirely spaced out from the moment. In one swift motion, they’re taken from their place on his chest and pinned above his head, taking Rei off guard enough to finally look back at him with wide eyes.

“There we go~ All I had to do was surprise you!” Kaoru grinned, releasing his grip on Rei’s hands to lean in and place a kiss on his lips. “I don’t like being ignored, you know~” To punctuate, he pulled the tissue out of Rei’s nose, only taking a moment to examine how fresh the blood on it was before tossing it to the floor.

Rei watched the tissue fall to the floor with a frown. “Gross.” He couldn’t help but laugh, though, when Kaoru tried to go in for another kiss. “Hold on, hold on.” He placed a hand in front of his face to catch Kaoru’s, laughing when Kaoru still tried to push through. “Down boy!” He jokingly raised his voice.

Kaoru grinned. “Down?” The glint in his eye was mischievous. Rei sighed as Kaoru took the hand placed against his face and laced his fingers with it. “Easy command~” He followed through and started to kiss down Rei’s neck, hovering when Rei’s laugh bubbled out.

“You’re going to agitate my nosebleed, then I’m going to get blood all over the bed.” He squeezed Kaoru’s hand, using his other to slide into his blond hair.

“Oh you’ll be fine.” Kaoru hummed as he trailed further down. “We have tissues in here if it comes back.” He paused at Rei’s collarbone, glancing up at him. “It doesn’t help when you’re encouraging me, either.” He smiled, free hand aimlessly wandering Rei’s chest. Rei grinned down at him, then gripped his hair and pulled back with enough force to pull him away. “Ah!” Kaoru laughed. “Hey!”

“As much as I’d like to continue,” Rei let go of his hair to dramatically drape his arm across his forehead and closed his eyes, “I am oh-so tired from losing blood-”

“Then take some of mine.” Kaoru narrowed his eyes playfully.

Rei opened his eyes to peek down to him again. “Aside from the tart, have you eaten recently?”

Kaoru blinked, then looked up in thought. “Uhh…”

Rei clicked his tongue with a smile. “No blood drinking tonight then, dear.” He lifted his arm off his head to cup Kaoru’s cheek. “Thank you for the offer, though.”

“Come on, we’re in bed, it’s not like I’m going to go on stage right after.” Kaoru pouted.

“No, you’re still wanting to fool around though, which is still quite a rigorous activity, don’t you think?” Rei’s thumb brushed against Kaoru’s lips, which only prompted the blond to open them and take the digit into his mouth. “Kaoru-kun.”

“We can always stop if it gets too much~?” Kaoru leaned down again to be just in front of Rei’s lips. “I can be the one resting?” He lowered his voice as he lowered himself to brush lips.

Rei ran over the options in his head, subconsciously wetting his lips. Their hands let go of each other, Rei’s landing on Kaoru’s thigh and Kaoru’s coming to Rei’s face to tip him far enough to close the distance.

He still wasn’t keen on the idea of drinking blood, thinking about the taste is almost enough to make him pull away from the warmth of Kaoru’s mouth in disgust. He could feasibly take only a little bit, work himself up slowly to drinking more over time. He slowly pushed himself to sit up, Kaoru taking the hint to help ease the transfer of positions. They parted from each other temporarily to allow Kaoru to lie down and Rei to climb on top of him, then came back to each other as quickly as possible. Rei shuffled his hips further down on Kaoru so he could trail down his neck with ease.

Were they not idols, in some other universe, Rei would love to mark Kaoru up as much as possible, he hesitated in one spot on his neck and debated if it was too high up to cover with a turtleneck before deciding it was. He moved lower before taking the skin in his lips. Not biting, not here. A sigh leaves Kaoru’s mouth as Rei’s hand travels up underneath his shirt. Makeup would definitely need to be used to cover this one, but it won’t be as noticeable.

“A bit high up, don’t you think?” Kaoru carded his fingers through Rei’s hair.

Rei took a moment longer before pulling away, using both hands now to pull Kaoru’s shirt up, which Kaoru obliged and lifted his arms to remove the article. “I just wanted to do that one.” Once the shirt was removed, he moved back to where he was and traveled further, pausing once again in a spot, but this time to try and gauge where to bite. “I’ll only take a little…I’m not exactly…fond of the taste.” He hovered around a general area around Kaoru’s neck and collarbone.

“Alright, fair enough.”

“Don’t be offended if I don’t like it.”

“You’re still human, I think it’s rather normal to dislike the taste of blood.”

The reassurance was nice, it was almost the push that Rei needed to dive in. He checked the pulse in one spot and took a deep breath in before pressing his lips to the spot, then lightly placed his fangs against it. It’s not like he hasn’t bitten Kaoru before, or drawn his blood from a bite either, but those were different. Those were just bites to bite, this is fairly common practice in any couple. This bite was different, this is…

Kaoru’s fingers slowly brushed through Rei’s hair and it almost made Rei laugh. Why is the guy getting blood taken from him in such a monstrous way more relaxed about this than the one taking the blood?

No, he can’t be anxious about this when he’s already poised to strike. With another deep breath taken through his nose, he bites down, incisors piercing through Kaoru’s unblemished skin. Kaoru lets out a grunt at the bite, fingers gripping somewhat tighter into Rei’s hair. It takes everything in Rei to stay biting and let the blood into his mouth.

It wasn’t as bad as he had been dreading, not necessarily good either, but he isn’t immediately repelled by the taste and texture. It tasted like blood, that’s for sure, but perhaps it’s the thought that it’s Kaoru’s blood that has Rei thinking that it has something unique to it, a sweetness that Koga and Adonis’s blood didn’t have. The indifference didn't last for much longer, however, as the texture on his tongue began to become too much for him to handle and he released Kaoru, licking the puncture wounds as he had been taught in the past.

He pulled away completely to look Kaoru in the eyes once he was sure the blood wouldn’t flow too much more. Kaoru looked at him with a smile, eyes only slightly distant. “Are you alright?” Rei broke the silence first.

“I am, I think if you had gone any longer I would’ve had a problem, though.” He chuckled. “Are you alright?”

Rei nodded, returning Kaoru’s smile. “I am…I’m sorry, I should’ve stopped sooner, I spaced out.”

“I thought you didn’t like the taste?” Kaoru clasped his hands together to rest on his chest, mirroring Rei’s earlier pose.

“I…didn’t really. But it tasted different than I thought it would.” Rei huffed, averting his gaze. “I was distracted by that thought for a moment longer than I should’ve been.”

Kaoru chuckled. “Perhaps the necessity of it is what changed your thought process?”

“Perhaps.”

“Rei-kun.” He unlaced his fingers and slid his hands to Rei’s thighs, Rei’s gaze coming back to him. Kaoru’s smile widened, eyes squinting. “Ready to resume where we were?”

Rei blinked, then grinned back at him. “Wasting no time at all, are you?”

Kaoru’s hands traveled up Rei’s thighs to his hips. “What can I say? You’re like, glowing right now, and it’s kinda hot.”

Rei chuckled, then leaned back down to kiss him.

Kaoru doesn’t tell him that he still has blood on his chin, and when Rei’s nosebleed does come back a few minutes later, it covers up the prior blood when it leaks onto Kaoru’s face mid-kiss, making Kaoru laugh. They absolutely have to clean the sheets after this.

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

It’s immediately apparent the next day at practice that Rei was feeling better. He was more energetic, more aware, more talkative. Koga and Adonis didn’t comment on it until Kaoru entered the practice room late after leaving his badly scheduled photoshoot and changed to a t-shirt, revealing just enough of his neck that the bite marks are visible.

Koga almost growled at him. “Why do you need to wear a collar that loose?”

He grinned. “It’s easier to practice choreography in loose clothing, isn’t it? Besides, don’t I usually wear shirts like this to practice?” He started his warm up stretches, eyeing Koga.

“So you let Sakuma-san take your blood?” Adonis chimed in to try to break up the tension.

“Mhm~ Though it’s more like he let himself take my blood.” He switched to a new stretch as he talked.

“That’s good.” Adonis smiled and looked over to Rei. “You seem a lot better.”

Rei returned the smile and began to start talking when Koga cut him off.

“Should Hakaze-san even be at practice today then?” He said it almost accusatory, pointing with his thumb over to him.

“He didn’t take a lot.”

“Mm, as Kaoru-kun says, I only took a small amount to ease myself into drinking blood. As you know, I don’t like the taste.” Rei nodded. “But yes, even that small amount did make me feel much better than I have in a while.”

“What made you decide to do it finally?” Adonis had shifted onto the floor to help Kaoru with his last stretches.

Rei hummed, closing his eyes in thought. “I am tired of feeling so weak. Kaoru-kun had me sit in the shower last night because he was worried I’d faint standing up and hurt myself. Then when I was in there, I got a nosebleed that usually wouldn’t be a problem, but since I’ve been this way, it nearly knocked me out.” He opened his eyes. “I need to do what is best for my body, I suppose.”

Adonis nodded. “I understand, I’m glad you feel better then, even if it requires doing something you don’t like. It’s like taking a medication with a bad taste.”

“Exactly, Adonis-kun.” Rei smiled.

Kaoru stood up with one last stretch. “And with Rei-kun feeling better, we should get on our practice, hm?”

“Agh, yeah we need to catch you up.” Koga groaned. “Alright. We’re moving on then.”

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

As spring began rolling in, it became harder for Kaoru to cover up the bite marks on his neck, and they weren’t exactly keen on flaunting their relationship so publicly since they’re idols, so problem solving began. Because of Rei’s vampirism, he was able wean himself off of taking from Kaoru as often as he was—which was only every other week, changing it to every three weeks—and was able to play off his new fatigue as a sun problem, which wasn’t entirely a lie either. Supplementing it with tomato juice offered some extra relief, even if it wasn’t as good as blood.

Thankfully, there are other places to get the best blood flow that also weren’t dangerous for Kaoru. In a pinch, Rei could go for the inner elbow as if he was a doctor, though it’s not easy to bite there. If he’s well aware of what clothing Kaoru will be wearing for the next week and a half, Rei can go for practically any spot that’s likely to be mostly covered.

But the best area that is a catch all for privacy and decency, they found, was the thigh, which unless for some reason Kaoru wanted to wear more revealing swimwear, was completely hidden. Unfortunately, this required proper planning ahead, as it wasn’t something they could do last minute in a public place by sneaking away for a few moments.

“I suppose it was only a matter of time before we had to start planning our sex lives out.” Kaoru laughed as Rei dragged him to the bedroom.

Rei snorted in response. “It doesn’t have to end with sex every time, dear. We watched a movie after the last time.” He lightly pushed Kaoru to sit on the bed. “Besides, we’re not completely scheduling that out, this would be an outlier.” He lowered himself to his knees and scooted towards Kaoru’s legs.

“I suppose you’re right.” Kaoru grinned down as Rei unbuttons his pants. Rei looked up at him as he slid the jeans down. “You’re so pretty.”

Rei hummed, slipping his fingers into Kaoru’s waistband. “I’m beginning to think all this is just a means for you to get off instead of a means of me getting energy.” He slid his underwear down, revealing both thighs, one of which was still very bruised from the last feed. He heard Kaoru laugh above him.

With his own teasing remark and the bruised leg in sight, Rei hesitated as he really took in the severity of the situation again. He rested his hands on the inside of Kaoru’s thighs as he sat back on the balls of his feet with a frown. A minute passed and then there’s a hand on his chin, tilting his head to eye level. He looked past Kaoru, unable to meet his eyes all of a sudden.

“This is for you, babe.” Kaoru moved his head to try and catch Rei’s gaze. “I’m playing it up a bit, I’m sorry if it came out serious.” He smiled.

Rei still avoided looking him in the eye, staring at his forehead instead, then looked back down to his bruised leg. “Perhaps we should bump the frequency down to once a month…” He mumbled. “Or drop it entirely for the summer…”

Kaoru frowned. “It’s your life, if that’s what you want to do, we can. I’m just concerned about your energy levels if we were to drop this entirely, you’ve been much more active since we started doing this.”

He couldn’t fight the claim, this is the most awake he’s been since before the war, it’s kind of nice, all things considered. The bruises are turning green as they get closer to healing. “I don’t know.” It was hard for him to admit, he’s so accustomed to having to know everything.

Kaoru watched him for a moment, then sighed, sitting up. “Come here.” He held his arms open. “Let’s rest today, then. We have no other responsibilities until tomorrow afternoon.” Rei stood up, wrapped his arms around Kaoru, and immediately shifted all of his weight on him, causing them both to fall back on the bed. “Whoa!” He laughed, patting Rei’s back. “Hold on hold on my pants are still down-“

“Just kick them off.” Rei mumbled into the crook of Kaoru’s neck.

“Not when you still have pants on! The sensory problems I’ll have are chilling to think of!”

“Then take mine off.”

Kaoru laughed. “Fine!”

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

As the weather cooled down again, Rei permitted himself to go back to two feedings a month, as Kaoru had begun to wear higher collars again. There was something about feeding from his neck that Rei didn’t have problems with like he had with the legs. Perhaps it was the cliche of it, or the intimacy, or the way it looks when he’s done.

It was frustrating to him how much he clearly needed the blood, life could never be simple for him. He pulled away from Kaoru with hesitation, watching the blood trickle down his collarbone for a moment. Kaoru’s hand in his hair ran through his curls lightly. It was the intimacy, he decided, that drew him more to the neck than anywhere else.

“Still find blood gross?” Kaoru whispered, not so much for privacy as they sat alone in the meeting room, waiting for their juniors, but more so from the lack of energy after having given it to Rei.

Rei licked at the wound, peppering light kisses around it. “A bit.” He murmured back.

“You’re not fooling me, you know. Perhaps you just like my blood~ I’m your exception now~.” With his other arm available now, he pat Rei’s back.

Rei chuckled and sat back, looking down at Kaoru’s face. “I didn’t take too much, did I?” He brushed some of Kaoru’s hair out of his face.

“I didn’t eat necessarily well today is all, no worries.” He let his arms fall to Rei’s thighs.

Rei idly fixed Kaoru’s collar to cover the bite, mainly to make sure it’s coverable. “And you let me drink from you? Bad Kaoru-kun.”

Kaoru opened his mouth to speak when the meeting room door opened, Rei quickly threw himself down next to Kaoru on the off chance it wasn't Koga and Adonis coming in. Koga paused at the door at the sound of Rei hitting the couch quite heavily.

“Should I be concerned?” He eyed them, watching Rei sigh.

“No, I was just being safe.” Rei smiled.

“You have blood on your chin, it wouldn’t have worked.” Koga sighed as he walked in, followed by Adonis, whose eyes widened at the sight. Rei bristled and lifted his sleeve to wipe at it, lightly slapping Kaoru’s arm.

“I wanted to see how far into the meeting we’d get before you noticed.” Kaoru grinned. “Thought it’d be funny.”

Adonis sat down across from them. “I fear it wouldn’t have lasted very long.”

Koga closed the door before sitting beside Adonis. “You two are disgusting.”

“You say that yet you haven’t complained about Rei not being active recently, so you have to pick~” Kaoru shot him a very cheeky grin.

“What is this, a game? I have 0 control over you freaks.” Koga scoffed. “You know, when you stopped flirting with girls I was glad because it made you less annoying, then you immediately began flirting with Sakuma-san-“ He squinted. “And you just dropped the honorific! Shameless!”

Kaoru cackled at his response, throwing his head back as his chest shook for a moment.

“Oh my, you did drop the honorific.” Rei smiled, a hand coming up to his face to try and hide his smile.

“Both of you! Disgusting!”

Adonis smiled, letting out a small chuckle before speaking. “As fun as this interaction is, we do need to discuss funding.”

Rei beamed. “Yes yes.” He clapped his hands twice. “Serious mode everyone!”

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

Adonis and Kaoru left the booth to go to the bathroom while they waited for their food to arrive, leaving Koga and Rei sitting across from each other. Rei hummed a song he had been fine-tuning for the last week while watching the direction of the bathroom. He faded out his humming as he glanced to Koga, feeling the other’s gaze piercing through him. “What’s on your mind, Koga-kun?”

Koga bristled for a second before sighing softly. “Are you happy? With drinking blood?” He frowned. crossing his arms.

Rei blinked, turning so he could look properly at his friend. “What do you mean?”

He slanted his lips as he thought of an answer. “You hate blood. Is it worth the energy?”

Rei thought for a moment, humming softly as he did. “I wonder the same thing, sometimes.” Is what he comes up with. “It’s different, having all this energy again.”

Koga huffed. “I don’t really think that answers the question.”

Rei closed his eyes, picturing the image of blood running down Kaoru’s neck. A year ago it would’ve made him queasy to think about drinking it, but now he felt indifferent towards it. “I guess I just don’t have an answer. It’s complicated.”

Koga was quiet, glancing to the bathroom’s direction again. “If the two of you weren’t dating, would you still do it?”

That was something that hadn’t really occurred to him. Would he? He can’t even imagine another reality where he was in this situation and he wasn’t in a loving relationship with Kaoru. He thought then about the possibility of it being Keito, or Wataru, maybe even Shu or Kanata. In each scenario, he could see it happening so long as they loved each other. “Hm…” But then again, would Keito be willing? The other oddballs would be different for sure, each one of them would have a different relationship to the act of blood drinking that just aren’t the same. “No. I think I’m only okay with it because of our relationship.”

Koga hummed. “Okay.”

“Any other questions?” Rei watched him as Koga tapped his fingers against his opposite arm. “You’re still curious, I can tell.”

“…Hakaze-san is fine with it?”

Rei laughed. “He was begging me to drink his blood, actually.”

Koga’s lips twitched almost into a smile before he caught himself. “Okay. That’s all I wanted to know.”

Rei opened his mouth to respond, only to close it as Adonis sat back down next to Koga and Kaoru next to him.

“Still no food?” Kaoru sighed. “I’m sooo hungry.”

“You went to piss, there’s no way the food would’ve come out in such a short amount of time.” Koga barked, uncrossing his arms.

“A man can hope! You’re hungry too, right, Adonis-kun?” Kaoru looked to Adonis pleadingly.

Adonis blinked, then raised his hands in defiance. “I am, but he’s right, we weren’t gone long enough.”

Rei smiled, watching the three of them bicker. It was strange to think about how distant the four of them were during school, he couldn’t imagine a world where they went their separate ways after graduation. The possibility of that was so real at one point, but now he’s sure only death would separate them, both as a unit and as friends, and these days, Rei didn’t feel that impending doom as hard as he once did.

“Rei, I can feel you thinking.” Kaoru nudged him out of thoughts. “Anything of note?” He smiled.

Rei hesitated to answer, then shook his head. “Just having my regular old man musings~ Pay me no mind, Kaoru.” Even though he had practically been waiting to drop the honorific since graduation, it still felt strange coming out of his mouth.

“Hmmm, I’ll have to pick your mind later then~” Kaoru glanced at the others, grinning when Koga made a disgusted face at them. He opened his mouth to say something more before the waiter finally came with their food. “Oh sweet!”

Rei kept his eyes on Kaoru, only glancing up at the waiter to give him a smile as his food was handed over.

Yeah, there’s no one else he would ever consider relying on for this. The only reality he cares about is this one.

“Are you not hungry, Sakuma-san?” Adonis didn’t necessarily sound concerned though, he surely understood Rei’s hesitance. He looked over to Adonis, then shook his head.

“My apologies, I was still caught up in my thoughts.” He put his hands together, said his thanks, and picked up his chopsticks, catching Koga shake his head at him out of the corner of his eye.

No other reality would be better than this one.

#enstars #ensemble stars #reikao #rei sakuma #Kaoru Hakaze #jenna named this one for me

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harrowharks-iliac-crest · 1 year ago

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Sixth skull!

Your annoyance turned to suspicion when it became clear that the thalergy signature was following you—it was keeping careful pace about a hundred metres behind you, stalking your path.

Ohhh, interesting. Who could this be?

Your voice did not feel like it belonged to you when you said, “I saw your corpse.” “Well,” said Camilla Hect steadily, “don’t tell everyone, or they’ll want to see it too.”

Camilla! Camilla!!!! Eeeeeeeee!!

Time to give her a letter, Harrow!!

You looked at the cavalier of the Sixth, and you bled.

Your brain trying to make sense of the cognitive dissonance, I'm sure. You saw her die - question it, if you can.

What does the letter say?

“For service previously rendered by your House: invoke the rock that remains ever unrolled, and understand that I will both consider your life as inviolate, and aid you if I can. Thanks.” [...] “I suppose you thought you owed us,” said Camilla.

In Harrow's fake memories, Camilla and Palamedes died too quickly to be owed favours. This has got to be messing with her brain big time.

“I need to know you are real!” [...] I am a Lyctor, Hect. What hope would you have against me?” “None,” said Camilla. And then she added calmly: “Yet.”

How perfectly terrifying. I mean, I know what Camilla is capable of - Harrow needs to watch her back here.

you are dead.” “I’m really not,” she said. And, after a pause, in her dry abrupt voice: “I came to find you, Reverend Daughter.” “You have found me. Tell me for what purpose.”

How did Camilla find her? Things are getting so interesting.

You tried to recall Palamedes Sextus, and your ears renewed their liquid assault. When you hastily scanned your brain for the source, you found nothing particularly wrong, and it made you bleed more.

Nothing particularly wrong? Nothing particularly wrong??? Harrow, the evidence that your memories are false is standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!!!!

Harrow dips into the River to find Palamedes -

“Excuse me,” you said, with sodden asperity. “Oh. Apologies,” said Palamedes Sextus. “Misread the moment. Let’s call it cabin fever. Nonagesimus, is Camilla—” “She sent me,” you said, wringing out your wet hem. “She is alive and well and living.” [...] there had never, in any case, been a letter addressed to Sextus. The previous Harrow had never bothered to think of it. You knew full well she had seen Hect and Sextus dead; why account for one’s reappearance, but not the other’s? This was a mystery you had no answer for;

At the risk of your brain bleeding out - think about it, Harrow. Please just stop avoiding this, stop taking your memories as absolute truth - you're insane in this timeline, remember? - and think.

What an impressive feat Palamedes Sextus has done here, by the way. My respect for him grows.

Sextus was saying, “The hell is—” You said, and your voice sounded strange to yourself, as though you had heard the word only in dreams and never articulated by waking tongues: “The Sleeper.”

Oh fuck.

I can’t change a thing about this space—but anyone coming to me could change the parameters, and you’ve brought something with you that’s changing them. Go.”

Something in Harrow is doing spirit magic????? is capable of bringing the Sleeper to a dead guy's river bubble??

Welp, suddenly I'm wondering if Ortus the First has anything to do with this - as the most powerful spirit magician we know. But how??? what????

You were standing in a darkened corridor, and you could not turn around: and then a brief explosion of light revealed to you that it wasn’t a corridor at all, and it had never been dark. But you were always too quick to mourn your own ignorance. You never could have guessed that he had seen me.

........

....................

.....................................

......... I'm actually in shock.

Suddenly, second-person narration turns into first, only for one single word, at the end of the chapter. Suddenly, for only a couple of sentences, the narrator isn't Harrow. And perhaps - never has been.

... (I barely dare to hope...)

...

... Gideon?????

#harrow the ninth #harrow the ninth liveblog #htn liveblog #tlt liveblog #htn spoilers #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb #PLEASE let it be gideon please please please please please....... please please

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casliveblog · 1 year ago

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Custom Toonami Block Week 158 Rundown

Spy X Family: So the season starts out with a banger as Yor gets shot in the butt and has to avoid doing butt stuff. Loid thinks she’s just in a really bad mood like that episode of Ed Edd and Eddy where Ed gets a rock stuck in his shoe, I do think it’s fun that the two immediately think they did something wrong whenever anything happens, like they’re basically always off but it’s quite considerate in their own ways. I feel like this could’ve been solved if Yor just said she threw out her back lifting boxes at work but then we wouldn’t have an episode and it’s a comedy so it’s alright. But yeah Yor eventually drinks some poison from one of her enemies that ends up solving her butt troubles (this is way funnier because we’re talking about Yor’s butt instead of her back or anything) and Anya has to stop the guy from building a bomb, somehow reading his mind about how to build it and doing it before he has a chance to even get there and setting up several Satoko Hojo-level traps along the way, no clue how the timeline of that works but point being it’s pretty awesome and she scares the guy off. Yor’s feeling better (until the morning at least) and they have a nice date where Anya finally stops tailing them and just fucking crashes it. I also kinda like that Yor has an immunity to poisons from her job as an assassin and Yuri basically became Shizuo Heiwajima from eating her cooking all his life so like it runs in the family but for two separate reasons. Seems like we’re back to the light stuff with mild idiot plots for comedy after the back half of season 1 had several heavier arcs in a row, personally I like more of the ones that at least make some logical sense and take up a whole episode as opposed to the ones that are half an episode with the clearly telegraphed gags and this one was probably half and half.

Inuyasha: So Naraku’s sitting there like ‘okay that was definitely Kikyo’s arrow that nearly killed me so she’s still alive so let’s smoke her out real quick before she keeps this shit up’. Kohaku’s doing his best to pretend to still be a coma victim and not reveal he’s regained his memories but Naraku and Hakudoshi are sharp enough they’ve probably already figured it out because despite not disobeying them he’s not doing great hiding his emotions or anything. Inuyasha goes to look for Kikyo but doesn’t find her and because Kagome can’t take that on faith despite her supposed character development last time she gives him like five Sits for no reason only for everyone to complain about how she’s being mistreated. Usually I love Kagome but this is something that happens throughout the series where the girls are abusive and sometimes it’s more warranted than others but sometimes it’s just for nothing and it’s a little psychotic, like I get it’s for comedy and like half the time it’s filler stuff the anime snuck in to add more gags to a scene because from what I know the manga supposedly does have the characters get less abusive towards each other as things go on and relationships progress and they have less of their gag spats. So yeah on to the main plot, Hakudoshi and Kohaku unleash a plague of Demon Rats on the world and like they steal the Infinite Rat Box from its master and just kinda… leave it open? Like idk why the Rat Master wasn’t doing that to begin with since there seems to be no downside to havening infinite rats but I guess he was rather weak and didn’t want to draw attention to himself or have someone destroy the box. It’s actually a moment where Miroku gets to be MVP because destroying them only makes more rats so he gets to play Human Vacuum Cleaner and suck them up since Naraku doesn’t have enough Saimyosho to give the whole rat horde an escort I guess. It’s kind of funny because Kohaku brings up this being how to smoke Kikyo out and Hakudoshi’s like ‘oh right that’s what we were doing, I was just having fun unleashing plagues on the world’ like he fucking forgot the mission and was just enjoying being rat boi. Kikyo’s smarter than that though and finds a way to lure the rats out without giving herself away and creates a big fuck off spirit tree for them all to climb while Inuyasha and Kagome head to the tree and Sango and Miroku try to find the Infinite Rat Box now that the stream is more focused. Sango eventually finds Kohaku in front of the box as he’s contemplating if saving the five guys the rats haven’t killed yet is worth blowing his cover with Naraku (it’s not) and Sango gets to play the ‘I have to kill Kohaku even though I decided last time it was best to let him live’ game for like the fifth times because character development in this series is a sequence of small circles.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke meets with Yomi and his proposal is one that’s kind of beautiful in its simplicity, and also the most Yusuke thing that could’ve happened: he wants to have another tournament. This time the winner will be the ruler of Demon World no questions asked and it simultaneously stops a bloody war and dissolves all the complicated allegiance shit Mukuro and Yomi had been planning, like Yusuke just snapped Game of Thrones in half and made it into DBZ and it’s kinda great. The beautiful thing about it is Demon World is a Might Makes Right place so if any of the kings refuse to participate they’ll look weak, Yusuke wrapped them in the Chains of Command without even trying. Kurama breaks off ties with Yomi to fight on his own side (not sure how that’ll affect him being blackmailed into his mom being murdered but we’ll see I guess) and Yomi eventually agrees too though he’s secretly hedging his bets with his kingdom’s fighters fighting in his name, while also growing his own little Meruem/Cell child that’s supposed to be ridiculously strong to cheat more. Still, a bunch of Raizen’s old sparring partners come to visit his grave and tell Yusuke about how they live more peacefully now after seeing Raizen literally die to avoid killing humans and Yusuke gets a measure of respect for him in a way you only can by learning about how someone else sees someone you know, so that’s pretty cool even if Raizen’s backstory is still the stupidest shit. The power levels of all Raizen’s old drinking buddies doing a Half Blood Prince ending into the air gives Yomi and Yomi Jr. battle boners and they both decide to only go in for themselves after all. I can see why people would be mad about what was set up as a big convoluted Pirates of the Carribean arc of allegiances just turning into another Tournament arc but I kinda love it, like the power of Yusuke’s big dumb pride and confidence overthrowing centuries of ridiculous plotting and scheming is pretty cool.

Jujutsu Kaisen: Gojo and Geto beat their big fights from the cliffhanger off-screen and are formally introduced to Riko who’s a bit of a chunni but I guess that’s kinda how you have to do this kind of character, like if you’re sending a demure quiet girl to her death it’s kinda both more sad because she’s just accepting it but also less sad because she makes less of an impact so this is probably how it has to be by writing law. Megumi’s dad’s just bumming around gambling on random shit, he seems to be trying an Arkham City approach and waiting for everyone else to bombard Gojo and Geto with assaults so they get tired and have divided attention but they seem to be literally having no problem with anyone and literally made a big criminal organization go defunct off-screen. Still we get a neat little fight of Geto owning an old man and Riko’s maid crushing a paper bag man’s dick with a mop so that’s fun, plus Gojo uses his still incredibly undefined powers to own the rest of paper bag man’s clones though he shows he hasn’t fully mastered the big kamehameha thing yet so he’s stuck on Almighty Push and Almighty Pull mode, also Riko’s maid has been kidnapped so uhh yeah that’s not good.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: So… Scott’s dead, short series right? The mini-boss guy is for some reason surprised that turning a guy into coins doesn’t make Ramona want to date him and kinda kills the party vibe but I guess you don’t self-identify as evil and devote yourself to stalking a single girl you dated for two weeks in high school by having social skills. Ramona dyes her hair a new color and heads over to Scott’s funeral where Knives Out is kinda mad about her being there since while she didn’t really have anything to do with his death she is the manic pixie ignition switch that got him punched into coins so she has a full Gorillaz makeover to show how angry she is. Also Envy Adams is there and she’s a model I’m guessing based on the billboards but also Scott’s ex and a weird Ragyo Kiryuin knockoff because she has an entourage and sparkles everywhere. Also I’m noticing that you kind of have to use someone’s full name whenever they mention someone like you use their first and last name even when they know who you’re talking about. Anyway Envy upstages a fucking funeral and for some reason they had an open casket funeral just to show off the fucking coins Scott got turned into so yeah it’s a fucking shitshow. The Evil Exes all get invited to their own lair and #1 is like ‘hey bro I just killed the protagonist so I should be in charge’ and #7 is just like ‘fuck you bro get out of here with your midboss vibes’ and also apparently one of them is dating Envy? Like if you’re currently dating someone why are you in an self-proclaimed evil league to win back another separate girlfriend? Is dating in-universe Lady Gaga just an automatic poly relationship? Anyway Gideon and Matt fight and they do this cool Tekken/Soul Calibur stage transfer thing where each part of the fight is in a different thematic location and both of them equally look like they’re fucking up at various points but Matt has magic Stand User cheerleader girls and Gideon’s… kinda good with swords I guess? So yeah, Stand Powers win and Gideon signs Kaibacorp over to Matt so he can fully Starscream it up and fuck things up with his new leadership position and ungodly amounts of wealth that Gideon probably shouldn’t have agreed to wager over a fight, like betting the League was probably enough. Ramona’s probably a bit more broken up about a guy she knew for two days dying but she did kinda get him involved in some supervillain shit on accident and her having seven exes in her early twenties does suggest she’s the type of person to fall for people easily. So yeah we end the episode with a suggestion from right out of Futurama that Scott’s still alive and only the woman he loves can help find him, I’ve seen this one it turns out Ramona was in a coma and she got all the space bee venom while Scott lives with a hole in his gut.

Ranking of Kings: Okay as much as I’ve been ragging on the filler season, this one does actually answer a question I’ve been looking forward to: finding out how Hilling assembled her squad and recruited Ann, like it still amounts to ‘fight bandits’ with just the names and places changing like one of those Radiant Quests in Skyrim like half the stories have been this season but yeah it’s cool to see more of Hilling’s backstory back when she was just the white mage of a Frieren-esque party and Ann is cool but it’s still not much to talk about. The second story is about Daida learning healing magic and finally getting the hang of it after pushing Bojji off a comedically well-hidden cliff that’s like five feet from where they were playing. I like the detail that Bojji was initially going to meet his snake friends since he was hissing to call snakes before Daida jumped him but yeah otherwise pretty paint by numbers and kinda makes the big reveal of Daida’s magic during the climax of last season less surprising given half the cast should already know he has it but okay.

Vinland Saga: Thorfinn and Einar get properly acquainted and honestly for being a slave it sounds like a prtty good deal, they get their own plot and get to sell off what they grow and they’re free once they earn more than they were sold for. Like the guy’s using slaves to expand his farm and I get you can’t really do that indefinitely without recouping costs somewhere and the land is completely untended and this may turn out to be way more impossible than it looks but still kinda on the boat that this is a very doable deal if there aren’t any surprises (there will almost certainly be surprises). Thorfinn’s about as talkative as he was as a kid so Einar doesn’t get much out of him except advice to keep his head down about some of the local assholes and Einar gets too much of a boner for one of the local girls to remember to tell them off so it all works out. Meanwhile we get introduced to the lord’s son who’s kind of a whiny jackass but they also do a decent job of showing things from his side and how the expectations put on him weigh on him and how everyone just seems him as an extension of his dad and he’s caught up in the warrior pride BS that Thorfinn was on back in the day, it’s a good combo of wanting to punch him in the face but understanding why he’s like that. Einar gives us the usual ‘war bad’ speech but most importantly he tells Thorfinn about how the Danes burned down his village and it gives him a chance to reflect on when he was doing the burning and pillaging.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Spy X Family #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Jujutsu Kaisen #Scott Pilgrim Takes Off #Ranking of Kings #Vinland Saga

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perpetual-fool · 2 years ago

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People aren't that complicated.

So, the catalyst for me being able to feel joy again was the realization that being 'sorry' really is just a rationalization. I am just an animal, and a social one. I need to feel like I'm accepted, and no amount of reasoning at that was going to help. A bit like, say I was just hungry. Coming up with reasons as to why I deserve to be hungry, or why being hungry really isn't my fault, isn't going to make the hunger go away. Fortunately, being not that complicated, you are easily fooled. So I can short-circuit the whole thing with an imaginary relationship, and it still works despite me knowing that I'm cheating. Though it is hard to make myself start, knowing it's cheating.

And I ran across another instance of 'not that complicated'. I was talking to myself about why I like playing the bass like a violin, and I don't really have a good answer. To be vague, I just find it stimulating. I think moreso I don't have a word for it. I don't know if this is an experience anyone else has, I need a certain amount of depth to sink into for a thing to be engaging. It's not challenge, it's not complexity, it's not novelty. Whatever it is, I need something I can 'spread' into. And it doesn't seem to matter what it is, so long as I can actually do it. In the past video games were enough, in an alternate timeline maybe I could've been a toolmaker, and maybe in the future I'll be some kind of luthier, but for now I'm developing my own style playing string instruments. Whatever fills the need.

In that light, most beliefs must just be rationalization. Thinking I'm worthless, for instance, is just rationalizing the social rejection. And to a large degree one's worth, or whether someone is a 'good person' is entirely arbitrary. Like, someone might be ashamed for not having had sex, but another might be proud of the same. (Fuck you, Jesus.) For sure most social behavior is justifying one's worth to a group or justifying the group itself. That would be why no one seems to actually believe anything they preach, so to speak.

I don't like this. I feel hollow looking at things this way. It's like nothing is really true. Why do I want to believe? I want to believe in love at first sight, soulmates, having a 'calling' in life. I want to believe that love, friendship, and however the world is, is special. I don't want to just make my depression go away with one weird trick. I want to figure out what I did wrong, figure out how to make things right, and then seek absolution from the people I still love. But I guess that's rationalization too, huh? I suppose, even if I am an outcast in this world, I still belong to with world. It hurts to think the world I know just isn't real. And those beliefs probably offer a sense of security. Like, if we were meant to be, then you won't leave me. Or if you do, you'll come back, holding your scarred heart in hand.

But I guess belief was never really tenable for me. Not deep enough. Doesn't work.

I'm scared. But I can't stay here. And it really wasn't real. Like, there's this piece of a thing I remember, probably one of the last things I said. What she was telling me sounded like she wasn't free. I found it deeply offensive, but she seemed to just have accepted it. But it doesn't matter if it was right or not. Hell, the fact that she was talking to me at all was proof in itself that she didn't really feel that it was right. It's just the rationalization she has to make to feel secure. And I can't play along. There's no making things right for me.

But I don't want to let go. An unfulfilled need. I have to find something else to hold on to.

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upat4amwiththemoon · 2 years ago

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Protector | part 2

Summary: Be the person you needed as a kid.

Pairing: big sister!Yelena Belova x female!reader, big sister!Natasha Romanoff x teen!female

Warnings: violence, angst, death of a character

Word count: 7746

a/n: The timeline here is obviously different compared to the real MCU, this fic starts after Black Widow and there’s more time between Black Widow and Infinity War. Ideas come from these two asks. I do realize this is similar to Two sides but that’s okay :) read the first part before this!

Tags: @thought-of-you-and-me @rafecameronswhore

All parts: part 1, part 2

Natasha will take great care of you.” Yelena reassures as she drives towards the compound. She wasn’t the happiest to leave Y/N behind, but this mission was something she didn’t want her to be part of.

“I don’t need a babysitter, Yelena! I’m 15 and I know very well how to take care of myself.” Y/N looks out the window, pouting she has to be away from Yelena for such a long time. “I’ve done it for my whole life.”

“See, that’s not something we’re going to normalize. Family takes care of each other.”

The word family still makes Y/N feel weird. She isn’t sure how she’s supposed to feel hearing it. She does have some sort of family now, so she should be happy, but at the same time it makes her feel bad. Caring about people always ends badly. No matter what. You can’t win.

Y/N sighs, she knows Yelena won’t change her mind. “Will there be other people.”

“I think so.” Yelena mumbles. That’s also something she wasn’t very excited about. Leaving Y/N with Natasha is okay, but with other unknown people as well is a whole new story. Yelena doesn’t know the Avengers and she doesn’t know how Y/N will be with them. “Nat lives at the compound and I think they fixed things, so no one is a fugitive anymore.”

Y/N hums. “I get to be part of the next mission, yes?”

“Yes, I will keep my promise don’t worry.” She glances at Y/N with a grin. “It’ll be the best mission ever.”

Y/N giggles quietly. “You know every mission we do turns to shit.”

“Hey, language.” Yelena glares at her, while Y/N rolls her eyes. Sometimes Yelena takes the motherly big sister role a bit too seriously. “The next one will be good, I can feel it.”

“I will bet you ten dollars something goes wrong.”

“Deal.” Yelena and Y/N shake their hands at a red light, both having a smile on their face.

“You’ll keep her safe?” Yelena has been standing on the compound’s front door for fifteen minutes already, going over everything Natasha should know about Y/N and making sure she’ll be good.

“I will, Yelena.” Natasha smiles lightly, starting to get annoyed by her sister. She’s holding Y/N’s bag on one hand while the other lays on the younger one’s shoulder. “Nothing bad will happen to her.”

“Good, because if something bad does happen, I will kill you.”

“I know.” Natasha chuckles.

Yelena grumbles at Natasha not taking her threat seriously, so she just turns to Y/N and gives her a tight hug. “I won’t be gone for too long and you can contact me whenever you want to, okay?”

“Okay.” Y/N mumbles to Yelena’s shoulder. She is pressing her head against her, not wanting the involuntary tears to fall. “Be safe.”

“I will.” Yelena kisses her head and backs away from the hug. “Have fun with Natasha!” She starts walking away to her car, waving at the two until the door closes.

Y/N lets out a shaky breath as Natasha starts leading her towards a guest bedroom that’s next to Natasha’s own. “You’ll be sleeping here, is that okay?” Natasha sets Y/N’s bag to the bed.

“Yes, thank you.” Natasha keeps standing around the room quietly while Y/N carefully sits down to the bed. “You don’t have to hover. I know I’m not your sister like Yelena is. Besides, Lena hovers over me more than a family of five combined.” She scoffs with a small smile. She doesn’t hate Yelena’s hovering. It actually makes her feel cared for and safe, but sometimes she takes it too far. Like right now, Y/N would’ve been perfectly capable to go on the mission.

“I’m not doing this just because Yelena asked me to, I genuinely like you and think of you as part of the family.” Natasha sits down next to Y/N. She has a small smile on her face.

“Oh.”

Natasha hums, looking at Y/N’s hands that keep moving. “There won’t be a lot of people around. Wanda is away with Vision, she really wanted to meet you though. And the rest of them are kind of all around.”

“That’s okay. I prefer being around fewer people anyway.”

“So do I.” Natasha stands up, swiping invisible dust off of her hands. “You should rest. You can meet the people who still are here tomorrow. That sound good?”

“Yeah. Thank you, Natasha.”

“Of course.” Natasha gives her a smile before leaving Y/N alone in the room.

Slowly opening her eyes, Y/N looks around the room. The unfamiliarity of it makes her panic momentarily, but she regains her sense of surrounding quickly. The Avengers Compound. She is supposed to be here. She is safe.

Y/N moves the covers aside to stand up. She crosses her arms around her waist, holding herself tightly. She stands in front of the bedroom door, too nervous to actually leave.

At least fifteen minutes pass by. Y/N keeps staring at the door. She isn’t sure which rooms she’s allowed to go, or where the different rooms even are.

Biting her lip, Y/N takes hold of the handle and opens the door. She steps outside. The corridor is almost fully white and full of doors, probably to other bedrooms. She picks a direction and starts walking, her eyes going through everything, especially corners. Old habits die hard.

After a few turns, she starts to hear talking, so she walks towards it. Glancing around a corner, she sees Natasha and an unknown man talking together. With a deep breath, she makes herself known to the pair by walking in.

Natasha turns her way first. “Good morning.”

“Hi.”

The man turns to look at her as well. “Y/N, this is Steve Rogers, the Captain America. Steve, this is Y/N, she was in the Red Room.” She doesn’t mention Yelena or being sisters, Y/N isn’t even sure if Steve knows about it all.

“It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.” Steve walks over to her and puts his hand out.

Y/N stares at him. He’s big and looks strong, but Y/N thinks she could take him down if necessary. “Yeah, you too.” She mumbles, shaking his hand for a very short amount.

“I made breakfast.” Natasha shows a plate of waffles.

“She didn’t actually make them, they’re from the freezer.” Steve fake whispers so Natasha could clearly hear him.

She rolls her eyes, setting two plates down to the table. “Don’t you have a run to go to?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Steve holds up his hands in mock surrender, a smile on his face. “I’m going. Have fun you two.” He walks away.

Natasha gestures towards a chair opposite of her. Y/N walks over to it, sitting down. She stares at the plate full of waffles. There are so much it could feed her and Yelena.

“I wasn’t sure how hungry you are. No need to eat it all.” Natasha smiles quiet sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. “There’s berries and syrup, take whatever you want. Do you want orange juice? Or apple? We also have water, of course.”

Y/N looks at Natasha. She seems nervous, which is different. She didn’t think someone like Natasha Romanoff could get nervous. “Orange.”

“Got it.” Opening the fridge, Natasha pours orange juice to Y/N’s and her own glass, leaving the jug to the table afterwards. She sits down to her own chair. “I hope you like waffles. I didn’t think to ask yesterday what you’d like for breakfast.”

“I like them.”

“Good.”

They start eating in silence. Y/N takes small pieces at a time, keeping her eyes on the food, while Natasha keeps glancing at her direction. She analyses her face every time, looking for any sign of uncomfortableness or dislike, but she doesn’t see any. Although, Natasha isn’t surprised, Widows are good at keeping their emotions in check.

“You and Yelena have been freeing the other Widows?”

“Yes.”

“It’s going well?”

“Mhm.” Y/N nods, chewing on her food.

Natasha taps the fork with her finger. She isn’t sure how to keep the conversation going with the teenager, or how to overall get more than one word answers.

“What will you do after all the Widows have been freed?”

Y/N shrugs, moving pieces of the waffle around with her fork. “I don’t know. I don’t really know what I’m good at besides killing.”

“That’s what I thought too, but I figured it out. So will you.” Natasha offers her a gentle smile.

“Don’t you still do it?”

“Huh?”

“Killing. Don’t you still kill people? You’re just on the other side now.” Y/N stares at Natasha who struggles to provide an answer. “You would’ve been killed if you weren’t recruited to Shield, yes? So I either have to become an Avenger or a mercenary. And I’m not becoming an Avenger, so I’ll be a paid killer until someone kills me.”

“Well- no.” Natasha looks at Y/N, who has very monotone look on her face. She doesn’t understand how Yelena makes it look so easy. She interacts with Y/N with ease and makes her feel better with just few words.

“It’s okay. I’m just trying to be realistic.”

“Right.” Natasha pushes the empty plate to the side. “Listen, I’m not good at this.” She gestures between the two of them. “Teenagers aren’t my forte, and you aren’t even a normal teenager. Yelena somehow makes it look so easy.” She chuckles. “But I really do want to get close to you, okay?”

Y/N nods, she looks down to hide a small smile. “It’s not easy.”

“Hm?”

“With Yelena.” Y/N turns to look at Natasha. “It’s not easy with her. We fight a lot and disagree on many things. We’re somehow exactly the same and complete opposites, so everything is just a…shit show.”

“Language.” Natasha mumbles with a smirk. Y/N scoffs, smiling at herself. “Yelena can be headstrong and idiotic at times, but she is great.”

“She is.” Y/N frowns. “I don’t think I could do anything without her. She’s the reason I’m sane.”

Standing up, Natasha walks over to Y/N’s side and hugs her. “I know she couldn’t be without you either. And you’ll see her soon. Until then,” Natasha pushes her to arms length, holding onto her shoulders, “we’ll have fun, okay?”

“Okay.” Y/N giggles

“I told you I’d take you to the next mission.” Yelena whispers as she, Y/N and Sonya, a third Widow sneak around the huge house. Y/N only shushes her, making Yelena shush her back in annoyance.

They all freeze when the target, Ana, another Widow, steps in front of them. Yelena and her start fighting, while Y/N fishes out a vial of the antidote. “Yelena!” She shouts, throwing the vial towards her.

Yelena grabs it and releases it in front of the woman’s face. “The next bit is going to be really scary, but we are here to help you.”

The woman scrambles up from under Yelena. She stares at the big red spot on her carpet. “Look what you did to my rug. 20 000 dollars down the drain, thanks.” Y/N frowns, she sure didn’t think that’d be the first thing on her mind after being freed from mind control.

“Excuse me?” Yelena looks just as confused.

“I don’t think she was brainwashed.” Sonya chimes in.

“What, you thought I was some rich pervert’s prisoner?” She stares at all three of them.

“Well, yeah, kind of.”

“Wait, this is your house? How can you afford all of this?”

“By doing the thing we’re all best at. Killing for money.”

Y/N sighs at the sentence. No matter how hard she tries to get away from it, everything just keeps reminding her of the purpose she was made to do. Kill people.

The four of them go to sit in the living room and talk in a more civilized manner. Y/N keeps mostly to herself while the three adults talk about the freed Widows.

“Yelena, how is your other sister doing?”

“She’s doing okay.” Yelena smiles lightly.

“Good.”

“Yeah, she’s good.”

“And then, you and Natasha will be reunited and go live your Sex and the City fantasy in New York.” Sonya giggles, missing the solemn look on Y/N’s face. She and Yelena always did want to go to New York, but it doesn’t look like she’s involved in the plan.

Yelena hums. “Excuse me.” She stands up and walks away from the trio.

Y/N sighs, sinking to the chair. She looks around the apartment. It would be very luxurious to live in a place like this, but she doesn’t want to kill people anymore. There has to be something else she’s good at.

Ana turns on the television to pass time. The sound of it is all smushed to Y/N as she thinks about her future. “I’m gonna go see what’s taking Yelena so long.” She mumbles, standing up and walking towards the bathroom Yelena went into. She knocks on the door and waits. Nothing. “Yelena?” Knocking again, louder than before, she starts to feel worry bubble in her stomach. “I’m coming in.”

Y/N opens the door, but the room is empty. With a frown, she starts looking inside the rooms close by. They’re all empty. Starting to get panicky, Y/N goes back to the living room.

“I can’t find Yelena.”

“Y/N.” Sonya has a horrified look on her face as she turns to look at her, but Y/N pays no mind.

“Are there any other rooms she could’ve went into in this giant house of yours?” Ana’s face is glued to the television. “Hello?”

“Y/N.” Sonya grabs her arm.

“What?”

Sonya turns her towards the television. “Listen.”

The News channel is on. It’s showing chaos all over the city. Cars crashing into each other, a helicopter falling down, people disappearing. “It seems like people are randomly turning into dust and disappearing. No one knows why this is happening or where the people are going. We’ll conti-“

The news anchor continues to talk, but Y/N doesn’t hear it anymore. People are disappearing. “No.” She mumbles, shaking her head. “She didn’t turn into dust, she’s here somewhere.”

“Y/N…” Sonya sets her hand on Y/N’s shoulder, but she brushes it away instantly.

“No!” Her breathing picks up as she continues to shake her head. “No. This is some cruel joke. This isn’t real. Yelena!” She shouts, starting to walk towards a hallway, but Sonya stops here.

“She isn’t here.”

“No!” She tries to pull away, but Sonya wraps her arms around Y/N. “Let go of me!” She starts wriggling around, but the older Widow doesn’t let go.

“Let it out. Let it out.”

“Stop it! She can’t be gone.” Y/N sobs, slowly losing her fight. “She can’t be gone.” She drops to her knees, crying, while Sonya continues holding her.

The phones have been ringing for a half an hour already, but Y/N has no energy to pick it up. She just stares at Yelena’s bed. It’s empty. It shouldn’t be empty. Her eyes have already dried, she doesn’t think she could physically cry anymore.

Yelena’s phone rings. She didn’t have it with her on the mission. She doesn’t dare to pick it up. Yelena always said: ”Keep your hands off of it! You have your own phone.”. The phone stops ringing.

After a minute, Y/N’s own phone starts ringing. Finally she answers it. “What?” Her voice cracks from all the crying and screaming she did earlier. She doesn’t even remember how she got to the house, all she knows she was sobbing her heart out.

“Why the hell haven’t you and Yelena been answering your phones?” Natasha’s loud and angry voice comes through the speaker. Y/N knows she’s only worried. “You can’t do that! I was so fucking scared.” She hears Natasha take a deep breath. “Are you two okay? Can I talk to Yelena?”

“Yelena isn’t here.”

There’s a long silence on the other side of the phone. It almost sounds like Natasha hung up, but the occasional shaky breath lets Y/N knows she’s still there. “Where is she?”

“She’s not here.” Y/N repeats.

“You already said that.” Her voice gets louder again. “Where is she?”

“Not here.”

“Y/N!”

Y/N’s hold of the phone tightens momentarily. “I don’t know. I guess she’s with the other half of the world.”

“No… No, no, she can’t.” Natasha mumbles. She sounds worried. There’s a pause. Y/N can hear her pacing. “Where are you?”

“At our house.”

“Okay.” Natasha clears her throat. “Okay, you should come to the compound. Yelena wouldn’t want you to live alone. We’ll fix this, I promise.”

“Okay.”

For a moment, Y/N actually believes her.

The first year of the blip, Y/N stays in the Avengers compound. She finally meets the rest of the team, or the ones that are left. She doesn’t like them. Why do they get to be here but Yelena doesn’t. It’s not fair. Yelena should be here. She’s glad most of them have already left. Y/N doesn’t think she could have spent longer with them. They’re pathetic.

For the first few months she didn’t speak any more than she had to. She stayed in the guest room assigned to her and ignored everyone. When someone talked to her, she’d mostly nod and hum. Although, sometimes she couldn’t even do that. She’d just stare into the abyss.

Then she started to get angry. When Natasha tried to talk to her, Y/N would shut her off completely. Yelling, slamming doors, throwing things, anything to shut her up. It didn’t work, at first, Natasha would keep coming back. She made a promise to Yelena after all, she’d keep Y/N safe. But after a while, she stopped trying as much.

Y/N started to resent everyone and everything. She hated the feeling of uselessness. The survivors. The ones who started to forget and move on. The Avengers. Natasha. Yelena.

There’s a knock on her door. Y/N puts down her phone. She’s been on it a lot these days. She goes to open the door. “What?”

Natasha holds a plate of food on her hand. “You haven’t come out of your room for days. You have to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.” Y/N starts closing the door, but Natasha stick her foot in between.

“I don’t care. You’ll eat.” Natasha welcomes herself in the room. It’s tidy. It’s always been tidy. Y/N is still accustomed to order and organization. It’s also empty. Y/N never wanted to get anything extra to her room. Because this isn’t her home. Her home is where Yelena is. “It’s just scraps from yesterday. I can’t cook, you know that, and Steve isn’t here today.”

“Right.”

Natasha gives the plate to Y/N, sitting next to her. “How are you?”

“Perfect, obviously.” She holds onto the plate, but doesn’t eat.

“Y/N.” Natasha sighs. She rubs her forehead. “I know this is difficult to you, I understand. But y-“

“No!” Y/N pushes the plate back to Natasha as she stands up. “You don’t know. You don’t understand!” She laughs, her eyes wide. She’s hollow. There’s nothing in her voice or eyes. “You have your second family or whatever you call them. All I had was Yelena. She was my family!”

Natasha sets the plate down to a side table, grabbing Y/N’s hands. “I know. And I promise you that we will get her back.”

“Don’t you dare promise me things you don’t even believe in.” Her words come out like a bite. Sharp. Cold. Rough.

“I do believe we can get everyo-“

Y/N pulls herself away from Natasha. “Oh shut up! We both know you can’t do anything alone. And everyone else has already given up.”

Both of them turn quiet. They stare at each other. Y/N’s chest is rising up and down as she breathes heavily.

“I want to leave.”

“You know where the door is.” Natasha mumbles.

Y/N clenches her jaw. It hurt. She knows she’ll regret leaving, so does Natasha letting her leave, but both of their judgments are clouded by emotions.

Y/N packs the few things she has and strides out the door, bumping into Natasha on the way. Natasha spends the night in Y/N’s room, crying.

The next four years go by rather quickly. Y/N doesn’t let herself have any free time to think or feel. She just works and then works some more. She was grateful to have a lot of work. People became angry and violent during the blip. They wanted other people dead. And Y/N was there to grant their wish. It also paid well.

Still, Y/N never moved out of her and Yelena’s old apartment. She never even changed anything in it. She wanted to keep Yelena’s side clean and pristine for her return. If she ever does return.

She cleans her knives from the blood that’s coating them. She always has preferred them over guns, even though the gun collection she has is big. The only sound in the house is coming from the television. The News channel is on.

Y/N throws a clean knife to her bag and picks up the next one. She stares at it. It’s Yelena’s. It has blood on it. It doesn’t feel right. Taking a wet cloth, she starts scrubbing it furiously, gritting her teeth together while doing it.

“Shit!” She drops the knife. Her palm is bleeding. “Motherfucker.” Mumbling, she goes to pick up the first aid kit.

While she bandages her hand, her attention turns to the television. The news anchor is speaking quite frantically.

Y/N ups the volume. ”We’ve just gotten new information from the fight against Thanos. Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff are confirmed dead.” Her whole body freezes. “But their sacrifice has brought back the half we lost during blip. Thank you for your heroism Ave-*

Y/N screams, throwing a knife straight to the television screen. Her breathing picks up quickly. She has to kneel down so she wouldn’t fall down. One of her hands is on the door while the other is pressing against her chest.

Natasha is dead. They’re back. Natasha is dead. They’re back.

The words circle through her brain. She starts feeling sick. Natasha tried calling her few times. Y/N didn’t answer. Then she texted how they’ll save Yelena. Y/N didn’t answer that one either. She didn’t believe her.

Running to the bathroom, Y/N kneels in front of the toiler just in time before vomiting. She coughs. It feels impossible to breathe. There isn’t enough air. The walls are closing in.

There’s a harsh knock on the door.

Y/N freezes. The knocking doesn’t stop. She flushes the toilet and washes her mouth with water. It’s all going in slow motion for her. The walk to the front door feels so long. A shaky breath leaves her mouth when her hand touches the handle.

She opens the door.

“No.” Her voice is quiet, but she sounds and looks just the same as five years ago. Y/N on the other hand, she almost looks unrecognizable to her. Of course she’d always recognize her little sister no matter what. But she’s so…adult like. “You didn’t disappear.”

Y/N shakes her head. She isn’t sure if her voice even works.

“You were alone, for five years.”

“I was.” She croaks out.

“You are an adult now.”

“I am.”

Yelena pulls her into a bone crushing hug. Y/N can’t do it back, so she just stands there. After a while Yelena pulls back to properly look at her. Her hand traces through every feature. Y/N’s face is rougher now, there’s a ragged scar near her left eye. It hasn’t healed properly. Yelena’s thumb caresses it. All that’s running through her mind is how she wasn’t there to protect her.

“You still owe me that ten dollars.” Y/N whispers.

“What?” Yelena’s gaze turns from the scar to her eyes. She instantly frowns. They look so cold compared to when she was a kid.

“You owe me ten dollars, from the mission. I told you it’d turn to shit.”

“Language.”

“You can’t say that to me anymore.”

“Yes I can.” Yelena laughs. It’s airy and sad. “I’m still your big sister.”

The words make Y/N frown. Yelena doesn’t have a big sister anymore. “Natasha is dead.”

“I know.”

“She saved you.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t believe her.” She whispers. “She promised to bring you back, but I didn’t believe her.”

“It’s okay. She knows you didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

Y/N scoffs, walking further in the house. Yelena follows her after closing the front door. Her brows scrunch when she notices the broken television, knives and bloodied papers near the aid kit. Only now she realizes Y/N’s hand is bandaged.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“This is not nothing.”

“Just leave it, Yelena.” She snaps. Y/N groans, rubbing her head. She doesn’t want to get angry at Yelena, especially not right now. She just got back. “Nothing happened.” She rips the knife out of her television. It definitely won’t work anymore.

Yelena sighs, deciding to change the subject. “What have you done during the five years?”

“I was at the Avengers compound for the first year, then I left.”

“And then?”

“You don’t want to know.” Yelena raises a brow. Y/N groans, rolling her eyes. “I…killed people, for money.”

Yelena purses her lips together. She’s mad, obviously. She didn’t want Y/N to live this kind of life, but at the same time, she would’ve done the same. “Okay. Who do you work for?”

“Different people. Whoever needs me.”

Humming, Yelena looks around the apartment. It looks exactly the same. It’s comforting to see that at least something is the same. “Does your current boss need another employee?”

Y/N slams the car door closed, watching as Fanny runs right past her. She walks behind Yelena. The whole car ride there was quiet, Y/N didn’t know what to say, if she even should say anything. She doubts there’s anything that’d help the grief Yelena is feeling. And she’s mourning too, though at times she wonders if she’s allowed to. Anytime those feelings come, though, Yelena seems to be there to remind it’s okay for her to be sad.

Yelena cleans up the grave, while Y/N kneels in front of it. She isn’t sure if her legs would hold her.

Natasha Romanoff

Daughter Sister Avenger

Yelena presses her head against the side of the grave. Whistling to it and then pausing, hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone would answer.

She stands and helps Y/N up as well. They stare at the gravestone in silence, until the sound of blowing a nose disturbs them. Turning to look at the person, they see Valentina.

“Wow, sorry.” She sniffles. “I’m allergic to the Midwest. What this woman did, honestly, I can’t even imagine.”

“You’re not supposed to be bothering us on out holiday time, Valentina.” Yelena comments, refusing to look at her.

“Oh, bothering you? Oh, no, no. I’m just here paying my respects.”

Yelena hums, not believing a word that comes out of her mouth. “You know, coming here makes you look desperate.” They laugh, but Yelena turns serious very quickly. “We want a raise.”

“Oh, yeah. You and me both. Believe me, you’re gonna earn it.” Valentina takes out a tablet. “I’ve got your next target. Thought I’d hand-deliver it. Maybe you two would like a shot at the man responsible for your sister’s death.” Yelena takes the tablet, showing it to Y/N as well. “Kind of a cutie, don’t you think?”

Y/N stares at the picture. Clint Barton, an Avenger, the one Natasha was stuck in Budapest with. She turns to look at Yelena, who has mostly a emotionless look on her face, but she can see the fury deep within.

Here they go again.

Y/N stares at her phone while Yelena is changing out of the uncomfortable suit. They’re in New York, staying in a fancy apartment Yelena got for them. She has always been the one who thrives in fashion.

’We have a plan, Y/N. We’ll save Yelena and everyone else. You don’t have to be alone anymore. Just like I promised.’

It’s the last text Natasha sent to her. The one she didn’t answer to. Natasha died thinking she’s still mad at her, when truthfully, she never was. Y/N shouldn’t have left. Maybe Natasha would be still alive if she stayed.

“Aren’t you going to change out of that?” Yelena stares at Y/N.

Glancing down at her own suit, Y/N shrugs. She doesn’t have the energy to move. Her side hurts. She’s pretty sure the other woman sliced her with a knife, but Yelena never noticed, so Y/N will keep quiet about. She’d worry too much.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” She sighs. “Just tired.”

Yelena hums. “I think I lost my mask in there.” Clint pulled it off in the middle of the fight. It never looked practical to Y/N.

“Do you want to go get it?”

“No, I’ll get a new one.” Yelena keeps staring at Y/N, whose eyes are still glued to her phone. She’s reading the text over and over again, as if magically Natasha would text her again and she could apologize. “I think we should visit Kate Bishop later.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve been very distant recently.”

Y/N puts down her phone to look at Yelena. “I don’t know what you mean.” She presses her hand against the wound to slow down the bleeding, hiding the grimaces of pain.

“You don’t talk, you don’t want to do anything but work.” Yelena walks closer. “I’m worried.”

”There’s no need to worry.” Y/N mumbles. She sighs, combing her hand through her hair. Standing up, she starts organizing the things around their apartment. She wanted to keep everything neat and Yelena is more messy than her. It was also way to escape her thoughts.

“You’ve changed.” Yelena states. Her voice is full of worry, but she tries not to show it too much.

“You don’t get it, Yelena.” Y/N’s voice is desperate as she moves her hands around. “Of course I’m different. It’s been five fucking years!”

“Language, please.”

“Stop acting like you’re still my overprotective older sister. I don’t need that anymore.” She starts pacing around her spot, rubbing her forehead. Her head is starting to get cloudy. She can’t get her thoughts straight.

“You don’t just magically stop needing your big sister!” Yelena frowns. “Which is why I’ll al-“

Y/N throws an empty glass to the wall. “Oh shut up!” Yelena doesn’t flinch from the burst of anger.

“Throwing things isn’t going to solve anything.” Yelena takes a few steps forward. She can see the struggle in Y/N’s eyes. “You talk to me when you feel angry. You tell me what’s going on in your mind. You come to me. Because you still need me.” She grabs Y/N’s hands, tightening her hold when she stats pulling away.

Y/N grunts, getting increasingly frustrated by Yelena, who pulls her even closer and closer. “Stop.” She mumbles.

Yelena wraps her arms fully around Y/N, locking her arms under them. Slowly, Y/N starts breaking down. Her tears fill with tears and they fall down her cheeks. Yelena shushes her as she starts sobbing, whispering sweet nothing into her ear. “We’re going to be okay.” She lifts up her hand when she feels something wet. Blood. “Lets get this cleaned up.”

Kate is sitting right in front of them. Yelena is talking with her while eating mac and cheese. Most of the conversation has gone past Y/N, she doesn’t have any energy to listen.

Her head is still a mess, somehow she can’t clear it as well as before. Maybe it has something to do with Yelena being back, or Natasha dying, Y/N doesn’t know.

Kate’s eyes keep glancing at her. She isn’t sure if it’s because of how quiet she is being or how roughly she fought at the rooftop. Her fighting style has changed, though it still involves knives and combat, but she’s more brutal, more calculating. It has helped her a lot at being a mercenary. She learned to detach her feelings from the job, which just made her better.

“No. Our sister saved the world. Natasha Romanoff, she saved the world.” The sentence brings Y/N back down to Earth.

Sister. She isn’t sure if she even knows what the word means anymore.

“You’re really Natasha’s sisters?”

“Yes.”

“No.” Y/N mumbles, speaking for the first time since they arrived to Kate’s old apartment.

Both Kate and Yelena turn to look at her, the latter having a questioning look on her face. “What?”

“She’s not my sister.” Her voice is quiet and her eyes are stuck on the table. “She’s not.” Standing up, Y/N leaves the apartment alone.

Yelena doesn’t come of call after her, she isn’t done with Kate Bishop yet. She also knows she wouldn’t get anything out of Y/N when she’s being so distant.

Y/N walks through the streets of New York until she’s far away from people. After a few seconds of utter silence, she lets out a loud, bloodcurdling scream. She screams until she doesn’t have any air left. Holding onto her stomach, she takes deep breaths.

She couldn’t call Natasha her sister with good conscience anymore. Not after what she did, or didn’t do. It’s her fault she died. Maybe if she stayed at the compound she could’ve taken her place. She didn’t deserve to die. She had people who needed her, like Yelena.

“She’s dead.” She mumbles, closing her eyes. “She’s dead and I killed her.” Blowing air out of her mouth, she relaxes. It helps her, in some sick sense. She’ll spend a lot of time saying things out loud, to remind her what’s real. It clears her head, because sometimes things get mixed up.

After spending three more hours on the one spot, Y/N finally starts walking again. She’s going slowly, staring at her surroundings. She hasn’t really spent any free time exploring the city like Yelena. Not that she had any free time. When Yelena went to see the tourist spots, Y/N did side jobs. She hasn’t told Yelena about it.

The lights are beautiful during the night. She looks up at the buildings. The mist from her breath comes to her field of vision every time she breathes out.

She stops in the middle of an empty street, taking in the cold. She always hated it after the Red Room, but now she misses it. The slight pain from being out in the cold for too long feels like an embrace.

With one last deep breath of the fresh air, she starts walking towards the apartment her and Yelena are staying at. She doesn’t say anything when she comes in, neither does Yelena. She’s grateful for that. At times Y/N hopes Yelena has given up on her like Natasha did. That she’d let her walk out of the door without stopping her, and her every action brings her closer to it.

Yelena and Y/N split right away as they enter the huge Christmas party. They’re looking for Clint, both of them wanting to get the mission over, especially Y/N. It’s too close to Natasha.

Y/N rolls her eyes when the sniper starts shooting. Of course nothing ever goes their way. She follows Yelena to go after Clint, but they lose him momentarily in the midst of chaos and darkness. However, they find a hallway leading to the elevators Clint is in.

As they wait for one, Kate walks up to them. “So, I know you’re chummy with my mom, but I gotta say, I didn’t think you’d make the cut for the Christmas party.”

“Kate Bishop.” Yelena smiles, making Y/N rolls her eyes. She gets too sidetracked in her opinion. “We’re not here to ruin anything. We’re just going to kill Barton, have some appetizers, and then we’ll go.”

“I hope you enjoy the bruschetta, ‘cause it looks like you already lost him.”

“He’s in the elevator.”

“Yeah, what, out of 65 floors, you think you’re just gonna magically guess which one he’s on?”

One of the elevators dings. “Twelfth floor.”

“Damn it.” Kate mumbles.

“Can you two shut up.” Y/N grumbles, staring at the other elevator’s numbers to will them to go faster.

Yelena shakes her head with a sigh before grinning at Kate. “She’s a bit grumpy.” The elevator opens. “Enjoy the party.” The two assassins get in, Yelena stopping Kate from entering. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as she slips in right before the door closes.

The three of them stand there in silence. At least for a while. Kate decides to disturb it by trying to push all the elevator buttons, multiple times, which Yelena stops every time. Until the third time when Kate slaps her. Y/N actually snorts at it.

As the elevator door opens at the next floor, Y/N and Yelena run out of it, the latter cursing Kate and throwing her jacket at her. Kate runs right after them.

She catches up to them in the middle of some offices. They fight, though not with their full strength. Y/N isn’t opposed to leaving casualties behind, but right now she just wants to get past her.

Kate blocks the doorway forward. “What are we doin’?” She smiles widely. “I mean, it’s Christmas Eve. Let’s grab a drink, huh?”

Yelena nods. “Okay. Yeah. Sure. After we kill Barton.”

“No. No, that’s not what- Come on. You don’t need to-“

Y/N huffs, getting tired to the stalling. “Get out of my way.” She slams herself against Kate, making her fly out of her position. She holds a foot over her chest. “And stay out of it.” Irritated, she jogs away from Kate, who gets up quickly to continue fighting with Yelena.

They finally get to the window, but right when Yelena is about to use her baton, Kate throws an object straight to her hand. “Ow! That really hurts!” Yelena throws her hands around, grimacing in pain.

“Yeah. Yeah, well so did the kick in the ribs.”

“Oh, yeah. That was a good one. That was good form.” Y/N rolls her eyes at the conversation going on. “But you did the really cool body throw.” Yelena motions the throw with her hands.

“Yeah, thank you. Thank you.” Kate purses her lips. “Stop making me like you.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”

“Oh my god.” Y/N groans, throwing out the wire and jumping out of the window.

Yelena stares at the now empty window. “She’s not one to make friends.” She shrugs at Kate. “That was really fun. Bye.” Jumping out of the window, she takes out her gun and starts shooting at Clint with Y/N. Unfortunately for them, they miss their shots. On the ground, they run to hiding.

They attack Clint again on the ice, Yelena body throwing him to the ground. Clint lays on the ground as Y/N and Yelena stand near him. “Before I kill you, I need to ask you one question.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Yelena and Y/N.”

“I need to know what happened.”

Clint sits up, taking ragged breaths. “Look, Yelena, if I told you what really happened, you’d never believe me. But what you need to know is your sister sacrificed herself, and she saved the world. I’m sorry.” He glances at Y/N, who is intensely staring him down.

Shaking her head, Yelena frowns. “You’re lying. You’re pathetic. You’re so pathetic.” She kicks him down and starts fighting him.

Clint holds Yelena on her place. “Nobody killed her. She made a choice.”

Y/N’s body freezes as she stares at the fighting going on. She knows Clint is lying. She’s the reason Natasha is dead, whether he knows it or not. It’s her fault.

“You’re not listening to me. She sacrificed herself, understand?” Clint holds Yelena on a chokehold, while Yelena looks like she’s about to cry. “I couldn’t stop her.”

Y/N just stares at the fight. Her eyes are glasses over. It’s like she can’t move. Like she’s in the middle of a nightmare that she can’t wake up from. She supposes it is in a way. Just the other way around. Sleep is her escape, but she can’t sleep forever. She has to live day after day in her forever nightmare.

The fight flashes before her eyes. Suddenly Yelena has Clint overpowered. “You should’ve fought harder.” Yelena takes out her baton, nearing Clint as she starts beating him until he can barely hold himself up.

That’s when Yelena drops the baton and takes out her gun, aiming at him. Clint whistles. It makes goosebumps appear on Y/N’s skin, and Yelena stops moving.

“How do you know that?”

“Your secret whistle with Nat. She talked about you all the time, Yelena. She told me about how you got separated as kids. She was flying that plane.” Y/N knows the story. It’s one of the first memories Yelena told her about Natasha. “I asked her if she was scared. All she could think about is that you were safe. That never changed, Yelena. She loved you. And always wanted you safe. Both of you.” He turns to look at Y/N.

“No.” She mumbles.

Natasha told Clint all about Y/N. How the first year of the blip they were together and how regretful Natasha felt after letting her leave. “She was never mad at you.”

“Stop it.”

“She forgave you right away.” Every word he speaks, the more Y/N hurts. “All she wanted was to have you back with her, so she could keep you safe. Like she had promised Yelena.”

Y/N shakes her head. All the thoughts in her head are getting too much.

“She loved you.”

“No!” The change happens in a split second. She takes out two knives, starting to fight Clint who can barely dodge her. Her moves are rough and all over the place. She isn’t calculating all of her moves like usually, now it’s pure emotion and brute force. “She’s dead!” Her yell echoes through the area. Clint is getting littered with cuts while Yelena stands on her place, too stunned to move. “She’s dead! And it’s…it’s-“

Clint gets holds of Y/N’s hands, holding them tightly so she couldn’t move them. She fights against him, but eventually drops down to her knees.

“It’s my fault.” She whispers. ”I killed her.” Dropping the knives from her hands, she stops fighting. Yelena frowns from the sidelines, she didn’t know Y/N thought like that. ”I never answered her. I could’ve stopped her, I could’ve helped.” She mutters.

“You couldn’t have. She made her decision.”

Y/N glares at him, ripping her arms off of Clint’s grip. She stands up and walks away, pulling away from Yelena’s touch as she walks past her.

She continues walking until her legs physically can’t carry her anymore. There’s a small bridge right in front of her, so she goes to sit down on the railing. No one is going through it, giving Y/N a chance to be alone. Her nails are digging deep into her palms and her teeth are clenched together, causing a constant headache.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Yelena’s voice breaks the quiet atmosphere. “Natasha’s death wasn’t your fault.” She says it again to make sure Y/N hears her.

“I didn’t answer her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She tried to call me and sent me a text before she died, saying she’d bring you back. I didn’t answer. I was angry at her.”

Yelena leans against the railing while staring at Y/N. “It’s still not your fault.” She sets her hand on Y/N’s back. “I should’ve been there for you, raising and protecting you. You shouldn’t have been alone.” Yelena huffs, frustrated at the whole situation. “I should’ve protected you.”

“Well you didn’t, did you?” Y/N turns around, dropping down from the railing to stand in front of Yelena. “You weren’t there to keep me safe or comfort me, and that’s shitty, but you can’t do anything to change it. So, just stop it.”

Yelena purses her lips together. She knows Y/N is right. In a way, they can probably never get back to the way they were. Y/N is an adult now. She was all alone for years and that changed her for the rest of her life.

“I don’t need a protector anymore. I don’t need you anymore.”

Swallowing, Yelena frowns. The words hurt to hear. Because she still needs Y/N. “Family never stops needing each other.”

“This family broke a long time ago.” Y/N whispers. “I know it was only few seconds to you, but to me it was five years. And during those years I grew up, it’s time for me to move on. You should do the same.”

“No. I don’t want to.” Yelena shakes her head, stepping closer to Y/N. “I’m not leaving you alone again.”

“You aren’t leaving me, Yelena. I’m walking away.” Y/N clears her throat so her sound wouldn’t waver so much. “Thanks for giving me a family, even if it was only for a short while.” She nods and turns around.

“No, Y/N.” Yelena’s eyes turn glassy as she stares at Y/N’s back. “I forbid you from walking away from me!”

“You can’t do that anymore.” Y/N shouts out with a sad smile, not stopping, not looking back.

Yelena keeps standing on her place, just watching as Y/N moves further and further away. She doesn’t follow her.

She can’t do that anymore.

510 notes · View notes

legendofzoodles · 2 years ago

Text

LOZ Character .../Rant

Hero of the Sky part 2

The LU and LOZ fandom need to cut Hylia a little slack. She definitely isn’t perfect and has done some questionable things throughout the series, but the hate and slander she gets isn’t really fair.

I personally blame Sky and Demise for the chain’s suffering much more than I blame her. And here’s why.

~~~

Before I start I’m going to make clear what my interpretation of Demise’s Curse meant. I’ve explained it in: Era of Hylia Lore 3 and Demise’s curse theory

So, it was Demise’s curse that set in motion the vast majority of the events following Skyward Sword. And I can’t forgive that Sky let it happen. This is something an LU comic panel made me realise and I’m actually kinda mad now.

Maybe it just was poor execution on the game’s part, and the devs wanted a dramatic uninterrupted shot of Demise announcing his curse all cool n’ stuff. But if you take away the fourth wall, the fact that Link just stood there and took it, is unbelievable.

Sure, he’s not omnipotent like the player and had no way of knowing that the curse was for real or comprehend it’s true scale...but still!

If the ancient evil (that a literal Goddess failed to vanquish) you just defeated stands up and starts to utter a possibly everlasting curse, at least try to stop him before he finishes. Throw another Skyward strike his way for good measure or stab him, or heck, interrupt him with annoying noises. Just do something! To add insult to my saltiness, Demise spoke frustratingly slow too, meaning Link had ample time to take some sort of decisive action.

Hey, remember when Wind as a child stabbed Ganondorf’s skull? Or when Twi stabbed him in the chest and left it in there to make sure he killed him?

It’s not the fact that Link failed to stop the curse that’s so egregious to me. Plenty before him and after him have failed, and I don’t have a problem with that. They’re human, they’re not perfect, they’re allowed to make mistakes. It’s the fact that he did nothing and seemingly forgets about it minutes later- going about his life in comfortable ignorance- that pisses me off.

I’m not gonna sugarcoat this. He royally fucked up there, and the fact that he gets off scot-free while the chain and his descendants have to deal with the mess is asinine!

This is the exact bs Hylia and First wanted to put an end to. I’d wager that Hylia only wanted First to be reincarnated once (because the idea of him continuing to be reincarnated and being paired up with her descendants for all eternity without Demise’s influence is gross and ruins her character for me) and that the reason Sun is her own person and not Hylia’s puppet is because she wanted her and her offspring to peacefully live normal lives once it was over.

Sky had one job to do and he failed. And what really sucks is that no one in the fandom acknowledges this. Everyone’s quick to blame Hylia for everything wrong with the chain’s lives, but she didn’t curse the hero into an endless cycle of reincarnation, Demise did that, and Sky let that happen without any resistance.

Hylia wasn’t supposed to even be in the picture once Sun came into existence. To be fair though, she should have just done things herself from the start rather than have heroes fight for her- but that’s an error in judgement I can forgive, especially when she played an active role herself and didn’t just sit around letting them handle it all.

But now thanks to Demise’s curse, the kingdom is literally forced to depend on the reincarnated heroes. I don’t think that Hylia can just come back to life. Demise did say that she gave up her Goddess form to be human and that sounds pretty irreversible. If she could, I feel like she would have at some point in the timeline. Basically, I’m blaming the curse for everything that goes wrong in the series, which isn’t Hylia’s fault at all and Sky enabled it to happen. Therefore I can get mad at him.

The chain will probably forgive him when the news eventually comes out. But if they magically get to see what actually happened, and watch Demise slowly utter the eternal curse that fucked over all their lives while Sky stands around doing butt fuck all, then imagine the unbridled chaos that would follow.

I’ll just put this here:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - some guy (not Edmund Burke apparently)

I have to wonder what was going through Sky’s head when Legend literally spelled out the ramifications of Demise’s curse, all while the oblivious chain laughed it off as strange coincidences.

~~~

Thanks for reading!

At the end of the day this is all my opinion and you’re free to disagree.

Here’s part 1 Masterlist

Also I’ll rewrite that final confrontation at put a link here.

Recovered Regrets- story where chain find out about Demise’s curse

#legend of zelda #linked universe #linked universe sky #loz ss #loz #loz link #linked universe legend #lu sky #loz demise #hylia's chosen hero #master sword #legend of zelda fanfiction #loz fanfic #hylia #hylia slander

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thesolferino · 4 years ago

Text

Favor

⤷ dream x f!reader.

⤷ genre: angst, fluff

⤷ word count: 8.4k

⤷ requested: yes, by this lovely anon!

— summary: dream asks you to pretend to be his girlfriend for a day. things only seem to go downhill from there.

It started as a favor.

On a quiet night in your apartment when you stared at your phone for way longer than your eyes could physically take and rolled around on the bed, talking to one of your best internet friends, Dream, he asked you for a favor. His voice was muffled through the mic on his phone, the one connected to his computer way cleaner, but neither of you could bother getting off FaceTime and call on Discord instead - yet you still heard him loud and clear, because you burst out laughing right after.

“What the hell did you just say?” you laughed, turning on your stomach and opening the call, now entirely focused on the timer that counted every second you spent talking to him instead of your Twitter timeline.

“It’s embarrassing, don’t make me repeat it!” And for that sole reason, you wanted him to repeat it, loud and clear.

“Is this why you were so insistent on me coming down to Florida? So I could pretend to be your girlfriend at your cousin’s wedding so your family doesn’t think you’re a loser?” you laughed, finding the situation entirely absurd as he sputtered, words mashing together, trying to defend himself.

“No! No, I wanted you to come here because we’re friends and I-I wanna meet you, this is just a… benefit, of sorts.” he replied, and you couldn’t help but laugh even harder at his poor attempt of trying to save face.

“Alright, I’ll bite.” you chuckle. “What’s in it for me?”

“Whatever you want.” he responded, much too quick. Your eyebrows raised.

“Whatever I want?” you parroted.

“Yes.” he confirmed. “I’ll buy you something, if you want; I’ll even pay you-”

“Pay me?! I’m not a whore, Dream!”

“That is not AT ALL what I was saying!” he cut in, yelling as you burst into a new fit of laughter. “It’s just… I sort of already told them I have a girlfriend and I was just hoping you’d say yes ‘cause it’s gonna be very awkward if I show up without the girlfriend in question.”

You put your head in your hands and he sort of dryly laughed at himself when he heard your palm hit your forehead. “What is wrong with you, man?”

“Listen, it’s not gonna be so bad! Just stay by my side for a bit, look pretty, we’ll get some drinks, and then dip. That’s it, I promise.” he reasoned.

“And here I thought we were gonna make out in front of everyone. What’s a fake relationship if we don’t make a show out of it?” you sarcastically snickered, and could practically see his eyeroll from miles away.

“If that’s what you want, then we’ll do it, by all means.” he replied and you laughed, shaking your head in mild disbelief.

“Alright, well, if you already told them, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” you huffed, pretending to be way more bummed out about it than you really were. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you so much, oh my God.” he replied and you chuckled at the sheer relief in his voice.

A few seconds of silence pass. “What’s the catch?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“How do you want me to publicly embarrass myself in exchange for this favor?”

“Personally, I think that forcing you to tweet that tweet about pissing yourself in bed again and also tweeting that everyone should subscribe to me isn’t “publicly embarrassing” at all.”

“Maybe I should’ve picked a different fake girlfriend.”

“Sucks to suck, pissbaby.”

The weeks leading up to your meetup felt like years, with every treacherous minute of you two talking over muffled mics and shitty webcams feeling longer than it should, your empty apartment feeling emptier and emptier by the day. Was it even possible to miss a person you hadn’t even met yet?

It turns out that it very much was, because as soon as the painfully long weeks were up and you were finally metres away from him, you jumped in his arms like a woman finally seeing her soldier husband after the war, standing on your tiptoes while he bent down the best he could to hug you back. His chest rumbled with a warm laugh when you turned your head ever so slightly towards his ear.

“Hello, boyfriend.” And just like that, the warm turned into a groan of faux annoyance while you burst into laughter and he pulled away, scanning your face with an equally annoyed look.

“I should’ve never asked you for that. You’re never letting it go, are you?” Yeah, you were kind of annoying with the amount of corny boyfriend jokes you threw his way - you had to give him that. But then again, he crafted his own fate and now he must accept the consequences.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t realise your majesty wasn’t appreciating the work I’m doing! I just won’t show up at that wedding, how about that?” you bit back, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You’re such an idiot.” he laughed. “Give me those bags.”

A blissful week had passed, and he hadn’t pissed you off in real life nearly as much as you thought he would. It took a bit of getting used to to his family calling him Clay instead of his beloved internet username, and you did get a couple of suggestive looks from his mother the first few times she visited - you had a couple of “eye conversations” in which she never exactly asked if you were his girlfriend, and you never exactly denied it, but you knew both of you felt the weight of the unspoken words yet you had to keep everything secret and ambiguous. Or at least you thought you did, before he revealed to you that he told his mom the two of you were dating already. Seems like the glances were knowing and not questioning. Maybe you weren’t as good at eye conversation as previously thought.

Living with him was fine, mostly because he had godly air conditioning and a house that was probably way too big for him, and also a very cute cat that followed you everywhere and made living with a man for a full two weeks way more bearable. Finding out that he can’t cook was one of the most bizarre revelations about him that you’d had in the years of your friendship, and you demanded he watched as you made chicken wraps. You complained about how he was 21 and couldn’t cook for himself, he complained about how it’s 2021 and he can just order from Chipotle or something, dude.

A week of goofing around and trying to hide the fact the two of you temporarily lived together from the internet had passed quicker than it should’ve, and for the first time in seven days, Netflix was turned off and the two of you were dressing up for the wedding, ready to set off with his parents and younger sister. He spent ages trying to convince you to match with him, which was quite literally impossible because he wore a black suit and you brought a red dress, which resulted in the two of you roaming around a local mall at 10 am, half asleep, looking for a reasonably formal black dress, because of course Dream always got his way.

An hour of arguing and your fashion tastes clashing later, you picked an off shoulder black dress with a high slit, along with a pair of pumps, both of which you forced him to pay for, and went back home, ready to glam both of you up as much as humanly possible because you were not ready to let him show up in some horrendous pair of shoes and claim to be your boyfriend.

“Is this okay?” you questioned, turning from the mirror to face him and let him be the judge of your shimmery black and white eyelids, spending way too much time on a makeup look for a wedding of someone whose name you didn’t even know. He blinked at you as his judging gaze washed over you like a wave, scanning you up and down while you nervously cocked your head, leg tapping in faux impatient annoyance to cover up the fact that you felt like prey under his eyes.

“It’s… yeah, it is. You look good.” Dream confirmed, nodding his head at you in a movement that was way too quick and snappy and you turn back to the mirror with a huff, watching him stare right back at you.

“Too much, right? I should try something else.” You say, grabbing your makeup remover wipes, but he cuts in before you can even wipe a single smudge.

“No, no, it looks good, I promise. Really good. Don’t touch it.” Something way too sincere in his voice makes the air tense, more tense than usual, but you drop it, deciding to just take the compliment with a tight lipped smile.

“Okay. You ready?” you ask, and he nods, nervously straightening out his suit before looking back at you with an anxious grin.

“Yeah, I think so. Do I look fine?”

He did. He looked more than fine. You’d never seen him actually dress up for something and put proper care into his looks - he was practically forced into doing it by you this time as well - so seeing him in an actual black suit, all formal and expensive looking, messy dirty blond hair properly combed for the first time in ages, made you gulp and look away. You sort of never understood the argument that women and men can’t be friends because you were never attracted to one of your male friends, ever. Dream was born to be an exception to every rule, it seemed.

Realising that you abruptly looked away, you attempted to awkwardly clear your throat and smile at him.

“Yeah, you do. Let’s go.”

During the ride there, his mother seemed to finally explode and the words that have clearly wanted to pour out of her mouth for ages finally came out. You supposed it was better for the poor woman, and did your best to suppress a laugh when Dream dramatically sighed and leaned against the window when she nosily spoke up.

“So… since when have you and Clay been together? He’s told us absolutely nothing!” She spoke up from the passenger seat, shifting to look at you, excited smile plastered on her face and you politely smiled back, mentally noting that you’d have to bully the shit out of him for acting like his mom is embarrassing him in front of his 8th grade crush.

“Ah, we’ve been friends for a long while, but we only started dating a month or so ago, because it’s hard doing long distance and all that.” you said, hoping it would sound believable enough because the two of you rehearsed this a few days ago, writing out a whole backstory from how you started dating to what exact words he used when he asked you out. There were a couple of arguments here and there, such as the fact you refused to say you confessed you’ve been in love with him for years and he refused to say he admitted he’s been your “bottom bitch” for 3 years but in the end, you somehow managed to agree on a cohesive timeline of events.

“Oh, does that mean you’re going to move here?” she questioned, and that one didn’t surprise you either, Dream having prepared a full list of answers to questions that people might ask in your notes app. He was a perfectionist to the point it got on your nerves, but that had its own perks.

“No, but I’ll definitely visit more often, and if it goes well, I might as well move here.” you smiled back at her and she nodded, going back to staring through the windshield. You and Dream exchange a relieved glance that you hope his younger sister doesn’t notice.

“Let me tell you, I was waiting for you two to get together! He always talked about you, I was getting tired of him, you know that?” she giggled and you widened your eyes at Dream who, snapping out of somewhat of a daze, immediately jumped to protest, light blush adorning his pale cheeks.

“No, I didn’t! I did not, mom, don’t lie to her.” he argued while all she did was laugh.

“Oh come on, it’s not embarrassing now that you’re together!” she kept going, and his younger sister joined in, to make it even worse.

“Yeah, you do talk about her a lot, not gonna lie.” she spoke up and his cold glare directed her way told you everything you needed to know, hanging on by a thread not to burst out laughing. He refused to even look your way, turning back to the window as his cheeks started heating up. You couldn’t help but let out at least a bit of a giggle, placing your hand on his arm in fake comfort.

“It’s okay, you can admit it now.” your tone borderlined on mocking and he knew you’d make fun of him for days to come so he stayed silent while the rest of the car burst into laughter.

The wedding was truly beautifully set up, set in a hotel wedding venue, walls painted in pure innocent white with hints of gold here and there, and you nudged Dream as the two of you observed in awe, asking what sort of money the groom had to be able to afford this sort of expensive venue. Nudging him proved to be way easier now, because you linked arms - you originally made fun of him for suggesting to walk like that instead of holding hands like normal people, telling him you’d look like you were at your high school prom, but he persisted, and you didn’t end up looking as goofy as you thought.

“He’s a doctor or something, pretty sure.” he replied, quick feet trudging down the long hallways, your own struggling to keep up with him, especially in your heels. He seemed to be in a rush to sit and get it over with as soon as possible so he could avoid any nosy family members, but bad luck followed him everywhere, it seems, because as soon as you two entered the place where the bride and groom would unite, at least three different pairs of eyes locked on you, and you immediately saw a fairly elderly woman get up with open arms, staring at Dream with a grin on her face. You saw him immediately tense up, and almost laughed right then and there.

“There’s my boy! Oh, you’ve grown so much, come here!” The woman looked to be in her fifties and Dream let go of your arm to nervously laugh and fall into her hug, the two rocking from side to side as she kept going on about how it seemed that he grew taller and taller every time she saw him.

When the two pulled away, her eyes fixed on you, judgingly scanning from head to toe and you suddenly realised why Dream tensed up the way he did - old white women sure had a way to make you anxious. Thankfully, he stepped in.

“Aunt Bessie, this is Y/N, my girlfriend. Y/N, this is aunt Bessie, my mom’s older sister.” he generously offered the explanation you were so obviously lacking and you grinned, as if that information helped you in any way, and stuck out your hand in an offer of a handshake. However, she seemed to have different plans, because as soon as she heard the words “my girlfriend” her face lit up as if she won the lottery and her lips stretched into a smile, opening her arms for you the same way she did for him.

“Oh my God, you finally got a girlfriend? Come here!” she said, shaking her head at your outstretched hand and gesturing you to return the hug which you quite hesitantly did, politely laughing as she hugged you tighter than you’d deem appropriate. Dream came from a family of huggers - that much was apparent from him, you guess, but you weren’t exactly prepared for this.

Aunt Bessie seemed to be way louder and screechier than expected, because the word “girlfriend” boomed through the room and off the snowy walls, and at least five other family members of his turned around to check who the lucky fellow that finally got a girlfriend was. Another one of his aunts seemed to notice the commotion and suddenly, another older woman with shoulder length, dyed blonde hair, along with her two younger kids, was hurling at you as well.

“I always complained to him that it was about time he got a girlfriend! He’s a fine young man, no wonder you picked him, honey.” Aunt Bessie shot you a knowing look and you closed your mouth in a tight lipped smile in a feverish attempt to keep down the laugh that threatened to escape you.

“Oh yeah, he definitely is.” you giggled, looking up at Dream again who looked like he wanted the earth below his feet to open and swallow him whole. Before you could nudge him in the ribs and tease him for hours to come, the other aunt suddenly spoke up.

“Clay! Oh my gosh, is that you?” she exclaimed, shocked grin on her face, and you briefly wondered if Dream ever even visited his family. He nervously smiled, obviously not really sure who this woman even is, but he hugged her back anyway, clearly walking the line between ‘happy to see his family’ and ‘insanely uncomfortable’.

“I haven’t seen you in so long, your dad hasn’t visited since we moved to Toronto! Look at how tall you are, you’re taller than my husband now! You used to be so tiny, whatever happened to you?” Upon hearing the word Toronto he seemed to realise who he was talking to as his eyes softened, and you wondered if he really was so expressive or you could just read him that well.

“I grew up, I guess.” He awkwardly laughed and she laughed harder than she should’ve before turning to you.

“Oh, and who is this?” She said, gaze periodically switching between him and you, a knowing smile on her face which told you she definitely knew who you were.

“Ah, this is my girlfriend, Y/N. Y/N, this is… my dad’s cousin, Mabel.” He introduced, large hand landing on your back, and you felt like you were experiencing déjà vu at the way her face lit up at the mention of a girlfriend.

“Wow, it’s so nice to meet you, Y/N!” She said, energetically shaking your hand, before turning back to Dream. “You never told us you got a girlfriend! You’re finally planning on settling down, huh?”

Your head snapped in his direction at the speed of light when she mentioned settling down, and you could see him tense up as well as he nervously laughed.

“Yeah, we haven’t visited in a while, so nobody from the family really knew. And, uh… we haven’t really thought of that yet, we’re taking it slow and everything.” He said and you were almost in awe at how good he was at bullshitting. The woman did nothing but laugh.

“Ah, don’t lie to me, I see the way you two look at each other! It’s your wedding we’ll be attending next!” She winked, and just as Dream got ready to fake laugh once again, her family called her over and she excused herself, walking off.

The two of you hurried to your seats as well, sitting down next to his younger sister.

“Your family is insane, man, holy shit.” You laughed in disbelief, staring at him as he shook his head, clearly as distressed as you were.

“Literally nobody in this family gives a single fuck if I’m single or not except the old aunties. And I seem to have a shit ton of those.” He muttered under his breath. “The way you look at each other - I literally didn’t even look at you properly that whole time!”

You cackled at that one, hitting his arm. “She’s right, Clay. You’re one fine young man, eh?” You nudged him as he groaned in embarrassment, only turning your way to glare at you.

You didn’t get to tease him for much longer, though, because the organ started playing and the bridesmaids and groomsmen lined up, the groom standing at his designated place. The bride walked in, arms locked with her father, thin white veil covering her face as she walked down the aisle, looking angelic in her puffy wedding gown. Silky brown hair fell down her shoulders, curled towards the ends, and you could see the hint of blood red lipstick beneath the veil. She looked beautiful - the groom seemed to think so as well, because you could see him tapping the corner of his eye lightly, wiping any stray tears.

She finally made it to the end and stepped to face her soon-to-be husband as her father moved away, sitting back in his chair. The wedding officiant stepped up, and held a speech much longer than it should be, which just led you to zone out.

One day you’d be beneath that veil, wouldn’t you? One day, you’ll face your fiancé the same way she is, and you’ll let your hearts link with a string that nobody but the two of you could snap. Who would that be, though? Who could you even trust with your heart in their hands? And you’re not aware of how and why and when, but your eyes shot up at Dream, whose eyes also glinted in that way where you knew he wasn’t paying attention, and maybe he was thinking about the same thing as you. Maybe one day, you’ll be attending his wedding, forcing one of your friends to play a fake boyfriend as he wipes his tears, waiting for his bride to get to him.

It was disheartening, the thought of being a bystander while he locks lips with somebody else. You supposed you just liked being the center of attention, so you let yourself pretend you were his bride in your daydreams. Separating daydreams from rational thoughts was mandatory, because you weren’t sure how you’d explain to yourself that you can’t stand seeing Dream marry someone else.

Dream, the infamous hopeless romantic, still seemed out of it, maybe even a little emotional, despite not being that close with either of the two. He was probably thinking about his own wedding as well, thinking about his future, the face he’d see when he pulled back the veil.

Just then, his eyes darted to yours, and you realised you were caught staring, snapping your head back to the couple that started reading their vows by now. You started going red from the neck up, cheeks on fire as you could feel his gaze burning into you. He turned back after a few seconds, though, probably assuming you stared at him because you were bored, and neither of you spoke, even though you kind of wish you did. What even is there to say, though?

By the time you snapped back, the “I do”s were already being said, and her veil was getting lifted, showing her beauty to everyone present, and as they kissed the whole room bursted into cheers and applause in support of the newlyweds. The two exit, teary eyed, their parents follow close behind, and that’s when Dream’s family rushes both of you to your feet, following the two into the reception hall where the actual party would take place.

From then on, the wedding is the same as any other. The two have their first dance, they give a welcoming speech, and Dream lets you stuff your face with cake and repeatedly refills your wine glass as repayment for dragging you into this whole thing. At some point, he stretches his hand out to you and asks for a dance like a rom-com main character, and you’re not sure exactly why he did that because he’s mostly terrible at dancing, but you had fun letting him twirl you until you got dizzy anyway.

You also realised just how much he did actually need a fake girlfriend, because it seemed like every twenty minutes some sort of relative of his would walk up to the two of you and congratulate him on “finally getting a girlfriend”. You ended up bullying him for that as well, wondering just how long he’s been single for if they’re all this surprised that he’s got a girlfriend, to which he just downed the glass of water he’d been sipping for half an hour and asked you about the weather.

His family took a few pictures with the new couple - you even got to speak to the bride at some point, congratulating her and wishing the two of them well, but in the span of a few hours, the wedding was over and the newlyweds made a great exit, signifying the end of the party. The two of you were driven home by his parents, and you waved them goodbye as you stumbled to the front door, your heels insanely uncomfortable and the red wine in your stomach weighing down on you; you just wanted to get out of this dress and into a pair of pajamas and pass out on his couch in the living room.

That’s sort of exactly what you did - you half-assed taking your makeup off, wiping down your face a couple of times, deciding that was enough before changing into some worn pajamas and plopping down on the couch next to Dream who already claimed his place and sunk into the cushion while a random movie played on the TV. The two of you basked in the comfortable silence that surrounded you, the exhausted, tired type. You both appreciated the quiet and fell asleep sitting next to each other, wedding already forgotten.

That night, he went from Dream to Clay.

The departure was bittersweet. You left two days after that, your hug at the airport tight, warm, filled with a sugary sweet feeling you couldn’t quite place and sour acid that ate away at you because you didn’t want to leave in the slightest. His arms were warm, inviting, whispering for you to stay but you left anyway, waving him goodbye, setting off to home.

It seemed like all your problems came and went with him, because a week later, at 3 in the morning while you were up editing a video, you got an all caps message on your Discord from Sapnap.

“YOU’RE DATING DREAM?”

You blinked at your computer screen, white letters blinding you in the dark, brain trying to keep up with why he even thought that. Within 10 seconds, another message, this time from Dream.

“so i told george and sapnap that we’re dating”

“don’t kill me pls”

Yeah, you weren’t going to kill him, per se, but he definitely made your life a lot harder than it should be. You opened Discord, Premiere Pro and the unedited video abandoned, typing back to Clay quickly.

“WHY”

He responded immediately, as one panicked man does.

“they’ve been making fun of me for being single for ages now :(“

“we already did this fake dating thing before and it went perfectly fine”

“just play along for a month or so”

“pls”

You audibly sighed. And as if he could hear you, he started typing again.

“i’ll promote you on my channel more”

“just pls do it”

“you love me, right”

Another sigh fell from your lips before you could stop it. Of course you did, because if you didn’t, there’s no way you would be playing into this. You typed back.

“fine”

He messaged back immediately.

“THANK YOU”

“LOVE YOU <333”

With a shake of your head, you mumbled “idiot” with the ghost of a smile flashing on your face, switching back to your video, opting to ignore Sapnap for a little bit. He could wait.

Fake dating seemed pretty damn easy during the first week - you thought you were killing it by sending corny tweets and staged selfies so he could screenshot them and send them to the groupchat, giggling on call about how oblivious they are and how you’re fooling them so good, both of you opting to ignore the parts where they claimed they knew the two of you were gonna get together eventually. It was fun, lighthearted, and an excuse to flirt with someone you had nothing official with.

As much as all your problems came and went with Clay, though, they came and went with his friends as well, especially that hopeless man Clay called his best friend.

Because yeah, of course Sapnap was the one to accidentally spill to the public that the two of you were “dating”.

George was streaming at what was apparently a normal time in the UK, not so much for Florida, and Clay was sleeping while you were watching his stream while making some food for yourself. It was going fine, a bit of a chill stream, and you leaned against the fridge as your oven preheated, tired eyes following his Minecraft skin.

“Sophie, thank you for the dono! ‘Hey George, I love your videos, just wanted to ask if you were speedrunning with Dream today?’” he read out, and you could faintly hear Sapnap join the stream through your headphones.

“No I’m not, Dream’s… I don’t know what Dream’s doing right now, actually. He’s not responding to me, though. Probably talking to his girlfriend still.” he continued, exaggerating the last part mockingly, still playing into the whiny role of being upset that Clay was ditching the two of them for you. That majorly woke you up, though, as you stood straight on your feet immediately, because oh no, nobody was supposed to know.

You exited out of the Twitch app quickly, letting the stream play in the background as you tried to fish for Sapnap’s profile on Discord and text him as quick as possible, trying to warn him to not let anybody know, but before you could do it, you heard his laughter clear in the stream.

“Yeah, Y/N, his sweetie poo.” Sapnap said, causing George to laugh even louder, before moving onto the next topic, and your heartbeat picked up an insane amount, nails loud and probably damaging your phone screen as you typed as quickly as humanly possible to yell at him because this was not planned, at all.

You heard him go quiet after you shot him a couple of messages over Discord (“SAPNAP” “ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID” “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU” “NOBODY KNOWS YET” “IM GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU”), type something to George who then fell quiet as well for a few seconds, pure horror on his face, and then went back to streaming as if nothing happened while Sapnap profusely apologised to you on his and George’s behalf.

No apology could fix what had already been done, though, and you were left alone with the warzone that was Twitter who had already speculated the two of you were dating long before while Clay peacefully slept somewhere in his house at 4 am in Florida. You bombarded him with messages and waited until he woke up ‘cause what were you even supposed to do?!

You chose to spend your time finishing the pizza you were originally supposed to make and almost burnt your whole apartment down because you forgot the oven was on for a whole hour while yelling at Clay’s idiotic best friends. You yelled at Sapnap, who kept apologising to you, you yelled at George, who yelled back that it’s not that big of a deal because people were bound to find out anyways, and you yelled at Clay, because he was the guilty one somehow for not being awake during your breakdown.

He did eventually wake up though, to the shitshow that were his notifications with at least thirty messages from each of you, messages from his other YouTube friends who were fairly surprised, and his entire fanbase going ham on Twitter. He was surprisingly calm about it - calmer than you were, anyways, and sheepishly said over the phone that the fake dating thing may have to go on for a little longer since you couldn’t just date for a month and then break up, and you were sort of okay with that.

And of course, the business side of him awoke at that moment, and he giddily told you about the amount of views the two of you could pull if you did the same shit you do with George and Sapnap anyway, but on livestream.

You rolled your eyes.

And then agreed anyway.

And so, the charade began.

His Twitter statement was up shortly, telling the people that you’d been dating for a couple of weeks and weren’t planning to tell anybody yet until a certain someone spilled their guts live, and the fact Dream was dating someone, let alone another popular streamer, took the internet by storm. You expected hate, and you got quite a bit of that, but the people that had shipped the two of you before were certainly more than delighted and a lot of Clay’s fans were supportive.

Now, both of you had excuses to do chill streams together and just hang out and you took the opportunity and ran with it.

You’d sit and play Geoguessr or just try and speedrun Minecraft a bunch of times for hours on end, doing stupid bits and things you’d be doing offline anyways, with a little more flirting than usual, because that’s what made it interesting.

“Oh this is France, for sure.” you claimed one night, two or three weeks after the secret was officially out, chewing on the fries you bought for this specific occasion, streaming on his alt to a few thousand people.

“You think so? It could be Belgium, too.” he responded, humming in thought as he looked around.

“I know so.” you responded.

“How?”

“I just do. Gamer intuition, babe.” you said, and he wheezed at your response, repeating the words gamer intuition under his breath.

“No, seriously. It is France, I know it is, I’ve seen so many pictures of that place I know it like the back of my hand now. That’s Lyon, or something.” you continued, plopping another french fry into your mouth.

“You have? Why do you know so much about France, that’s so random.” he responded, opening the map and pointing to France, although he keeps looking around, unsure of his decision.

“I dunno, I like it there. I wish I could move there.” you replied.

“Why, though?”

“It’s pretty and heavily romanticised! Just like me!” you joked and he laughed, before letting you continue. “I dunno, it’s the city of love. Be a little romantic.”

“The… the city of love is whatever city the two of us are in.” he said, and it took a few seconds for you to process the joke before letting out a fake disappointed sigh.

“I can’t believe I’m dating someone as corny as you.”

At that, he bursts into wheezes, and you follow along, enjoying the sound of his laughter coursing through your headphones more than you used to a few weeks back. It feels nice, feels right, acting like this. You like calling him your boyfriend more than you think you should.

A few weeks go by, and it feels all too natural. It feels too natural, talking to him first thing in the morning when you’ve barely even had your coffee, calling him pet names, throwing sweet words at each other publicly like they mean nothing. It feels all too natural, and nice, and all too right, and you don’t even notice when the two of you cross the line between public and private, and you’re stuck making stupid jokes about making out when you first see each other when there’s nobody to witness them except the walls of your rooms, but you don’t like thinking about that, because you know it’ll bring nothing but confusion. The current this that the two of you have is perfect to you, perfectly lighthearted and funny and fun, and you intend on keeping it that way, refusing to think about it in any way past jokes.

That is, until you can’t anymore.

It’s late, again, and you’re staring at his contact name on your phone screen, lazily lying on the bed. It reminds you of a night from roughly 3 months ago, when your whole friendship seemed to change in the few seconds it took you to process what he’d asked of you, and it feels weird, but nice.

“My mom really likes you, you know?” Clay breaks the quiet that you’ve learned to appreciate in his presence, and you exhale through your nose, the noise just short of a chuckle.

“Yeah?” You laugh, and he does as well.

“Yeah.” He reaffirms. “She thinks you’re a great girlfriend. Apparently I seem brighter ever since we got together.”

You laugh again. “I am a great girlfriend, to be fair. She’s totally right.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know that. If you’re as good of a girlfriend as you pretend to be, though, then you’re amazing.” He says, and words fly out of your mouth before you can stop them.

“Yeah? You wanna find out?” The flirty nature is nothing strange to the two of you, but this time it feels kinda different, it feels like you’re stepping into dangerous territory that there’s no coming back from. You feel like you’ve ruined everything, for some reason.

He laughs, like normal, though. He laughs like nothing happened at all, and you’re so, so grateful for that.

“Sure, let’s do it. You’re about to unpack the full Clay boyfriend experience.” He snickers and you laugh as well.

“That means I just unlock the dick as well as the personality.” you respond, quick as always, and the wheeze that escapes him is so loud that it makes you laugh too.

“...Unlock the dick…” he repeats through another wheeze and you nod, laughing.

“Yeah! I mean I’m literally experiencing the boyfriend experience without actually having a boyfriend, it’s fuckin’ great.” you say and he hums.

“You could have one, though.”

The implications are crazy, his words are crazy, he’s crazy and everything that he could mean and couldn’t mean by that is driving you crazy too, brain faltering and heart seeming way too big for your chest to contain it. It’s silent.

“I could, I guess.”

You choose to say, and he switches the topic naturally, like he never said anything.

Things are never the same again.

It’s not in a bad way. Sure, it is kind of a bad way for the feelings you’re trying to push down inside you, a bad way for hot nights when the unbearable heat forces you to stay up even when you don’t want to and you have no choice but to think about why you feel the way you feel as you melt into the burning sheets below you, a bad way for when he jokes about finding somebody else and you feel your stomach churning. A bad way for realising that this fake dating thing is really getting to you, but not a bad way in general.

Maybe it’s in a good way. Maybe the underlying implications whenever he makes jokes about making the relationship real are good, maybe the way he calls you in the middle of the night when he’s anxious and freaking out and defends himself by saying: “You’re my girlfriend, you’re always there for me, I just figured I could call you.” and you end up wondering if it’s possible to say jokes in such a vulnerable state or if he’s serious is good, maybe the way it’s been a few months and he won’t tell his own best friends that it was a joke the whole time is good, maybe the way you confronted him about it and he said he likes having you as his girlfriend is good.

Maybe the way the two of you are always walking the line between joking and being serious, between being friends and something more, between lies and pranks and emotional investment and fear of committing, and the way you’re always trying to push the other off, is good.

The fans love it. The fanart is incredible (serves especially well for those hot nights when you can’t fall asleep and you scroll, watching yourself fall in love with Clay in every universe, tales told by people who observe your story and find it worthy enough to retell in their own words, to take the love you pretend to have and turn it into something real), people love to gush over the compliments he sprinkles in at random times during conversation and the general flirty dynamic is loved by many, pulling in more views and attraction for you.

And you suppose that’s good too, but at some point, the good warps into bad, bad warps into terrible, and you wonder if this is all even worth the sleepless nights, wondering if he feels the same way.

Those thoughts haunt you more and more often every day. When you wake up, and text him first thing in the morning, your brain acknowledges that the camera is off - nobody’s around, people aren’t listening, so why are you still playing the role of a girlfriend and starting up a conversation with him when you haven’t even brushed your teeth properly? When you’re editing in the middle of the day and he calls to keep you company, making more stupid boyfriend jokes, your stomach flips in a weird way that makes you hate him, hate the way he can joke about these things so freely, like it doesn’t hurt him. Like it doesn’t affect him like it affects you.

But, as much as you wish you could hate him, you couldn’t bring yourself to, and that was the worst part. Because, in reality, whenever he laughed you’d smile without realising you did, whenever anything exciting happened to you he was the first one you went to, whenever you wanted to laugh or cry or sit in silence for hours or complain you always went to him, the one person who you know would listen. In reality, whenever he made a joke about giving up on the fake dating and making it real, you wished so bad that he was serious this time, that this was what it took and he’d crack and all of your suffering would end.

It eventually happens.

It’s a pretty chilly morning, birds chirp outside and the sun that slowly rises is covering the kitchen floor in a golden hue as you pour milk into your cereal with one hand and hold your phone in the other, letting Clay ramble about whatever it was this time, when he brought it up.

“So, when do you wanna come down to Florida again?” he asks casually, and you almost drop the gallon of milk in your hand.

“What?”

“I said, when are you coming down to Florida again? Last time you came was pretty fun.” he says, and an empty silence follows. There’s an unsaid “I miss you” that you don’t hear, and he’s too afraid of saying it.

“Florida wasn’t exactly on my schedule this month, man.” you say, placing your phone on the counter for a second. Clay sure knew how to surprise a person.

“Well put it down, then.” he jokes, and you hum.

“What, you got another wedding coming up?” you giggle and he groans - you never really stopped making fun of him for that wedding.

“No, I don’t. Can’t a man just miss seeing his beloved girlfriend?” It’s unbelievable how quickly dread can wash over you as soon as he makes one of those jokes. You were convinced the mix of anxiety and butterflies that appears in your stomach was gonna kill you sometime soon.

“He can, he’s just being weirdly insistent.” you argue nonetheless. “But sure, I’ll consider it.”

You do more than consider it - in a few weeks, you’re back at the airport, and falling into his arms has never given you such an adrenaline rush in your whole life. Something about having him wrapped around you, close to you, the warmth of his body radiating into yours sent you spiraling, head clouded with nothing but love and the fact that you wish you could stay there forever. You wished you could press pause and cherish the moment, let yourself bask in that feeling of pure love, pure adoration that you helplessly drowned in. But you couldn’t, and you left his arms feeling oddly empty.

Hiding the fact that you were unapologetically head over heels for him proved to be a hundred times more difficult when you were right there, next to him, talking to him, when you could just kiss him any second, feel his lips on yours and nobody would stop you - the opportunity was right there, looming over you, the devil on your shoulder taunting you, telling you to do it.

You got to wake up in the same house as him, watch his hair stick out in different directions and his raspy morning voice as he complained about the smell of your coffee, watch his eyes glint whenever he talked about something he liked and observe as he carried around Patches like a little baby. You got to experience every bit of domestic without the consequences of committing, and you wondered just how far this would go. For how much longer would the two of you blatantly ignore the fact that you were a couple that slapped the title “fake” on it because you were cowards who refused to admit what this truly was.

Not for long, apparently, because you grew tired, and decided to put an end to everything on one random Thursday night - and if he hated you forever for it, then so be it.

You were sitting on his couch, watching a random movie together, drowning in one of his Dream hoodies while you chewed the popcorn he made. It was dark outside, just past midnight, and you could see the branches of a tree swaying calmly through one of the nearby windows - the silence while he scrolled through his phone lazily was comforting too, everything was lazy and serene and it would’ve been perfect if it wasn’t for the constant anxiety that gripped you by the throat whenever you were in his close proximity, the nervousness that killed you, the upset feeling of wanting to cuddle up with him but knowing you can’t because you guys are just friends, and nothing more.

The couple on the screen kiss while a violin plays in the background - how fitting. Maybe that’s what pushes you to the edge, or maybe you were just that sick and tired.

You were exhausted, beyond exhausted. Your eyes were tired, the anxiety was morphing into annoyance and anger and you were ready to give up on it all. If this ended the friendship, at least you two had a good run. Your heart couldn’t take it anymore.

“You know, you still owe me a favor in return for pretending to be your girlfriend.” you say, and you sound gone, zoned out, more than you wish you were. You hear his phone turn off with a click.

“Yeah? What do you want?” Clay asks, and you blankly stare at the TV for a few seconds before turning to face him, eyes burning.

“Kiss me.”

It’s silent. The characters on screen are arguing. You hear the wind through one of his open windows.

“What?” he asks, voice cracking, and his expression falls. You’ve fucked it. Oh well.

“I want you to kiss me. Kiss me like you mean it. Kiss me like someone’s watching and you wanna make it believable.” you say, eyes boring into his, your words having nowhere near as much of an effect on yourself as they do on him. Your eyes sting like they’re being lit on fire, and your throat is sort of closing up, but it’s fine. “Let me have this before I go, because once I leave, I don’t wanna do this anymore, Clay. I can’t pretend like I don’t want you to introduce me as your girlfriend and fully mean it. I can’t lie to your face anymore.”

Silence. Deafening silence, once again.

“I love you.” he blurts out, and you don’t even register it at first. “I don’t want this shit to be fake either. God, I really don’t. It hasn’t been fake for a while now, at least not on my part. I’m sorry, it’s just- it was easier to keep this bit going than it was to actually admit that I’m… into you.”

And once again, the room falls into silence, much like it always does whenever the two of you share moments like these.

And then, you burst into laughter.

“So… so you mean to tell me, that both of us have liked each other this whooooole fucking time, and just refused to admit it and ‘pretended to date’ instead?” you burst into giggles, and he looks sort of hesitant to laugh, but he does anyway.

“I mean… yeah? I was waiting for you to call me out for doing all that when nobody was watching! Why did you never call me out?! Don’t blame me, I made it so damn obvious that I wanted you!” he protests, and you almost can’t believe what you’re hearing.

“Excuse me? You should’ve just fucking told me instead of making a million and one jokes about how I��m your girlfriend! We’re not in middle school, Clay!” you argue.

“Yeah, but I thought you’d catch on and talk to me about it at some point! You never called me out for anything!”

“So what, I’m supposed to just read your mind now? You’re fucking unbelievable.” you huff, crossing your arms over your chest and turning away in annoyance. As soon as a warm hand lands on your shoulder, though, the annoyance melts like wax under fire, leaving nothing behind.

“I still haven’t returned that favor, you know?” he whispers in your ear, breath fanning your neck, closer than he should be. The hairs on your neck stand up as you turn back to Clay, who wore a mischievous grin and a glint in his eyes that suggested no good.

You suppose bad can be good, sometimes.

As his lips press onto yours, that theory is proven true, because he sends a flicker of fire burning down your spine, spreading into your limbs, making your fingertips electric as you pulled him in closer, hand snaking up to grip at his hair - the everlasting grin against your own proves, once again, to be no good as his hands slip under your hoodie and grip your sides, but you think you enjoy this sort of bad.

They sneak up further, and you hear him chuckle into the kiss as your insides melt at his touch. The two of you silently agree that maybe he should ask for favors more often.

#dreamwastaken x reader #dreamwastaken imagine #dreamwastaken fluff #dreamwastaken fanfic #dreamwastaken angst #dream x reader #dream x you #dreamwastaken x y/n

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navybrat817 · 4 years ago

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Not Your Forever - Chapter 9

Relationships: Steve Rogers/Reader, Clark Kent/Reader Word Count: Over 2k Summary: Steve Rogers made a choice…and it wasn’t you. Chapter Summary: You learn the truth about what happened to Steve. Chapter Warnings: Angst, flashbacks, a bit of creepy, slightly unhinged Steve, minor violence. A/N: Thank you for your patience on this! After losing most of my file and having to redo and my son getting sick, the struggle on this was real. Once again, I don’t have all the answers in this one, but I hope you enjoy! Please don’t hate me!!! Divider by @firefly-graphics

18+ Please!!! Please comment, like and reblog if you desire. Enjoy, lovelies!

Steve didn’t look at you and you didn’t pressure him for an answer. You pushed enough to begin with and you were lucky he hadn’t just left you there. Would the answers give you a way out or more heartache? How much more would you endure before the nightmare ended?

“You don’t think the Avengers are helping me of their own accord?” Steve asked.

“No, I don’t. Maybe they did in the beginning or the night of the gala, but they certainly aren’t now.”

“I told you I have my own kryptonite. I picked up some other things along my journey,” he said quietly, pulling away from you to stand. He seemed restless now. “They would have eventually figured out that I wasn’t your Steve, so I needed to persuade them. They won’t question anything. They’ll follow my orders. Before we go home, I’ll release them all from it. Back to normal, like I promised. You have my word.”

You were horrified. “You...persuaded them? You’re controlling them?!”

“It’s a temporary fix,” he whispered. “To a permanent problem! You’re messing with their minds. Our world. Our timelines. Have you thought of any of the consequences of what you’re doing?"

“Have you thought that this was how it was supposed to happen? That I was meant to come here?”

“If you were actually meant to be here, why three years after Steve left? Why didn’t you just come back to the place and time he left and stop me from leaving? From meeting Clark?” you questioned before you sat up more, taking in his posture. The clench in his jaw and tensed shoulders showed that you hit a nerve. “You messed up, didn’t you? Or something went wrong.”

“Your Steve was a fighter.”

Your breath caught in your throat, that dizzy feeling hitting you again. “Was?”

"Yeah… was."

Steve didn't feel an ounce of pity as he saw the shock on his double’s face. What surprised him was the rage he felt. Truthfully, he should have thanked him for leaving his time. If he hadn't gone back to his old flame, nothing would have fallen into place. The second chance would have been lost.

“Who… What are you doing here?”

“Why don’t you leave the questions to me? And maybe we should get out of sight. Don’t need anyone questioning if you suddenly have a twin.”

Your Steve hesitated before he nodded, motioning to follow him. “Let’s go around back. Whatever you have to say, I have a feeling Peggy shouldn’t hear it.”

Glancing at the front porch, he glared through the window. No, he had no reason to be angry at Peggy. She hadn’t done anything wrong. “That’s probably for the best.”

Once the two of them were out of sight, your Steve turned toward him as he set his case down. “What-”

Steve moved quickly, his fist connecting with his jaw before could finish speaking. It was satisfying. “I should kill you,” he said calmly, ducking as his counterpart took a swing back. “Make sure you never come back.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!”

“You had EVERYTHING back there. You had a home, family… you had her,” Steve snarled. “And you left. You fucking left.”

“I had to.”

“You had to? That’s a crock of shit.”

Your Steve fought. Of course, he fought. But he didn’t have the same amount of fight in him. He didn’t carry that same rage.

“Why should you get your happy ending when mine was ripped away from me?” he asked through his teeth, landing another blow. “Why should you get anything?” he snapped, moving behind him and wrapping an arm around his throat

“Don’t you-” he choked out as the arm around his throat tightened.

“Don’t what?” he asked, letting him go after a few seconds and pushing him to the ground. “Don’t do this?” he asked, kicking him hard in the stomach. He kicked him again and again, wanting him to feel the weight and pain of choices. He needed to know that there were consequences. HE was his consequence.

“Don’t hurt her,” the former Captain America coughed once the kicks stopped.

“I won’t hurt her, but you’re going to tell me everything I need to know.”

Recognition crossed your Steve’s face when the scepter was taken out, but he was too slow to react. His eyes glowed an unnatural blue as it touched his chest before it faded.

“Now that I have you full attention,” Steve smirked as he crouched down. Defeat was a good look on him. “You’re going to tell me every intimate detail of your life together. And when you’re done, I have somewhere for you and Peggy to go where no one will ever bother you. It’ll be like you never existed.”

Your Steve didn’t say anything, merely nodding.

“Before we get into that… I have to know. Do you still love her?”

“Yes,” he answered truthfully.

It felt like a hand closed over his heart, squeezing until he couldn’t breathe. Your Steve still loved you? Even after he left? “Then… why did you come here?”

“To live the life I thought I needed, but it isn’t the life I want. I broke her heart and I don’t expect her to forgive me. But if I had the chance to do it again, I’d do it right.”

“You’ll never get that chance. So… start talking.”

A tear rolled down your cheek, quickly wiping it away. Your heart had been ripped out of your chest again? Steve still loved you, even though he went back to Peggy. How were you supposed to process that? “Is he…”

“Dead? No,” Steve promised.

Could you believe him? He went back in time, beat him. Threatened him. What did he do to him? “But… You said ‘was’.”

“I put Steve in… purgatory, so to speak. Peggy’s with him. I didn’t want them to be alone, after all.”

You gave him a quizzical look before it dawned on you. “The Phantom Zone,” you whispered. You hadn’t been there yourself, but you knew all about it. A place outside of the normal space and time continuum, it was a barren wasteland. An empty prison that could make the sanest of people go mad. “They… They’ve been there this whole time? All those years?”

“And they aren’t getting out. His punishment for abandoning everything he used to believe in.”

You couldn’t imagine being trapped there. It would rip your mind apart. Would they even know themselves if they got out? “You can’t keep them there.”

“No one has released them so far.”

If no one released them, maybe someone else knew what was going on. If so, why keep them there? You had to find a way to free them once you got free yourself. “Is that what messed up the timeline?”

Steve turned to glare at you. “I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” you asked as he went to the opposite wall.

He pressed a few buttons, both of you watching as the wall opened. “You’re stalling. And you think if I keep giving you more information that you’ll find a way to fix what I’ve done.”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” you lied. “You promised you’d give me answers if I asked questions.”

“You’re a terrible liar. I admitted that he still loved you. Isn’t that enough?” he asked, reaching for something out of your line of sight. “Why tell me then?” you asked as he turned back toward you. The glow in his hands made your eyes go wide.

“You see this? Do you see the extent of what I had to do to get to you?” he asked, his voice cracking. His eyes shined with unshed tears as you moved back. “I said I didn’t want to use this on you or Bucky.”

“And you won’t use that on me,” you said, your tone more confident than how you felt.

“How do you know that?” he asked as he took a step forward.

“Because you want me to love you. Really love you. If you use that… you’ll know in your heart that it isn’t right.”

You watched his grip tighten on the scepter, hoping your words would get him to see reason. You held your breath as he put it back and shut the wall. You wouldn’t be able to get to it with him still in the room.

“I won’t use it,” he said in a low voice.

“Thank you, Steve,” you breathed. There were too many terrifying possibilities if he used it. He could force you to hurt Clark. Or-

“On one condition.”

“What condition?” you asked timidly, trying not to let fear show in your eyes.

“Kiss me.”

You flinched, the quiet words repeating over and over in your mind. “I can’t kiss you,” you replied. You were engaged to a man you loved. You couldn’t do that to him.

“Yes, you can,” he said, holding his hand out for you to join him. “Just a kiss.”

“A kiss is never just a kiss.”

“Let’s test that theory.”

Clark's hand trembled as he ran it through his hair. He didn't know he was capable of shaking, but the thought of you under someone else's control terrified him. “No. He can’t use that on her.”

Bucky looked at him sadly. “Look at everything else he’s done,” he said, nodding to where Alfred was lying. “He’s losing himself. He’s desperate.”

“Is he that desperate?” Clark asked, not wanting to believe it.

“He is. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gone this far. And I know a bit about not being in the right state of mind. He needs help.”

“He needs to be put down,” Jason argued. “This isn’t your war buddy or whatever the hell he was to you. Some things you can’t come back from.”

Bucky stared at Jason with an unimpressed and harsh gaze. “I think you and I might be the last two guys to judge what people can and can’t come back from.”

“Listen, you son of a-”

“Enough,” Bruce ordered. “This isn’t about you. This is about Hope and her safety.”

“Then I’m going,” Clark announced as he stood up. He couldn’t stay there a second longer. “Tell me where you think they are. I can’t wait for a plan.”

“Clark,” Conner shook his head. “We all want her back, but Bucky’s right. We can’t just rush in.”

“And we do what? Sit here while he takes control of her mind? If he’s that far gone, what do you think he’ll make her do?! Especially if she can’t fight back?!”

The implication settled like a heavy weight in the cave. “It won’t come to that,” Bruce spoke after a moment. “We’ll be prepared.”

“How?” Clark asked, looking as desperate as this fake Steve likely felt. He was nearly invincible and he couldn’t even keep you safe.

“I’m calling in the League.”

“I thought we didn’t use the League for personal missions. Because they’re… personal. Too risky,” Dick pointed out.

“She’s our family,” Bruce said, looking into Clark’s eyes. “She’s your family. And-”

WOOOOSHH

“Well, that was fast,” Dick said as Barry stopped at the table.

“Good, good. You’re all still here. This is exactly where you need to be,” Barry said quickly, zipping around the group. He couldn’t stay still.

“Barry, slow down,” Bruce said calmly to get his attention, waiting until he stopped. “What do you know?”

The Flash took a deep breath, a nervous look on his face as everyone waited for him to talk. “I know you’re planning to attack, Clark. But you can’t. You have to let him come to you.”

“So, you know that-”

“That Steve isn’t the real Steve? Yeah. I mean, well. He’s a real Steve, but not the Steve that belongs here.”

“Focus,” Bruce growled in his Batman voice.

“Right! Right, focus. Sorry. You have to stay here, Clark.”

“Why would I do that?”

Barry’s expression shifted from nervous to pained. “Because if you try to attack now… She’ll die.”

“No,” Clark whispered, shaking his head. “No. She can’t-”

“I saw it, Clark. I promise if you strike first, she’ll die. And I know because… you’re the one who kills her.”

#navybrat writes #steve rogers x reader #clark kent x reader #steve rogers x you #clark kent x you #steve rogers x y/n #clark kent x y/n #steve rogers fanfiction #clark kent fanfiction #endgame au #marvel dc crossover #marvel dc au #steve rogers angst #dark!steve rogers #tagging dark to be safe

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our-happygirl500-fan · 3 years ago

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You know the whole Baterang to the throat thing that causes a lot of discussion in the fandom? I think Bruce might not have been aiming for the throat

It ricochets

This point in comics Bruce has been through a ringer Steph's died, Barbara and Jim have left, Leslie betrayed him and he's had to send Cass and Tim away and now Jason is back but for revenge so Bruce isn’t at his best and I think Bruce threw the Baterang in a moment of panic and either over or undershot which ended up with well that.

This moment causes a lot of debate but I don't see it as “Bruce harming Jason to save the joker” the way a lot of fics paint it I see it more as he'd been aiming for Jason's arm or something to disarm him but overshot and it’s kind of like a symbolism of their relationship.

Which is basically Bruce takes an action to stop Jason from going down a path that he thinks will end up hurting Jason, but ends up hurting Jason in the long-run.

Like when he discussed taking away robin from Jason (because he thought Jason needed time to deal with issues that were becoming more prevalent) which only ended up making Jason feel insecure about his position in the Wayne household, contributing to why he so desperately pursued a stable parental relationship in his biological mother.

Bruce knows that if he gives in and kills the Joker he'll never stop killing we've seen timelines that prove that and I think Bruce also thinks the same of Jason that if Jason kills the Joker he won't stop at all so it’s not that he’s saving the Joker but that he’s trying to save Jason but Bruce ultimately misunderstands Jason’s needs and winds up hurting him.

Bruce is trying to save Jason from what he sees as a downwards spiral, but he ends up hurting him not just emotionally, but physically, and in the most extreme way possible. It's like an even darker echo of how trying to bench him as Robin led to his death.

Bruce has spent YEARS haunted by the memory of Jason’s death his death fundamentally changed Bruce's entire character Alfred said that Jason's death affected Bruce more than his own parents death.

In Underworld Unleashed it's revealed that his greatest desire is to have Jason back, in Hush he talks about how he wanted to put Jason in the Lazarus Pit and how he believes Jason knew he always loved him, and in As The Crow Flies we learn that his greatest fear is Jason coming back as an enemy and then in Under the Red Hood he gets Jason back (his greatest desire) but as an antagonist (his greatest fear) and moreover his belief that Jason 'knew' he loved him is WRONG.

Jason's insecurities from before his death combined with the perceived betrayal of Bruce not avenging him have led Jason to the point where he genuinely believes Bruce doesn't care, and in Jason's eyes, killing the joker is the only way Bruce can prove that he does but instead, in that moment, Bruce's attempt to diffuse the situation backfires.

Bruce misunderstands what Jason needs in that moment like he misunderstood what Jason needed at the start of Death in the Family it's just the ultimate representation of their constant emotional feedback loop. They trap themselves in a cycle of fighting because Jason can't read how Bruce really feels and Bruce can't read what Jason really needs and in that moment both those things are true, with Jason not seeing that Bruce truly cares anymore, and Bruce not knowing how to properly deescalate the situation and show Jason that he still cares.

It's extremely easy to read the batatrang throw as purposeful even though I wholly believe it was accidental but if that moment was explored more, I'm positive that Jason would believe it wasn't an accident, and would view it as proof of his already held view that Bruce doesn't love him anymore after all, that could have killed him, symbolically disowning him in the most extreme way possible.

Heck in Jason's appearance in Green Arrow (2001) Bruce had thought Jason might have died again! Before Jason turned up to mess with Mia.

The thing that's tragic about Jason that actually leads to a lot of his own suffering is that Jason doesn't really know what a healthy relationship looks like so I'm not sure when his actual 'last straw' would be.

Jason is the kind of person who sees love and acceptance as entirely circumstantial. He believes he must /earn/ love and acceptance, i.e. by being Robin, rather than it being inherently given.

A huge piece of understanding Robin Jason is understanding how much he lacked proper support systems back then. School was his only connection to his kids his age, and he didn't benefit much from that connection, his life was essentially: manor, school, Robin, repeat.

Jason loved school, but his school life was also pretty depressing. Jason kept to himself, he didn't have the time to participate in extracurriculars even when he wanted to and his peers didn't view him very positively. Jason was also really isolated from the rest of the hero community, there was his stint with the Titans, but it was pretty brief. He was also penpals with Kid Devil, but for the most part, he just had Batman.

The lack of support is actually one of the reasons I give for Jason and Steph dying in universe since they were the two Robins without support systems outside of Gotham. When Bruce was a jerk Dick and Tim could be like 'fine I'm going to go hang out with the Teen Titans or Young Justice' but Jason and Steph could only be like 'oh no' plus Bruce would deliberately try to take away Steph's support systems that she did have multiple times like when he ordered Cass to stop training with Steph.

But that's besides the point, I wouldn't be surprised if Jason confused being Robin with being accepted in the manor so when Bruce threatened to take away Robin from him, he might've seen it as his only proper support system being taken away from him, his world felt rocked back into instability once again.

When you look at it like that, it's very easy to understand why Jason sought out his biological mother. He had a hope that Sheila would offer him that stability once more, and that he'd get support and trust and unconditional love.

And that’s what make it all the more heartbreaking to me he came to this woman seeking love and gave her his greatest secret and she repaid him with a horrific death. Jason’s death is one of the saddest to me because there’s no high stakes 'he died saving the world stuff' he’s just a kid who wanted a mom and got killed for it.

DC’s habit of taking away who he was is so detrimental to his backstory as the Red Hood because the transformation from someone who tried being kind and who did give it their all being killed for it and coming back like ‘no more’ is so much more interesting than ‘we always knew this would happen’.

Robin disobeying orders is nothing new. If that was the core of why Jason died, then any Robin disobeying orders should never be put in a positive light, but often it is. Jason (and Steph) were just the ones unlucky enough to emerge dead and judged for it instead of alive and praised for it.

Jason died because he was a child who just wanted to be safe and loved.

So many times Robin disobeying orders saved lives it’s nothing new and Jason had a pretty solid reason, the story of Jason Todd should be portrayed as the tragedy not make him some warning sign.

This is why I always hated the victim blaming after Jason & Steph's deaths because they died doing what if it had been Tim or Dick a Robin would be praised for, like take Steph for example we've seen constant stories of Bruce firing Robin, them going off on their own & Bruce realising he's wrong & taking them back but when Steph goes off on her own she dies the only reason Jason & Steph died is that the writers forced them to fail where they would have allowed the others to succeed.

But anyway back to my point the thing about Jason feeling like he had to earn love is why he was initially so hung up on the idea of Bruce 'replacing' him when he came back to life, he viewed Tim being robin as Bruce /transferring/ his love for Jason to another person, rather than seeing that Bruce could love Tim while still loving and missing him.

The reason Jason sought out his mother after Bruce benched him as Robin was that he viewed Bruce benching him as Bruce rejecting him and latched onto the idea of finding someone, i.e. a birth mother, who is supposed to give /unconditional love/.

The fact that his birth mother REJECTED HIM and then played a hand in his murder undoubtedly affected his attitude when he came back, if even his mother didn't want him, and then Bruce let the joker live and replaced him, then, in Jason's eyes, OF COURSE Bruce doesn't care and as mentioned previously Jason didn't really have any friends in school or the hero community, believing that the only real close personal connection in your live, someone you spent all your time with, had forgotten about you and rejected you is bound to mess a person up.

#DC comics #jason todd #bruce wayne #stephanie brown #dc

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lokiitty · 3 years ago

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https://screenrant.com/loki-show-sylvie-romance-incest-backlash-director-response/ Okay but this is super weird because... For a start she pretty much says the fans interpretation of it as incest isn’t invalid and for a second her own interpretation of it doesn’t really explain why its not incest in her eyes and furthermore it contradicts a lot. We’re told countless times that Loki and Sylvie are “”the same.”” Shes literally a variant of him. I would have been content to NOT see it as incest if they hadn’t made sure to let us know (in easter egg form) that Sylive and Loki share like a genetic origin. She doesn’t come from some way out alternate universe where everything is different. She comes from a sister universe where Loki was born female. She has the same parents as Loki and if her timeline wasn’t pruned she would have the same family.

The only other thing that makes her “different” from Loki is obviously the fact that her upbringing was different after the TVA orphaned her and she had to raise herself. That doesn’t change her origins. She can’t just rename herself and suddenly shes not Loki anymore and changing her first name doesn’t change the fact that she still has the same parents as Loki. Like Id love to see this as not incest too but when you put them both down on paper as the children of Laufey its hard to ignore. Like if her family didn’t get pruned imagine this: Frigga your son is in a relationship with your daughter. Thor your brother is in a relationship with your sister. Lauefy your biological daughter is in a relationship with your biological son. ?????? But this is suppose to be ignored because they’re from a different universe even when the universes only real difference is one is male and the other is female???? There is no obviously drastic difference that indicates a different origin like what is the case with Alligator Loki and maybe even boastful Loki. I mean you could at least argue boastful Loki might have had different parents to Main!Loki or at least ONE different parent. Alligator Loki is a no brainer because hes a completely different species. On top of ALL THIS we were told multiple times in canon that Loki and Sylvie’s relationship was wrong. Sick. Twisted. Demented. Unnatural. Ect. This obviously comes from the characters recognising that Sylvie and Loki are in fact too closely related to be trying to hook up. Though they’re variants of the same person they’re also basically boy-girl twins.

Having different personalities and different goals and upbringings does absolutely nothing to change that. Me and my brother have different personalities, goals and even upbringings in places because he lived with my mum for a portion of his life and I didn’t. But guess what?? We’re still siblings LMAO. Like I’m sorry her explanation is UTTERLY BIZZARE & makes NO SENSE. Get me wrong I don’t think Loki & Sylvie's “”romance”” is sustainable. I wouldn’t think it was even if it was written better. I don’t see it lasting and in fact I kind of think its already ended. But this is still so weird. And the way the canon handled this ““romance”“ was so forced and half hearted.

I seriously cannot get my head around why it was ever there. Like I thought maybe it was another part of the writing team trying to indicate to us that it was wrong but with Kate saying this now I’m just ???? Also don’t like to think Loki would just casually engage in incest / any cest period and before anyone sprouts shit about the Horse Story A) Did not happen in the MCU and B) the whole horse story is born of a specific sort of homo/transphobia that existed in ancient Nordic culture, do some research. But like ??? if they could give me a SOLID understandable reason for why its not BASCIALLY incest I’d eat it up bc IF I HAVE TO HAVE SYLKI as canon ID REALLY love for it to at least not be Incest. Then maybe I could be “”okay”” with it. Id still have my problems with it because theres just a LOT of awkwardness even outside of the too-close-to-siblings for comfort, but it wouldn’t be a completely untouchable relationship. You could imagine it being OKAY if it was written better and not seemingly used to censor Lokis queerness but.

Like really the least they could have done was been like “Sylvie had totally different parents”. Its an AU. Sylvie's parents could have been anyone. Any frost giants could have stood in Lafuey’s place. If its a different universe the royal Jotun family could have been totally different. But no, no one wanted to use their brains for ten seconds and just rushed together this cringe m/f presenting romance with no deeper thought because yawn. Obviously Frost Giant Laufey doesn't have to be your father for a Loki to be a Loki (again see Alligator Loki ) And thats another reason why I’m pissed with this whole series. Because its just sloppy with little thought for anything. Now those of us who arent painfully straight and arent 2012 era fangirls who are just seeing Sylvie as a self-insertion vessel to vicariously live out their wishful fantasies of having Loki fall hopelessly in love with them, have to sit here and bang our heads on the wall bc none of it makes sense and its tragic for both characters and Loki’s actual fanbase. Just.

#loki series #loki fandom #loki show #loki laufeyson #sylvie laufeydottir #anti sylki #loki series discourse #antisylki #can i get an f in the chat FOR EVERYONE

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anika-ann · 4 years ago

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Attached: Word Is that We Might Work It Out

Type: Modern-college-professor AU - part of Attached series

Pairing: professor!Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 6850🙈

Summary: You said yes to Professor Rogers – Steve – taking you out for ‘coffee’. Ball’s in your court – and you decide to make your move.

A date, maybe first of many, maybe not. A date with the gorgeous professor who happened to read your erotica about him. What could possibly go wrong?

Warnings: alcohol consumption, professor-student relationship and unspecified age gap, language, lots of fluff

A/N: Timeline-wise, this one-shot fits in after chapter four of Attached!!! At the end, you can find the reason behind me writing this. You can consider it one big flashback, if you will 😅 Gif by capchrisevaans.

Series masterlist | previous in timeline

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You lasted one day. One full day since the encounter in the office, since Professor Rogers admitted he would like to take you out for coffee or something similar. Since you two exchanged numbers.

It took you twenty-four hours – maybe less – to decide that so what if that might be a bad idea. It was not against the university rules and Professor Steve Rogers was a fucking specimen who also seemed to be a genuinely nice human being and if you allowed yourself to play chicken just because something only might go wrong in the future, you’d be an idiot.

Penny, your roomie, wholeheartedly agreed. She actually punched the air in victory as you were nursing a greasy lunch due to the wild-ish celebration of the end of the semester together the night prior and you just said to the void: “You know what, screw it. I’m gonna go for it.”

You didn’t even have to say what you were talking about – Professor Rogers had been the topic ever since the faithful Monday.

So you texted him that if the offer still stood, you’d like to meet up on Friday evening. Was he free?

Hey, Y/N :) Thank you for reaching out. Friday sounds great. Do you have anything specific in mind?

“Dude. He’s such a cutie. Who even texts like that?” Penny chuckled, a wide grin on her face as you couldn’t but read the text out loud.

“I texted him like that.”

“Touché. Because you want to impress mister ‘hot as fuck intellectual’ there.”

You just rolled your eyes, neither confirming nor denying. Mostly because Penny was right. But he was the first to use an emoji and… yeah, cutie indeed.

Well, I never say no to dinner and I’m down for almost anything-

“I bet you are,” Penny hummed to your ear and you swung after her blindly and thought of a better phrasing.

Well, I never say no to a dinner and I’m not picky. You choose. Seven-ish sounds good?

“Spoilsport.”

“Stop reading over my shoulder!” you chuckled and bit your lip as the answer came almost immediately.

Seven is alright. I’ll think of something to treat a girl right ;)

Your stomach made a small somersault, your face instantly radiating heat at the possible innuendo. The phone vibrated again before you could fully process the image your mind painted of him actually saying it in his gentle timbre.

Just so we’re clear, what is the nature of the dinner? It can be whatever you feel comfortable with.

Your heart leaped into your throat, hammering wildly.

That was the question, wasn’t it? Since you texted him, you made one thing clear with yourself. If you were doing this, it was going to be a date. You wouldn’t be doing things by halves.

Penny next to you made a noise that sounded as something between an aww and her gagging on nothing. “He’s disgustingly considerate for a man his age planning on going out with a girl your age.”

“He’s not that much older,” you protested instantly, frowning. He wasn’t. She knew that; you had both done your research. “And I think it’s amazing.”

You caught Penny’s smile from the corner of your eye as you typed.

“Well, it is kinda sweet. And I know he’s not, I’m messing with you. It’s just-- DON’T SEND HIM THAT!”

“Why?” you questioned, looking at her quizzically and totally clicking on send on purpose at the same time.

I’d be comfortable with a date if you are.

“It’s so lame. Of course he’s comfortable with a date, he suggested it. Duh.”

The reply came way too fast and Penny chuckled behind you as your jaw went slack.

“You know what? Don’t mind me. Good job. Keep it up,” Penny patted your shoulder as you stared at the screen where Professor Steven Grant Rogers just texted you a damn heart.

It’s a date <3

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

It was a date indeed.

Steve texted you an address on Friday morning (along with an adorable good morning :) ), apologizing that he couldn’t pick you up, making sure you’d be alright getting there on your own. You found it absolutely sweet, considerate and smart. You suspected that his ‘inability’ to pick you up had something to do with the fact that you lived at the dorms and if he showed up there, it would be trending in the university chit-chat room within five minutes.

You spent a better part of the Friday afternoon researching the place and the weather forecast so you could dress accordingly and getting ready.

You were not ready for a date with Steve Rogers however; your nerves were a mess and nothing could ever prepare you for when he showed up perfectly on time in front of the restaurant---- wearing a suit no less.

How were you supposed to function when he was wearing such elegant clothing, a suit he filled up so fucking well?! And he looked just as breath-taking as always, stupidly perfect beard and slightly tousled hair you just wanted to run your fingers through and his smile was so gorgeous and--- Jesus Fucking Christ, the suit- how could you even put words together when looking at him-

“Wow, I feel so underdressed now.”

Clearly, you could speak just fine, only you lost your brain-to-mouth filter. Also, your mouth might have started watering and your heart was pounding like crazy. You would not survive tonight.

But, you also had a point. The restaurant was supposed to be a nice place, but relatively plain. And he showed up in amazingly fitting dress pants, white shirt, a tie and a suit jacket. So yes, you did feel underdressed.

“Oh no, no! You’re not,” he rushed to reassure you, eyeing your semi-leisure white dress with burgundy flowers with an attentive gaze that had you shifting your weight nervously. “I’m overdressed if anything. Sticking out like a sore thumb, I’m sorry.”

You could always just strip the suit jacket, was your first thought, but luckily for you, this time you managed to contain the words before they got out to the open.

“You’re fine,” you said instead, not knowing how else to react; needless to say you were grateful for the smile he gave you despite the double meaning.

Yes, he was fine indeed. Always. It was unfair, really.

“Thanks. You too. In fact, you look beautiful.”

Your heart stopped in your chest, your mind suddenly racing a mile per minute.

It was ridiculous. It was just a word. But for one, it was spoken so kindly and genuinely you couldn’t but think he meant it, for two, it was Professor Steve Rogers who told you that and--- beautiful.

You couldn’t remember a guy ever calling you beautiful.

Cute? Sure. Pretty? Maybe. Hot? Might have happened once or twice . But beautiful?

You might actually swoon.

And you were so lost in your head that you couldn’t but silently stare at the lethally handsome man in front of you and then it again registered in your brain that this was your fucking crush speaking to you and he was on a date with you and he had read your erotica, one that was about him no less-

Your face was set aflame in an instant and you… you couldn’t let out a word.

“It everything okay? Did I… did I say something wrong?” Steve asked hesitantly, a concerned wrinkle appearing between his brows and it reminded you of all the times you had seen him wearing such thoughtful expression in the two classes he taught instead of Professor Barnes and-

You were screwed.

Tonight was going to be a disaster.

“No, uhm, no, sorry--- maybe we should go inside or-“ you muttered, lightly gesturing towards the door and could you get any more awkward?

“Yeah, sure, sounds good.”

He let you walk in first like a real gentleman, the lightest skim of his fingers on your lower back, which caused your heartbeat to skyrocket; and only when the hostess seated you, you realized you never accepted his kind compliment.

It was too late for that now, you assumed, so you sipped at the still water which waited at each table, and repeated like a mantra to yourself that you needed to get your shit together otherwise you’d ruin your shot before the night even started.

But clearly, you succeeded at that already.

Whatever awkward aura you had around yourself, it seemed to extend now to him too – he shifted slightly in his seat (he had pulled out your chair for you before, because of course he had), his shoulders stiff. Despite that, he smiled at you over the menu.

“So… all exams worked out? Enjoying the freedom?” he asked casually.

“Oh, yes. Yeah.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” you uttered with a forced smile, your stomach twisted unpleasantly.

For some reason, you felt like you were having a lame attempt at small talk with a professor, which you were, but it wasn’t supposed to be like that.

Not tonight. Not on a date.

What were you even doing here? What were you playing at? Professor Steve Rogers was entirely out of your league, gorgeous, funny, kind and smart and here you were, barely making conversation.

It was pathetic really. It was embarrassing for both of you.

“You up to anything fun?” he queried, the question less enthusiastic than the one before. He was already growing tired of making your uncooperative brain work at least a bit, it was obvious.

Your gulped as the memory of last night popped in your head – staying in, quiet evening, in a mood for some dirty writing--- oh bless, another reminder of why this dinner was and should be really weird.

Steve read your smutty story. The one about him.

“Nothing special,” you squealed silently, earning a plain nod. “Eh, we went out with Penny, my roommate and best friend in one person. But mostly I just stayed in and--- caught up on sleeping.”

“I know what that’s like,” Steve hummed, clearly as grateful as you were when the waiter appeared by your table to take your orders.

Silence stretched as the man left, your hand beginning to fiddle with the neatly folded napkin on the table, lump growing in your throat due to your nerves.

“What about you? Anything… fun?” you asked reluctantly, noticing a brief smile passing Steve’s lips. Pretty, sinfully pretty lips. Perfect. Untouchable for mere mortals like you.

“Oh, not much. Few exam sittings, faculty meetings – we had one now, hence the suit-“

“You came here right from school?” you blurted out, startled – and clearly surprising him with your rudeness. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Yes, I did. We have a meeting every last Friday of the month.”

“Oh my god, you must be so tired,” you sympathized with him quietly, the uneasy feeling in your stomach only growing. He came here straight from work and for this? “Why didn’t you say something? We could have postponed or something.”

Steve swiftly shook his head, his warm hand landing on yours, gently stopping your restless fingers. This time, it was butterflies in your stomach erupting with life, the sweet comforting gesture warming your heart. He wanted to be here. He came here for you. He was interested in you.

And the feeling was mutual. So why was it being so weird then?

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m glad you reached out. I’m glad that you said yes in the first place,” he admitted, features softening despite the tension in his shoulders never leaving. His brows furrowed as he slowly withdrew his hand – it must have been an automatic reaction then. “I’m not that tired and… and maybe I was little worried that if I asked for a different date, then…”

He trailed off and your lips parted in surprise, your heart swelling in your chest at what he was implying.

Did he think you’d back out? Did he think that all the potential obstacles intimidated you too much? That you’d think it wasn’t worth it? That it wouldn’t work out anyway?

Seeing as you were now, you couldn’t blame him. Despite him being the world’s most charming man, here you were, being… not at all yourself, stressing for no reason.

It seemed to you that had had chemistry, back there in his office. This date made sense. When you imagined how this could unfold, well, it went a bit differently too. There was considerably less embarrassment going around.

This was why you preferred writing to speaking. That’s why you liked daydreaming. Because reality was often less than ideal, no script, awkward silences, misunderstandings…

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice barely audible as your food arrived.

You both thanked the waiter politely and you hoped that at least now you’d have a good excuse for the lack of normal conversation.

“What are you sorry for?”

You sighed and nibbled on your lower lip, not missing the way his gaze instinctively flickered there, pupils dilating just a fraction – but enough for you to notice. Your heart skipped a pleased beat – but the undeniable physical attraction couldn’t be enough.

“For this,” you said, gesturing vaguely between the two of you. His features twisted in disappointment and something that looked a lot like regret flashed in his eyes. “I want to be here, Steve. I really do. I don’t know what’s wrong with me-“

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you,” he was quick to oppose and you couldn’t help it as a wry chuckle escaped you.

“Well, there’s certainly nothing wrong with you. And still, there’s this…”

“…tension?”

You wished.

“Sort of? But not the fun kind, for sure.”

He grimaced, but a spark of amusement lit up his blue irises. “Awkward air around us?”

“Yes!” you exclaimed victoriously as he voiced exactly what you were thinking. Then you quickly lowered your voice, looking around. Luckily, no one stared at you. You realized you leaned closer to him over the table, your heart racing at that, but you didn’t withdraw; it was a lovely opportunity to get even a better look at his perfect face. “But I don’t know why!” You knew why. “I like you, Steve-“

“I like you too. And I know I already said that, but you look stunning.”

Your cheeks burned again, but this time, you managed to stutter out a thank you at least. Stunning, Jesus, was he for real?

“T-thank you. You look incredibly handsome too. Then again you always do—why did I say that.”

One corner of his lips quirked up.

“Why thank you, I’m glad you did. The feeling’s mutual, believe me.”

“Then why does this feel like one of the most awkward dates I’ve ever been to?!” you whisper-yelled, causing him to chuckle, the tips of his ears turning red.

His hand once again landed on yours, this time deliberately, the gesture warming you in more than one way.

“Well… I’m nervous. You might be too.” You hummed in agreement. Was that all it was? “But the way you said it, at least it seems to me that it could have been worse, right? More awkward?”

You felt the corners of your lips rise at the remark, shrugging. He had a point there. And he squeezed your hand a bit and good Lord, it should not be making your heart race so much, but he was touching you and he was being really sweet and his fingers were nice and warm and long-

“Tell me.”

You blinked in surprise, realizing you had been staring at your joined hands. You raised your gaze, finding him watching you with a subtle smile.

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me about the most awkward date you have ever been to,” he clarified, his thumb caressing your wrist.

You only hesitated for a beat before you nodded in agreement, god knew why. Perhaps you did need a reminder that this could have gone much more disastrously and it was mostly your traitorous brain telling you that you were messing everything up.

Plus, Steve deserved whatever he wanted – so far, he was the only reason this date wasn’t as disastrous as it could be.

“Okay. You ever been to a speed dating event, Steve? Because I have.”

“Oh, this is ought to be good,” he noted with another squeeze to your hand, before he released you. Shame. He sipped at his wine and dug into his pasta. “I’m all ears.”

This is ought to be good, Steve said. Well, maybe. You certainly hadn’t thought so at the time.

Explaining to Steve that as you had been under duress from no other than Penny, you both went to the event which promised you meeting ten dashing men in only an hour. You’d get five minutes with each, as anonymous as you’d wished to be, receiving a folder with nothing but a table with the first names of the men and a yes and no option and a line for your own notes about them.

You weren’t sure what to think of it – but after three epically failed Tinder attempts, you agreed to try. If nothing else, you’d gain a new experience.

And an experience had it been. You even lasted a month with one of the guys, but you didn’t tell Steve that. It wasn’t important.

André was.

André Whatever-was-his-last-name – because that was how it worked, no last names – definitely believed he was important. With the guys moving around the tables from one woman to another, spending five minutes with each, you could already hear André closing to your station from two tables over.

He was hard to tune out, courtesy of the colour of his voice, extremely unpleasant to your ears, and him never letting the woman he faced talk. Always interrupting. Always turning the conversation around so it would be about him.

Asshole.

You liked to think you weren’t quick to judge people, but André was making you cringe before you were even introduced. And then you actually were.

A minute into his monologue to you, you felt like you were being tortured.

And then the waitress managed to stumble and spill a glass of white wine – partly over your table, but mostly on the floor. At least she caught the glass and you had but a tiny spot on your dress.

“She was apologizing so profusely and I wasn’t thinking, okay. I went for the napkins few tables over to help and— I didn’t realize I put the open folder down for everyone to see,” you explained, feeling like face-palming when you remembered the night.

Steve watched you in anticipation, a small smirk and a knowing look on his face as he guessed you had already circled ‘no’ for André at the time.

Oh, you wished it were that simple. You felt your cheeks burn hot as you continued.

“André read it, of course. Obviously, he already got a hard ‘no’ from me, but… I might have written a tiny note for myself as to why,” you admitted and Steve’s eyebrow rose minutely, his curiosity piqued even more.

You took a deep breath.

“I wasn’t exactly kind to him. It was something along the lines of self-important asshole who probably compensated for something.” Steve huffed in amusement. But oh, if he only knew... you sighed and continued. “And If Draco Malfoy and Gilderoy Lockhart had a love child, this would be him.”

No sound came from your companion this time and your teeth anxiously sank into our lower lip, your pulse wavering. What was Steve thinking? Did he think you had been rude? Mean even? Nerdy? All of the above?

He stared at you for full three seconds, clearly rendered speechless by your harsh judgement.

And then he burst out laughing.

Suffocating weight fell from your shoulders and you silently joined him as you explained yourself.

“I was in my Harry Potter phase! And in my defence, I think it was actually pretty accurate...”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that, sweetheart,” Steve chuckled lightly before laughing some more, irises twinkling with amusement and something… softer.

You shuddered upon hearing the endearment spill unwittingly from his lips, upon seeing the emotion on his face. And maybe you were a little proud of yourself for making him laugh and lose the tension in his shoulders completely.

“It was one of the longest and most awkward three minutes of my life, the silence that followed,” you huffed, massaging your forehead. “He did not appreciate the comparison.”

“I bet,” Steve cackled, taking another bite of his meal, smile playing in the corner of his lips as he swallowed and continued. “But you’ve got to give it to him, he knew his Harry Potter characters.”

“Ha! My thoughts exactly. But that’s a little bit of weak base for dating, I think, especially since I kinda already hated him.”

“Oh, you did? I didn’t catch that,” Steve joked lightly, causing you to smile despite the horrid memory.

And funnily enough, telling him and remembering it… it did make you feel better and more at ease with him.

“Ha ha ha, laugh it up, Professor. Your turn.”

“I’m sorry?” he said, clearly puzzled. It didn’t escape your notice as his voice faltered, his Adam’s apple bobbing at the addressing.

Oh, so that’ s still a thing. You couldn’t but smirk a bit at that.

“An awkward date. You have to share now, it’s only fair,” you shrugged, only for a terrible realization to dawn on you. “Please tell me there is at least one awkward date story, Steve. Tell me this isn’t really your worst date ever.”

He shook his head with a soft chuckle.

“Oh, there’s plenty. I’m just trying to think about one that won’t scare you away from me. I’d hate that.”

One corner of his lips raised, he looked you up and down, lingering on your lips for a bit before meeting your gaze, something you could only hope was fondness and wanton in his eyes. Your breath hitched, heat pooling in your abdomen at the thorough onceover despite the gentle tone of his voice.

Fuck how could he make you feel hot and soft at the same time.

Unable to stand the intensity of his stare, you lowered your gaze and gulped, your stomach making an excited slip. He did want you. You had been being silly, letting your nerves get the better of you.

Clearing your throat, you willed yourself to look up, finding him still watching closely – and perhaps, there was a hint of a red to his cheeks, the tip of his ears burning as if despite the blatant flirting, he was unsure of himself too, because he didn’t want to mess up with you either.

You found it absolutely endearing and your heart swelled. The way you got to see there was more to him than his professor side and his dashing looks… you felt incredibly lucky. The more you got to interact with him, the more it wasn’t just your sinful thoughts belonging to him – he was quickly working on stealing your heart as well.

Plucking up your courage, you were the one to reach out this time, carefully sweeping your thumb over the back of his hand, smiling.

“I’m not scared off all that easily, Steve.”

He mirrored your genuine smile, a glint of something you couldn’t read lighting up his eyes.

“That’s good to know,” he said lowly and sighed, narrowing his eyes as if he was assessing you again. “Alright, here goes…”

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

You actually managed to get one more awkward date story from Steve, because frankly, his experiences were hilarious. And surprise surprise, he was a great narrator. Plus, while he talked, you could ogle him shamelessly without fear of looking strange.

But you guessed that since you were on a date, you could ogle him anyway. He didn’t seem to mind; in fact, whenever he got the opportunity, he reciprocated it. It finally did feel like a date, the air growing thicker as you gradually shifted closer and closer, the light touches prolonging, feet meeting under the table without parting as soon as they made contact.

Your belly kept warming up with each smile and laugh, with every second of the intense eye contact, with every flicker of his gaze to your lips and vice versa. Sharing a dessert was a terrible idea, because you wanted kiss the crumbs sticking on his lips away. You teased each other, you complimented each other – with Steve absolutely winning the undeclared contest – and you realized that despite sharing your most embarrassing dates with each other at the beginning, this was the absolute best you had ever been to.

And you didn’t want it to end.

The light sweater you had brought with you did nothing to shield you from the surprisingly lukewarm wind. As you wandered the streets, Steve finally heard out one of your first thoughts you had had when meeting him today – he shrugged off his suit jacket.

Which… yum. The seams of his shirt were crying for help and you could only think fo one way of helping them – taking his shirt off too. But alas, Steve didn’t continue the striptease, probably because you were on the street. Instead, he did the most wholesome thing and held out the jacket for you to slip into.

You only hesitated a moment, teeth sinking into your lower lip. How could you say no to that?

“That’s awfully cliché and really sweet at the same time,” you muttered, causing him to shrug, one corner of his lips raised in a smirk as he helped you put it on, forefinger most definitely deliberately caressing the side of your throat before withdrawing.

A shudder ran down your spine, electrifying feeling going straight to your core. The whiff of whatever cologne he was wearing enveloped you, clouding your senses. Goddammit he smelled so good.

“Maybe I just want to see you in my clothes,” he hummed, the suggestive remark knocking the breath straight out of your lungs.

Stepping to your side from behind your back, you caught a glimpse of his expression – a little bit smug, a little bit panicked as it probably registered with him just how much suggestive it was, perhaps crossing a line.

It was absolutely not crossing the line, because the thought of wearing his clothes, preferably grabbing it because you couldn’t find yours after you threw it all around the room as you frantically stripped each other was making your head spin in the best way.

“Maybe I’d really enjoy wearing your clothes after you rip off mine.”

Steve’s jaw went slack, a choked noise leaving him and you couldn’t but laugh at his dumbstruck expression. Surprise, professor, you little shit. I can keep up.

“That was… mean,” he said, clearing his throat. Your eyebrows rose, pot calling the kettle back style. “But I see how I deserved that.”

“Damn right… but that doesn’t mean it’s a lie,” you shrugged, chuckling at the exasperated look he shot you.

‘Man, she’s gonna fuck you up on a whole new level and I’ll be here for it in the front row with a bowl of popcorn,’ Barnes’ words to Steve which you weren’t meant to hear echoed in your head, making you grin.

The teasing was intense, yet you felt comfortable in it. You blamed Steve and his nature – he already felt like a guy to go lengths to make you feel at ease enough; the way he had kept insisting on you choosing whether this was a date or not only proved it. He made it easy to be yourself, making you feel like you could.

And he made it perfectly clear that he was enjoying seeing you like that, that he appreciated you as you were.

But the closer you got to the campus, the more the reality was settling in, your laughter fading, butterflies and heat replaced by anxiety. He was still a professor. If you went for it, it wouldn’t always be uncomplicated like this. The awkwardness crept in as your steps grew slower, the inevitable arriving.

He couldn’t walk you home, to walk you to the dorm, even if the desire to do so radiated from every fibre of his being. He couldn’t do that for the same reason he hadn’t picked you up.

You came to a stop, feeling like there was this invisible border to a safe, students-free part of the city, the line you couldn’t cross side by side.

“So, uhm… this is it, huh?” Steve hummed, grim. You appreciated the lame attempt at a smile though and reciprocated, turning to face him.

“Looks like it.”

Heavy silence settled over you pair. Your eyes trailed all over him, lingering on his face, noting as he did the same. He was beautiful; you didn’t care you should say that about a man. He was. The light in his eyes dimmed compared to that just a few moments ago, but it was still there, expression soft, almost as soft as his beard looked, causing your fingers to twitch in need to run them over it and pull him in for a kiss.

Your lips tingled as the idea. You had never kissed a man with a beard and you wanted to know how it felt. The fact it was Steve only sealed the deal and made the need grow exponentially.

You wanted to kiss him so bad. But here you stood, unable to move, unable to speak. You sighed.

“Would you-“ “I want to-“

“Sorry,” you and him said at the same time again, laughing it off quietly, your fingers running through your hair.

Your stomach clenched when you noticed his eyes following the movement almost wistfully.

“You go first,” he prompted you gently.

You didn’t argue – if you learned one thing tonight, it was that Steve was a gentleman and that was so rare these days that you wouldn’t want to discourage him from being that way. Even if you really wanted to know what he was about to say, as soon as possible.

“I… I just want to say thank you. For the… for the date. I had a good time, so I hope you had too, at least a little,” you offered lamely, feeling blood rushing to your cheeks.

Like a schoolgirl blushing in front of her professor. Jesus, why were you being like this again.

Steve didn’t seem to find you as awkward as you felt however, your name slipping from his lips, kind and soft.

“I had a very good time. You’re amazing.” Your lips parted at the blatant and genuine compliment. His eyes went wide. “I’m sorry, that came out so strong, I didn’t mean to put you in spot like that-“

Stronger than ‘maybe I just want to see you in my clothes?’ you asked yourself. No, you didn’t think so. It was just that the playfulness had left at least two blocks back.

This felt more serious. More intimate.

“Ditto,” you whispered, gracing him with a shy smile he instantly mirrored. “But hey, I already knew that, so…”

He chuckled, shaking his head lightly, his smile only growing. When he looked at you again, his eyes were the beautiful warm blue that made you weak in the knees.

“Would you like to do something like that again?” he queried lowly.

Yes. YES. YES PLEASE. Minus the awkwardness at the beginning and the one a moment ago, preferably.

“Yeah. I’d like that,” you agreed simply, taking note of how his face lit up even more.

How could a man be so indescribably hot and yet adorable enough to tug at your heartstrings?

“Good. I’m glad.”

He tugged at your hand unexpectedly, pulling you to your left, his other hand steadying you by gently grasping your forearm.

Before you could question his actions, a pair of men swaying in a drunken haze passed you, having no care in the world for whom they might crash into.

“Thanks,” blurted out lowly, sparing a second to shoot their backs a dirty glare.

But Steve’s hands were still on you, distracting, as you stood face to face, chest to chest, a little too close, a little too far. Your heart sped up in your ribcage, breathing picking up in anticipation. So close…

But all Steve did was to squeeze your forearm reassuringly, lifting your joined hands to his face.

Just like the day you agreed to get coffee with him, he kissed your knuckles, only this time it was much firmer. His smile was sweet and utterly irresistible as he kept looking at your face and you felt all the worries about the future melt away once again.

He was so precious and this felt so right and--- you didn’t want him to kiss your hand.

Well, you wanted it, but you wanted more too.

You had been aching to kiss that mouth since you had first set eyes on him, on that inhumanly gorgeous and hot creature. You were on a date, you both had a great time and clearly he was giving you the opportunity to decide how far you wanted to take this, because as much as every little touch of his made to crazy, the displays of affection were positively chaste.

And you wanted to take it very very far.

Your rational brain wouldn’t let you just hop into sac with him today, but fuck, you could do with a kiss. You wanted to feel that perfectly trimmed beard of his and you wanted to taste him.

Did he?

You stepped even closer as he let go of your hand, distracting you minutely; due to the sudden proximity, it landed on his chest and Jesus fucking Christ he was firm.

Your fingers clutched at the white fabric of his shirt as you observed his face, your gaze inevitably flickering to his lips. Glancing up once more to find him still watching you intently, pupils dilated, your breath caught in your throat, heat stirring in your belly.

Rising to your tiptoes, you gripped the fabric tighter and shortly pressed your lips to his.

It was a funny feeling – lips hot, soft and slightly chapped, a stark contrast to the beard, less rough than you expected, leaving a tingly sensation behind. It was different; exciting and addicting. Before he could react and before you could think twice, you kissed him again, this time lingering for a few seconds, your eyelids falling shut.

Your heart fluttered when you felt his lips reluctantly respond just as you withdrew, his grip on your arm tightening. You ran your tongue over your lips to savour the feeling, mouth instinctively curling up in a smile, gaze meeting his.

Little wrinkles appeared around his eyes as he smiled as well.

“You okay?”

You nodded, almost too eagerly, lowering back to your whole feet. Involuntarily, your gaze flickered to his mouth again, wanting more.

“Uhm… beard,” you piped up unhelpfully, pressing your lips together as soon as the admission left them.

Steve’s smile widened as he once again grasped your hand, leading it to cup his face – not before he dropped a kiss to your palm.

You almost let out a very embarrassing whine at the curious sensation, your mind, still enveloped in Steve’s warmth and cologne, wondering how the beard would feel elsewhere.

Your fingers unwittingly caressed the hair, thumb brushing his lips, unable to resist.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, lips parting, hot breath fanning over your skin as watched you.

“Sweetheart,” he breathed out and that was it – you pressed against the soft swollen flesh at the pet name, causing a low grumble echo in Steve’s chest.

And then his hand slid to your waist, the other sinking into your hair, and he pulled up into a kiss that had nothing to do with how patient he had been before. He was still a gentleman, but it was a close call – he angled your head to his liking, his lips dancing with yours in a sensual dance with just a tease of tongue licking at the seam of your lips, causing you to sigh in bliss, granting him access.

He hummed appreciatively, the sound shaking your bones as he held you flat against him, the heat of his body seeping into yours – as if every nerve ending in your body wasn’t on fire already. He breathed you in, consumed you entirely – there were no other words for it.

There weren’t many words you could think of to begin with, too busy feeling his broad shoulders under your palm, fingers roaming to find the soft hair at his nape, revelling at the taste of him, just a smidge of tongue and you wanted more, your insides twisting in need--- and oh, your back was pressed against a wall now.

You let out a small startled sound which Steve instantly swallowed – but it was a good wake up call for you both. The motions of his lips slowed, softened, a gentle caress more than anything, his thumb stroking your cheek.

Breathless, you chased after his mouth when he retreated, earning one small peck and then another. He rested his forehead against yours, nose briefly skimming yours, causing you to smile and meet his gaze.

“Sorry,” he muttered and you genuinely wanted to slap his arm or something for apologizing for that. Because you knew what you’d be thinking about for the next few hours, days even, hell, probably weeks. “For springing out like that. I just… wanted to do that for a long time.”

The admission had your heart skip a beat and you couldn’t but lean in to kiss the corner of his mouth – and nope, you weren’t over how it felt, his beard against your lips. You wouldn’t be over it for a long time, you suspected.

“Me too.”

“So… we’re doing this again, right?“

You smirked up at him as he reluctantly released you. “You springing out like that or-“

“Don’t test me, babygirl,” he nearly growled, causing your eyes going wide as saucers, feeling as if you were sucker punched to your gut – and liked it.

Babygirl. Jesus, he was going to be the death of you.

“You can spring out like that again too,” you chimed, your voice sounding a bit strangled, because holy shit he just called you that. His gaze flickered all over your face, a shade darker than before. Your underwear was thoroughly ruined with that single look… and the earlier make-out session. “But if we’re talking second dates, I’d definitely do that too.”

He huffed and shook his head, a chuckle escaping him.

“You’re a minx…. I think I like it.”

You grinned at him and then sighed regretfully, reaching to slip off the jacket, which made him frown.

“You could give it back later.”

“Don’t tempt me… don’t want to rob you of it--- and there would be questions,” you explained, knowing that even walking around the campus like what would raise rumours of god knew what.

Like, maybe someone would think some gentleman like Professor Steve Rogers himself lent it to you or something, gee, where would that come from...

Steve nodded in understanding, accepting the jacket and shrugging it on.

“Plus, I’m thoroughly warmed up,” you added cheekily, causing him to chuckle incredulously again. With a sigh, he leaned in, cradling your jaw in one large hand and pressed a sweet lingering kiss to your forehead.

You could melt on spot.

“Goodnight, sweetheart. Let me know when you get home safe?” he asked of you gently, tugging at your heartstrings some more, because of course he did.

“I will. You too?”

His smile was soft and sweet as he promised to do so, clearly touched by your care. Well, that made two of you.

“Goodnight, Steve. Thank you for tonight.”

“Thank you.”

You breathed in deeply, dropping a last kiss to his cheek and quickly spun on your heels to walk away – because if you wavered a second longer, you might have not left at all.

Sure, you looked back at him several times, finding him standing where you had left him, his eyes following your receding figure. But you kept walking.

And once you couldn’t see him anymore, you broke into a fit of giggles, hiding your face in your palms to muffle your delighted squeal.

You were just coming back to the dorms from the date with Steve Rogers.

And despite the hiccups, it was the best damn thing in the world, leaving you giddy and already craving another date and more. Your cheeks hurt from smiling by the time you made it to the dorms, your heart pounding excitedly the whole time.

As promised, you let Steve know you made there safe, earning another text with a heart. It only made you squeal again, fingers frantic as you replied – and with a kiss for goodnight so he knew you truly enjoyed your night, ending included.

What he didn’t know was that maybe, just maybe, the next evening you wrote a tiny story in which you elaborated at what could happen if he ever pushed you against a wall and kissed your breathless ever again.

And hopefully, he would.

Soon.

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

Attached masterlist

⊱-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦ ✉ ◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-◦-⊰

...how it happened? I was asked about the first date, very kindly and in a no pressure manner.

S: Hey, just out of curiosity, you don’t really have to answer… how do you imagine their first date went?

me: Hm, let me think, I guess, mm, it would be like this--- oh shit. Oh no. It’s gonna be a fic again, isn’t it? Maybe I could finally write a headcanon or a drabble--- sigh.

As if I could ever.

Thank you for reading :-*

#fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #professor steve rogers #steve rogers imagine #captain america au #modern au #professor au #college au #steve rogers #captain america #student reader #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fanfic #word is that we might work it out #attached #attached: word is that we might work it out #anika ann

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iamanartichoke · 3 years ago

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Another totally unprompted ask, on the assumption that you are definitely no longer in need of them… another thing I’m trying to work out about Loki characterisation in preparation for perpetrating fic torture on him is how suicidal the poor sod is most of the time. This is another thing I’ve seen referred to a lot but only in passing. Though obviously this is a pretty triggery topic, so ignore if you want.

I am always in need of totally unprompted asks, otherwise I just assume no one wants to talk to me lmao

So, hoo boy. I have been mulling over this for, apparently, three days now bc there's just ... there's a lot to unpack here. Putting under a cut for obviously triggery content and also for length bc fml.

In my opinion, the response to "how suicidal is Loki most of the time" is "very, but whether or not he wants to do anything about it varies from moment to moment" (see what I did there? I'll see myself out). In other words, I have always had a headcanon that Loki is consistently, passively suicidal. This is a headcanon that comes straight from TDW, bc I'm certain that Loki never had any intention of surviving their mission. And that could be a whole other post, really, but the point is that even though this is a TDW-centric headcanon, I have come to adopt it as applying to Loki in general as well, not just in those specific circumstances.

When I say passively suicidal, I mean that Loki is just sort of ambivalent about the value of his own life. He feels like he doesn't deserve to be alive, and feels like there's little point in being alive. Which - I don't mean to sound all gloom and doom, like, poor uwu emo Loki (and I kinda hate that I have to pause to disclaim that, no, I don't just have a fixation on Loki being depressed for funsies/the aesthetic/whatever); I think that this mindset stems from really complicated places that I'm not sure I can articulate, but I will try.

I view Loki as someone who suffers from a severe inferiority complex, and I feel like it stems from being abandoned as an infant. Loki's life started with a traumatic event and, even if he doesn't remember the event itself, the feelings he experienced stayed in his subconscious. Feelings of loss, of fear, of despair and abandonment, of suffering - these are all feelings that burrowed into his bones and lived there for his entire life, feelings that colored how Loki viewed himself as a person as well as how he compared to the people around him.

Keep in mind that Loki didn't know he was abandoned until the events of Thor 1, obviously. We don't really know how old Loki is, in human years, but I have always assumed that he and Thor were at least adults (not teenagers), maybe the equivalent of early twenties - and the reason I bring that up is because it means Loki made it all the way to adulthood carrying the weight of a trauma that he did not remember or even knew had happened, so to him, there was no real reason for how wrong he felt. There was no explanation for the feelings of loss, of neglect, of fear. So on top of struggling with those feelings, Loki was also burdened with the alienation that comes with wondering why one can't just be like everyone else, why one can't just "snap out" of depression, why one's sense of self-worth has always been lacking.

So imagine what it's like to grow up as Loki. He was traumatized as an infant. The trauma has been with him his entire life, along with the confusion/alienation of not understanding why he feels the way that he does, and then on top of that, his basic personality lends itself toward introspection and isolation, so he likely felt even further removed from Thor and from his peers. Loki's too smart for his own good, and he's got an enormous capacity to feel and I feel like this is a combination that works against him as much as it does for him, bc it probably means he spent a lot of time examining himself and identifying all of his perceived flaws - and then berating himself for said flaws.

People with depression are probably pretty familiar with the bully that lives in your head, the one who is always there to remind you that you're stupid, or ugly, or that nobody likes you, or that you have nothing of value to contribute to anyone, etc. Loki's no different; he's got that bully in his head, too. Add onto this the fact that his brother is literally perfect, that he feels his father doesn't love him (or love him as much), that his interests in things like magic are looked down on in his culture, and that he's a prince (meaning that along with the privilege comes pressure, and being in the public eye, knowing that everyone around him is comparing him to Thor as much as he compares himself to Thor, well.) and you have a total clusterfuck of a mindset, and Loki's been existing inside of that clusterfuck for nearly all of his life.

I always go back to the quote where, when filming I think the vault scene, Kenneth Branagh directs Tom by saying, "This is the moment where the thin steel rod holding your brain together snaps." And it's such a significant moment for Loki bc this is where it all crumbles for him, learning the truth, but I also fixate on the "thin steel rod" part of the quote bc that's not how one would describe a healthy, stable person's mind. The implication, to me, has always been that Loki wasn't that stable to start with due to his general upbringing, his internal struggles, and his personality, so of course the devastation of learning he's adopted, and Jotun, would send him over the edge. One doesn't go from zero to 60; one doesn't fall over the edge unless they were balancing fairly close to it in the first place. And to me, the "thin steel rod" basically equals the aforementioned clusterfuck of a mindset.

THE POINT IS. (Holy shit, I ramble.) This is the foundation on which I'm basing my headcanon that Loki neither values his life nor feels as if he even deserves to live it - bc his default mindset is one of inferiority, of loss, of pain. And I think that going from being a general unstable person pre-canon to being passively suicidal post-canon is a thing that happened because, somewhere between the vault in Thor 1 and the dungeons in TDW, Loki just stopped caring.

Life is exhausting for everyone, but even moreso when your mental load becomes more than you can carry. Loki is exhausted. His experience is that things just keep getting worse and worse for him - he's never been valued, he's always been found wanting. He discovers that he was literally thrown away as an infant, unwanted and left to die, and things haven't gotten much better for him since then. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. His plans spin out of control. He's unable to prove his worth and his value and when he is, in fact, rejected, he literally tries to kill himself (only to survive and end up in an even worse situation).

It all just continually goes downhill, and Loki is fucking exhausted. He's done. He has no hope that anything is ever going to change - he will never be valued or even seen, he's unable to connect to anyone, he has no family (aside from Thor, but their relationship is so fraught with pain). As far as he's concerned, his life has been nothing but a waste since he was born and if no one else values it, why should he?

So - passively suicidal. He places no value on his life, and doesn't shy away from situations that could cost him his life. It's possible that the only reason he's not actively suicidal is bc his previous attempt not only failed but led to such a horrible situation that he's probably too afraid to intentionally seek out death again. He doesn't want to fail and end up worse off for it.

And - not that you asked this in particular, but - my biggest disappointment in the series is that none of what I've just written is addressed in a satisfying way (to me). That is, we don't get any real explicit acknowledgement of the trauma of Loki's abandonment as a baby or how that affected his mental health growing up; we don't get to explore how devastated he was to learn of his adoption; we don't ever see him reconcile his ingrained belief that jotuns are monstrous savages with the fact that he is jotun. He says "I betrayed everyone I loved, but I'm different now" and we're supposed to infer what he means without Loki actually articulating why he feels that he's the only one who should be held responsible for all these things that had happened or what "I've changed" even means to him (aside from not betraying Sylvie).

I would have liked to see these things addressed for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons is that I would want to see how Loki comes to terms with all of his issues and his pain enough that he stops being passively suicidal. We never get to see that; after TDW, the time that passes allows for Loki to kinda chill, resulting in the Ragnarok version, but if there was any real healing or recovering going on, it was happening off-screen, with the audience expected to just go with "yeah Loki was going through it for awhile but he's kinda better now."

Furthermore, much of what I've written here is based on prime Loki's development through TDW, but doesn't account for series Loki's split from that timeline nor the theme of "Lokis survive" that's so prevalent in the series. So I don't think the "passively suicidal" headcanon is really appropriate for series Loki but, at the same time, I'd like to have seen why. I'd like to have seen Loki learning to value his life, or where the "we survive" mindset comes from, since that's not really been a thing before now. (Out of universe, I suspect it comes from the context of Loki just not dying whenever he tries to, but since TDW and IW haven't happened, and Loki didn't intend to survive his fall from the bifrost, framing Loki as an innate survivor doesn't really make sense, but to be fair, I'm just being picky.)

So, yeah. I'm not saying Loki doesn't experience growth or development in the series, I'm just saying that his arc left much unsaid and, furthermore, framing his growth as "wanting a throne to not wanting a throne" without addressing that Loki doesn't actually want the power of the throne, he wants the value and self-worth he associates with the throne, is - well, again, unsatisfying. Not bad, but it leaves viewers like me wanting bc we're cognizant of how much more could have been done.

I ... am going to end this now. This is probably nonsensical and all over the place, so I'm very sorry, and I'm sure this is why I don't get meta-starter asks lmfao bc no one's out here trying to read my dissertation submission for a Ph.D in Loki, but well, sometimes it just be like that.

Thank you for the ask and the opportunity to ramble.

#asks #charlotte replies #loki pokey artichokey #loki series #loki series criticism #loki meta #tw suicidal ideation #tw suicide attempt #tw suicide #tw mental health #tw depression #i spent two fucking hours on this yet i still feel like it's rambly nonsense #i hit stream-of-consciousness at some point and just went with it #and now i'm too lazy to revise #so i'm sorry #this'll probably only get like 10 notes anyway bc that's how it be on tumblr #put effort in and get little validation; put no effort in and everyone loses their minds

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stxleslyds · 3 years ago

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you know how dc keeps forcing this sudden "we're a family" narrative out of nowhere? I'd love batfam content but years of hurt among them make the recent content seem unearned.

bc you know more about dick and jason than the others, how do you think they would realistically become family to each other, or would it even be in character for them to be the "bros" they're written as now?

Oh anon, this question is amazing, I love it! I saw it when I woke up and since then my brain has been brewing this answer, I was thinking about it as I brushed my teeth and as I was making breakfast, and now I am ready to give you the answer, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed thinking/writing about it!

DC keeps forcing the wrong relationships, and they keep forcing the wrong centre of this supposed family, they make it out to be the Bat-Family when in reality the Bat (Bruce) should have never been invited to this party.

This is why I give you the… Dick-Family!

Oh yeah baby, I am going there. Dick is the centre of this “family”, he is the guy who is actually connected with everyone, he has been around for so long and he has been present when almost all of the remaining characters were introduced! Bruce might have come first but that guy has nothing on Dick Grayson.

Dick has cared and loved for everyone in this family in a true and beautiful way, no matter how much fanon and DC try to tell us otherwise. This man was an amazing son to Bruce and Alfred (my love for Alfred and Dick is brought to you by @hood-ex), a fantastic brother to Jason, Tim and Cass as well as a phenomenal father/older brother to Damian.

Dick Grayson is the centre of this whole thing, and thanks to DC now being an Omniverse I will be able to explain my line of thoughts. But first let me clear some ideas up.

The way I see it Jason would only get along good enough with Dick. I am not here for Jason and Tim having brunch together (honestly, Lobdell, what were you thinking), Jason never cared for Tim, and then writers that didn’t know how the Red Hood worked made him try to kill Tim so, to me, that relationship is non-existent, Jason doesn’t really perceive Tim (yet).

Jason and Damian, listen, I know that there is this fanon theory that Jason knew and cared for Damian while he was in the League, but that is just fanon talk and it doesn’t really fit in canon either. Jason wasn’t really capable of doing much other than fight, and after he was put in the Lazarus Pit he either had to leave because Ra’s wanted to kill him or Talia took him to the All-Castle. So, Jason’s only real interactions with Damian would be when Jason was written as a crazy, blood thirsty dude that actually tried to harm a child. So, him and Damian wouldn’t really have a good relationship (yet).

Jason and Cass… that’s just a no. Jason and Barbara, I mean Barbara was older than Dick when she first met Jason, so they wouldn’t have much of a relationship.

Now, lets move on to how I will make the Dick-Family work.

Dick (bless him) actually talks and listens to people, unlike Bruce, so the change would start there. Let’s set the timeline, I will stand right after the events of Under the Red Hood. Bruce just chose saving Joker over letting Jason kill the Joker and the building they were in exploded.

Batman keeps on being himself (trash) and Jason, having survived the explosion, moves on to keep on building his empire. He really wants to control the drug trade in Gotham, so he works on that, he slowly but surely takes his place as a drug lord again and is a constant pain in Black Mask’s ass.

While Jason is doing that, Dick is trying to put together his life after Bludhaven was attacked with Chemo. Let’s say that Bludhaven isn’t completely erased from the map but he does have to leave so the city can be re-built. He goes to Gotham, where the Red Hood works.

Let’s say that Alfred told Dick who was under the Red Hood, so Dick being a good brother goes looking for Jason. Their first interaction out of the mask wouldn’t be nice, Jason barely remembers his life before the pit and he really is convinced that Dick is the absolute worst.

But then Jason being a nosy man would make an appearance, for some reason, let’s say that he hacks into the Batcave and when he does that he finds some footage… The footage in question would be the one which shows Bruce punching Dick and sort of blaming him for Jason’s death. (Oh yeah, I am going there). The footage will make a memory come to mind, Dick taking Jason on a skying trip.

So, the next time that Dick and Jason see each other is because Jason went looking for Dick and here is where these two actually talk. The way I see it, Dick is more flexible with the no killing rule, he has worked many times with people that are villains or that just have different ways of doing things. So, I think that he would understand where Jason’s coming from with his ideas. As they begin to understand one another Jason begins to recover more and more memories from before the Pit.

They get together once a week and they chat about life as well as vigilante stuff. They become friends.

At the same time Dick is also very good friends with Tim and also acts like the amazing big brother he is with him. They chat, they sometimes work together and one day they come across a very complicated situation involving a new drug being introduced in Gotham.

Dick would call Jason and now both of them and Tim are reunited in a safe house working together so this new drug doesn’t fall in the wrong hands. Jason and Tim wouldn’t really like each other. Both of them are there for Dick and because they have to get the job done.

That’s how I see Dick forming the Dick-Family unconsciously. Hell, I will introduce Barbara now. Do you guys remember that in UtRH Barbara was mad with Bruce and didn’t want to work with him but she was still in contact with Dick? Well, I am using that so it can fit my narrative.

Dick, Jason and Tim need more intel so Dick calls Oracle (real Oracle) and because Barbara trusts Dick she works with them.

Here is where it gets interesting, through Barbara, Dick meets Cass, through Tim he meets Stephanie. You see that Dick’s connections are leading him to form a group of people. Cass and Stephanie are trained by Babs and Dick and they become the new Batgirls.

As all of that keeps developing Jason and Dick become “partners in crime” they help each other, they start building a brotherly relationship again. Although Jason refuses to say that out loud.

Then comes in Damian, a difficult child if there has ever been one but he has Bruce so Dick doesn’t have to jump in that fast… right?

Oh brother! Bruce is dead (omg what would we do? Battle for the cowl maybe? No!). with Bruce gone there is only one person who can take his place and everyone knows it has to be Dick.

Dick would feel a lot of things as he is taking Bruce’s place as Batman but he has a group of people ready to back him up (Alfred, Jason, Tim, Babs, Cass, Steph), and he also has to take care of Damian, he is a child and with his father gone then maybe his mother would want to take him back to the League of Assassins, Dick obviously doesn’t want that so he talks to Tim and tells him that he sees him as his equal and that he has a plan to make Damian stay and it involves making Damian his new Robin.

Tim would obviously be sad and a little hurt, but he understands Dick’s decision because they talked about it and Dick actually took the time to explain why he was doing what he was doing (really DC half of the problems you guys come up could be fixed in seconds if people would only take some time to just TALK!).

Dick and Damian work as Batman and Robin and Dick starts assuming the position of his father. They would live with Alfred in the penthouse and maybe Tim will join them from time to time (when he wasn’t busy with Young Justice/Teen Titans stuff). Slowly Dick and Damian will become the Dynamic Duo that we love today.

So, Dick would have his own Robin, Oracle (who is also managing her own team with Black Canary and (why not) the Batgirls), Red Robin and Red Hood working with him if he needs them. They are always a call away. Jason is the most difficult to reach and he will only involve himself in that kind of drama if its about controlling the drug trade or scaring the living shit out of some very shady people.

So, Red Hood wouldn’t be working with the new (and improved) Batman but Jason would hang out with Dick sometimes.

From there they build up. Dick renovates Arkham Asylum and makes it work they way that it is supposed to work. He might also recruit Catwoman when he needs someone really sneaky, they have known each other for so long, I bet Selina loves Dick, she would certainly help him out.

But as all things do, this happy and well-connected Dick-Family is disrupted when Bruce comes back, he inserts himself slowly back into his role as Batman and as he does that Dick starts to move away from it.

But Dick’s connections are strong and well cared for, so, even when he goes back to Bludhaven and starts fresh (again) as Nightwing those connections remain. Oracle still gives him intel, Robin and Red Robin come over to Bludhaven to patrol, maybe they even have their own rooms at Dick’s place.

With Bludhaven functioning again, all of the terrible people that were working there also come back, maybe some of them never left and they have been corrupting the city from its very core. So, when Jason tells Dick that he would like to expand his operations to Bludhaven, Dick says yes, as long as Jason keeps him updated on his work and also lets him know what is going on.

I think it works! What do you guys think so far?

From then on with the whole Dick-Family being connected and strong I think they can actually act and solve their problems as a family. All those arcs that didn’t work very well because Bruce was in the middle of it being a jerk, I think they will work if Dick is at the centre of it. Let’s say that Bruce hid the fact that Joker knows their identities and all that, with such a strong family the second that the Joker tries to manipulate Jason into believing that he created him, Dick will come out of the shadows and shut that bullshit down. If Joker tries to do something to the Circus, then the Birds of Prey and the Robins will be there in seconds helping Dick.

The Court of Owls, those little shits wouldn’t stand a chance against this team, this force of nature! Jason would be the one working from afar because you know my boy wouldn’t be subjected to the “no-killing” rule but if he does it, he has to do it away from the children (Damian) and away from Cass, if he doesn’t want to know real trouble. (He probably arranged those things with Dick a long time ago and he is happy with it).

Now, please forgive me but for angst reasons I will actually let the events of, Batman Incorporated #8, Forever Evil, Nightwing #30 and Spyral run its course.

Let me explain, after Damian’s death Dick holds the Dick-Family together, as well as Bruce because he is amazing like that, but then after Dick supposedly dies, things change just a little bit. Jason would retreat back to his own corner because the only thing attaching him to the Dick-Family was Dick but he would also keep his eyes open and he might also have a direct line with Oracle if things go south.

Aside from Jason, I do see the others working on keeping their connections intact. When Damian eventually returns the land of the living, I can see all of them coming together even more because that’s what Dick would have wanted.

And then Dick will come back from Spyral and here is where the Dick-Family will show the “Bat-Family” why its superior to it in every aspect possible.

The Dick-Family will notice that something must have happened, Dick would never play dead and leave them like that, but Dick loves Bruce and he doesn’t want to tell them the truth, Bruce has no memories now and his family doesn’t deserve that kind of drama BUT Jason and Tim are suspicious, they know Dick at this point and they trust him so they firmly believe that he is hiding something to protect someone. And here is where life repeats itself. Let’s review the Batcave’s footage, yes, I did it again, I just love the fact that Bruce has footage of himself being the absolute worst to his kids, how does DC not use it! Anyway, Tim and Jason find the footage from the events of Nightwing #30 and suddenly the Dick-Family have their “Dick defence squad” jackets on and they are ready to party.

After all that Bruce eventually gets his memories back and he is held accountable for his actions. Also, around this time the events of Robin War would have already happened so Duke is also introduced. Dick lets him join and all that, and then Duke and Cass become besties and they work together.

And yeah, as Rebirth comes closer the Dick-Family would be more united than ever.

The end.

That is how I would have done it. But this way is slow, and DC wouldn’t be able to monetize it as much as they would want.

Jason wouldn’t be giving hugs and calling everyone their brother or sister, he will only get along with Dick and he would be professional with everyone else.

Tim and Damian would get along but they wouldn’t go for ice cream together on a sunny day. Steph and Damian would and so would Cass and Tim or Cass and Duke.

Oracle would work with Dick and the others as a side thing because her main thing would be the Birds of Prey, this time with Helena too.

Alfred would spend his time with Bruce but he would also be very aware of Dick and his influence on everyone around them. Bruce eventually would be integrated to the Dick-Family because Dick is a sweetheart but Dick would also make Bruce follow his rules, Dick is a little bean but he is also the most badass person in the room (whichever room) so you better listen to what he has to say.

The Dick-Family would be something that grows silently and doesn’t need a “Joker War” in order for them to be there for each other, they would try their best each step of the way and they will talk things out when mistakes are made.

This is the way that I see this family dynamic working.

I would even go as far as to say that Talia can be part of the Dick-Family because she is connected to three people, Dick, Damian and Jason.

Dick is the person with most connections in the DC Universe, the Titans, the Justice League, Deathstroke, they all have connections to this treasure of a man. If he needs help in Gotham or Bludhaven then he can call people from the “first circle”, if things are beyond a “street level” threat them he can call the Titans and if shit really hits the fan, Clark and the others are a call away.

Anyway, this was unnecessarily long, I am sorry about it but I am also not because I really don’t know how to answer your question without going on a long rant.

In conclusion the Bat-Family doesn’t work and sadly it wouldn’t work no matter how much they force it. These people don’t have connections, Bruce is not able to make connections between people. And DC has erased entire relationships that Dick used to have. I mean, they got rid of Dick and Tim being close brothers just so they could give us a shitty brunch between Tim and Jason? Only yesterday we saw a true and beautiful interaction between Dick and Damian.

DC is handling the “Bat-Family” in all the worst possible ways. It just doesn’t work.

They should have used Dick all those years ago and they shouldn’t have destroyed Jason’s characterization with Lobdell’s ideas.

So, sadly, my dear anon, I don’t see the Bat-Family as a in character thing for any of these people as they are written currently, but I hope that you enjoyed my version of it. May the Dick-Family bring everyone who reads about it a little joy!

#Dick-Family #Jason Nation #dick grayson #nightwing #red hood #tim drake #damian wayne #red robin #robin #batfamily #alfred pennyworth #bruce wayne #dc comics #jason todd #asksss

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