#last time I mentioned her I not only manifested her back into existence but I also single-handedly brought back MCR you’re welcome lmao | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

reiderwriter · 1 year ago

Text

More Than Words

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female BAU!Reader

Requested: yes

Summary: After telling a white lie to your family about your relationship status, your forced to beg your coworker Spencer to pretend to be your boyfriend for a weekend wedding.

Warnings: Light smut at the end, penetrative sex, creampie, mentions of Spencer's childhood.

A/N: Thank you for the request on this one! Ever since I rewatched Season 7 and saw Spencer dancing with everyone at JJ's wedding I've been thinking non-stop about him just holding you close like that and I'm going to shut up now because 8k words of that is more than enough lmao.

You can find my masterlist here, and I just started posting all my stuff on AO3 as well, so if you prefer to read there, check it out!

Despite knowing about your brother’s impending nuptials for the last 18 months, it was in the final two-week stretch that you actually started panicking about getting the date that you’d promised them. It was one sweet little white lie that you had made that had just spiraled out of control, but you’d yet to actually manifest the secretive boyfriend who was “very real actually, mom, he’s coming to the wedding actually.”

It was that statement that had sealed your fate, and always one to wear your emotions on your face when you weren’t on a case, it wasn’t long before someone noticed your building anxiety and guilt.

“Okay, spill Y/N. You look like you just witnessed your favorite author kick a puppy or a kitten or something,” Penelope said when you dropped some files off in her room that morning, spinning around on her chair to face you as soon as she caught your reflection in her monitor.

“It’s this wedding I have to go to,” you sighed dramatically, falling into one of the other chairs in the room kept for visitors.

“Want me to help you get out of it?” Penelope offered, patting your hand comfortingly.

“I’m not sure my brother would be too pleased about that, since it’s his wedding and all. My mother would drag me down all the way from here herself if she had to.”

“Okay, so a no-show is a no-go. Then what gives, my sweet avenging angel? There has to be something serious to get you looking all glum.”

You sighed and ran a hand through your hair before straightening up and leaning into Penelope more, creating an air of secrecy.

“Promise you won’t tell?”

“Oh sweetie, if only you knew the secrets these four walls held,” she replied dramatically, pulling a laugh from you.

“Last year, I was so, I don’t know, jealous I guess, of all the attention my brother and his fiancee were getting because of the wedding, and it just felt like every time my mom called me, she would only want to talk about them because of the wedding. I felt left out, and I already live so far away anyway, so it’s hard to have that connection with people back home, so I might have told a small, tiny, inconsequential lie that now actually has consequences?” Your face flushes at the confession, and you can see Penelope trying her best not to blurt out her thoughts, intent on letting you continue.

“I told her I was seeing this guy. He’s amazing, he works in the FBI just like me, and he’s smart, and he takes me on dates to these amazing places, like museums and interesting restaurants and to book fairs. I told her he was handsome and that he looked at me like I put the stars in the night sky, and he just doesn't exist, Penelope. And now I have to disappoint my mother again by turning up to my brother's wedding without a date.”

“Oh sweetheart,” was all she said for a minute, and the sympathetic look on her face made you want to run out of there immediately.

“I know, I know, I need to tell her the truth, but I don’t want to do it at the wedding and spoil her happiness. She loves weddings.”

“And this fake boyfriend is supposed to be your plus-one?” she asked.

“My invitation read ‘To our darling sister and her mystery man,’” you groaned, wondering how you could have been so childish in the first place. You’d acted like any child on a playground would, inventing lies to make yourself seem more important and cooler.

“I think I have the perfect solution for you, angel, but you might not like it,” Penelope grinned from her chair, leaning back and playing with the pen in her hands nefariously as if she’d been waiting for this chance her whole life. You didn’t trust that look, but you had no other option, so you took a deep breath and listened to her plan.

–X–

Three days later, and you were suddenly pacing the hallways with a coffee and a croissant, poised and ready to kidnap an FBI Agent the second he passed you.

At first, you’d laughed at the suggestion she’d made, outlandish as it was. But 72 hours of reflection, and a timely phone call from your mother, and suddenly you were on board and ready to lock on to your target. You stopped pacing when you heard the elevator ding, signaling the arrival of Spencer Reid. You were thankful that his schedule was so regular and timed down to the minute that you had just enough time to ambush him in the hallway before any other member of your team noticed.

“Spencer! Here I bought you coffee and a croissant from that cafe I mentioned a while back,” you panicked, unloading the gifts into his arms quickly, taking him off guard, before checking left and right before pushing him into the nearest empty room and shutting it behind you.

“Good morning to you, too, Y/N. Is there a reason we’re in a closet right now?” he asked, looking down at you with knitted eyebrows.

“Yes,” you gumped, afraid to say anymore.

“Are you going to tell me what the reason is?”

“I need you to be my boyfriend for a weekend,” you finally blurted out.

“You need me to… Just for a weekend?” He looked confused, and you felt your cheeks flame up, as you tried your best to explain the situation for him.

“My brother is getting married in LA this weekend, and I need a date. I told my mom last year that I was in a relationship with a really great guy who also works for the FBI.”

“Oh. So, you broke up with him and don’t want to tell your mom?”

“No, he never existed. Long story, I can explain on the plane, but I really need you to come with me! I’ll pay for everything, and I’ll even get you this coffee and any pastry of your choice every day for a month, please, please, please!” You begged him, so desperate that you were moments away from dropping to your knees and grabbing his leg, refusing to move until he acquiesced. You didn’t have to in the end.

“Oh, sure, I’ll go. When did you say it was?” Your jaw fell open in shock, and it took a few seconds to pull yourself back together as you reacted to his words.

“This weekend? The flight is tomorrow at 6 a.m.” You smiled sheepishly as his eyes bugged out of his head.

“This weekend? What were you going to do if I said no?” He laughed at you a little, taking a sip of the coffee you bought him.

“Honestly? Plan B was to cry, and plan C was to kill off my mystery man in a freak accident.”

“Wow, we just started fake dating and you’re already trying to bump me off.” His smile made you burn hotter than before, as you playfully hit his arm in response.

“Stop saying we’re dating. I pulled you in here to ask you privately because I didn’t want weird rumors circulating in the office,” you pouted.

“Then you better let me out of the closet, Y/N, before people think we’re doing something we shouldn’t be. At least three people saw you drag me in here, you know.”

With that, you rush to open the door and run out, shouting a reminder back at him.

“Just be ready, okay. I’ll see you at the airport at 6 a.m.”

–X–

The flight, despite being ridiculously long, was altogether quite pleasant, and you made it back to California in one piece, Spencer trailing behind you like a lost puppy for a while, letting you take up the role of “airport dad” as you guided him through the airport and to the hotel where the wedding was being held.

“So what’s our cover story?” He asked in the taxi on the way there, breaking the comfortable silence.

“What cover story?” you asked, looking up at him from your phone, still focused on just getting to the destination.

“Where did we meet, how long have we been dating, how much do they know about me?” He listed off the possible questions that his parents were absolutely going to interrogate him with soon. “I need to prepare so we don’t get caught out, right?”

“Oh, right. Based on what I told them, we met at work and we’ve been seeing each other casually for about a year now. I didn’t give them a name yet, which annoys my mom to no end, but I was always pretty private as a child so she didn’t find it all that suspicious. Other than that, they don’t know that much about my mystery boyfriend apart from the things we’ve done together.” He listened attentively as you spoke, taking each of your words in and committing them to memory.

“What was our first date?” He asked.

“Coffee shop. That place I got you the coffee from earlier, it’s called Flondon. I’m a regular there, so it made sense to use it in my story.”

“What else have we done together?”

“There was a book fair in New York a few months back that we, uh, spent the weekend at. You surprised me for my birthday with the tickets.”

“Wow, so I’m a really great boyfriend then.” He joked a little, and you let out another groan of annoyance at his teasing. You didn’t get the chance to finish your conversation though, as the taxi finally pulled up to the hotel.

You climbed out of the taxi after paying the driver, Spencer having already left to grab your bags, before walking into the foyer of the hotel.

“Y/N, just one last thing before we go in,” he stopped you at the door, grabbing you by the arm gently. “Are we… the, um. Hotels tend to get booked up pretty early for weddings, and I’m sure your family will be suspicious if we don’t share a room so…”

He didn’t have to finish voicing his thoughts before you were cursing, not having made the connection before.

“Shit, you’re right. My brother made the booking for me months ago. We just have to go in and get the room key but I totally forgot… It’s fine, right? We’ve roomed together on cases, haven’t we?” You asked, looking up at him.

“No, we haven’t. 67% of our motel bookings allow for single occupation rooms for Agents, I end up sharing a room with Morgan for 15% of overnight stays where double occupation is necessary, Hotch for another 17%, and the remaining 1% is made up of outliers where I had to share with Rossi or Prentiss, but we…we haven’t shared before.” He gestured between the two of you for a moment there, letting the facts sit with you.

“Spencer, it’s okay with me, is it okay with you? I understand if you’re not comfortable with it. We can just turn around now if you want.”

“No, no it’s totally fine. I just wanted to make sure you’re comfortable with it. Morgan says I snore, so I guess I’m not the best roommate in the world.” He smiled at you then, reassuringly, and moved his hand down your arm until it reached your hand.

You looked down at where his hand had entwined with yours and your heart gave a little jolt. Spencer didn’t like physical touch, and you knew that. You tried not to initiate any contact with him, despite being a touchy person, but there had been times after particularly tough cases and with close calls where you’d thrown yourself into the nearest person's arms, and he always happened to be near.

But those hugs had been thoughtless, natural reactions to stressful situations and this was intentional, and more importantly, he’d started it.

“Sorry, I just assumed we should get used to, uh, touching each other, I guess? We’re going to be doing it all weekend, you know, might as well start now.” He gave you an awkward closed-lip smile, and you giggled at his awkward explanatory tone. Squeezing his hand a bit, you grabbed your suitcase again in your free hand, and pushed open the door with your shoulder, pulling Spencer in behind you.

The lobby was filled with people arriving for the wedding, and you instantly spotted three cousins and two aunts from across the room, giving them a little smile as you made your way to the reception desk, Spencer right at your side.

“Hi, reservation for Y/N L/N, please.”

“Sister of the groom, right? Your mother asked me to give her a call when you arrived. Please wait one minute.” She handed you your key, and you felt yourself go pale, turning around to Spencer for reassurance.

“Oh god, she’s coming now, what do we do?”

“Y/N, calm down, it’s okay, we knew we were going to have to see your mom tonight at the reception anyways.”

“You’re right. Okay, right. Okay.” You breathed out, as Spencer wrapped his other arm around you, holding you in a closer embrace while keeping your hands locked together.

“One of my aunts is looking at us. She looks like she wants to say something. Oh god, she’s coming over, Spencer act natural,”

“Saying act naturally is actually counter-active-” but he didn’t have time to finish before you had turned to greet the older woman, disentangling yourself from Spencer’s arms as you hugged the woman warmly.

“It’s so good to see you, Y/N, you know how we all worry about you doing that job of yours. The other week we saw you on the news about that tragedy with the young girl…” she trailed off, giving you a worrying look before quickly shifting her gaze to her actual target, Spencer.

“I think I saw you too, young man. You must be Y/N’s boyfriend,” she smiled at him, waiting to hear a response so she could return to the other matrons with the gossip.

“Yeah, nice to meet you, I’m Spencer.” You could tell he was thankful that the woman hadn’t stuck her hand out to shake his, as he positioned himself mostly behind you, keeping his hands occupied by letting one settle on your hip and the other keeping a hold of your suitcase.

“Spencer? Spencer Reid?” You heard your mother before you saw her, turning around in your place to finally see her, as Spencer whipped his head around as well. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s so wonderful to finally meet you.”

Your mother had none of the restraint of your aunt, and unfortunately, you’d inherited your clingy side from her, which is why she immediately swooped in to give Spencer a hug. To his credit, he greeted her warmly as well and didn’t avoid the touch, but he kept it short and polite nonetheless.

“Mom, how did you know…”

“You tell me about your coworkers all the time, I’m just surprised I didn’t work it out sooner. I always said that you talked about that Spencer with a fond tone, you should ask your father, he’ll tell you that I did.” You rolled your eyes at your mother’s words, doing your best to avoid Spencer’s gaze. He’d fallen back into place by your side as you greeted your mother.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, You know, Y/N has been keeping you as this big secret for the last year, and it’s so nice to see that you’re actually real. You’re here!” She sounded so excited for you that your heart almost broke under the weight of your guilt, knowing that you’d have to come clean at some point after the wedding. As it was, you were already going to have to try really hard to avoid the photographer and videographer throughout the night so you didn’t have to be constantly reminded of your idiocy whenever your mother got the photo albums out,

“Sorry, the two of you are probably exhausted after that flight, right? Go and get yourself unpacked. The rehearsal dinner is at 8 p.m. so we’ll catch up then, sweetheart.” She left in a whirlwind, having deposited you next to the elevators, and left you with no other option but to do exactly as she said, making your way to your space for the weekend.

–X–

The following few hours had been a little awkward, to say the least. You’d awkwardly pulled away from one another in the elevator up to the room, apologizing for invading each other's personal space. The room was a decent size, but still small enough that you’d be constantly tripping up over one another the entire weekend if you weren’t careful.

Reid carefully unpacked his tuxedo when you got into the room, and then quietly informed you that he’d need a shower. You’d unpacked your own things while he did, trying not to listen to the water flowing over his body in the next room. His earlier touch had ignited something in you, and your heart was beating at his every gesture now, something that you were sure it hadn’t done before.

What was it about weddings that made you so open to even the possibility of romance that even someone so off-limits could become the object of your affection?

So you tried not to listen, not to wonder why it was taking the man so long to just take a shower, not to let your mind wander to a place where it was perfectly acceptable to wonder what he looked like in that shower, and you unpacked and organized your things.

“Hey, Y/N, I’m really sorry but I forgot to bring my clothes with me,” he called awkwardly through the door a few minutes after you heard the water turn off, and you turned to the bathroom, not expecting the sight before you.

You’d assumed from the quiet volume of his voice that he was calling from within the bathroom itself, but instead, he stood awkwardly in front of you, a towel wrapped around his waist and torso, held together desperately in one hand.

“Oh shit, sorry, I’ll just turn around, I guess,” you stumbled over the words, dragging your eyes back up to his face as you did so, whipping yourself around to stare ahead of you.

“No, no, it’s my fault. I was so hasty I forgot my outfit for tonight. It’s okay.” You heard him fumble for his clothes and return to the bathroom quickly with another mumbled apology, finally allowing you to let out a deep, almost dreamy sigh, startling yourself. Mentally chastising yourself once again, you finished your organizing and let yourself fall onto the bed in the middle of the room sleepily while you waited for him to come out again.

You must have dozed off a little because you woke with a jolt when you felt a soft touch on your arm. There he was above you, a soft and concerned look on his face as he woke you up as kindly as he could.

“Y/N, it’s 7 p.m. We need to get ready for the rehearsal.” He whispered as if he weren’t too bothered if you didn’t want to go down at all, content to let you sleep. But you forced yourself upright anyways, and nodded at his words, swiftly moving yourself towards the bathroom he had since departed.

“Thanks for waking me, Spence,” You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes, gathering your towels and change of clothes before turning back to him. In the four hours you’d apparently been dead to the world, he’d managed to dry his hair, change his clothes, and, from the looks of the book on the bedside table, read through an entire book twice.

He noticed you looking and cleared his throat. “Sorry, you looked so tired I didn’t want to wake you, so I just sat here and read while you got some sleep.”

“It’s okay, Spence. I guess I was pretty tired. I’m gonna go…” you gestured towards the shower and stepped towards it with an awkward smile, not letting him answer before you had closed the door between you and taken a deep breath, setting thoughts of him aside for the night before you focused on getting yourself ready to face your lies.

An hour later, you were making your way back down to the lobby, having received a text from your brother that that was where everyone was gathering before making their way to the dining room. Spencer offered you his arm in the elevator on the way down.

“Here, grab my arm.” He said softly down to you, a sweet smile playing on his lips.

“Oh yeah that makes sense,” you said distractedly, looping your own through his and leaning into him.

“It’ll also stop you from picking your nails,” he joked.

“I don’t pick my nails!”

“You so do. You do it when you’re nervous and when you lie about something. Last month on that case in Chicago when that officer asked for your number, you told him you had a boyfriend and started picking your nails,” he laughed down at you, enjoying your pouting face a bit too much as he profiled you.

“You’re one to talk. The last time a woman asked you out, you started rambling about the linguistic history of the phrase “go out,” in the romantic sense. She stood there for five minutes before she gave up.”

“Wait, when did that happen? I don’t remember any woman trying to ask me out.”

“Then you’re even denser than I realized, Doctor Reid, because they do it constantly.” Your back and forth ended there, though, as the elevator doors finally opened into the lobby. You smoothed out your dress and tried your best to act natural as the two of you made your entrance.

“Y/N! Over here,” you heard your brother and saw him wave at you from the other side of the room, his fiancee next to him receiving guests.

“It’s been so long since I saw my kid sister. Get over here,” he smiled at you, beckoning you over, and you released your hold on Reid to give your brother a warm hug.

“Now who is this kid sister you’re talking about because last I checked you’re only 18 months older than me.”

“18 months, 18 years, all that matters is that I am, in fact, the older one,” he released you from the bear hug and glanced up to Reid, standing awkwardly watching the scene waiting for an invitation to the conversation. “Holy shit, you’re real.”

“Hey! Be nice. This is Spencer, he’s my… he’s my boyfriend, we work together.” You felt your cheeks flame as you introduced the two of them, your brother looking at Spencer through knitted eyebrows, taking on a faux protective stance.

“Spencer, hey. Mom mentioned you were here earlier, but I didn’t think you’d be so gangly… It’s my wedding, and I’ve been told I have to keep all threats to a minimum, but if I see you getting all handsy with my sister, just know that I have a blackbelt in jiu-jitsu.”

“No, you don’t. You have a yellow belt in karate at most, and you got that at age 10.” You laughed at the man.

“And whose fault is that?”

“Oh my god, it’s been almost 20 years, I already apologized!”

“Apologised for what?” Spencer finally managed to butt in, watching your sibling bickering as if it were a tennis match.

“This little rodent,” your brother said, scruffing up your hair as he spoke, “broke my wrist when she was 8 and I was 10.”

“It was self-defense! You were trying to use your karate moves on me and I panicked!”

“And now, you’re a hot-shot FBI Agent and you get to break bad guys wrists all the time.” He finished for you and you laughed, suddenly glad to be back around family.

“So, Spencer, you’re an FBI Agent, too? I thought my mom mentioned something about you being a Doctor earlier.”

“I am. A Doctor. And an FBI Agent, uh, they’re PhD’s not medical degrees, though. Three of them, Math, Chemistry and Engineering. I also have Bachelor's Degrees in Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology.” He answered, and you looked up at him proudly, taking his hand as you noticed him growing slightly uncomfortable with the attention from your brother.

“Wow,” was all your brother said, until he finished the statement with “All those degrees and my sister was the best you could do, huh?” You punched him in the arm after that, and you felt Spencer physically relax a bit, twinning your fingers with his as you chastised your brother.

“Anyway, thanks for taking the time to come to our, hopefully, lovely wedding, the reception will be starting soon. The dining hall is just through there.” You hugged your brother again, and, with a breath of relief, led Spencer down the hall to the dining hall.

“That went well, I think?” you whispered to him, conspiratorially.

“Your family is nice,” he replied. “Does he always act like that, or is it the wedding spirit possessing him somehow?”

“If you’re referring to my brother, I think he’s probably partaken in a few flutes of champagne already this evening. But yes, he’s always like that. They all like to treat me like a baby when they see me.”

“I think it’s nice. They care about you a lot,” his words were warm, but his eyes were sad, and you remembered what you’d been told of Spencer’s own childhood and felt your heart ache for him. His mom loved him a lot, but Spencer had needed to grow up much too fast. You squeezed his hand, still clasped in yours and before you knew it you were pushing onto your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you, Spencer. For being here,” you said as his now flushed face met yours. You didn’t let him respond though, simply pushing forward into the dining hall, ready to live in the fantasy of your own making for the evening.

–X–

“Spencer, you were amazing!” You giggled, walking down the hall to your room, stumbling slightly in your excitement and haste.

“Those magic tricks? The little babies couldn’t get enough of you,” you spun around, wrapping your arms around the man’s neck and pulling him in close to you, letting him hold you against the door to your room. He laughed a little at your antics as he pulled out the key card.

“Y/N, are you drunk?” he asked, one hand firmly planted on your waist to steady you now.

“No! I’m just happy. And if that happiness was caused by an array of cocktails forced into my hands by distant aunts and cousins who all wanted to know about my absolute catch of a boyfriend, then that is simply secondary to the feeling itself. And furthermore-” He pushed the door behind you in on itself, and your words were cut off by your legs giving out beneath you.

You were so sure you were about to take a tumble to the floor that you shut your eyes tight and braced for an impact that didn’t come. Opening them again slowly, you saw Spencer closer than before, his face mere inches from your own as he held you in an improvised dip, having caught you just before you’d hit the ground.

“Sorry. I… Shit, maybe I am drunk,” you breathed out, not letting your eyes drift from his own, knowing that if you ever considered a glance down at his lips at that moment, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from closing the measly distance separating you.

“You should use the bathroom first,” he told you, but without making any move of his own, stuck in that pose with you as if he was content to stay there for as long as he could hold you. “You should take your make-up off. We have a long day tomorrow, right?”

You were the first one to move, letting your feet find a more solid footing beneath you and twisting up from his grip. His hands didn’t leave your body as you became more upright though, still keeping you in that close embrace.

“Yeah, I should… I should go wash up.” You said, and he nodded, still looking at you with the same intensity as before.

“Spencer, that means you need to move,” you whispered quietly, and he jumped back as soon as the words were out of your mouth.

“Sorry. I’ll just… I’ll just be over there,” he held his hands up in surrender before moving further into the room, leaving you next to the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, you emerged from the bathroom and were ready to sleep once again. Thankfully, you of earlier that day had managed to store your pajamas in the bathroom ready for their use. Upon exiting the bathroom, you saw that Spencer was getting ready to sleep too, slacks and a shirt having been replaced by a pair of flannel pants and a very old and beaten-up CalTech sweater, looking perplexedly down at the bed.

“Spence, what’s wrong?”

“We didn’t speak any further about the sleeping arrangements…” he mumbled and you looked at the bed in front of you, still confused at his meaning. “Y/N, we have to share the bed.”

“Oh.” You knew you probably sounded dumb, but after the amount of alcohol thrust upon you that night, that was all you could muster at this point.

“I can sleep on the floor if that makes you feel more comfortable. It’s probably no worse than some of the motel beds we’ve stayed on before,” he offered, but you instantly shook your head.

“No, I dragged you out here, I’m not making you sleep on the floor as well,” you sighed and made your way to the side of the bed you’d slept on earlier, beginning to pull the covers down so you could get in.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked, perplexed by your somehow contrasting words and actions.

“I’m getting ready for bed. It’s late.” You replied, not looking up at him again, for fear that he’d spot the blush on your face. “You should too,” you continued, patting the other side of the bed, gesturing for him to get in, too.

“Oh.” It was his turn to stand there shell-shocked in the moment, and you almost let out a giggle but held back thinking that would be too much for him to take in at that moment.

“Come on, Spence, I’m tired, I’m sure you’re tired. We’re just sharing a bed, it’s not like you have to marry me after this.” You climbed fully into the bed, making sure that your nightgown covered you decently before pulling the covers up around you. Spencer mumbled something that you didn’t catch, but he acquiesced and climbed in after you. You turned your head over on the pillow to face him, turning onto your side as you watched him turn his head to you as well.

“What?” he smiled, noticing your stare.

“Nothing. Good night, Spence,” you smiled, finally letting your eyes drop closed.

“Good night, Y/N.” He whispered, and the sound of his voice carried you off to sleep.

–X–

You weren’t sure if it was the light streaming in through the window or the rise and fall of a chest that wasn’t your own was the first thing to wake you in the morning, but nonetheless, you woke from the comfortable warmth of sleep and found yourself wrapped around your fake boyfriend.

To be fair to yourself, he was also wrapped around you. Your head had gravitated from your pillow to his chest, his left arm wrapped up and around your back. Your leg had also risen in the night, pulled up over his waist, held in place by his other arm, which was, almost embarrassingly, cradling your ass, pulling you in closer to his core. Unsure about how to go about disentangling yourself, you resigned yourself to just waking the man up.

“Spencer… Spencer,” you whispered, letting the hand that had fallen onto his chest tap him slightly. He stirred a little and then cracked an eye open, looking confused with the situation.

“Y/N, is it time for the wedding?” He asked through half-lidded eyes, evidently wanting nothing more than to fall back into whatever dreams he was having. You shifted uncomfortably in his arms then, suddenly growing stiff in the position you’d probably held for hours, and found your nightgown had risen dangerously high on your body, his hand on your near bare ass.

“No, no, it’s just…” You rolled your hips against his in discomfort, and the movement had his eyes breaking open as he finally took in your positions.

“Shit, I’m….Sorry, I don’t know what happened, I must’ve grabbed you when we were sleeping,” he said, reluctantly slipping his hands away from your body, trailing his hand around your leg, and letting it fall onto his stomach. The movement sent a shiver up your spine, as you finally had enough room to lift your torso up, not quite ready to relinquish the proximity of your entire body yet.

“It’s okay, I think it was probably me who started it in the first place. Those pillows weren’t that comfortable…” you tried to explain, the hand on his chest rubbing slow circles into his skin before you could realize what you were doing.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position then as well, clumsily. With your legs still wrapped around his waist, you had no choice but to move with him, suddenly finding yourself straddling him, the bedsheets suddenly pressed away from your body. If he looked down, he’d see a lot more than you planned for him to see, your panties on clear display as your nightgown twisted itself up into the sheets.

“Shit sorry,” he moaned out again, as you steadied yourself with hands on his shoulders.

“No, it’s okay, I didn’t move quick enough.” You quickly pulled your dress down again, and extracted yourself from the bed, lifting your leg up and off of him and finally pushing off the bed, leaving him sat there.

His hands fell into his lap and you started gathering things around the room, readying yourself for the busy day ahead.

“I have to be in the bridal suite at 11, so we have about… two hours to kill before then. Do you want to grab a shower first, or should I?”

“You first,” he mumbled quickly, before clearing his throat and trying again. “You should go first. You probably have more to do today, right?” You nodded at his words and made your way to the bathroom again. Out of the corner of your eye though, as you let the door close behind you, you watched his hands come up to cradle his flushed face, as he let his head fall back again into the pillow.

–X–

The morning was so busy after that, you barely had any chance to talk to Spencer again. You spent the early afternoon in the bridal suite with the wedding party, welcoming your new sister to the family, then made your way to the aisle space set up outside, checking up on last-minute details and helping to flower girls into position. You weren’t walking down the aisle yourself, but you could see that the extra help was letting the very stressed-out Maid of Honour get some well-needed respite. And more importantly, it stopped your wandering thoughts from letting you fantasize about Spencer.

You’d woken up in bed next to people before, of course, but it had never felt so comfortable. In fact, other people you’d slept with said you were pretty distant in your sleep, choosing to move as far away from physical touch as you could get, but you knew with no doubt that you had been the one to move in first, to touch him first. That he’d pulled you even closer had your heart singing, and you wanted to be wrapped up in him all over again, suddenly desperate to seek him out. So you distracted yourself, not wanting to make any mistakes you would regret when you were no longer wrapped up in your own fantasy.

So you kept your distance as the ceremony started. Then the wedding march was playing, and you were holding back tears as his hand slipped into yours, your head falling onto his shoulder as you watched your brother marry the love of his life.

You kept your distance as you reached the reception hall, watching all the old ladies on both sides fawn over him, asking him questions, and watching from his side as he blushed at the attention. You swept the hair out of his eyes as the couple was announced, and you took your seat for the wedding meal and the speeches, his hand falling to your back to guide you to your chair, pulling it out for you like a true gentleman.

You kept your distance as your new sister tossed the bouquet, and despite your low effort and the ravenous looks of the bridesmaids, it fell neatly into your hands as if it belonged there. You ran excitedly over to him to show him and he lifted you into a hug, caught up in your own excitement.

You kept your distance until you realized you’d not kept your distance at all, physically unable to keep yourself away from the man who had somehow stolen your heart in the middle of the night.

“I know that look,” your brother said, somehow sneaking up on you later into the night as you watched Spencer perform even more of his magic tricks for the smaller guests.

“What look?” you asked, not for one second letting your eyes drift from Spencer.

“You’re in love with him,” he said, taking a swig of the drink in his hand.

“He’s my boyfriend,” you said reflexively, turning to the drinks table behind you and picking up one for yourself.

“No, he isn’t. Or at least he wasn’t before this weekend,” your brother said, as your eyes finally snapped up to him.

“Oh, don’t act all surprised, Miss FBI Profiler. You may be good, but I’ll always be your older brother, and contrary to popular opinion, I do in fact pay attention to things.” You sighed and leaned back against the table.

“How’d you figure it out?”

“You were picking your nails the entire way through the reception dinner when the aunties were asking you about your relationship. You did that when we were younger too, when you tried lying to Mom and Dad about how I broke my wrist. Doesn’t take two PhD’s to figure that out.”

“Three.”

“Three what?”

“Three PhDs. He has three of them.” You sighed dreamily and ran a stressed hand through your head.

“He’s just my coworker. I didn’t want to disappoint Mom by coming alone after telling her all those stories, but now…” You tried to explain yourself but words were escaping you in that moment.

“You should tell him, trust me. He definitely feels the same.”

“How are you so confident about that? How did you manage to end up with all of the confidence between the two of us, when I can barely work up the courage to tell my own mother I’m still single?”

“Y/N, look at me. You got the brains, I had to have something. And no man flies to the opposite side of the country on a few day's notice for a girl who is just a friend, okay? That’s more logic than confidence, and that’s supposed to be your strong suit.”

You considered his words for a second, turning back to look at Spencer. Evidently, he’d finished his magic show and was beginning to say goodbye to the children, but he felt your eyes on him somehow and met your gaze. He brought his hand up into a shy wave before a little girl grabbed his attention again, and he looked at her seriously, nodding along to each word she was saying.

“Fuck, what do I do, I’m not good with… any of this.” You turned back to your brother, but he’d left you there, stranded in your own thoughts as you let yourself hope, let your brain dream that one day this would be your wedding and the man by your side would be Spencer Reid.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the bride and groom request the presence of all the couples on the dancefloor for this next song.” You saw your brother again, next to his wife, whispering his explanations in his ear as she turned to look at you and winked as well. God, they were going to be a force to be reckoned with together now, you thought, as people started pushing past you to make their way to the dancefloor.

You recognized the song of course, and it was almost so on the nose you almost rolled your eyes. More Than Words by Extreme. Perfect.

“Y/N, may I have this dance?” He had somehow snuck up on you from behind as you watched your brother, and held his hand out to you. You put your drink down and took it, letting him lead you to the dance floor.

“I didn’t think you danced, Dr. Reid,” you teased him as he pulled you in, letting his hands rest on your waist, as yours came up around his neck, gently letting him sway you side to side in time with the music.

“I don’t really, but it seemed wrong not to,” he smiled. “I’m at a wedding, with the most beautiful girl on my arm, and the couple made it very clear that we should be dancing, so here I am.” You blushed at his words as he spoke. He removed his hands from your waist, instead grasping one of yours in his own as he pulled you closer.

You stared up at him with a soft smile for a few more seconds before letting your head fall back to his chest.

“I know I’ve said it a lot this weekend, but thank you, Spencer.” You said into his shirt, letting him hold you close as the song went on.

“You don’t have to thank me, Y/N.” He insisted, and you looked up at him again. “Actually… I didn’t exactly agree to this with the best of intentions.”

Your heart lept to your throat as you stared up at him, hoping that he would take your silence as a means to continue.

“I’ve been… I thought that maybe…” he struggled to get the words out, his face aflame with the effort.

“You promised me those coffees right?” He finally stuttered out, and you were left confused and a little disappointed.

“Yeah, Spence, it’s okay, I’ll get you those coffees for the month, just like we promised.” You couldn’t help the sad smile that played on your lips as you answered him, so sure that he was about to say something else.

“No, I mean… Y/N I don’t want the coffee. I want this. I want us to go home, and make everything that you made up come true. I want to take you on a date to that coffee shop. I want to be a boyfriend you can call and tell your mom about because it’s serious and it’s going to work out between us. I even… God, I even spent the morning looking up book fairs in New York City so I could make that come true as well,” he rambled the words out and you could feel the tears forming in your eyes.

“Spencer,” you said softly, trying to get him to focus on you, but he’d started speaking and he wasn’t going to be stopped so easily.

“And if any of that creeps you out, just say the word and I’ll never mention it again. Because I know I’m not good with this, and when I feel something, I tend to feel it overwhelmingly, and Derek tells me I can be really oblivious sometimes, which I don’t really get, but-”

“Spencer,” you put a bit more force into your words this time, punctuating them with a hand on his face.

“Spencer, kiss me.” And he does. He takes your head in both of his hands, and he draws you up to him perfectly, letting your hands fall to the lapels of his suit jacket as he steals your breath away one more time. The kiss is lingering, but short, and he hesitantly backs away, looking around to spot witnesses. But you don’t care and you pull him back down for another, and another, until you’re just two lovers on the dance floor that cannot get enough of each other, gasping for breath between chaste kisses as you let him hold you there, gently swaying.

“Spencer,” you whisper finally, forehead resting on his, as the song finally draws to a close.

“Yes?”

“Spencer, take me to bed.” You tell him, and he nods. He leads you over to the bride and groom where you offer each of them a hug and a happy future before making your excuses and running away with Spencer back into the hotel like two love-drunk teenagers, a mess of giggles and stolen kisses as you stumble up to your room for the second time that weekend.

But this time, you don’t hesitate, don’t pull away. He backs you into the door and you let him hold you there, his mouth on yours, your tongues entwined as he fumbles for his key card. You fall together into the room, laughing and smiling the entire way, not letting him escape your touch.

“May I?” He asks, playing with the zipper of your dress as you kiss his cheek, his jaw, his neck, anywhere you can reach, nodding and moaning your consent. The moment the zip is pulled down, he lets you go for a second, and the dress falls straight to the floor. You're practically bare in front of him, chest exposed, neck littered with the beginning of love bites that he’s about to absolutely build upon.

“You’re beautiful.” He says, softly, wrapping his arms around you again, lifting you up so your legs can wrap around him as he delivers one more soul-crushing kiss to your lips. Your brain is a mess of emotions, your only solid thought is that you will never let him go again. You both eagerly worked on unbuttoning his shirt together, a desperate mess of breaths as he finally laid you on the bed. His hand fell to your core, tracing a finger over your sensitive nub as you begged him for more, needing to feel all of him, to devour his very existence.

He pulled himself out of his remaining clothes, lips still attached to yours, climbing over you and holding you tenderly, his arms wrapping around your body as his legs came to settle between your own. Dropping his forehead to yours, he finally spoke again, his hand dropping between the two of you to line himself up.

“Is this… are you sure?” You heard the restraint in his voice, the desperation, the love, the overwhelming lust as he held himself back, needing to hear your consent.

“Spencer, I love you,” you whispered, and he finally pushed himself into you, joining the two of you together in a moment of bliss. You shared another sweet kiss, letting him swallow each and every one of your moans as he began thrusting into you, your hips rising to meet him in your delirious pleasure.

He whispered sweet nothings in your ears, brushing the hair off your face every now and again to tell you how beautiful you looked, and how well you were doing.

“You’re so perfect, Y/N, you’re doing so good for me,” he pressed kisses against your neck with each word, keeping his pace steady as you chased your inevitable high, already clenching around his thick cock.

“Spencer, I love you,” you let the words drop from your tongue like a prayer, repeating them over and over with each thrust as small tears welled up out of your eyes. He kissed them away from your cheeks, listening to each confession as your stomach tightened and your climax spilled over you. He grabbed your waist then, leaving one hand cupping and stroking your cheek as his own thrusts grew sloppy, finally spending himself fully inside you.

“I love you, too,” he whispered into you then, unwilling to let you go for even one second. You spent the rest of the night whispering the words back and forth to one another, waiting with bated breath for the fantasy to break, for the magic of the wedding to wear off.

It never did.

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid smut #mgg #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader smut #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x oc #criminal minds smut #So much plot #maturereiding

4K notes · View notes

yaoyaobae · 2 years ago

Text

Its been awhile and i have another OC to share LOL gotta draw brain rots instead of keeping them in your head forever ☺️💖

Name: Aurore Dormir

School: Royal Sword Academy

Pastime: Escaping school to wander in the nearby forest, spending time alone

Hobbies: Sightseeing, Gardening, Fencing.

Family: Father, Mother , *Brother ( silver, please refer to the last note regarding my own theory)

Aurore is a third year student at RSA, currently house warden of the sleeping beauty inspired dorm.

Aurore is also the next king of the Kingdom of Heroes, which naturally made him the center of attention in RSA.

Unlike Malleus whose powerful aura pushes people away from him, Aurore draws people towards him as they feel a sense of security around him.

He was only recently enrolled into school during his second year as his family brought him back from isolation for training, far away from the world’s eyes.

At first glance, Aurore may seem like the ideal dream prince: Kind, Polite, Courageous, Strong and Smart as he is consistent in securing top grades across his cohort. But deep down, he isn’t exactly the perfect prince most of his peers think he is.

Aurore is actually afraid of strangers and overwhelming attention ( he was raised in isolation so meeting humans are.. yeah) He is skilled at hiding his weakness but starts blanking out if there are too many people crowding around him.

As a result, he finds happiness in spending time alone in places where no one recognises him. He usually takes a short stroll around Sage Island’s various forests when his caretakers aren’t looking.

Strangely, Aurore mentions that his enjoyment from lonely strolls only existed because he would suddenly find himself in unknown places as a child…as if something or someone was calling him. But he became mentally stronger as he got older and knows how to guard himself during his impromptu walks.

Bonus personal theory/lore:

Hi! So if you have been following me since i started creating twst ocs, you would be familiar with a certain comic i drew for an Aurora Oc ( its not exactly Aurore because i didn’t flesh him out) . But to sum up my theory for that comic:

There was once a powerful kingdom that clashed with briar valley, humans and fae did not get along as well back then.

Somewhere in between the war, both of the queen’s sons were cursed by a powerful magician and separated at birth. The queen initially wanted to send her two sons far away from the castle, but only managed to send one tucked away in a casket that drifted on a hidden river which led to a forest.

The war ended a few days later, with both fae and humans forming a truce. The queen fell into depression after realising that her second son probably did not make it and blamed herself for not keeping him a little longer had she known he would have been safe and alive in her arms.

Time heals wounds, and with some reassurance from the King the Queen got back up on her feet stronger for the sake of her people. Of course, sometimes the servants would catch a glimpse of the lonely Queen staring into the far forests wondering if she will ever see those small pair of Aurora coloured eyes again.

Because the Queen conceived her two sons alone away from the servants, only she and the King were aware of their other missing son. The three fairy advisors who had protected them from the very start told the Queen that if word of two cursed princes were to spread, the kingdom would be doomed to fall . The Queen had no choice but to accept this decision, and so they entrusted their only son to the three fairies in case the curse within him acts up. Hence Aurore was raised in isolation away from the world’s attention and only enrolled in his second year to prevent the curse from possibly manifesting.

In this story I created Silver is the missing prince in question who drifted far into the forest and eventually picked up by Lilia. His only proof of his royal status is a ring with an aurora coloured gem (Book 7 mention).

Regarding the curse: Silver was cursed to feel drowsy all the time while Aurore was cursed to follow a voice in his head which leads him to sleepwalk into dangerous places alone. Silver’s hair colour reminds me of the spindle/needle, so in a way he contains the sleeping curse. Like Aurora, Aurore is drawn into strange places by a voice and eventually to the spindle. Hence these two will always feel an unfamiliar sense of closeness to each other.

“Yao why do you think Silver would have a brother? Much less the RSA guy inspired by Aurora? Doesn’t Silver already have Aurora’s traits?”

In general this is just my own fun theory to think about, but my reasons are because i think it would be interesting if Silver canonically had living family member(s) from a royal family( that ring kinda tells all). It would also put him in place wondering if he should return to his biological human family or stay with his Briar Valley family as he feels a stronger bond with them. With the way TWST tackles issues about fae/human like Sebek from example, i would love to see Silver’s resolve for his found family.

In my old comic, the Aurora OC actually dislikes Fae because of the war. He especially hates Lilia because he believed the war criminal took his own brother away and is promoting peace despite his past.

I feel Aurore would dislike Lilia but eventually learns to see the war from both sides as humans aren’t all that great either, he is still a naive prince with much to learn about the world. So while Silver does have Aurora’s trait, Aurore may have some of King Stefan’s from Maleficent/OG film. TWST tends to combine diff character traits anyways🌝👍

Anyways I adore these two so much and am looking forward to Silver’s past in the future updates! Thank you for reading about Aurore, till next time 💖

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst fanart #yaoyao_twstoc #auroredormir #twst silver

4K notes · View notes

just-jordie-things · 1 year ago

Text

let the light in - ryomen sukuna

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ 10k follower event special! ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

word count: 15.5k warnings: mentions of fighting and injuries, reader has a cursed technique but i don't describe it bc i'm lazy, she's actually pretty weak in this ngl i needed her to be a bit of a damsel in distress. sukuna is pretty out of character but he has to be. also sukuna can take control of yuji's body when he's asleep bc i decided so ok it's my first time writing for him so bare with me. summary: reincarnation!au with a twist. in every life sukuna finds you in, he has to remind you of who you once were- and who you once were to each other. it's a burden, but it's one he's carried for centuries and he wouldn't have it any other way. more info: slowburn enemies to ?? to lovers, sukuna is hopelessly in love with reader its very fun ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

[ ooh let the light in // at your back door yelling cause i wanna come in // ooh turn your light on // look at us, you and i back at it again ]

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Finding her in this life was the first thing on his mind as soon as his consciousness was manifested. Just like every era before this one, she’s always his first thought.

The second thought was- what the fuck?

In all of his centuries walking this earth, he’d never been quite out of body like this. As in, in a completely different body from his own. And much to his displeasure, he’d manifested inside of some brat jujutsu sorcerer that was a bit too strong for his own good. No worries, though, after they tracked down a few more of his cursed fingers he’d be able to take proper control and Itadori Yuji would cease to exist as soon as Sukuna regained his full strength.

So for some time, he played nice. Or, as nice as he could, that was. He sat back in his domain and waited. He’d never been one with a strong sense of patience- he may have been a man once but he was a curse now- but if it meant strengthening his chances in being reunited with her sooner, then he would play the long game. Besides, he could have some fun torturing the brat and his friends for a little while, right? No harm in some chaos and carnage along the way. He would need good stories to tell her when they were together again, anyways.

There were times where the brat began to wonder what it was Sukuna was doing there, quietly tucked into his domain. On the rare occasion that he didn’t rear his head into conversation with a nasty comment coming from a mouth materialized on his cheek or the back of his hand. Times passed where Yuji would cringe awaiting Sukuna’s inevitable filth, but instead he was gifted with silence from the curse inhabiting him. The young sorcerer could only assume that this meant he was doing something else- but what? What could he possibly occupy himself with while trapped in his own domain? Some days Yuji worried he was plotting something, but others he wondered if the King of Curses was just lost in thought. Did he daydream?

Sukuna wouldn’t call it that, but if anyone were able to catch him in the act, they’d know it was exactly that. All he could do with his time is imagine how he’d reunite with her in this life. It was one of his favorite parts of each new century or so, and after hundreds of lifetimes, there were plenty of memories to keep himself occupied with.

This time he knew he’d have to outdo himself, seeing as he was in an unfamiliar body, and he could only hope that she liked this one as much as the last. Perhaps the next time he took control of it he’d make sure everything was up to standard- he couldn’t have her rejecting him just because he was in some brat’s body this time. On the other hand, he knew her to be more playful and experimental than he was, so maybe she’d find a change in host exciting.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

To his delight, Sukuna is reunited with the great love of his life sooner than expected. To his great displeasure, it’s at exactly the wrong time.

He’d been irritated enough having his brat vessel tap out just because he couldn’t take on a measly little Special Grade. Of course, he wasn’t about to appease some righteous jujutsu sorcerer’s agenda by exorcizing the curse himself. But in the end, the curse disappointed him too, thinking that it could pick a fight with the King of Curses and come out of it alive.

Pride outweighed vengeance, and he found himself entertained with playing with the Special Grade. Playing, because of course it’s abilities were weak compared to real jujutsu, unlike the childish display the brat had put up first.

He’s so drawn in by his play fight with the curse that he’d completely missed her- that is until he’s using his Domain Expansion, and from the corner of one of his eyes he finally notices.

While it’s a shock that he’s managed to let the great love of his life go unnoticed, she isn’t exactly… conscious.

The special grade is sliced diced and forgotten, barely even a blip in Sukuna’s memory now once he recognizes the slumped over body on a pile of rubble a few hundred feet away. He’s delighted, ecstatic even. The bloodthirsty grin on his face is replaced by a beam of pure thrill. He’d previously thought it might take years to find her in this life, so to stumble across her now, after getting control of this body over a mere pest, was a real treat.

He approaches her limp body so quickly he’s practically teleported to her, and his beam begins to falter as he takes in her current state.

It’s not a matter of worry that she’s fairly beat up and knocked unconscious so hard there’s soft snores between heavy breaths, her mortal body working overtime to keep her alive at all- it was nothing a quick use of his Reverse Cursed Technique couldn’t fix.

The wince of disgust that contorts his features is directed solely at her attire.

Crisp black button up torn open to reveal the same shade of undershirt snugly fitting her underneath, paired with pants of the same material. He didn’t need to see the crest at the collar of her shirt to give him further context as to what she was up to in this century.

“Of course,” He utters through his snarl as he crouches down towards her, hands glowing as he promptly heals her wounds. She doesn’t awaken, her body growing even more exhausted after being put through the technique, but her muscles do appear to relax as she slumps further into the dirty ground. “You would be a sorcerer in this lifetime. Idiot,”

The cruel name falls from his lips with nothing but melted affection. No other person on this earth would be allowed to hear him speak this way and live to tell the tale. It was reserved only for her- and she wasn’t even awake to hear it now.

With steady hands Sukuna gathers her in his arms, trying to bend her into a more comfortable position. She doesn’t wince or complain when bruised limbs drag across broken slabs of concrete. If he wasn’t able to hear the steady beat of her heart, she would have easily been mistaken for dead already.

“A shitty reunion this time around, I’m afraid,”

Sukuna sighs before he sits fully on the ground. He’s not sure how much longer he’d be in control of this body, but any thoughts of fleeing to bring as much destruction to Tokyo is far from his mind. He wants nothing more than to sit here with his lover and hope that she’d wake back up before he’s dragged back into his domain.

With one arm wrapped under her shoulders to keep her limp body closely tucked to him, his free hand brushes the messy strands of hair away from her resting face. She looks peaceful, even though when she wakes she’d still carry the aches of her healed injuries. The tips of his fingers linger over her soft cheek as he admires her.

“Just as beautiful in this life as you were in every one before it, my love,” He murmurs, so quiet that even if she were conscious enough to hear it, she probably wouldn’t have.

He only gets a few moments of peace with her before he can feel a stir from inside of him, and he can faintly make out Yuji gaining his consciousness back. He snarls in his aggravation, wishing he could knock the brat out so he could get just a little more time with his long lost love, even if she wasn’t her usual lively self.

“Come, we have things to do” He tells her, before he pulls her closer and lifts her up.

He makes his way out of the destroyed building with leisure, knowing that the other sorcerer, Fushiguro, would be waiting outside for a fight. It wasn’t in his plans to end the kid’s life just yet, but with the reunion of his one true love coming prematurely, things might have to change. Oh well, he was flexible.

She fusses in his arms upon the lift, but even with her pinching brows and twitching eyelids, she never quite wakes up. Which was alright, they would have plenty of time to properly catch up in a bit. Sukuna had other things to handle first.

It would be some time still before she properly met the King of Curses face to face- in this life anyways- as shortly after his departure of the ruined building, he would have to set her aside to take care of a few of the weaker level shikigamis that the Fushiguro kid sent his way. After ripping the brat’s heart out of their shared chest, it would be a few weeks before things seemingly transitioned back to normal.

When (y/n) would finally come to in the infirmary a few hours after it all went down, Megumi would relay how the King of Curses had carried her out in his arms. She’d give him a bitter laugh, thinking he was trying to lighten the mood after the news of the death of their friend. But Megumi wasn’t usually very good at telling jokes, and after seeing his grave expression stay put, her face would fall.

“You’re serious?”

Megumi nods, the thin line of his lips unwavering.

(y/n) blinks a few times as she processes it slowly. She’s still not sure that she believes him, but she doesn’t have a reason not to either. If Gojo had told her this she’d have rolled her eyes, and maybe called him insensitive and unserious, but why would Megumi make something like that up?

“I don’t understand,” She tells him with a furrowed brow, and the way Megumi shrugs one shoulder unenthusiastically tells her he didn’t understand it any better than she did. “You’re telling me he saved me?”

“Maybe, I don’t know,” Megumi replies dryly. He should’ve known she’d ask him questions he clearly didn’t have the answers for, so he tried to provide her with what he did know so that maybe she wouldn’t torment him with more of her own questions. “But he brought you out, and set you down somewhere with your head propped up, and he didn’t try to attack you at all. At least, it looked like he didn’t”

Her tongue darts over the dryness of her bottom lip as her jaw hangs open at him. She doesn’t bother him with more useless questions, but that doesn’t mean the whole ordeal wasn’t plaguing her mind.

Something was very strange about that behavior. But with Yuji gone, she figured it was no use trying to decipher it all anyways. Maybe after some time when her grief wears off into something she could live with, she could forget about it completely.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

With Yuji turning out to be alive and well, Sukuna’s plans shifted once more. He’d tortured him as best he could without the ability of taking control of the body, letting his friend be turned into a transfigured human, refusing to kill the spirit that called itself Mahito- as upsetting as it was to his brat vessel, Sukuna cared very little for such trivial events. In fact, if Yuji were to shut up about it, he probably could have forgotten completely. He only had one goal on his mind- to return to her again. Anything else was merely a stepping stone along the way.

Just as before, Sukuna spends most of his time in his domain without much noise. Except this time, Yuji starts to get an inkling of what he’s doing.

“It’s unbecoming and submissive of you to pretend to be dead,”

Sukuna taunts one day while Yuji’s working on his ‘training’ on Gojo’s couch while he invests himself with a romantic movie. His sudden appearance was a good test to his abilities, though, as the sleeping cursed puppet on Yuji’s lap doesn’t stir. It was safe to say that Yuji had gotten as used to sharing his body with the curse as he was going to get.

“What if your little sorcerer friends need you?” Sukuna chuckles. He quite enjoys the image of Fushiguro and the little red-headed girl struggling to keep up with mere Second Grade curses.

“They’re fine” Yuji replies casually, barely paying attention to the mouth on his face that wasn’t his. The movie was just getting good, after all.

“You think they can manage to hold their own?” Sukuna scoffs at the thought. “With half-assed cursed techniques like theirs?”

“Fushiguro and Kugisaki are the most cutthroat people I’ve ever known. Didn’t Fushiguro almost kick your ass?” Yuji mutters, more irritated than offended by Sukuna’s cruelty. “You’re just lucky you haven’t had to deal with (y/l/n)”

So is that what she was calling herself this time? Sukuna’s lips tilt into a smirk.

“She doesn’t seem like much to be afraid of,” The words themselves are harsh, but something in his tone changes. Enough that Yuji starts to lose focus on the television. “Last I saw her she was half dead. If it weren’t for me, she would have been dead-dead”

That finally catches Yuji’s full attention, and he misses the next few lines of the movie when he asks, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sukuna’s silent, thoughtfully so, as he tries to find just the right way to play his cards. Does he use his history with the brat’s friend as a scare tactic? Or does he keep that little fact to himself for a while longer? Either way, the longer he’s silent, the more Yuji begins to go stir crazy.

“Hey, you old curse!” He hollers suddenly, causing the cursed puppet in his lap to wake up and start to get aggressive. Yuji heaves as the tiny thing rears a heavy punch into his gut, but it doesn’t stop him from interrogating the curse inside of him. “What did you mean by that!?” He huffs out.

Sukuna chuckles, and just as quickly as he’d appeared on Yuuji’s cheek, he disappeared again, hiding away in his domain and entertaining himself with the sight of Yuji getting beat up by a little cursed teddy bear.

Perhaps he’d let the brat overthink for a little while longer, anxiety was a form of suffering after all, wasn’t it? At least watching the brat worry himself sick about it would provide him some amusement for the coming days. Until the sanction of his fake death is lifted, and he could go back to his goal of being reunited with his love.

(y/l/n). Her new surname rings in his head as he settles in his domain and lets his mind begin to wander again. As pretty as it was, he’d have to return it to the proper name. His name.

Yuji is attacked by Yaga’s cursed puppet a few more times that evening, but not due to the film changing his range of emotions. In fact, it was due to his complete lack of focus on the movie. All he could think about was what business Sukuna could possibly have with (y/n).

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

When he makes his surprise reappearance for his friends, Yuji debates on pulling (y/n) aside and asking her about what Sukuna had mentioned. But for all he knew, he very well could have been toying with him, and ultimately he decided to enjoy what little time he had to catch up with his friends before they dove into the Exchange Event. It just didn’t seem worth bringing up at this time.

But for some reason, when she takes her seat as the Tokyo students begin their planning, Yuji’s compelled to sit beside her. It’s not an odd choice, it’s not out of character for him, she is his friend after all, but he’s quite aware of the way his feet move on their own accord to carry him to the empty seat beside her. Yuji knows his body, and he knows he wasn’t the one commanding it to do that.

It makes him gulp when he unceremoniously plops into the seat. (y/n) gives him a look, something crossed between confusion and amusement, but she brushes it off and doesn’t say a word as she shifts her focus back to Maki. Yuji tries to ignore it as well, a bit embarrassed about the whole display. Was that really Sukuna? He tried to clear his mind, too, it was quite important that he took in everything Maki was saying, but his mind is wrapped up in whatever game the King of Curses was playing right now.

And finally, when he thinks he’s heard enough of the game plan for the event, he feels it.

The slit under his right eye opens, the side facing (y/n). Yuji holds his breath, hoping that Sukuna doesn’t open his loud mouth and bark out something insulting, but he doesn’t. His mouth never materializes. He simply stares.

It’s almost worse.

A few minutes pass and no one seems to notice, as the attention of the room is still commanded by Maki. Except for Yuji himself, as he’d stopped listening to her altogether while he anxiously awaited whatever was to come next. What was he doing? He began to bounce his leg.

His throat closes up when he sees (y/n) turn her head out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t meet her gaze, even though she’s clearly staring at him- or Sukuna, he supposes- but she doesn’t speak up. She’s just as silent as the curse he’s hosting. Still, her gaze remains on the dark eye peeking out at her. If they weren’t in a room with all of their peers, Yuji would’ve broken his ignorant demeanor by now, but something inside him tells him to keep his mouth shut.

When the group disbanded for a quick lunch before the event officially started, (y/n) remained seated while the others filtered out, and when Yuji began to stand, she stopped him. All she’s done is reach a hand out, she barely even touches his arm, but it’s enough for him to stop in his tracks, and he stays put in his seat.

They don’t say anything until the room is empty, and even then, (y/n) chooses to speak quietly, almost under her breath.

“What the hell is going on with…” She pauses, her eyes flickering between Yuji’s and the ones below, before she raises her hand in a small gesture. “Him?” She mumbles it so low, afraid that saying his name would be enough to summon him, even though he’s so clearly already there before her.

“I don’t-”

Yuji starts, but before he could say anything- or think of anything to say- Sukuna’s mouth is materializing on his cheek. It’s an unsettling feeling on its own, but Yuji always felt a certain chill on his spine whenever he’d feel that mouth forming a smile.

“Just missed lookin’ at you, sweetheart”

Yuji’s face is sickly pale in a matter of seconds, the fear that settles over him tenses up all of his muscles, to the point they ache, and as much as he wants to remove himself (and Sukuna) from this situation, he’s frozen in place. Too stunned to say anything, too stunned to move, he just stands there helplessly as (y/n’s) wide eyes dart between both pairs on his face.

(y/n’s) reaction comes first, the shocked expression wearing off into something else. Yuji can’t place what it is- anger, disgust- but she loses the desire to keep the conversation quiet as reality settles over her.

“What!?” It comes out in a screech, but it’s just as quickly followed by absolute rambling. “What the hell are you talking about? What the hell is he talking about?” She awkwardly shifts her gaze between both sets of eyes, unsure and unfamiliar with how to communicate with the both of them.

“I- I don’t-”

Again, Yuji’s interrupted before he can come up with anything.

“We still have all the time in the world, for now you just keep your pretty little head focused on this game of yours, hm?”

Just like that, the fanged mouth is disappearing and Yuji’s cheek is returned to it’s normal state again.

(y/n) blinks, going silent again while her face is flushing with color. Now her eyes seem to focus on the lower, darker pair of eyes. It’s hard to gauge what Sukuna is thinking, or feeling. With only a narrowed set of eyes to go off of, not to mention he’s a reckless curse, he’s not a man, she doesn’t know what to make of the interaction.

But with the memory of what Megumi had told her, a dread begins to weigh down her chest. Whatever this behavior was about, it couldn’t mean anything could. It was unwanted attention, that was for sure. No matter how warm her face felt, or how nervous she suddenly was just being around Yuji.

Soon enough the eyes shut too, but even though it appears it’s only her and Yuji in the room, she can still feel Sukuna’s presence. She swallows the lump in her throat like it’s lead.

“Let’s just…” Her eyes flit away from the closed lids, meeting Yuji’s warm but worried gaze again. She’s not sure if it’s a comfort or not that he seems just as anxious as she feels. “Let’s just get through the Exchange Event first” She suggests.

She’s sure that this is the right choice of action. There was simply no time to dwell on Sukuna’s out of character behavior- then again she didn’t know him, she didn’t know what was in character, he was a curse!- not with all of their peers relying on them to secure the win for the Tokyo Prefecture.

Although she couldn’t deny her head wasn’t exactly in the game during the event. When she finds herself getting sloppy, taking hits she normally should have been able to dodge, she begins to curse the King of Curses himself. Surely this whole thing was an act, that was what he was best at, wasn’t it? Torture? Mind games? He was probably laughing it up in his domain watching her struggle so miserably at an event she couldn’t have been more prepared for.

When shit really hit the fan and curses and curse users reared their ugly heads in the middle of a semi-light hearted game, it dawned on her just how out of it she’d really become. Suddenly it didn’t matter how Mai shouldn’t have been able to get that shot at her shoulder- or how she should’ve seen Miwa’s Domain Expansion coming. There was no way she was going to let a curse like him get in her head and keep her from protecting her friends and herself from a real threat.

And once this attack in the middle of their event was taken care of and the scores were settled, she’d find a way to give the King of Curses a piece of her mind.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

That time came sooner than expected, and it’s seemingly out of nowhere when he pays her a little visit.

Deep down she knows that she should be terrified when the King of Curses is at her door requesting her time for ‘a talk’ as he called it. A thousand questions should flood her mind, and after some time they’ll begin to register, slowly and one by one, far later than it’s appropriate to ask.

He’d gotten her alone, and this should terrify her further, she should feel like a lamb in the presence of a wolf- no- curse. But for some reason, when he enters the training room she’d been doing warm ups in, all she does is stare at him.

Sukuna knows that there’s no way she could have mistaken him for the brat, not with all of his markings, not with his vermillion eyes, not with the abundant amount of cursed energy he carried with him. Any other mortal would straighten up, freeze in place and stare at him in utter fear as they waited for whatever fate he bestowed upon them.

Not her.

Foolishly, he believes this is due to the lifetimes they’d spent together before this one. Even though he’s well aware of the rules of the courtship. He recalls many meetings before this one where he’d had to open her eyes to the Binding Vow that brought her back in every lifetime. Still, he naively held onto a hope that her lack of reaction to his presence now is because somewhere inside of her, she knows she doesn’t need to be afraid of him like the others.

(y/n’s) true feelings couldn’t have been farther from his assumptions. It may have been a moment of poor judgment, but the moment he’d materialized at that door, irritation overrode self preservation. It didn’t matter that the cursed energy he carried was so heavy it was palpable.

She took one look at the King of Curses and furrowed her brows like she was a child he’d wronged, and there wasn’t an ounce of fear for her life when she’s the first to speak.

“What the fuck are you doing out?”

Out, it’s a funny choice of word, isn’t it? Sukuna can’t help the chuckle of amusement. Did she mean out and about, casually roaming the sacred grounds, or could she have meant out due to his control over the brat’s body?

A frown settles on her lips when she sees he’s already enjoying himself. She should be wondering what he’s been up to before he came here, or when exactly it was he gained control over Yuji’s body.

“And what happened to-”

Before she could fully voice her worry for her friend, Sukuna’s waving a dismissive hand.

“The brat’s fine, not everything has to be about him, you know” He scolds her as if this was a conversation they’d had a hundred times before now. Her frown deepens.

“Forgive me for caring more about him than a curse like you” She scoffs back at him.

How was it that in every lifetime she had to have that same bad attitude? Of course eventually she’d always settle down and warm back up to him, century and century again. Some cases took days, others years, and Sukuna was starting to get a feeling that due to the circumstances they found themselves in this time around, this case could be the latter. He frowns at the thought.

He found her so quickly this time, why did she have to be so stubborn?

“Always such a brat, I can hardly tell the difference between you,” He replies.

The look of disgust on her face is washed away by mild surprise. Both from the soft and easy cadence of his usually rough and cruel voice, and from the realization that he probably should have killed her for talking back to him the way she did. Now she starts to wonder just how many buttons she can push before she sees the true side of the King of Curses.

Her brows pinch together as she watches him with calculations behind her eyes. Was this all a part of the act from before?

“How interesting could things have been if you’d swallowed the finger that day and not this brat, hm?” He muses, and he seems genuinely curious about it.

(y/n) can barely keep up with him, trying too hard to jump to conclusions before he’s revealed them. Then again, there might be nothing to understand at all- this was all a part of the mind games, wasn’t it? She makes a mental note to meet with Gojo about this. Sukuna must’ve had greater plans in mind that the strongest sorcerer should be looped in on. Even if so far… he hadn’t exactly done anything… just made her friendship with Yuji fairly awkward.

Sukuna hasn’t moved from the doorway. Her eyes sweep over him carefully as she wonders if this is purposeful. If his motive is to give her a false sense of safety.

“Humor me for a moment, (y/n)”

He sounds out her name like it’s an unfamiliar word, and for the first time since he’d appeared minutes prior, there’s a familiar hollow in her chest. At first she tags it as distress, but the way it lingers like a dull ache has her double guessing it’s cause.

“What?”

No should’ve been what came out of her mouth- if anything needed to be said at all. Would he let her leave if she tried? Would he punish her for it? However, despite every instinct begging to drag her in a different direction, she can’t help the intrigue she feels for him.

“What’re you doing here as a sorcerer?” He hums again with his question, eyes narrowing on her slightly as he takes account of her every reaction.

She’s holding her breath right now, it’s obvious in her tense jaw and unmoving chest. Not even a strand of hair waves in it’s place. Every part of her is so still, he could easily mistake it as her natural instinct to fear him as her natural predator. He knows this isn’t the case.

She opens her mouth to protest the question at first, but just as quickly, her jaw slacks, and she’s closing it softly as she sits on it a little more thoughtfully.

“Why do you ask?”

It irks him to have a question answered with another question. This was another quirk of hers that she always had in the earlier stages of their reunion. Even with the grain of irritation, Sukuna still finds himself amused in the way that she truly is the same person in every lifetime. She may have different names, and occasionally a feature or two isn’t quite how he remembered it- and trust him, he remembered- but her soul remained pure, unfiltered, unchanging. She was always his.

“The last we spoke, you had quite the unshakable opinion about a society that breeds and boasts of it’s powerful children to protect them, only to leave them in neglect…” He trails off, scanning her features in the search of any flash of recognition. If anything, she’s only more confused. Her brows are furrowed and her lips have formed a pout which he deemed as her sign of defeat in trying to understand him. “Something about creating the things you fear. But it was quite some time ago, and I see you’ve so clearly changed your mind” He raises a hand, palm up as he lazily gestures to her.

(y/n’s) posture straightens up, partially out of her defensive nature, but mostly due to the seriousness in his tone. Logic tells her she shouldn’t be taking anything he says as truth, it would be foolish, and in the end probably deadly too.

But that intrigue hits her, ignites a tiny spark in her chest that has her longing to learn more. The intensity tells her that if he weren’t this curse, that perhaps if he was just a man, she might humor him in the way he was looking for.

If she began the what if game now, she feared she’d find herself justifying her continuation of this conversation.

“You must have me confused, then”

Her words are clear and concise without being loud.

“I haven’t confused you in any century before this one and I would never confuse you in the ones to come after,”

She tries to hide the surprise in her expression, but she knows she fails. Especially when Sukuna’s amusement in her reaction seems more genuine than before. He takes a step into the room, just a single one.

“Your brat friend is fine. He fell asleep. We have a sort of… deal,”

There is some comfort in his words, even if (y/n) is unsure about her trust in him, the words still hit her chest and her shoulders slowly begin to untense. She doesn’t question him, doesn’t make any comment at all. She supposes he’ll fill the silence eventually, and her assumption is correct.

“You and I have known each other for quite some time,” He continues. “Long ago, you made a Binding Vow to me. A vow that allowed your mortal body to be reborn in every lifetime, so that I may find you”

Her brows furrow, hardly believing this to be the truth. She’s supposed to believe a Binding Vow could hold the power to reincarnate her? A quiet scoff blows past her lips.

“Incredible,” She murmurs, but it’s clear her astonishment isn’t enthusiastic. It’s cynical. “What sort of entertainment do you really gain from this?”

She asks, crossing her arms over her chest as she dares a few steps forward. She’s not all that close to him, but at the end of the day it didn’t matter her distance from Sukuna, the radius of his danger could stretch for miles.

“You never believe me right away” He muses, his hands folding behind his back as he regards her curiously. It makes her feel like a specimen, like a wild animal he’s just stumbled upon, but she doesn’t shrink under the intensity of his gaze.

“Would you?”

It’s not the response he’s expecting, but his eyes light up with a flicker of excitement.

“Of course not,” He answers, his lips beginning to curl into a smile. It should send a chill down her spine, but she takes another step forward and tilts her chin up higher. So foolish, he thinks with an air of loveliness wrapped around it, don’t you see that the mere fact I let you live for behaving like this must mean there’s some truth in my words? Instead, he tells her “Yet, you fall every time”

“I fall for the trick?” She snaps, but her intrigue remains.

“You fall for me” He clarifies, a finality in his tone that has her shutting up, albeit momentarily.

No, she must’ve been right, it was all some grand trick. Some ridiculous, theatrical ploy he’d come up with just to deceive her. She’s not sure of the why yet- if he wanted to kill her, couldn’t he have done it already? If he wanted to torture her, couldn’t he have chained her up by now? She’s skeptical, but she would hate to admit that some part of her, deep, deep down, considers that he may not be lying to her.

Of course he must be lying, so she tries to shove that idea down.

“And why would I do such a thing like that?” She asks, her tone bored, but the wideness in her eyes as she awaited his answer didn’t go unnoticed.

Sukuna unfolded his hands in order to push them into the pockets of Yuji’s pants. His grievance in wearing a sorcerer’s uniform was obvious in the unsavory curl in his lips as he briefly glanced down at himself, but his attention returned to her just as quickly.

“A Binding Vow is a double sided contract,” He reminds her. “You entered it willingly,” He tilts his head at her as he watches her process this information, before he tells her the full truth. “In fact, you were the one who brought the idea to me, sweetheart”

“Don’t call me that” She mutters out quickly, not thinking twice about the consequences of scolding the King of Curses.

“It’s true,” Sukuna shrugs his shoulders with a lazy drag. “I almost didn’t agree to it. But you’ve always been… convincing”

She’s not sure what he means, because the memories he’s recalling aren’t shared- if they’re real memories at all- and yet, she continues to lay her questions on thick.

“And why wouldn’t I choose to remember all of this then, hm? If I chose to be reborn, over and over, why wouldn’t I have wanted to remember?” She’s challenging him, and Sukuna’s enjoying it, even if it means that right now the distance she puts between them is further than before he’d found her due to her distrust in him.

History has repeated itself for thousands of years, but no event was as perfectly cyclical as she was to him. Time and time again he would find her, and in every lifetime, she’d been his.

“You wanted to,” He tells her. “The vow took a bit of a different turn than expected. See, your soul didn’t simply leap into a pre-existing person with each reincarnate. You were born again. Every part of your being, physical and… otherwise, was reborn. It actually makes it all the more difficult to find you, you know”

“Seems like a copout” She says, her expression unamused.

“Well go on then, what else do you want to ask me?”

“I have nothing,” She lies. “Because I’m not entertaining this any further”

“Fine, then,” To her surprise, Sukuna actually accepts her rejection- if you could call it that. “I’ll give the brat his body back. But you’ll know where to find me once you start to remember”

He leaves without a word, not even a mere wave, and it’s not until he’s gone that (y/n) wonders if she should be worried about him roaming the grounds of Jujutsu Tech, but nothing happens.

In fact it’s such a quiet night that the next morning everyone seems well rested and rejuvenated, all in good spirits and ready to take on the day. Everyone but her. And she can’t stop her eyes from shifting towards Yuji every thirty seconds, always double checking the slits under his eyes, as if one of these times she’d find them open and focused on her.

She can’t get the image of Sukuna lounging so casually in that training room. It’s hard when one of her closest friends shares his face, so even when she’s not anxious about seeing that second set of eyes, her heart still skips a beat when Yuji’s eyes catch hers and he smiles politely.

Naturally, that skip in her heart was due to her nerves, and had nothing to do with the contents of her discussion with the curse inside of him.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Sukuna gives (y/n) what he believes to be an abundant amount of time to let their past settle in. He wants her to process it all properly. He wants her to come to her senses and realize that there were no ulterior motives in his reveal.

He still makes the occasional crude comment from Yuji’s cheek, but while they’re ever directed at her, she finds her posture straightening and her eyes trained on the skin where he’s materialized, always waiting for him to direct something her way. He doesn’t. He hardly even looks at her- when she’s looking, that is. While inside of his domain and perfectly hidden by Itadori Yuji, Sukuna spends as much of his time staring at her while he can. Some days, there’s an intensity so strong that Yuji finds himself not-so-subtly staring at her too. Sukuna doesn’t like this- if he had things his way then no one would lay there eyes on what was his- but letting Yuji sneak glances here and there was a small price to pay in order to make sure the pair remain close enough that Sukuna’s still able to have some sense of nearness to her.

Due to this silent period on his part, (y/n) decides against bringing Gojo’s attention to the situation. While she knows it hasn’t just disappeared, because she just knows that it will be brought up again, she hopes that enough time passes that she can learn to brush it off as nonsense spewed from a bored curse.

It nags at her, despite her best efforts, she never allows herself to forget it completely. It crosses her mind every day, if not every minute she spends with Yuji. The way he stood, the way he spoke, it would play on a loop in her mind until she was sure it would drive her to the point of madness. It very well could have, already.

And one night, she decides to take the reins into her own hands, and she approaches it first.

After watching a partial movie in the common room, Megumi had long gone to bed and Nobara had crashed on a makeshift pile of blankets on the floor, (y/n) feels an anxiousness settle over her when she hears Yuji begin to snore and he, too, was just as knocked out as the rest of her friends.

She debates on it for a moment, her eyes sliding between the flickering television and the resting boy sitting beside her on the couch. Her index finger taps at an unkept pace against her knee, and she lets as many minutes pass as she could, just to be sure Yuji truly was asleep.

Then she turned her head fully, eyes focused on that mark under his face where Sukuna’s eyes were peacefully shut. Not sure of the inner workings on how the whole vessel thing worked, her only choice was to take a shot in the dark and hope it worked.

“I was going to tell Gojo about what you said, you know”

Her whisper is so soft, her voice cracks and gives on certain syllables. Even if he could hear her from in there, she wonders if he could have heard something so silently spoken.

Slowly, the eye opens, and it blinks a few times before it slides towards her. She wonders if he sleeps in there, or if every introduction light when he leaves his domain requires an adjustment.

And then, Yuij’s stirs, and (y/n) freezes up, watching as he twitches before his eyes begin to blink awake, as well. Fear spikes in her chest at the thought of getting caught talking to the curse inside of him while he slept.

But when his eyes fully open and an array of markings begin to paint across his features, she realizes it’s not Yuji. It’s just his body. There’s a certain guilt that follows her relief from this. In no situation should she feel pleased to see Sukuna over Yuji.

“Am I supposed to be threatened by this?” He asks slowly, in a low tone of voice that she can’t decide the cause of. Was he trying to be considerate of the sleeping sorcerer on the ground? Or was he just trying to be as menacing and mysterious as always?

He doesn’t lift his head from where Yuji had been dozed off against the couch cushion, neck craned at an angle that couldn’t be comfortable to sleep in for the entire night, but Sukuna’s not exactly looking out for the brat’s comfort. He could use a good crick in the neck or two.

“I don’t think there’s anything I could do to threaten you,” (y/n) replies honestly, the hush in her voice making her sound softer than she would’ve liked. She doesn’t need him thinking she’s warming up to being in his presence, after all. “But… would you kill me if I was?”

“What do you think?”

It comes out fast enough to be taken harshly, like he holds a disbelief in how idiotic she could be, but their conversation began with a whisper and it seems to be carried on that way. A lump forms in (y/n’s) throat as she holds eye contact with the darkened vermillion ones that stare back at hers.

The deep feeling she’d buried, the one that told her maybe she trusted him whether she liked it or not, sparked and caught light, burned just a little bit brighter, caused just enough smoke for her to give some of her attention to.

If he truly wanted to kill her, he had millions of chances to do so before now. So she concludes that his goal wasn’t to do so. Of course, this begs the question,

“What is it that you want, Sukuna?”

She’s much calmer than the last time they spoke, he notices. She’s nervous, but not tense, and not nearly as defensive. He’s not naive, he doesn’t mistake this for trust, but he is pleased in her change in attitude.

An idle smile curls on his lips as his fixed gaze softens with familiarity.

Just like every time before now, she always, eventually, came around to him. It was like her curiosity couldn’t keep her away, and her heart always won over her mind.

“I believe you already know the answer to that” He refrains from letting an old pet name fall from his tongue, a courtesy to her that he allows this once, just so she wouldn’t flee from her seat next to him.

She hums, letting the sort-of-answer sit on her mind for a moment. An unknown feeling gnaws at her- or at least, a feeling she doesn’t want to put a name to.

“Why?” The word ghosts off of her lips, and even with the worried knot between her brows her eyes stay set on his. “Why does it have to be me?”

“You’re looking at it all wrong,” Sukuna muses, his lower set of eyes rolling just slightly before he can help it. “It doesn’t have to be you- it just is. It’s always been you, and it always will be”

“Because of the Binding Vow?” She questions, and he blinks at her, processing what she meant, before his brows furrow just a little bit, and he shakes his head.

“The only clause to our vow is that you will always be reborn,” His tongue runs over his teeth as he tries to bite back the amusement he feels when realization dawns on her. “Everything after that comes from your own free will, sweetheart”

“Don’t call me that” She snaps at him, but it’s a mumble, hardly audible, hardly threatening. Sukuna purses his lips.

“Like I said, you were the one who came up with the contract,” He huffs. “I would’ve never agreed to such a thing if you weren’t so persistent”

She perks up at that little comment, and suddenly turns in her seat, tucking her legs underneath her as she faces him. Sukuna’s barely moved at all, still slouched into the cushion in the position Yuji had fallen asleep in. His eyes follow her movements as she sets her elbow on the top of the furniture so she could prop her head in her hand. Her brows are drawn together again as she studies him.

“Then why tell me about it?” She blurts the question out.

“Because I’m the one burdened with the centuries of memories” He replies without missing a beat, voice dry and expression unreadable. He’s keeping it as neutral as possible, knowing her calculating eyes would see right through any sudden change, no matter how small.

“And you are?” She asks, and then in a softer voice, finishes the thought, “Burdened?”

Sukuna blinks, slowly, before letting his gaze wander the soft and curious look on her face. He fights the urge to smile at the loveliness of it all- the twitch in her nose, the small pout in her lip- he’s the King of Curses and there should be no force on this earth that weakens him the way her gentle gaze focused on him does. Even after all this time, she is his achilles heel, she is his greatest burden, and she is the only thing he could ever truly, completely, want.

“Yes,” His answer is quiet, and (y/n) lifts her head as she stares at him with her confusion. “There exists no stronger shackles a being could trap me with the way you have,”

Her face falls, and she’s silent for a long moment. With a dry throat and a mind too busy and overcrowded with thoughts, she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. But that gnawing feeling was starting to make her chest ache, and the pounding of her heart in her ribcage was relentless.

“There’s no greater curse I could bear”

She hates the way he says these things so casually, without a strain in his expression or voice. She wonders if it’s because he’s done it so many times that it’s lost it’s value. Perhaps to him, this was just a part of the burden that was her existence, explaining these things to her was simply a chore that needed to be completed. She swallows a few times to ease the dryness of her throat.

“Does it get old?”

Sukuna smiles. It should trouble her- he knows that it unsettles Yuji- but if she feels unease it’s not shown.

“A thousand years of anything gets old,” He sighs, rolling his head over the cushion to stare up at the blank ceiling. “And I’d hate to admit the things that never get old”

It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous and foolish and naive, but she smiles.

“What doesn’t get old?” She asks, her curiosity blending with a sick sense of delight as she wonders just how many sides of Sukuna there really are.

He angles his head towards her again, narrowing his gaze as his lips twisted into a small smirk. It felt like his technique had the ability to see right through her- she wondered if he was really strong enough to do that.

“Last time we spoke, you said you wouldn’t entertain this,” He reminds her. “What’s changed?”

“Nothing,” She murmurs back without a moment of hesitation.

It’s the truth, and she has no reason to falsify an answer for him. Just as he had no reason to be so forward about their past. Even if she hadn’t gathered much, this conversation was much different from their last, and she felt as though she would walk away with this one overwhelmed by all of this new information. Her trust in him is precarious, and could easily be destroyed by one wrong move, but right now, she can’t see what reason she has not to take him at his word. It’s not as if he’s asking for anything in return, it’s not as if she won’t return to her dorm for the night and likely not see or speak to him again for some time. So, she supposed, what was the harm in entertaining the idea just a little?

“Nothing at all” She finishes the thought softly, before turning her attention back to the forgotten movie still playing across the room. It was nearing the end, and she’d missed enough of it to barely understand what was happening on screen now, but she didn’t have any more questions for the King of Curses tonight, and he kept quiet as she watched the movie.

To her surprise, Sukuna did sit and watch the movie. She’s not sure how much of it he actually listened or paid attention to, but it was clear that he had not given Yuji his body back, and was still very much alert and in control.

(y/n) doesn’t return to her dorm room until she finally sees Yuji asleep next to her, his face bare of any markings, and the extra eyelids under his eyes closed just as peaceful as his own.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

In the meantime, (y/n) didn’t feel so anxious around Yuji anymore, which they were both grateful for. Yuji wasn’t sure why the sudden chance came about, but he certainly wouldn’t complain. He was just glad to have his friend acting her usual self again.

He had no idea of the few chats she’d shared with the curse he hosted. While Sukuna wasn’t necessarily hiding his interest in her, he wasn’t forthright with the brat either. He didn’t need the kid interfering with what he was building on here. It was slow moving like a trail of molasses but Sukuna was more patient than most people gave him credit for. He could let a lot of things go.

Not this, however.

All of Gojo’s students had been sent on a seemingly standard assignment. Odd, unexplainable disappearances had been happening in a clearing in the middle of the woods, enough so to alert jujutsu society and send a few sorcerers to the scene to investigate.

Upon arrival, there was an undeniable heaviness in the air. The field that the group of four found themselves in didn’t stretch for miles, but it was no small clearing. It was a strange place for a curse to settle in and lure non-sorcerers towards. Curses often tucked themselves into hidden spots, within abandoned buildings or deep in the thick brush of the woods. Not a clearing of grass and wild daisies.

The entire situation was odd, it didn’t sit right in anyone’s mind as they went their separate ways to scour the area for any insight on what was happening here. It didn’t take long for something to turn up.

A curse that had to have been a First Grade, with a large, sharp toothed grin and gouged out eyes, materialized in the clearing’s center, and as soon as it clocked this evening’s prey as jujutsu sorcerers, it seemed to go into a mad state. (y/n’s) not sure if it possesses great speed or the ability to teleport when it’s suddenly before her. All she’s able to do in that amount of time is lift her weapon into an offensive position, she’s not even given the time to drive it forward in an attack before suddenly, she’s no longer on the ground.

She comes to mid air, just before she hits the ground and rolls a few times before her senses kick in and her hands brace themselves against the ground. She can faintly hear her friends calling for her in their shock, but it’s distant. Her head is spinning too fast for her to lift it to see just how far the curse had thrown her.

A few coughs erupt from her throat before she even tells her body to do so, brought on by the hit to her chest once she’s lifted herself up enough to relieve the pressure from the ground. Her arms are trembling from the adrenaline and a few drops of blood splatter from her mouth, but once she’s sat up enough, she drags the sleeve of her uniform over her mouth to dry the blood, and she finally gets a good look at where she is.

She’s been thrown clear out of the field, and she considers herself lucky that her body hadn’t been halted by a tree, and instead tumbled to the ground. Being thrown directly into one of the large oaks she’s surrounded by could’ve been fatal if she’d hit it just right, or at the very least she could’ve broken her ankle. With a rushed assessment she decides nothing feels broken, and therefore she can grab her weapon and-

Her weapon is nowhere near her. She scrambles to her feet, her breaths heavy and irregular as she searches around the grass, looking for the large blade she’d had in her hands less than a minute ago.

It had only been a minute, right? She hadn’t blacked out, had she?

Realizing there was no use wasting her time looking for a weapon now, she pushes herself to break into a sprint back towards the clearing. Her friends are blurry images moving about, trying to attack the larger blurry images that fends off their attacks with little struggle. She concludes this when she begins to hear the yelps and grunts of her fellow sorcerers, and yet the curse doesn’t seem to struggle at all.

Just when her vision begins to clear and she’s preparing herself to rejoin the fight with only her cursed technique and her fists, she sees the curse grab Megumi by the leg, and soon after he’s getting thrown into the air just as she did. His name is torn from her raw throat in an instant- but Megumi is more prepared to be airborne than she was, drawing his hands together to summon Nue to catch him.

Relief is short lived, and soon Megumi finds himself instructing Nue to catch Nobara and Yuji when shortly after, they’re being thrown as well. Nue’s a quick shikigami, but it’s only strong enough to carry one person at a time before it’s energy starts to deplete, and the curse keeps at it’s movements, chuckling the three of them into the air before they can land an attack on them on their decline. Yuji tries, using Black Flash on his descent in the hopes of striking it where it hurts, but the curse manages to catch him in a tight fist before chucking him again.

(y/n’s) still keeping an eye out for her weapon when she grows nearer to the fight, seeing as no one else’s techniques have caused any real damage yet, her cursed tool of a sword could be quite handy right about now.

She was hoping that with it’s attention focused on the other three, she could attack it from behind, and drive it more towards the clearing again. With how much movement and tossing it had done, it had driven them all deeper into the woods, which made it harder to land attacks, but had been good coverage for (y/n) to sneak up in her approach.

To her disadvantage, she hadn’t expected there to be a pair of large eyes on the back of it’s head. In the dark of the night she hadn’t noticed them until they’d opened and landed on her instantaneously. It must’ve sensed her sneaking around behind it.

She’s quicker in her movements this time, dodging it’s large hand before it could grab onto her, but it outsmarts her and snatches her up in the other. A yelp sounds from her when it squeezes harder than the last time, her air supply cut off just as she’d tried to take in a large breath, making her sputter and cough as it raised her in the air again. A sense of dread and failure washes over her when she realizes it’s going to throw her again. Whatever this curse’s deal was, it had a thing for throwing it’s victims around to torture them.

And torture it was- as this time when she’s launched into the air, it’s a clear throw over the trees. It’s harder than before, and faster. The cool air cuts over her face in sharp streams, bringing tears to her eyes before she could comprehend what would come of her fall. She could brace herself, but as she gets a watery glance at what’s below, she knows that shielding her face would provide no comfort to her fall.

Just past the cluster of oak trees is a steep overhang. Rock and the roots of old trees jutting out some thirty feet to the ground.

This is why her fall felt so long. A sharp gasp escapes her, and when her inhale gets caught in her throat, she wonders if this is the last breath she’ll ever take.

When she shuts her eyes to protect them from the harsh wind, a wetness spreads down her cheeks. In a last ditch effort at self preservation, her arms brace over her face, and she buries herself into them, not wanting to see the last thing that would break her fall. Hopefully she wouldn’t feel it, either.

Her jaw clenched tightly as her heart began to race faster, expecting the crash to come soon.

The sensation isn’t as expected. There is no slam against stone or cold ground that knocks the wind out of her. Instead something’s wrapped around her middle, and out of worry that the curse had grabbed her in order to throw her again, she withdraws her head from her arms in a jolt.

It’s not the curse that’s caught her mid-fall.

It’s Sukuna.

With one arm wrapped around her back and the other around her shoulders, his large hand braces the back of her head to keep her tucked close. They’re still falling, but the sensation feels different like this. It’s almost as if he’s carrying her to the ground, his posture as natural as it would be if he were standing there now.

Wide, watery eyes blink up at him in astonishment when she fully registers what was happening.

“You’re alright, I’ve got you, sweetheart”

If it weren’t for the rawness in her throat, she might’ve scolded him for the pet name, but her voice was taken away from her as soon as she’d been heaved into the sky a second time.

She doesn’t even process the way she’s gripping onto him until he lands on the ground, holding her up just a moment longer before carefully setting her on her feet. Her hands are holding onto the sleeves of Yuji’s uniform in fists so tight her knuckles are white, and her hands are trembling.

The others are nowhere in sight, or at least, she can’t see them right now. Her mind is so shaken up she doesn’t actually look. Her eyes don’t tear away from the stunning red of Sukuna’s once. She doesn’t even blink- hence the continued downpour of tears. From the wind and her acceptance of a brutal death, her emotions were slowly catching up to reality.

Her chest is heaving but there’s no relief in feeling like she’s caught her breath. Her heart is pounding so hard that it makes her ribs ache, but that very well could be the bruising from her previous fall setting in. Her mouth moves but it takes a few tries for any real words to come out, and when her voice does come back to her, she doesn’t say much.

“S- Sukuna-”

He silences her before she could even try to say something else. Prying her hands off of his arms and placing them at her sides, even though there’s still tremors in her muscles.

“I only have a minute,” He tells her, in a gravely serious tone that she’s never heard from him before. She blinks her wide eyes, leftover tears getting stuck on her lashes. “It’s been handled”

He doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t get the chance to before his posture begins to weaken, followed by his eyelids twitching and the marks beginning to fade away.

Gasping, (y/n) surges forward, grabbing Yuji by the shoulders before he could stumble and fall. His eyes roll and blink a few times before he feels in control of his body again. Soon after his posture straightens, and then it’s Yuji who’s looking worriedly down at (y/n).

She’s close, very close. Her hands are gripping onto his shoulders for dear life. He can feel her panting against his chin as her worried eyes scan over his features.

Yuji’s disoriented, like maybe he’s just woken up from a dream, or maybe he’s just woken up inside of a dream, and he’s not exactly sure how to voice this concern. She makes it harder on him when one of her hands leaves his shoulder in order to reach for his cheek.

It’s so affectionate, the way she reaches for his face and presses her palm against it, that Yuji finds his skin heating up and a blush appearing over his cheeks before he could will himself not to. She’s never behaved this way with him before. He could only recall casual touches that occurred during training, or maybe a brush of her fingers when she handed him something, but nothing as intentional as this.

And she’s certainly never looked at him like that either. He can’t place his finger on it, but it makes his stomach churn to meet her eyes.

“Uh, (y/n)?” He mumbles out her name, and he finds himself doing a quick sweep of her, assessing her for a major injury. But she’s standing just fine, and he can’t see any blood. This had to be a head injury, right?

He asks himself that question once more then the pad of her thumb brushes under his eye. She faintly traces the incision of the closed eyelid just below his eyelashes. Yuji holds his breath, but he’s not sure who he’s doing it for. (y/n), whose eyes are glossing over as she’s gazing at the wrong eyes, which remained closed, or Sukuna, who Yuji was sure she was trying to reach to now.

And then she leans even closer, and the breath he’d been holding is forced out of him from the closing distance between them. Her hands remain where they are, on his shoulder with an iron grip and against his cheek with the gentleness of a butterfly landing there.

On instinct Yuji finds his eyes darting down to her lips, but he’s positive she’s not going to kiss him- right? She wouldn’t do such a thing on a whim, not like this, not now when they’ve barely completed their assignment. Not to mention their friends aren’t too far away- where are Nobara and Megumi anyways? Yuji’s thoughts are racing as fast as his heart as he struggles to figure out what to do as she grows nearer.

Before he has to come up with a decision, (y/n) stops, and Yuji swallows the lump in his throat out of relief that she wasn’t leaning in to kiss him. The ride home would have been so awkward.

“Thank you” She breathes out the words, her thumb stroking over the spot on his cheek one more time before she finally drops her hand, and she pulls away from Yuji completely.

He blinks at her in disbelief, waiting for his heartbeat to calm down, which it does the further she steps away.

“What happened?” He asks, louder than he means to, but when he finally collects his thoughts and processes what just happened, he can’t help but blurt out the question.

The pair begin to make their way back to the clearing, both realizing that the First Grade curse was gone, clearly exorcized with the amount of purple goo coating the surrounding plants and trees. They don’t discuss it right away, but they both have an inkling on how it was taken care of.

“Sukuna saved my life”

Yuji wants to ask more questions, but when he turns towards her to do so, he can tell that she’s not ready to talk about it. Her features had hardened, and she didn’t meet his eyes as they walked.

He knows he’s put off this conversation one too many times already… but once again he finds himself biting his tongue as they catch up with their other friends.

Something tells him that he’ll have to bring it up soon, though. Because the King of Curses wouldn’t save just anyone’s life twice- much less a sorcerer. And he has a gut feeling that (y/n) knows more than she’s letting on.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

This time, it’s only a few days since the last assignment when (y/n) crosses paths with Sukuna again. Well, this time around, he came to her.

She’s just slid her bookmark between the pages she’d decided to pause on tonight when there’s a knock at her door. With a quiet huff- she was just about to go to sleep after all- but before she can call for her visitor to come in, the door slides open and he’s inviting himself right on.

“Yu-! Sukuna?”

The initial scolding tone she takes drops as soon as she realizes he’s not who she thought. Her voice softens around his name in a way that it shouldn’t, but that she can’t help. She sits up a little further in her bed, brows furrowing as he slides the door shut behind him.

“You can’t just walk in here”

“I knocked”

“Okay well… well you have to wait for me to actually invite you in” She mumbles out, only to be met with a scoff and a humorless chuckle. But when her frown deepens, he sighs.

“Fine, I’ll knock for longer next time” He grunts, before he begins to wander around her room. He glances over the few things littered on her desk- a picture frame of her and her friends, an open and neglected textbook, a pair of bracelets she’d forgotten to put away- he almost forgets why he’d come in to begin with.

“Um… did you need something?” (y/n) asks after a minute of him wandering around and eyeing all of her things.

“You’re freaking out the brat,” Sukuna says casually, picking up a little porcelain cat on her shelf. His eyes narrow as he turns the small thing around in his hands, as if trying to decipher it’s purpose. “He won’t stop asking about you now”

“What?” (y/n) pushes the covers off her lap, moving to the end of the bed to sit a little closer to him. It doesn’t matter if she’s quiet, it’s only the two of them in the room, but she feels a sudden need to lower her voice anyways. “What do you mean he’s freaking out?”

He turns to her then, the figurine still in his hands. The tiniest of smiles purses on her lips at how silly a tiny cat looks in his large and tattooed hands. Despite how easily he could crush it to dust, his hold on it is gentle.

“I just thought that you should be aware, you know, that eventually you’ll have to decide if you want to explain yourself to your friends or not”

Her stomach twists and turns into dozens of little knots. The King of Curses was stopping by her room late into the night just for this? She shouldn’t be surprised, because she knew his motives, but still, she blinked at him with wide eyes.

“You haven’t…?” The question trails off as she shakes her head at him, unsure of how to word it just right.

“I don’t like the idea of the brat knowing all of my business,” Sukuna hums, finally setting the cat back down on her shelf. “You’ve always had a knack for collecting useless things” He comments, and the words are harsh but his tone is nothing but amused.

“So… you think I should talk to Yuji?” She asks, and Sukuna lets his shoulders rise and fall in disinterest.

“If that’s what you want” He says, but it doesn’t feel considerate. (y/n) frowns.

“Don’t you think he’ll be… upset?”

“With you?”

She nods.

“You’ve done nothing wrong. If anything, the brat would only worry about you. Seeing as he despises me, and all”

“You don’t exactly make it easy to feel otherwise” (y/n) mumbles, and her words hang in the air for a few long moments. She’s not sure if she means the insinuation behind them or if it’s just a coincidence, but she doesn’t try to backtrack to explain herself.

“Yes, well, he certainly cares more for you than he does for me. Too much so. Some boundaries might do you some good, you know”

“Boundaries?”

“Yes, boundaries. He almost kissed you”

Her eyes nearly bulge out of her head before her brows furrow and she scoffs in disbelief.

“What? What are you even talking about?”

Sukuna tucks his hands into his pockets, looking all the more out of place in her room at this hour.

“During your little gratitude session on your last assignment,” He says, his lips curling into a deep frown. “You got a bit too close and his brat-mind went a bit haywire. You don’t need to be so affectionate with him, you know. A plain thank you would have sufficed-”

“I wasn’t being affectionate with him,” She snaps back, and Sukuna raises a brow at the display. “I was thanking you, asshole. You pretty much saved my life?” She says it like she’s trying to jog his memory. “I wasn’t trying to make a move on Yuji, and I’m sure he knew that too. I don’t control his thoughts, he can think whatever he wants, doesn’t mean it’s happening”

Sukuna steps closer to where she sat before bending down to match her height. She’s still frowning, clearly annoyed with this interaction, but she had yet to ask him to leave, and he has a feeling she won’t.

“So if the brat had plucked up the nerve to make a move, you would’ve pushed him away?” He asks, and he’s smirking, almost as if he wants her to say otherwise. Her eyes narrow, not understanding what his mind games were getting at this time.

“Politely, yes,” She answers, shaking her head at him. “Why does this matter? Last I checked, in this lifetime, I’m not some cowering wife for you to boss around”

Sukuna laughs at that, genuinely laughs. He stands back up to his full height and throws his head back and cackles so loud that (y/n) can only pray Nobara doesn’t wake up from next door. She might not need to whisper to speak with him, but the walls weren’t exactly soundproof either.

“Sweetheart, you’ve never been a cowering wife,” He tells her once his laughter died down. “A wife, perhaps, but never some submissive weak minded mortal” He adds.

“So we have been married?”

She asks him with such peculiarity, and it makes him chuckle again. She sounds as though this has been the strangest thing he’s revealed thus far, and he can’t help but find humor in it.

“We have” He answers.

(y/n) shifts her position, pulling her legs towards her chest and staring up at him expectantly, waiting for a continuation that wouldn’t come. Sukuna merely stares at her with mild confusion.

“Well?” She asks, tilting her head forward. “Did we get married every time?”

He smirks.

“I’ve told you that you created a Binding Vow in order to be with me across centuries of eras. In the grand scheme of things, don’t you think marriage is a little… bleak?”

(y/n) shrugs a shoulder, resting her arms atop her knees as she gazes back at him curiously.

“It’s bleak in this lifetime,” She murmurs back. “Not to me, at least”

Sukuna hums, before shaking his head.

“You never change”

“Do I really?” She presses again. “For the last… thousand years… am I really the same?”

Sukuna ponders for a moment. This was a common question of hers, and each time, he struggled to answer it.

“You really want to know?”

She doesn’t say anything, but she pats her hand against the space on the bed next to her. Sukuna’s gaze shifts to it momentarily, before looking back at her. After a moment, he takes a seat.

“You are almost completely the same in every lifetime I’ve found you in,” He explains. “You’re always stubborn, you never make it easy. But you always… come around,” He turns to her. “Like now”

“You think I’m coming around?” She asks, a skeptical look in her eye that makes him smirk. He leans forward as though the next part he shares is a grave secret.

“You never want to admit it, but you always have a soft spot for me”

(y/n) raises a brow back at him in defiance.

“I think you’ve got that turned around,” She murmurs. “I think the King of Curses has a soft spot for me. And I think he’s making it everyone’s problem”

He chuckles quietly, his gaze sweeping over the gentle features of her face.

“I think the feelings you have for me in every beginning come from your soul’s memory,” He tells her, raising a hand, and gently pressing the pad of his thumb against the center of her forehead. The sudden touch makes her freeze at first, but eventually she relaxes as the rest of his fingers lay in her hair. “I haven’t quite figured it out yet, I don’t know how it is that you’re never able to keep your memories,” He tilts his head as he ponders it for a moment, his eyes focused on where he’s touched her head. “But I think deep down, you know that you trust me”

(y/n) doesn’t have a witty comeback for that one. She’s still reeling from the warmth of his touch, and the weight of his words. But she feels obligated to say something when his gaze met hers again.

“I never said I believed you in all this, you know” She whispers weakly.

“You don’t believe me?” He murmurs back at her, his voice a low rumble as his hand starts to fall from her head. He doesn’t remove his touch, he lets the back of his finger trace along her temple, before slowly moving down her jaw. Sukuna doesn’t seem displeased in her words. If anything, he seems intrigued by them. “You know, you almost look the same in every life, too”

“I do?” She asks, just as his fingers fall still against her cheek.

Sukuna hums, and nods his head.

“The last I saw you, your hair was different,” He tells her. “It was longer, to about… here,” With his free hand, he gently touches her waist, and the way she tenses doesn’t go unnoticed. “You would wear it in all sorts of different styles. Pretty braids and… whatever our servants would desire to do that day,” Her eyes widen at his use of the word servants, but Sukuna glides over it. “But that was a few hundred years ago, of course. It would all be outdated now,” He drops his hand from her waist, but the other remains against her cheek, his touch ghosting over it. “Not that it wouldn’t still be exquisite”

Her eyes shift between his, trying to decipher the emotion they hold. She can’t tell if he’s amused or sorrowful. Was he disappointed that she couldn’t remember?

“This is why I’m the one who doesn’t believe you” He murmurs after a few beats pass.

(y/n’s) brows draw together just slightly, just enough to pinch the skin between them.

“What do you mean?” She asks, her voice betraying her as it shakes just a little.

“Because you look at me like that” He says, nodding at her slightly.

(y/n) blinks, doe eyes resembling the glass of the porcelain cat he’d just been mocking. Her lips are parted, formed in the smallest of pouts as she gazes up at him, that look unrelenting.

She tilts forward, her gaze flickering over his face leisurely, mapping out the black markings, and all the small details that make him so different from Yuji. The way he insists on pushing the bangs out of his face, the broader jaw, the sharper canine that she only notices when he laughs or smiles- which is quite rare. She’s admiring him so openly that Sukuna’s not sure what to do under such heavy surveillance, so he just sits there and allows her to stare.

But eventually, she sighs, and drops her legs from her chest before she crawls across her bed, moving to get under the covers again. Sukuna remains in his spot at the end, watching her without an expression as she settles into her pillow.

“Does it disturb Yuji’s rest when you take over like this?” She asks quietly as she presses her cheek into the soft comfort of her pillow.

No, the brat’s completely dozed off, that’s why he could take over like this. It’s what he wants to say, but he doesn’t.

“I’ll be sure it doesn’t” He says as he stands, and walks around the bed, facing the side she’s just moved to. He crouches down to meet her eye level again, and (y/n) moves a little closer to the edge towards him.

“Okay, good,” She whispers.

She blames her exhaustion when she reaches out to him, the tips of her fingers barely prodding at the dark ink that follows the sharp curve of his jaw. Her eyes follow it as she traces it down to his chin, almost painfully slow. It takes every ounce of restraint for him not to lean into the touch.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do, Sukuna,” She murmurs, her fingers lingering on his chin, her eyes slowly meeting his. “I… I can’t…”

She can’t even say the words. She hardly wants to be thinking about them. But Sukuna knows her better than anyone who’s ever walked this earth, and he nods back at her in understanding before she could try to finish the thought.

“I’ve never expected anything of you,” He murmurs, before reaching up to pull her hand from his face, gently closing his fingers around her own as he moves it away. “You have been the greatest love of my life whether you’re able to remember or not,” He tells her, and she listens to him with her full attention. “And whether you believe me or not, you still will be,”

There’s the smallest of squeezes to her hand with his words, and a lump begins to build up in her throat.

“You can ask more questions another time, alright? You should get some sleep, sweetheart”

She gives him a faint nod, her eyes already feeling too heavy to keep open when she feels her blanket being dragged over her shoulders. Distantly, her mind registers that the King of Curses is tucking her into bed, but she’s too tired now to comment on it.

There’s another squeeze to her fingers, followed by a hesitation, and then the soft, unmistakable pair to two lips pressing against her knuckles. It’s not a lingering kiss, and it’s featherlight, over as soon as it began, and again, (y/n) keeps her eyes shut and doesn’t say anything.

Sukuna lays her hand down against her blanket with the gentleness of maneuvering a newborn. She hears him walking away towards her door.

“Goodnight, Sukuna”

It’s the softest call, but it’s enough to make him pause at the door and glance back at her. She still can’t look at him- she’s afraid she’ll burst into tears if she does, although she can’t quite explain the heavy emotion that’s bringing the tears to her eyes to begin with.

“Goodnight, my love”

It’s murmured so quickly before he’s hastily exiting her room that she could’ve missed it altogether, but she doesn’t. Her hand curls into her sheets as she pulls it close to her chest as she lets tonight’s conversation sink into her mind.

The truth was, she did trust him. She did believe him. And she was pretty sure this was the case for the entire time she’s known him. She’s pretty sure this was unavoidable.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

Everything’s blurry when she first comes to.

And everything hurts.

She tries to move, but it only results in a strangled whine being pulled from her throat as soon as she tries.

She’s on the ground. It’s covered in rubble. There’s glass pricking her arms- or maybe the gravel was just that sharp. There’s a warmth pooling under the side she’s laying on. Likely blood.

Another groan when she at least tries to get on her back in order to assess the bleeding wound on her left side, but just as she’s about to roll her body weight, she catches something in her vision.

Yuji?

He’s slumped over against a wall, and he looks no better than she feels. Covered in bruises and blood that may or may not be his own- whatever went down was ugly.

She blinks a few times to focus her vision a little better. She tries to call for him but her throat is raw and all that comes out is another whine. Either way, he’s clearly passed out and wouldn’t have responded. The fight must’ve taken everything out of him.

Oh, the fight, it slowly starts coming back to her in flashing images. That Blood Manipulation Guy. He was rough. She’s not sure how they got out of it alive- she’s not sure how they got to this point at all. Her mind’s still foggy and the only thing that’s easy to focus on is the shooting pains in her body.

That is, until there’s the sound of clicking heels and hushed, feminine voices. (y/n) hadn’t even realized her eyes had slipped shut again until those two appeared, and she peeks her eyes open to see two girls whispering between themselves as they crouch before Yuji’s body.

They look harmless enough, no older than her, and not to mention they look anxious. So nothing about her blurry assumptions about them triggered any warning flags.

That was, until they pulled out a bag of fingers. Unmistakable fingers.

She needs to get up now and she knows it.�� She pleads with her body to move, wishing the throbbing hot pain in her left leg would disappear just long enough for her to get to Yuji, to stop these girls from what they’re about to do.

It’s unclear how much time lapses before she notices a third figure at Yuji’s body. A curse. And he seems to have a few fingers of his own, too.

No, her voice cries, but it’s only in her head. You can’t do that.

She’s never felt so weak, her fingers barely twitching against the concrete when she’s trying to tell her body to get up. She’s sure that means none of the rest of her limbs are moving. She’s trapped there.

Her heart is pounding, her breaths are labored, dread consumes her so completely she’d throw up if there was anything left in her stomach.

It’s tough to count just how many fingers are shoved down Yuji’s throat before the curse is clamping his large hand over his mouth and forcing his head back in order to make the unconscious boy swallow every last one. With tears in her eyes she knows it’s more than what’s safe, and there’s a turmoil in her gut as she doesn’t know how to feel about what comes next.

With her heart pounding in her ears she can’t tell what exactly the fighting amongst the curse users and the curse himself was about, but suddenly only the cycloptic curse remains standing over Yuji’s body. He’s grunting and growling, still pushing the boy’s head back. (y/n) wonders if he’s swallowed all those fingers by now.

These three were idiots. But they were idiots stronger than her, and even if she’d had the strength to stop them, it would’ve been futile.

However, now, they hardly made her list of things to be afraid of in Shibuya.

The blood that’s pooled under Yuji’s body startles her- when did that get there? But after blinking a few times to clear her sight and focus just a fraction of a bit better, she realizes it’s not human blood at all, but that awful purple essence that leaves a stench behind.

“I’ll give you one second,” Comes the familiar voice that doesn’t belong to the body it erupts from. “Move”

In a flash, the small crowd around him is a good ten feet back. (y/n) could almost laugh if her throat wasn’t bloodied raw. They chose to wake him up with all those fingers, and now they’re visibly afraid of what they summoned themselves? They truly had no idea what they were in for now.

It only takes one glance towards her before Sukuna’s suddenly before her beaten form, crouching down to assess the damages.

“Now, which one of these insolent freaks did this to you?” He asks, tilting his head as his Reverse Cursed Technique took effect over her wounds with haste. “I’ll start there”

“N-none of them,” She stammers out, even though it’s the truth.

For the first time, she considers that she should be afraid of Sukuna. The other three are still trembling even from their distance, barely letting themselves breathe in his presence.

All she’s ever felt towards Sukuna is irritation, perhaps mild vexation, but mostly he just confused her. But now, she can feel the abundant amount of cursed energy wafting off of him, and despite his history in sparing her life and taking an interest in her, she briefly wonders if this is the moment he changes his mind.

The thought passes in a matter of seconds, when a pair of hands are gently aiding her in sitting upright. Even with his technique healing her wounds, there are still aches and pains that make her wince. Shards of glass falling from her skin as the healing tissue forces them out, bruises that still sting when she moves too quickly before their nasty colors disappear completely.

And Sukuna regards her with an expression she’s never seen before, but it makes her heart lurch in her chest. It’s concern. His brows are knotted, and his eyes are scanning over her repeatedly to make sure no injury was left on her body. This was followed by sizable hands mapping over her carefully just to double check.

She should be afraid, but she’s not.

In fact, as soon as those vermillion eyes return to hers, all she can feel is relief.

And she doesn’t think twice before she’s darting forward on achy knees, her arms wrapping around his neck and the rest of her body colliding into his so harsh it knocks the wind out of her for a moment, but she doesn’t mind panting to catch her breath again. She embraces Sukuna as tightly as she can, as though he’s the only savior she’s ever known, an angel painted in pure white rather than the corrupted being he truly was.

Sukuna has half a mind to grab her by the neck and remove her from him with a snarl about how her injuries were still healing, but instead he wraps an arm around her, his hand smoothing over the tattered back of her uniform.

She could only imagine what the three at the end of the corridor were thinking, watching the King of Curses embrace such a weak sorcerer.

“You understand now, don’t you sweetheart?” He asks her quietly, and she manages a small nod against his chest, before her hands tighten into fists at the red hood that lies between his shoulder blades. “It’s been a rough night, hasn’t it?” He muses, and when (y/n) doesn’t give him a response this time, he uses his free hand to pry her face away from his shirt, hooking her chin under his finger so that she’d meet his eyes.

Rough night didn’t even begin to cover what she’d been put through, what was she supposed to say?

“It’s alright now, my love, I’m here,”

Those words from him shouldn’t bring her the amount of comfort that they do. The tears in her eyes begin to drip down her cheeks. Sukuna’s smiling as he brushes them away, and despite her better judgment, she leans into the touch, seeking out even more comfort. He chuckles at the sight, but humors her as he cups the side of her face in his palm, cradling her head with the gentleness of holding a flower by it’s petals.

She won’t admit it, not now anyways, but she knows deep down that there is no force on this earth greater than the swell of love in her chest right now. It’s something she’s not sure should ever be voiced, but she has a feeling that Sukuna will find a way to draw it out of her anyways. Just as he’s made her trust him, just as he’s made her confide in him, he’s bound to find a way into drawing the confession out of her as well.

Perhaps it’s her own fault, too. Hiding the way a part of her believed everything he’s ever said to her, hiding the way it made her feel to know that she was so loved by a force so strong and unstoppable that he’d scour the earth after every lifetime in order to find her again.

I think the feelings you have for me in every beginning come from your soul’s memory, he’d said. But I think deep down, you know that you trust me.

She stares at him now knowing all of this to be true, and Sukuna can almost see every thought in her dilated eyes, swallowed nearly whole by dark pupils as she clings to him now.

With a brush of his lips to the crown of her head, he makes her a promise that she’ll live through this horrid night yet.

She still holds onto him when he stands, and he lifts her up with ease, cradling her to his chest like she was merely a small and frightened child. The only unease she felt now was knowing what fates were in store for the three at the end of the hall, who Sukuna had set his sights on first.

“Now, let’s take this one on together, sweetheart, shall we?”

Her own fate was still unknown to her, but sealed in place long ago.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

[ cause i love to love to love to love you // i hate to hate to hate to hate you ]

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

xoxo ~ jordie

a/n: thinkin about writing a snippet of their past live(s) or something. i wanted to add something like that to this fic but i wanted the reader to feel unsure if they really could trust him soooo it went a diff route. idk don't hold me to it. i'm just a girl.

#sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna x reader #sukuna ryomen x reader #ryomen x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #ryomen sukuna imagine #sukuna imagine #jjk imagine #jujutsu kaisen imagine

1K notes · View notes

stars-and-the-min · 9 months ago

Text

☆ the wrong way to hard launch (11) | OP81

summary : oscar's girlfriend is a walking pr problem for literally everyone (including herself) social media au

pairing : oscar piastri x zhou!fem!singer!oc

a/n sometimes people aren't the nicest (and people can be severely delusional)

masterlist | last part | part 11 | next part

TWITTER

june @linafesting · 42m you look like taylor swift

↳ june @linafesting · 41m not quite mother and daughter, more like aunt and niece ↳ emme @flowersforcami · 32m lina is hayley williams and lana del rey's lovechild and i've been say this for years ↳ lukas 🔛🔝 @lukiepookie28 · 13m oh no... that's not...

INSTAGRAM

emptybottles_official Bangkok, Thailand

liked by chrisyamada and 298,426 others

emptybottles_official All suited up 😎 tagged: lukaszhang, eb_jonno and cameliazzz

chrisyamada who managed to wrangle kas into a suit 🤣

cami.png as much as i love cami content, no lina or aid was a... choice ↳ mrslukaszhang @cami.png right like ur not sending the frontwoman??? what's going on??? (omg kas 😳)

emptybottlesbar Looking sharp!

MESSAGES

from the phone of selina bui

TWITTER

↳ 🕯️manifesting EB3 🕯️@ linabelles · 2h what are y'all up to? ↳ lina !!! @EB_selina · 2h we went out to dinner tgt! authentic thai food and the night markets bc only grandpa aidan knows how to speak thai <3 ↳ Aidan Park @EB_Aidan · 2h Alex gave us recommendations 😊 ↳ kayla @luna_apocolypse · 1h deluding myself into thinking this is a producer-songwriter meeting

opal @pxastrixxx · 1h enough time has passed, i think we need to talk about how weird l*na is, a 🧵 ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 1h and ik ur all gonna try defend her by saying its a stage persona yada yada but it's still weird the way she interacts with guys ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 1h starting off with kas and lina, they keep insisting that they're just childhood best friends or smth but the massive shipping fandom they have just proves that ppl aren't blind and they're flirty ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 57m idk how u comfortably flirt with ur so-called 'friend' in front of thousands of ppl each night and even in front of ur boyfriend??? and she's always the one instigating it (e.g. the glove thing) it's weird, does kas have a gf bc i feel sorry for her ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 56m the whole thing with tommy howard is also childish, like its been 3 years and she's still so petty, it's giving: not over him, the whole comment on not dating athletes and then dating oscar just seems like she's trying to rile tommy up ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 54m and that's not even covering the trouble she causes her management team, i swear, the past month i've known of her existence has been her causing drama, going viral, her pr team burying it and rinse, repeat, cycle ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 49m whatever is going on between her and chris yamada is also WEIRD and it's always been weird bc she's mentioned having a celebrity crush on him and then they become friends? and then suddenly they stopped interacting in 2021? ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 43m u think that maybe he's realised smth but then he comes back to perform with them in seoul and they hang out again which is just weird weird weird bc their 'friendship' back then was also shipped ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 40m and i know i'm onto smth bc not all her male friends get shipped with her. her other male bandmates are seen as just friends bc she treats them like friends, the way she acts around kas and chris is just flirty and ppl latched onto that ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 39m and ppl are so brainwashed they think her bluntness and lack of filter is 'authentic' and funny but she's being a self-entitled bitch and her fans keep inflating her ego ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 36m and i haven't even mentioned her actions right after her final break-up with tommy like, going out to parties every week? seen with a different boy every time? making it a very public affair that then needs to be scrubbed from the internet by ur pr team? it says everything u need to know about her imo ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 32m on top of all this, we all know oscar doesn't like the media and would want to keep his relationship private and l*na's blatant disrespect and showboating feels like she's just with him for the virality, it just looks performative ↳ opal @pxastrixxx · 30m i literally just want oscar to go back to his quiet life of just racing and stay away from that kinda lifestyle

kayla @luna_apocolypse · 1h is it just me... or did that lina post and reply not quite sound like her? ↳ june @linafesting · 1h was literally just thinking the same thing, that is not my girl ↳ kayla @luna_apocolypse · 1h i thought i was being paranoid but like, when was the last time she posted??? do you think management banned her from socials?

INSTAGRAM

emptybottlesbar

liked by zhouguanyu24 and 332,293 others

emptybottlesbar Oh, hey there Jonny 👋 tagged: eb_jonno

moonbeamlina release the pic he took of admin ↳ emptybottlesbar @moonbeamlina Admin is really shy 🙈

linasgirl4 no snarky lina comment OH THEY'VE TAKEN HER ACCOUNT OFF HER 😭

r/EmptyBottles · Posted by u/buisms84 8 hours ago lina radio silence

does anyone else find it so weird how little promo lina is getting? like she's by far the most popular member esp since she's the FRONTWOMAN and she's been completely radio silent on socials since last weekend?

and not to discount any of the other band members ofc but everyone is noticing, like this is so not like the EB pr method?

so does anyone have any clue what's happening lol

dreamofbees · 8 hr. ago didn't she tweet a pic of her and aidan like last night? buisms84 OP · 8 hr. ago i think everyone and their dog knew that wasn't her

niaphilia283 · 7 hr. ago there's a twitter hate train rn it's causing a bit of a commotion and i think they (management) took her socials off her to prevent escalation buisms84 OP · 7 hr. ago wait, what twitter hate train? niaphilia283 · 5 hr. ago one of her boyfriend's deranged fans (user pxastrixxx) had a long ass thread basically calling lina a slut and saying she's just using him for clout but they priv'ed their acc now (i took screenshots if u wanna see)

TWITTER

EB Updates @emptybottles_news · 1h 4 years ago... Lina and Kas did a zoom interview/catch-up during the COVID-19 lockdown

↳ oscalina real ?! @emptyginbottles · 51m oomfie this was NOT A GOOD TIME TO POST THIS 😭 ↳ kaslina on my mind ☁️ @kaslinatruther · 22m they're in love ur honor

MESSAGES

from the phone of oscar piastri

TWITTER

↳ emme @flowersforcami · 6h hey bestie... how you doing...? ↳ president linami @ linaminami · 6h NOT WELL 😭

piaa⁸¹ @ papayaeightyone · 2h what happened to that one oscar user who had that fuck-long thread bitching about lina? ↳ piaa⁸¹ @ papayaeightyone · 2h i mean like i was also pretty against about her to begin with but i think anyone with eyes could figure that was a bit... right??? ↳ oscalina real ?! @emptyginbottles · 1h ppl aren't that smart and my girl is a pretty convincing actress

kayla @luna_apocolypse · 1h why was bangkok kinda robbed like 👀 ↳ kayla @luna_apocolypse · 1h it's one thing to put ur frontwoman on a social ban but to stop her from giving it all on stage is an insult. i firmly believe that it's criminal that the band management told lina to 'tone it down' on stage bc of the online noise which straight up isn't fair for the thai fans ↳ kayla @luna_apocolypse · 58m and she looked so miserable btw like it's the only thing you can notice in the tour videos, she's pissed off and she's trying so hard not to let it bleed into her performance

liv is SEEING EB LIVE!! @olivielina · 31m hot take: people have always been weird about lina's dating life and it's gone far beyond anything reasonable ↳ liv is SEEING EB LIVE!! @olivielina · 27m nobody take this the wrong way! i love her and oscar together, they seem really happy and enjoy spending time together, from what i can see they both put in effort to see each other (which is esp difficult with their jobs) but we need to leave them ALONE. she likes privacy and oscar is a very textbook introvert. those bitches do NOT want you prying into their lives, trust me on this

pookie piastri @op81ln4 · 2h the lack of individual content from both lina and oscar is convincing me those two are shacked up somewhere, trust 🙏 (i'm delusional) ↳ pookie piastri @op81ln4 · 2h YES IK LINA IS IN BANGKOK AND OSCAR IS IN MIAMI, THIS WAS A JOKE

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:

taglist @ririyulife @ashy-kit @fionaschicken @namgification @cherry-piee @urfavsgf @eiaaasamantha

#f1 #oscar piastri #oscar piastri x oc #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri fanfic #oscar piastri imagine #oscar piastri smau #formula 1 fanfic #formula 1 smau #f1 fic #f1 smau #f1 imagine #f1 social media au

125 notes · View notes

amxrany · 1 year ago

Text

!! CHAPTER 7 / DIASOMNIA ARC SPOILERS !!

I am not in the mood to study so yeah (Part 3):

The senate (which are just these 3 floaty thingies) start to blame him for Meleanor's death and they punish him by banning him from the capital (which makes Silver and Sebek realize why Lilia can't do certain things). BUT BAD NEWS GUYS THE BLOT IS BACK and it's forming around Lilia with him muttering that he'll join them (Meleanor and Leverne) soon...

All of a sudden the ring (yknow the one Silver has) teleports them to another old memory, taking place 10 years after the war where Lilia was secretly called by Maleficia. Apparently Malleus eggo stopped accepting her magic and that direct touch and love would be more efficient

Baul wants Lilia to travel to various to find ways to hatch Malleus eggo and also reminds Lilia of Meleanor's last words where if she's gone, Lilia will be the one in charge of hatching him (as well as acting like a married couple with Leverne OKAYYYYYY)

Lilia tells the eggo that if he ends up in the stars before Lilia returns, eggo's parents are going to scold him so he asks Malleus to hold on AND MOTHERFUCKER

Lilia travels around the world, but everytime he brings up the egg people immediately shum him out, saying that dragons only exist in fairy tales. But every time Lilia comes back to Malleus eggo, Baul notices that the magic increases. Then Lilia suddenly brings up that Meleanor was a picky eater while Leverne was a honor student but in reality the dude hid his veggies under the table 😭😭😭

A rumor goes around that there was a castle holding dragons so Lilia goes to check it out, but he was too late. He then breaks down asking if anyone knew how to hatch the egg until magic suddenly overflows and boom we got the origin story of Lilia's UM. He uses this to his advantage to find more research to hatch Malleus

200 years has passed and Lilia was succesful

MALLEUS COMES TO LIFE LET'S GOOOOO (AND LEONA WAS RIGHT HE DOES LOOK LIKE A LIZARD (AFFECTIONATE))

Lilia breaks down cuz after 200 YEARS MAN HE FINALLY DID IT , MALLEUS GAVE HIM HOPE 🥹

Silver finally understands why the dream turned out like this, Lilia lost everyone but his happiest moment was bringing Malleus to life. The senate praise Lilia for being a hero but something happens

OVERBLOT MALLEUS IS BACK AYEEEEEEEEEEEE I MISS YOU BOO

LILIA LOOKS AT OB MALLEUS AND THOUGHT IT SOUNDED LIKE LEVERNE BUT MALLEUS LOOKS LIKE MELEANOR

Malleus pretty much goes nuts here because the senate and Maleficia were lying to him. He then asks Lilia what dream does he want: One where Meleanor and Leverne lived or something else that makes him happy BUT SILVER AND SEBEK MANAGE TO INTERVENE AND SNAP LILIA BACK TO REALITY YEYYYYYY

With Lilia now back to us, the group proceeds to run away but while that was happening Lilia mentioned this

Then Silver promises Lilia that they will meet again and activates his UM BUT THEN A HOLGRAM OF ORTHO APPEARS TO THEM

THEY'RE ALL BACK AND IGNIHYDE WITH IDIA SAYING "time for the main event~~~~" LET'S GOOO THE SHROUD BROS ARE BACK BABY

Manifesting real hard for the next update being the Shroud bros segment cuz if you think about it Idia didn't need any assistance to escape the dream LIKE BRO ACCEPTED THE FACT HIS BROTHER IS DEAD AND THAT'S HARD

This was surprisingly short (or maybe I was rushing) with only 3 parts but hope you guys enjoyed it!!

Previous: Part 2

#rany talks about twst #twisted wonderland #twst #twst jp #twst spoilers #diasomnia #ok i really gotta go back to studying or im gonna fail (legit)

294 notes · View notes

crazilust · 10 months ago

Text

Revati, Pisces, water, losses

Just watched a youtube video (creator: luna giiselle) about water signs and how because of the nature of water, they tend to get completely strayed away sometimes because they absorb others’ energies even at their own detriment.

Pisces being the one with the the most tendency to lose themselves in others and to become whatever someone projects onto them.

I always hated my pisces placement in my Tropical chart (being in mercury) but when I learned that I was a whole Pisces sun (Revati nak) in Vedic, at first I was completely devasted honestly lol.

I used to hate the part of me who would adapt to anyone, and become their most fulfilling fantasy because I hated how empty I became afterwards. A vessel. A vessel for them.

I’m not sure yet how I can even channel this as a strength. I mean, it must be, right? But I don’t know what to do with this energy.

When I was younger, it used to manifest as me being friends with any types of people. Up to sketchy people who’d commit petty fraud to uptight church going people. And I would just adapt my attitude, language, jokes to whoever I was talking to. I used to refer to myself as a chameleon alot.

Until I realized, when I grew up, that it wasn’t that much of a good thing, especially when it came to getting to know who I really was at my core.

Even today, as I reminisce on my last toxic relationship, I can’t stop judging myself for all the times I became someone else for him.

I met him when I was at my lowest (isn’t it always the case?), and I had to take a break from my own life. And then, there he was, just like a damn wolf ready to sink his teeth into me the moment I was weak enough. He projected everything he couldn’t be onto me.

If I have to be completely honest, for a brief moment, it felt freeing. To be someone else while my life was going to shit. To be this ideal that only existed for him.

Luna mentioned this in her video, how Pisces will kind of enjoy (more so than other water signs) the transmutation. And I did. Until I lost myself. Until when I wanted to come back to myself (or the person I thought I was), he criticized me to no end.

I’m so mad at myself for not putting up enough boundaries, for letting myself being totally consumed and immersed in his energy, who was literal poison for me.

I’m trying to work on it, but I don’t want to work on it from a place of hate, I want to work on it from a place of understanding and compassion.

I used to hate Pisces because it reflects the part of myself that has been the most abused.

I have to heal that part of myself and love it, and recognize its strengths. I’m not sure how yet, I don’t even know if it’ll happen, but I just want to try.

#astro community #astrology #astro notes #astrology observations #birth chart #astrology notes #astroblr #pisces mercury #pisces #vedic stories #vedic astro observations #vedic astro notes #revati #revati nakshatra #water signs

116 notes · View notes

acediaedeus · 10 months ago

Text

this does contain them sweet

SPOILERS

what I find really upsetting about Ichigo’s dynamic with his friends/family/mentors is how they treat the fact that he’s part-Hollow. especially when it comes to the Visored and Orihime.

bc yeah, the Visored did struggle with their Hollows, bc they already lived hundreds of years without that aspect. they were comfortable with their shinigami existence, but then this hollowfication bullshit drops on their heads and suddenly they’re not only barely in control of themselves, constantly in a fight with an inner “demon”, but also there’s no one to support them AND they’re getting fucking exiled and then they exist as this tightly knit community of eight for a fucking century with no one to understand them but each other. I’d hate the Hollow in me too, probably.

BUT, then there’s this fresh guy, that hasn’t accepted the fact that he’s now an amalgamation of a million different things, including something that he has been told he has to fight and exterminate, that they have to teach to manage the hollowfication bullshit™️ so what do we do? correct, scare the shit out of him and present existing with a Hollow as amensalism (one is harmed, one is unaffected) or parasitism (one benefits, one is harmed) when it’s more like commensalism (one benefits, one is unaffected), in which the shinigami is clearly the one who’s benefiting from this.

(although we could argue that for the Visored this is a symbiotic relationship in which both are getting harmed, but even then the shinigami still gains benefit and the Hollow gets nothing but hatred, so like, fuck them, lol (I’m advocating for inner-Hollow rights 💀🙏🏻)).

biology lesson out of the way, they essentially do not teach Ichigo anything that would bring long-term benefits (we see this when Ichigo is unable to complete his training with Squad 0, bc he has no fucking idea who Zangetsu (or he himself) actually is (this is, of course, in part his quincy power’s doing, but I wouldn’t say his supposed “mentors” helped much).

in conclusion what does Ichigo get out of this? self-hatred and the habit to suppress what is, whichever way you look at it, a big part of his being, thus blocking himself and Zangetsu from reaching their full potential.

but I guess you can’t teach lessons you haven’t learnt yourself, so there is that with the Visored.

now onto my dear Orihime, who I love dearly (this is a disclaimer). for someone who, supposedly, loves Ichigo more than anything and who we have to take seriously as not only just a potential love-interest, but the actual, one-and-only lover, she is a little bit too scared of Ichigo.

this, of course, for me, begs the question of how am I supposed to accept a love-interest who is consistently terrified of the mc? not a single battle with Orihime present (and Ichigo using the mask) without her shaking in fear and having to be reminded by others (who have known him for much less time than she has), that not only is it still Ichigo in front of her, but he’s also fighting and pulling out the mask he himself doesn’t like much, in order to protect her.

it’s plain and simple upsetting how there’s absolutely no one to accept and embrace the essence of Kurosaki Ichigo. everyone around him wants the shinigami and human in him, no one is interested in the Hollow (except for *ahem* Grimmjow *ahem*), all they do is reject and cower and isn’t that fucking hypocritical after hiding behind his back and begging him to save them?

everyone around Ichigo just really pisses me off with their constant whining. I feel like the only ones who love and cherish Ichigo for the absolute gem of a person he is are Chad and the fucking Arrancars 💀🙏🏻

as I mentioned in the ALT to the last photo in this parade of idiocy: trying to separate and think of Hollow Ichigo and Ichigo as two different entities is crazy and delusional behaviour, bc we have been told countless times, that a person’s inner Hollow is a manifestation of all repressed emotions and traits that they view as unsavoury. which for Ichigo happened to be aggression, cruelty, being merciless and thirst for bloody battles.

let me remind everyone that you cannot truly love a person w/o accepting and acknowledging all their flaws (including yourself).

this is not me trying to say Orihime doesn’t love Ichigo, it’s not really about the characters, more so the writing. I am actively trying to square up with Tite Kubo. for many reasons, but this is one of the ones I pay most attention to.

Ichigo is someone who is in perfect control of himself, who protects no matter what, bc even when he turned into the vasto lorde (after getting his heart ripped out of his chest) it was all his Hollow, yet it still carried out the mission of protection seamlessly, that’s how strong his will is. Kurosaki Ichigo deserves ppl who actually love him around, thank you.

thanks for coming to this ted talk, love y’all!

#bleach #kurosaki ichigo #inoue orihime #ichigo x orihime #kind of #but not really #bc I’m being a hater about them #it’s actually much more #grimmichi #I can’t go a single post about Ichigo without mentioning Grimmjow #they are very dear to me #also #they are in love #visored #I’m an opinionated bitch #can you tell?#literally don’t piss me off about this #I don’t play about Kurosaki Ichigo or Hollows #this is NOT me hating on Orihime I love that girl #I just hate the treatment Ichigo has to endure #my friend had to listen to different variations of this same rant 20 times I think #she’s TIRED #oh also #Chad is mentioned bc I love what he has with Ichigo #truly beautiful #this is what true male friendship looks like #overuse of coloured text for a bigger oomph #surprisingly no italics?#random biological bullshit #this got long

72 notes · View notes

eyelessfaces · 2 years ago

Text

out of sight, out of mind

poe dameron x reader

this fic is the prequel to better safe than sorry. therefore it doesn't really matter if you haven't read it because it's a PREquel, but then you know what to read next :)

better safe than sorry masterlist

summary: saying that you're terrified at the idea of losing someone you love again is an understatement. poe dameron happens to be the most reckless person you know.

warnings: reader has trauma and ptsd, mentions of death, angst (I mean, a lot), mentions of injuries, alcohol consumption

tags: f!reader, absolute idiots in love, friends to lovers, poe is in love, reader makes questionable choices but she has trauma okay, poe is so very sweet in this and it has me screaming, fluff, hurt/comfort

word count: 7.1k (personal record for a one shot, wow)

huge thanks to @eatingyouryoung for beta reading and for motivating me, supporting me and most of all bearing with me and the multiple mental breakdowns I had while writing this. love you bestie, thank you, really. <3

masterlist | taglist | ao3

There are moments where it’s only those memories, only those flashbacks clouding your mind and filling up the space for any other thoughts in your head. It eats everything else and doesn’t leave room to breathe, it engulfs everything on its way.

It is impressive how just a few minutes can determine the rest of your life, it is impressive how fast it can eat up everything else that matters.

It can play in your head over and over again when it wants to, like somebody’s favorite holo movie, rewatched when you should be asleep after a long and tiring day, and sometimes you get flashes of it during the day, even if you’re busy and should not be thinking about something other than what you’re currently doing, as if the images were screaming at you that hey, they existed.

You knew all too well that they existed, and for some obscure reason, you didn’t want to forget them.

You should want them to fade away, to disappear completely, to vanish into oblivion until nothing is left of that day, but something inside of you sticks there, holds onto those few minutes and doesn’t want to let go.

You don’t want the images to shatter into pieces, you don’t want it to be pooling at your feet like something you know you’re never going to be able to put back together. You don’t want to let go of it, you don’t want to let go of your last memory of her.

These moments aren’t present really often, at least not as much as before, but when they are they’re omnipresent and always remind you of how afraid you are at even just the thought of losing someone again.

Right now is one of those moments, the images play in the back of your mind again, it has become a regular occurrence for them to manifest themselves at the least convenient moments. Maybe Jess was right, maybe you should go see a professional so they could help you manage the manifestation of those memories.

The only thing faintly keeping you connected to reality is Poe’s voice mixing with the scene inside your head as you watch him speak, and even though it’s muffled and his words are barely distinguishable, it’s your only anchor, and you know that if you focus hard enough, it will bring you right back where you are, in the briefing room where he’s explaining everything concerning how the previous mission went and how things could have gone easier for everyone, tactically speaking.

You do and it works, and you’re back just in time to catch Poe’s gaze sticking to yours, a small wink directed your way drawing a wide and foolish smile from you before he looks away, leaving a heat creeping up your cheeks.

You’re barely able to focus for the rest of the meeting because of that simple thing, making it so you haven’t listened to any of it at all.

He dismisses everyone, chatter filling the room before it emigrates out of it, and you wait for him to be done talking with someone and he joins you.

“Hey” he smiles, walking out the room beside you, his arm wrapping around you, his hand resting on your shoulder. “You okay?” he asks as he tilts his head to take a look at your face.

You hum positively, or you hope it sounds positive, and you look up at him with a small smile to prove your point. “Just tired” you shrug.

His lips pinch in a compassionate smile, and his hand shifts from your shoulder to bury into your hair.

"Wanna come over tonight?" he asks cocking an eyebrow. "Just you, me, a bottle and my quarters"

"Is it really that obvious that I'm not feeling well?" you ask stopping in your steps with a small sigh, looking up at him.

He snorts, shrugging. "Obvious I don’t know, but I know you better than yourself" he chuckles, his hand shifting to your arm so he can squeeze you against himself. "So is that a yes?"

"It sure is" you smile, and he mirrors it before leaving a kiss at the top of your head.

—

Your eyes are watery from the alcohol, and you can feel the dizziness starting to manifest itself as you can see that your vision is slowly starting to delay like a screen's bad frame rate.

"So" Poe starts, taking the bottle from your hands. "Do you wanna talk about it?" he asks finally coming to the subject you've been thoroughly avoiding before, taking care of telling him about your day.

He brings the bottle to his mouth, frowning at the small shrug you offer him in response. He swallows the liquid as he raises his chin at you, handing you back the bottle. “It’s fine if you don’t, but you know that I’m always here if you need someone to lis–”

“It’s her death. The memories of it”

“Oh” his eyes soften, and he shifts closer to you, still sitting crossed legged on his bed.

“They’re less and less frequent, but when they resurface it’s all there is” you pinch your lips, a single nod showing that you’re accepting your fate despite how cruel it is. "And it's still so vivid, I still remember it like it was yesterday. Everyone loses people they love in this war, and it's almost been two years and yet I can't move on" you chuckle before drinking from the bottle, wincing at the strong taste of the drink. “I feel ridiculous”

"No one does" he nods, raising his eyebrows in a reassuring way. "No one moves on" he declares, taking the bottle from you when you hand it over. "You learn to live with it, but you never really move on." He watches as you chew on your bottom lip, looking down at your lap. “And this is not ridiculous at all.” he tilts his head to emphasize, putting the bottle down on his nightstand.

His hand reaches for yours, and you let him hold it. It feels warm, and his touch feels comforting, and you can feel your heart beat faster when he starts running his thumb back and forth on the back of your hand. “My mom died when I was eight, I’m a grown man and I haven’t moved on and I never will. I just had to learn to live with it.” You look up at him with compassion, but you also feel worried at the thought that it’s probably going to be a long, long way before you can recover from this experience and everything else it involves.

“But the fact that you lived and saw it makes it even harder, and you shouldn’t blame yourself for feeling stuck.”

You closed your eyes, pinching the bridge of your nose maybe a bit too hard, as if you were trying to squeeze the images out of you.

"I watched her die in front of me, she was right before my eyes and I had to leave her there" the words leave your mouth in a hurried and panicked, trembling plea, throat burning with the tight knot that only seems to get bigger inside as your words remind you of the moment in question, just as if you were there again, anxiety starting to loom menacingly over you again.

A soft exhale leaves Poe’s mouth as his expression turns into one of helplessness, and he gently pulls your body to his so you both lay down on the bed as he holds you close to him, your back pressed against his chest, his arms wrapped around you.

"I know baby, I know" he whispers, pressing gentle kisses to your hairline, trying to ease your trembling and labored breaths.

You’re not crying, you can’t, you feel so full yet so empty.

—

The ringing, high pitched sound in your ears doesn’t help your current state of tiredness and the growing migraine slowly but surely beginning to anchor into your head, and you can soon feel a throbbing pain hammering into your skull.

It’s fairly late and everyone on base is back to their quarters and for the most fast asleep, save for the ones like you still focused on work. You should get some sleep, you need it, you crave it, but you refuse to leave the empty room before you're done filling your report, wrapping up the paperwork session you've been at for two hours now.

You almost drop your datapad at the sudden feeling of hands over your shoulders, a shuddery gasp slipping from your mouth. It wakes you up a little, your current fatigue making the effect of surprise even more intense, your heart thrumming into your ribcage and reverberating inside your whole body.

The momentary panic fades away when Poe walks around to the desk in front of yours, revealing that it's only him as your eyes follow him as you're trying to catch your breath, a relieved smile growing upon your face. You haven’t seen him since yesterday, both of you drowning under a crushing pile of work. You feel awful when you remember the state you were in, but you also remember that it’s Poe so he doesn’t mind and above all, he’s not one to judge.

"Sorry sweetheart, didn’t mean to scare you" his lips quirk in a soft smile as both of his hands grasp onto the back of the chair in front of you.

"S'okay, I just didn't expect any visit this late. Why aren't you sleeping?" you ask as you put the datapad down on the desk, looking up at him as you sink back into your chair, crossing your arms.

“Why aren’t you” he asks as he cocks an eyebrow, almost as if accusing you of the same crime.

You sigh as you raise your eyebrows, taking a hold of the tablet you put down not too long ago. “Well Leia will kick my ass if I don’t fill out all of this, and she kinda scares me when she gets mad, so I’m stuck here until I’m done with paperwork”

“I don’t blame you for that” he snorts. "Need some company?" he asks as he pulls the chair from under the desk.

"I'm almost done but sure" you declare, pointing your hand towards his chair to offer him to stay with you.

He sits down, a slight clinking sound resonating through the empty room when he puts his feet up on the desk.

You dive back into work, and he would have so many things to tell you about his day but he knows that you're desperate to finish what you're doing so he instead just looks at you, drinking in any movement of yours, even the littlest, admiring the way you look when you're focused, smiling at the way you bite down onto your lip in concentration all while he absent-mindedly fiddles with the ring attached to the chain around his neck.

It doesn’t take too long for you to finish your work and for Poe to escort you back to your quarters, finally getting to tell you about his day while on the way.

You’re disappointed when you see you’re already there, and if you weren’t so tired you would have invited him inside so you could keep chatting.

“You still haven’t answered my question” you say as you stop in front of your door, turning on your feet so you could face him, stopping him in the middle of his story about BB-8’s checkup.

“What question?” he frowns, a confused expression taking over his face, lowkey nervous that he forgot about something important.

“Why you’re not asleep.”

“Oh. I was revising details for tomorrow’s last minute mission" he nods as he crosses his arms, leaning his side against the wall.

“Last minute mission?” you repeat, your eyebrows slightly rising in curiosity.

He nods as he pinches his lips. “I’m leaving for a few days. Our contact found something interesting about the First Order, and I have to see this with my own eyes”

“Be careful” you nod once, the inner corner of your eyebrows angling up in worry, and he can see in your eyes that you’re pleading him. He’s not the most cautious recruit on base, far from that, but he knows what’s good for his cause, even if he sometimes has to pay the price, but you also happen to be more important than his constant desire for recklessness.

“I will, promised. Goodnight sweetheart.” he smiles softly as he stands in front of you.

“Goodnight Poe.” He turns to his feet, ready to leave, but you grab onto his wrist before he can. He turns to you, eyebrows raised, awaiting anything from you. “Thank you for yesterday. I really needed someone to talk to.” you nod, with a tired but genuine smile.

He smiles back at you, the corner of his eyes crinkling softly.

He leaves a quick kiss at your cheek before leaving, and you wait for him to be out of sight to finally go inside your quarters, and you can’t tell if the sigh leaving your mouth is one of longing or relief.

—

You’re sprinting through the base hallways, and even though it’s really not an uncommon thing to do there, you feel stupid for being in such a rush hoping that he isn’t gone yet.

Once you arrive in the hangar, catching your breath, it is flooded with orange jumpsuits, making it hard to recognize anyone if they’re not directly facing you, but you just happen to spot the little droid that indicates that Poe’s not far away.

Poe’s eyes light up when you approach and he realizes you’re here to say goodbye, and you shake your head as you walk up to him, almost sprinting once you’re close.

“You do anything risky, I’ll kill you” you threaten as you throw yourself into his arms, the end of your sentence muffled against him.

“Okay. Where's my goodbye kiss?” he asks as he lets his hand rest at the back of your head, and he smirks when he hears your muffled chuckle.

“if you come back without a single scratch,” you start, pulling away from the embrace, looking back at him. “You’ll have a welcome home kiss.”

His right eyebrow rises in interest, and a sly smirk grows over his face.

“Now that’s an interesting deal.”

You point a finger to his chest, the tip pressing against it, your head slightly tilting to the side, looking right into his eyes.

“Not.” you push your finger deeper. “A.” deeper again, and—

“–Scratch, yes.” he completes your sentence, taking a hold of your hand, closing it into a fist and pressing it against his chest.

“That’s right. I’ll check” you tease, your other pointer finger pressuring him.

He snorts, “I’d love to show you every single part of my–” his voice quietens as he suddenly looks down at his feet, at the circular droid nudging him. “Yeah buddy” he looks back up at you. “I should get going”

“Alright. Goodbye handsome, be careful” you smile, and he bites down on his lip as he lets go of your hand before starting to walk backwards.

“You gave me a reason to be, I will be” he shouts from a distance, pointing back at you as he walks away, towards his ship.

—

The few days he had announced to be the time where he would be gone transformed into a whole week, and though you were busy every night either with work or with friends, you couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing at random moments of the evening.

Thankfully feedback from coms said that everyone was okay and that the mission was going exactly as planned, so your state of worry was greatly diminished.

You still couldn’t stop thinking about him and you hated yourself for being so attached to Poe Dameron, but at the same time how could you not when he acted the way he did around you.

You were walking around base with friends when you heard word from a passing group of people that Poe’s squadron had gotten back from their mission, and even though it was getting late and you could wait see him the next day or whenever you would run into him next, the curiosity and apprehension to find out whether he had gotten injured or not took over you.

You apologized to your friends for having to leave them, and hurriedly made your way through the base to join the hangar.

Once you arrive there the scene in front of you is pretty much the same as when you joined Poe before he left; a sea of orange figures, ships on the ground, metallic sounds and indistinct chatter filling the room.

Poe sees you before you see him and rushes towards you, a sly smirk over his face as he sprints across the hangar, and the moment you finally see him is the exact same moment you want to warn him about the ship wing that’s about to–

It hits his head with a loud thud.

A yelp that quickly transforms into a groan escapes his mouth, both of his hands covering and pushing against the area of impact as he momentarily curls up on himself in place because of the sudden pain.

Your mouth is gaping in shock before you sprint to join him.

“Fuck are you okay?” you ask hastily, a nervous chuckle leaving your mouth as your hand rests at his back while his eyes are shut tight, his hand grabbing onto your arm.

“Yeah I’m okay, I’m okay” he nods, his other hand still clinging onto his forehead. He sighs a curse word under his breath, shaking his head as he frowns before he snorts.

“I was uninjured before this.” he chuckles as he looks at you, a skeptic smile over his face. “Not a scratch”

“Mh? Well that’s too bad.” you tease, putting your hand over his shoulder. “Come on, medbay.”

“No no that’s fine I’m o–”

“Nuh uh I don’t wanna hear it, we’re going to medbay” you insist, pulling onto his arm, raising your eyebrows and tilting your head towards the direction of interest.

Poe reluctantly goes to medbay with you, the medics check him up rather quickly, and everything turns out to be okay; you only have to stay there sitting face to face to hold a cold pad to his forehead to prevent a bump from appearing.

“So, how’d the mission go?”

“Great. Couldn’t have been better. Got into some ambushes but we crushed them” he smiles. “And not a scratch, nothing” he nods proudly.

“See, you can make efforts when you’re interested in the promised outcome” you chuckle, shifting in place so you could get a better position to hold the pad over his forehead.

He winces, “S’cold as fuck”

“That’s the point” you huff out a laugh, and he smacks your thigh playfully in response.

“So” he starts, clearing his throat and shifting in his seat. “Can I get my price?” he asks, a sly smirk growing over his face.

“...I don’t know” you hum, a fake skeptic expression over your face. It’s hard to refrain from smiling when you see his semi-pouty face, “You technically didn’t respect the conditions.”

“What? It shouldn’t count!” he starts bargaining like a child that has been wrongly accused for something their sibling did, and you huff out a small laugh seeing how he reacts to you simply teasing him.

“I mean, you got hurt” you shrug.

“The mission was over”

“I told you to come back uninjured, mission or not, or else what's the point”

“Fair enough, but you didn’t specify beforehand”

“Well, now you know” you say, a small exhale leaving your mouth when you get up from your seat, and Poe doesn’t waste any second to follow you, tossing the cold pad onto the nearest surface.

“Alright, okay, but now I want a second chance at this so it’s fair game” he bargains, following you closely when you exit the medbay.

"Alright, alright" you agree as you turn back to him. "Come on now, you need to rest" you turn to your feet again, towards the hallway extending before you.

He remains standing in place when you start walking again, just looking at you and pondering. It takes him a few seconds before he catches up and joins you again, walking by your side.

The both of you are silent for most of the walk to Poe's quarters; it's pretty uncommon for Poe to remain quiet for more than thirty seconds, and it has you thinking.

"You really want your kiss, huh?" you ask rhetorically, stopping in your steps and turning to him once you're in front of his door.

He pauses, and takes a look at you before answering. "Of course I do" he chuckles, and you nod as your teeth sink into your bottom lip.

Poe barely has time to process you getting substantially closer to him before you grab the collar of his flight suit and put your lips over his, gently pushing him against the wall.

The quarter of second it takes for him to fully be aware of what's happening leaves him sighing against your mouth, and once he's sure that it’s all real, his hand cradles the back of your head, pulling you even closer.

His other hand rests at your hip, your own hands leaving his collar and resting at the back of his neck, and low hum vibrating against your mouth when your fingers bury into his short curls there.

You pull away just for a second before he yanks you towards him, kissing you back with even more vigor.

His lips are warm and pressed tight against yours, the heat of his body feeling omnipresent even though you're the one caging him.

You smile at the sight of the starstruck expression left over his face when you pull away, and your heart sinks at the way his warm eyes look at you.

“I was messing with you, I always keep my promises” you tease with a grin as you start to back away, your hands behind your back, giving him space again.

“Admit it, you didn’t want to be kind to me, you just wanted to do it” he smirks, a teasing tone in his voice before he bites down onto his bottom lip. “You wanted to kiss me”

You smirk back at him, shrugging before turning onto your feet and leaving for good, retracing your steps.

Poe stares at you leaving until you're out of sight, and he can't help but smile to himself when he enters the code to his quarters, still not fully believing what just happened.

You, you should feel overjoyed, but you can’t help but acknowledge that bittersweet feeling starting to get to you as you’re walking back to your quarters and being faced with reality again, your mind starting to overfill with too many thoughts; you’re getting too attached.

—

You toss and turn in your bed, and all you’re able to do instead of sleeping is hating yourself for kissing Poe, for certainly making him feel like this meant that you were ready to give him what he had been wanting from you for so long.

You do have feelings for him, and that’s where the problem is; you can not love anyone, and certainly not someone as reckless and impulsive as him, not someone you could lose technically so easily.

You can’t go through this again, you know you wouldn’t be able to carry the weight of his loss.

Maybe it’s selfish, maybe you’re making the biggest mistake of your life – no; you’re sure of that – but you’re also sure that you wouldn't be able to handle enduring this again; the simple thought crushes you.

You toss and turn in your bed, and while Poe is certainly delighted of what happened, you hate that you’re going to have to distance yourself from him because you fucked everything up.

—

It has been a week since you and Poe had kissed, and it seemed like you were thoroughly trying to avoid him ever since, hurrying out of the room after every briefing, taking advantage of the crowd and of the people wanting to talk details with the commander.

You happened to never eat at the same time as him anymore, and you were nowhere to be found when he looked for you in places he knew you would usually be.

Poe was left confused, and even though he had a lot of work and technically other things to think about, the fact that he couldn’t catch you to talk even just for five minutes was bothering him and leaving him wondering if he had done something wrong, especially with what happened last time.

He had thought this kiss would change things between you, would lead you somewhere and that he would finally get what he had wanted for ages; you.

He knew it was no coincidence that you wouldn't stop ignoring his presence, that you wouldn't maintain eye contact through the briefing room for more than two seconds; that you wouldn’t run into him anymore; he knew he had been just a fool, too stupid to think that this could lead him somewhere, lead the both of you somewhere, that you would feel the same way he felt for you.

—

You took it as a sign that your friends had understood something was wrong when they practically dragged you to go get some drinks, and while you weren’t particularly in the mood to do that, you had to admit that you needed some distraction.

You needed to be busy in order to avoid thinking too much, to avoid getting too deep into your own head, because you knew that if you did you would break.

And the distraction technique actually works; you’re having a good time, chatting and laughing, forgetting about everything else going on besides that, and it feels really good, the illusion feels good.

There comes a time when you start to feel the drinks you’ve downed, the slight drunkenness starting to manifest itself as well as your need to pee.

You're still in a pretty good shape, drinkingly speaking; you're not fully drunk yet, just tipsy – the feeling is still pleasant, and you just have to stop for a second to maintain balance on your feet when you get up from your seat to join the cantina's bathroom.

The room is empty when you go and lock yourself into a stall, and the muffled music gets clearer when a group of people enter the room seconds later, their loud and high pitched laughs almost fully covering the sound of the loud music before it gets muffled again.

“So” one of the girls starts as she recovers from her laugh, “How’d last night end?” she asks, and the question elicits curious gasps from the other girls of the group.

“Yeah, we didn’t see you after you left the room with Commander Dameron” another girl teases, putting emphasis on the rank and last name, and your eyes widen at the sound of that.

Well. Try to forget about something and it’s shoved into your face right back away.

This catches your interest nonetheless, and you make sure to wait a little before you wipe yourself, not wanting to miss a beat of the conversation.

"Well," another girl starts, the girl who you assume is the girl who left the room with Commander Dameron.

"We were both drunk and it was sloppy but damn is he good at it” she declares proudly, a fit of giggles filling the room.

Oh.

She's talking about something else, right?

This can't possibly be, right?

Right?

"No way you slept with a commander, Jana. This is like a special success, something to check off a list" one of them chuckles.

"Sure did." Jana replies, and this is cliché and a bit not-feminist but you can just imagine her putting another layer of gloss on her lips.

Fuck.

It's with a half lie about not feeling well that you leave your friends and go home to your quarters, trying to repress the tight knot in your throat when you don’t even bother to change into your sleeping clothes and curl up into your bed.

—

The next briefings after that are awkward and feel delicate, and even though they already were before, you now can not look at Poe without internally wanting to scream and break something.

You hurry out the room faster than before if it’s even possible, and you need to be constantly distracted and busy with something in order not to think about him and all of your current situation with him.

You make your way out of the seemingly way-too-busy room once more, apologizing as you slalom through the crowd of people, an exhale of relief escaping once you get some relatively fresh air in the hallway.

“Hey” your heart jumps when you recognize Poe’s voice as he grabs your arm, and you sigh softly when you’re forced to turn to him. He must have disregarded everyone’s questions to exit the briefing room that quickly. “Why won’t you talk to me? Why do you barely even look at me?” he asks, and his voice slightly cracks at the middle of his sentence. He’s not fully scolding you, he genuinely wants answers.

A soft exhale leaves your mouth, and you can feel and hear your heart starting to beat fast in your ears.

“Did you sleep with Jana?”

The question is dropped like a bomb, and you know it’s going to have the effect of a bomb no matter what happens – it’s going to destroy everything, but at this point there isn’t really anything left to lose, nothing left to save either, it’s all doomed.

You already know the answer, you already know he’s going to respond positively because he’s an honest man and definitely not a liar; it’s something you have always appreciated in him.

“I–” he is speechless, and his mouth is gaping, trying to come up with anything to say though he knows damn well what he has to say if he wants to be honest with you, even if it’s going to ruin everything, until– “Yes.”

You expected it, and yet it still hurts.

You had secretly hoped that the girl in the cantina bathroom had made that lie up to impress her friends, and you deep down knew she hadn’t, but you somehow buried yourself deep into denial, thinking that hoping otherwise would somehow manifest the truth to be different.

“I can’t wait for you forever. I don’t want to.”

Immediately and like a reflex your eyes close, your lips pinch and you nod, trying to ignore the sick feeling bubbling inside your chest though it’s impossible.

It hurts, everything hurts, nothing will ever be the same with him and it’s entirely your fault, you brought it upon yourself.

He’s not yours after all, and you made sure of that, so you shouldn’t be upset, you shouldn’t feel your heart sink. It’s not legitimate.

“You know that’s not what I meant” he starts again, the inner corner of his eyebrows angling up in compassion when he sees your reaction. “I could wait for you forever.” he nods, a bittersweet smile over his face. “But you’re making me feel like a fool. I don’t want to feel like a fool forever” he nods one last time as his lips pinch to repress something, and you can see his eyes glistening a bit, and your heart aches at the sight.

You bite down on your lip trying to contain your frustration, or your growing state of misery; you’re not sure, and all you’re able to reply is just–

“Okay.”

It’s bland, cold and dry, but it’s truly all that can come out.

You don’t have the heart to bargain and beg for your cause, and it would feel unfair and dishonest for him anyways.

“I’m sorry” Poe immediately says, and you feel bad that he is the one to be sorry, that he feels like he is the bad guy in that whole story when all of this is entirely your fault.

“No, no, I am. I get it” you try to reassure him, forcing a small smile out of you, still trying to make it seem like you’re doing fine, though you know there’s no use trying to when he knows you so well.

You can’t stay here any longer or you will break, and you don’t have anything left to say anyways, not when you know it probably has to end that way.

You leave as fast as you left the briefing room earlier, and Poe feels sick when he watches you go, feels the need to puke when his head somehow fills with every memory you’ve ever made with him.

You’re glad your back is facing him when you have to frantically wipe away the single tear rolling down your cheek.

—

It feels strange not having Poe in your life anymore, at least not properly; and it's probably worse that way, the fact that he's still around and that you're still often being confronted to each other, forced to pretend not to care about each other.

It hurts that he's now back to being "just" a commander to you, a colleague, that you're both back to being basically strangers, that the eye contacts don't linger anymore and just leave a bitter feeling lodged inside your chest when they used to leave butterflies in your stomach.

Your heart aches every time you catch a glimpse of him, and it’s hard trying to stay focused when you work around him, go on missions with him.

You feel terrible for what you’ve done to him, you feel sick that he feels like he's been played with when all you wanted to do was protect yourself, you feel bad that he has to be collateral damage.

You truly hope he doesn’t hate you, and you think that this might be your biggest fear.

That the only man that has ever truly believed in you, that the man that you love could hate you, even if he has all the reasons in the world to and you wouldn’t blame him if he did.

Now is not the time to think about it, because you've been assigned and sent on a mission with him, and you're kinda thankful it's not the kind of mission that only requires two people and you just happen to be paired with him – you're thankful people are with you for this one.

It should be an easy mission, you just have to get something back.

A smuggler had stolen something that was supposed to get sent to the Resistance, but the guy happened to be tougher and more skilled than expected, and the logical solution to get back up on this was to get the Resistance itself.

You’re making your way through a quiet alley bathed in darkness, following the target from a distance, observing each of his movements to calculate how you could get an opening so you could get to him and steal – no, get back what’s yours.

Your group has split up, everyone trying to join the guy from different points and accesses across the area.

If all goes well you can surround him in case you don’t have the opportunity to attack before, and technically he shouldn’t be able to get away, at least not until you have taken back what he has stolen.

You're doing pretty good so far, the guy hasn’t noticed he is being followed, so you have been able to gradually get closer and you're so close to being able to attack and if you could just shoot him in the leg and get back what's yours–

You're suddenly and abruptly yanked out from the main alley, and even before you can react at what’s happening and scream in surprise and fear, a hand pushes over and blocks your mouth, the other hand wrapping tight around your waist, your back pressed flush against your assailant's chest as their own back rests against the wall of the small, secluded alley you’ve been pulled in.

Your eyes look around in fear, your head unable to move, blocked by the strong hand covering your mouth; you want to scream, trying to wriggle out of whoever's grasp you're trapped in, panic starting to creep up your chest, until–

"Calm down, don't panic, it's only me." the soft and gentle whisper of Poe's voice in your ear makes you relax in his grasp, waves of relief washing over you. "He knows that we're following him, he was waiting for you to get closer to trap you" he explains, and you start to loosen up when his hand leaves your mouth and he lets go of you. “Sorry I scared you”

“Thank you” you nod as you face him, your hands resting over your knees as you catch your breath from the sudden rush of fear and adrenaline.

Your eyes widen and you look back at Poe when you hear a fight starting not so far away from where you are, shouts and sounds of blasters firing.

“I’ll go” he declares, hastily taking off his jacket. “Stay there and keep this for me, will you? You were shivering while I was holding you” he smirks teasingly, throwing you his leather jacket.

You chuckle as you catch and look down at the piece of cloth, and he waits for you to put it on to shoot you a smile before leaving, not even giving you time to beg him to be careful and not do anything stupid.

At least you’re now certain that he most definitely does not hate you.

—

Poe is sitting in the grass on a hill not so far away from base, looking up at the starry sky, just enjoying the fresh air of D'Qar. It feels nice after the particularly busy and tiring day he just had, his muscles still sore and tense from the mission, especially the muscles joining his neck and shoulders.

“Hey” the sudden sound of your voice tears him out of his thoughts, and he even thinks he hallucinated it before he turns to you.

“Hey” he pinches a smile as he looks up at you.

“I wanted to give you your jacket back” you say as you look down at the jacket you’re currently wearing, and you must admit that you’re a bit reluctant at the idea of having to give it back – it smells just like him, a mix of his natural comforting scent and his aftershave, and it feels like the closest you’ve ever been to him in your life.

“Oh. No need to, you can keep it, you look good in it” he smiles wide, and you scoff softly.

"Alright. Can I?” you ask, referring to sitting down next to him.

“Hm? Sure” he nods, patting on the grass. You sit down next to him and watch him as he looks in front of him, admiring the view extending before him. The sky is pretty, the stars are especially bright tonight.

"Thank you again for earlier. And… I'm sorry for even earlier" you say, and his gaze drops down to his lap. "I'm sorry I was being an asshole and I made you feel like an idiot just because I don't know how to deal with my emotions." He looks back up in front of him, and you're scared when he doesn’t say anything and just stares ahead, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip. "Can you forgive me?"

His face turns to you, and he nods, a pinched, awkward smile over his face. "Of course. Of course I can"

You can't help a relieved smile from forming over your face, and you look at the stars for a moment before looking back at him. He looks almost heavenly, bathed in the stars' light.

“You know I love you, right? Poe, please tell me you do.” you ask, almost beg, still scared that he could believe the opposite.

"I do. I know it" he nods softly, looking at you. He pauses before continuing, as if he was thinking of the right words to say. "But I don't want you to feel forced to be with me if you're not ready yet" he continues, and his hand rests over your thigh as he looks at you sternly, wanting to show you that he means it.

Your heart sinks at how considerate he is, even after how you've been treating him, but you're not even surprised; he's the kindest, most gentle man you've ever met, you have always known this.

"I can wait for you, and I will, I'm not going anywhere." he looks down at your thigh when your hand covers his, and he looks back up at you. "I mean it."

It shouldn't have the effect it has, because you've never wanted him as much as you do now, but you have been wanting him for long anyways so it doesn't really change anything.

“I’m terrified of losing you.” you mutter under your breath, saying this as if you were justifying yourself though you know you don’t have to.

“And why would you lose me?” he asks, almost sure it's a rhetorical question, his hand moving so it could grab yours. His fingers intertwine with yours and the gesture makes a chill run down your spine, you're sure it's not the fresh breeze of the night.

“You’re the most impulsive and reckless person I’ve ever met, Poe. That might simultaneously be your biggest blessing and flaw” you smile softly.

He scoffs. “But I’m also the best pilot in the Resistance, so…” he tries to reassure you with a fake sly smirk, for once, holding tighter onto your hand. “Trust me, will you? I know it’s hard for you, I know what you’ve gone through and I know what you're scared of but I promise you that we’ll be okay.” he nods, and you happen to believe him, he is able to do that.

"You don't have to wait for me, then" you declare, your head resting over his shoulder. He smiles as he wraps an arm around your shoulders, leaving a kiss at the top of your head before his rests over yours.

You will love him anyways, you will be terrified anyways, and if you have to live with the fear that everything could stop suddenly, you would rather do it by his side.

—

if this flops and if I get no feedback on this I will scream, cry, break something and consider retiring from writing so if you've read all of this please give me feedback or a comment or a reblog I'm literally begging you on my knees........

better safe than sorry masterlist

masterlist | taglist | ao3

star wars masterlist: @apollo-enthusiast @lockleysgrl @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @alexxavicry @mystinky-butt @anightshift @whatthefishh @dameronshandholder @campingwiththecharmings @mintgreen24 @dameronshandholder @spider-starry @jakecockley @cocodiem @spxctorsslxt @friedwings @luxisluxurious

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron fanfiction #poe dameron imagine #poe dameron fic #poe dameron x you #poe dameron x y/n #poe dameron fanfic #poe dameron fluff #star wars #oscar isaac #oscar isaac characters #poe dameron angst

366 notes · View notes

chloe-caulfield94 · 8 months ago

Text

The theme of suicide in Life is Strange S1

Suicide is a prominent theme in Season 1. And its depiction doesn’t end with Kate’s ordeal in Episode 2. I’d argue it’s just the first salvo and this theme continues to be explored in later episodes as well. After Episode 2, Max encounters another character going through a suicide crisis. That character of course is Chloe.

In Episode 4, when Max is in the alternate timeline, Chloe, who is paralyzed from the neck down and terminally ill asks to be put out of her misery. Max has the option to do so, by overdosing Chloe with painkillers, or refuse to do that and promise Chloe never to leave her again instead.

What Chloe asks for is assisted suicide. She doesn’t want to live anymore, but since she is unable to take her own life, she asks Max to perform the deed.

But that’s not the last time Max has to deal with someone experiencing a suicide crisis. Because Chloe experiences such a crisis twice.

What Chloe asks for in Episode 5 at the cliff is once again assisted suicide. She loses the will to go on. She gives up on herself. But once again she is unable to take her own life. In Episode 4 she couldn’t take the deadly dose of painkillers on her own, because of her paralysis. And in Episode 5 killing her would require using a magical photograph as the murder weapon, which only Max is able to do. So Chloe is once again reduced to begging Max to kill her, as she is unable to do it herself.

Look at the incredible similarities between the two scenes I mentioned. Both Max’s and Chloe’s dialogue is eerily similar in both instances. Some phrases are repeated almost verbatim. First Chloe makes the shocking ask. Then Max reacts with disbelief and says she would never be able to do such a thing. But then Chloe keeps arguing in favour of her own death. She says that her demise is inevitable and close at hand, so it might as well be Max who kills her. And in the end it’s up to the player to decide if Max’s resolve remains strong, or if she is now able to do something that the mere mention of shocked her moments ago.

Alt Chloe: “I want this time with you to be my last memory”.

Chloe: “All those moments between us were real!”

Alt Chloe: “All you have to do, is crank up the IV to 11”.

Chloe: “All that would take is for me to …”

Max (E4): “I can’t kill you!”

Max (E5): “I can’t make this choice!”

Alt Chloe: “I know I’m just putting off the inevitable”.

Chloe: “I think I should accept my fate”.

Max (E4): “I had another friend, who wanted to end it all and I did everything I could to try and save her life. How can I be responsible for ending yours?”

Max (E5): “Don’t say that! I won’t trade you!”

Max (E5): “Fuck that! No, no way! You are my number one priority now! You are all that matters to me!”

Alt Chloe: “Don’t forget about me”.

Chloe: “Don’t you forget about me!”

Alt Chloe: “I love you, Max”.

Chloe: “I’ll always love you!”

Chloe’s motivation is essentially the same in both cases. It’s a mixture of hopelessness and guilt. Hopelessness manifesting as a belief that her life could not be made better in any way. And guilt that her continued existence was supposedly hurting others, but her death would benefit them.

In Episode 4, her hopelessness stems from the conviction that whatever time she has left to live, she’ll be forced to spend it alone. That Max wouldn’t want to spend any more time with her. If Max refuses to overdose her, Chloe says “You’re just bailing on me, like everyone else”.

Max: “I’m going to help you. But not like that. You have to believe me, Chloe!”

Alt Chloe: “Why, Max? You’re just bailing on me, like everybody else”.

Max: “I am never leaving you again”.

Chloe is so used to being neglected that she instinctively assumes that Max popped back into her life just for a minute. She doesn’t even consider the possibility that Max could stay with her, give her company and comfort in the days still left. We don’t know how long Chloe had left to live in the alternate timeline. Maybe a few years? Maybe a few months? But however long or short period of time that would be, I feel it would be wrong to say that there couldn’t be any moments of joy, happiness and friendship in it. Especially if her best friend decided to spend those days with her. Chloe, in her hopelessness, couldn’t even dream of such a possibility. Of such a positive turn in her life. She thought only loneliness and despair awaited her in her final days. So why not speed things up?

And Chloe’s guilt stemmed from the emotional and financial hardship her parents had to endure due to her illness. Even though her parents loved her and wanted to fight for their daughter every step of the way, Chloe mistakenly thought they would be better off with her dead.

Alt Chloe: “My parents suffer along”.

Hopelessness and guilt fuelled Chloe’s suicide crisis in Episode 5 too. Guilt that the Storm looming over the town was inexplicably caused by Max saving her life. Guilt that pushed her to believe that she didn’t deserve to live if the cost of her survival was the town’s destruction and her best friend having to live with such a heavy burden for the rest of her days.

Chloe: “There’s so many more people in Arcadia Bay who should live. Way more than me!”

Max: “Don’t say that!”

And hopelessness, once again manifesting in the belief that Max would never want to be a part of Chloe’s life, not after all the hardships she had to endure to save her.

Chloe: “Nobody, especially you should have to go through that”.

Chloe: “I don’t blame you for wanting me out of your life”.

She assumed that she was about to be abandoned, again, for a final time, to die alone and afraid. The girl who was left behind so many times didn’t dare to dream that this time someone would choose to stay. To wait out the storm with her.

Notice that Kate was driven to a suicide attempt by a very similar combination of hopelessness and guilt. Kate thought she would forever remain branded as a drunken embarrassment, her supposed crime endlessly echoing in the hateful void of the Internet.

Kate: “I’m already on the Internet forever. No wonder they call it a web. Nothing can ever get out. Like my video”.

And she thought her sinful existence was causing grief to her dear father, who would be better off with her dead, the stain on his honour removed.

Kate: “Dad does care. Even though I hurt him”.

In both instances, should Max decide to end Chloe’s life, her last desperate plea is not to forget about her.

Chloe saw no way for her life to improve. If she couldn’t have a life filled with joy and friendship, she at least wished to become someone’s happy memory. But memories are never good enough. In time, they fade. Or worse yet, they sour.

“That impossible anger strangling the grief, until the memory of your loved ones is just poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed, so you’d be spared your pain”.

Max would have responded to Chloe’s dying wish with “never”. But can you honestly imagine Max nurturing the memory of the erased friendship that never was for the next seventy years of her life? The memory of a friendship discarded, nipped in the bud in the service of something supposedly greater? Max would hate herself for lacking the courage to stand by her “number one priority”. And in time, she would hate Chloe for making her feel that way.

Would Joyce find the strength to nurture the memory of Chloe? The woman who was so unable to deal with the death of her husband that she had to hide away all his photographs would now be able to keep the memory of her murdered daughter? Chloe’s pictures would join those of William in the closet. Reunited at last.

Chloe: “Wherever I end up after this, in whatever reality, all those moments between us were real!”

“Wherever I end up after this, in whatever reality” is actually nowhere. It’s the dark tunnel of a pistol barrel, suddenly illuminated by a flash of burning light. And then blood pooling on the white floor tiles, like in a slaughterhouse.

With Kate’s suicide attempt, the situation is clear. Max tries to help her the best she can. There’s no option to let her jump. Whether Max succeeds or fails in talking Kate down from the roof is a separate matter, but she always does her best to save Kate’s life. Because that’s what should be done when encountering a person experiencing a suicide crisis. Because Kate’s hopelessness and guilt were not valid reasons for her to kill herself. Because her life could’ve been improved and she had no reason to feel guilty.

With Chloe’s request in the alternate timeline it’s not as clear cut. I believe her life could’ve been improved if Max decided to accompany Chloe in her last days. And Chloe had no reason to feel guilty, because it was William’s and Joyce’s decision if they wanted to share the burden that was so unfairly thrusted upon their daughter. And they decided to share it. Ultimately, the decision to honour Chloe’s request or to refuse to do so largely rests on the way the player sees her condition. We are not given any specifics, so we are forced to speculate. The way I saw it, while Chloe’s condition in the alternate timeline was terminal, she most likely had a few years left to live. A few months at the very least. Her condition caused her a lot of physical discomfort, with recurring migraines, but she didn’t seem to be in constant pain that needed to be stopped. Playing Episode 4, I couldn’t escape the feeling that Chloe’s pain was more emotional than physical in nature. How happy she was to have spent one day with her best friend. Wasn’t her feeling of hopelessness, which made her wish for death, a product of being abandoned, at least in part? Wouldn’t she be more willing to stay for whatever time she had left if she had someone to share that time with?

But I acknowledge that we could also speculate about Chloe’s condition in the alternate timeline in a much less optimistic manner. If a person’s illness reduces their life experience to constant pain, precluding them from enjoying anything positive, even the love of their family and friends, then ending their misery seems to be the right thing to do. If we assume that was the case with Chloe in the alternate timeline, then a convincing argument might be made in favour of honouring her request.

But that ambiguity is absent when Chloe presents Max with the choice to kill her on Friday at the cliff. Chloe’s life is no longer in danger. She is safe. And if her best friend chooses to stay in her life, it could change for the better. She could gain a second chance at life. And Season 2 established that this is exactly what happens if you choose to save Chloe’s life.

I find it incredibly difficult to perceive Chloe’s self-flagellating “I don't deserve to live” speech in Episode 5 as anything other than suicidal ideation. I think her offer to be sacrificed was mostly a result of her depression and feelings of low self-esteem and hopelessness. Once she saw that her death could prevent the Storm and save Max from her guilt, it pushed her over the edge.

It would be deeply wrong for Max to take Chloe up on her offer. It would be no different than letting Kate jump, just because she wanted to when she was on the roof.

In Season 1 Chloe is depressed and I mean in the medical sense. Max can find prescription antidepressants in Chloe’s bathroom. Sweet innocent Max, not knowing what Fluoxetine is, comments the find with “Chloe is taking medicine? I hope she’s okay”, as if those were vitamins, but it’s actually a potent antidepressant.

Chloe most likely had suicidal thoughts prior to meeting Rachel. I don't know how else you can explain her standing in front of speeding trains. And she said Rachel had “saved” her, which implies she would've done something very bad hadn’t it been for her friendship with Rachel. The thoughts came back after Rachel’s disappearance. In Chloe’s hideout at the junkyard, Max can find a scribbled note which says “I want to die”. Max wonders aloud who wrote this, but at that point, Chloe has been the only one using the hideout for months. And the handwriting matches the graffiti on the walls of Chloe’s room and in her truck, as well as her “Chloe was here” signature in the junkyard.

Chloe tragically lost her father. Her mother moved on way too quickly, hiding her late husband’s photographs and refusing to acknowledge Chloe’s grief. Her only friend left and cut contact. She was bullied at school for being a “scholarship kid” from a poor family.

Max (Farewell): “What do you mean she wouldn’t leave you alone?”

Chloe (Farewell): “She was making fun of my clothes and calling me a scholarship kid”.

Rachel promised her a life together but then decided to skip town with someone else. Her stepfather made her feel worthless.

David: “For your own good, you should stay away from Chloe. She’s a loser and she’ll only drag you down”.

Can you even imagine hearing from your own parent that you’re a loser and that others should stay away from you, because you would only drag them down?

Frank hooked her up on drugs when she was sixteen if not younger. When she couldn’t pay her debt he exploited her as an accomplice to his crimes and then started threatening to cut her.

Frank: “You want me to cut you, bitch?”

Max: “Holy shit balls! Frank is scary. I should’ve let Chloe take that money!”

Nathan slipped her date rape drugs and attempted to assault her, which she barely avoided. And then, in the span of four days, she was almost killed multiple times and she found Rachel’s decayed corpse. I don’t think it’s far-fetched to argue that when a teenager who experienced all that says they want to be “sacrificed”, they should be provided with immediate care, because they are most likely in the midst of a suicide crisis. Someone who went through all that cannot make a fully informed, conscious decision to be “sacrificed”.

If Max fought tooth and nail to save Kate, who was driven to suicide by all the bad things that happened to her, wouldn’t she do the same for Chloe?

There’s no context in which letting a depressed teenager kill themselves is not an act of disgusting evil. This is something a comic book villain wouldn’t do, because that would be going too far.

Shouldn’t a game with such a strong theme of hopelessness and desperation leading to suicide end with the main character preventing suicide, not assisting in one? And given the theme of finding one’s confidence and learning to move on, wouldn’t it be much more fitting if the game ended with the main character restoring hope for a better tomorrow to someone who lost it, showing them the past has no power over them? Instead of crushing the last remains of their hope and pushing them back into the quagmire of the past, to their death?

#chloe price #max caulfield #lis #life is strange #kate marsh #double exposure #bae vs bay

50 notes · View notes

valle-de-sombra-de-muerte · 7 months ago

Text

Homestuck Reread: Act 3, Part 1/3 (p. 760-891)

Read the previous post here.

Time for the beginning of Act 3! An inauspicious start, since the Act begins with Jade's introduction.

So I guess the "reader" is still acknowledged as a thing. And they're actively attempting to manipulate Jade. I wonder how much longer this will last for.

Jade has so many interests, you guys! So many! And I'm sure each and every one of them will be relevant to her character as well!

Also, she needs reminders so she doesn't forget about the things she's interested in? What?

Why does Jade have so many variants of fetch modus when none of these will ever show up again? Actually, the whole modus system continues to be really dumb and that's probably why it's rarely mentioned in the later acts.

Jade's precognition again being treated as just a fun lil' quirk. Gosh, she's just so quirky, right fellas? So many modi, so many interests. She's just so silly and fun, right? Right???

Honest confession time. When I first read Homestuck, I had no idea that a "eureka lemon" was an actual variety of lemon. Of course I've heard of crab apples, key limes, and mandarin oranges, but it never occurred to me that a eureka lemon was also a real thing. I didn't figure this out until years later.

Wait wait wait. Hold the phone. Jade is a fan of old cartoons? When is that ever referenced again outside of the occasional mention of Squiddles (a show that isn't real)? What the fuck? John likes movies, has posters in his room, and name drops his favorites on a regular basis. Why does Jade not talk about any cartoons she likes???

Physics, gadgetry, and gardening are all shit that aren't ever mentioned again either, but I was at least aware of those things being related to her, at least on a surface level. Jade's whole thing (well, what I assume Hussie ostensibly intended to be her thing) is that she's this genius wiz kid. And her username is gardenGnostic, so of course horticulture has to be somehow related to her character. This whole cartoon thing is seriously new knowledge to me, though.

Grandpa Harley was a real renaissance man with a multitude of interests, so it's natural that Jade takes after him. The problem is that Grandpa is dead and he's less of a character than he is this mysterious symbol that Jade both admires and resents. It doesn't matter whether or not he's fleshed out, but Jade is a main character, so by necessity she must be or else she comes across as half-baked.

Jade has two pages dedicated to her interests, yet none of them are relevant to her character. She never talks to anyone else about gardening or anthros or anything like that. She doesn't use her scientific knowledge to help solve a problem. Her guns only serve the same basic combat purpose as the other kids' kind abstratus, but beyond that she isn't a gun nut.

One can point to stuff like John's interest in programming or Dave's love of photography as examples of extraneous character traits that don't ever manifest later on in the comic. But in Jade's case, it's nearly all of them. Hussie could've filled these pages with anything he wanted, but nothing would alter the existing perception of Jade being nothing more than "silly, upbeat girl who can see into the future." This is what I meant when I said earlier that she doesn't have any character to speak of. Or rather, she's just extremely shallow.

And because Jade doesn't have enough quirks already, her shirt randomly changes designs. Wow! Incredible!

These "manthro chaps" are honestly more unnerving and sexually charged than the smuppets. I don't ever see anyone reference them nearly as often, and probably for good reason. Unlike the smuppets, they're too close to resembling humans and are very uncanny. This feels like a deranged fetish thing, but it's being played off as more silly, quirky bullshit. "Slop trough" is a phrase I never want to read again.

Right. Hating furries was very much en vogue back in 2009, I'd say more so than the present. However, Hussie is going to great lengths to portray Jade as one of the "good ones." Her interest in anthros is non-sexual in nature and she does not partake in "cringe" furry activities like wearing fursuits and engaging in sexual activities with other furries. As stated before, the manthro chaps are being depicted as wholesome make believe, not in a feral/pet play context (despite the fact that that's exactly what it looks like).

This is just Hussie taking pot shots at a subculture that has historically been a very easy target for ridicule. I'm not even sure why he decided to make Jade a furry in the first place if he was going to draw lines in the sand like this. What an incredible dickhead. And since this is written from Jade's perspective, it makes her a dickhead too.

There are a few times later on where Jade comes across as rude or judgmental, coming at odds with her otherwise unflinchingly polite and optimistic disposition. Needless to say, this does little to endear her to me.

Like John, Jade also has a chest full of shit that doesn't end up mattering. Come to think of it, this whole intro sequence feels extremely drawn out, kind of like John's. John at least had the excuse of being the first character and he required a long intro in order to establish the tone and mechanics. We've gotten a good handle on things by the time we reach Rose and Dave, so their intros weren't nearly as involved. So why the fuck is Jade's taking so long? We know this whole routine, we've done it three times now. Can we get the fuck on with the story already!?

This is a really bizarre sequence of pages where the "reader" is forced to match the memory cards of Jade's modus, only to fail at it repeatedly while both Jade and Hussie judge them for it.

Man... I know it's a common fandom notion that Jade is the most neglected and underutilized of the main cast of kids, but you seriously wouldn't have guessed that based on all these early pages. She feels more like Hussie's favorite, if anything.

Every passage he seems to talk about her with affection and a total absence of snark, not like the other kids who are regarded with bemusement at best or mockery at worst when they do something foolish. Here the derision is solely focused on the reader for their apparent cluelessness, and both Hussie and Jade are on the same side. C'mon, Jade's just offering the reader to play this game and they fail because they're obviously not as smart as she is. Serves them right for that earlier, boorish suggestion that this wonderful girl might be a, gasp, disgusting fursuit-wearing degenerate!

There's something a little off about how this then-30 year old man created this 13 year old girl who's so sweet and perfect in every way, and whom he dedicates so many pages showing us every single one of her quirks and all the amazing things she has in her home. But I don't really want to dwell further on this, so I'll be moving on.

"But he does like his steak well cooked."

"He does prefer his steak rare after all."

Well, which is it??? Does he like his steak well or rare? Does Hussie not know the difference between these terms? Has he never cooked a steak before?

Dave Strider? More like Dave Simper. He is incredibly down bad. She's obviously not online, dude. Get out of her DMs. He's also facetiously engaging her with furry roleplay. God, Dave, get a clue! ERP is something only cringy furries do and as established previously, Jade is most definitely not one of those types of furries!

The Midnight Crew get their own dedicated flash. These guys sure are getting teased a lot, despite just being characters from an in-universe webcomic. I wonder what it could mean...

FINALLY we get to the Strider fight. Well, it's more like Dave vs. Cal rather than Dave vs. Bro. Not to try and crack open more Bro discourse, but the idea that people will try to equate Dave getting clowned on by a puppet with actual child abuse is absurd. I don't see how this is any different than the previous strifes John and Rose had with their parents.

FUCK it was only for one page. We're back to Jade again. You know, if I had a friend who knew whenever I was about to have an internet outage and acted all smarmy about it, I would probably stop talking to them.

"Grandpa Moreau over there on Hellmurder Island" is a good line. Thank you Rose for providing some levity to this slog of pages I've been enduring.

Another GameFAQs page, but this section is written by John for some reason. He brings up a great point about how nobody is reading these damn things. If you're some nudnik who truly gives a shit about how punch card alchemy works, oh boy do I have a page for you!

Jade dislikes hunting and it was mentioned earlier that she'd never shoot an animal. It strikes me as odd that she has such a passion for guns, but not hunting. What does she shoot then? She's a "skilled markswoman" but do we ever see a shooting range or anything to practice her skills? I can't imagine there's much else to shoot on this island aside from wildlife.

Grandpa Harley says Jade will grow up to be like the women in the photos he gets off to. I uh... I don't know how to feel about that. Other than perhaps it's for the best this old man is dead.

Wow! Who's this rude customer? What a crazy guy! Oh well, he was blocked so I don't think we'll ever see him again.

Finally at this point we take an extended reprieve from Jade. For the record, we're 99 pages into the Act. It took Rose 25 pages from her intro before the plot returned to John, and Dave 48 pages from his before turning back to Rose. (I'm not counting brief cuts to other characters for these counts, because the main focus is still on the recently introduced character). Nearly 100 pages of Jade showing off her house before going back to the plot. Augh!

Anyway, Rose actually reaches out and grabs the captcha card, which isn't something we've seen up to this point. This whole inventory system is weird, man.

I think it's all but directly stated that Mom Lalonde became an alcoholic because she has known the exact date the world was going to end. A sad detail.

Part 2 of the Strider fight ends with Bro yeeting Dave down the stairs. Again, I can't see this scene as serious representation of legitimate child abuse, especially with the fucking SBaHJ jokes at the end. The tone is so comedic and outrageous I don't understand anyone who takes it seriously.

Honestly, the earlier scenes with Dave roaming the apartment, being surrounded by weapons and sex toys, making comments of how he has difficulty accessing food, and being videotaped for Bro's fetish films paint a much better image of an abusive household than any of this strife shit. I don't want to try and argue that Bro isn't a bad guardian, because he definitely is, but there's this notion in the fandom that he does all this because he hates Dave and wants him to suffer, and I don't think that's true at all. His actions read more like neglect and carelessness, not malice.

You can make a list of all Bro's crimes, but hating his brother is not one of them.

John wins his fight against the ogres. There's an earlier page where we see him getting the tar kicked out of him (with the same over the top slapstick animations during the Dave vs. Bro fight, mind you), but it's only after Nannasprite and Rose join to help that he's able to achieve victory. He really can't do anything on his own, can he?

How about a "thank you, Rose, for beating those ogres for me"? Dickhead.

No "thank you" for Nannasprite, either. Instead he asks her to carry him to the gate, since he already knows Rose can't do it. This kid really sucks.

Now that I'm a third of the way done with Act 3, I have to say Jade is some honest to god Mary Sue shit. I don't like using that term because it's been misused to the point of uselessness, but come on. Compare Jade to the three previous kids and tell me that this girl isn't the most ridiculous character in this lineup.

We have John, the goofy cornball that likes pranks and watching bad movies; Rose, the smug pseud that likes the occult and writing lousy fiction; Dave, the aloof hipster that likes rapping and making shitty comics; and Jade, the genius manic pixie furry girl with a randomly changing wardrobe that can see into the future, lives on a private island full of crazy hi-tech gadgets, was raised by a radioactive dog, and likes physics, gardening, sharpshooting, bass guitar, and inventing.

Fuck me. If I was DM for a DnD session and someone submitted a character sheet like that against three normal ones, I'd tell them to leave. Why can't she just be a normal kid like the others? It's all so jarring!

Suddenly I'm wishing I was back reading Act 1 again.

Read the next post here.

#homestuck #homestuck reread #jade harley #dave strider #rose lalonde #john egbert #grandpa harley #karkat vantas #tw abuse mention #bro strider #mom lalonde #nannasprite #lil cal

29 notes · View notes

theyellowhedgehog · 8 days ago

Text

Exchange me happiness Part 2 (2/2)

Part 1, Part 2

2024 Fanfic prompt Bingo : Peter Pan

Summary

Dick is the manifestation of adult's will to stay a child forever. In other word, he's a young god. However, due to the nature of his manifestation from the adult desire to say a child, he is not as powerful as other gods. And little dick wish to become a real child.

So to fulfill his wish, his guardian fairies, Tim and Steph, went to find a shadow of a dead human child. Whom just happened to be Bruce Wayne's dead son's.

Tim and Steph has been stealing human children's shadow for many thousand of year to make Dick feel like a real boy, however they do not cause the death of each boy.

#part 2 #dick is a small god # mystical #Tim and Steph are fairies #tired parents Tim and Steph # Jason is robin, he's dead here #Peter pan

A/N : I recommend reading the first part because you would get confused without it. But you do you.

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

The small god escaped along with the boy shadow. Both arrived to Gotham to a place where light and noise are busting.

Dick's eyes lighted up when he saw what he only see in books.

"Look! It's the carnival! This is the first time I ever saw one in real life!" They went of trail of their original journey to Jason's home.

The shadow boy tried everything and struggle to get them back of track but what could he do? His existence was just darkness of a light source.

Dick bounced to one stall to another, "Jason, look! It's an elephant plushie!" He pointed to an elephant plushie. "I have two just like that Sitka and Elinore! Sitka is pink while Elinore is purple. Both of them are super soft!"

"I have the same shirt as this one too!" He pointed to a purple shirt with graphic tee of Ghost rider. "Steph brought it back for me!"

"Oh! Batman!" Dick shouted excitedly, Jason's shadow froze at the mention of the name, but only to realize Dick was talking about figurines.

"Tim brought one back for me, he also brings back figures of earth's heroes." Dick looked down and whispered to the his shadow, "I think he's a bit of a fangirl of heroes. He act like he brought them back for me but all of them went missing after a day or two." Dick squatted close to the ground to tell the shadow a secret, "But I know he took them. Because I saw him having a tea party with the heroes figurines in the dollhouse last month."

As Dick started retelling the stories about him,Stephanie and Tim, Jason stopped struggling. The dead boy unconsciously thought, you said you wants parents, but I'm pretty sure Tim and Stephanie ARE your parents.

Their off trail led them to an ice cream store as Dick excitedly browse the different color carton. "I want this," he pointed to the ones with every color of the rainbow mixed.

The girl looked at him and around him, "Hey buddy, where's your parents?"

Dick looked up kinda annoyed, "I don't have one."

The girl awkwardly apologised, "Oh, I'm sorry." Jason saw the girl looked at Dick pitifully, "What flavor would you like? it's on me."

Dick grinned like he struck gold, "I want this!"

Just when the girl was about to give Dick the ice cream, someone put a hand on Dick's shoulder. Jason saw it was a man in this thirty, stubble beard and looked so shabby.

"Oh, you don't have to," he said to the girl as he handed a couple of dollars to her, "He's lying. I'm his guardian."

The girl accepted the money and momentarily in silence, "Oh..." She checked out the man from head to toes. The man snatched the ice cream from her hand and give it to Dick as he ushered him away, "Let's go little man. No more lying to get ice cream."

Jason's senses are tingling with danger as he tried his best to stop Dick from going along with the shabby man. Nonetheless, Dick doesn't sense danger at all.

Jason looked back to the girl and sighed in relief when he saw the girl on a called, probably the police, as she doesn't take her eyes off the man.

The man lead them out to a dark alley, a car parked there.

Dick followed the man to his car with the ice cream spoon in his mouth. "Where are we going mister?"

The man smiled at the young god, "Your home of course. Now remind me where you live again?"

Dick listlessly said, "The wayne manor."

The man's eyes lit up like he struck gold, "Oh, is that so? Now get on in. I'll take you home."

No! Run! Jason struggled to get off Dick's feet. Tried anchoring his shadow hands to the ground, but despite his desperate attempt to get Dick away from the car, the young god kept going.Jason is dead. His heart shouldn't lighten up this much when he saw a flash of cap on the rooftop from the corner of his consciousness.

Batgirl!

Batgirl was searching for her clues about Jason's lost shadow. She was out all night. Just as she was on her way back, from the corner of her eyes she saw something out of place.

A shadow that wasn't following the law of physic. More suspiciously, a boy along with a shabby man. Batgirl didn't hesitate to jump down on the roof of the car. Creating a massive dent.

The man, frightened by the appearance of the vigilante back away, and tried running. He didn't have a chance when he tripped and it was an easy catch for batgirl.

After tying up the man and reporting to the police, she turned around to find the child now gone.

-----

The absence of Dick went unnoticed, by Tim when he came to check on the boy, thinking he was still asleep. Tim was deceived by the oldest form of trick in the book, pillows and blanket in the form of a sleeping person.

It was until some time past breakfast time, that Stephanie noticed that Dick had been sleeping in the same position.

Then they finally realised the boy they suppose to look after is missing. Unlike the thousand times of panic before, this time, they went straight to where Dream of the Endless was.

Both butts raised high as they grovell not daring to look eye-level with Morpheus the Endless.

"Unfortunately, the trouble maker is not with me." Morpheus lightly replied. "However,"the Endless paused slightly, "I do know he is safe, sound asleep somewhere."

"Th-Thank you, your all mightiness," Tim and Stephanie both replied. No matter, how many times they have to come retreat Dick from the Dreaming, both of them still fear him, not daring to look at him directly.

As both the fairies were about to walk away, "Fairies," Morpheus voice stopped both of them on their track. Immediately return to their grovelling form before replying to the Dreaming. "Yes, your all mightiness?"

Morpheus took a good look at them, "Look up," Tim and Stephanie immediately obeyed the all being. Morpheus's white eyes were staring at them eerily. He paused for a long while, making the two fairies quivering in fear and anxiety, their eyes darting everywhere but his face, trying their best to not look at him in fear.

The Dreaming sighed softly, "Nothing, just..." he raised his white pale arm, fingers extended to the two fairies stopped just inches away.

Both fairies jumped in fright seeing the All mighty being on his knee in front of them. Within a second, The Dreaming stood up and turned away, "Thank you for your service, looking after the 'Will of wanting to be a child.' till now."

Tim and Steph looked at each other confused, and thanked Dream the Endless quickly, and exited the realm.

Morpheus the Endless closed his white eyes and sighed at what was about to occur.

-----

Steph held the sock Dick wore yesterday in triumph, "Sniff," she shoved the dirty sock in Tim's face.

"You lost him this time, you sniff!" Stephanie rejected Tim's excused before he could even start.

They both arrived to the human world, to a old dark manor.

----

Bruce was sitting on the sofa of the living room. Wasn't he supposed to be grieving his lost son? Bruce thought as he listless stared at the black haired, blue eyes child sitting on the sofa across from him, scarfing down milk and cookies.

"You were saying my dead son's shadow is attached to you?" Bruce repeated like a parrot.

Was he hit with a drug and wasn't aware of it?

Bruce looked down at the shadow to see it act completely different from what the physical form of the boy is doing. The shadow was struggling to get close to Bruce.

Bruce was about to asked Alfred if he was delirious, but seeing the wide eyed butler, Bruce concluded Alfred is also seeing what he was seeing.

Now the problem was, how was he going to handle this?

"What is your purpose? What do you want when you decided to return my son's shadow?"

Dick kicked his feet playfully with mouthful of cookies, "I-, wan-," He finished chewing and swallowed, "I want to become a real boy!"

Bruce paused, "I cannot make you a real boy, I do not possess any of the power to grant your wish."

"I know!" Dick replied cheerfully, "I do not need you to grant me my wish, I have a way!" He raised his forefinger up and dropped it to point dramatically at Bruce, "I want you to be my dad!"

Bruce, Alfred even Jason's shadow all froze.

"What?"

"That's my deal." Dick crossed his arms and said in a smart manner. "If you want your son's shadow back, you must agree to be my dad!"

Bruce was about to reject the deal, but stopped when he saw Jason's shadow trying his best to come to him. A father's heart break at the scene.

Finally, the father agreed. "Fine. I will agree."

"Okay!"Dick jumped cheerfully on the sofa. He bent down to untie the threat but stopped to look at the grieving father.

"Would you like to hug him one last time before I untie the threads?"

"What?" Bruce asked in confusion.

"When I untie the threads that bound me to Jason, he would not be able to interact with you anymore." Dick stood back up, and opened his arms, Jason's shadow doing the same, "So, would you like to hug Jason one last time?" The manifested will repeated.

Bruce broke in tears when he saw the shadow of this little boy waiting for him with open arms, "Yes," the father choked on his word, "I would like to hug my son."

Physically Bruce hugged the child god of a manifasted will but his shadow was hugging his son.

"I'm sorry, I let you down, Jason. I'm sorry I arrived too late, son." He whispered as he hug the child god. The hug and last conversation lasted for a whole minute before Dick grew uncomfortable and shrugged the father off.

But a minute was all Bruce and Jason needed. The shadow of Jason now grew calm and nodded to his father's direction, making a heart shape with both is hands.

Dick untie the threads and Jason's shadow return to his owner at peace.

"Now," just as Dick started, two glowing ball of light flew into the child god, causing him fall back into the sofa.

Bruce and Alfred immediately became alert, until their eyes adjusted enough to see that two tiny forms with wings.

"Ow! Ow!" the child god yelled as each fairy on each side of his ear, twisting it and scolding him.

To Dick, they were full blown angry scolding while to Bruce and Alfred it was angry and aggressive ringing of small bells.

Dick fanned his hands to escape from the angry fairies and flew behind Bruce. "Guys, you do not have to worry anymore!" His hands rest on Bruce's shoulder, "He has accepted to be my dad!"

The child god excitedly announced, while the two fairies finally fall quiet. What Dick said caused Tim to faint due to the nonsense the boy was spouting, while Steph was the one who caught him as they descend onto the sofa surface.

"Um..." Bruce looked at the scene in front of him, "...Are they your parents?"

"No! Of course not!" Dick denied, ignoring Tim and Steph uncandy silent.

He turned back to see Tim and Steph standing on the sofa facing him, "Look guys," Dick soften his voice, "You guys always know I always wanted to be a real boy right? And real boy have mom and dad that look like him right? Look!" he gestured to Bruce that have the same shade of blues and black hair as him.

"I can now be a real boy!" Dick enthusiastically explained while both the fairies just stared at the excited boy, and their gaze landed on Bruce.

Blue eyes and Black hair.

Stephanie unconsciously cover her own pair of blue eyes and Tim his ebony hair.

Among both of them, Tim was the first to argue back, "I have black hair! Stephanie has blue eyes! I could be also be a dad to you, Dick!" He flew up to the face of the boy. Tim pointed back to the blond fairy who was still daze from what Dick said a few moment ago.

"And Stephanie," Tim yelled at their child god they look after, "She can be a mother you never had! We looked after you since you-!"

"But you weren't like me!" Dick yelled back, sliencing Tim.

Dick glared at the fairy and pushed Tim back with his pointer finger, the tiny fairy stagger back mid air, "You and Steph were made to look after me! You are not like me!"

Tim and Stephanie looked helplessly as Dick hugged Bruce.

"I want him to be my dad..." Dick burried his face into Bruce's shoulders. Bruce instictly hugged the sad boy.

"I... will take care of him," Bruce faced the fairies sincerely, as if asking permission from the parents with reassurance.

Tim slowly descended to where Stephanie was. Both of them looked at each other for a second. Finally both nodded.

Seeing this, Dick face lit up. He flew up the air to celebrate, all hands and feet sprawling out like a star.

"Great!" Dick took a hold of his new father's hand, "We must go to make me a real boy!" He took Bruce and jumped to another dimension leaving Alfred behind with the two fairies.

Tim took Steph's wrist as both flew up following their child god.

---

Tim and Steph followed to arrive at where Dream the Endless was resting. Dick and Bruce were already there. Three of them looked at where the fairies arrived.

"Tim! Steph!"Dick waved at them from sitting on the lap of The Dreaming.

This time, Tim and Stephanie were not grovelling in front of the Endless, not once did their eyes left the form of their child god.

Both walked a distance closer to the Endless but stopped a few feet away. Their hands held tightly as each other's only support.

Tim daringly looked at the eyes of the all mighty Dream of the Endless but looked away just mere second after.

The only noise was from the child god who was excited to finally became a real human boy.

The Dreaming said to the manisafed will, "If you want to become a real child, you will have to relinquish your right to godhood."

"Oka-!"

"Listen!" It was the first time Morpheus had raised his voice at Dick. The child's eyes was filled with tears instantly and flew into Bruce's embrace for comfort.

Morpheus soulless eyes soften just a bit, "If you wish to become a real boy, you will have to relinquish your godhood, you ability to fly, your home in this realm and your..." Morpheus looked at a distance to the two fairies who were holding each other hands willing themselves not to shed tears.

Dick peeked at Morpheus from Bruce's embrace and murmured, "I am willing. I want to be a real boy. "

Morpheus shut his soulless eyes, "Fine," he whispered under his breath, "Your dream...shall come true."

In an instant, Dick and Bruce returned to the human world, to the same living room.

Dick jumped down from Bruce's arms. He tried flying but was very excited when he can no longer fly. He hugged Bruce, "Dad!" he called to the man, his eyes shining in eagerness.

"I finally have a father!" Dick said out loud, "Did you see, Tim? Steph?" He looked back.

Paused in confusion when he saw no one. His arms that were hugging Bruce dropped to his side slowly, "Tim, Steph?" the ordinary boy-child called out to his fairies again but no rings returned his question.

"...Timothy?...Stephanie?..."

----

Back to the realm,

Morpheus knelt down to scoop up the two fairies in his hands, "You have served your master well. You may now rest, Stephanie and Timothy."

What is a fairy without its master? A knight without an oath? A follower without a god?

They were nothing.

Therefore, they shall return to their beginning.

Morpheus never took his eyes off the fairies as they turned back into pixie dust they once were before. The Dreaming watched as the pixie dust fell through his fingers and mixed with the sand in his realm.

"Rest well... my fairies."

End

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

This took longer than expected. but phew done. I think 2024 fanfic bingo is coming to an end. because I start to dry up my well of motivation and exams are near. I will put in on hold for now.

Also my drawing of them, their clothings are bad but its the sense that count.

#tim drake #stephanie brown #fanfic #batman #2024 fanfic bingo #batfam

9 notes · View notes

woneuntonzz · 11 months ago

Text

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ reflections

📞 ; “maybe it's a blessing in disguise, i see my reflection in your eyes.”

𖹭 : sungchan x afab!reader

💭 love can be a possession, and like everything owned, it can be easily lost... “we were too close to the stars.”

⤷ contains: angst, pining, cussing, mentions of other idol names for

world building

⤷ warnings: none (?)

⤷ wc: 4.2k (not proofread :>)

🎧 a songfic, inspired by The Neighbourhood's Reflections

-ˋˏ under the cut .ᐟ ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Perfect does not exist, maybe that’s true for you, but I’ve seen perfection, I’ve felt perfection. The thought seems superficial, I know, but to be in my place —I’ve had to endure years of sorrow because of this said perfection.

And perfection was in the form of Jung Sungchan.

On the surface, it might take a few blinks for one to understand. But it wasn’t solely your visage that has led me to this wistful void.

I loved to draw, just as much as I loved you, maybe a little less —but you get the point. You’ve been the subject of my illustrations, from the moment I saw you, till I couldn’t physically see you anymore.

“Is that me?” I didn’t get why you’d still ask, of course it’s you, it’ll always be you.

The outline of your profile provokes daydreams, oh how I wish I was the only one. When I saw you for the first time I instantly knew, everyone had their eyes on you, it was only a matter of time till the attraction came pouring in.

Still, you stood your ground like everyone else, just trying to live your life, and everyday I wished I could be part of it.

I draw the lines, and you paint it with colors, colors I had never seen before, colors that could’ve been the manifestation of your reciprocation.

“Good morning, I’m Jung Sungchan, I was wondering if I’m in the right place, senior Kim sent me here to fetch the package from, Y/n?” you were quite unsure of my name, I’m pretty sure you had it written on the tiny piece of paper you held in between two of your fingers.

“That’s me. Department?” I didn’t even know why I still asked, I knew well where you were situated.

“Film.” I felt as if I was going to combust, I could’ve sworn I saw you held back a laugh, the slight hum of your bass voice almost had me stumbling back. “You?”

“Arts.” Now I almost laughed at myself.

But never did I think that our talk would last for a longer while. “Sophomore, right?”

I tried my best to exude a hum as a response, before asking you back why, “Why’d you ask?”

“I see you around a lot, but I just wasn’t sure if you were older or younger. I also confused you with someone else I knew multiple times before.” —someone else?

I was thinking maybe I should be more open to variety, to not wear the same hairstyle, similar set of clothes, and one color pallette everyday. Maybe then you wouldn’t confuse me for someone else. Maybe then you’d see me and think, that’s Y/n from the Arts Dep. She's really pretty.

“Who did you confuse me for? maybe I know who they are.”

“Actually…” actually what Sungchan? “She’s your friend.”

I don’t exactly have loads of friends, but I couldn’t help but ask, “Which one?”

“Minjeong.”

I had no idea of what expression you had painted on my face with all the things you had just said, but Minjeong? to confuse me with her might be too remote from the reality I lived. And because I was talking to a guy, I remembered when she told me, “Can you believe it? I’m being pursued by a guy!” —I never thought that guy would be you. Why you? or rather, why not me?

It wasn’t hard to tell whether my assumptions are true or not, because the way you bit your lip after her name fell from your mouth, suppressing a smile I could only assume was one only she could elicit from you.

I was right.

And I was in pain. I felt like nothing but an excuse for you to see her, always seeming to have packages to retrieve for your senior, and coming back to return things to me, then all I hear is she, she, she, Minjeong where, Minjeong when —I wanted to rid of my hearing, besides it already felt like bleeding to the point where clotted blood would just block my auditory.

But my pain only leads to my deception. I hate that I had to smile through whatever you had to say, congratulate you even when you gushed about her smiling back at you, or talking to you all evening through messages.

“That’s cute, happy there’s some progress.” I spoke through a pretentious smile.

“Thank you Y/n, I really don’t think it’ll be possible if I hadn’t met you.”

Perfection is truly just anguish behind a polished glass case, and at that moment I faced you, I wished I hadn’t met you at all.

My pain and deception, tomorrow I would keep the frame of your smile in my memories, and I just had to pick up a pencil. I’ve always loved to draw things, but through an artist’s honesty, I only draw the things I find beautiful, the things worth the graphite imprinted at the side of my hand. You were beauty and agony, and as much as I wanted to say I hated you, I loved you more than my best creations.

“You drew me? That’s really awesome, I don’t know how artists manage to create such images." Did you never think of how I did it? that maybe I stared at you for too long that I could draw you at every angle, with any expression —I had memorized every line on your face, the curve from the tip of your nose, to your philtrum, and to your lips. Whenever I drew your lips I would touch my own, feeling for its cushions whilst wondering how yours would feel. I reckon it must’ve been softer, more delicate, it always looked so velvet that for a while it was the only thing that occupied my mind.

So shameful of me to be fantasizing about a guy my friend liked and a guy who liked my friend. But I loved you first, it could’ve been me. I always stuck around so that maybe one day you’d choose me.

“She said yes!” —of course she would.

Anyone in her place would, and anyone who wouldn’t would be lying to themselves.

That smile you wore when you exclaimed so blissfully, it’s engraved in my mind, and then I knew I would never have that smile for myself.

My mind is clouded, and my heart is aching and cracking, and whenever I felt it I just wished you could feel it too, just how much you’ve ruined my life.

“Your work is honestly flawless, maybe Min could use some lessons from you.” your quip was followed by a playful hit on your shoulder, then a chorus of laughter.

“Yeah, Y/n is probably the best artist in our department, but I’m not that bad!” it hurt to watch you wrap an arm around her waist as her sweet voice so vexingly amplified in my ears.

You looked at me then, as if you were telling me to laugh. There was nothing for me to laugh at, it would be a pity to laugh at myself, and at what cost? Still, I had to force a smile, just for feeling sorry that I had let myself fall into your abyss.

Avoiding you could’ve tended my wounds, but it wasn’t that easy when you were dating my friend. My friend who I had known longer than you, my friend who was a lot less selfish than me, who likely had thought about me more than I have with her. How could I when you were occupying a very gross space in my mind. I’m disgusting for still yearning for you, all when we had nothing, no foreground. You had never looked at me like you looked at her, I have never felt the skin underneath your ironed dress shirt, I have never felt the heat of your breath against my neck, and never have I felt your tender grip clasped around my hands. I was all desire and no fulfillment, and it had to be that way, not for your sake nor hers, but for mine.

If I gave in, I wouldn’t be alive for you, her, and everyone looking down on me with ire.

I would only grow to hate myself even more, I love you, but I could only see the antithesis of your motivations.

“I owe you one too, Min and I wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for you.” and I didn’t even have a choice.

I saw you to be a bit too brazen to continue to treat me like a friend, yet I never saw you as one of mine.

“You don’t owe me one.” you owe me everything.

“That’s not true, hey, how about this, I have a friend who wants to meet you, remember the drawing that I stole from you? Well, he saw it and he said he wanted to meet the artist.” you seemed so eager to push me away.

“Oh really? Who's he?” to raise such a painful question, that day I truly was not myself.

You introduced me to a guy, and I could tell it took him great effort to be as expressive as you, not that he was aware that I had my eyes on you the whole time. It was no question that I would never see him the same way I did you, even if I tried, he isn’t Jung Sungchan, he isn’t you.

“So, how’d you find Eunseok?” you asked me when you accompanied me back to my building.

“He’s nice, but I’m not really looking for a date right now.” —I am only looking at you.

“Hmm, but try, yeah? maybe not date, but befriend him. Try to see him for who he is.” I chuckled at your careful pick of words, befriend, in what world did you think I was going to befriend a guy closely involved with you?

And for what? just so it would only be harder for me to escape myself?

It’s already a torturous endeavor to keep up with your beaming face, walking up to me like an old friend you’ve been longing to see after some time. Friend, is all I’ll ever be.

With the passing time, I figured, it was better than being nothing with you, right? I would rather have you just close enough, than not at all. I know it’s wrong for me to look at you that way, but it would only be me who knew, I’m sure. I see it in your eyes, how dismissive they are of the light that resides in mine, the light you ignited. You could so easily keep your eyes on me without a stagger, unlike me, fighting all my demons and being very easily lost in a reverie under your unsuspecting gaze.

“You’re really pretty, you know that, right?” sadly it wasn’t your voice I would hear it from.

“Eunseok, I already like someone else, I’ve told you.”

“Yeah, I know that, and I know who. It was a compliment.”

I had dared him to tell me who if he really knew, and he got it, slipped right off his tongue. Jung Sungchan, three syllables that provoked the fires of my hell.

But was I really pretty? apparently, not pretty enough for you.

“I mean, Eunseok wasn’t wrong, you are fairly pretty —but he did tell me you already like someone, do I know him?” you have no idea how badly I wanted to tell you to shut up, to tell you that it’s you, I like you.

“That’s easy to say isn't it?”

“What?”

“To call someone pretty, and it doesn’t even have to be true.” It’s true, isn’t it? It's so easy to leave those words without a second thought, because they're all words, and deceit is inevitable. Your face molded into a dumbfounded expression, and it scared me. I might’ve sounded my hatred with those few words and so I said, “I’m kidding, and you don’t have to know who I like. It’s none of your concern.”

I tried masking my regret with jest, but it was all true, I am not your concern. You shouldn’t care, especially when I’m not the one your heart beats for.

I was a witness of the highs and lows of your relationship, how both of you seemed to lack something in each other’s eyes. At that point, all I could do was look away. I was afraid, so I distanced myself. The blame, the misery, I had not shown intentions out of the ordinary, but my brain ached and quaked from the what ifs and hows, and the whens.

“Y/n? Are you avoiding me?” my breath hitched, and I halted my steps.

“No?—”

“No? why are you saying it as if you’re asking me?” I gulped, your eyes weren’t as spirited as they’d usually be, and your voice was demanding an answer out of me.

“No. I’m really busy with my workload, Sungchan.”

I wanted to yell at you, I’m in love with you, you and the way you cared, just stop caring, how hard could it be? stop caring so I could finally step away without looking back, so you could live a placid life without my trouble.

I never thought I’d witness you chase after her in our building for the last time, pretty cheek bruised red from a hit you took from her. Was it over? and was it your fault?

“We broke up.” to me, your words sounded tantalizing.

I had no idea what you expected me to do, or say, or react. “Why?” and I had no idea I shouldn’t have asked.

“I don’t know if I’m being honest with myself.” I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing, and I wish that would be the end of it. “Minjeong is a great person, I know I’m not. I wished I could’ve spared her the time, and returned her love the same way she gave it to me, but she’s not the one. I fell out, Y/n, I’m sorry.”

I shook my head, your sorry stinging my mind. “Why are you apologizing to me?”

You looked down for a while, eyeing the textures of the granite flooring. And I caught it, a single tear dropping down and landing in between your feet. “She’s your friend.”

I looked away from your swollen eyes, allowing the breeze to softly glide over the wisps of my lashes as I desperately searched for anything to reply, “You’re my friend too.” It would only pain me more when you kept apologizing, mumbling through your sobs. “Sungchan, stop apologizing.”

I was bewildered with the continuous apology, and why you chose to be this restless with me. But I guess you got me, even if I was tired, drained to the very bottom, I was still willing to catch the tears that swelled from your eyes with my shoulders.

Well of course, it was easy for others to see it as something else, and I had to remember I had a friend, a friend that wasn’t you.

“Minjeong, please, let’s talk—”

“I don’t want to fucking talk Y/n, there’s nothing for us to talk about.”

Did she think it was my fault? Was it my fault? Are there things I’m failing to see?

But I'm just a girl, Sungchan, I failed to push you away. I felt temporary, replaceable, but you needed someone by your side.

“Eunseok and I aren’t on good terms right now. He found out the truth.” I searched for it through your glossed eyes.

Was there, perhaps, some other truth? “Truth?”

“I don’t know what to do.” but I was in no place to tell you what to do either.

You were dodging bullets, but at that moment I was too preoccupied with swallowing the lump in my throat, trying to lure myself out of your poise.

I forgot what I had told you, but all I know is that I was seeing you more often than the times you used to retrieve packages for senior Kim, and senior Kim has been away for two years, graduated. Now we’re the seniors, a pair with a piteous reputation to those who have known us throughout our college years.

“We should make a movie together, you know.” you seemed too enthusiastic for your own good, but still, I chuckled.

“What are you thinking?”

“I mean, like an animation since you can draw, and you seem great with storytelling.”

Storytelling? never even gave it a thought. “Interesting. Let me think about it, I might just consider it.”

“Take your time.”

I never knew just how serious you were. I ended up taking my time too well, with you.

To look back at it, it isn’t too bad of a decision to create something I could look back on and carry for the rest of my life. You were my serendipity, it would only lead me to fall deeper, and I know how much it’ll hurt when it’s finally time for us to part.

So I guess, thank you, and fuck you for being so good to me, for leaving scars that would only burn when you were no longer in my reach. Your touch was my kryptonite, and your voice was my reason to force myself out of slumber. I’m so in love with you, but my pride would not allow me to.

A part of me still bathes in guilt. I lost friends for you, for a future I could only dream about.

“Where are you off to after college?” I tried to calm my pounding heart from the way your hand toyed with mine.

You spread out my fingers, your thumb softly rubbing against them, “Still thinking about our movie.”

Our movie, that’s funny. “How about a little life plan?”

“You go first, then I’ll tell you mine.”

What was the point, Sungchan? “I have two paths laid out for me, one’s for character design, and the other’s free-lance, you know it.” your fingers glide against the skin at the back of my hand, and in a blink the warmth of your palm spreads throughout my body as it rests on my skin.

“My turn, right?” you really had to pose it as a question, tilting your head at me, so obviously expecting an answer. I could only, and very languidly nod for I was getting myself drunk with your burning touch. “You know, I really want to work closer with you, so any decision I make, you’d probably see me at work.”

Perfection is a fucking lie.

Again I’d find myself slumping on my bed, thinking about how easy it was for you to run past me. Now you had all these opportunities waiting in line for you.

“They want me to act, do you think I’m fit for it? Do you think I can do it?”

If it’s that easy for you to leave, “Of course you can.”

It would’ve been nice if you were more honest, cause for a while you were drawing an outline of possibilities, possibilities of you and I, and not just me, me, me.

Until seeing you was barely a chance, I continued to refuse seeing through your honeyed gaze, afterall, I chose to love you too much, because either way, I had no choice but to let you go.

Now I sit alone, writing books about the love I never had. Such a pitiful soul I am. I was even oblivious of the many details of this story, because we never talked beyond the trivial things, never about how our eyes longed for each other, or how our hands found each other’s skin that would sear from the sensation, the friction.

You had moved out of town. I couldn’t bring myself to meet you at the train station for, possibly, the last time. I could only wish you luck through a poorly composed text message, three sentences long.

the lovers by rené magritte 💌

sorry i couldn’t meet you today, but i wish you all luck in the world. you deserve whatever you have going for you. i’m gonna miss you.

my robbie 🥀

thank you y/n

i have a feeling i’m gonna miss you more hahaha

I had to leave you on read. This time I choose to just not look back.

And it was for the better. It sure hurts to see you on Tv, to see you deny your dating history, “I’ve dated before, but I’ve never dated ‘the one’, needless to say, I wish I could meet her right now.” —I’ve read all the articles about that interview, that very statement of yours. How fascinating. Acting truly was for you. I could no longer see where we met in your eyes.

I wonder if you’ve read any of my books, if you had wondered if I ever did pursue a career where I could make use of my illustrative talents —it got me nowhere, but you were right, I can tell a heck of a story, and so I told the world hundreds of them.

Your foreshadowing of my future was a big stain I had to carry, and hide as an author. But I would keep writing without breaking even in the slightest bit.

Because I only loved you. I only wished, but never fully hoped, never really tried.

╔══════════════╗

“Hmm, are you sure you want this published?”

“I’m not gonna have it out as is, of course I have to build characters. I just wanted your thoughts. It would make for a good novel, right?”

You sat face to face with your publisher, Song Eunseok, to ask for his thoughts on this draft you made six years ago.

“It would —but you know, I’m quite surprised.” Eunseok wore a smirk on his face, one you couldn’t quite read through.

“Really? surprised?” a low chuckle escapes his mouth, very subtly shaking his head.

He had briefly glanced on the floor beside him, and when he looked back, almost all emotions he displayed were erased. “It wasn’t hard to tell you liked Sungchan, I knew, Minjeong knew.”

“Minjeong knew?” you almost lost your breath, heart racing from the tone of his voice alone.

“Well, not until she was convinced. She’s just as stupid as you were —I mean, no offense, you’re great, but you’re also quite self-absorbed. Take it with a grain of salt, but it’s the truth if you ask me.” you watched him pour himself a glass of whiskey, and he’d pour you one too knowing you’d need it. “They broke up because of you.”

He’d repeat the same motion, shaking his head and humming when the lines on your face started to show more. “Didn’t any of them tell you?”

“Tell me what, Eunseok?”

“Sungchan liked you too.” and there you would take your first sip of liquor. “You truly were too lost, weren’t you? you didn’t even notice the way he looked at you, and how he talked about you. Just a shame he didn’t tell you after the storm died down.”

The storm, their break up, the demise of your dignity. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

“I don’t know what he had in mind, why don’t you ask ‘your Robbie’.?” you rolled your eyes at his laughter that followed. “Cute nickname, where did ‘The Lovers by René Magritte’ come from?”

Pouring yourself more of the liquor, you’d softly laugh at yourself, looking back at that bitter memory. “I showed him my favorite artworks, ‘The Lovers’ happened to be one of them, and he said it’s so beautifully made, like me.”

“That sucks.”

“I know.”

You both laughed over your wretched past, how pathetic and wrong you were. You were glad you could now see through more than your own lens, it's a whole other journey to discover and open yourself up to empathy, and it felt like contentment to finally reach it.

“You received it, right?”

You looked him right in the eyes, smiling as you asked back, “The wedding invitation?” he hummed and nodded as an answer, “Of course. It’s what led me to finding that draft.”

He hummed again, head propped on his hands as he caught sight of your gaze, “We should go together, maybe we can ask Sungchan if he’s okay with the story.”

“And maybe we can get him to act for it when it’s turned into a movie.” his laughter grew louder, making you lightly hit his shoulder.

“Well, at least he could fulfill his wish of making a movie with you.”

“Oh shut up.”

He was quite… the experience. A love that was pure misery. If he wanted to, he would’ve, right? So does it truly matter if he likes you then?

You looked again at your draft, ink at certain spots were smudged, you remember being all tears as you wrote.

Sungchan was not your greatest love, but you’ve got to admit he’d led you to a place where your passion could only grow stronger. You could say that sometimes you missed the way he felt on your skin, but it would be just the memories itself, and not him, not anymore.

Perfection does not exist, and you had to go through all that trouble to convince yourself that it was him.

Who could blame you? you’ve never met anyone like him, and you never will again.

End.

just something very short and sweet for u :)) short question, is this a happy ending or not?

#riize #briize #riize fanfic #riize x reader #riize sungchan #jung sungchan #riize angst #angst

49 notes · View notes