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zorosjuicymelonsx · 6 months

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Finding You

A/N: Guys I'm here and I'm so sorry I'm a week late with this. I got a new job after losing mine a few months ago so things have been hectic lately with my schedule. All I can say is sometimes adulting SUCKS but I love money so 😭🤑

A lovely reader on AO3 had helped me realise there was an anomaly with the timeline of how Y/N and Zoro meet and all so I went through it and I thought I would go through this:

Y/N's flashback of Zoro sleeping in the forest in Chapter 3 was when they were 15 so its actually 7 years ago and not 4 years ago. I've edited this and amended the story you tell Zoro slightly in Chapter 5 to correct this so my apologies for not finding this sooner. I wanted to show that she had a crush on him before they officially met after he rescued her in the alley. They then turn 16, graduate school and then Zoro asks her out. They date till 18, get engaged and marry at 19. Zoro disappears a few days after this and you spend the 2, almost 2 and a half years looking for him so he's 21 and your 21.

Its sometime after Wano and Egghead doesn't exist in this "dimension" when you find him in Chapter 1 so they're just cruising right now. I wanted to match the actual One Piece ages he was before and after timeskip.

I hope this has helped clarify if anyone else was confused of the timeline but please do enjoy this chapter. Because of my new job, I'll do my very post to work and post in a timely manner. Thank you for everyones patience and support with me.

Chapter Eight Previous Next “Zoro? You okay?”

“i-I have to go, m’sorry.”

That was the last thing he said to you a week ago in the Crows Nest. You had gone through every single possible reason for why he suddenly would switch up the way he did which left you nowhere near to a conclusive answer. You were sure you’d done absolutely nothing but at the same time doubted yourself and wondered if you had done something unconsciously.

Since then, he'd practically been living in the Crows Nest. He never ate in the galley anymore, never came on the deck to hang around with anyone and you weren’t even sure if he was sticking with his once a week baths. Every time you tried to seek him out, you noticed the hint of stress in his face and would walk away in the opposite direction. Thankfully you weren’t the only one who noticed the swordsman's strange behaviour.

“Marimo is really starting to piss me off, can you believe he’s making me bring his meals to him like I’m some waiter?!” Sanji spat with annoyance as he piled nourishment onto Zoro’s breakfast plate. You knew Zoro wouldn’t have asked Sanji for food, you just understood Sanjis code of ethics when it came to making sure that every member of the crew was properly fed and nourished. You appreciated him for it.

You were one of the few who remained in the galley after breakfast, sitting with Jinbe and Usopp who were finishing off their own meals. You’d leaned forward to sit your chin on your forearms as you traced the rim of your coffee cup with your finger caught in a net of progressive overthinking of the enigma that was your husband.

“Has he really not said anything?” Usopp asked Sanji, the cook turning to face them, the plate in his hand piled high in mostly eggs, sausages and toast.

“Not a word. I swear the algae on his heads really taken over his brain.” Sanji cursed before leaving the galley, chewing on his unlit cigarette.

“Isn’t this normal for Zoro? I mean he is pretty quiet.” Jinbe asked Usopp. Since Jinbe was the most recent crewmate to join Luffy and the crew before you, it was understandable he would ask. You would have agreed with Jinbe on the fact Zoro was quiet, however, you knew better than to mistake this for just his regular self.

“When something is bothering him, he shuts down. He avoids everyone, he won’t talk, he’ll just isolate. I just can’t figure out what's bothering him.” You grumbled out before lifting your cup to take a gulp of your coffee. Setting the cup down, you realised you couldn’t hear either of them talking anymore and turned to see them both staring at you with wide eyes.

“Has he really never done this in front of you guys?” You questioned the gaping pair with a raised brow slightly mocking their owlish stares back. Jinbe shook his head as expected whereas Usopp's gaze drifted off behind you in thought. You assumed he was revisiting his album of memories with the swordsman.

“Well…there was the time on Thriller Bark when he shut himself away to train but it wasn’t anything like this.” Usopp answered cautiously, his mouth slightly turned down in slight distress.This caught your attention and your heart filled with anxiety.

“What happened?” You asked, unconsciously frowning. Usopp's gaze refocused back to yours, adjusting himself uncomfortably in his seat as he seemed hesitant to retell the story. Nonetheless, he sighed before clearing his throat to speak.

“We were on Thriller Bark where we met Brook. Brook was stuck on his old crew's ship and he couldn’t leave because his shadow being taken by the ex-warlord Gecko Moria.”

“Brook has a shadow?” You asked in surprise trying to suppress a laugh. You valued Brook as a crew member despite his panties fetish. Thankfully Nami always stepped in after he asked to put him in his place.

“I don’t even know anymore, ANYWAYS ....we managed to defeat him but another ex-warlord named Kuma came for us.We don’t know what exactly happened because Kuma knocked us out but we know Zoro got really hurt. He was unconscious for a few days after that. I think at the time we underestimated them but knowing him, he blamed himself for not being strong enough.”

Usopp clarified, his tone laced with guilt. Your heart ached at the idea of Zoro being that severely injured to that extent. You knew he didn’t care as long as he met his goal in the end even if you did reprimand him on his mentality many times over the years you both dated. You had eventually accepted it and you didn’t want to stand in his way.

“Let's just give him space and see what happens.” You spoke assuringly to the two despite your chest hammering with the anxiety of unsurety.

One Week Later

Two weeks had passed since you last heard Zoro's voice. The patient person you were two weeks ago was buried deep inside and now your patience was wearing thin along with your paranoia running rampant. You couldn’t take the silence anymore and neither could the rest of the crew.

It was the afternoon and Nami had called everyone in for a crew meeting on deck, including Zoro who had unsuccessfully attempted to blend into the background. Your eyes has locked in on him from the moment you walked in and spotted green. You also saw the obvious attempt he made to avoid looking your way as he chose to focus his gaze on the wall behind Nami.

‘Just what was so interesting about the wall you fucker?’ You thought to yourself as you leaned back in your chair in observation.

“Right guys, I called this meeting in because I came across information that there's an island nearby rumoured to have a fuck ton of treasure. We gotta make a game plan.” Nami excitedly spoke, the berries practically beaming out of her eye sockets. Reluctantly, you took your eyes away from Zoro to focus on Nami.

For about an hour, she went over and planned in detail how to navigate the island, showing you and the others the maps and other sources of information from a book she read detailing the treasure and its history.

“I also decided that not all of us can go on the island so I’m picking Zoro and Y/N to stay behind on the ship.” Nami added. From the corner of your eye, you noticed Zoro stiffen before clearing his throat to speak up.

“I’m coming with you guys, have Sanji stay on the ship with Y/N.” Zoro spoke in a low, reserved manner clearly disguising his obvious discomfort towards you. It was the first time you’d heard his voice in two weeks but hearing the words he chose only had you gritting your teeth. You took a deep breath in and decided that at that moment you couldn’t take anymore.

He had drawn your last straw.

“Oh Y/N-chan, I’d love to-” You cut off Sanji as you stood up from your seat, the feet of the chair roughly scraping against the floor boards as you paced your steps towards Zoro to now stand strong in front of him. You felt the intense gaze of the others on you but ignored it, the anger you felt overpowered your rationality.

“Whats your fucking problem?” You spat out as you looked up at him.

This caught him off surprise. You could see he was trying to shift away from you but you weren’t going to allow him to get out of this. You moved in tandem with him whenever he attempted to get away from you only to have him give up and stay glued to the wall behind him.

“I ain’t got no problem-”

“Bullshit. You’ve been avoiding me for the past two weeks. In fact, you’ve been avoiding ALL of us.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“No I’m fucking not.” You somehow got even closer, your chest practically touching his as you felt his body heat against you.

“She's really not Zoro, did something happen between you two?” Nami asked cautiously behind you.

“Did I do something?”

He could see you were frustrated with him and he could see he was only hurting you more than he wanted to.

‘I’m sorry….’ He thought as he looked at you, the guilt overwhelming him.

Whilst he didn’t appreciate the questioning from you and the heavy gazes of everyone, he will admit he had isolated himself from you. It wasn’t because you did anything to him personally and it wasn’t because he started rejecting your presence on the ship; by far you'd been patient with him by letting him be. The persistent questioning he got from the others, especially the shitty cook despite being appreciative of him bringing his meals to him only to be met with silence from him only fueled his guilt. Since the discovery of his feelings for you, he felt overwhelmed. Being around you distracted him. He felt the want to be with you but at the same time, his mind shielded him from you as if he was protecting himself from you. He prided himself in being strong minded and he felt frustrated with himself over how he could possibly feel this way when he prided himself in being strong minded. He could only theorise that this mental block with you had to do with the guy who’d wiped his memory.

‘Was his named Edward? Ethan? Whatever, it didn’t matter.’

He knew he was being a dick by staying away from you but he didn’t know what else to do. The moment he accepted his feelings for you, he’d also accepted what felt like an overwhelming burden in his stomach. He felt panic, a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time. He left you in the Crows Nest, remembering the feeling of not being able to breathe. This was why Zoro did not do feelings; they were complicated.

“You didn’t do anyth-”

“Then why have you been avoiding me?” You persistently questioned, the frustration brimming in your eyes.

“I’m done with this, I’m leaving.” He felt his heart climbing up into his throat with you being so close to him.

“Oh no you don’t, you’re not getting out of this one.”

You made an impulse decision out of anger. With your free hand, you summoned a hole behind Zoro. You pictured the very island where you spent time training yourself with your devil fruit, knowing it was quiet and you wouldn’t be disturbed. The hole behind him had formed and Zoro had realised too late he was no longer leaning against solid and fell through the smoke of clouds that enveloped him.

You turned to the others who were gaping at you in shock. Even Luffy stayed glued to his seat with no attempt to jump through the cloud of smoke.

“I’ll bring him back tomorrow.” You huffed out before going through the hole yourself.

As you landed in the sand of the island, you looked up to see the hole you summoned. You then looked around to see your surroundings. The island hadn’t changed one bit; the wave of nostalgia hit as you breathed in the smell of the sand and sea, the lingering scent of greenery coming from the forest coming into the mix as well. If you looked around again, you’d be able to find the rock you carved the last date you were here before leaving to continue your search for Zoro.

You purposefully summoned the hole on the empty side of the island, choosing to leave the small population of habitants to the other side undisturbed. They were peaceful people and had even shared a few meals with you from time to time whenever a few of them found you exhausted from exertion after training. They knew you well and that you didn’t pose a threat, choosing to peacefully coexist with them.

Once closed, the anger still ever present in your system you looked around to spot Zoro sitting in the sand as he looked around taking his surroundings.

“Wh-where are-?”

“You gonna talk or what?” You aggressively asked.

Zoro was now angry. He didn’t want to fight with you, he just wanted to piece together his feelings and rebuild his courage to be around you. He wasn’t ready to face you and being here with you only made him feel worse.

He stood up from the sand and stomped over to stand over you, pushing the bile from his thumping heart back down his throat.

“What…the FUCK…were you thinking? Why would you do that? Do you realise without me there, you’ve put the others in danger? Take us back NOW.”

“First of all, step the fuck back and calm down. Second of all, they’ll be fine. Third of all, were not going anywhere until we sort whatever the fucks gone up your ass and died.” You said as you matched his energy.

“Fuck this, I’m out.” Zoro refused to admit anything. He couldn’t. He turned away from you and began walking.

“Roronoa Zoro, come back here now.” You ordered him as you followed behind.

“No. Piss off.” He called back as he continued stomping.

“Zoro, stop.” You shouted, your voice almost broke as your anger now turned into hurt.

“Leave me alone Y/N.”

“WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?” You now cried out. You couldn’t stop the tears and the lump in your throat as you stared at his back.

Zoro stopped at the sound of your voice breaking. He frowned at the thought of you upset, his heart ached but he couldn’t turn around.

“I’m not doing anything to you Y/N. I just need space.” He spoke regretfully before he continued walking again and turned left heading into the forest. You stood still as you watched him walk away.

“Fuck.” You whispered to yourself, taking your palm to rub against your forehead in frustration and then using the back of your hand to wipe your tears away. You hated crying, you’d always felt so weak. No matter how much you try to control it, the tears always win. You decided to sit, digging yourself further into the sand before leaning back to let it envelop you.

You breathed in, allowing yourself to take in the sound of the waves crashing against the damp sand. You didn’t realise how much you missed being back on land. You loved being on the Sunny, you really did but sometimes allowing yourself to be grounded for a bit always helped.

You let your hands moved with the sand, feeling the softness of it between your fingers. You clenched the sand into your palms finding the action soothing and allowing the anger you’d felt seep into each particle.

What were you going to do with Zoro?

————————————- ⚔️✨ ————————————

A few hours had passed and you found yourself waking up from a nap you had unconsciously taken. You noticed the sun was beginning to lower, you predicted you had a few hours left before nightfall. You sighed before getting up from the sand, swiping off the residue of sand that was left on your clothes and turned to face the direction Zoro left you from. You were grateful the island was small and you knew it wouldn’t take you long to track down the lost swordsman.

As you were about to start walking, you felt a presence lurking near you. You stiffened before smiling and realising there was more than one and posed no danger.

“How long have you guys been there for?” You called out. You turned to find a small group of what you assumed were hunters gathering food. The group consisted of three men and one woman.

“Y/N, are you okay?” One of the male hunters asked.

“I’m fine don’t worry…you didn’t happen to see a green haired guy with three swords roaming around?” You queried. You didn’t know them personally but you assumed the few that did check in on you when you were training spread the word to the others of your existence.

“He’s sitting by the waterfall.” The female hunter softly answered. You nodded as you brought the memorised path to the area up into your mind to plan out your short walk.

“Thank you, don’t mind us. We’ll be gone tomorrow.” You promised before you began making your way to him. A short walk through the forest and your feet found you at the beginning of a small lake. As you continued, your eyes caught the waterfall and the blue hues of water falling over into the lake. You looked around and soon enough your eyes caught on a head of green hair. You frowned at his slouched demeanor, noticing his eye was lost in the water and in thought. You took a quick breath in before continuing your walk to now stand near the swordsman. You noticed his body stiffened as you felt your presence before slouching back, his eye not breaking out of his lost gaze.

“Zoro…I.”

“Don’t speak.”

Your mouth closed into a straight line, the words ‘I’m sorry’ stuck at the tip of your tongue. You felt like you stood for eternity but just a few short minutes later and you decided to find a seat on the grass near him. Your eyes followed his and soon enough you were also lost in the water with him. Apart from the sounds of the water crashing into the lake and the gentle calls from the birds in the trees, the angst between the both of you laid thick.

As you watched the water, you were reminded of how much you missed swimming and the ability to just float. You had thankfully never fallen into the ocean since obtaining your devil fruit but the thought of sinking struck fear in you. You missed the feeling of saltwater soaking into your skin, letting your fingertips wrinkle and allowing your mind to wonder and be free. Sure you were able to shower in non-sea water but it just wasn’t the same.

Time had passed and the sky had turned into a deep hue of orange indicating the end of daylight. The forest had begun to fill out with fireflies, adding to the ambiance and giving light to where you both sat. You knew you’d have to start a fire and look for food soon but you couldn’t find the will to do so yet.

You had decided to scoot closer to the edge of the lake, allowing yourself to indulge in the only closeness you can have to water.

“You ain’t plannin to jump in right?”

Hearing his voice shook you out of thought, you shook your head to answer his question.

Zoro had every right to be pissed at you but seeing the sadness in your face made him feel guilty for letting himself behave like a teenager for hours. This was his fault after all but admitted he let his pride get the better of him.

“Why’re you moping?”

“I’m not moping..I’m just remembering how much I enjoyed swimming and just being in the ocean.” You confessed, pouting and allowing yourself to lean on your hand.

“I thought you didn’t regret-”

“I don’t regret anything. I’m allowed to feel sad.” You snapped.

He allowed silence to fill the space between the both of you for a moment before he made an anxiety-consuming decision that would definitely change everything.

“You wanna go in?” Zoro softly asked.

You turned to face him, surprise evident in your face.

“That's impossible, I’ll just feel weak and sink.” You answered.

“Not if I’m holding you.” Zoro said.

“I thought you were avoiding me, now you wanna hold me?” You questioned back.

“Answer my question; you want to go in yes or no?” Zoro bit back with slight annoyance at you being argumentative.

You bit your lip to stop yourself from going into a tangent, turning to look back at the water before nodding.

From seeing your physical consent, Zoro stood up and began to strip. You visibly blushed and let your gaze turn away from him refusing to turn it into ogling. He brought himself into your line of vision as he walked forward and stepped into the water, waiting with his back turned to you at the edge to allow you privacy. You were able to see he was just left in his boxers. You stared for a bit before finding your brevity and beginning to strip until you were just in your underwear and bra. You walked a few steps forward until you stood just behind him but you hadn’t stepped in the water yet.

“Am I okay to pick you up?” Zoro cautiously asked, his back still facing you.

“y-Yeah you can.”

Zoro turned around, pushing back his raging heartbeat and ignoring the growing heat in his skin before scooping you into his arms bridal style and slowly walking back into the lake until he was halfway submerged. You relished in the warmth of his skin and you hadn’t realised just how much you missed his presence.

“If it gets too much for you, tell me and I’ll take you back.” Zoro’s voice almost broke. He was currently fighting back the blush that had threatened to consume his wholebeing as he avoided looking down at your naked body. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen a naked woman before, heck Nami and Robin walked around the ship in practically nothing and it never once bothered him. Seeing you see this way; shy and almost vulnerable gave a completely different meaning to it. He couldn’t fathom anyone else seeing you like this and the mere idea of any man seeing you this way made his skin itch and his temper rise.

He hadn’t even allowed himself to be consumed in the lust-filled thoughts he had of you since his recent awakening of feelings he had for you. He felt too much respect for you to subject you to his internal needs. He didn’t even know if you both even consummated the marriage before he disappeared but refused to go down the tangent of thoughts surrounding it.

He slowly began to lower you into the water, allowing the flow of the water to cover your legs and your arms. You gasped at the sudden coolness of the water, immediately feeling the weakness of the ocean consume you. Rather than fighting the weakness, you allowed it to sit as you relished in the feeling of the cool water and Zoro’s body heat.

“You okay?”

“Thank you Zoro.” You quietly spoke, grateful to him.

His concern alone was enough for you to choke on a sob. You were overwhelmed.

“Why did you avoid me?” You weakly asked, allowing yourself to cry.

“M’sorry.” Zoro mumbled back as he bit the inside of his cheek.

“I don’t want a sorry…I want an answer.”

Zoro said nothing. He didn’t know how to confess his feelings to you. He couldn’t even begin to explain or know where to start with talking about what was wrong with him. Seeing you broken hurt him badly and he knew he couldn’t let this go on anymore.

‘Show her.’

A small voice in his head spoke. He frowned at the intrusion of the voice.

‘Show her how you feel.’

He looked down to see you looking back up at him. The yearning he felt to hold you closer, the want to be with you overtook him.

He decided to listen to the foreign voice, putting his anxiety to one side as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours in a chaste kiss.

————————————- ⚔️✨ ————————————

A/N: HE DID IT!!! FINALLY HE KISSED YOU AHHHHHHH 🥳 😭💚

Taglist: @starlightanyaaa @eggrollforyou @rosellerinfrost @qalable

#one piece #one piece fanfiction #memory loss #romance #zoro x reader #roronoa zoro #slow burn

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mixelation · 1 year

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i wrote more reborn au. it is the situation described previously when tori has a non-team 4 mission go awry

i might change the timeline a little, but for now: tori is 16, and she has an official position in R&D so she takes fewer out of village missions. i might change it later but she gives her rank as tokubetsu jounin, because my interpretation of this rank is that you have some sort of high-value jounin-level skill (like fuinjutsu) but your OVERALL skills aren't really jounin level. so she got promoted hella fast after making chunin, but she gets stuck at this rank a while whereas itachi and deidara get to full jounin like immediately lmao. also she and itachi have been fake-dating a few months, but that's not relevant to the following

uuh also this has some stuff that i feel like doesn't punch as hard as it should without context to foreshadow it, so apologizes if some details seem to come out of nowhere???

The mission started off uncomfortable and it didn’t get much better.

The premise was this: a research team had tracked some rare scrolls all the way into the boonies of a tiny jungle territory between Fire Country and Water Country, which had historically been traded back and forth between both countries but was currently maintaining its status as an independent state after the fallout of the Third Shinobi War. It had no native ninja clans, but enough powers had occupied it that both Kiri and Konoha occasionally sent in probes to figure out if there were any leftover ninja-related valuables.

The idea was that a ninja village had the rights to ninja materials, even if they’d both technically agreed not to interfere with the tiny nation. Tori understood everyone in her life just accepted this as a morally neutral fact of the world and elected not to analyze it further for her own sanity. It wasn’t like she wasn’t ready and willing to forego her own ethical framework when it was convenient.

So the research team had followed some local leads to unearth an ancient and abandoned shinobi stronghold of unknown origin, but had been blocked from accessing it because the fuuinjutsu protecting it was so old no one on the team could figure out how to break it. This was how Tori was chosen for the back-up team Minato was sending in: if you wanted someone to disentangle an unknown and strange set of seals quickly and without damaging the surrounding structure, Tori was your girl. There simply wasn’t anyone else as good except Kushina herself, and Kushina had way more in-village responsibilities.

The risk of spending a long time at this location was that Kiri would inevitably notice and send their own team in, and then even if they avoided an outright conflict, Konoha risked Kiri running off with the scrolls or whatever other treasures happened to be in the stronghold, if any. This was how the rest of the Tori’s team was picked: combat ninja for back-up.

“Oh, this is the most fun part about being a fuinjutsu specialist, you know,” Kushina had told her, when she’d gone over to pick up fuinjutsu supplies from her office. “You get sent on all sorts of weird missions to all sorts of places, and work with all sorts of people!”

Kushina was… maybe more social and likable than Tori. Kushina could make friends with a rock. Tori, in contrast, somehow started a feud with half the people she met.

It started with some weird comments. Tori pulled a bottle of insect repellant out of a storage seal during one of their breaks on the first day, and her teammate made a snide remark about Tori living a life of luxury.

“...do you want some?” Tori offered.

She was literally just using a store-bought spray in a standard-design storage scroll. Kushina had told her off more than once for over-relying on storage scrolls which could be easily stolen or destroyed or lost, but she’d seen other shinobi do this. She’d seen their captain do this, earlier. This was normal behavior.

The weird comments continued from the same teammate, who was a rank-and-file jounin with no additional titles. Mostly they were jabs at her main designation being R&D: surprise she could clean fish, condescendingly assuring her she wouldn’t have to fight and risk chipping a nail. The comments got an occasional snicker from other ninja, but they weren’t overtly hostile and definitely not as mean as whatever the fuck Itachi might say just in friendly conversation. She gritted her teeth and beared it.

The guy was only like nineteen or twenty. Tori wasn’t sure what his problem with her was, since he was pretty young for a jounin and couldn’t be so untalented that it would make sense for him to have a chip on his shoulder, but also he was young enough that maybe he just hadn’t matured very much yet. Or maybe it was just that she was even younger and already a tokubetsu jounin and– gasp!– a woman. People generally highly praised Deidara and Itachi for making jounin so young, but their talents were generally more obvious, and also they were men. Shinobi were less sexist than the surrounding civilian attitudes toward women, but the misogyny still crept into their culture. Sometimes some men just got upset when women were smarter or stronger or higher ranked than them. Even Kushina occasionally got pushback.

(Not that no one ever acted jealous or insane to Itachi or Deidara– it was just that they got it less often, and people rarely acted like that twice, because both boys were nightmare people.)

So she ignored her teammate and didn’t think much of it. Sometimes people were just assholes. In Oto or in Akatsuki, this might have led to him doing something unspeakably horrible to her, but this was Konoha. Konoha ninja could be petty and mean and jaded, but they didn’t do that.

Tori hadn’t gotten to go into the jungles of this world often, and her mood did brighten even as the weather got hotter and more humid and they had to slow down as the foliage got denser. She liked seeing the shift in trees from Hashirama trees to broad-leafed jungle trees, seeing strangler figs and hearing tree frogs and finding the prints of a large cat. She even found delight in the presence of native giant leeches they also imported to their Forest of Death.

“The anticoagulants they excrete actually have a lot of medical applications,” she said cheerfully, poking one gently with a stick. They could also kill you if you let one attach for too long.

“Uh, okay,” said their captain. “Keep on task.”

“When you let a researcher out of the lab,” another teammate joked to the one who kept ragging on her. Tori rolled her eyes.

It took almost an entire week to get to the stronghold. During this time, the teammate that was ragging on her got both the other ninja with them to also start on the same sort of stupid jokes. Tori pulled a branch off a squat little tree and offered it to the teammate who’d started it all.

“Here, it’s an insect repellent,” she said, smiling as sweetly as she could. “Since you forgot to bring yours.”

For some reason, this just made the teammate meaner. By the time they researched the stronghold, she was getting accusations that she was only here due to favoritism from the fucking Hokage.

“On task,” the captain sighed, having also laughed at a couple of the jokes.

Whatever, Tori thought.

The lead of the research team, at least, didn’t even blink when he saw her. He was technically part of R&D. She had a reputation there.

The stronghold was a small, stone building overgrown with strangler figs. The research team had already removed the foliage from the entrance and revealed the seal protecting it, which probably saved at least half a day’s work. Still, the fuinjutsu on it was a mess, and it took Tori a couple hours to disentangle what was even going on.

The research leader bounced his knee in anticipation the entire time. Apparently they’d found evidence the night before of other shinobi in the area, and they were afraid Kiri could show up at any moment.

“Can’t you do that faster?” Tori’s captain asked as she made notes on her own scroll.

“Not unless you want me to risk blowing it up,” Tori replied.

“Well, try harder,” he said.

She wondered, vaguely, if he would have this attitude towards her if he hadn’t spent a whole week listening to someone make demeaning comments about her. Maybe she should have tried to nip that in the bud sooner? Usually she’d prefer an opponent underestimating her, but these were people she needed to trust her skills… she’d promised herself to stop thinking of everyone she met as an enemy until proven otherwise.

Well, whatever. The nice thing about her boss being a fuinjutsu master was that if this captain tried to report on her being too slow, Minato would put him straight immediately.

She got the seal off in record time. Instead of opening into the little building, the door led to a staircase that went straight down into the earth. Tori held back a comment about Oto also being arranged like this. She didn’t need to remind her asshole teammate that she was a foreigner on top of whatever he didn’t like about her.

“Great,” the research lead sighed.

The next several days were spent exploring the tunnels that turned out to be underneath the building. They were carved out by an underground river, which still flowed through the main passages. The remains of wooden walkways over it were still apparent, but the structure had largely rotted away and they were forced to walk on the walls or the river itself. There were more fuinjutsu-covered doors leading to narrow rooms and more fucking stairways down, in a confusing labyrinth of passages that mostly held nothing of value.

The combat team was roped into searching the tunnels in order to cover more area quickly, since there was the ongoing anxiety that Kiri could show up any minute. They all seemed bored by the slow progress of Tori opening up new passageways only for no one to find anything but rotting wood furniture and, once, some old and useless cookware. Tori was having fun, at least. Whoever had set up the security seals must have been high when they did it.

Then everything went to shit all at once.

Tori was taking her lunch break, squatting in the corner of an empty room and eating a protein bar, when her asshole teammate showed up to report he’d found another fuinjutsu-covered door. Many of the rooms had puddles from the river leaking through cracks, and the jounin rushed in so quickly he didn’t even bother water-walking over them.

The door he’d found was different from the rest, with an ornately carved stone door frame. It also wasn’t wood like the rest had been, held together against time by fuinjutsu. This door was a solid block of rock, a giant disc on the side of the door frame.

“I bet Hokage-sama will give us a bonus if we’re the ones who find the scrolls,” he said, his excitement obvious as Tori poked at the door. “They do that for object recovery, right?”

“I think that’s only if you find something that wasn’t a part of the mission parameters,” Tori replied, taking a step back to squint at the full seal. There wasn’t a universal pattern to them, but she was getting pretty quick about identifying and then dismantling the relevant parts.

“Pft, what do you know,” her teammate replied, kicking at a puddle.

“No offense,” Tori started, pulling out her brush and a jar of ink, “but what is your problem with me?”

Her teammate didn’t answer, watching her paint very carefully over the seal. The stone wheel that made up the door groaned and slowly rolled aside.

The room inside was definitely different from the rest. The back wall was nothing but running water, held in place by more fuinjutsu that formed a gently glowing web of chakra over it. There was also actual decoration on the exposed stone walls, carved and then painted in. In the center of the room was a stone pedestal with an obvious scroll box.

Tori’s teammate was obnoxious, but he was still a jounin and not an idiot. He waited for Tori to flick chakra-infused ink into the room and then perform a jutsu to check for traps.

The room itself was safe. The problem was that the pedestal was obviously boobytrapped.

“Can you undo it?” her teammate asked, peering at the box. It matched the description the research team had.

It was hard to reveal the seals on the pedestal and take a look. They were, in fact, more insane than what was on all the doors. Unlike the doors, these were meant to be somewhat permanent, not meant for anyone but the sealmaster who made them to take off.

“It’s… going to take some time,” Tori said cautiously. “But, shit, this array itself is probably valuable.”

She pointed to how it scattered down the pedestal to the river wall and then up and across the ceiling in a nonstandard shape. If it were disrupted, the seal holding the water back would break, immediately flooding the room. At the same time, the bit on the ceiling would collapse… something. Either the ceiling itself or wall with the exit.

There was a mechanism also holding the box in place and locked shut, so no random person would be able to move it or open it and then accidentally set off the trap. Breaking that part of the seal wouldn’t be any more difficult than the doors, but Tori would need some time to figure out how to disentangle this mechanism from the deathtrap so they didn’t set it off and could remove the scrolls safely.

“Alright,” the jounin said at length. “But you have to make it clear I’m the one who found it.”

Tori really, really didn’t think this mattered, but before they could decide what exactly to do, two strangers walked into the room. They were both wearing Kiri headbands.

“Are you kidding me?” the jounin said, stepping between Tori and the Kiri-nin and drawing a kunai.

She hadn’t noticed it over the rush of the river in front of them, but now that Tori was concentrating, she could hear the shouts of a fight outside.

“Oh nice, you found it for us,” one of the Kiri said. Both had swords drawn. Tori drew her own kunai and shifted into a fight-ready stance.

“Surely there’s a diplomatic solution to this,” she tried.

“Oops, too late,” the other Kiri-nin answered, flashing teeth at her.

Tori’s jounin teammate took a step back and whispered out of the corner of his mouth: “I’ll engage them. Get the box off.”

“But–” Tori started.

Behind his back, he signed that they’d flash step out. Tori nodded slowly. It was risky, and she wasn’t sure she could flash step quickly enough to not get caught in the trap, but a really good jounin could.

This was the best part of Konoha, she thought. Even assholes had your back.

One of the Kiri-nin chucked a handful of kunai at them, and Tori fully turned to back to face the seal on the pedestal. She heard the clink of her teammate batting the blades out of the air with his sword. Yes, even this guy had her back, no questions asked.

She barely watched the fight as she concentrated on her own work. Her teammate was a good fighter, and he managed to counter both ninja while also keeping any attacks from hitting her. It only took a few minutes for him to kill one of the Kiri-nin, after which the second backed off and tried more mid-range attacks.

“Got it,” Tori finally announced. Her teammate pounced on the Kiri-nin, plunging the sword into her.

“Do it,” he told Tori, turning to her with the wild eyes of man high on his own bloodlust.

“As soon as I release it, the seal–” Tori started to warn.

The Kiri-nin he’d left crumpled in the corner groaned and rolled onto her feet unsteadily, still alive.

“It’s okay, I got you,” her teammate said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “The faster we move, the faster we can back-up our teammates.”

“Right,” Tori agreed, poising her paintbrush. “On the count of three.”

What happened next was such a slimy move that it completely blindsided Tori, even if it shouldn’t have. Training herself to no longer assume that people were just going to screw her over for no reason had been a bad idea, it turned out.

She called one as she made the last of her brush strokes. Her mouth started on the syllable, and the jounin adjusted his grip on her so his hand was around the supply pack at the small of her back. He leaned over and put his hand over the box, his grip adjusted wide enough to wrap the last joints of his fingers over the top. This would be a weird as fuck hold for a joint flash step, but Tori didn’t give it a second thought. He just moved to put his hand on the box. That was their mission.

And then he flash stepped through the rubble suddenly raining down on them, taking the box and Tori’s pack with him, leaving Tori behind to be knocked over by the sudden wave of water.

The first few moments of the room flooding were chaos. Part of the ceiling and the entire wall collapsed, and debris hit her shoulder and legs as the water battered her around.

It calmed eventually, with the water only waist deep. Tori spat out water and fumbled for one of the glow sticks in her weapons pack.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” the wounded Kiri-nin asked when Tori lit up the room. “Holy shit, did he leave you on purpose?”

Tori bit her lip. Yes, he totally had. What the fuck. Konoha ninja weren’t supposed to be like this.

When Tori didn’t respond, the Kiri-nin wrote her off and started yelling at the collapsed wall for help. There was no evidence anyone heard her at all.

The good news was that the river wasn’t rushing in. Its source must have also partially collapsed, leaving the river at a small trickle.

“The water had a way out,” Tori announced, wading toward the back wall. “Maybe we can…”

She tried diving. When she found nothing, the Kiri-nin also tried. The exit the water had been taking before was completely sealed off.

“Oooh, we’re fucked,” the Kiri-nin sighed. “What the fuck was your friend’s plan?”

“I don’t…” Tori started. He should have taken her with him. It was well within his abilities. He’d told her.

He’d also taken her travel pack with all her fuinjutsu supplies. She still had some kunai and shuriken and a flare and a couple glow sticks in her weapons pack, but those would hardly help. She had a few scrolls still on her, but none of those were going to get her out.

The water was getting higher. Tori found she was shaking. Konoha ninja weren’t supposed to do this.

Old Tori had been physically weaker, but she hadn’t been this gullible, this stupid. She hadn’t been able to afford it.

“I-I can stop the water,” Tori told the Kiri-nin, embarrassed that her voice sounded like she was on the brink of tears.

The Kiri-nin eyed her with something that was either pity or disgust or both.

“Is this your first life or death mission, little girl?” she asked.

Tori let out a hysterical laugh. No, actually, she should have anticipated this happening from the first weird comment. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“I’m sixteen,” Tori said. “They’ve sent me into worse.”

She said this more to remind herself. She’d survived worse. She’d just been an idiot, thinking she’d finally been in a position to trust people.

The Kiri-nin snorted.

“Whatever, Konoha. Don’t stop the water yet. That might be the only way out.”

The Kiri-nin performed a series of water jutsu, meant to scope out the walls and floor and ceiling and find any gaps they could take advantage of, either to drain the water or send a message for help or get out. It would make sense if the person who set up the trap also left a way to get out, rather, let themselves back in to retrieve their scrolls.

Tori wondered if the Kiri-nin would actually help her if she identified a way out, or if she’d also spitefully leave her for dead. How sad would it be, if she was betrayed by her own comrade and saved by a random Kiri-nin?

Tori didn’t get to find out the answer to the question, because the Kiri-nin didn’t find anything. If there was a way back in, it wasn’t accessible from the inside. The Kiri-nin leaned back against a wall, panting with exertion and holding her side where Tori’s teammate had stabbed her.

“I’m a medic,” Tori offered. Her medical supplies were off with her treasonous teammate, but she could still do some chakra-based stuff.

“Shut up,” the Kiri-nin groaned. “Okay, I’m going to dive again and try to get out through the river’s entrance.”

“You sure you don’t want me to at least stop the bleeding–”

“Shut up.”

The Kiri-nin dived. When she didn’t come back for a very long time, Tori waded over to the river’s entrance and attempted diving herself.

There wasn’t an opening big enough to fit her body through. Instead, she found the Kiri-nin’s body with her arm wedged into a crevice that must have collapsed further when she stuck her arm in. Tori couldn’t dislodge it to try and drag the woman back to the surface. She was dead, anyway.

Tori pulled one of her remaining scrolls from her vest and set up a barrier to block the influx of water. It was now up to her chest.

Then she pulled herself up to sit on top of the water and very quietly freaked out.

It wasn’t being trapped in a sealed room with two dead Kiri-nin that freaked her out, exactly. It wasn’t even that she had no idea if any of her teammates outside were alive or aware she needed help. It wasn’t even necessarily that her teammate had seemingly turned on her for stupid reasons.

It was that she had gone out of her way to assume an asshole was just an asshole, that Konoha ninja were the exception to the rule she’d learned through both her shitty lives, like an idiot. It stung, worse than she would have thought it would.

Her barrier eventually ran out of chakra, and as she watched it flicker and die, a horrible thought struck Tori.

No one was going to come help her, because her teammate was not going to report her as alive but trapped. He was going to report her as definitively dead, because there was no way he’d let her be seen alive to tell her side of the story.

Maybe, once they got back to Konoha and formally reported her KIA, Minato would send someone for her body. They usually only did that for people with stealable bloodline limits, but Kushina would probably push for it. Or maybe, if the rest of the team was all killed by Kiri or otherwise too injured to go back themselves, Minato would eventually send someone to check up on them. Neither scenario was a timeline where Tori would still be alive if she stayed in here.

In the best case scenario, her team beat off the Kiri-nin, and then someone came looking for her. The asshole teammate would protest, would insist she was dead in a collapsed and inaccessible room, but maybe someone would insist on retrieving her body.

It seemed unlikely. She’d already been too charitable with her assessment of this team. None of them were coming for her.

She had two more scrolls with barriers to hold back the water slowly seeping in. Neither of them had enough chakra to last more than a couple hours, but she could recharge them a few times with her own chakra, although without food, chakra would become a finite resource. She had maybe a day before she drowned using just these tools.

She could make a seal, of course. Her teammate had taken her supplies, and the ink and brush she’d had out before we lost in the flood, but she still had a body full of blood and plenty of surfaces to draw on. It wouldn’t be easy or neat, since blood required different calculations and wet, uneven rocks would be hard to draw on, but she could do it.

Her first idea was to tap into one of her storage dimensions. She had some food squirreled away in one, and some fuinjutsu supplies in another. The one she’d stuck a bunch of spare camping supplies in probably even had a better light source.

Okay, Tori decided, standing on the water, here I go.

xXx

Two days passed, and no one came for her. With food and fuinjutsu supplies, she’d been able to wrap a double barrier around the main source of water, but it must have been slowly seeping in from somewhere else too because the water level was still slowly rising. She could no longer stand fully on the water surface, and she’d had no good way to sleep.

She tried a controlled explosion on the wall she knew led to an open passage, but instead she’d just collapsed more of the room. There must not have been anything above her but more earth.

The explosion had also shaken the Kiri-nin’s body loose, and Tori didn’t really have anywhere to put it, so she was just… floating.

Tori’s new plan was to get a message to Konoha. Maybe a regular team wouldn’t get to her in time, but Minato could. She wasn’t sure he would, but…

She struggled to cling to this hope, even though it turned out trust was a lie and Konoha-nin were the types to just fuck you over for no reason.

Tori didn’t really have a good way to send a message herself. Between Itachi’s crows and Deidara’s animated clay, they’d always taken care of it when she’d been on a regular team. She’d never had a need to invent her own way. She stuck some messages into storage dimensions she knew Kushina also had the key to, but she wasn’t sure why Kushina would check them unless she knew Tori was in danger.

Which she wouldn’t know, because Tori’s teammate was an asshole.

She did know a couple time-space jutsu, but those were notoriously difficult, and she didn’t know any that wouldn’t require another person. She wasn’t even sure any solo ones existed, besides the Hiraishin, because usually you at least needed a receiver.

Tori ran option after option through her brain. She didn’t know shit about summoning jutsu, which would be super useful in this situation if not just for the ability to reverse summon. Could she logic her way through how they must work and then reverse engineer it…?

No, she’d have better luck reverse engineering the Hiraishin. At least she knew some of the theory behind that one.

Sitting on the water, the top of her head brushed the ceiling. Or maybe she should focus on making a full-wall seal to keep the water out. That she was at least positive she could do. But that would take so much time…

Tori stuck her head between her knees and willed herself not to cry. She still felt so fucking stupid, and the lack of sleep and floating corpse weren’t helping. Of course she shouldn't have trusted the guy who was making fun of her the whole time. Of course, of course, stupid, stupid, stupid.

She mentally flipped through everything she knew about time-space jutsu, feeling hysterical. She’d tried the Hiraishin before, and nothing had even happened because only two people in the world had ever managed it. Even with entire villages trying to beat it during the war, no one had even come close. It would be deeply stupid and arrogant of her to push forward assuming she could accomplish what entire teams of more experienced shinobi had failed to do.

She was developing a crick in her neck from being bent forward as she approached the ceiling, so she laid down on her back. All her clothes were already wet regardless.

Except, she had spent a lot of time thinking deep thoughts about the Hiraishin, because, well, it didn’t make sense no one had been able to copy it. Minato had left seals all over the place. No one had even been able to figure out how to undo them without removing the entire object the seal was on; it was why Iwa had been so terrified of them sneaking even one in.

The markers are only a guide for the actual jutsu, Minato had said when she’d asked, and then when she’d asked again and again, Only I can use them, because only I have my chakra.

But why couldn’t someone else use his chakra? She just couldn’t shove this explanation into her understanding of how space-time jutsu worked. Most of them worked using another user as a receiver on the other end, or else by using multiple people to throw something to a receiving array, and none of them worried about chakra incompatibilities. Tori had been considering using a fucking tree as a receiver, if she’d had the foresight to set up a tree-powered seal to be her receiver. And why the fuck hadn’t she done that, if she’d thought about it so much? How had she never anticipated being trapped with no hope of back-up? Old Tori would have never. Stupid, stupid, stupid–

Actually, Tori thought, sitting up on her elbows. Hiraishin wasn’t receiver-less, was it? Minato just did both jutsu on one end but somehow the marker anchored the receiving jutsu, somehow slingshotting him through space. Or at least that was the only way Tori could conceptualize it possibly working. You could, in theory, use an already active seal as an unmanned receiver; it was just that you needed to be really, insanely good to make a seal that complex that could stay active for long periods of time. That was why Tori’s idea had used a tree’s chakra to power the receiving end. But if you just had, like, some sort of tiny, self-sustaining guide for your receiver jutsu….? That was probably why it had to be Minato’s own chakra.

Tori had no idea how to simultaneously do two jutsu and also do them so lightning fast it was basically instantaneous from having the thought to teleporting, the way Minato did. But why couldn’t she include both in a seal, with one of his markers as the anchor? At the end of the day, Tori had taught herself to use fuinjutsu almost entirely with other people’s chakra. Her original concept she’d been working on (but never tested, like an idiot) had been based around a goddamn tree. She’d done extensive testing on how chakra from different sources varied and how to optimize jutsu to it. She could totally hijack one of Minato’s seals.

She was worryingly close to the ceiling now, even flat on her back. She drew a copy of a Hiraishin marker and then got to work painting a combination send-and-receive transport seal around it.

xXx

Tori found herself on a dark forest floor, gasping for breath. She had no idea where she was, but at least she was no longer under fucking water. Pine needles poked into her back as she collapsed, staring up into the canopy. The trees had spindly arms and the full moon peeked through.

The forest was still and quiet. Tori was working very hard on not hyperventilating.

I’m alive, she promised herself. I’m breathing.

Her body was shaking from adrenaline. She’d gotten a working seal painted in time, even if she’d had a hell of a time activating it. She was fine. She was alive.

She got about three seconds of time to lay there and breathe before Minato was suddenly on top of her, a rasengan waving in her face. Tori shrieked.

“It’s me, it’s me!” she screeched. The rasengan, being made mostly of chakra, gave off its own weak light, and Minato’s face was dead-serious as he commanded that she give various identifying codes to confirm her identity. Tori’s brain was already scattered and panicked from barely escaping drowning, and her answers came out garbled. Finally she yammered, “Who else would be hijacking your seals?”

Minato was quiet for a few moments, and then he released the rasengan. Rather than reabsorb the chakra, he let it spiral out in a gust of wind that made Tori shiver.

Minato stood. He was in his pajamas, and one knee was damp from where he’d been kneeling on her stomach. He offered her a hand. In the moonlight, his face looked weary.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, sounding exhausted. “Report.”

The phrasing of the command meant that even if he was in his pajamas, he was talking to her as Hokage right now. Tori did her best to straighten up and explain herself like she would for a mission or a lab experiment gone wrong, but her story quickly turned into an upset ramble.

She didn’t know if her team was alive. She wasn’t even sure how much time had passed. Her teammate had been an asshole to her and she’d ignored it but she shouldn’t have because that was her clue she shouldn’t have trusted him with shit–

“How did you get here?” MInato cut her off. His voice was barely restrained emotion, stress and anger. Tori felt almost taken aback. She’d thought he’d care more than she nearly died.

She felt stupid that she was this upset over a bunch of nobodies leaving her for dead, about being this incoherent over almost dying. Wasn’t she tougher than this? Why did Minato being mad at her make her want to cry?

She walked him through the logic of her escape efforts. If Minato had any personal thoughts on her initial attempts or her aside that the Kiri-nin’s body had just been hanging out, he didn’t show them. His eyebrows did raise higher and higher as she described her eventual solution to her predicament.

“You just came up with that?” he asked. She couldn’t tell if he was dumbfounded or furious.

Maybe this will be when they decide I’m too dangerous and kill me, Tori thought. She’d thought she’d been safe from this inevitability, but maybe not.

“Well,” Tori replied slowly. The fact that no one could hijack his seals had been bugging her for years. He knew this, because his and Kushina’s own dismissive attitudes were why she’d been stuck on it. He knew this about her. She shouldn’t have to lie and back off. “I’ve been mulling it over, and I thrive under stress.”

Minato sighed loudly. He still seemed tense, but he wasn’t exactly angry, she didn’t think.

“We need to destroy it, even if you think the passage is inaccessible,” Minato told her. “Tori, I cannot stress how dangerous it is to leave evidence–” He cut himself off, frowning. “Shit, I can access it.”

And then he was gone. Tori shifted awkwardly, peering around her. She definitely wasn’t anywhere near Konoha. The amount of pine meant she’d probably ended up way further north, although she didn’t have enough light to be identifying exact species to narrow it down much further than that. How the hell did Minato aim this thing?

Tori was soaked, and the forest was colder than a Fire Country night. She shivered and peeled off her outer layer, wringing it out. A few minutes later, Minato returned, now also wet.

“Good news is, I destroyed it for you,” he told her. He still sounded stressed, but there was a hint of relief in there. “So that problem, at the very least, has been resolved.”

Minato was not mad at her for breaking his jutsu, per se, but everything about his body language was deeply tense. He banned her from ever drawing it up again without his direct supervision, or even mentioning the idea of it to anyone. Now that Tori wasn’t afraid of dying alone in a cave, it occurred to her that Minato had hundreds of his seals in Konoha. Tens of them were in his house alone. One was in the Kyuubi’s seal. If an enemy could do what Tori just did, they were all fucked.

Tori was very certain no one else on the planet could do what she did in this very specific regard, including Minato himself. But perhaps a motivated person could copy her, or an informed person could follow her line of research to figure it out themselves.

“Okay,” Minato finished his very long list of commands on things she was never even to think about doing again. He took a deep breath. “Now we can move on to the other problem. Your teammate did what?”

She walked him through the story again, and was relieved that she seemed too tired to cry. That asshole wasn’t worth her tears, although she still felt deeply stupid and almost embarrassed as she described what happened to Minato. She felt like a whiny kid recalling the passive aggressive comments, and then like a moron when she described trusting his plan.

When she was done, Minato said very slowly, “I want you to understand that I believe you, Tori. However, as Hokage, I will have to do an investigation before making any decisions.”

Tori frowned. “So no one sent a message?”

Minato raised an eyebrow. “Tori, you beat any message they could get to me.”

That seemed wrong, as Tori had also had this whole upsetting detour where she’d nearly drowned in an underground room.

“Okay,” Tori replied dully. “What do you want me to do?”

If he made her go back to her mission, she was going to throw a fit. Instead, he put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“You successfully completed your assigned part of the mission,” he said. “And, as much as you scared me, I’m really glad you didn’t die. I think you should get some rest.”

He brought her to his home. Tori had not seen full light in days, and even the kitchen overhead light made her squint and blink rapidly when he switched it on.

“I want to hear what they report before they know you made it back alive,” he told her in a hushed tone. “So lay low and hang out here a few days.”

Tori squinted at him. “That’s pretty mean,” she assessed. “I like it.”

She wasn’t sure how he would treat this situation if it happened to another shinobi. Certainly he wouldn’t let most people stay in his home; they didn’t exactly have a revolving door of house guests. It made her feel better, she thought as she showered off in the guest bathroom, to be reminded someone did value her as more than a tool or an obstacle.

Even if he commented about the mission first, her brain reminded her traitorously.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, a set of women’s pajamas had appeared neatly-folded on the guest bed. They were almost definitely Kushina’s, and given Kushina was significantly taller than her, fit comfortably loose. Tori stepped out of the guest bedroom to find Kushina angrily chopping vegetables in the kitchen.

“It’s 2 AM,” Tori told her. “What are you doing?”

Kushina paused, sticking her bottom lip out at Tori. She was wearing a baggy shirt that came down to mid-thigh and her hair was braided back and wrapped for sleep. Tori barely had time to react before she was in a hug.

“I’m working out my feelings in a productive way,” Kushina said, releasing her. “Besides, you need to eat.”

Tori did not want to admit she wanted a longer hug. Instead, she persuaded Kushina to let her eat cup ramen instead of the full course meal Kushina appeared to be preparing to make. Kushina did insist she felt better chopping things up and she was only saving herself time doing it later for dinner, so Tori sat at the table and listened to the rhythmic sound of Kushina taking out her anger on some carrots.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Kushina insisted more than once. Minato might have told her the basics to explain Tori’s presence, but surely Kushina didn’t know all the details of Tori’s mission. She was in no place to know if Tori had actually done anything wrong or not. Still, sometimes Kushina’s blind faith was reassuring.

“Thanks for the PJs,” Tori told her before escaping to bed.

She’d never stayed overnight in the Uzumaki-Namikaze house. She’d only ever seen the guest bedroom to dump her coat off before a party. But the bed was comfortable and had a thick comforter, and she found herself bone-tired. She fell asleep immediately.

#reborn au #my writing #this is almost 7k making it TWICE as long as i wanted it to be. why

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dizzyduck44 · 3 months

Text

Red Bull’s True Colours?

I’m not sure how I feel about this. To read Red Bull’s defence of why Checo was made to drive back to the pits, it seems that a race win can be bought for 25,000 euros and a three place grid penalty.

Red Bull do everything in their power to give people a stick to hit Max with don’t they? Do they just not care about Checo’s career or safety? Or the safety of anyone one else on track?

With a fan base that wants to reduce Lando’s first win down to a lucky safety car. And yes every team does it to some extent. McLaren telling Oscar to behave in Miami as not to cause a safety car. Ferrari’s controlling of McLaren in Monaco. Aston and Haas specialising in having one car be a road block at the front so your team mate can catch up and pass people. Red Bull are not alone here but to be so blatantly chill about it when their actions could have ended another driver’s race. I think it’s time Red Bull fans avoid the topic of safety cars period!!!! (Yes I know Team LH44, it had to be said).

I know Will Buxton has not minced his words about this and honestly it hard to miss the point he was making. Breaking the rules to secure a win is cheating. But what is the other side of this? Take the win from Max when he (and maybe only him at Red Bull) did nothing wrong?

Should both McLaren and Mercedes drivers feel cheated out a potential win? Hell yes.

But as we saw yesterday with the Max fans coming for Lando, it won’t be the people who made this dangerous decision who will get slaughtered. Fans will go for Max and Checo!

I agree the penalty is too lenient. What stops another team thinking well if that all the punishment is . . . . .

So make the team suffer. Lose constructors points for that race. Exclusion from the next sprint race. A 150,000 Euro fine to come out of their cost cap. Make it so a team would have to be desperate to do something so stupid again. Red Bull are many things, I’ve never thought they were desperate.

At this point I feel for their drivers. Checo had a decent reputation before going to Red Bull. They are trying everything to screw that over. And poor Max, still gets labelled a “dirty driver”. No Max was an immature driver who become an over ambitious driver who settled into the World Champion we all knew he would become (whether you liked him or not). Sadly he drives for a team with the morals and ethics of pond weed who even when he drives brilliantly (as he did yesterday) the world and its dog can turn round and question did he deserve it.

Normally I’m the one promoting calm and don’t go after people, but maybe this time people do need to let Red Bull and the FiA and F1 know how they feel about this. Because how do we stop it happening again.

#canadian gp 2024 #red bull racing #sergio perez #max verstappen #mclaren f1 #lando norris #oscar piastri #mercedes f1 #lewis hamilton #george russell

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purringfayestudio · 9 months

Note

I don’t know if you’re at all interested in discussing your recent post about your stop motion being tagged as body horror (if not, please feel free to ignore this, that’s totally fine!) but I can see where people are coming from. Even if it’s in fabric form, you are essentially showing a body being turned inside out, which could be upsetting to some. I agree that a body horror tag might be a bit of an extreme take on it, but I understand the feeling, and I can understand wanting to warn others who might be triggered by that sort of thing. Of course, if the tag makes you uncomfortable, that’s totally okay too! If making body horror wasn’t your intention, it makes sense that you may not want to see your art labeled that way. I think there really is no right answer, but I just thought it was an interesting thing to consider. Hopefully this isn’t offensive or a bother, I certainly didn’t mean it that way!

Oh I understand where people are coming from, I just personally think they're mistaken in their connection between a plushie and the grotesque images you'll find in the real body horror genre, and that they are disconnected from the ethical issues surrounding the term which make it inappropriate to reduce its definition to a very normal plushie-making process.

"Essentially showing a body being turned inside-out" It's a plushie, and an unfinished, undefined, fabric bundle in a rough animal shape at that point. At what point do we define a "body"? Do people feel the same when an artist starts a 2D drawing with a sketch of the underlying skeleton? Or when a sculptor morphs the clay between their hands? They're going to be "bodies" once finished, after all. Is it body horror when we eat animal-shaped cookies? Are people truly psychologically disturbed by these things so much that what feels like dozens of people have "warned" others in my tags? Or is it just that weird little feeling you get when you see something unexpected?

What people feel when they encounter something is valid, but how we define it matters. If people want to invent a new tag that better describes the distress people feel at anthropomorphizing or identifying with non-living objects, or the weird feeling at seeing something unexpected, that would be appropriate. Plenty of people have mentioned that part making them feel weird and that's not upsetting at all to me. "Body horror" just isn't it.

That being said I probably won't show it again, because it's distressing when you put in so much work to show a full process only for people to dump triggering things into your tags every time it comes around.

#I know this site is full of anthropomorphizing people but y'all #disconnect from the internet for a moment and go connect with human beings #yes even you ultra introverts - trust me I am one

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chaoticloving · 2 years

Text

Born to Die

koh!harry styles x mob!reader

summery: after being double crossed, y/n is forced into making a deal with the devil.

warnings: death, murder, mentions of kidnapping and guns also anything related to hell and the mafia (surprise ik), angst and lil smut if you squint

w/c: 5.2k

a/n: HALLOWEEN FIC!!! also want to say that murder is not cool, and running a mafia is not cool. please like a reblog this since its something i normally don't do and i want to know all of your thoughts!!! also because i might've failed a test because i was writing this instead of studying!!! enjoy!

Y/n by no means was a good person. Morally, sure, she did everything that allied with her beliefs, but ethically, she was a nightmare. From being known as a heartless woman to being one of the most feared people in history–maybe, other than Satan–she knew the power she possessed, her effect on people.

She got her start in the casino world. She opened her first casino by age nineteen, using her charm and wit to impress men with big pockets to take her casino off the ground and launch it to success. Success, of course, leads to money, which leads to power and power leads to anything. Specifically for Y/n, that anything was weapons trading, money laundering, extortion, and the bright idea to dabble into politics.

As time went on, so did the list of enemies. So, it was about time for them to band together to take down the empire that Y/n built.

The day started out normal. Y/n woke up in her private mansion, one in the rich and private suburbs of New York. No one knew where she lived, except her “friend”, Angelo. Although she would never call him when she was in trouble–which is never–he was competent enough to do her “dirty” work. Angelo came from a wealthy background, a rich school boy who had no idea how destroyed the world was. He was just desperate to be seen as “edgy”. He was a good boy who knew how to follow orders, that's all she needed.

It was nearly two in the afternoon, Y/n’s sleep cycle was all out of whack. She tries her best to stay awake as much as she can. It’s hard when there's no one to lean on but would she even trust someone? Could she?

Y/n does her ‘morning’ routine: shower, teeth, cleanser, makeup, and then hair. She sighs as she admires herself in the mirror. She had a scar on her cheek bone. It was faint, yet noticeable if you looked hard enough. She remembers getting it too; the day when she walked away with a bleeding cheek and then the man who did that to her laid there a bullet hole in the head. It was probably the day her crime boss title was given, a well deserved name for the most feared person in the world.

Her face, though, was perfect. She knows what her grunts say about her–mainly tame things, as the last time she heard something inappropriate got to see the barrel of her gun–but what truly fills her ego is the face of some man, begging for mercy, begging her to tell her boss that they’ll do anything, then revealing herself as the boss.

In her morning, she felt peaceful. She changed into some athletic clothes, heading to her gym to do some boxing, but her phone rang out. She sighed as she said Angelo’s name–this couldn’t be good.

“Boss.” His voice cracked, and it just pissed Y/n off more.

“Spit it out.”

“My house was ransacked.” She sighed as she heard this, running her fingers through her hair. “Including the safe that kept your location.”

She hung up the phone and raced back to her room. She grabbed her go bag in the back of her closet when she heard her front doors being knocked down. Y/n swore as she loaded her gun, knowing she would have to fight her way out of this, and she knew exactly who she would have to fight.

A man with a fake deep voice, Alister, was telling the men to travel in a group. Zeke, another casino owner with a terrible cough from smoking, agrees saying to go down the hall to her bedroom.

That caught Y/n’s attention, they seemed to know where her room was despite that information not being in Angelo’s safe; she knew what that meant, and groaned when she knew she’d have to do more work after this.

Y/n took a deep breath when her bedroom door whipped open, a series of footsteps following along. “You go first.” “No you go!” “I went first in through the front door. Gerry go.” “Hell fuckin no.”

Bag over her shoulder, gun locked and ready, Y/n opened the closet door gun drawn in front. She fired a few bullets, knowing she landed from the grunts let out by a couple on the men, then lunged for the bedroom door. She sprinted out, hearing bullets fired at her and turned the corner, heading for the exit. As she ran down the stairs though, a bullet went through her ankle, tripping and falling right on her head.

…

Harry was tired.

He always seemed to be these days, or nights really. He was always in a sour mood, but what could you expect from the king of hell? It was his whole thing, being angry and mad all the time, but he was getting tired of it. The limited emotions would soon turn to nothingness, and he wasn’t sure what he preferred.

The anger reminded him of his early king days. When he was first given the position, he gave into the anger and madness that came with Hell and turned it into energy.

It was important to note that just because someone was sent to hell didn’t mean Harry liked them, in fact, he hated all of them.

Hell was ruled in weird ways. You had anyone who did anything majorly wrong, but you also had those who were truly evil, the ones that fueled Harry’s hatred for human kind and got the worst tourter out of anyone.

Harry groaned as he sat on his desk. He knew this was truly Hell because he had a stack of paperwork to go over. Niall had dropped off a couple of stacks of people who would most likely be sent down today. They used statistical probability to see who on the “bound to hell list” would most likely get themselves killed that day and what to expect.

Harry sipped his drink, a special Hell coffee brew that the devils made to perfection, as looked at the list. The normal people everyday, a couple people he knew, some workers downstairs had a bet on to see when they’d go, a rich guy, a gang leader, a politician, etc.

Harry’s eyes wandered back to the gang leader, recognizing the name from multiple people's cause of death section.

Y/n Y/l/n was a human he recognized, she was one of the few he could recognize and empathize with from his time as a human. He appreciated how she didn’t do anything rash. She had a plan for everything and knew what to expect, which caused his eyebrows to raise when he saw her name. According to his stats, she wasn’t due until old age, her COD being simply old age.

It didn’t make sense.

“Niall get in ‘ere.” He spoke into his phone, knowing a couple seconds later he would be knocking on the door. “Comin.”

“What’cha want boss?” Niall walked in with his hands in his pockets.

“Why is Y/l/n in this list?” He threw her file to Niall, who skimmed it. “She isn’t due for a few more decades.”

“Huh.”

“What does that mean?” Harry was getting impatient, not understanding why the man was taking his sweet time.

“You remember that angel that kept fucking with the people we like?”

Harry gave him a blank look.

“Louis punched him and got in trouble with the people upstairs.”

“The guy with the fucked up jaw?” Harry remembered. “What about ‘em?”

“Angelo, yeah.” Niall clarified. “That’s her COD. He causes her death.”

He tosses the file back to Harry and he quickly rereads the file. “Leave me.”

“Alright.” Naill heads to the exit, but hesitates at the door. “I know she's one of the better worse ones, but don’t do anything that’ll get you in trouble with upstairs.”

Harry just glares at him in return.

…

Y/n woke up in a haze.

At first, she didn’t want to wake up. The couch she was laying on was too comfy, and warmth radiating from a fire relaxed her deeply–but soon remembered the events that just transpired.

She quickly gets on her feet, and is surprised when she doesn’t wince on her foot. She takes in her surroundings. She was in a room that seemed weirdly intimate; soft walls painted red illuminated with fire on candles and torches that emitted a soft smell of fresh rain. The noise though copied the smell. It sounded as though there was a thunderstorm outside, but it was off, it sounded artificial.

She didn’t think about it too much though. Her main priority was leaving this hell hole.

There was a single door and Y/n tried to unlock it but it wouldn’t budge.

She had to calm herself down from what was going on. She tried to think of how long she had passed out and who kidnapped her.

She tried to find a secret compartment, something to get her out of here, but when she heard the door handle jiggle, she grabbed a candle.

She was met with a man, hair set back with a strand in front. “Woah there lady.” He held his hands up in defense. “I’m not gonna hurt you, just coming to get you out of this stuffy room.

She didn’t say anything or lower the candle.

The man sighed. “Fine. Look, I'm Zayn and my boss wants to meet you. I don’t even know if what he did was allowed but I don’t really want to get yelled at right now do can you please just follow me.”

“Who is your boss?” She questioned. “What did you do to me while I was out?”

“Oh, for god's sake nothing! No one did. Man, just because I’m a devil doesn’t mean I act as disgustingly as some of those humans.” The man, Zayn, seemed deeply offended by her question, and her implying he was a “human”.

“Who is your boss?” She started again.

“Not one of your enemies, in fact, I’d say he's a huge fan. He is really impressed with your work.” Zayn revealed. “So if you would follow me.”

She didn’t have much of a choice and followed Zayn. “Leave the candle please.”

She sighed but complied, she hated being put into a corner like this.

Y/n followed behind him, keeping her wits about her and watching the man’s hands very carefully. They walked down the hall but stopped at the room with grand doors. “Alright so you go in there. “ He knocked on the door and they swung open quickly. Y/n felt a powerful presence from the desk and could barely make out a figure.

“In ya go.” Zayn pushed her in and closed the door. The room was illuminated, just like in the other room, with a series of candles, but there was a chandelier with candles above the desk, revealing the figure.

“Hello darling.” The man smiled, standing up and walking to the other side of his desk, sticking out his hand. “I’m Harry.”

Y/n shaked his hand, a firm yet not overpowering grip on both ends. “I don’t know you, why am I here?”

Harry smiled, she was just like in her file. “I’m here to make a deal.”

“A deal?” She questioned. “You kidnapped me, forced me here, and now want a deal.”

“Yup.” He smiled.

“What do I have that you need?” As much as Y/n hated to admit it, this Harry had the upper hand, so why did he need a deal?

“You make my work here much better, and you need revenge.” He said simply, like she knew what here was.

“You talk like I know you. Like I know this place.”

“Oh my bad darling, I’m sure you have some questions.” He smiled, walking over to the windows, covered by draps. “You’re in Hell.” He dramatically revealed the outside, showing what looked like a red storm with red lightning and rain.

“Are you one of the LSD dealers?” She laughed. It made Harry’s dead heart pound and stomach drop. He looked back to her with a disappointed yet angry look. “I’m not buyin’ anything, alright?”

“I’m Harry, King of Hell. And I just saved your life from a bunch of shitty men who would like nothing more than killing you.” He seethed, not used to people not taking him seriously. “You send the most deserving people here, you’re my top supplier, and I saved your life so you could get revenge on the reason you would be dead.”

“Sure, you saved my life by taking me to Hell.”

“Do you want me to send you back?” Harry asked, walking over to the fireplace and flicking his wrist. “This is what you have waiting for you when you go back.

Y/n’s curiosity of the better of her and walked forward to the fire. She peered into it and saw herself laying on the ground of her home. The scene moved to her angry enemies close to her body, guns ready.

Y/n didn’t feel right. She knew she was here, but by looking at the image of herself she could feel her process being elsewhere, presumably with guns aimed at her head.

This man couldn’t be telling the truth, could he? Is he even a man?

“Why aren’t I dead?” Is all she asked, not looking at Harry, eyes staying on herself.

“Time works differently down here.” He shrugged, partly glad she was coming around. “I was able to pull you down here when you hit your head. But because coming to Hell takes up lots of energy, and you were already injured, you were out for what would’ve been the equivalent for a day.”

“A day?”

“25 hours if you want to be precise, but yeah.”

Y/n couldn’t help but believe him. And looking at herself, helpless, and closer to death than what she is now, she didn’t have any other move then to agree to his deal. She’d come up with some other plan to cross him.

How hard could it be to double cross the devil?

“What are the terms of your deal?”

A sly smile swept across Harry’s face. “I’ll save your life if you help me kill an angel.”

“That’s all?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Harry chided, walking over to his desk and taking the file he needed. “Angels are hard to kill. And this one is someone close to you.”

He flung the file over and Y/n caught it, not interested in thinking about the physics or “magic” that made the manilla folder guilde over to her simply.

“Angelo?” She asked in a monotone voice. “Not that good of a cover name, huh?” She smiled as she read the information of the Angel. The pieces fit together with all of his little mannerisms, the sacredness with anything murdery and lying. Harry noted the sly smiled that mimicked his earlier. She knew this girl was insane, but was it bad that he liked it? Why does he care though, he’s the King of Hell, he’s supposed to do bad things.

“How do I kill it?” She asked, now meeting Harry’s eyes.

“Oh, “I” now? You gonna kill him yourself?”

“I’m guessing so if that’s the reason you saved me.” She remarked. “How do we kill it then?”

“I know a place in the upper world that we can travel to that has information on all this stuff.” Harry huffs, slowly approaching Y/n. “Do we have a deal?”

Harry held out his hand, ready to shake. Y/n glance down to the hand then to his eyes; they were a red-yellow with a pupil like a cat but didn’t quite go with his face. His face had no marks though, his skin was a little rough but clear–maybe that's what being the King of Hell does to you.

She shook his hand. Firm hands met each other, hers was deathly cold while his were burning.

“I will need to send you up there and to be honest, I’ve never done this before so bear with me here, love.” Harry smiled as he leaned in and kissed the back of her hand, causing her to feel faint again.

…

She felt herself laying on the ground, tired beyond belief. She heards guns loading and thought for a second she imagined everything, the fire room, the red lightning, the devil, the king. She breathed in and couldn’t believe this would be her final seconds, Y/n couldn’t let herself go out like this.

…

Harry has never brought someone down to Hell before. He was glad it took too long for Y/n to awaken because he was in no shape to have a conversation while he was passed out too–coincidentally, for the same time Y/n was. But bringing someone back to the human world and himself was such a heavy task. He looked around and was outside, “breathing” in the fresh air. It was lightly raining, nothing like the fire rain back in Hell, but it had a calming presence like never before.

It took him a second to realize what was going to happen inside of the home. He barraged in though the grand doors–mad at himself he couldn’t appear inside–and was met with quite the scene.

Y/n is barely holding herself up, men were crowding around her and tasting victory. Her eyes were dropping, her skin tone cooled dramatically then even what it was before. Harry felt guilt creeping in, he needed to do something, but luckily, all eyes were on him when the door slammed shut behind him.

“Who’s this fucker, huh?” The tall and lanky pointed his gun to Harry. “This the real Boss? Knew a weak fucker like you couldn’t be this big bad mob boss.”

Laughter rang out, the men now aiming their guns towards Harry. Before Harry could retaliate, Y/n landed a punch on the man who spoke who fell to the ground. Harry knew this was his chance to ask on his side of the deal, he practically teleported to the other men and all he had to do was press on their head, knocking them out, giving Niall some more paper down below.

Y/n had collapsed and Harry was just able to save her from hitting her head again.

Harry knew what he needed to do and didn't hesitate.

He picked her up and ran outside until he found a car. It was presumably hers and he was lucky enough that he was able to start it. He has never driven a car before but it was pretty intuitive, she slammed on the gas pedal and headed to the city.

Harry soon found out he hated cars. If he wasn't so tired he probably would have been able to teleport Y/n and himself directly to wherever they needed to go, but of course, he is stuck with this god forsaken mode of transportation. He got lost a couple times too, but eventually he made it into the city, all while Y/n was passed out in the passenger seat.

A couple minutes after getting off of some exit, he heard Y/n groan and shuffle around.

Harry had to admit, it was impressive how quickly she came to her senses after being knocked out. He looked at her and was surprised to see a knife at his throat. “Where are you taking me?”

He scoffed. “Trust me now, will ya?” She had an unimpressed look on her face. “We are going to the New York Public Library, or “possessor secretorum celi et inferni” as we call it.”

“Why would we go to the fucking library?”

“Because there's a section that's only accessible to demons and angels walking the earth. That way we can figure out how you’re going to kill that bitch of an angel.” Harry clairfied, gently guiding her hand down and out of view from onlookers while driving. He pulled around and eventually found a parking spot.

“Why do I have to kill Angelo?” She asked, placing her knife back into its secret spot–Harry could imagine what other weapons, and maybe not weapons, were under her clothes too–then getting out of the car. “You’re the king of death, why don’t you just kill him?”

Harry sighed, brushing his long hair out of his face while grabbing a pair of sunglasses from the car, putting them over his devil eyes. “The only thing both devils and angels know is that they can’t ‘kill’ one another, a human has to do that.”

They walked into the library, Harry leading the way up the stairs and down a long and abandoned hallway. It was a clique. A complete and utter clique. Going down a dark hallway to find a secret room with the devil himself.

Harry did some hand motion to the wall, a pentagram appeared and then Harry grabbed Y/n’s hand. “Walk with me.”

Y/n was about to ask “walk where?” but Harry had practically pulled her through the wall. She stumbled a bit, but regained herself when she let go of Harry’s hand. She looked around and was met with a small dusty room. Harry flicked his wrist and the littering of candles around the room lit up. Harry sighed and began taking books off of a bookshelf.

“Start looking for anything about Angels.” Harry asked. “This could take awhile.”

“This place doesn’t seem to get used too often.” Y/n remarked, starting at the opposite book shelf. “It’s very Narnia-like.”

“Narnia?”

“It’s this children's book where there's another world.” She summarized. “This place, and Hell I guess, are very other-wordly. Just not what one would normally imagine.”

“What? Don’t like the idea of there being Hell?” Harry chuckled, putting book after book back on the shelf.

“I never really thought much about it. I knew if there was Hell, I’d go there, but that didn’t really stop me from everything.” She replied. “What about you? How does one become the King of Hell?”

“I was a human, before. I didn’t have the best life, I was crossed, lied to, and used.” Y/n noticed a bit of a horse sound coming from him, but it was quickly gone after he cleared his throat. “All that creates pain, then anger, and I guess it was enough anger to get Lucifer’s attention. He made me be the perfect devil to take over as King when I died so he could deal with some other plans.”

Y/n nodded and kept checking books. She soon realized that all the books in her row were about devils and demons. There was an interesting page though that she read, titled “The Devil's Tourture”. She kept reading, then she found the most interesting paragraph.

Any type of dark entity is subject to toutrue from this one thing. They are groomed to bring the most perfect pain, the best way to get humans to live their worst life, so the solution on how to kill a Devil? Make him repent. Make him sorry for his past actions, make him change his whole ideology, make him regret his dead life and wish to be better. It doesn’t matter the motivation, whether it be love, greed, lust; the important part is making sure to feel remorse.

“Y/n?” Speak of the Devil, literally. Harry’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts while she closed the book shut. “I got something.”

Y/n placed the book back onto the shelf and walked over to Harry. “Seems like you just gotta make him sin.” Harry laughed. “Shouldn’t be too hard, fucker set up your death.”

Y/n scoffed at the irony, all she has to do tonight is make an Angel sin and a Devil repent, what could be hard about that?

“Do you know where Angelo could be?” Harry asked, heading out of the claustrophobic room, Y/n next to him.

“I tagged him when I first met him. He normally hangs out in his home on the upper east side.” Harry nodded, taking off the sunglasses and making a quick haste to the exit. She took the keys out of Harry's hand and reached for the driver's seat. “No offense but you can’t drive.”

Harry’s eyes got darker when he started at Y/n, but she didn’t move. He gave way and walked shamly over to the passenger’s side. He could not imagine that happening down in Hell, but up here, it’s Y/n’s territory.

The drive would be short, that’s what Y/n assured Harry as he looked a little pale, his warm undertones turning cold. She decided to be nice to get him off the drive. “Why do you want to kill Angelo so bad?”

Harry smiled. “He is famous for going after Hell’s favorite people. You for example.” Harry looked over to Y/n. She notices his look on his face and swears that his red eyes go sea-green for a second. This could be easier than I thought. “Like I said, you’re my top supplier. You send the ones who really need to be punished. You’re already better than some of the Devils I sent up here to do that.”

“Oh stop, or I’ll think you’re flirting with me.” She laughed. She hated herself in the moment, it made her feel young when she was first starting out in the mob world and no one took her seriously. She hated flirting; the plan was to go the rest of her life without anyone else, they would just slow her down and deep down she knew nobody would understand her. But flirting with the devil was so much easier then she thought it would be. At least he sort of understood some of her mind.

Harry laughed. A sweetly weird sound coming from him. She never thought a devil could make that noise.

“So what if I am? Don’t get to see a lot of pretty girls down in Hell.” He replied. Harry didn’t like the feeling in his chest, it reminded him of when he was about to die. So he decided to change the subject. “How’d you get that scar?”

Y/n shrugged her shoulders. “I killed someone.”

She pulled up to a luxurious house, soon exiting the car with Harry on her heels. “So what do I do? Have sex with him?

“No, don’t be so vulgar.” Don’t be so jealous. “You can do what you want but it should just be easy to make him lust for you, or to get him greedy.”

She nodded, then unlocked the door with a copy she had made when she first met Angelo. She turned back around to look at Harry but he was gone yet his presence was felt. She went inside.

“Angelo?” She screamed into the house. A lanky man came running though, shock written all over his face as he came face to face with his boss.

“Boss? I-” His voice was scared until Y/n crashed into his arms, fake tears running down her cheeks.

“Angelo, th-these men came into my house and they almost killed me. I-I was cornered I could barely get out. I know they’re following me and I have no one who I trust more than you.” She looked up at Angelo, he had a terrible poker face and she could seem the gleam in his eye. “Please, I need your help. I need you Angleo.”

“It’s okay, darling. I got you.” He got her into a hug lucky because Y/n couldn’t hold back on the disgust written on her face. When Angleo said the name, it was terrible, it just didn’t sound right.

“You’ve always been there for me. Please, let me make it up to you.” She broke away from his hug but placed her hands on his cheek, leaning in slowly.

“Oh, you, you don’t have to…do that.” His breathing was more irregular. She paused less than an inch away from his lips.

“I want to.” She said, “Do you?”

“Yes.” He admitted but before their lips could touch he howled in great pain, falling to the floor.

Harry appeared behind Y/n, a sly smile on his face. His eyes were extra red, almost as if his iris was made of blood. “Finally.”

“Harry?” Angelo weezed.

Harry stepped forward from behind her shadow and knelt down to Angelo. “That’s right. Oh don’t get like that. You just lost that’s it.”

“How?”

“Because you made someone very important up here mad, and I took notice.” Harry shrugged. “Now go cry to god or whatever emptiness you’re going to face.”

Harry stood up and kicked him. He turned back to Y/n who also had a smile on his face. Harry felt that weird pang in his chest again. He locked eyes with her, both taking a step forward, embracing each other.

They kissed, hard. Harry never understood what it meant to kiss someone passionately like it was described in the books he read long ago, but now he did. His hand wandered, so did hers. She walked him backwards until he fell onto the couch, causing Y/n to straddle his lap.

“Fuck, Harry.” She tasted sweet oddly enough, and as Harry found himself getting more addicted the more the pain in his chest arrived. “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to live without you.”

Harry broke from the kiss, looking her in the eye and nodded, kissing her deeply again. He needed to find a way to get Lucifer back, a way for him to not be King of Hell anymore, a way to stay with Y/n. He prayed for some way to make him alive, to make him be able to be with her.

“I’ll stay. I’ll stay forever–”

His voice stopped working. His throat got immensely dry. He could feel the way that Y/n smiled against his mouth, breaking away to look at Harry. He looked up to her, confused and partly terrified.

“That sounds like repenting to me.” She tsked. “That’s a big no no, Harry.”

Harry’s hands clawed at her for some comfort, he didn’t know what was happening to him. He felt scared for the first time after his death.

“Turns out killing Angels and Devils is easy.” She smiled. “Angels you have to make sin, and Devils you have to make repent. Who knew?”

Harry never felt betrayed like this before. He always knew in his living life he was a hopeless romantic, he just couldn’t believe the Devil version of him is one too. He should’ve known Y/n would do this to him, she's just as cruel as he is, or was.

“I’m sorry. You probably are my soulmate.” Her words did sound sorrowful, more than her acting with Angelo. “But this is about survival, Harry. And I owed a great debt to you that couldn’t have been paid off with one Angel’s death.”

Harry’s vision started to close, he knew the last thing he would ever see would be the devil, shining up above him with a face he so badly wanted to kiss. His last thoughts were that he didn’t regret this, saving her. He would gladly die a thousand deaths if it meant she would live, if he could kiss her just once.

“I’ll see you down there, Harry.”

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olreid · 2 years

Note

Question regarding Neverafter: how much do you think Brennan is trying to do horror? The players and the format are working against him, but what do you think of the world he’s created? I honestly can’t tell how much he wants them to commit or not.

yeah i guess at this point it sort of feels like he's let the horror go lol. it seems like he's been pulling his punches a lot; the biggest example is letting pinnochio be his own warlock patron but also giving tim the power to put people in the book without confronting him with the ethics of it and even going so far as to be like. sure, they're happy in there :) there's also just a constant undercurrent of like. letting players give help actions and have advantage, or not imposing disadvantage even when the roleplay calls for it. this is EASILY incorporated into the horror -- the realization that the story prioritizes your life over that of minor characters and so contact with you is often fatal for them is terrifying -- but it's reflexive rather than intentional and so it's left unremarked upon and works against the tone of the season rather than for it. most recently when they got to the tundra and had levels of exhaustion and then he just FAST FORWARDED THROUGH IT... ill tell you right now if that was a naddpod episode someone would have died of exposure and rightfully so.

a lot of the horror seems to happen offscreen (elody: i found your body in the other world) or in character backstories that the players often don't take the time to explore; overall it seems like the horror at this point is largely confined to combat which is like. just how any normal season of d20 works. like there are always scary villains.... its not enough to have an extra scary boss if theyre just going to beat it in 3 or 4 rounds... AND he keeps putting in these like. cheat codes into the fights so that they dont even have to BEAT the bosses they just have to like. break the wolf's chains or outlast the dogfish or whatever. THE PARTY HAS ONLY DIED ONCE and even then they all died together so there was no like. player that had to face death alone OR player that was the only one left alive and had to go on living alone... there is no reason that we haven't had another death by now! acoc showed that if he wants to kill a party member he absolutely can.

i also agree with others who have said that there's just too many moving parts for things to really feel tight and well-executed. the stepmother and the fairies who were omnipresent threats at the season's start are now apparently unable to reach the party for basically no reason at all which removes a lot of the fear. you're not supposed to say the authors' names or there will be grievous consequences but nothing has happened even though they've slipped up multiple times. they destroyed a wing of the lines between and there was no effect on their dimension. they also left npcs in there e.g. little miss muffett and it was apparently just fine. we haven't heard from scheherezade or aesop or any other dimensions in weeks. i appreciate that brennan wanted to give the party options and build a fleshed-out world AND that with improv some level of discontinuity comes with the territory but it really just lowers the stakes when villains or horrors only exist if they're on the party's mind and fade to the background as soon as the party becomes interested in something else. what's horrifying about a world where you have to actively seek out the horror?

he was saying in the last adventuring party like 'oh i created all these factions and had no idea what you all would gravitate towards in the season.' so it seems like most of the 'horror' was in the design of the world and the backstories of the characters etc and then he just let players loose within that framework to do whatever they want rather than intentionally injecting horror into the rhythms of play, game mechanics, plot structure, etc. we have all said over and over again that this is largely what comes of insisting on using d&d no matter the genre or season concept, despite the fact that there are tons of indie ttrpgs out there specifically designed to facilitate horror.

i'll be really interested to see how the season wraps up because there is absolutely still room for a horrifying ending but it's feeling less and less likely and more and more like the party is going to be allowed to just fully win and fix everything. we shall see!

#asks #anon #neverafter

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nat-of-personifs · 4 months

Text

So You Want To Eat A Personification

One day, it was asked what personif would taste like.

Well, it depends on your relation to that personif, the part of the personif you’re eating, how you’re eating the personif, and which personif you’re eating. The Foundation is agreed by all to be very unpleasant except for O5-10 Kay Martin, and they drink coffee the way they drink coffee, so I don’t think they’re the best judge on taste anyway.

Meat and other bodily parts taken from a dead personif will of course be different from such sliced or siphoned from a living one. Blood often becomes tasteless, which is, according to Geog, the reason so many people in the modern day worship the HRE. They ingested his blood accidentally through the water supply.

Blood is the most common part of personif consumed, due to its significance in human culture as a whole, its relatively easy acquisition, and the fact it won’t kill you instantly if it’s your first time eating personif the way cerebrospinal fluid would. If you are eating the blood of a personif for the first time and have not had exchange for very long with them, 1) please compare your existing knowledge of the personif to the BITE model one more time to make sure she’s not actually a cultspirit because a lot of cultspirits do this to signal that you’re taken to other personifs, 2) your safe dose is less than a cup. Exact dosages that will not result in you falling violently ill vary depending on person, but generally if you start feeling nauseous, stop and drink a normal liquid.

Fat and muscle are also relatively beginner-safe parts of a personif to try. The most common places of harvest are the thighs and forearms for reasons that are immediately apparent if you look at an impact play safety guide.

Organs! Now, I hope I don’t have to say that unless you have been provided with an adequate explanation for how they were able to source organ meat from a living personif that doesn’t entail torture, you probably shouldn’t eat it and it would be wise to leave immediately and call anyone other than the SCP Foundation. Assuming you are sure the kidney on your table was sourced somewhat ethically, I’ll run through a list of some major organs and explain what they might taste like based on common symbolism associated with them. For OTJs and STJs, because NTJs don’t take as well to being eaten in general.

Eyes: they’re often crunchy like glass and may cut your mouth like glass would, but I’ve never put glass in that particular orifice of my body so I wouldn’t know. I also have never eaten an eye because the texture freaks me out.

Nose: it has been universally reported that it will taste the way the personif’s true body smells.

Lips: lecterns and mass protests.

Neck: I’ll be talking about that on @yourcityisanomega.

Heart: do NOT eat this unless you know the personif personally because you WILL die. I cannot emphasize enough that with these fuckers symbolism is everything. If you do know the personif well enough to not die, I can’t give you any pointers on the taste other than that it will be very strong, and you’ll likely feel as if you’re on the sugar high of your life afterward. Because you are. You’re high. You’re eating a creature made out of your own thoughts. You probably need to reevaluate your work-life balance. How are your children doing? Do you have children at all? Did you want to before you met this personif? (And for the love of the god that you’ve replaced with her don’t have children WITH the personif it’s got a higher chance of going wrong than fucking your sibling will and also if you know the personif that well you’re probably in charge of a major part of her and that’s dubcon by default.)

Liver, kidneys, anything part of the urinary system: it’s going to smell and taste like the wastewater treatment plant no matter what you do because that’s what it fucking is. Just don’t eat it.

Lungs: again, it’s going to taste the way the true body smells, but the texture will be much more interesting.

Anything in the endocrine system: odd choice, but okay. This is also probably a bad idea to eat as an initiation ritual because you’ll feel like a teenager all over again, and if you’re eating the adrenal glands, you’ve got a high chance of developing an anxiety disorder.

Stomach, intestines, anything in the digestive system: it might taste like actual food. Highly recommend if you’ve known the personif long enough for it not to be a shock. (I really like beef tripe so I’m probably biased on this.)

Reproductive system: @yourcityisanomega.

Brain/cerebrospinal fluid: if you’re not prepared the trip will be worse than Datura. Don’t. Just don’t. It is a controlled substance and you could be arrested, assuming you survive at all. Even a drop of the stuff can knock you out for days reliving the personif’s worst memories. And then you’ll spend the rest of your very short life doing nothing but worshipping them.

Now, why would you want to do any of this?

You might be curious—Geog definitely was. Or you might be French and this isn’t that far removed from your normal diet. But the most likely reason is that you want to ensure that someone can take you out of your personif, but they’ll never take your personif out of you. Eating them facilitates exchange and allows you a slight window into their mind, while you become more susceptible to their influence. Throughout history, many groups have drunken small amounts of personif blood to increase unity in dire situations, or larger amounts as a test of loyalty. The O5 Council requires daily consumption of Ira Siegel for a few months by those undergoing training for the position.

But exchange means letting an outside force manipulate your thoughts, and too much of it turns you into the personif’s puppet, or a very messy codependent father-daughter relationship like with Aaron and Ira. For those who don’t build up tolerance, the shock can kill.

I blame the goihumans discord server for everything.

#cult mention #tw cannibalism #STJ #the Ira brainrot #headcanon #food #personifposting #serious treated crackily #because these are all ideas i unironically hold #scp foundation #*inhales*#hetalia #countryhumans #OTJ #wttt #tagging for reach #cause this applies to all of them yk

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faithfromanewperspective · 7 days

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A) purity culture is a term describing sex negativity in religion and how it impacts people. It's not about like, holding celebrities to high standards

B) you know that conservatives exist in the real world right? They have friends, families, colleagues. Theyre not extremists because they live isolated etc etc. In fact people acting like its a-ok for them to want to destroy peoples rights is what keeps them conservative. If they were ostracised for their viewpoints they may actually reflect on them

C) taylor has had tons of bad friends. Lena Dunham literally molested her sister, for example. You think with Matty then Travis people would have learnt that taylor just doesnt give a fuck about racism, sexism (unless it affects her), etc. Shes not friends with Brittany cos shes trying to convert her- she just doesnt care. She just uses politics as PR- she doesn't actually care

hey anon! thanks for reaching out. working backwards, taylor isn’t a paragon for morality. if she were, she’d do activism properly including when it might reflect poorly on her. I agree, I don’t think she’s in it for some sort of ‘conversion’, she’s just there, and she’s honest about what she believes, but not in any kind of groundbreaking way just like a normal, bare minimum kind of way. more to the point of my post is that I don’t think you need to be a paragon of morality to make a difference. you can be self preservational and only honest when it’s not going to risk your success and still make more of a difference in peoples opinions by being one step less facist or whatever than them, but still being close enough to them that they don’t write you off completely. that’s how people’s minds are softened to new ideas, and most of the time it isn’t intentional (and I don’t think being friends with someone in an attempt to change them in any way is either healthy or ethical, but that’s for another post).

you raise an excellent point though in terms of how do we interact with rapists etc, especially when justice hasn’t been served for them and they’re still living in a world with no consequences. I know what I’d do, I don’t know about taylor or if she cares about figuring out what the right thing to do is there. all I’m saying is that if minds can be changed, sometimes the ways of getting there involve what looks like compromising your morals. we’ve all heard I can fix him. and we can also see that if minds can be changed by interacting in one way it can also happen in the other way and I don’t doubt that has happened to taylor to some extent and we do have a right to be disappointed by that. but like anything it comes with a trade off and taylor being able to post what she did without being brushed off (by some) as ‘a liberal’ and very possibly ‘a marxist’ is one positive aspect. it’s up to you to decide whether the positive outweighs the negative; if I could suggest something to anyone reading this though it’s that if you see the negative outweighing the positive, go and volunteer for a political or altruistic group that you agree with and learn to cultivate hope and confidence in your ability to make a difference, for the sake of your own happiness if nothing else. this advice is for all of us really, but I understand it’s not possible due to a number of constraints for many of us.

I do want to point out that leaning conservative and being a right wing extremist are vastly different things. and you’re so right in that they don’t exist in their own vacuums. for some of them they’re in extremist cults that require a lot of brainwashing and literally restrict who they interact with; for others it’s the small town effect where they never got to know any openly lgbtqia+ people and thus investigated the impacts of certain policies on them or questioned what they were taught about things like poverty being the individual’s fault—but would be open to changing their mind if their kid came out as trans, etc. But I do think in both cases having someone you respect (or at least you can’t bully out of your circles) who thinks differently and is able to articulate why can often be the first step to go from thinking of all liberals as some inhuman ‘other’ to people you don’t agree with but can respect (and maybe eventually learn from). I also think that there are things we can learn from conservatism especially when you look at early industrial era calls to conserve nature, but that’d be taking apart the whole political spectrum and again this isn’t the post for it.

yes, I know what purity culture is. I personally do this thing where I see aspects of it as in similar attitudes and just call it purity culture because often I find that people don’t ever think that just maybe, the same fear and longing for a structure through which to divide the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ that causes people to restrict people’s sexual expression could also result in people judging based on who you are willing to hang out with and it can easily all become performative, much like sexual ‘purity’ is also largely performative. while there is space to understand that who someone hangs out with says a lot about them, it also easily breeds tribalism which often does more harm than good—and a prejudice against people whose motivations you don’t know and won’t ever know unless you talk to them and accept them including their questionable behaviours. it’s not just celebrities we do this to, but I think because we can’t sit down and have a conversation with them or pop into their asks like you just did for me, that it becomes the only way in which we judge them. and I would appreciate if we questioned that sometimes. also some people are just fundamentally selfish but also have enough basic empathy or understanding or morality not to do anything really bad and honestly I think most of humanity falls into that category—but it also means they’d be open to realising when something they think is normal actually falls into the category of ‘really bad’. which, again, is something that often happens via exposure. sorry if I’ve made things confusing by calling something purity culture that’s not what it is but only reminds me of it.

#taylor swift #brittany mahomes #activism #purity culture #fasism #conservatism #climate action #<-being the one area I see this best (and having the greatest need to be) applied #celebrities are people

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prouvaireafterdark · 1 year

Text

Practical Ethics || Chapter Eight

In which Armand makes Daniel an unexpected offer and his meeting with Louis doesn’t quite go as planned.

| One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven |

Also on AO3!

***

April turns to May before Armand knows it.

He leans over Daniel as he sleeps, fully showered and dressed with his messenger bag already slung across his body. It’s Friday morning and while neither of them have classes and Armand usually prefers to use this day for rest, a lazy morning in bed isn’t much of an option this close to the end of the semester with final papers and exams on the horizon. He also has to go to campus anyway for his Friday congregational prayer at noon with the Muslim Student Association and then he has an important meeting with Louis later in the afternoon that he would be loath to miss, so he might as well make a day of it.

“Wake up, Daniel,” he says, gently shaking the younger man’s shoulder. “Come on, up. You can go back to sleep later.”

Daniel groans and turns over onto his side to look at him. The amulet Armand had given him for the sixth month anniversary of the night they met has migrated up his chest and is currently nestled into the hollow of his throat, the embossed golden A on its front glittering faintly in the dim light of Armand’s bedroom.

“I’m going to campus now, beloved,” he says once Daniel’s eyes are focused. “There’s a smoothie for you in the freezer when you wake up and a spare key on the table so you can lock up when you leave.”

Daniel blinks slowly as he processes that.

“What’s in it?” he asks suspiciously, his voice still rough with sleep.

“What?” Armand asks.

“The smoothie.”

Armand rolls his eyes. They agreed not to talk about the Smoothie Incident, and yet Daniel continues to bring it up.

“Strawberries and bananas,” he says. “It’s all perfectly normal, I assure you.”

There’s spinach and a little kale in there too, but Daniel doesn’t need to know that.

Daniel visibly relaxes. “Okay,” he says. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Armand replies, his thumb brushing Daniel’s bare shoulder.

He leans down to kiss him, intending it to be short and sweet, but Daniel tries to stop him from retreating with two fingers tucked into the neckline of his shirt. Armand lets himself be pulled back toward the bed without a fight, wondering if Daniel is feeling a little needy after how intense things had gotten last night.

“How are you feeling?” he asks when Daniel lets him, sitting down to perch on the edge of the bed now. The mattress dips under his weight and Daniel rolls slightly forward.

“Sore,” Daniel answers as he shifts a little, “but good. Might work from home so I don’t have to sit at a desk for so long. I don’t think my ass can take it.”

“Mmm, I think it can,” Armand tells him, letting his hand slide down the length of Daniel’s side, slipping beneath the blanket to find the swell of his bare cheek. He squeezes the abused flesh, just a little—just enough for Daniel to feel it where Armand had spanked him last night after he came without permission. Daniel inhales sharply at the sensation, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as his hips rock forward against the mattress. Armand does not bother to hide his pleased smile as he continues, “Your bed’s nicer than mine.”

“Might take you up on that,” Daniel sighs, turning his head back to his pillow as he settles onto his front. “Your bed’s nicer than mine.”

“It could be yours too, if you wanted,” Armand tells him, letting his palm chart a lazy path up the length of Daniel’s spine now, just to feel more of his soft skin. The words come almost without a thought, but as they leave his mouth Armand finds he doesn’t regret them.

Daniel’s eyes widen as he takes his meaning.

“Are you…” Daniel begins cautiously, “asking me to move in with you?”

“Why not? You’re graduating. You can’t live on campus for much longer,” Armand says, his tone casual. “Besides, I like it when you’re here, and I think you like it too.”

Daniel is quiet for an unbearably long moment.

“What’s wrong?” Armand asks, anxious tension building suddenly in his chest. His hand stops its journey across Daniel’s back.

“Nothing,” Daniel says quickly. He reaches for Armand’s hand as he pulls it from his body, keeping him close, and Armand’s anxiety begins to melt away with the reassurance the gesture brings. “It’s just—we’ve only really been seriously dating for like a month and a half. Isn’t it a bit early to move in together?”

“Is it?” Armand frowns.

Marius had had Armand all but officially register his apartment as his new address by the end of his first semester in Venice. Though, he supposes, that had been more for the education of Armand’s mind, body, and soul—“in the Greek way,” Marius had said as he showed him around the one bedroom rental—than for romantic cohabitation. Perhaps the same rules do not apply to his situation with Daniel.

Armand sighs. It seems there is always some new unspoken societal precept Armand is discovering, even after over half a decade of freedom from the cult he grew up in.

Daniel hasn’t said no, though, and it strikes Armand that maybe he’s just looking for an excuse to say yes.

He can help with that.

“Well, speak for yourself, Daniel,” Armand adds, leaning in so close their lips brush as he continues, “I’ve been quite serious about you for far longer than that.”

Daniel’s blurry form stares at him, at a loss for words, but before he can say anything Armand presses a kiss to the corner of his slack mouth and pulls away from him entirely.

“Think about it,” he says as he moves to stand. “Let me know what you decide.”

He turns to walk away and smiles as he hears Daniel make an indignant noise behind him.

“You can’t just wake me up and say something insane like that and then walk away!” Daniel calls after him. “Armand! Come back here!”

Armand laughs, a vibrant sound that fills his chest, and keeps walking.

His ride to campus is uneventful, and after a trip to the Talamasca Library to hunt down a few books for his History of Christianity paper, he settles in to write it at one of those long wooden tables. He’s a little behind, having devoted most of his time outside of class either to editing his paper for Louis, fielding odd and complicated requests from Marius, or hanging out with Daniel, but he has a solid idea and he’s running with it.

Hours pass to the soundtrack of Gregorian chants fed through his bluetooth noise-canceling headphones as he writes, the colorful spot of light from the stained glass window slowly crawling across the room with the shifting position of the sun.

He leaves the library just before noon for his congregational prayer before grabbing lunch and more coffee to fuel him. As he stands in line to wait for his order, he sees a few missed texts from Daniel from about an hour ago and opens his messages.

very rude of you to leave like that

smoothie was good tho

Armand smiles as he types his reply.

I’m pleased to hear it met your standards this time.

Once his message is sent, Armand collects his purchase and finds an empty table in the deepest corner of the shop. His phone buzzes as he’s plugging his laptop charger into the wall, so he pauses and checks it with his free hand.

when are you coming home?

I have a meeting with Louis at 3:30, he writes. Should be home by 4:30-5.

He settles in to continue his work, crouching with his feet flat on the seat of the chair and his thighs pressed to his chest.

It’s another minute before his phone buzzes again. He peers over at the screen where he’s left it and his fingers pause over his keyboard as he reads Daniel’s most recent message.

🥺

Armand cocks his head to the side.

What does 🥺mean? he types.

that’s so far away from now, Daniel responds.

Miss me already? Armand asks him.

maybe

Armand’s lips curl into a smile at that. Why Daniel bothers being coy at all will forever be a mystery to him.

You’d miss me less if we lived together, he types.

Armand watches the bubble with three dots in it appear, then disappear, then appear again.

you make a compelling argument, the message reads.

Glad to hear it. Armand types back. Is that a “yes” then?

Armand watches that little speech bubble with rapt attention as he awaits Daniel’s reply.

it’s a “we’ll talk about it when you come home,” he answers at last.

Armand’s reply is quick.

“Home”? Moved in already?

oh fuck off, comes Daniel’s even swifter answer. you know what I meant

It’s a testament to how well Armand has come to know Daniel that he doesn’t take offense.

Whatever you say, beloved, Armand smirks as he types. Whatever you say.

When it’s a quarter past three, Armand begins to pack up again. He’s gotten a decent chunk of his paper done, which is good because he’s fairly certain Daniel is not going to let him accomplish anything academic once he gets home.

He crosses the quad over to Trinity Hall and heads toward the Religion and Philosophy Department, taking the long way around the suite of offices to avoid passing Marius’ door. He’s been a little more tolerable in the last week or so since he seems to have remembered the fact that he has a wife, but there’s no reason to tempt fate, especially not so close to a weekend.

Louis’ door is usually left open these days when they have a scheduled appointment, but today Armand finds it closed when he gets there. He notices that the flyer for Molière’s Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre is still taped to it as he knocks.

A moment later, he hears Louis’ voice on the other side of the door.

“Come on in!” he calls, his voice just barely loud enough to make out.

Armand lets himself in and finds Louis seated at his desk.

The first thing he notices is that Louis doesn’t look well. He hasn’t in a few weeks, if Armand is being honest with himself. Louis’ complexion seems paler than normal and his teaching has been less dynamic of late—his speech slower at times, as if weighed down by exhaustion, and his fuse with disruptive students shorter than ever.

Armand had only chanced to ask him if he was feeling alright once, when Louis had forgotten about a meeting they’d arranged and was in the middle of picking at the saddest salad Armand had ever seen, but Louis had abruptly brushed off his concerns and Armand hadn’t brought it up since.

Today, he’s confused to see Louis bundled up with a fuzzy green cardigan over his white button down and a hot cup of coffee warming his hands, given how close to summer they are now, but Louis is smiling when he sees him, so he figures it’s probably nothing to worry about.

“Armand! Have a seat,” Louis says, eyes tired as they so often are these days, but fond too, as if he’s pleased to see him.

Armand could say the same. What began as focused discussions about suggested edits to his paper have recently begun to evolve into casual chats covering any number of topics—some philosophical and some not. He’s come to learn that Louis is an avid fan of classic literature (and the occasional pulpy romance novel), that he went vegan last year as a protest against animal cruelty, and that he was “a rougher thing” in his early college days (which, given what little he’s come to know about his paper writing business, does not come as much of a surprise). Truth be told, Armand has come to enjoy seeing this side of Louis very much.

“I never took you for a fan of French theater,” Armand says conversationally as he takes his seat across from Louis’ desk. He keeps his eyes squarely on Louis’ face this time, as he’d had a hard time covering his reaction to noticing the faint half-moon marks Lestat’s nails had left on the edge of his desk the last time they’d met here.

“Hmm?” Louis asks, looking a little confused.

“There’s a flyer for a production of Dom Juan on your door,” Armand explains. “I assume you’ve seen it?”

“Oh,” Louis laughs. “Yeah, I like the theater. My partner’s the real thespian, though. Can’t get enough of it.”

Armand recalls the books he’d found in Louis’ drawer and wonders how their relationship is going. Not well, Armand imagines, given the tantalizing love bite Lestat had been showing off on his collarbone in class earlier this week, the buttons on his shirt undone frankly more than is usually advisable in a place of higher learning. Armand had been terribly distracted that day.

“So is it any good?” Armand asks him. “Dom Juan, I mean.”

Louis seems to consider that for a moment.

“I’ll be honest, it isn’t my favorite,” Louis answers, “but I must begrudgingly admit that the lead plays the part exceptionally well.”

“Oh? Perhaps life imitates art,” Armand jokes.

Louis laughs again, but this time it’s a sharp, almost bitter sound. “Let’s hope not.”

Before Armand can parse through that reply, Louis changes the subject.

“So I took a look at your most recent draft and, honestly, it looks great,” he tells Armand. “I think it would be worth it to get another set of eyes on it, but overall I think you’ve really done an incredible job smoothing it out and hitting all the notes you want to. When it’s time to put together an abstract, we can talk about what writing that will look like, but for now I think you’re all set.”

“Really?�� Armand asks, elated and surprised in equal measure. It still feels so strange to hear unqualified praise from someone he’s not fucking. He could get used to it, though.

“Yeah,” Louis smiles encouragingly. “You shouldn’t sound so surprised, Armand. You’ve put in a lot of work to get to this point.”

Armand shifts in his seat, not quite knowing what to do with that.

“Yes, but I couldn’t have done it without your guidance,” Armand tells him, looking at him from under his long lashes.

“I don’t know about that,” Louis disagrees lightly. “You have a good head for philosophy, Armand. You’re very curious and you don’t think like most other people do. I think you would’ve figured it out eventually. You’ll be a real asset to our field one day.”

Armand is quiet for a moment as he processes that, looking at Louis a bit like a deer in headlights. Again he is reminded of Marius, of how he would lavish Armand with the sweetest praise when he was parroting century-old ideas about the world one day… and then punish him severely the next for the crime of daring to think a little differently.

How different his undergraduate career might have been had he met Louis in Venice instead.

Armand swallows thickly, banishing the tears that rise with the swell of emotion in his chest, and whispers, “Thank you, Louis. That… It means a lot to hear you say that.”

“It’s just the truth,” Louis shrugs casually, but there’s a knowing sense to his gaze as he continues, “Someone should have said it to you sooner.”

An unspoken moment of connection passes over them. He feels… seen in a way he cannot describe, as if Louis has peered into his soul and by some miracle not found him wanting. It’s almost too much, the intensity of Louis’ eyes on him as he struggles to keep control of himself. A part of him wants to leave, to run away and process these emotions in the privacy of his own apartment, but he forces himself to stay seated, to endure the mortifying ordeal of being known.

“Is there…” Armand begins when the silence becomes too much to bear. “Is there anything else you require?”

“One thing, actually,” Louis says.

Armand waits patiently for him to continue.

“I’ve been spread a little thin this semester,” Louis begins, “and I just found out that in the fall they’re giving me the larger section of Philosophy 101.”

Armand freezes at that, his heart beginning to race in his chest as he realizes where Louis might be going with this. He sits up a little straighter and waits with bated breath for Louis to finish that thought.

“I’ll need a teaching assistant, maybe two, to cut through the extra workload,” Louis continues. “I know you’re working with Marius right now, but, if you’re interested, I would like to put you at the top of my list of candidates. None of my other students know these concepts quite as well as you and you can never have too much teaching experience on your résumé once you graduate. I think it would be a great arrangement for both of us.”

“I would be honored,” Armand tells him, a little too quick to be casual. The relief he feels is so powerful and instantaneous his eyes nearly begin to well up again.

Imagine it, he thinks. No more walking on eggshells with Marius.

“Excellent,” Louis smiles. “I’ll just need to get approval, but I don’t think they’ll fight me on it.”

“Marius might,” Armand mentions, the pleasant feeling in his gut turning sour at the thought.

“Let me worry about him,” Louis says dismissively with a gesture of his hand. “He doesn’t have nearly as much power as he thinks he does.”

“Alright,” he agrees hesitantly, sure that will be easier said than done. “Well, I should get going now, but thank you again. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me and I’m… really looking forward to working with you next fall.”

“Me too,” Louis smiles. “It’ll be a good semester, I think.”

“I think so too,” Armand smiles.

As Armand gets up out of his seat, Louis closes his open laptop and bends down to presumably slip it into his bag resting on the floor.

“Whoa,” he hears Louis whisper as he sits upright again.

“Are you okay?” Armand asks him, pausing by the threshold to look back at where Louis is seated with his palms placed flat on the desk and his eyes closed tight.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Louis says, his voice a little thin. He almost sounds out of breath as he adds, “Just a headrush.”

“Are you sure?” Armand hesitates.

“I’m fine,” Louis says, his smile brittle and unconvincing as he opens his eyes to look at him. “I just need some water.”

Louis rotates his chair to the side and stands up, presumably to get water from the glass pitcher that sits on the far side of his coffee station, and the following series of events happens very, very quickly.

Louis’ face pales, his skin going almost gray as the blood rushes from his face. He sways on the spot before his eyes roll up into his head and his knees give out from under him.

Armand watches in horror as Louis collapses, falling head first into his coffee station.

“Louis!” Armand shouts as he rushes across the room to his side.

Louis is lying motionless on the floor now and Armand rolls Louis onto his back so he can see his face. A small pool of blood begins to spread from a gash at his hairline and Armand looks up to see the sharp corner of his very expensive Keurig machine glistening red with it.

Armand looks around frantically for something to staunch the bleeding and remembers the white handkerchief he’d found in Louis’ desk some months ago. He opens the drawer and sees it blessedly folded near the front, the gold monogrammed LDL shining almost divinely in the light. He hears hurried footsteps coming their way from across the hall as he plucks it from the drawer and presses it firmly to Louis’ head wound to staunch the bleeding.

“Is everything alright in here?” someone asks from the doorway—Dr. Reeves, he thinks, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Louis to verify it.

“No,” Armand replies, his heartbeat not nearly as steady as his voice. “Call 911.”

#devil's minion #devil's minion fic #loustat #loustat fic #interview with the vampire #ethics professor louis fic

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