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enkvyu · 1 year ago

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7:02pm — gojo satoru ; part two to this imagine

"gojo, your hair is in my mouth."

"you're lucky i washed it a few days ago."

you peer up at him over your phone. "a few days? how many? gojo, tell me."

gojo hums to himself and you hate that it might be serious consideration that he's under. "like maybe seven?"

you gag, flailing at your mouth and spitting out the few strands. you faintly hear gojo complain but it's overridden as you deal with your dilemma.

the two of you were curled inside the stomach of one of getou's curses as it flew across the ocean to arrive back at jujutsu high. the cramped space and gooey flesh makes you shiver, effectively increasing your poor mood, but perhaps the biggest detriment was the person you were stuck with.

sure, public transport was a viable option but yaga had specifically emphasised on the "top-secret" and "classified" written in big bold red letters on the mission file. this meant no one was to know, not ordinary people, not curses and not even other sorcerers.

granted, the school had access to one private jet which they were willing to offer, but that jet only had space for one.

the three of you had sat down and played a game of scissors paper rock to determine who takes it, and while you were lucky to win it for the trip forward, getou ends up victorious for the way back.

and now, you were stuck in close proximity with gojo inside the gut of a flying dragon.

"why are you in such a bad mood anyway?" gojo has the audacity to ask, as if he wasn't the sole reason why you were uncomfortable. you keep your mouth shut though, nothing good will come out of admitting your undying, and unfortunately unrequited, love for him.

"i'm in a perfectly fine mood."

"why do you look like that then, all constipated and everything? did you not go to the bathroom before we left?"

you curl your fingers into a fist and punch him in the chest. it hits his uniform, smearing some of the curses' stomach juice. "of course i did! i'm not a newbie sorcerer."

"ouch!"

"that didn't hurt you."

"how are you going to tell me how i feel?" gojo jabs back. "because it did hurt, it hurt my feelings."

"oh boohoo."

"so you are mad."

you bite your lip and turn away, finding the abdominal wall of the beast easier on the eyes than your own friend. "i'm not."

"you're sulking."

"i'm not." you hiss before taking in a deep breath. "look gojo, can we just stay quiet until we get there?"

gojo keeps staring at you through his glasses and his face fails to give his thoughts away. the suspense is killing you, but before you can relent and ask what he has to say, he clears his throat.

"i have something to tell you."

you sigh, rubbing at your head. "what is it?"

"wait, don't turn around and keeping looking at the wall. hey, what did i just say?"

"gojo, the view isn't really the best to sightsee. why can't i look at you?"

"because if you do, i don't think i can tell you after all."

you close your mouth. "is it that serious?"

"yeah." he clears his throat again, adjusting the collar of his uniform. "look, i know you've been weird around me the past few days and i don’t think it’s because i stretched out your uniform when i wore it last weekend. i don't know why you’re being mean to me, and shoko and getou won't tell me either."

you resist the urge to look at him. "you're having this kind of talk with me now? here? seriously?"

"you won't even stay in the same room as me for more than a few minutes! getou may call this curse his bad-luck curse but for me right now it's the only way to get you to listen to me." he stays quiet for a few seconds. "this is really serious, okay, so don't make any comments. i know you're practically brimming with them."

it was true you had a lot to say, but gojo's serious attitude was putting you off. still, having him call you out made you more aggravated and you let one slip. "well, this is really bad-luck for me."

gojo clicks his tongue and you can see the irritation on his face before his words are even coloured with it. "i'm not telling you this so you can feel the same way but—"

the curse suddenly tilts to the side, throwing you into gojo as the four walls of its stomach becomes a wheel, rotating you around. you yelp as your forehead hits him hard in the chest, tears springing to your eyes at the pain.

“what’s going on?”

the two of you spin round and round, and you can't distinguish your screams from gojo's as gravity plays you like a toy, throwing you around.

the movement makes you sick. "gojo, do something! blast it!"

"getou'll get mad if i kill another one of his curses!"

"are you kidding, we're going to die!"

gojo swears, grabbing you around the waist and pulling you into his chest. with his other arm, he holds out his hand and presses it on the flesh.

you tuck your chin in, squeezing your eyes shut when you realise he hadn't started chanting his technique. "what are you doing?" you look up at him and find him staring at the exit of the stomach through all the goo and chaos.

with a trembling finger, he points to it. you stare into the abyss, squinting your eyes to make out its indistinct shapes. what was that pulsing thing, attached to the side? and was it just you, but was it getting bigger?

with a start, you realise that the curse was about to throw up. and coincidentally, so were you.

"it's going to throw us up!" you share your realisation with gojo but the look on his face tells you he already arrived at the same thought.

he opens his mouth to say something, or scream you're not too sure as the walls of the stomach contracts. distantly, you feel gojo slide his other arm around you and his infinity takes over, shielding the two of you as you're forcefully ejected from the curse's mouth.

a scream escapes your throat as you escape the curse's, wind rushing through your ears. gojo swears again, bringing his arm up to protect your head.

you only know you're safe when you feel air again, the real kind, not the gas built up in the curse's stomach. a thud tells you gojo has landed on solid ground again and you've never felt more grateful to be alive, your entire body relaxing as your soul leaves.

gojo sighs with you, his hold slightly loosening.

getou watches as you're spat out, stepping out of the private jet with a big smile on his face. "you guys look rough."

you feel gojo tense his jaw rather than see it. "what was that for?"

getou shrugs, throwing a bag over his shoulder. he starts digging through it. "i told you that curse is some serious bad-luck. at least you both arrived in one piece.” he looks up and raises an eyebrow at you. “literally in one piece, are you guys going to stay like that forever?"

your mind slowly pieces together your position, still curled up in gojo's arms as he is sat on the pavement, before you leapt out. gojo makes no move to stop you, though you think he might have tsked.

"here, this is for you." getou finally pulls out what he was searching for from his bag and throws it at the two of you.

you catch it instinctively, studying the object in your hand. "a can of soda?"

"for surviving."

"that curse of yours is a safety hazard." you mutter, but accept the can. you crack open the lid and tilt your head back, taking a long, cool sip.

gojo stares down at the drink. "i told you i don't like this flavour!" he complains and you roll your eyes at his antics.

"then don't drink it."

"no. give me your one instead."

getou pauses, halfway to opening his own iced coffee. "huh? i got this for me. and you don't even like coffee! you should be glad i even got one for you in the first place."

"let's play a game of rock paper scissors to decide who gets it."

"no. i just told you i got this for me."

gojo stands up, taking a step forward menacingly. "huh? after what you put me through, you think i'm just going to take no for an answer?"

getou's eyes flicker to yours before he takes up gojo's challenge, activating his cursed technique. black liquid opens up the air beside him, a peering red eye on the other side. "can't handle rejection, gojo? because you better get used to it."

you take another sip as you watch the boys, absentmindedly wiping at a stain on your sleeve. you remember the feeling of gojo's arm around your body and you blush despite yourself.

"are you feeling sick?"

you look up to see that gojo had stopped fighting with getou, his entire attention on you.

"huh?"

"you're red in the face. you look like a tomato."

ignoring the last part, you hide your face behind your drink. "i'm fine."

getou looks between the two of you and there's a glint in his eyes that you've seen before, one that you've grown to dread.

he throws back the rest of his coffee, grimacing as it gives him a slight brain freeze, before crushing the can in his hand. gojo mutters a quick, "show off" that he ignores, instead chucking the can into a bin a few metres away.

"what a time." he starts saying, the words static. "that was great. well, now that i've finished my drink, i should head back inside."

“i should head in too. i smell real bad.” you sigh and give gojo a glare when he agrees.

“actually, can the two of you stay here? i think my curse isn’t feeling too well after eating you two. just until i come back, okay?”

you think there might be an ulterior motive but glancing over at the curse, you find that it did look greener than before.

"where are you going, and for how long?" you ask and hope the look in your eyes will make him stay.

"i need to tell yaga we finished the mission. you guys can just stay here, i've got it." then to you, he says, clenching his fist in support, "you got this."

you want to break his arm.

getou hurries away despite your silent plea, leaving you in an awkward silence with the one person you wanted to avoid most. you take multiple quick sips to busy yourself, but you can’t ignore the person standing by your side.

gojo shifts his balance to his other foot and the sound of his shoe against the pavement breaks the silence. "so."

"so."

"it's really bright, huh."

"you're wearing sunglasses."

"and do they completely cover my eyes? no they don't. i can still complain about the sun."

"just push your glasses up then."

"no." gojo huffs. "i look cooler this way."

"who told you that? because i know for a fact it wasn't anyone whose opinion actually matters." you jab back.

"your mum said that, actually."

"are you a child?"

"what, are you too cool for old jokes? they're iconic for a reason."

"and there's a reason why 'your mum jokes' died and should stay that way."

the natural way in which you banter with gojo gives you confidence. maybe it didn't matter that you liked him, or that he didn't like you back. it was enough that he was here with you now, joking around. perhaps you could even live with knowing that your unrequited love had come to an end, perhaps you could even pair them up yourself without a sense of bitter jealousy.

"i know you like getou." gojo says in one breath.

the peace you had come to, shatters.

"what?" you say in an inhale, and it comes out sounding weird.

gojo pouts, crossing his arms. "i'm right, aren't i? you like getou. i heard what you were saying to shoko that one time."

"don't eavesdrop on other people's conversations!"

"you were saying it pretty loudly, what was i meant to do? shut my ears?"

you wave away his whining. "stop, hold on. you think i like getou?"

gojo nods. "i don't think you do, i know. you said you like people like him."

"when did i ever say that? also, i'm not the one who likes getou, you are!"

"what?"

"what, what? you do, don't you? you told me yesterday that you liked getou."

"i never said that!"

"then who were you talking about?"

"who were you thinking about?" gojo shoots back. "because you didn't even hesitate when you explained your type to shoko. you were thinking of someone, weren't you?"

you gulp. "i asked first."

he looks at you long and hard and you stare back at your reflection through his glasses. his mouth opens and there's a mixed sense of dread and anticipation brewing in your stomach.

"tch."

"did you just click your tongue at me?"

gojo faces away. his jaw is tense as he blatantly ignores your question. "you're really annoying."

"huh? speak for yourself!"

"you have a problem with me?"

"i have a problem with your stupid attitude."

when gojo closes the distance between the two of you, you take a step back out of instinct. it doesn't matter though because gojo steps forward again, pushing you up against the curse getou had left behind. he slams a hand into the flesh of the curse and it makes a startled sound. the both of you ignore it. "it's you, idiot, i like—"

the force behind his slam is frightening, but the thought is torn from you when the sound of regurgitation grabs your attention. with a start, you turn around at the curse and find your phone on the ground at the entrance of the curse's mouth, covered in goo.

"my phone!" you exclaim, bending down to pick it up.

gojo backs up and groans loudly, but you don't care, wincing instead when the item is sticky.

"i didn't even know i lost this! thanks gojo, i think." your voice trails off wearily, holding up the phone and watching as viscous liquid slowly drips off it.

gojo rubs his face with his palm and you wonder why he looks so distressed. "that curse is seriously bad luck." meeting your eye, he points a finger at you. "listen to what i have to say!"

you raise your eyebrow at him. "damn okay, gojo's arrived." you mutter, wiping down the phone and pocketing it.

the clouds overhead parts, sunlight shining down in rays. the trees whistle in the summer breeze and light filters through the gaps in the leaves and branches. it hits gojo perfectly, adorning him in a golden light and you've never seen him so beautiful. guilt fills you at the thought and you hold your soda tighter.

he breathes in one more time. "i don't care that you like getou." he says. "because it doesn't matter to me. it just means i have to work harder to change your mind and get you to notice me instead."

"it's kind of hard to not notice you." you say. "i mean, look at what you're wearing."

gojo hisses. "don't ruin the mood, you're throwing me off. like i was saying, it's not your fault you like getou but i had to tell you this anyway, because it's been making my heart feel all prickly and stuff. so shut up and just stand there looking pretty, or whatever." his last few words trail off uncertainly, as if he never intended to say them at all.

"what are you even saying?" your heart picks up. was he about to confess?

"i'm saying that i think i like—"

"there you guys are!"

your head whips around at the voice, scanning the familiar landscape before settling on a single person. shoko stands metres away, waving a hand to grab your attention. "over here!"

"shoko!" a grin splits across your face. "i haven't seen you all day!"

"am i interrupting something?" she yells to get her voice across the distance.

you don't even look over at gojo as you shake your head. you had a feeling he was just going to tell you something you already knew, that he liked getou, anyway. “no! hold on, i'm coming over."

before you can run up to her, gojo grabs your arm, a deep frown etched on his face. "wait, you still haven't—!"

without another thought, you hand him your half-finished can of soda and wriggle out of his hold. "you can have the rest of that. i'll hear you out later, okay?"

"but the mood was so right!"

"look after the curse until getou’s back, later!"

gojo stands there in front of the bad-luck curse, one arm limp by his side and the other holding a can of blue soda. he watches as you fling yourself into shoko's arm, already listing all the things you've been saving up to tell her.

there's that prickly feeling again, gojo realises, noting the way the sun lightens the shade of your hair, the way your eyes curve up as you smile, and the way you hold onto shoko's hand, wishing that he had enough courage to hold yours.

defeated, battered and drained, gojo looks down at the can in his hand, and notes the slight lipstick stain on the rim.

with a red on his cheeks that didn't come from the sun, he presses the aluminium to his lips and takes a sip. it tastes sweet.

gojo decides that he'll just have to settle for this.

i hope this was okay considering i had no intentions of writing a part two. sorry for all the descriptions of stomachs and throw up, i was studying the digestive system 👎 if this isn’t what u guys expected feel free to leave a request !!

#gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo fluff #gojo imagine #gojo drabble #getou suguru #ieiri shoko #gojo satoru x you

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crescenthistory · 1 month ago

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hey how are youu? I’m new here and I’m completely in love with your work especially with the Barty’s ones! I wanted to request the prompt c 11 (you are okay) with the 4 (near death experience) and if you could make it like part of the series of where they bicker all the time it would be perfect! Anyways I really enjoy your writing and I love how you portray my man Barty🤍🫶🏼

hi there lovey! thank you so much for being here and for your sweet words<33 i combined this request with another i received, i hope that is okay

other request: i headcanon barty as a person who has attachment issues (on the ambivalent side), in the way he loves too much his friends and lovers but at the same time is afraid of intimacy bc he also struggles with showing affection in a non sexual way. so my idea is that (gn)reader and barty have an argument because of their insecurities about trust and commitment, but AFTER they've been avoiding the conversation for too long. it could end very much extremely bad or very good.

you can find the other fics for this specific au here and here

Prompts: C.11 "You're okay, you're okay" & 4. Near Death Experience

Words: 6k

Warnings: not proofread, gn!reader (no pronouns used), use of y/n, reader and barty both have mental breakdowns/spirals, attachment issues, miscommunication, "oh shit! love is scary but i do love you so what now" moments, near-fall on the ice, potions accident, choking in a non-sexual way, infirmary, language, talk of death, injured!reader, heavy hurt but heavy comfort, happy ending

this isn't fun anymore

Your relationship with Barty thus far had been interesting to say the least.

After endless bickering led to an impromptu kiss to shut him up in the library, which in turn led to a heavy make-out session in a nearby cot, which led to a “how does it feel to be my girlfriend?” “I wouldn’t know” “do you want to?” “sure” conversation in the Slytherin common room, you somehow wound up being in an established, committed relationship with one Barty Crouch Junior.

To your friends’ flabbergasted shock, and, quite frankly, your own surprise.

Even more surprisingly so, you loved it – which scared you to no end.

As the weeks began to stretch into months, you felt as if you were losing your footing more and more in your dynamic. What was once flirtatious and intense has now become almost intimate and close. It stills you in your movements as you try and find your bearing.

Who are you to Barty when you are not in the mood to quip? Or even talk at all? Who is Barty to you when you allow him to just be Barty and not sparring-partner Junior?

All good questions to ask oneself, but not as productive to spiral over as you walk with him from Hogsmeade, a little stretch behind your boisterous friends.

There are two reasons for this. One is that Barty has somehow learned to read your emotions fairly well despite your inability to communicate them effectively, and he is now scrutinising your distracted facial expressions. Second, and perhaps most importantly, is that it is winter in Scotland.

In your distracting spiral, you step on a snow that covered a perfectly polished sliver of ice, and your foot slips out from underneath you.

You barely managed to squeak out a shriek, scrambling to retract your hand from Barty’s to catch you as you fall, before one of his hands is around your waist and the other on the back of your neck, stabilising your neck. His wild eyes stare into yours, mild panic seeping away to make place for a wicked grin.

“Careful, Treasure. Falling for me already?”

You roll your eyes before you let out a breath of relief, hands clutching onto his form as he is still holding you up in his grasp.

“You wish, Junior,” you scoff at him, albeit with a smile.

“Every night, on every star.”

You let him place you onto your legs, arm circling around your waist as a remaining layer of protection. You shiver, brushing off imaginary pieces of snow from the fall that did not occur. In front of you, your shared friends had stopped upon hearing you yell.

“Y/N, you good?” Lily called, concern etched onto her face.

At the same time, Sirius, ever the supportive friend, yelled, “Did Barty finally kill you?”

“Oh yes, Big Black, I am incredibly dead,” you yell back as Barty roll his eyes at you both and mutters something about on the contrary.

Regulus, in turn, says something you can’t quite catch over the distance, but you suppose it has something to do with your nickname for Sirius and its insinuations. Little Black did not enjoy being referred to as such.

The group waits up for the two of you to catch up, Barty enjoying taking his time with a lazy stroll.

“You mind picking up the pace, Junior?” Sirius grumbles.

Unfortunately, that only further encourages Barty. “Why would I? Got a pretty damsel in distress on my arm and all the time in the world.”

You try and rip out of his arms at that, feigning offence at him, but he only holds you tighter. “How dare you. I am neither a damsel nor in distress–”

He cuts you off with a quick peck on your lips. “You are pretty though. Sorry, Treasure, had to shut the sod up somehow.”

You turn your head away from him with a shake, trying your hardest not to blush at his words or his actions. You bully Regulus too much for his blushing to commit such atrocities yourself. “Whatever you say, Junior, but you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.”

“You don’t even live together,” Remus comments amusedly.

“Doesn’t matter; the sentiment still stands.”

James and Remus shake their heads at the two of you, while Sirius and Lily nod solemnly in support of you. The whole lot begins walking back the short distance to the castle.

Barty makes a comment of some sort to Regulus that both Black brothers and James quip back at, which starts another tireless spat. You are too zoned out to care what they are bickering about today, disappearing back into your thoughts recklessly, despite the dire consequences from last time.

Attachment issues was such a loaded term, you thought, and you didn’t like to think of yourself like that. Yet the fact remained that the longer you and Barty spent together, the more a part of your brain begins dry heaving and screaming. What began as pure fun, tingles along your spine at every back-and-forth, is becoming realer by the minute, and it terrifies you. Not because you cannot stand a relationship or fear being bound down – because you are starting to care for him. Genuinely, wholly, in a way that aches. You have always been one to shy away from emotional aches, and the fact that you now have to decide whether to withstand it or throw it away for another type of pain makes you lightheaded.

With his arm so securely around yours, with his laughter in your ear, you feel right. You feel content and whole. Why should that make sirens go off in your head?

Most of the time you spend with Barty is with others around, where you can’t fully access your emotions. In the Great Hall, if you eat by yourselves, everyone else is still there, when you walk the hallways or the grounds, there are always students and professors around. Even when you visit his dorm, which is becoming more frequent by the second, Evan and Regulus usually aren’t far. You almost wanted to keep it this way, ensure that Barty only sees the fun and open side of you, keeping everything else under lock and key. You almost avoid him when you are able to be alone just the two of you, because the implications are too vast for you to face them.

He has to know. He has to have seen. Have noticed that you keep pushing one front of you towards him and shielding the rest – and it seems like he enjoys that one, but at some point he must want more. Could you give it to him?

“Okay, what’s going on in that head of yours?” Barty’s whisper cuts through your thoughts as you step through the entrances to the castle, once more slightly secluded at the back of the group.

You merely hum in response, trying to pull yourself out of your spiral to look at him.

“C’mon, Treasure.” His drawl is teasing, but his eyes seem darker than usual. “You have never gone this long without insulting me somehow. What's up?”

“Maybe you’ve just been on your best behaviour today,” you say conspiratorially, putting on your mask expertly. “Haven’t needed to.”

“Now see, that is simply empirically wrong,” Barty guffaws at you. “Did you hear what I said to Reg earlier?” His raised eyebrow is giving you a silent cut the crap that you aren’t ready to face.

“I’ll be honest with you; I did not.” You look away, pulling your jacket further around you. “I’m just mentally preparing for Potions and Slughorn tomorrow, he said we should expect something big.”

“Should I be concerned that lying comes that easily to my girlfriend?” Barty asks, making you whip your head back to him. He is still teasing, but you really, really don’t like the look in his eyes.

“Should I be concerned that my boyfriend can’t take the hint to let something be?” You didn’t think about the words before you let them tumble, instantly getting defensive.

“No,” Barty says, stopping you with the hand on your waist, looking directly at you. “‘Cause I’m just checking on you when something is clearly wrong.”

“Since when do you check on me?” you say, realising your voice is uncomfortably close to a snarl. Barty does, too.

“Since you decided to take me up on my relentless flirting and enter into a relationship with me. You know, the kind where people care for and look after each other? Or is that not us?”

You stare at him for a second, as it uncomfortably settles into your bones that the odd look in his eyes is hurt. Confusion, concern and hurt. You’re at a loss for words.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” you settle on, feeling dumb but stubborn.

Barty nods, looking away at last, small frown over his lips. “Well. Let me know when you do. Or don’t, you know, it’s whatever.”

He walks away from you, leaving you to stand alone, looking after him. If your friends realised you’re gone, they have likely assumed that the two of you are in some hallway together making-out. No one would come check up on you.

You trek back and sit down, just outside the entrance to the castle, trying to understand what just happened. Sliding down the wall, you watch as new snow begins to fall, large wet chunks flying through the air. You let them symbolically represent your tears as you keep bottling it all up.

That night, you go to your dorm in silence, telling yourself you’re thankful not to see Barty on the way there. You fall asleep watching the door.

Truth is, you had also been stressed out regarding Slughorn’s Potions class for the day after. As you wake and get ready, anxiety rages through your body for more reasons than one. He had been teasing the class for weeks, saying that you would be brewing some dangerous, difficult potion, allowed into the curriculum as a one-time exception for him.

Technically, this would have been no problem, however you are currently paired with McLaggen in Potions. The biggest twat I have ever seen, as Barty described him. While you didn’t have as intense feelings about him, you knew one thing for certain: the boy was absolute shit at potions.

The kind of awful that you really don’t want to be paired with for some exotic and dangerous potion.

Potions was one of the few classes you and Barty had together as your subject selections were relatively different. He would always walk you from your dorm, first class in the morning, soaking up every minute with you. Some of your best banter came from Potions class, often at McLaggen’s expense, for better or worse.

When you opened your door, you were not entirely sure what to expect.

What you found, certainly was not it, though.

“Regulus, what– what are you doing here?”

Regulus looked incredibly sheepish where he stood, weight leaned on one of his hips as one hand scratched the back of his neck. The other held something in it that you couldn’t quite detect as you took the awkward scene of him in.

“I, uh,” he starts, uncharacteristically inarticulate. “Barty said he couldn’t walk you today, but wanted to give you something for, um, your anxiety? About the class? Or something like that. Anyway, here.”

The tips of his ears were burning red at the humiliation of being caught in the middle of whatever this was. He reached out his hand and opened it to reveal a small potions bottle – ironic – with some purple liquid inside.

“What is it?” you asked, taking it tentatively and turning it over in your hands.

“It’s meant to make you calm down and relax– not that I think you need to do that, just, Barty wanted to give it to you.” Regulus winces at his own inelegance. “I got some from James the other week, he apparently has a bunch stacked up in his dorm with the boys, for God knows what reason. Barty asked for one for you. So, here we are.”

“I don’t really know what to say,” you trail off, looking between the potion and Regulus. “Thanks?”

“I, uh, will tell him that then–”

“Gods, no,” you cut him off. “Don’t tell him that, he wouldn’t appreciate it.”

As you seem to be thinking over a response, Regulus adds: “If it makes a difference, he said something to me about giving it to you on the off-chance that he was wrong and a massive wanker.”

You chuckle at that. “Well, he’s always a massive wanker,” you joke on reflex. “But you don’t need to act as an owl, Reg, I’ll thank him myself. And thank you for the potion.”

Regulus seems to let out a breath of relief at that, smiling a bit more comfortably at last. “Great, well, I’ll see you around I guess.”

You smile curtly and give him a quick nod before seeing him all but run off.

Once he’s gone, you drink the potion and the effects are instantaneous. Your shoulders seem to loosen in places you didn’t know they were wound up, your breathing regulates and your heartbeat slows. A little too late, you mull over that this was James’s potion, and you probably should have been careful, given his track record in class. Nevertheless, the potion seems legitimate.

With a bit more breath in your lungs, you walk off to class, alone.

Barty could not make up his mind on whether to drag his gaze away from you when it instantly gravitated towards you, or if he could let it linger.

The feelings warring in his chest felt impossible to map out. On the one hand, you had snapped at him when he tried to help, which was shitty – on the other, he still didn’t know what he was trying to help with or what compelled you to snap at him. What you were going through. Which honestly is on you, he thought, wincing at his own frustrations.

He was not one to dwell on small spats, but this was entirely unfamiliar territory to him. Barty didn’t do relationships, at least he didn’t think so before you came in like a freight train consuming his being. It was fun to finally have someone properly challenge him and do so with a beautiful smile on their face – the perfect situation for him. It was fun, until his heart began to hurt when you weren’t near, until it was your laugh that ran through his head, guiding him away from a spiral. Until he realised he was not just down bad for you as Dorcas teased, he was something much, much worse.

And he had no idea how to handle it.

His infatuation with you was all-encompassing, a burning passion and loyalty that characterised having Barty’s affection. He knew it, as did all his friends, but when it is with you, he doesn’t know how to handle it. With a friend, he could snog, even shag, them at a random party and it wouldn’t matter for either of them. With you, that first kiss, first anything, was so much more important. With a friend, if he pissed them off enough, they would just cool off without him for a while and then the slate was clear. With you – he had no idea what he would do if you disappeared. Would you come back? He was acutely aware that this was a dynamic he didn’t know how to explore.

Now, it seemed like you needed his support, but wouldn’t accept it. Didn’t want him near it.

He had to respect that, he thought to himself. So, he did his best to tear his gaze away and leave you be.

With the amount of times your eyes met, he knew he wasn’t being successful. He paid no mind to the fact that you did not avert your eyes, either.

His feet were tapping relentlessly on the ground, his eyes flicking all over the Potions classroom to keep them from you. Barty was losing his fucking mind and he had no idea what to do about it.

“Mate,” Evan cuts off his distracted mental monologue that Barty himself couldn’t really make sense of. “Would you bloody cut it off? I’m trying to not kill us here.”

Barty does not dignify him with a response, but tries to calm his skittishness, albeit not overly successfully. He zeroes in on Slughorn and his peculiar facial expressions as he, a bit too excitedly for 8 in the morning, continues his explanation.

Something about a healing potion that is so particular that if brewed even slightly wrong, it becomes one of the most effective poisons in the world. Something about corrosive to the touch. Something about bezoars healing.

Barty settles his gaze on the bowl of bezoars Slughorn had on his desk, just in case, with a bad feeling in his stomach. He wondered if you felt the same.

As the pairs set to attempt the feat of making the potion correctly, Barty’s eyes drifted back to you, happy to leave the work to Evan – who in turn was happy to work in the silence without his constant chatter.

Your shoulders were relaxed, though your brows were furrowed together as you reread the instructions for the thousandth time. He wondered if you had taken the potion he sent to you with Regulus, he wondered if it helped you. While he knew in his bones you were lying about it being what bothered you, he still could never be too sure. He wanted you to feel safe, whichever way he could ensure it.

He knows what that’s called, which is why he is freaking out so to speak.

You kept shooting dirty looks at McLaggen whenever he tried to help, keeping him at arm’s length from the potion, fueling the boy’s frustrations. Barty was quite certain he had seen you threaten him with your wand at one point when he tried to stir the potion. He couldn’t blame you.

McLaggen, as incompetent as ever, was trying to make himself useful by reading the instructions aloud to you, though his exaggerated enunciation was more distracting than helpful. Barty withholds a snicker as he can tell you are silently begging him to shut up. The frustration on your face was palpable, the tension between you and your partner practically humming in the air. McLaggen, ever oblivious, didn’t take the hint.

“Are you sure you don’t need me to–?”

“I’m sure,” you snapped, not looking up from the cauldron.

From across the room, you felt Barty’s eyes on you again. His gaze had become a constant presence, burning into your skin. Even when you weren't looking at him, you could feel him there, lingering, watching, waiting. It was maddening, but also strangely comforting. You knew you had to talk together soon, but you still had no idea how to communicate your feelings, if you even dared to.

You had to snap yourself back into it to remain in control of your little situation at hand.

McLaggen, frustrated by being sidelined, huffed and crossed his arms. “It’s just stirring! How hard could it be?”

“Apparently, harder than you think,” you muttered, casting him a side-eye. The potion was already starting to smell off, and you knew he had messed it up.

McLaggen’s face flushed in embarrassment, and before you could stop him, he reached for the ladle, his ego clearly bruised.

"I'll show you–"

“Wait–”

It happened in a blur. His hand snuck past yours, clumsy and wild. It knocked against the cauldron’s edge, sending it tipping over. The thick, boiling liquid surged out, splashing across the table – and onto your leg.

The pain was instant, white-hot and searing, like your skin was being eaten alive. You screamed, recoiling as the potion sizzled straight through your pant leg, immediately finding flesh.

The room seemed to freeze for a moment, everyone turning to see what had happened. The smell of burning skin filled the air as you stumbled back, falling over your increasingly immobile leg, eyes wide with shock and pain.

The world around disappeared from you as you were consumed by the burning, not even able to hear your gasps of pain.

For that moment, no one did anything.

No one but Barty – Barty moved.

Without hesitation, without thought, he lunged across the room. He grabbed the entire bowl of bezoars, eyes never leaving you. His body collided with McLaggen, shoving him aside with a force that sent the boy slamming into the wall behind, just barely avoiding the poison himself. Barty didn’t even glance at him; his focus was solely on you.

Somewhere in the back Slughorn made a sound of shock and disappointment that Barty blocked out.

He dropped down beside you, taking your shaking upper body in his arms. "You're okay, you're okay," he muttered in your ear, as he cradled your jaw with one hand and opened your mouth with another. With two quick, precise fingers he shoved the bezoar as far down your throat as he could, arm circled securely around your waist for when your body convulsed in response to the intrusion. "You're okay, I've got you," he continued to mumble, as if to himself this time, as he looked at you frantically.

Your body's trembling and your small gasps of pain faded, but your leg was still searing painfully and you still looked completely out of it.

Barty’s heart lurched – he had never seen you like this. Never seen you so vulnerable, so hurt.

“Barty–” you gasped, your voice breaking in panic.

The classroom had erupted into chaos around you – students scrambling away from the spill, Slughorn’s booming voice calling for calm. In it all, Barty's eyes kept looking you over, almost like he was itching to give you another bezoar just in case.

“You’re okay,” he repeated, quieter this time, his voice cracking ever so slightly.

Your breath came out in ragged gasps, the pain subsiding slowly. Barty's hands remained around you, grounding you essentially in his lap, keeping you tethered to the moment.

“Someone fetch Madam Pomfrey!” Slughorn’s booming voice cut through the heavy air as he rushed over, his face pale with panic. “Quickly now! That potion– oh dear–"

McLaggen stood behind him, mouth agape in shock and horror as almost all other students had lined up by the walls, putting distance between themselves and the potion. Everyone except Evan, who remained by his desk, grip tight on the wood as he looked in horror and concern.

Barty ignored him. He ignored everyone. His only focus was you – your shallow breathing, your wide, panicked eyes. He didn’t even realise that his hands were shaking until you whimpered softly, and he felt his control slipping further.

“I’m taking her to the infirmary,” Barty said through gritted teeth, not waiting for permission.

Barty scooped you into his arms, cradling you against his chest as he stood. The weight of you felt so fragile, so wrong. You were supposed to be strong, biting back with sharp quips and rolling your eyes at his antics. Not this. Not in pain and trembling in his arms.

“Now, now, I’m sure Madam Pomfrey can come here–”

“No,” Barty said, his voice dark and dangerous, leaving no room for argument. “I’m taking her.”

“Mr. Crouch– wait! We should–” Slughorn tried again, but Barty was already moving, carrying you through the rows of desks and out the door.

His steps were quick but measured, and you were too disoriented by the pain and the shock to protest. Your head rested against his chest, the steady beat of his heart the only thing anchoring you to reality.

“Hang on, Treasure,” he murmured, his voice rough and shaky. “I’ve got you. You’re gonna be alright.”

You weren’t sure when you closed your eyes, but by the time you tried to open them again, you were in the infirmary.

Your mind was swimming through a haze of pain and exhaustion. The world felt heavy around you, like you were dragging yourself up through thick water. At first, you weren’t sure where you were – the sterile smell of potions and the soft rustling of sheets felt foreign, disconnected.

Then you shifted ever so slightly and the sharp sting in your leg brought it all crashing back.

The classroom. The potion. McLaggen’s bloody idiocy. The burning, searing pain as the liquid had spilled across your skin.

Barty.

Barty was sitting at your bedside, his usual composed demeanour shattered. His shoulders were hunched, his face tight with worry, and there was a wildness in his eyes that you had never seen before. The sight of him like that sent a pang of emotion through you, more potent than the lingering sting of the potion burn.

You swallowed thickly, your throat dry. “Barty…” Your voice came out in a cracked whisper.

His head jerked up, his eyes locking onto yours in an instant. For a second, the relief that washed over his face was so overwhelming that it almost broke you. He moved closer, his fingers trembling slightly as he reached out for your hand, stopping just before touching you, as if he wasn’t sure if he should. If he could.

“You’re awake,” he breathed, his voice rough with emotion. His eyes scanned your face, searching for any sign of how you were feeling. “Are you… does it hurt? Are you in pain?”

You blinked up at him, your mind still foggy as the events of the day came rushing back in fragments. You remembered the burning pain, the panic that had clawed at your chest, and – Barty. Barty holding you, his voice in your ear, telling you that you’d be okay.

And now here he was, sitting beside you, his fingers twitching with the urge to touch you but holding back as if afraid he might break you further.

"I–" you tried, but your voice cut off, throat hoarse from the bezoar you were increasingly remembering. "I think I'm fine."

Barty just looked at you, still searching, clearly unsatisfied with your answer. What an unfortunate theme for the week.

“It’s… it’s not as bad now,” you managed, your voice hoarse. The burning in your arm was still there, a dull throb beneath the bandages, but it was nothing compared to the ache in your chest. “What happened? After… I don’t know if I really remember…”

Barty swallowed hard, his jaw clenching as he fought to maintain his composure. “Pomfrey patched you up. You passed out from the pain.” He paused, his voice thickening. “It was bad. You could’ve–”

He cut himself off, his fingers curling into fists as he looked away, his throat working visibly. “It was a close call, Treasure.”

At his words, you realise how hard you were fighting the tears, the bottle you keep your emotions in clearly shattered by your impact with the floor.

"I'm alright," you whispered, to which he just nodded, beautiful face stained by a frown. Yeah, yeah, you thought you could hear him mutter.

"Barty?" you called softly, hoping for his attentive eyes to be back on you – they were in an instant. "Thank you."

"I would do anything for you," he whispered. "I just need you to be alright. I'm so sorry."

"For what?" Your eyebrows furrowed in genuine confusion. "You did nothing wrong Barty. You– you did so good."

Barty leans his head on his fists curled up on your bedside. He was still slightly trembling. "I thought I lost you."

His words hit you like a physical blow. You could hear the desperation in his voice, the crack in his usually cool exterior, and it made your chest tighten with emotion. He wasn’t just worried – he had been terrified. You could see it in the way he refused to meet your eyes now, as if he was still trying to gather himself, still fighting the lingering fear.

Your heart twisted painfully at the sight of him like this, so undone, so vulnerable. It was strange when he was always the one so sure of himself, always the one in control. His usual composed mask had crumbled, leaving raw emotion exposed underneath. You wanted to kiss it better. You wanted to see more.

It was strange, you thought, lying there in the infirmary with a dull ache all throughout your body. Strange how, in moments like these, everything else – the fear, the confusion, the uncertainty – seemed to fall away. All that was left was Barty, his presence consuming every inch of your awareness.

"Barty..." you whispered again. When he looked up at you, his eyes were red-rimmed.

You simply turned your hand laying near his over. An open invitation.

He accepted it immediately, intertwining his fingers with yours and kissing the back of your hand so sweetly it hurt you.

"I thought–" you start, voice breaking from emotion this time. "When it happened, all I could think about was you. How sweet you are with me even when I'm terrible, how stupid it is to let my emotions get in the way of that. I didn't even get to say sorry to you and–" You take a deep breath. "I wanted to. I'm sorry, Barty."

He was shaking his head, cheek against your hand he was holding as it looked at you intensely. "Absolutely not. Apology accepted and then rejected. I don't want you to be sorry."

You try to interject, but he sits up, leaning on his elbow onto your bedside so you are at eye-level. "Nuh-uh. I won't allow it. Thank you, and I'm sorry too, but no."

"Will you at least accept the sentiment that I never meant to hurt you?" you whisper through a tired smile.

"Of course. I hurt myself. I was confused and scared and– shit, this feeling thing is so bloody hard for no reason." You laugh slightly at that, wincing when it pains you. "I hated feeling like we weren't a team."

"Me too," you whispered, not trusting your voice. "I didn't want to fight, I just find it so difficult to trust. That I can, I don't know, show you everything and not run. Because I don't know what to do with myself if you do."

Barty's grip on your hand tightened. "I won't. I swear to you, I won't. That's what scares the shit out of me. How ridiculously much I care about you. What am I to do with that?"

A few tears spilled down your cheeks before you could stop it. His hand instinctively shot forward to wipe them away, frown deepening.

"Can we be scared and confused together?" you asked weakly.

For the first time since you woke up, you saw a smile grace Barty's face, clouded only slightly by his teary eyes. "I reckon we can, Treasure. I– I just need you."

You closed your eyes, triggering the release of a few more tears.

"You'll never lose me," Barty continued, pressing his forehead back against your intertwined hands. "I swear. I don't care what fight we have or how unsure we are. You're the only person who–" He stopped, his breathing hitching as if the words were too heavy on his vocal chords. "I need you."

Your heart clenched painfully at the raw emotion in his voice. The cool, confident Barty you were used to wasn’t here right now. This was a Barty who was terrified and loving, who was stripped bare of all the usual bravado and snark. It made your chest ache in a way that was so full of feeling that it was almost overwhelming.

“I need you too,” you whispered, your voice barely audible.

He lifted his head slowly, his eyes locking onto yours again. There was something so vulnerable, so intense in his gaze that it nearly stole your breath away. He leaned forward then, hesitating only for a moment before his lips brushed gently against your forehead, lingering there as if he was grounding himself in the feel of you, the reality that you were still here.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured against your skin. “I promise.”

For a moment, the weight of those words hung in the air, settling into the space between you. And despite the pain, despite everything that had happened, you felt a small flicker of warmth spark in your chest.

You brought your free hand up to the nape of his neck, guiding his lips from your forehead to your own, kissing him as softly as you could muster. His kiss was careful as he tried to pour as much emotion as possible. All the things you could not say yet, but cared for each other in spite of.

When you parted, you rested your foreheads together and you let out a shaky breath, your heart slowing as the adrenaline finally began to fade.

You opened your eyes to find Barty already looking at you with a slight smile – the look in his eyes was positively lovesick.

With the ease Barty's touch awarded you, you let out a half-choked laugh, relief expanding in your chest, which in turn widened his smile.

"What's so funny?" he asked, a teasing tone finally making it back into his voice.

"I'm just thinking about how ridiculous we are," you laughed, squeezing his hand. "And dramatic, Merlin's beard."

Barty huffed a laugh in return, shaking his head at you. "You knew what you were signing up for when you got with me. Theatrical is my middle name."

"Oh, so you admit it now, do you?"

"Only for you."

You gaze into his eyes and you realise – Barty is not the only one who is lovesick.

"Tell me now," you said, teasing tone finally back in your voice. It made Barty's heart soar, but not as much as your next sentence. "How did you trick me into falling in love with you, Junior?"

"I trick you? Love, I've been heads over heels for you since the first time you insulted me. You're the one who should fess up."

Barty's grin threatened to tear his skin apart as he shook his head.

“Is that so?”

“Absolutely.” He shifted closer, brushing a strand of hair from your face with a tenderness that made your heart stutter. “You’re impossible not to fall for.”

“Good,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion. “Because I think you're stuck with me now.”

Barty leaned down, pressing another soft kiss to your forehead, and when he pulled back, his eyes were alight with something that looked an awful lot like hope.

“Stuck, huh?”

You smirked, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t get cocky, Junior.”

“Too late, Treasure.”

“In that case," you started, trailing off as if you grew uncertain of yourself once more. Barty's hold on you remained steadfast. "Can you stay? Just stay here with me, until I'm dispatched?”

“I’m not leaving,” he murmured, his thumb brushing lightly over your knuckles in a steady, grounding rhythm. “I’ll stay as long as you want. You've got me.”

You felt yourself relax into the bed, your eyes growing heavy with exhaustion, but for the first time in a long while, the tightness in your chest had eased. As your eyes fluttered closed, you heard Barty’s voice again, soft and filled with so much emotion that it made your heart ache all over again.

“Sleep well, my love."

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muzaktomyears · 1 month ago

Text

John Lennon and Yoko Ono: his affairs, binges and diet pills

For years the radio host Elliot Mintz was the only person the former Beatle and his wife trusted. Now, he has written a book about his intense relationship with the couple — including what really happened during Lennon’s infamous ‘Lost Weekend’

John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Elliot Mintz outside the Mampei Hotel in Karuizawa, Japan, 1977. Right: Lennon and Ono in 1980

I am holding a pair of glasses. They are antique, made of steel wire and perfectly round. The trademarked name is the Panto 45. This is the 26th pair of John’s glasses I’ve examined on this snowy night in February 1981. It’s been about two months since he was gunned down in New York outside the Dakota, the gothic edifice where he and Yoko Ono had been living since 1973.

I’ve been tasked with the responsibility of inventorying his personal effects so that Yoko, and posterity, would know precisely what he had left behind. I did not want this task. For one thing, I live 2,500 miles from the Dakota, in Los Angeles, where I host a late-night radio interview show. But Yoko asked me to do it, and I have rarely been able to say no to Yoko, let alone John.

I found their idealism infectious and inspiring. Still, as I got to know John and Yoko as flesh-and-blood friends, I began to see their flawed human sides as well.

The trio at a restaurant in Kyoto, 1977

Yoko, for one, was even more airy and ethereal in private than she was in the media. She could be a fountain of aphorisms, dispensing endless nuggets of Zen-like philosophy. Her haiku-esque homilies on manifesting one’s desires or the wisdom of the nonrational mind could be a bit much for some people.

There were moments when even I was a bit baffled by it all. Except then she would say or do something that would absolutely convince me that she was connected to some higher plane.

John, meanwhile, was every bit as charming, funny and intelligent as he came across in public. But I gradually discovered he was far from perfect. For starters, for a guy who aspired to be a world-shaking peacemaker — a thought leader on a par with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela — he was surprisingly uninformed about historic figures like, well, Gandhi, King and Mandela.

He also had some Luddite-like notions about science, particularly medicine, extending well beyond his annoyance at “daddy doctors” for not letting him perform his own weight-loss injections. Even though John had smoked, ingested or snorted just about every illegal recreational drug he could get his hands on, he was weirdly suspicious of the ones that were properly prescribed and proven efficacious.

Lennon and Ono on The Dick Cavett Show, 1971

John and Yoko could be incredibly sensitive, honest, provocative, caring, creative, generous and wise. They could also be self-centred, desperate, vain, petty and annoying. In John’s case, also shockingly cruel — even to Yoko.

An example…

Early one morning in November 1972, the red ceiling light that would flash whenever my hotline to John and Yoko rang started blinking. I picked up.

“Ellie, I f***ed up,” were the first words out of John’s mouth.

“Why?” I groggily asked. “What did you do?”

“We were at this party last night,” he said, “and I got loaded. And there was a girl…”

I sat up in bed.

The party was at Jerry Rubin’s Greenwich Village apartment. A small crowd of well-connected peaceniks had gathered to watch the presidential election returns on television. As it became clear that Richard Nixon would win re-election by a landslide, the mood grew bleaker and the crowd began drinking more heavily.

Alcohol was not John’s friend and on this occasion, John’s evil inner gremlins truly outdid themselves.

I got some of the specifics from a hungover John during his morning-after call. The upshot was that John had indeed hit it off with some girl at the party and had slipped into a bedroom with her, where they proceeded to have such loud, raucous sex that everyone sitting around the TV in Rubin’s living room — including Yoko — could clearly hear them going at it.

Lennon and Mintz in 1972

At one point, a well-meaning guest put a record on the turntable — Bob Dylan’s 11-minute ballad Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands — at high volume. Yoko sat on the sofa in stunned, mortified silence.

Whatever they said to each other later, I suspect the conversation was not a pleasant one.

“I slept on the sofa,” John told me, sounding defeated and embarrassed — although, frankly, not quite as contrite as I thought his situation warranted. “Things like that happen,” he said, way too matter-of-factly for my taste. “A bloke cheats on his wife… If I weren’t famous, nobody would care.”

Yoko, unsurprisingly, felt differently.

“Are you OK?” I gently asked her when I phoned to check in on her a few hours later.

“There is no answer to that question,” she said shakily.

“Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive him?”

“I can forgive him,” she said. “But I don’t know if I can ever forget what happened. I don’t know if it will ever be the same.”

After a few weeks of cooling down, though — during which Yoko wrote and recorded Death of Samantha, her bluesy ode to burying one’s pain for the sake of outward appearances — the crisis seemed to abate. John and Yoko chose to roll the cosmic dice with a spectacular gesture of faith and hope in the staying power of their love. They bought an apartment in the Dakota.

“It’s apartment No 72,” Yoko announced when she called to tell me about the purchase. “Do you see the significance?”

Lennon’s 38th birthday party, 1978

When you add seven and two, you get nine, Yoko explained, which was a hugely significant numeral to the Lennons, a magic integer that seemed to mysteriously recur throughout John’s life. Yoko would rattle off the number’s many repeated appearances: John was born on October 9. She was born on February 18 (1 plus 8). Paul McCartney’s last name has nine letters…

I was somewhat mystified as to why they chose this particular neighbourhood. “Aren’t you worried it’ll be too stuffy for you?” I asked John. “Will the people who live there even know who you are?”

“I don’t want them to know who we are,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t want to know who they are. We just want to be left alone.”

The Dakota struck me as one of the most eerily beautiful — and oddly daunting — structures in all of New York. John and Yoko greeted me in the vaulted vestibule, eager to begin our tour, which started on the ground floor with the new headquarters for Studio One, the business entity behind John and Yoko’s creative enterprises. Tellingly, John did not have an office in Studio One; Yoko did.

The main attraction was on the seventh floor. It was nearly 5,000sq ft, with massive windows offering eye-popping views of Central Park. Virtually everything in its expansive living room, from the plush carpeting to the grand Steinway piano, was as white as Japanese snowbells.

Lennon, Ono and Mintz at a Shinto temple in Kyoto. The custom was to hang your horoscope on a line

There was only one highly conspicuous work of art in the White Room: a Plexiglass case on a white pedestal, in which was a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus. John and Yoko had scored the very last mummy allowed out of Egypt before the Egyptian government put a ban on exporting their national antiquities.

“You should x-ray it and see what’s inside,” I suggested. “There might be something of great value, like precious jewels.”

“I don’t care what’s inside,” Yoko responded. “The great value is the magic of the mummy itself.”

Another thing I clearly remember about that long afternoon at the Dakota was how enthusiastic both John and Yoko seemed about the life they were building together in this new nest. John giddily described the “entertainment centre” he wanted to construct in a nook off the kitchen. Yoko, ever the artist, chattered about the endless design ideas she had. It was all too easy to forget about the pain and stress they’d been dealing with. I managed to convince myself that the worst was over for John and Yoko. I was wrong.

There are those who believe Yoko not only approved of the affair but arranged it. That she planted May Pang in the seat next to John on that American Airlines flight from New York to Los Angeles knowing full well what was likely to happen. That their comely 23-year-old assistant would sooner or later end up sleeping with her husband.

It’s possible, I suppose. It could be she saw some strategic long-term advantage in setting up the affair; by handpicking John’s mistress, she might have felt she could exert some dominion over his extramarital wanderings. Perhaps, thanks to her mystical advisers, she really did see that John was heading for a free fall and was endeavouring to soften his inevitable crash.

If any of that is true, though, Yoko never breathed a word of it to me. All she said in October 1973 was that she was sending John and an assistant to LA. Could I please meet them at the airport?

With his assistant and lover, May Pang, 1974

I was by then aware that their marriage was in deep trouble. Despite their best efforts to mend the relationship, the red light on my bedroom ceiling had been blinking even more feverishly than usual leading up to what would later be known as John’s “Lost Weekend”, the 18 months he spent in exile from his wife in New York.

Yoko’s demeanour back then, as always, was not demonstrably emotional but it was clear from our phone conversations that she was in pain. John’s calls were every bit as depressing.

“Has Mother been talking to you about us?” he asked during one early morning chat.

“Yoko talks to me about everything,” I answered vaguely.

“The other day I shaved and got dressed up and told her I wanted to take her to her favourite restaurant and she turned me down,” he lamented. “She said she didn’t have time. Me own f***ing wife said that to me!”

Yoko has always been a methodical person, and my guess is that she precisely and carefully orchestrated John’s eviction from the Dakota. John might not have even realised what was happening to him. He certainly didn’t seem like a man who’d been kicked out of his home when I met him and May Pang at LA airport.

“You look trim, Ellie,” he said with a big grin when I greeted them. “Have you been taking those diet pills again?”

They had very little luggage, suggesting that neither of them was expecting a long stay. My instructions from Yoko were to drive them to music manager Lou Adler’s house in Bel Air, a mini-mansion up on Stone Canyon Road.

“I need some money,” John said as we settled into my weary old Jaguar. “Mother said these could be used for money,” John continued, shoving a fistful of traveller’s cheques in my hand.

The couple outside the Dakota building in New York, 1980. They bought an apartment there in 1973

John was functionally a child when it came to taking care of himself. But then, that was what May was for. Whatever other intentions Yoko may or may not have had for the assistant, her primary job was to make sure John was properly fed and cared for, that all his basic needs — or at least most of them — were satisfied.

John and I spent a lot of time together over the next several weeks. He was also expanding his friendship circle in LA, hanging out with people like Harry Nilsson, the brilliant but notoriously hell-raising singer-songwriter. But after three or four months, much of his initial enthusiasm had boiled off and his mood was starting to curdle. He was missing Yoko: he began asking me when I thought she’d be ready for him to come home. He started spending more and more time with Nilsson, drinking at the Troubadour till all hours. After John famously got thrown out for drunkenly heckling the Smothers Brothers, the late-night shenanigans moved to the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset. That’s where John and Harry and a collection of others — including my old pals Micky Dolenz and Alice Cooper — formed an infamous drinking club known as the Hollywood Vampires.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the level of unbridled indulgences that took place in the Rainbow’s VIP room, a small alcove atop some stairs overlooking the bar. The amount of alcohol imbibed was staggering, to say the least, and there were also small bags of cocaine discreetly passed into the room. Nilsson, a great big bear of a man, could pound down a dozen or so brandy alexanders — a potent mix of brandy and cream, his cocktail of choice, which John soon adopted as his own — in a single sitting.

Not being a celebrity, I was never invited to become a member of the Hollywood Vampires, but I was a welcome visitor and spent many a late night on the edges of their wild, sometimes harrowing saturnalias.

Lennon with his Hollywood Vampires drinking partners, from left, Harry Nilsson, Alice Cooper and Micky Dolenz, November 1973

There was always a crowd of attractive young women at the bottom of the steps leading to the Vampires’ VIP lair. Frankly, though, by the time the boys descended, usually at closing time, most of them were too wasted to take advantage of the opportunity. I lost count of the number of times I all but carried John down those stairs and poured him into whatever car service I had called to the bar’s car park.

For the most part, I kept my promise to Yoko: I kept John safe. But one night, I realised things were starting to spiral out of my control. Normally, John didn’t put up much of a fight when I helped him down the stairs at the Rainbow Bar but on this occasion, he resisted. He didn’t want to go home.

He pushed away and dived straight into the crowd. It was my worst nightmare: a drunken star lost inside a drunken mob.

Finally, I spotted John with Nilsson at the edge of the car park, the two of them climbing into the back of a black limousine. A moment later, it pulled away into the night, going I had no idea where.

John, I realised with a sinking feeling in my gut, was slipping away.

I was about to walk into the nadir of the Lost Weekend, John’s rock bottom. The call came not on the hotline but my regular house phone, and the voice on the other end identified himself as a security officer working for Phil Spector. John was in trouble: could I please hurry over to Adler’s house and help “calm him down”.

What I saw when I stepped into Adler’s living room some 20 minutes later looked like a scene out of The Exorcist. Drunk and wild-eyed, John was strapped to a high-backed chair, his arms and legs restrained with ropes, which he was struggling against with all his might as he shouted obscenities at his captors, a pair of beefy-armed bodyguards who stood in awkward silence nearby. The place was a shambles. John had torn some of Adler’s framed gold records off the walls and smashed them to pieces. Bits of broken wood and shattered Plexiglass littered the floor.

The couple in Selfridges in London where Ono was signing copies of her book Grapefruit, July 1971

Apparently, the meltdown had started earlier that evening at the studio, where John and Phil had nearly come to blows. What precisely they were arguing about, nobody seemed to remember. But the session ended early with Phil’s guards restraining John and shuttling him to Adler’s house, where John slipped away from them long enough to pick up some sort of walking stick or cane, which he swung wildly around the living room until the guards were able to subdue him.

I slowly stepped up to John, who had stopped shouting. His head hung low on his shoulders, his chest heaving furiously. After a long beat, he slowly lifted his eyes to me. He looked possessed.

“Get these ropes off me!” he erupted. “Get them off me, you…”

And then John spat out an epithet so hurtful and offensive, I can’t bring myself to repeat it.

I looked straight into his eyes, barely containing my disgust and disappointment. He looked back into mine. And that exchange of glances seemed to reach some shred of humanity buried deep in John’s alcohol-addled brain. Suddenly he became very, very quiet.

After a moment or two, I turned to the guards. “I think you can take those ropes off him,” I said. “I think he’s done.”

John stood up, rubbed his wrists and, without another word, slowly made his way down the hall to the bedroom, where he must have collapsed on the mattress and passed out.

The next day, as I was getting ready to leave for work, the hotline started flashing.

“Ellie?” John said. “I’m sorry for what I said. But if you think about it, if that’s the worst thing I could say about you, you couldn’t be all that bad, right?”

“Thanks for the compliment,” I said.

“Well, welcome to the real world, Mother Virgin Mary. I’m me. I have a big mouth and express meself the way I feel when I feel it. I don’t hide behind some microphone. I sing into it or speak into it when it suits me. I’m not always the Imagine guy or the Jealous Guy or the Walrus. So I said I’m sorry to you. That’s all I can do.

Lennon and Ono in 1972

“Do you want to have dinner?”

“No,” I answered. “I think I’m going to take the night off.”

For the first time I can remember, I was the one who hung up the phone.

Obviously, our friendship took a hit after the incident at Adler’s house; how could it not? For the next several months, John and I barely spent time together — at least, not in person. We would talk almost every day on the phone, as we always had, and eventually our rapport began to feel as easy and familiar as ever. But I no longer joined him for evenings at the Troubadour or the Rainbow.

John, meanwhile, had shifted from the mayhem of the Spector sessions to the slightly lesser bedlam of producing a record for his pal Harry Nilsson. The most notable thing about the Pussy Cats sessions was who else was in the room. Ringo Starr sat in on drums. And although it never made it onto Nilsson’s album, another ex-Beatle unexpectedly turned up and even sang with John, the first time the two of them had performed together since the Beatles split.

I wasn’t present but later heard that Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, had popped in without warning, bringing Stevie Wonder with them. According to those who were there, John and Paul seemed to pick up their friendship as if they were teenagers again, but when John told me about it later, he was kind of dismissive about it, saying, “They were all just looking at us, thinking that something big was going to happen. To me, it was just playing with Paul.”

Lennon with Harry Nilsson, left, outside the Troubadour club in West Hollywood, having just been ejected for heckling a performance by the Smothers Brothers, March 12, 1974

What John didn’t know, though, was that, according to Yoko, Paul had an ulterior motive for the visit. A few days earlier, she had called me to explain the machinations behind the visit.

Yoko told me she spoke with Paul, who offered to speak with John. “I thought it was very kind,” she said. “I was very appreciative. But I made it very clear to Paul that it wasn’t something I was asking him to do. It would have to be Paul’s idea, not mine.”

To me, there was never any question that John desperately wanted to get back with Yoko. Yes, he had feelings for May, yet at some point during virtually every phone call I had with him, John would sooner or later beseech me to talk to Yoko on his behalf. “Tell Mother I’m ready to come home, Ellie. Tell her I’m a changed man.”

“I don’t think she wants to hear it from me,” I would say. “She wants you to show it to her.”

Paul, I later heard, gave John similar advice. Sometime after popping into the studio in Burbank, he sat down with John and laid out, step by step, what he would need to do to win Yoko back.

It’s impossible to say if Paul’s presentation was what did it, or if John experienced some other epiphany around that time, but over the ensuing months he did indeed begin to clean up his act. In the summer of 1974, he started working on his next album, Walls and Bridges, regularly flying to New York for rehearsals and recordings at the Record Plant on West 44th Street. By all accounts, those sessions were entirely professional, with John showing up 100 per cent sober every day.

At the Grammy Awards in New York, March 1, 1975

Then, as work on the album neared completion, John made a fateful decision: he decided not to wait any longer for Yoko’s invitation to return to New York. Instead, towards the end of the summer, he and May rented an apartment of their own on the Upper East Side. It was a small but comfortable place that had a wraparound balcony with spectacular views of the East River.

When I flew to New York to tape some interviews, I took the opportunity to pay them a visit — my first face-to-face meeting with John since the ugliness at Adler’s house. It was an awkward encounter for numerous reasons. For one thing, I had just spent an afternoon with Yoko at the Dakota, some 20 blocks away; taking a cab across town to John and May’s felt something akin to betrayal.

Perhaps sensing my apprehension, May gave me a wide berth, leaving to make some phone calls in a bedroom while John and I stood together on the balcony, catching up.

“Does this make you feel uneasy?” John asked after a beat.

“You mean being here with you and May? Yes, a little,” I admitted. “It just reminds me of the fact that you and Mother are still separated, and that makes me sad.”

“Well, that’s the way Mother wants it,” he said. “At least for now.”

Then, unexpectedly, he wrapped his arm over my shoulders and added, “Don’t look so glum, me boy. Put on your radio face. There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.”

It was one of the few times he’d quoted a line to me from a Beatles song.

Walls and Bridges was released a month or so later. John sent a prereleased signed copy (“To my little dream lover on ice, with love and old pianos,” he wrote, referring to my affection for Bobby Darin’s hit song).

As it happened, Elton John had joined John on keyboards for one song on the album. Elton made a bet with John. If the song was a hit, John would have to perform at Elton’s upcoming concert at Madison Square Garden. John agreed, never imagining he’d have to honour that promise.

Of course, Elton was spot on: Whatever Gets You Thru the Night did indeed become John’s first No 1 solo single. And so it came to pass that, in November 1974, onstage at Madison Square Garden, in front of thousands and thousands of fans, that the Lost Weekend finally began to fade to a finish.

Lennon’s surprise appearance at Elton John’s concert at Madison Square Garden, November 28, 1974

The details of what exactly transpired backstage that night remain, 50 years later, shrouded in some mystery. What is known is that Yoko, who’d been invited to the concert by Elton’s manager, was in the audience. She couldn’t have been prepared for the reaction around her when Elton announced, about two thirds into the concert, that he was bringing John onto the stage for his first public performance in two years. The crowd went berserk.

After the show, Elton’s manager approached Yoko and told her that Elton had requested her presence in his dressing room. Yoko was led backstage to a door with a star on it. She knocked, the entrance opened, and inside she saw her husband standing there, alone.

I cannot tell you what happened after the dressing room door closed behind them. Nobody but Yoko knows that, and she has never shared with me any details. What I can tell you is that in the weeks and months that followed, there must have been many more rendezvous as Yoko and John re-established their connection, even as he continued living with May in their East Side apartment.

According to one of May’s early accounts, John was ultimately hypnotised into ending his relationship with her; she has long claimed that Yoko hired a mesmerist to help John quit smoking but that it was all a ruse to brainwash him into splitting up with her so he could return to Yoko. To this day, many people believe that story. But I know for certain that it wasn’t true. Because, as it happens, I’m the one who arranged the hypnotist.

Yoko had nothing to do with it.

John had remembered that I had interviewed a hypnotist on my radio show and asked me if he might be able to help him kick nicotine.

At the Lincoln Center in New York, circa 1975

I called the hypnotist, planned for him to fly to New York, booked him a room in a Midtown hotel, and set up an appointment with John. In just about every respect, though, the hypnosis was a total bust. John told me immediately afterwards he was never put under; the hypnotist claimed John was but just couldn’t remember. The hypnotist also turned out to be something of a diva. He disliked his hotel — he thought the desk clerks were rude — and checked out the next day, flying back to LA in a huff.

John didn’t quit smoking, not for a minute, so it’s hard to imagine the hypnotist had succeeded in brainwashing him into anything else — like, say, leaving a lover. But the very next day, John did break it off with May and returned to the Dakota, resuming his marriage to Yoko and ending, at last, the long and lonely winter that had been the Lost Weekend. He called me in LA shortly afterwards to share the happy news.

He said, “Let the media know the separation did not work.”

‘He’d weigh himself twice a day’

Elliot Mintz on his friendship with John and Yoko. By Georgina Roberts

When a red light in Elliot Mintz’s bedroom flashed, it meant that John Lennon or Yoko Ono was calling him on a special hotline. “In an average week, 20 hours of phone conversation would not be unusual,” the 79-year-old former radio DJ and talk-show host says from his Beverly Hills living room.

Mintz describes the friendship with the couple that “dominated” nine years of his life as “almost a kind of marriage”. He was taken aback when Ono called him in 1971 to thank him for not asking about Lennon when he interviewed her on his radio show. When they began to speak for hours at night, she batted away his concern that her husband might get jealous, saying, “Aren’t you giving yourself a little too much credit, Elliot?”

Lennon first called Mintz to ask if he could get him fat-melting pills. “That was my first conversation with John Lennon. It wasn’t philosophical. It wasn’t about Elvis or the Beatles. It was about weight loss,” he says. Sometimes Lennon would weigh himself twice a day and the couple “were obsessive about diet”.

In Hotel Okura in Tokyo, October 1975

After six months of speaking, the couple summoned him to meet them in Ojai, California, where they were trying to kick a methadone addiction. Ono barely spoke until she was in a bathroom with the tap running. “She whispered to me, ‘This house is bugged. Everything we say here, they’re listening. So you have to be very careful what you say.’ ” FBI files released years later showed that Ono wasn’t being paranoid. President Nixon had placed the couple under surveillance after rumours they planned to disrupt his convention, Mintz says.

His clandestine friendship with the couple wreaked havoc on his love life. When he couldn’t explain whom he’d been speaking to in the middle of the night, one love interest assumed he was married and stormed out. “I realised at that moment that my love life would have to take a back seat to my relationship with John and Yoko,” he says.

There were times when lines were crossed in the friendship. One morning, Lennon summoned Mintz to kick out a girl who’d stayed the night. “I told him, ‘Please don’t ask me to do something like that again.’ He flipped out. He said, ‘I will effing ask you to do anything that I feel like asking you to do. Do you understand that?’ ” Mintz was hurt and offended. The next day was one of the few times he said no to “grabbing a bite” with Lennon.

Becoming parents was “the biggest game-changer” for the couple. After his son Sean was delivered via caesarean section in 1975, “John was outraged that when Yoko was clearly struggling, doctors would come up to him and say, ‘I’ve always dreamt of shaking your hand.’ He would bark at them, ‘Look after me wife!’ ”

While Lennon threw himself into childcare, Ono, who came from a banking dynasty, handled the couple’s finances. After becoming stratospherically famous so young, Lennon was “clueless” about money. “I doubt if John was ever in a supermarket, went to a bank, wrote a cheque. That’s what Yoko did,” Mintz says. “If not for Yoko, there’d be no money in the Lennon-Ono estate today.”

A drawing by Lennon on a postcard from Japan sent to Mintz in 1977

The first time Mintz met their son, Lennon said protectively, “Not too close. Germs.” “He said, ‘Look, we were going to make you the godfather, but we decided on Elton, because he would at least give him better Christmas presents.’ ” “This is typical John,” Mintz says.

Sean would only spend five years with his father before Lennon was murdered outside the Dakota in December 1980. Lennon had always “poo-pooed” Mintz’s requests for him to employ more security. “John said, ‘I’m just a rock’n’roll singer. Who would want to hurt me?’ ”

When Mintz speaks about learning of Lennon’s murder from a weeping flight attendant, his honeyed radio-presenter voice cracks with emotion. “Even now, after all these years, just thinking about that moment…” He trails off. The most gut-wrenching of his responsibilities was making an inventory of Lennon’s possessions. When he signed for a stapled brown paper bag that came from the hospital where Lennon was taken after he was shot, he could not bear to open it. “It was what John was wearing, what he had on him when he fell, including his broken, bloodied glasses.”

He is reticent about his friendship with Ono today. “I want to give her a sense of privacy,” he says, but adds, “It still feels like family. I still love her dearly.” The last time he saw her was at her 91st birthday in February. It was there that Sean encouraged Mintz to write his book, We All Shine On. Does he think Ono will like it? “I’ve never tried to predict a Yoko Ono conclusion.”

How different would his life be if he had never met the couple? “I could have got married. Could have had children.” Were the sacrifices worth it? “Of course. I got to spend that amount of my time with these two extraordinary people.”

We All Shine On: John, Yoko, & Me by Elliot Mintz (Bantam, £25).

(source)

#john lennon #yoko ono #elliot mintz

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lizard-on-a-window-pane · 2 months ago

Note

Enemies to lovers, period sex and dirty talk with james potter please 🥹

yay a kinktober request! this is why i love these things, i would've never put those together (this request gave me some saltburn vibes ngl but dw i didn't take it that direction)

mdni obviously, fem!reader wc: 3.8k - sorry i got a bit carried away; hope you enjoy!

Bloody Hell

Damn, it was like your period was on a schedule to come when as inconvenient as possible recently. You weren’t supposed to get it for a few days. You groan, clutching your achy back, considering whether this meant you had to change your Halloween costume for tonight. You were going to Sirius’s party as witch. It didn’t involve white trousers or anything ridiculously tight or short, so you felt fine wearing your fancy dress with your now necessary period pants.

As the day dragged on, pain killers helped the cramps, but definitely not the moodiness. It’d been a while since it made you this grumpy. But, Halloween only came once a year, and you’d been excited for the party, so you try to change your attitude as you’re getting ready later.

The witch’s costume is a bit typical, but you’d loved the colours and liked the classics. Besides, it fit unusually well. Tight and loose in all the right places, the perfect skirt length, and not to mention what it did for your… bosom. You looked hot. The first person you see upon arriving at Sirius’s does not help your mood: James bloody Potter. Looking gorgeous as ever… Wait, what? No. Not gorgeous. Annoying. Yes, that was it. Annoying and smug and irritating and fit. Ugh, okay, whatever. He looked really fit.

He hadn’t dressed too far from his normal self. Still wearing his typical leather jacket and jeans, but he’d cuffed them differently and had arranged his usually very messy luscious head of hair differently.

“A witch, Y/L/N? Really?” God, why did his stupid, gruff voice always have such an effect on you?

“Not very creative.” “At least I dressed up, Potter. What are you supposed to be? A twat?”

“Har-har. So witty. This, for your information, is a 1950’s look.” “Oh, is it? I thought I saw you wearing it last week.”

He just glares at you. “Alright, alright, you two. Should’ve dressed as vampires; hasn’t even been five minutes, and you’re already at each other’s throats,” Sirius comes interrupting, giving you a quick greeting hug and shoving James a bit along the way.

“Hi, Siri,” you hug back. “Blame your bestie. He’s the one who doesn’t know how to be nice.” “Oh, because you’re always a ray of sunshine?” James retorts. “Fucking hell,” Sirius sighs, already walking away, busy playing host. He’s already turned his back but you — both of you — clearly hear his exasperated, “Just fuck already, and stop torturing the rest of us.”

Your wide, mortified eyes snap to James, whose expression mirrors yours. Then he just scoffs and walks away. Typical.

The party goes on and is actually quite fun. The place is completely covered in Halloween decorations, and some of the costumes are amazing. It’s working wonders on your mood, especially when Remus arrives, but the grumpiness has a way of sneaking its way back into your system whenever Potter approaches.

You catch him looking over at you frequently, and it gets on your nerves. What does he want? To pick a fight? And why do you care? You try to ignore him as you keep chatting to Remus.

But it becomes impossible when he comes to stand right next to you. “Alright, mate?” He claps Remus on the shoulder, completely ignoring you.

“I’m standing right here, Potter,” you can’t help but say.

“Yes, I noticed.” “Did you? Because, you see, most people when they notice someone is having a conversation, don’t just interrupt it and ignore them.”

Remus is off with a sighed, “Not this again.” “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot how much you love my attention,” James says smugly, finally turning to you and smirking. You roll your eyes. “Yes, I’m desperate for it,” you deadpan. “Though don’t think I haven’t notice you looking at me, Potter. If I did want your attention, I wouldn’t really be left wanting, would I?”

He seems a bit flustered by this, and you love it when you actually manage to get to him, to render him speechless even if for a mere moment. So, without a clear idea of where it will even lead, you pounce on the opportunity that seems to be presenting itself.

“Am I wrong? Why have you been so interested in what I’m doing tonight then?” You quirk an eyebrow at him, take a step closer. This really throws him.

“Pfft, have not.” He crosses his arms defensively. “Wow. So witty.” You cross your arms, mirroring him.

This draws his gaze down to your chest, and it lingers there. He seems to catch himself after a few seconds, but it was still a few seconds too many. Interesting.

God, was there any way Sirius was right? It was bound to happen some time.

And even if he was… if James was… what? into you? as into you as you were him? was that what you wanted? Actually admitting the feelings sounded much scarier than relentlessly arguing with him forever.

You’ve gotten lost in your thoughts (and, ugh, feelings), so you don’t notice how long has gone by. Nor do you notice that your demeanour is changing, shifting from teasing and challenging to reflective and slightly worried.

“What?” James asks, noticing.

“Nothing,” you panic.

“You’re definitely thinking something.” He waves an accusatory finger around your face. “Pfft, am not.” “Wow. So witty,” he repeats, and it’s filled with glee at retaking the upper hand.

This annoys you to no end, but you still can’t think of anything to say, so you just push past him with a “you’re so annoying.”

You try for a while to enjoy the party, to ignore James Potter — and the many thoughts and feelings about James Potter that won’t stop hounding you. You keep looking over at him, unable to help yourself.

The seemingly millionth time you do, his eyes catch yours. You want to look away, but something keeps you from doing so. Not wanting to give him the upper hand, again? Not wanting to look away from his beautiful orbs, possibly?

You just stare at each other from across the room for what feels like the heaviest few seconds of your life. Then his gaze drops, and rather than victory you feel… disappointment. You want him looking at you. Want to look at him back. Your disappointment doesn’t last for too long, though, as you realize he’s walking over to you.

He stops right in front of you, extremely close. He doesn’t say anything. You watch each other intently. “You’re staring at me,” he finally says. “You were staring at me first.”

Expecting him to deny it, you’re stunned when he responds, “So what if I was?” Then he checks you out shamelessly, his eyes dragging across your whole body, lingering on your chest, exploring your face, before landing back on your own.

That’s it. Stupid, shameless Potter. You do the only thing to do: you take a tiny step forward and smash your lips against his.

He’s kissing you back ardently before you even truly realize what’s happening. His hands grasp you desperately, pulling your body into his; his mouth contorts over yours, devouring you hungrily. He moans deeply enough for you to hear it over the loud sounds of the party. When he gropes your arse, you moan back. But you also realize what the fuck is happening. In the middle of a crowded room. So you pull back from him.

His mouth chases yours desperately, not wanting to break apart.

“Wait, James, wait.” He does. And he’s looking at you funny. “Are you alright?” you ask him. “I like how you say my name, sweetheart.” His sincerity surprises you, melts you. So even though you can’t help yourself as you respond, “Whatever, Potter,” it’s much softer than usual, warmth where there’s usually snark. He smirks at you.

“So can we keep kissing now?” “We’re in public, James.”

You don’t miss his lips quirk at the word. “So?” “So? I’m not a bloody exhibitionist! I have some standards…” “Toilet, then?” “Yeah, toilet,” you nod frantically.

His hands don’t release your hips the whole way you chase each other to the bathroom. He catches the back of your neck in a couple of quick kisses, and it’s sending tingles down your whole body.

You’re extremely grateful it’s empty when you reach it, rushing in in a frenzy. James slams the door shut and wastes no time in pushing you against it. He picks up where you had left off.

His mouth is hot and delicious against yours, his tongue dancing against yours in its explorations. He enjoys your mouth but soon traces down your jaw and starts sucking on your throat. You shiver at the sensations and pull him to you, your fingers winding into his gorgeous hair. He moans at this and the vibrations directly against your skin make you whimper.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he says, his lips still tracing your throat. “I love the sounds you make.”

You hum, and he grazes his teeth across your skin, morphing your voice into a soft yelp. “Yeah, like that,” he chuckles gruffly.

The next time his mouth makes it to the base of your neck, he continues downward. He starts kissing the tops of your tits desperately, bringing his hands up your body to grope them as he does.

“Fuck, I’ve been going mad all night looking at these. You should wear this every day.” His hands move to your hips pulling you from the door over to the sink. “C’mere,” he says as he lifts you to sit on the small counter.

You wrap your legs around his hips and your arms around his neck. You play with his hair as he kisses you fervently.

“I’ve always wanted to pull your hair,” you confess, surprising both of you with your honesty. “Oh yeah?” He looks so turned on, you throw any last inhibitions out the window. “Yeah. Fuck, you have nice hair.” You tug harshly on it, and his reacting groan is almost animalistic. His now black eyes stare directly into yours for a charged moment before he dives back into you.

He kisses wetly down to your throat and chest, and this time when he gets to your breasts, he unceremoniously pulls your dress and bra down.

“Fuck, you have nice tits,” he echoes and grins. He plays with them, kneading them and tugging on your nipples, rolling them between his fingers before shoving his face between them. He licks across your chest and circles your nipple with his tongue. He switches eagerly between them, puckering them both up before taking one into his greedy mouth and sucking. You let out a loud, strangled whimper at the intense and exquisite sensation, and James hums around your tit. You cradle his head against you.

Rubbing his face against your breasts, he pleads, “That’s it, baby. Keep making those sounds. I love hearing how good you feel. It’s so fucking hot.”

“Jaames,” you whine as he sucks your nipple again.

“Fuck, Y/N.” Groping them hard one more time, he brings his hands down from your tits, massaging your sides before grabbing your thighs. He squeezes them harshly, jiggling them and running his nails across your skin.

He’s running his hands up your thighs, under your skirt, toward your center, whispering “You wet for me, baby?” when your stomach drops and you remember, panicking. You’d been so caught up in James, you’d entirely forgotten.

“Fuck!” you yelp, pushing James away suddenly. He stumbles, then takes a steadying step back. He looks completely confused (and unreasonably sexy, all scruffed up from making out with you). “Fucking hell, Y/N. What? You alright?”

“I — fuck, yeah, I’m fine — I just — fuck.” You cover your face with your hands and squeeze your thighs shut. “Hey,” James says much more softly. “What’s up, love? Y’alright? You’re kind of freaking me out.” “Ugh, ‘m so sorry,” you slur into your hands. He grabs your wrists gently, pulling them away from your face. “It’s alright, whatever it is. Just… can you tell me what’s wrong?” God, how you wish you could vanish in that moment. Or better, not have had your bloody — literally — body betray you like this this morning. Why this fucking time of all times to come early?

You’re mortified, embarrassed as hell, wishing there was some way out of this without having to explain the truth and put James Potter off, probably for good. After all the time and tension it’d taken to get you here at all.

“Y/n?”

You take a steadying breath but still can’t get the words out. So you cover your face again, only able to utter them while feeling hidden from him. “‘M on my period,” you confess. He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, so you brave moving your hands down and looking up at him. You’re not sure how to read his expression. Then he grins lightly and brings his hands to your cheeks. He tucks your now messy hair behind your ears on both sides before holding your face.

He’s surprised you several times tonight, but this next one takes the cake. “If you don’t mind, I don’t mind,” he says simply with a shrug and a caress of your cheeks. “What?” You can’t believe it. Every other guy it’d come up with before had treated it like the most disgusting thing. “I don’t mind,” he repeats, chuckling, moving his face closer to yours to look up deeply into your eyes.

“Are you serious?” “Yeah. I mean, if you don’t want to that’s fine, obviously. Like if you’re not feeling well or whatever, but if it’s just about the blood… I can handle a little blood.” “It’s more than a little,” you whisper embarrassedly.

“I didn’t mean it literally,” he laughs. How can he seem so lighthearted? Could he really not mind?

He brings his hands back to your thighs, pulling them slowly apart, giving you time to resist the motion, stepping between them when you don’t. He messages them on either side of his hips. “So?” he asks seductively, clearly eager to continue. “You really don’t mind?" “Really. Fuck, Y/N, I’ve been wanting this so fucking long, I’d be a madman if I waited longer just because you’re on your period.”

Worrying your lower lip between your teeth, you open your legs a bit wider at his words. The dark smirk that usurps James’s expression as you do makes your cunt pulse. God, you want him. Blood be damned.

Slowly, so slowly it’s driving you insane, he ghosts his hands over your skin the rest of the way up your legs. When they finally reach your underwear, they snake under the waistband and tentatively pull. You lift your hips, and he yanks them the rest of the way off.

Instinctively, you try to shut your legs. James standing where he is only lets you do it part of the way. Pushing the insides of your knees open again, he says, “No need to hide, gorgeous.” “I — “ But words fail you. So, you simply let him open your legs.

Sensing your tension, James kisses you again. He starts softly, but you’re both so hungry for each other, so worked up already despite the interruption, that it’s only a few seconds before you’re ravaging each other again, moaning and grasping and pulling each other close. With his mouth still on yours, one hand holding your face, the other comes between your legs, grazing where your thigh meets your cunt.

You shiver, a combination of nerves and pleasure. He breaks your kiss, but rests his forehead on yours, looking straight into your eyes. He lifts his eyebrows in question, and you nod hesitantly.

He finally brings his fingers to your center, ghosting over it. When you feel the string of your tampon under his fingers, you ashamedly let out an “Oh, god” then “sorry.”

James tssks at you and whispers, “’S alright, sweetheart. It’s fine. Maybe let’s get rid of this, though, cos it’s where I want to be, yeah?” Fuck, how could he keep turning you on even more? You nod and bring your hand between your legs. You pull out the tampon and toss it over into the rubbish bin.

Without further ado, James touches you properly. His fingers slide up and down your wet folds. Your slick and blood mix under his ministrations, but it feels so fucking unreal that you finally start not to care.

You’d always been sensitive during your period. But no one else had ever touched you during it. Nor had it been after ages of sexual tension and lustful fantasies. Every graze of his hand is divine, and when his motions become proper strokes, the full length of his fingers rubbing against you, you squeal as your head falls onto his shoulder. One hand clutches the sink, the other James. “Feel good?” he teases. “Yes,” you sigh desperately.

“How about this then?” he asks as he plunges two fingers into you. You scream.

“Shhh, sweetheart,” he laughs. “I mean, keep screaming, but maybe not so loud. Don’t want anyone to come knocking when I’m finally this close to fucking you.”

“Fuck.” “Hmm, that’s it. Just relax, love.” His hand thrusts as his fingers curl inside you, and you clench in utter pleasure. “Fuuuck, you’re squeezing me so bloody tight, love. Can’t wait to feel you around my cock.” You let out some kind of strained affirmative groan and clench again. “Yeah? Want to feel me fill you up?” “Yes, fuck, yes, please.”

“Who knew you could be this nice, Y/L/N? That all it’d take was my fingers inside you.” “Shut up, Potter.” But there’s no bite to it. “We both know you don’t want me to shut up. I can feel how much you’re enjoying this.” You just bite your lip and whimper when he pushes his thumb against your clit. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You can bring the snark back after I make you cum.”

Your eyes roll to the back of your head at the thought, and you nod, giving into him. “I know I could do it like this, but I can’t wait any longer to feel you, baby.”

He pulls his hand out of you, and you whine. When you see how entirely covered in blood it is, any further sounds die in your throat at your mortification.

“I —“ you start, but James just shakes his head and kisses you to shut you up. Not breaking apart from you, he reaches blindly for the hand towel and cleans his hands when he finally finds it. There’s still dark red traces of you on the fingers that then hurry to his trousers, opening them in a rush. He pushes them down and pulls his cock free. Your cunt clenches around nothing at the sight. “James,” you whine. “Yeah, sweetheart?” “Please fuck me.” With a deep groan, one of his hands roughly pulls your head to keep making out with you and the other grabs his cock and lines it up with your center. He pushes in fast. His mouth devours the sounds yours makes in response.

He starts pounding in and out of you, not bothering to start slow. You’re sure you’d be wet enough regardless, but as things stand, he’s gliding in and out of you. A loud squelching sounds as he thrusts, but before you have time to be embarrassed, James moans, “Fuck, you feel so fucking amazing,” and pounds harder.

He has to bring one hand to the sink just behind you to stabilize himself from how roughly he’s going; his other hand takes a vice-like grip of your hip. His head ends up in the crook of your neck, and he kisses and sucks. Your hand comes to his hair, your other arm clinging around his shoulders clutching him as your whole body reverberates with his movements.

He slows down only enough to lean his head slightly down to where your tits are bouncing. He sucks your nipple and keeps it in his mouth as he keeps fucking into you. At the harsh and unexpected suck, you scream again. He makes no effort to quiet you.

With his face at your chest, he’s opened a bit of space between your bodies, and he brings a hand to where he keeps disappearing in and out of you. He starts rubbing messily on your clit.

With that sensation on top of all the others that have your body on fire, you cum violently around him with strangled yell.

He thrusts through it, but a few clenches of your pussy later, he can’t help but cum too. Your clutching cunt milks him dry.

He’s panting loudly when he finally stops moving, his hips still, his face resting on your chest. An aftershock ripples through him, and his body gives a quick shake. Then he gives your breast a quick peck before moving to kiss your mouth. It doesn’t last; he’s so out of breath, but he rests his forehead on yours as he recovers. His arms rest on the sink on either side of you, caging you in. You feel warm and safe, and you stroke up and down his strong arms. He smiles and pecks your lips.

“Not bad, Potter,” you finally break the silence. He chuckles, rolling his eyes.

“You cannot possibly act nonchalant after the sounds you just made, Y/L/N. I’m surprised no one burst in here thinking someone was getting murdered.”

You laugh together. It’s concerningly nice.

When you settle down, James looks between you. He pulls out gently. And it’s a fucking mess.

“I don’t think the words ‘bloody hell’ have ever been so appropriate,” he jokes, staring at it. “Oh god,” you say, covering your face in your hands again. “C’mon, Y/L/N. I thought we were past this bit.” It’s harsh but encouraging as he pulls your hands from your face and quickly kisses your forehead. “C’mon,” he offers as he helps lift you off the counter in a way that lets you hop over the… puddle.

You both stand there staring at the crimson crime scene of a sink.

Looking at it but leaning toward you, James asks, “D’you think we could get away with saying it’s Halloween decorations?”

You burst out laughing again.

“The blood, maybe, but… there’s some of you there too…”

“Well, at least our first time is certainly memorable. Happy Halloween, Y/L/N.”

Your heart does something funny at “first time.” So, you ignore it for now and simply say, “Help me clean this up before Sirius actually does murder us in here.”

#kinktober 2024 #james potter #james potter x reader #james potter x you #james potter smut #james potter oneshot #james potter fanfic #marauders #sirius black #remus lupin #marauder x reader #marauders smut #marauders fanfic #enemies to lovers

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sunrizef1 · 6 months ago

Text

What Happens in Vegas pt 14

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x Reader

Warnings: Cursing, verbal abuse

Word Count: 1.6k

Authors Note: No Charles content in this one but important nonetheless

Summary: Logan and Y/N talk, y/n finally reveals who’s been texting her

Masterlist

“Have I ever told you about my family?”

Logan doesn’t reply for a moment, annoyance still resting under his deadpan expression. You’re both sat on the floor of his drivers room, backs resting against the wall behind you, coffee from the Williams hospitality sitting in foam cups getting cold as they sit, untouched. Champagne dries on the top of your skin, casting a sticky residue onto your face and the ends of your hair.

Your win was now forgotten, the trophy having been left in your room to be picked up by a random Porsche employee who’d eventually get it back to you. Logan’s DNF was also now forgotten, although it did leave a lasting effect on his mood, eyebrows furrowed and arms crossed tightly.

“No, but I know your dad.”

You tilt your head, pulling the inside of your cheek between your teeth as you respond, “Well, you know him now.”

Logan doesn’t respond, not in the mood to play into your vagueness. He’d invited you here to explain. He knew you’d clarify eventually, whether he asked you to or not.

“It’s a complicated story,” you pause, bile rising to your throat at the notion of explaining your childhood and forcing you to swallow it back down, “You don’t have to say anything.”

Logan hums, obviously not planning on speaking much anyway. Both of you stare off toward the floor in front of you, unspoken words hanging in the air around you.

“I was born in France, not sure if you knew that,” you start after a moment, hesitance laced in your words, “Everyone thinks I was born in Texas but my mom would’ve rather died than let that happen.”

“You probably know my mom, Amelie Laurent, French, vogues favorite person and I guess she’s a pretty famous model,” Logan pauses for a second, no doubt not aware of who your mom was, before he nods in recognition of the name.

“When my parents had me, they were still in love, I think,” you furrow your eyebrows as the words leave your mouth, “Um, but after they had me, I guess they got really busy with their jobs and stuff so they sent me to live with my grandparents in Texas for a while.”

“Didn’t really see them much growing up. My dad took me to the paddock a lot though, I got to hang out with everyone at McLaren, which was nice.”

“But he was busy so I usually got stuck with Kimi and then eventually Lewis, when he joined, which is where the uncle Lew thing comes from. Sometimes I felt like McLaren and Mercedes raised me more than my dad did,” the end of your statement comes out in a whisper, this being the first time you’d voiced the idea.

Logan glances over as your face sours, his hand coming out to hand you your, now cold, coffee. You grasp it from him and take a sip, sliding it back down to the ground after.

“When I was 8 my parents had my brother, which I think was the final straw. They got a divorce right after and my dad moved me to England. My brother stayed in France with our mom,” you wince.

“I started karting, my grandma moved to England to take me around to races when my dad couldn’t. Despite my own… objections, I spent my summers at my moms house with her and my brother.”

You pause, stomach turning as you let out a shaky breath, memories flooding back. Logan shows his first emotion of the night, glancing over to check you're not going to die. When he confirms you're, in fact, breathing, he looks back to the floor.

“I don't think she wanted kids. Maybe she did. At one point. But I think, after the divorce, all I did was remind her of my dad, a man she hated more than anything. She made it obvious with the way she treated me, as well. Well actually, the way she treated both me and my brother.”

“She never wanted me in karting, made it clear. Only reminded her of my dad again, made me do ballet in the summers. Thought it was more proper, or whatever. Didn't let us speak English at her house either, we were only allowed French, took Juli forever to learn English correctly, he'd only grown up with her.”

“Juli?” Logan asks, adding his first bit of input since you'd started talking.

“Brother,” you mumble into your knees as you pull them into your chest, resting your tired face against them. Logan nods.

“Um, she yelled a lot, I guess. A lot of stuff about our futures and how we'd always be failures if we went through with racing and football, she didn't like that Julian only wanted to play football, either.”

“Dad didn’t know, I didn’t tell him,” you mumble, “I didn’t think there was that much wrong with it until I left.”

“She just sucked, man,” you groan, eyes shutting tight as your head falls back against the wall, “I hated her so much! Because I was winning, I was getting these championships and getting these trophies and I thought she’d finally accept that I wanted to kart but the only thing she’d tell me was that I’d never get anywhere!”

You take a deep breath, holding back the faint tears in your eyes.

“But yeah, that's the worst of it, really. Completely cut contact at 15. Begged my grandparents to let me spend summers with them. They let me.”

“It just stuck with me for a while, you know? The shit my mom would say. A lot of crap about how I was failing myself with racing or how I would never have a future if I continued down that path. Said a lot of things about how I'd always find a way to lose and that it would never be worth it if I wasn't the best. Everytime I lost a race, she would find a way to use it against me, proof that I shouldn't be racing.”

“I did block her though, couldn’t stand the constant texts when I lost. Probably wasn’t even very easy to find those results, they weren’t exactly mainstream,” you furrow your eyebrows, confusion passing over your face momentarily, “Anyway, three years later, I’m 18. I move out and sign an f3 contract. My dad got super busy with Lewis’s championships and Mercedes. Kimi was actually the first to congratulate me.”

“I haven't spoken to my mom or my brother in, what? 8 years? I've mostly forgotten them by now, paris a thing of the past,” you trail off, the air of Logan’s room suddenly feeling a lot colder.

“All this to say, um-“ you rush out, shaking your head quickly.

You finally look over toward Logan, moving your body to face his, “She texted me, in Australia. Told me that the crash was all she'd ever expected from me, anyway. She's been calling ever since.”

Logan turns his head, concern written on his face.

“I think I'd forgotten about everything she said since it's been so long. But that text kind of brought it all back. It's been stuck in my mind for every single race. That's the reason I’ve been so unfocused lately. I don’t even know how she got my number, she was blocked on my old number and then I just got a new one, I don’t know how she could’ve got it.”

Logan, having dropped his previous spite, quirks his head, “What about yesterday?”

You swallow thickly, “Julian texted me. She kicked him out. He’s staying with a teammate. He’s sixteen, Lo. He’s still a kid.”

You fall back against the wall with a thump, your hands coming up to cover your eyes, “He’s still in France, still training with PSG. He’s asked to talk to me before Monaco.”

“Monaco?”

You nod solemnly, “My least favorite race, too close to my mom. I was so relieved when they took France off the calendar, you know? I’m pretty sure that, until recently, she didn’t know I was even in F1. She’s sworn off any media that isn’t French and I chose to race under dads last name. Makes me think someone told her I was.”

Logan hums, trying to process all the information you’d just told him. Eventually, he pats you heavily on the back, groaning as he stands up. You look up as he reaches a hand down to you, questions laying in your gaze.

Logan pushes his hand further down toward you, “Seems like a good enough reason to go out, celebrate your win. We can talk heavy solutions in the morning. For now, you are a race winner. A race winner who needs to get her mind off her fucked up family.”

You grin at his words, grasping his outstretched hand and letting him pull you up, “You reacted better than Arthur did. Think he was about to throw up with me.”

Logan pauses, his face screwing up with faux betrayal, “You told Arthur before me?”

You roll your eyes, “I was having a panic attack on the floor of the bathroom, talking about it was the only thing to get me out of it.”

Logan smiles softly at your response, slinging an arm over your shoulder as you two walk out of his room, “Let’s go, winner. Who do you think the most famous person you can get to celebrate with you tonight is?”

You take a moment to think about your response, “I think I saw Kendall Jenner, I’m sure I’ll probably see her at some point.”

Logan hums, looking out ahead of both of you, “You know I’ve seen the pictures of you two in Miami last year? You were so far gone.”

You laugh, hitting him in the ribs, “Shut up. We should leave soon, Porsche has probably already started partying without us.”

Logan laughs, patting your shoulder lightly as you both go to leave the Miami paddock.

———————————————

#f1 fanfic #f1 fic #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 x female reader #f1 x y/n #f1 x you #f1 smau #charles leclerc x female reader #charles leclerc x fem!driver #charles leclerc x fem!driver!reader #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc fanfic

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leclewi · 9 months ago

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┊charles helping his grumpy girlfriend.

↝ hi, lovess! my first time writing here 🥹 i’m so excited. i hated this too much, it’s just a little scrap i wrote because i was bored, but i promise to bring something better !! hope you like it, kisses !

the white sheets rustled as your sleepy body shifted on the bed. your hair sticking to the back of your neck from sweat, the room hot, the sheets on your legs uncomfortable.

your arms stretched to the other side of the bed, hoping to find charles there, to find your comfort in the form of a person, but he wasn't there. your eyes slowly opened, slowly getting used to the warm afternoon light and its heat.

your 30 minute nap turned into an hour, the cold cloudy sky you left behind when you closed your eyes were left behind and now everything was warm, bright and warm.

you got up, looking around the room for charles but couldn't find it. he wasn't. the last memory you had was kissing his face, joking and annoying him before going to sleep.

in addition to the memory with charles, what was left behind was his good humor. you were sweating, your hair sticking to your neck as you walked around the house feeling your body tired and heavy. the worst way to wake up after a nap.

when you arrived in the living room, you saw your boyfriend's racing simulator on, his back to you. he was adjusting the camera while waiting for the race to start, he was laughing and talking to his teammates on his headphone.

“hi, love” he said when your presence was noticed, due to your shuffling steps. blessed heat.

he turned his head to you, finding your form grumpy, not a smile on your face. “hi” you whispered, stopping behind his chair, resting your body on the material.

charles knew you well enough to know how you were doing, it sucked sometimes. “let me guess….” be asked, his hand coming to your waist, stroking it, as he looked at you with his green eyes. “hot in there?” he said. you nodded your head and let out a small groan, your eyes stung as you scratched them. a horrible feeling, making your mood even worse.

charles smiled, the perfect smile that made his days better. “poor thing” he whispered, teasing you. his hands wrapped around your waist, slowly pulling you to his lap. he turned the camera of the sim off and looked at you. “you left me to sleep and you are grumpy? really?” he said teasing as he kissed your cheek. you rolled your eyes and laid your head on your chest.

“well, i left you for a good, comfy, amazing nap, but i woke up from a horrible, hot and sweating one.” you whispered groaning. “I hate this.” you complained like a little kid, while snuggling on his chest.

he chuckled and ruffled your hair. “my bad” he said, smirking. “that’s what happens when you trade your boyfriend for sleeping.” he said shrugging.

charles could be a pain in the ass when he wanted to be, and right now he wanted to be. his smirk would be much prettier if it wasn’t for his teasing while you were still in a dying sleepy mood.

“bla bla bla, you had the chance to sleep with me, but you preferred to lose on the sim” you said and looked at him, your neck in a free way for his lips.

he took the chance and leaned down, leaving little kisses on your skin. “at least i’m not sweat, hot and grumpy. and excuse me, i won something.” he said teasing and proud of himself.

he knew what to make to feel you better, he knew you too well. his lips founded their way of your skin, going to your neck to your jaw. the shivers that was starting to make you feel made your body more alert, warning the sleep away. making you feel better.

his lips had a smile when he didn’t heard your voice and complains anymore, he knew his effect. “wake up” he whispered while he left his trail of kisses, you smiled faintly and closed your eyes.

“wake up, babeeee” he whispered annoying you and smirking, his hands going to your belly disguised it, starting to tickle you.

and it went like that. charles having his effect on you like countless times, the grumpiness went away when he kissed you, when his hands tickled you, when his breath had hit yours, when he chuckled along you.

“you are mean” you say after escaping his lap after the tickle session, already better and no more grumpy.

“well, at least i get to see your pretty smile again.” he said proud of himself, looking back to his sim. “grumpiness doesn’t match you, amour. your pretty smile does.”

#charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc imagine #charles leclerc smut #leclewi #16 #ferrari #imagines #formula one imagines

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iz-star · 4 months ago

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About Zayne's possesiveness...

With Sylus calling us "kitten" all the time, I've seen Sylus mains being torn between if they like being called that or not, for some It's totally fine but for others is such a mood killer and I'm not a Sylus main but I'd be the second one for sure.

Then I remembered that Zayne once mentioned that I was his "favorite kitty" or that I was "his pet..." something like that? And I was like "where did he say that and why didn't I cringe when he said that? Maybe this is the effect of love (xD) maybe I understand Sylus mains better? I need to find out"

Then I remembered:

If Zayne is my personal Mr Kitty Cat, then I don't mind being his favorite kitty, we were basically the ones that initiated it and even put cat ears on him... So yeah, the whole vibe of this is totally different from Sylus' pet names.

However... He calling us "his pet" was a whole different story:

The way he lets his possesiveness slide for a second? You know, all of the guys are possesive somehow, they only show it differently, in this case, Zayne's possesiveness doesn't show too often cause he's aware that to be possesive of something is to allow yourself to show your weakness, to implicitly say "This person has a great power over my feelings or my behaviour bc It's mine..." that's why he stops himself when he says "Don't leave it with anyone else or I'll—" and then changes the approach "Do you want to leave it with someone else?"

And as the player, it leaves us hanging... Thinking "What would you do, Dr Zayne? What are you willing to do?"

We have to think about these questions from the perspective of Zayne's persona, of the kind of guy he is. We know the other guys have a bounty and have committed crimes/ killed people, while Zayne has done none of that and it's on the completely opposite side of things: He's a well respected doctor, has saved tons of lifes, is obssesed about saving people, a workaholic cause he knows the world needs him. The worst thing he's done (as far as we know) is that he had to kill his friend William when he was turning into a Wanderer and even so, it was William the one who asked this of him after Zayne desperately tried to save him against all odds.

Zayne is not someone who would even think of hurt others easily, even if he's quite able to cause others harm, just as much as the other LIs, but all versions of Zayne have in common that they're really kind. Sure, Dawnbreaker is a serial killer but we know he doesn't kill people out of joy but instead mercy. Sure, Foreseer was quite severe when MC first met him but It's not as if she didn't deserve it when she literally intruded his place, lied to him and tried to steal his powers (lmao) and we know he was wary of Astra all the time so he didn't want anyone to enter the Tower for their own sake and he paid with his life the price to keep MC alive. Master of Fate was supposed to kill MC but instead he chose to seal her powers to give her another chance to keep on living the life she told him she wanted to live (even without him).

So it's interesting to think what would Zayne do for MC? Us? If he decides to be selfish and fulfill his desires, what would he do? It seemed like he was even questioning himself, showing too much of what he's not used to show (And now with SS we just know how much he needs MC/us).

So that's why he changes the approach. His feelings are involved in this sudden and unexpected show of weaknesses, so he asks us "Do you want to leave it with someone else?" Now asking us about what we feel but not quite giving us time to reply.

The way he calls us "his pet" comes now more like he's gained control of his feelings again and is calling us that as a punishment for making him go through this unwanted jealousy but he's so ambiguous and smooth about it, that is giving "if It's too much don't take it" vibes because he neither confirms nor denies that he was talking about us.

Zayne is the kind of guy that would spoil you and shows his love through different ways: taking care of you and your health, acts of service, affirmation, sparing time for you, having you as his top priority, always offering his time/ himself (Have you notice how Zayne says "My free time is all yours, do with it what you want" while Sylus says "Who is your free time for if not me? " or how Xavier asks "Do you want to sleep with me?" while Zayne asks "Do you want me to sleep with you?"), he gives and gives (and lord knows how much he's tried to change and be more careful about his words and actions so they don't come across as alof, bc yes, Zayne hates to be mistaken as a heartless person) but of course he's also willing to do all that as long as you work for it and earn it too and if you misbehave, he makes you pay for it and knows how to give you a firm "No" when you try to backpedal or get away with it.

He knows (or tries) to balance his depth love by spoiling you while at the same time letting you know that nothing comes for free (even if he'd give it for free). Balance is a word that fits him best in all the aspects of his life, especially when it comes about love. He shows his feelings if you show them too (he both says "I never thought I'd have only one person in my eyes" accepting you're the only thing he sees and he also says "I want to be the only one in your eyes and for you to be mine" expressing what he desires too in a soft way) and when he shows his possesiveness, he's letting himself to lose this balance and he probably knows that you are the only thing that could make him completely lose this balance. His evol seems to be an analogy of this behavior, Zayne is always hyperaware that he could lose control of it at any given time and maybe, when it comes about his feelings, does he feel the same? ("It wouldn't be love if I could control it"). He's scared of hurting you but is he scared of the things he'd do for you?

Especially bc, all his other lifes and the current Zayne have always shown the opposite of possesiveness, they sacrifice themselves and their happiness for your own happiness and your well being. When MC asks Foreseer Zayne "Didn't you say you don't want to lose me again?" his literal reply was "I will never lose you as long as you're alive and well" and when Master of Fate was supposed to kill MC, he chose to seal her powers away even if it also meant to sacrifice his presence in her life (even after he promissed that they would always be together and promissed not to leave her and desired fulfill those promises). Dawnbreaker's only solace is MC, he only yearns for her and nothing else, a powerful quote they say in his anecdotes is "It's better to die with clarity than living as a walking corpse" referencing to ppl that turns into Wanderers but this quote applies to Zayne too, in the sense that he's basically a walking corpse cause he doesn't live his own life. MC is the only thing that keeps him alive somehow and she's not even in his own world. Dr Zayne says "When you and the world wake up, I hope we do not meet again" bc he knows this is the best for you.

All Zayne's are filled with pent up yearning, want, need, desire, to a point It's seems it is about to overflow and he does a goddam good work at hiding it; no wonder why Dr Zayne is taking all the available chances with MC, but even he seems to be aware that this won't last forever and even in such period of time, why he seems so afraid to loose up... lose control of himself? Especially cause Dr Zayne seems to be the balance amongst all Zayne's, he's not as dark and depressive as Dawnbreaker, nor as cold and severe as Foreseer, nor as happy and carefree as Master of Fate but at the same time holds a little of all of that.

So the question here is, how a showcase of the loss of this balance would be? For now we can only imagine and come up with assumptions but I'm quite curious to see it playing fully ingame, you know? Altho I'm not sure if I'd like it if it comes at the cost of him getting hurt again.

#zayne love and deepspace #love and deepspace #lads zayne #zayne #l&ds zayne #l&ds #lnds #Sorry I think about him 24/7 #I need to get the thoughts out of my head from time to time ajxldkd

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so-i-did-this-thing · 1 month ago

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Hey so, maybe an odd question, but did you feel like a different person when you started T? I’m a trans guy and am trying to figure out weather I want to do hormones. A lot of the physical effects sound really great, but I’m kind of scared of what it might do to me mentally. A friend of mine has to take it for medical purposes and he absolutely HATES it. He feels like it turns him into an entirely different person that he hates being and completely destroys his capacity for creativity or emotions of any kind. This can’t be everybody’s experience right?

Heya! Answering this on public for folks to chime in with their own personal anecdotes. (Including bad emotional effects - let's be respectful that not everyone has a great HRT experience. I'd imagine each of us struggles with something we don't like about T.)

Testosterone took the edges off my negative emotions. I stopped frustration crying nearly overnight and got a lot less irritable. My explosive temper went down to a low simmer. I suddenly felt like I had patience for the first time in my life. I don't have as many autistic meltdowns now, and when they do happen, it's more me pacing in circles than breaking something.

I still feel emotions like sadness, but it's harder to physically cry. I haven't noticed any changes to my creativity. I feel happier, but that has more to do with not being closeted anymore.

I'm definitely hornier on T, and that sometimes converts into irritability, something I can control with mindful behavior.

What can shock some trans folks is that HRT won't solve all your mental problems. Testosterone has not helped my Depression that's unrelated to gender dysphoria, so I still battle with cycles of wretched ennui. It also hasn't helped my ADHD, and I sometimes wonder if it's even made me a bit more forgetful. That said, HRT removed a ton of background radiation in my life to where I am now better equipped to deal with my mental illnesses.

Even though my experience has been overwhelmingly positive, I have had a few trans masc folks tell me that they felt like T deadened their emotions in an unpleasant way. The odds are in your favor, but it sucks if you're the one who gets bad results. But I would imagine that your emotions would recalibrate once you'd stop HRT.

But overall, I felt like I was trapped in teenage-level emotional turmoil well into my 30s (when I transitioned), and T makes me feel like an even-keeled adult. I am the same person as before, but a better version of that person.

I hope that helps. When considering HRT, it's important to remember that you can just try it out and stop if you don't like it. There will be tradeoffs, both permanent and reversible, so learning about those will definitely help in your decision here. But you have a lot of control here, especially when you jump in aware.

If you go for it, keep a mood journal and make it a topic to discuss with a therapist or other trans folks. Wishing you all the best!

#trans stuff

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joannechocolat · 2 years ago

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On Power, and on Powering Through, and Why They’re Really Not the Same

I don’t pay much attention to personal attacks in reviews. It comes as the flipside of success; an attempt by the critic to puncture what they see as too much success. But I still remember one review, just after the film of Chocolat, when two of my novels happened to be in the Top 5 at the same time, in which a (male) newspaper critic referred to me dismissively as a premenopausal woman writer. I was a little taken aback. Clearly, it was meant to disparage, but I was only 35, ten years away from the perimenopause. What exactly did he mean? It wasn’t a comment about the book (which I doubt he had even read). The obvious misogyny aside, it seemed to express resentment, not of my books, but of me, myself, my right to take up space in his world. That word – premenopausal – was at the same time a comment on my age, my looks, my value, and a strong suggestion that someone like me shouldn’t be this successful, shouldn’t be writing bestsellers, shouldn’t be so – visible.

I don’t recall the name of the man, or the paper for which he was writing. He was far from being the only journalist who felt I didn’t deserve success. I shrugged off the unpleasant comment, but he’d meant it to hurt, and it did. I still wonder why he – and his editor - thought that was appropriate. I also wonder why, 20 years on, women are still dealing with this kind of thing. It’s still not enough for a woman to be successful in her chosen field. Whatever her achievements, you can be pretty sure that at some point, some man in his 50s or 60s – maybe an Oxbridge graduate, author of an unpublished novel or two - will offer his opinion on her desirability, either in the national Press, or most likely nowadays, by means of social media. The subtext is clear: women who don’t conform to societal values of what a woman should be are asking for this kind of treatment; especially those who dare to achieve more than their detractors.

10 years after that nasty review, I finally began the journey into perimenopause. No-one told me it was happening. No-one in the media was talking about it at the time. Even my doctor never thought to mention that my symptoms – the insomnia, headaches, mood swings, anxiety, depression, sleep paralysis, hair loss, brown patches on my skin – might have a single origin. I began to feel I was losing my mind: as if I were starting to disappear. I started to doubt my own senses. I blamed it all on the stress from my job. My mother had powered through menopause – or so she led me to believe – and made no secret of her contempt for modern women who complained, or treated the symptoms as anything more than a minor inconvenience.

And so I did the same. I powered through; and when at last I began to experience the classic symptoms of menopause - irregular bleeding, hot flushes, exhaustion, night sweats so bad that I would awake in sheets that were wringing wet – it did not occur to me to seek help. After over a year of this, I finally went to my doctor, who took a few tests, cheerfully announced I was menopausal, and when I inquired after HRT, advised me to power through – that phrase again - and let Mother Nature take her course. The internet was slightly more helpful. I took up running, lost weight, cut down on alcohol, downed supplements and sleeping pills and vitamin D, and felt a little better. Then, breast cancer came to call, and by the time my treatment was done, the symptoms had more or less disappeared, or at least had been superseded by the symptoms of chemo. I congratulated myself at having powered through cancer as well as surviving menopause.

But two years later, I feel old. I look that way, too. I’ve aged ten years. Some of that’s the cancer, of course. I was quite open about my treatment when I was powering through it – partly in order to pre-empt any questions about my hair loss or any of the all-too visible effects of three courses of chemo. Not that it stopped the comments, though. Even at my lowest ebb, a sector of social media made it clear that my only concern should be to look young and feminine to anonymous men on Twitter.

Right now, I don’t feel either. My hair has gone grey and very thin. My skin, too, seems thinner; both physically and mentally. At a recent publishing event, several acquaintances failed to recognize me; others just looked through me as if I had become invisible. Invisibility would be a relief; I find myself dressing for camouflage. I tend to wear baggy black outfits. I got my OBE last week. Photographs in the Press show me talking to Prince William. I’m wearing a boxy black trouser suit, flat shoes and a red fedora. I think I look nice. Not glamorous, but comfortable; quirky; unpretentious.

On a thread of largely supportive messages, one Twitter user pops up to say: Jesus, who’d accept an honour looking like that middle-aged disaster? @Joannechocolat thought she’d make an impact? She needs a stylist. If you look in the dictionary for the definition of “dowdy”, it features this photo.

It’s not the same man who belittled me over 20 years ago. But the sentiment hasn’t changed. Regardless of your achievements, as a woman, you’ll always be judged on your age and fuckability. I ought to be used to this by now. But somehow, that comment got to me. Going through menopause isn’t just a series of physical symptoms. It’s how other people make you feel; old, unattractive, and strangely ashamed.

I think of the Glass Delusion, a mental disorder common between the 14th and 17th centuries, characterized by the belief that the sufferer was made of glass. King Charles VI of France famously suffered from this delusion, and so did Princess Alexandra Amélie, daughter of Ludwig 1st of Bavaria. The condition affected mostly high-profile individuals; writers, royals, intellectuals. The physician to Philip II of Spain writes of an unnamed royal who believed he was a glass vase, which made him terribly fragile, and able to disappear at will. It seems to have been a reaction to feelings of social anxiety, fear of change and the unknown, a feeling both of vulnerability and invisibility.

I can relate. Since the menopause, I’ve felt increasingly broken. I don’t believe I’m a glass vase, and yet I know what it feels like to want to be wrapped in a protective duvet all day. I’ve started buying cushions. I feel both transparent, and under the lens, as if the light might consume me. On social media, I’ve learnt to block the people who make mean comments. To make myself invisible. To hide myself in plain sight. I power through, but sometimes I think: why do women power through? And who told them that powering through meant suffering in silence?

Fortunately, some things have changed since I went through the menopause. Over the past few years, we’ve seen more people talking about their experiences. Menopause is likely to affect half the population. We should be talking about it. If men experienced half these symptoms, you bet they’d be discussing it. Because power isn’t silence. You’d think that, as writer, I would have worked that out sooner. Words are power. Sharing is strength. Communication breaks down barriers. And sometimes, power means speaking up for those less able to speak for themselves.

I look at myself in the mirror. I see my mother’s mouth; my father’s eyes. I see the woman I used to be; the woman I will one day become. I see the woman my husband loves, a woman he still finds attractive. A woman with a grown-up child who makes her proud every single day. A menopausal woman. A cancer survivor. A woman who writes books that make other people sit up and think. A woman who doesn’t need the approval of some man she’s never met to be happy. She can be happy now. I can. And finally, I understand. Powering through isn’t about learning to be invisible. It isn’t about acceptance, or shame, or letting Nature take its course, or lying about feeling broken. It’s looking beyond your reflection. It’s seeing yourself, not through the lens of other people’s expectations, but as yourself. The sum of everything you’ve been; of everyone who loves you. Of claiming your right to be more than glass, or your reflection in it. The right to be valued. The right to shine, regardless of age or reproductive status. Men seldom question their own right to these things. But women have to fight for them. That’s why it’s so exhausting.

This morning, instead of putting on my usual baggy black sweatshirt, I chose a bright yellow pullover. I looked at myself in the mirror. It’s not a great colour on me now, but it feels like dressing in sunshine. My husband came into the bathroom. You look –

My husband rarely gives compliments. I can’t remember the last time he commented on how I was dressed. I wondered what he was going to say. Dowdy, perhaps? Inappropriate? Like a menopausal woman in dire need of a stylist?

At last, he said: When you smile like that, you look like a friendly assassin.

A friendly assassin. I’ll take that.

Shining like the sun. That’s me.

#menopause #cancer

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paintingwhiteceilings · 1 year ago

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❃Seventeen and s/o switches languages during an argument❃

a/n: Firstly, thank you for sending my very first request; I hope I did it justice! After discussing it together, we decided to make it a more general prompt. This was such a fun prompt to try my hand at, as a fellow EU carat, it was amusing to imagine how they would react to their partner switching languages. Some of these may have become a bit, more like very, long as a result so, well, grab your popcorn I suppose :')

Anyway, it is a bit longer and more serious than my other posts but I hope that you will like it regardless!

TG: some of these are slightly angsty and DK is naked

Scoups/Seungcheol

❀ In all fairness, the two of you tend to bicker every now and then, mostly because Coups is the pettiest and poutiest person alive. As a result, you tend to be quite used to having irrelevant arguments with him. Neither of you gets incredibly upset; the arguments are mostly harmless and, at times, can be quite amusing.

❀ This time, however, you had quite a stressful day at work and were in no mood to playfully bicker with him. Apparently, you had absent mindlessly borrowed one of his jackets, and he had been missing it all day, giving Hoshi an earful as he believed he had gone out of his way to borrow his stuff again. After he discovered that Hoshi hadn't been the culprit, he texted you, but in the chaos of work, you had forgotten to reply, leaving him on read. Truly, in his eyes, how incredibly offensive. How can his love, his light, his everything leave him on read just like his members do???

❀ Cue a ton of whining and pouting when you walked through the door, wrapped in his precious jacket. He didn't seem to get the hint that you were in no mood for his dramatic antics. It didn't take long for you to snap at him, effectively shutting him up. He didn’t shut up, however, because you actually got angry at him, but because you unconsciously switched to your native tongue in your exhaustion. He had forgotten that was a thing you could do.

❀ He has dealt with the foreign line switching languages during arguments enough to know that you weren't having his tantrum. It is enough for him to realize to knock it off, but he will be pouting the rest of the evening. Not because he is still upset about the jacket, but because he has no idea what you said and he is too prideful to ask until the next morning.

Jeonghan

❀ Jeonghan rarely gets mad at people, meaning that arguments between the two of you tend to be infrequent. The only times the two of you tend to bicker is when he finds yet another way to cheat during game nights. The cheating is all in good fun, and more often than not, you find yourself impressed with his quick-wittedness.

❀ That being said, losing five times in a row because your boyfriend found another loophole in the game rules really tested your patience. You had been playing Uno together when he decided that whenever he plays the reverse card, it means he gets to go again. Somehow, he stocked up on a ton of reverse cards, and he had been getting rid of most of his cards without you being able to do anything about it.

❀ Naturally, you started arguing with him, trying to convince him that it was against the rules. It was no use; he knows the rules better than you do. Thus, in the heat of the moment, you couldn’t help yourself, and you cursed at him in your native tongue. He was mighty confused for a second, but was aware from looking at your face that you were not complimenting his quick thinking.

❀ He ended up laughing at you, finding it hilarious that he somehow managed to trigger you that much. Be prepared for him to never let you live it down. Every game night, he will cheekily ask you whether it is okay for him to cheat or whether you will curse at him in your native tongue again. From now on, he will up his cheating antics as well, trying to get a rise out of you again.

Joshua

❀ You and Joshua usually don't let your grievances get to a shouting match. Before it can get to that point, one of you sits the other down to calmly talk things out. However, every once in a while, whenever one of you is stressed about something, things tend to escalate. So when Joshua comes home late after a gruelling recording session for the sixth time that week, leaving you to do all the house chores after a stressful work day yet again, you get into a heated argument.

❀ Neither of you wanted to admit to being in the wrong, leading to you bickering back and forth. Joshua had been angrily smiling at you for the past half an hour, trying to explain his side of the story, whilst you were trying to do the same. Arguing in Korean wasn't necessarily your strong suit, and despite English being a lot easier, you couldn't help but switch to your native language as you were trying to find the right words to explain your side of the story.

❀ To be honest, I can't really imagine Joshua being surprised when you switch languages during an argument. Having lived in an environment where he has to speak a second language constantly, he probably is all too aware that when people get emotional, they switch to their mother tongue. He has had too many quarrels and fights with the other members where he kept throwing in English, unable to remember the corresponding Korean word.

❀ Instead, your argument becomes a poly-lingual discussion where the two of you keep switching between all the languages you are familiar with. Joshua doesn't even blink when you switch to your native language anymore; he is used to deciphering what you are saying through context clues.

Jun

❀ Jun is an absolute homebody. He loves to lounge on the couch for hours with his phone in hand, playing mobile games and scrolling on social media. It is the perfect way for him to de-stress after his busy schedule, where he has to constantly be on the move. Usually, you enjoy the domesticity of it, but lately, you can't help but feel like all the two of you have been doing is staying at home. It isn’t like you constantly want to be out and about, but a part of you wants to go on a proper date where you get to dress up and be lovey-dovey with your boyfriend. You have been trying to find the right time to bring it up, aware that Jun doesn’t do well with subtle hints.

❀ However, when the day finally came where you asked him to go on more dates, it ended up in you two fighting. It had all started when you found yourself bored out of your mind with Jun being on his phone again, absorbed in his own world. For the first time in a while, he got to enjoy a bit of a break as promotions had finally ended, and he intended to spend most of it relaxing on the couch. It was a much-needed break from the constant dancing and travelling. Naturally, when you proposed to go out for the day, asking whether he wanted to check out a café that had just opened up in the city, he immediately responded that he didn’t want to.

❀ Perhaps both of your fuses had been short that day, and soon an argument ensued between you two. Jun stubbornly maintained that he wanted to rest and that being at home together was enough for him, whilst you tried to explain that you felt like he didn’t want to make time for your relationship. The two of you argued back and forth, both making valid arguments but unwilling to hear the other out.

❀ Jun was already mixing some Mandarin with his Korean as he got more and more frustrated. It didn’t help either that Jun had started to speak quicker the more agitated he got, making it even harder for you to decipher what he was trying to say. Thus, as the fight reached a boiling point, you started to yell at him in your native language. Jun had never heard you speak your mother tongue at length before, so you completely caught him off guard.

❀ Jun doesn't know what to say in response to your yelling, not knowing what you yelled at him in the heat of the moment. Similarly, you are surprised at your emotional outburst. You switching languages is enough for the both of you to realize that neither of you was listening to the other anymore. After a moment of silence, the two of you decide to leave the argument for the night and calmly talk about it after a good night's sleep.

Hoshi/Soonyoung

❀ Hoshi has been trying to convince you that his native language is growling, being a tiger, and all that. As much as you try to support your boyfriend’s tiger agenda, you have attempted to dissuade him from growling at you constantly as a way of communicating. You gently told him to stop as, first of all, you can't understand what he is trying to say when he is growling, and, secondly, it is very embarrassing when he does it in public.

❀ Still, he is waiting to find any excuse to growl at you, and you have noticed that whenever you slip into your mother tongue, he sees it as a green light to start. As a result, you try to be extra careful about using your native language around him in public or when other people are visiting. At home, you feel comfortable enough to, at the very least, scold him without anyone else having to bear witness to how shameless this man can be.

❀ It had all gone downhill when you and Hoshi organized a game night with the other members. It wasn't the actual game night that resulted in you yelling at him. Oh no, it had to do with the fact that Kwon Soonyoung has the habit of leaving the toilet seat up despite you having asked, on multiple occasions, whether he could lower it after he finished his business. For the past few days, he had been doing a good job remembering, but with all the excitement of the game night, it had slipped his mind. He was reminded, however, of his mistake upon hearing a splash and a blood-curdling scream leave the bathroom door.

❀ You were livid upon entering the living room and reminded your boyfriend yet again to lower the god-damn thing. In your anger, you slipped into your native tongue without being aware of doing so. You didn't even register it until you saw Hoshi's stunned and guilty expression morph into one of absolute delight.

❀ He growls. At you. In response.

❀ It is safe to say that the other members have to hold you back before you kill your boyfriend.

Wonwoo

❀ Usually, you loved having a gamer boyfriend as it meant that you got to focus on your own hobbies, happily existing in the same space without having to constantly have to do things together. Lately, however, you had been trying your hand at some of the games he had been playing. It was a fun pastime, and you especially liked games that didn’t require a fast reaction time, allowing you to explore a world or story at your own pace without it resulting in you constantly dying. Not to pat yourself on the back, but you had become quite skilled at the games you often played. Recently, you and Wonwoo had even started to play games together; you couldn’t help but smile whenever you saw your joined beds in Minecraft.

❀ So, when Wonwoo asked you to play Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes together, you had expected the two of you to do rather well. However, it couldn’t be further from what ended up transpiring. The game required seamless communication, with one person trying to disarm a bomb whilst the other consulted a manual on how to, unable to see the actual bomb. The first level had been easy enough, but you guys immediately got stuck on the second level. Each level was more complicated than the last one and was making your way through the game rather painfully slow. For some reason, your communication was completely off, resulting in numerous retries. It didn’t even matter who the operator or who the bomb disarmer was; you simply couldn’t get into sync.

❀ You could tell that Wonwoo was getting incredibly agitated when you were taking way too long to read the Korean instructions to him, unable to understand one particular word, causing the bomb to explode yet again. He had played the game with some of the members before, and it hadn’t been this hard. It didn’t help that he kept trying to give you tips and tricks on how to play the game. It felt a bit condescending. Moreover, you could tell he was partly blaming your Korean when he sighed yet again at another failed attempt due to you fumbling over your words. It wasn’t as if this was only your fault. As a result, you snapped at him that he should try to play in your native tongue and see how easy of a time he had with it. Except, you accidentally snapped at him in the wrong language.

❀ As you continue rambling under your breath, venting to yourself that your boyfriend and the game are both stupid, you don’t notice that you switched languages. Wonwoo, in the meantime, has fallen incredibly quiet, unsure how to react. He realizes that it might have been a bit unfair to play a game that requires you to communicate complicated instructions in Korean. When you are finally done ranting in your native language, he will quietly propose playing a different game, muttering a quiet apology when you two agree to switch to Stardew Valley. He makes sure to give you lots of gifts in-game, trying to show that he appreciates you playing with him even if it doesn’t always work out well.

Woozi/Jihoon

❀ You were aware that when you started dating Woozi that he was a bit of a workaholic and that there would be times when he would prioritize his work over your relationship. For the most part, you loved his dedication to producing music; you enjoyed hanging out in his studio, watching how he expertly produced a new track. You always felt in awe as you watched him tinker on the piano, trying to figure out what chords to use for the song. In turn, he loved having you there; your questions and curiosity reminded him of the wonder he felt when he first started producing.

❀ However, his passion for making music sometimes did make you feel like a third wheel in your relationship, especially when a Seventeen comeback was nearing. He would be cooped up in the studio for weeks, ignoring all the messages you send him. Where he normally loved having you around in the studio, he would become easily agitated with you watching over his shoulder as the deadlines neared. The expectations of the members and the company would weigh heavily on him, and having you be there as another watchful eye was simply too much for him to handle.

❀ So, when you went to the studio after a concerned Coups had called you, noticing that Woozi hadn’t bothered to eat that day, your presence put Woozi over the edge. It had been a couple of weeks since you had last seen your boyfriend, and you had hoped that seeing you would cheer him up. However, he barely acknowledged your presence when you stepped into the studio, his attention captured by the screen in front of him. Whenever he did respond, it was often curt and borderline insulting. You knew it was due to him being under a lot of pressure, but you couldn’t help feeling hurt.

❀ It got to you, and before you knew it, the two of you were fighting. Woozi, who already was feeling immense stress, couldn’t deal with the intense emotions and, hence, defensively threw out a painful insult without thinking. Feeling the tears sting in the corner of your eyes, you asked yourself why you were even still here when he obviously didn’t want you there in your native language before turning to leave. He didn’t understand what you had said, leaving him momentarily speechless.

❀ By switching languages unexpectedly, it gets through to Woozi what he had said and how hurt you were by his words. By being unable to understand what you were saying, he is able to solely focus on your tone and emotions. He feels incredibly guilty about his behaviour, and it doesn’t take long for him to chase after you to profusely apologize.

DK/Seokmin

❀ Although fights do not often happen with DK, he sometimes can be a bit prideful, only recognizing he is in the wrong when the other person gets noticeably angry. You encountered his pridefulness on a normal enough day. DK had texted you that he would be over at your place after practice, so when you came home and heard the shower running, you were delighted at the prospect of spending the evening together with your boyfriend. You briefly called out to him that you were home before waiting for him on the couch to finish showering. It didn't take long for him to be done. When you saw the door swing open with your handsome boyfriend only wearing a towel around his waist, you got up to properly greet him with a hug.

❀ However, before you could do so, you smelled a familiar scent drifting out of the bathroom. You see, one of your friends had gifted you a very expensive body wash that you had been gingerly using whenever you had had a particularly stressful day. Due to it being so expensive, you had asked DK to use the other ones in your shower, just so you could enjoy it a little longer, as you weren't really going to buy it for yourself once it ran out. He hadn't listened. Cue one of the pettiest arguments ever.

❀ In your defence, you weren't even upset about him using the body wash, but instead were hurt that he hadn't respected your wishes. DK, in turn, argued that it was only body wash and that he had simply wanted to smell like you. The argument escalated without either of you meaning to, and before you knew it, a towel hit you in the face. In surprise and anger, you yelled at him in your native tongue, which made DK effectively realize what he had done. He knew that you would never switch languages without being incredibly upset and he felt mortified, recognizing that he had not only let his emotions get out of control but also had parted with the only thing covering up his body.

❀ As you threw the towel back at him, venting in your native language some more, you finally noticed DK standing before you in all his glory, looking both guilt-ridden and like he wished for the ground to swallow him whole. Seeing him standing there butt naked was enough for you to crack up, breaking the tension from the argument. DK, on the other hand, wasn't sure whether to profusely apologize for throwing the towel at you or hide for the rest of eternity.

Mingyu

❀ Mingyu often feels like the perfect boyfriend; he loves to cook and clean and lives to pamper you whenever he is able to. He takes your teasing very well, enjoying when you cheekily poke fun at him blatantly showing off his trained physique in front of fans. Although staying in Korea can sometimes be overwhelming, he truly makes you feel right at home. He strives to introduce you to his friends and tries to make as many new memories with you so that you wouldn’t have to miss your home country too much.

❀ When you guys moved in together, you had been ready to have it be another cherished memory. That was until Mingyu dropped a very precious ceramic bowl. The bowl had been a present from your family when you moved out, and you had dragged the bowl with you all the way to Korea. It was a meaningful keepsake you had taken with you from your home country, allowing you to have a piece of home in a foreign place. You had mostly used it as decoration in your previous apartment, and you were incredibly careful when using it, knowing that once it fell, it would be incredibly difficult to replace.

❀ Consequentially, when you watched your boyfriend drop it onto the floor, shattering your treasured keepsake into a thousand pieces, you felt a part of yourself fracture simultaneously. Mingyu didn’t seem to recognize what he had broken, sheepishly apologizing to you before jokingly remarking that the bowl had been rather ugly anyway. You knew he wasn’t aware of what he had broken and that it would be unfair for you to get mad at him, as it had been an accident after all. Nonetheless, seeing something so important to you not only get broken beyond repair but also mocked, set you off.

❀ As a result, you started yelling at a stunned Mingyu, who wasn’t expecting your explosive reaction at all. In turn, he got aggrieved, feeling like your reaction was disproportionate to the situation. Voicing that, however, only made you more upset, and as you tried to pick up the broken pieces to throw them out, you started crying, sobbing to yourself that it truly was beyond repair in your native tongue.

❀ Mingyu, in retrospect, doesn’t know whether it had been your crying or you switching languages, but as he watches you tearfully throw out the pieces, his anger completely vanishes, only to be replaced by an intense feeling of guilt. He will hug you tightly, apologizing for breaking something that had obviously been very important to you. After you explain what the bowl stood for, he will try his hardest to get you another bowl as a surprise, contacting your family to have them send over a new one.

❀ In the end, all is well, and to be honest, you might love the new bowl a lot more as it reminds you of how much Mingyu genuinely treasures you.

The8/Minghao

❀ Minghao and you had decided to go on a wine painting date; you had stumbled upon it not too long ago, excitedly proposing it to your boyfriend, knowing it combined two of his favourite things. Minghao had been looking forward to the date for the past week, feeling giddy despite the exhausting dance practices. He would tell anyone that would listen about the date, gushing over how well his girlfriend knew him.

❀ It was an absolute surprise to both of you when the workshop ended with you arguing. The workshop had started innocently enough, with you guys following the instructions, laughing whenever a brushstroke failed to turn out how you had intended. The wine tasted great, and both of you were amazed that the workshop was pouring such luxurious wine.

❀ However, as the workshop progressed and the teacher made his way past all the other participants to check on their progress, things turned sour pretty quickly. The moment the teacher laid eyes on you, he was enamoured and absolutely oblivious that you were on a date with your boyfriend.

❀ At first, you assumed that the teacher was only being nice when he lingered longer at your station than others. You presumed that he was being friendly and that, with you and Minghao being the last people he needed to check up on, he stayed to kill time until he needed to introduce the next set of instructions. You failed to notice that Minghao had grown awfully quiet as you conversed. When the teacher reached over to guide the paintbrush in your hand, you started to get the hint that the teacher was trying to hit on you.

❀ Minghao, on the other hand, had been noticing the glances from the teacher since the beginning of the workshop. Although he prided himself in rarely being jealous or upset, the wine made it harder for him to let his gnawing feelings go. He knew his anger was unfair and misplaced, but it didn't make him feel any less upset. Even when you gently let the teacher down by telling him that you and your boyfriend could figure it out yourselves from here, the hurtful feeling persisted.

❀ Thus, when you turned to him afterwards to check on why he had been so quiet, only to be met with a curt Minghao, you began arguing. You knew he was jealous, but he had started to take it out on you. Thus, you did the only thing you knew that could possibly cheer your boyfriend up and shake him out of his jealousy. You took his face gently in your hands, rambling sweet nothings in your native tongue.

❀ Minghao loves hearing you speak in your native language to him, feeling like nothing is more intimate than only him being able to understand the sweet nothings you are saying. He will momentarily blank as he tries to process your sweet words. It is enough to melt away his jealous feelings, making him feel a bit stupid for letting it influence his actions and words (as well as any hope the teacher had to get your number afterwards).

Seungkwan

❀ We all know that Seungkwan likes to nag and tease, not a stranger to playful bickering. Nevertheless, Seungkwan strikes me as someone who is very open with his emotions, preferring to discuss what is bothering him rather than bottling things up. Thus, you two rarely get into actual fights, as he ensures that you two regularly talk about the problems you experience as a couple. At the same time, Seungkwan is a bit of a sensitive boy, and sometimes it is easy to get into arguments with him without either of you meaning to let things escalate. A joke might not land and instead hurts his feelings, leading to an angry and butthurt Boo.

❀ During some of your playful fights, he noticed that you struggled to keep up with his Korean, switching to your native language in frustration when the Korean escaped you. He couldn’t help but feel slightly bad about you having to constantly accommodate him, which is why he devised a plan. Without you knowing, he spend a significant amount of time online skewering the internet to search for basic sentences, mildly insulting phrases and not-too-harsh curse words that he could use if you guys got into another playful argument. Instead of only you having to struggle in Korean, he felt it was only fair for him to wrestle with your native tongue as well.

❀ He finally gets to use it when you guys have a heated discussion over which coffee is the best on one of your many coffee dates; he keeps maintaining that Iced Americano is the best coffee that exists, something that you wholeheartedly disagree with. At first, you are able to respond to him in Korean, easily countering his arguments. However, as the discussion progresses, you can’t help but feel like Seungkwan intentionally is using advanced and eloquent Korean, using words you have never heard before. It doesn’t take long before you start switching out Korean for your native language, trying to hold your ground in the discussion.

❀ It is kind of comical when Seungkwan whips out a list of standard phrases, curse words and insulting sentences in your language, way too eager to use them. Rather than you surprising him by switching languages unconsciously, he is catching you off guard by using your own language against you. He is reading the sentences one by one, and although his pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired, you can tell he put a lot of effort into learning it. You don’t even know whether to be impressed by the fact that he poured so much work into arguing with you in your native language or offended by the, albeit mostly harmless, insults that he is hurling at your head.

Vernon

❀ Vernon strikes me as an emotionally mature person. Therefore, the two of you rarely argue with each other, if at all. Vernon is such a chill guy; it takes a lot to truly get him riled up, and even when he gets emotional, he is capable of maturely handling his emotions. Because of it, you haven’t had any real fights, only mature discussions on how to best navigate whatever problem you two were experiencing in the relationship.

❀ However, there was one thing that you and Vernon could argue for hours about, films. Usually, your film discussions are very civil, with each respecting the other’s opinion even if the other wholeheartedly disagrees. Hence, you guys have made it a routine to put a film on every other night, spending the rest of the evening talking about what you liked or disliked. Both of you enjoyed watching films together in this manner, with the discussions often taking up as much time as watching the films did.

❀ Tonight, however, you made the mistake of putting on a film you adored for nostalgic reasons. The film had been produced in your country, and after searching for it for a while, you had finally found a version with English subtitles. You were incredibly excited to be able to show Vernon the type of films you had grown up with. At first, you thought he was enjoying it; Vernon seemed absorbed as he watched the screen, nodding to himself when he appeared to like a particular scene. Nevertheless, once the film had ended and you eagerly turned to ask him whether he had liked it, he briefly hesitated before calling it mid.

❀ You stared at him in confusion, wondering whether you had been watching the same film. How could he call one of your favourite films mid? Sure, the budget might not have been spectacular compared to a Hollywood blockbuster film, resulting in some questionable CGI and cinematography choices. Still, it was a great film, in your opinion. When you asked him to explain himself, he shrugged, explaining that he simply thought it hadn’t been that good and that both the plot and cinematography left a lot to be desired.

❀ You were greatly offended, and before you knew it, you were heatedly arguing with him. Vernon remained calm rather than matching your energy, explaining that it was okay for you to like a film that just wasn’t his taste. Somehow his indifference annoyed you more, and before you knew it, you were ranting at him that he simply didn’t get how innovative the film was despite the constraints the director had to overcome. Perhaps by being exposed to your native language for such a long time, you brain got reset, and without you being fully aware of it, you had started using your mother tongue. Where before Vernon had been attentively listening, he now seemed lost, alerting you to your accidental mistake.

❀ It was the first time where you had switched languages in his presence, and he realizes that perhaps he had been overly critical. He will gently propose that maybe he was unable to fully enjoy the film as much as you did due to things getting lost in translation. You know he is mostly humouring you, but regardless, it is enough for the one-sided argument to dissipate. How can you stay mad at someone who is the definition of calm and respectful?

Dino/Chan

❀ In retrospect, you should’ve listened to Jeonghan’s warning when you decided to order Soju during dinner. Neither of you had expected to drink, but after a busy workweek, the two of you had decided, “Why the hell not.” You were massively regretting it now, having to deal with a drunk and stubborn Lee Chan.

❀ He refused to do anything you asked of him, and you were practically dragging him through the streets of Seoul, whilst he kept repeating that he wasn’t drunk and could take care of himself. Yeah, sure, he definitely did not keep stumbling over his own feet and was only kept from falling by your grip on his arm. It didn’t help that he kept trying to dislocate himself from you either, claiming that, as your boyfriend, he should be helping you.

❀ It all came to a boiling point when you decided to hail a taxi, too tired and exhausted to continue carrying him. Jeonghan had told you all about stubborn drunk Dino, but you had hoped that you, as his significant other, held enough sway over your boyfriend to coax him into the taxi. Spoiler alert, you didn’t, and instead, the two of you got into an argument. No matter what you said, he kept repeating that he could hail his own taxi. He’s a big boy now.

❀ Maybe it was your sore muscles from carrying him, perhaps it was Dino stupidly refusing your help the entire time or possibly it was the taxi driver warning that he would drive off if the two of you didn’t get in, but suddenly in the midst of your sentence, you switched to your native tongue. In an attempt to get him moving, your tipsy, fuzzy brain resorted to the easiest language for you to yell in. Apparently, that was all it took for Dino to shake himself out of his stubbornness.

❀ The poor guy will be so confused that he’ll easily let you drag him by the arm into the taxi. He can’t determine whether he is truly so drunk that your words have become illegible or that you actually spoke a different language. At the very least, for the time being, you have managed to break through stubbornly drunk Dino, and he lets you guide him whilst he is trying to figure it out in his fuzzy brain.

❀ He will definitely be asking you about it the next morning whilst nursing a massive hangover, thinking it was all a dream.

masterlist

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dsknsk · 8 months ago

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I love how PM keeps playing with tropes. We've seen the tropes that they deconstruct within Limbus (in fact, it is a theory of mine that each Sinner is based on a stereotypical character from gachas), the way that they pick up the cyberpunk trope and basically throw it across the room, but another huge one is...

Carmen.

Look. I think that Carmen was and is based on the traditional 'Mary Sue'. Because...well, some traits that are said to belong to the 'Mary Sue', are turned brilliantly on their head by PM. So, for typical 'Mary Sue' traits, there's:

Pretty in the traditional sense. 'Mary Sues' always look perfect, peerless and never have to work hard to maintain their image. While, as far as I know, there hasn't really been made an in-universe compliment on Carmen's physical appearance...you'd rather stop and listen to someone who at least looks like they can be trusted wouldn't you? She's likened to the sun, as Oswald called her that, and is inside the light. (Also, out-of-universe: she is certainly pretty in my eyes. She adheres to the modern beauty standards at the very least).

Related to the above: charming. The 'Mary Sue' often has an innate charm that attracts others to her. The way that Carmen has this is through her voice, which already was powerful enough to let her traverse the dangerous Backstreets unarmed, standing out from all those other Backstreets preachers somehow and draw in the most cynical noblemen, but is even more charming after death. She doesn't even need to give a breaking speech or anything, as we've seen, she just gives you questions and comments on things. Which falls in line with...

Powerful, yet without having to break a sweat. Even before dying, she was already drawing in people without having to get physical (at least, none we know of). The only time we fight her as of yet (Kether realisation), Angela needs to use an attack that depletes all her HP to win, after five phases have already passed.

The 'Mary Sue' is often a so-called spotlight stealer. She will have a major role in the story, inexplicably, at least one other character will fall in love with her and she will overall have a large presence. So far, Carmen is the only character who has appeared in all three of the games, and if you count the Distortion and the Library, she has influenced WonderLab, Leviathan and Distortion Detective as well. She was also relevantly connected to the main cast of LobCorp and has influenced most of them in some way (i.e Ayin, Angela, Giovanni, arguably Kali, etc.). She remains to be relevant to several major story turns and has left her mark in them, in some way.

Unusual eyes. It's a stereotype that 'Mary Sues' always have unusual eyes. A common type is heterochromia (which is why I often jokingly call Hong Lu a 'Mary Sue'), but other types exist like sparkly rainbow or them changing like a mood ring or something. Carmen has red eyes, which are a common side-effect of body enhancements (Vergilius had them and the R Corp pack leaders too)...except, as we said, for as far as we know, Carmen hasn't had any. They are also a trait of Bloodfiends, but she isn't (yet) confirmed to be one. Either way, red eyes are a sign of the not-weak in the City.

Oftentimes, 'Mary Sues' are referred to as divinity, as pure grace from an utmost high all-powerful deity. They may or may not even be that deity. With Carmen, she practically had a cult of personality around her when she was alive...and she also had an analogue in another pale-skinned, red-eyed being that is also treated like this. She was described as this paeon of altruism and someone who genuinely wants the best for humanity.

Meaningful name. While not so immediately on-the-nose like 'Flowersparkle', Carmen's name can be seen as a reference to the infamous prototype of the femme fatale, once again hinting at that charming quality of hers.

Perfect. A 'Mary Sue' never fails at what she does...and that's where PM shows through that...

...Carmen is a parody on the 'Mary Sue'. A so-called 'Parody Sue'...but not played for laughs. The thing is that she is described as being all this...by those she already has enthralled. Those that aren't really involved with her - Hokma (was more loyal to Ayin), Binah (who wasn't in the picture during Carmen's life), and Roland (a stranger to LobCorp to begin with) have their say during Ruina and offer us another view at Carmen, our first, and one thing becomes clear:

A real 'Mary Sue' would be weird as fuck.

Carmen shows us how weird a 'Mary Sue' would actually be in a world that isn't sunshine and rainbows - an extremely uncanny, severely misguided being who nonetheless draws people to herself, who show a creepy amount of belief and devotion to her. Carmen thinks that the 'be yourself' message - so omnipresent in media - should prevail...in a world where the majority of people are either pieces of shit or are living such a dreary, miserable life that they just give up all hope.

But all of this is only revealed in the second game and pulls the player out of the dream. And so, Carmen does end up failing to convince some people like Dongbaek and Dongrang who manage to develop E.G.O instead.

Because despite what she was painted as in the past, in reality, Carmen is not a 'Mary Sue'. And she is not perfect.

That's why she's such a great PM character.

#limbus company #library of ruina #lobotomy corporation

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mr-ys-phantasma · 17 days ago

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🌙 Moon Phases 🌙

Agatha Harkness X Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1369

Chapter 40:

You all turned to look at Billy, who grabbed his little spell book from his body bag. "At least we have our personal items."

Immediately, you rushed to check your body bags, all bearing similar expressions of relief by being reunited with your pendants.

You wore your own necklace, the light metal cold against your flushing skin, and adrenaline still coursing through your pumping veins. Your fingers gently brushed the three moon phases, and you closed your eyes, taking a deep breath.

Wearing it, somehow, made you feel more secure and safe; a placebo effect that helped calm you down a little more and allow your head to be clearer.

The moment was interrupted, though by the sound of the morgue drawers being pulled back into place, the knocking sound almost startling you.

If that was not enough, the growing lights above you started to flicker before one shut down.

"The countdown," you exclaimed, eyes following the circle formed by the lights; while wondering how quick each light would turn off after the other.

Deep inside your instincts were telling you that the time would not last long, not as long as the other trials.

Agatha noticed that Jen was rather quiet, not panicking like usual. Instead, Agatha swore Jen was actually thinking of something for a change.

"You seem relaxed." She called her out. "Usually, at this point, you're either complaining loudly or freaking out loudly."

Jen gave her a hard look, clearly not in the mood for her annoying antics. "I'm thinking."

"Oh. About what?

"How to save your ass."

"Pardon?"

"I couldn't save Lilia. I didn't even try to save Alice. I'll be damned if I let you three idiots die."

You placed a hand on your waist as you looked at her, clearly not happy being called an Idiot or any of your companions being called that.

However, you held back any remark for the moment. It was the first time you saw Jen actually putting others above herself, when all those trials she had been selfish and the first to go when given the chance.

And considering you once again needed to work together somehow to make it through, this worked in your favour.

Of course, Agatha did not seem to share your thoughts.

"Wow. Such a purpose. How are you gonna do that without any magic?" She questioned, in the mood for an argument.

"Agatha, that's enough," you said, no authority coming from your voice much to your dismay.

Your body was still on edge, and it was taking a lot of mental training to remain calm and try to think of a solution, rather than letting your emotions and your haunting memories get the best of you.

Thankfully, you were not the only one ready to defend Jen.

"Y/N is right!" Billy said, putting his foot down. "She saved you from poisoning. She saved all of us. All while bound." He looked at Jen and offered a weak smile. "Maybe you don't need it."

Jen wanted to believe him, but she had a hard time too. Not that you blamed her. Your magic might be sort of a curse and a blessing to you, but you can not imagine your life without it.

"Well, if that's true, that means I've wasted the last century of my life." Jen commented. "That doctor in Boston didn't take anything from me. I gave it up."

It was then that you all noticed Agatha fidgeting faintly by tuning her fingers together and avoiding eye contact.

Unlike the others, you knew she acted that way when she knew something but refused to tell. Something that actually made her feel guilty, even slightly.

"Ags," you called her out, but she did not look you in the eyes. "You know something," she was about to argue, but you beat her to it. "I know that face and that fidgeting. I know what it means"

Defeated, Agatha started to throw parts of a story that matched Jen's story, and everyone made the connection.

"I didn't know it was you! It was the 1920s. I did the odd spell for bank notes. I don't know. The patriarchy really shelled out to shush a lady. It was bind or burn!" She justified herself, or so she tried.

For Jen was furious finding out the truth, and she had every right to be. With anger blinding her, she rushed to Agatha and even pulled a thick lock of her hair in one strong pull.

Agatha didn't even flinch at the pull, having built quite a pain tolerance thanks to Rio. She didn't even fight when Jen tied her wrists together with that strand of hair.

She might not react to it, but you were about to. No matter what took place back then, seeing Jen ripping out Agatha's hair like that made your protective instincts hit in.

Forgetting your own anxiety caused by the closed room, you were about to move and tackle Jen; having forgotten your powers worked normally.

Billy grabbed you by the waist and kept you back, surprised by your strength, considering he was taller than you and clearly heavier.

"Wait! Wait! Look!" He told you as he kept pulling you away from the two witches. "Yhe unbinding ritual."

This made you stop your fighting and look, realizing he was right. The strand of hair and the wrapped wrists were the basis for the ritual.

Jen was not trying to harm Agatha, you realized. She was trying to break the binds that kept her magic dormant and get back what was sealed away a century ago.

You calmed down, and Billy let you go. He stood right behind you, and the two of you watched as Jen repeated the same mantra again and again.

You hold nothing.

Each time that phrase was spoken with more power, with mode determination... with more need to work.

Jen's voice cracked, but she kept going, holding on every beat of hope that was left within her... one last chance to get back what was stolen from her.

In the end, it seemed to work based on Jen's expression.

Her face changed from shock to realisation and she could not help but fall on her knees, arms cradled in front of her chest and let out gasps and faint cries of hapiness; pink magic coming alive from her palms.

The sight broke your heart, seeing how Jen truly felt finally having her magic back.

Magic for witches was their essence, their core, and their will to live. It was part of them and having it sealed away, unable to sense it... to recreate this feeling of power and mysticism that existed within...

It was a fate worse than death.

Suddenly, Jen disappeared right in front of your eyes.

"What?" You exclaimed and rubbed your eyes, fearing your mind was playing tricks with you.

"Where did she go?" Billy asked next.

"Out of here," Agatha replied in a soft tone, deep down actually feeling happiness for Jen; capable of actually taking back what she was looking for.

You frowned. "But we are not done with the trials, yet"

Agatha looked at you, her gaze softening. "She is done with it. Her trial has already passed, and she got what she wanted."

You felt the need to argue but stopped yourself. The Road was a place unknown, and not even you or Agatha or Rio knew much about it. Each time it worked differently, each time seemed to make up something new.

So, who says the trials were not shortened? Or perhaps, it was giving a chance for some to find what they are looking for and be free without having to finish the road.

This was a comforting thought, deep down wanting to end this and get out.

The fact remained, though, how were you going to find what you are looking for? When you pretty much had nothing to work with and unlike Jen; there was no binding whatsoever that could be broken.

Chapter 41

#agatha all along #agatha fanfic #agatha harkness x reader #moon phases fanfic #agatha x reader #kathryn hahn #agatha spoilers #agatha harkness #aubrey plaza #marvel #lesbian #billy maximoff #jennifer kale

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