#me juggling like four projects and feeling like I’m getting nowhere on any of them 💕

[divineatrophy]

hmm I think the next chapter of domestication tomorrow I just need to read through it tonight

[kumeko]

A/N: for the @quarantinefanzine! I wanted to do a little compare and contrast for Tanjirou and Yushiro in a modern au

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Tanjirou loved his home. A two-bedroom apartment, it was a small, cozy place, barely big enough for three people let alone his family of eight. Books, clothes, and knick-knacks claimed every inch of space, cluttering the modest place. Things were precariously stacked on one another, one loud sound away from crashing to the ground.

His classmates found it claustrophobic. He found their bedrooms lonely in comparison. Tanjirou woke up surrounded by a mess of limbs, ate to the sound of a dozen conversations, and laughed every minute of his life. His home was a messy, disorganized place, but it was home and it was his and he’d never needed anything more than that.

However, he had greatly underestimated just how much he relied on his school as a buffer zone to get things done. Thanks to covid, Tanjirou was stuck inside his apartment with all five of his siblings twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Hopefully not 365 days a year.

It was like babysitting, except it never stopped. Tanjirou had managed all of his siblings before; as the oldest two, he and Nezuko had spent most of their weekday evenings juggling school and siblings. A few hours at most, until his parents dragged themselves home, tired and worn.

Now the hours rolled into days rolled into months. Spring had turned into fall and he wasn’t sure what happened to summer. School had started again. His table was cluttered with textbooks and lined papers and increasingly tiny pencils. Tanjirou had never been a good student on the best of days. Now? Impossible. The numbers swam as he stared at the desktop computer, trying to make sense of it all.

“Tanjirou.” A little hand tugged his sleeve and Tanjirou glanced down to find Rokuta staring up at him, his eyes wide.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned. He ducked down slightly so they were on the same eye level. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Rokuta nodded. He fiddled with his thumbs nervously, looking down at his feet as he asked, “Could you play with me?”

“Play?” Tanjirou resisted the urge to wince. At just five, Rokuta didn’t really have ‘school’ to attend. His teachers held his attention for maybe an hour or two before releasing him. The only other solution was the TV.

Unfortunately, their walls were paper thin. If it was hard to study now, it would be impossible with Baby Shark running through his head. Rubbing his neck, Tanjirou ran through the checklist Nezuko came up with, “Did you read your book?”

Rokuta nodded. “Two times.”

“Your dolls?”

“They had a fight.”

“Your puppets?”

“They’re under the couch.”

“Oh.” Tanjirou bit his cheek. Just what did they have left for him to do? “What about the paper cup castle?”

Once more, his brother nodded, though this time he rocked back and forth on his feet excitedly. “It’s so big!” He spread his arms to indicate just how big his castle was. “Can we smash it?”

He peeked at his computer’s time. Ten thirty. Tanjirou had barely scratched his homework. After a long play before they’d started school, he’d hoped Rokuta would have been fine till lunch, but clearly that wasn’t the case today. Ruffling his brother’s hair, Tanjirou asked, “Can we play in thirty minutes?”

“Huh?” Rokuta trembled, his eyes watery.

“You can get things set up,” he hastily suggested. As the youngest, Tanjirou was never certain if Rokuta’s tears were real or if he’d realized all too quickly how powerful they were, but he didn’t want to find out. “We need your cars.”

Considering how quickly Rokuta beamed at him after, it was probably the latter. “Okay!”

With a sigh, Tanjirou watched as his brother scampered off to their shared bedroom, no doubt having to unearth his cars from under the multiple piles of laundry. Which was yet another to-do item he had to finish later. Running a hand through his hair, he glanced around the living room to see what the rest of his siblings were doing.

Shigeru was nowhere in sight; he was probably in the bathroom or taking a nap somewhere. Seated around a low table, Hanako hesitantly answered her homework while a frustrated Takeo glared at his. Nezuko sat between the two, checking from page to the other as she corrected them.

Catching his stare, she smiled apologetically and mouthed, Sorry.

Tanjirou shook his head sympathetically, mouthing back, It’s fine.

It wasn’t like it was her fault that their mother had to work two jobs, leaving them to take care of the house. It wasn’t like it was her fault their father was in the hospital, battling for his life. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really, that they had four siblings and one computer and had to somehow balance school and babysitting between the two of them.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, and somehow that made it harder. There was no one to blame, to direct this helpless anger at. Instead, it simmered within him, trapped. It was hard to stay positive, to act strong, when fear and rage boiled within.

“You want the blue car?” Rokuta shouted, his voice piercing through Tanjirou’s gloomy thoughts.

Shaking himself out of his stupor, Tanjirou replied, “Yeah!”

“Awesome!”

They’d done this everyday now, and somehow Rokuta still managed to sound enthusiastic about it all. He had to be bored of it by now, yet he always found a new way to play the same game. In the face of that, how could Tanjirou do any less? He squashed down his feelings, pushing them aside. It wasn’t like everything was bad, after all.

He still had his mother. His siblings. A place to live and food to eat. Despite it all, he had almost everything that was important to him. Tanjirou could handle anything else life threw his way.

Even this confusing homework.

“Alright.” Tanjirou slapped his cheeks, pumping himself up. He could do this. It was just a bunch of numbers that had to follow some silly rules. Stretching his arms above him, he cracked his knuckles before hunching over the computer once more.

-x-

Yushiro loved his home. Or rather, he loved Tamayo and since they lived together, he loved her home too. It was a big house, maybe too big for just the two of them; there were studies and guestrooms that had a fine layer of dust after being forgotten for a week. Still, it was her house, with every room soaked in her essence, and he never wanted to move. Even on the days when she had to go to the hospital, he never felt too alone. All it took was a glance at the living room to picture her elegant pose as she ate, or the kitchen to see her confused frown as she tried to cook. A single memory and the house felt full as he waited impatiently for her shift to finish.

Well, not that he was alone in the first place; there was Chachamaru, their cat. Sometimes, he was certain Chachamaru knew more than she let on, but that was a silly thought. She was just a cat. Cats didn’t know anything. Like right now, the fact that she was sitting on his laptop was because she found it warm, and not because she was getting revenge for this morning.

“I’m sorry I forgot your breakfast,” he apologized, just in case. “Now get off, my class is starting.”

Chachamaru gave him a blank look and yawned, revealing all of her sharp teeth. Was that a threat? He wasn’t certain. While she always got along with Tamayo, she seemed to only barely tolerate him.

“There’s other rooms,” he pointed out, feeling a little ridiculous as he argued with her. Yushiro gestured behind him at the hallway. “We live in a big house. You can pick literally any other room. Do you need me to list them to you? Take you to them? I’ll do it.”

She still looked utterly unimpressed, before laying her head flat on his laptop.

Time to bring out the big guns. Yushiro glared at her one last time. Chachamaru didn’t so much as stir. His killing intent just wasn’t strong enough. With a sigh, he left the room and padded down the hallway toward the kitchen. There was only one way to ensure he’d get his laptop back, and that was his secret stash of catnip.

The house was quiet as he walked through it. One time, he’d brought his classmates over for a project, and Tanjirou couldn’t get over how silent it was. Apparently his home was a zoo, filled with shouts and crying. Hoards of ugly children ran through it, taking over the tiny apartment. Anywhere without Tamayo was a desolate, dark place, but Tanjirou’s home especially so. Yushiro wouldn’t be able to handle it.

He preferred the quiet—it was warm and comfortable. There was nothing better than the evenings he and Tamayo spent together, reading a book or filling out forms. The only sounds were the rustling of paper, the scraping of a pencil, the soft purring of Chachamaru. Even without words, they understood each other, and sometimes he and Tamayo would exchange smiles, like they were sharing a private joke.

Yushiro flipped the lights on as he stepped into the kitchen. Tamayo’s hastily discarded apron lay messily on the table and he chuckled as he hung it back on its proper hook.

“You overslept this morning,” he murmured, staring at the flower patterns. He’d bought it as a gift years ago, and the fabric was now covered in soya sauce and oil stains.

Tamayo didn’t reply. She couldn’t, not until her shift finished, not until she was forced to take a break from the hospital.

He preferred the quiet, but not the emptiness. Stuck inside the house, he was alone more often than not, with Tamayo taking longer and longer hours as she tried to save just one more person. It was frightening. It was terrifying. The scars on her face only deepened as each day passed and he wondered how long it would be before they were permanent.

How long it would be before she stopped coming home.

A shiver ran through his spine at that last thought, and he hugged himself. Rubbing his arms, he tried to warm up, but the chill persisted. Yushiro wasn’t naïve; he’d watched the news. He’d heard the stories. Tamayo doused herself in sanitizers and soap and even then she made sure to stay a safe distance from him whenever they ate.

Even the memory of her hugs were fading now.

Something warm circled his feet and he looked down to find Chachamaru brushing her head against his ankles with a soft meow. “Finally bored of my laptop?” he asked, his voice cracking.

She meowed again, rubbing against him insistently. When he crouched, she jumped into his arms and nuzzled his neck. Her whiskers tickled his throat.

“I thought you didn’t like me,” he mumbled, pressing his face into her warm fur as he sat on the cold kitchen tiles. She purred in response. “Is that a yes?”

Chachamaru was a pain in the ass and would sit on his laptop tomorrow. She’d scratch him when he didn’t wake up in time for breakfast or nip at his ankles when she was annoyed at him.

But she was also a part of his family, however reluctant he was to admit that, and maybe it wasn’t all that bad to have someone other than Tamayo in his life. To have someone he could cry to and share his fears and not have to worry about adding to Tamayo’s already heavy shoulders.

“Can we stay like this? For a little while?” he asked.

Chachamaru licked his tears in response.

When he finally sat down for class, she stayed on his lap like a portable heater. It was hard to feel scared with her constant purring. Hard to feel alone with her weight on his thighs.

“Hey, Yushiro,” Tanjirou asked on Zoom, his hands clasped in front of him. “Could you help me?”

“Sure,” he replied charitably.

He didn’t mind the company for once.

[zanecosh]

’ ･ﾟ : 👽  : ･.  INTRODUCTION — Zane Wancosh  .･: 👽 :･ﾟ ’

⌠ CHANCE PERDOMO, TWENTY-ONE, CISMALE, HE/HIM ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, ZANE WANCOSH! according to their records, they’re a FIRST year, specializing in MEDICAL TRAINING; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (sunglasses in every imaginable color, serenading ‘ my heart will go on ‘ loudly at 4 am, finger guns to the pals and the gals). when it’s the (aries)’s birthday on 04/18/1999, they always request their FRENCH FRIES WITH GRAVY from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation.

tw; drugs, jail/prison ??, alcohol

PAST but not rlly since i always had to mention what it did to him

- Zane was raised in Ottawa, Canada .. something he is very proud of and will mention a billion times as soon as he gets to know someone -- he will also deliberately say ‘ eh ? ‘ to let people know b ut we all know he ain’t sleek !!

- His parents had always been a loving bunch so he grew up receiving so much affection and attention that he now is a little FULL of himself but only because he seeks love and won’t stop until someone provides it for him im srry i didn’t make the law

.- So given his upbringing he’s always been the completely affectionate type, having his hands everywhere all the time and achING for hugs and small things like hand holding or just a pat  on the shoulder like he is seriously convinced that if he doesn’t get at least four hugs a day he will die a painful, lonely death

- So in addition to that, he had always been a very active, youthful and energetic kid which was pretty much something he got from his dad since he sort of kept things playful and always did the best that he could while his mom was on the stricter side but instead knew how to teach him things that were important !!

- So growing up he always made friends very easily because of how open he was ( except that time when he brought this girl home at the age of 7 because he thought she’d make a cool pet ) and because he was always vERY friendly, even if he had a tendency to be too nice at times and just got upset when people didn’t like him ?? which is honestly still the case

- Of course he loved being popular which is kind of his aspiration in most things nowadays?? he seeks to be liked so much it’s sometimes a lil sad but he will legitamately try anything to make you his friend and he wont care if ur bothered because at least then he’ll get a reaction out of you !! but yeah it’s something he never really learned bc he’s used to getting validated from his parents so he genuinely doesn’t COMPREHEND meanness ://

- It was when he was around ten ( 10 )  years old when his dad randomly moved to New York ?? which was honestly super scary to him but his mother assured him that it was for a special job which was definitely weird for him because that was the only thing she ever said when he asked her about his father and ofc zane wasn’t dumb just a little idiotic !!

- They still visited his father often where Zane was able to get to know America and New York a little better, which he definitely enjoyed even though he sort of preferred Canada always because he likes snow a lot and the fact that it kind of melts when you pee on it but anyway he was getting a bit more suspicious as he grew older

- Then on his sixteenth birthday he was able to visit his dad once more to which he then was revealed that his dad was the ring leader of a spy business !! WOW to which Zane was baffled of course bc his dad ??? who tripped over his 7th birthday cake because Zane saw a squirrel and started to chase it ?? exactly !!

- So of course, Zane wanted to start working there !! Not only because of curiosity but school was kind of boring ( ngl ) and he missed his dad a lot so while his mother was not happy about his choice at all she always believed in people doing whatever they wanted so without much time passing the male moved to New York and started working for his father !!

- it was quickly noticiable that Zane wasn’t great at spy work, considering he was incredibly clumsy and was always distracted by everything and almost shot off his left toe ONCE okay it was only onCE !! Anyway his father got a little frustrated with his chaotic energy so he gave him the jobs were he was usually with someone else so they could babysit him which was honestly better for him too bc he could make friends !!

-  So when he was around 19 that’s when he got to know his boy Landon, his main squeeze, one could even say the love of his life ( only he would say that ) but they immediately vibed with Landon being his driver even though they lowkey ended up doing stuff that completely wasn’t what his dad wanted but Zane was honestly just loving life and just doing a bit of shady stuff with his buddies was bonding ??

- HOWEVER NOT ALL THINGS CAN BE SUNSHINE AND CAKE; so they often kind of got into trouble ?? they were good at hiding and sort of running from the cops a couple of times but honestly not that much of a big deal as Zane would say but once upon a time, these assholes rlly got caught ahead of their time to which Landon then got away in time with someone from Gallagher helping while Zane honestly didn’t know what was happening n got caught ??

- To which he then ended up in jail for a year !! love carrying contraband while being high as fuck !! anyway, it was a very self reflecting time . even though he sort of learned nothing ?? anyway not even his dad could bail him out, only shorten the time if he in return joined Gallagher, a school where he would learn how to behave and use his spy knowledge to some good instead of just causing trouble !!

- Which he honestly didn’t vibe with so much because he was kind of scared of these spy kids ?? legit all of them could kill them w a look he wasn’t sure was his dad was thinking but that’s also why he chose medicial training, in order to not get hurt and if he did, he would be able to take care of himself which honestly wasn’t that much of a help when he was about to bonk this girl but ended up hitting his dick against the ground as they rolled around ?? he doesn’t wanna talk about it

- Anyway, he sort of grew into Gallagher for the most part, since he is a very adaptable person in general and was looking forward to making friends with people who were way cooler than him which was honestly a plus !! he just vibing y’all there ain’t no problem at all at all

PERSONALITY & LITTLE QUIRKS

- He’s super chaotic and all over the place, loves talking about anything and everything and sort of philophises over the most mundane things because its fun to talk about life y’all

- He has a super colorful taste in clothing and decoration and is pretty extraordinary in most things in life, whether its sunglasses or flowers on his backpack and shirts and stuff that’s way too big

- Is a slow talker and also doesn’t understand people who talk fast

- Has a habit of interrupting people mid-conversation and doesn’t realize that it could appear rude

- Loves everyone, is also super affectionate and always has an arm around his friends or will at least ask for conSENT bc that matters to him but he will most likely touch u some type of way im sorry

- Probably because he is super fidgety too, he legit has his hands everywhere all the time because he doesn’t like to stay still

- Somewhat of a class clown and certainly does not enjoy studying or any school related work so he’s kind probably always on the verge of failing ?? idk how he does it you guys

- will fist bump you but will also grab your ass

- Just wants to chill most of the time but somehow still always stressed

- Is a party ANIMAL like if there is a party, he’s there and probably drunk and high before the party even starts ?? in general i don’t think he’s been sober a day since he turned 18 who the fuck knows

- Will probably trip and fall everywhere as a drunk but he just laughs about it the second day, like he says if he doesn’t get hurt it won’t be a good party and i honestly worry about him and i’m not sure how he’s still alive

- does the peace sign way too often

- could be considered a sunny boy but since he’s from cold ass Canada he loves snow way much more and the cold for some reason

- has the biggest potty mouth like he doesn’t even realize he’s swearing

- is extremely honest like he will just stand there listening to someone complain and be like well that’s a bitch

-  also huge flirt and also catches feelings fast and will mostly say it outright when he falls for someone like boy has seriously no shame ?? he will feel the heartbreak but he believes he can deal with it better than questioning it all the time and if they feel the same he will just loVE

- he also might be polyamerous he doesn’t know it yet bc he’s never had that many chances but he just likes to love whatever

- his head is everywhere and nowhere at the same time so it’s possible that he doesn’t make sense 80% of the time

- has tattoos that don’t make sense at all, i like to refer pewdiepie or uhhhh what’s his name uhhhh kURTIS CONNER ?? im too lazy to fact check i been writing this for an hour let me be

- knows how to juggle and thinks that’s that probably the coolest skill he’s ever learned

- has two earthworms that he got during a biology project back in high school who have been in his possession for six years now ?? ( i checked they live for four to eight ) he loves them to death ok their names are Niall and Liam ....... ( yes he was an 1D stan don’t confront him about them he’ll cry )

- is very superficial, loves the horoscope and believes in like bad luck and stuff like that, will scold u if u don’t listen to him rant about unlucky things !!

/ @gallagherintro

[starletwriting]

8 + 9 for Killervibe please x

Deja Vu

Request: amnesia + secret relationship

Ship: Killervibe (Cisco Ramon x Caitlin Snow)

Characters: Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, Barry Allen, Iris West-Allen, Ralph Dibny

Word count: 5376

Notes: Thanks so much for the request!! Sorry it took me a bit to upload!! I hope you enjoy. Special thank you to @thatkillervibe for beta-reading and offering feedback!! This one shot doesn’t take place at any specific point on the show, but in my head I saw it as taking place post-season five, but in an au where Cisco doesn’t lose his powers in 5x22. 

Tags: @shakesqueer-writes @narniasfinestavengingsociopath

~~~

To say that tensions were high would be an understatement. To say that Team Flash was stressed would also be an understatement. They weren’t just stressed. They were at a stage of emotion that only led to hair-pulling and temper tantrums. There were two metahumans ganging up on Barry, another on Ralph, and another on Cisco. Iris was on comms, frantically trying to take control of the situation at hand. A four-person meta-gang would’ve been hard for them on any day, but it was even worse considering the fact that they were down a member. While every member of Team Flash was stressed down to their core, Cisco was taking it the worst of them all. After all, the member they were lacking just so happened to be the one Cisco knew best.

The metahuman facing Cisco let out a creepy giggle as she flicked her wrist, causing dark green superhuman vines to rise up through the pavement and wrap around Cisco’s legs. As his breathing quickened, he forced himself to stay calm, and instead tried opening a breach underneath him. However, to his dismay, the breach only faltered and faded out of existence the moment it touched the magical vines.

“Silly Vibe,” the villain cackled. It wasn’t the time, but Cisco mentally coined her as Green Goddess. “You thought that would work. But, as it turns out, there’s no escape. Nowhere to run to now.” 

“Uh, Iris, now would be a great time for those meta-cuffs.” Cisco huffed into his comms. “I can feel these vines getting tighter, and I really don’t wanna say goodbye to my legs today.” 

“If you haven’t noticed, Cisco, I’m a little busy at the moment!” was the reply he got.

Through his comms he could hear Barry panting as he exhausted himself trying to take on two metas at once, and Ralph saying “Ow ow ow ow ow!” repeatedly. He had no idea what was going on, as the four metas had separated them early on in the battle and now Cisco had no visuals on either of them, but he figured Iris was busy with whatever Ralph was up against. 

The vines surrounding his legs only squeezed tighter and tighter. Cisco gulped. That was definitely gonna bruise. 

After a moment, Iris’s voice returned to his comms. Whatever had just gone on, she was noticeably winded from it. She took a moment to catch her breath before muttering “Cisco, the extrapolator might be your best invention yet.” 

“Is that a yes on the meta-cuffs then?” 

Iris didn’t take the time to reply. Instead, she just opened a breach right behind Green Goddess and clasped the meta-cuffs on her before she had time to react. The shimmering blue breach closed behind Iris, who gave an exhausted-but-triumphant thumbs up to a now vines-free Cisco. Within seconds, a flash of lighting appeared in front of them and faded once as Barry came to a skidding halt, holding two metahumans in meta-cuffs. The second he stopped, he buckled over from sheer exhaustion, taking in huge gulps of air. 

“Cisco, do you think you could…” Barry made a weak gesture to indicate he meant a breach. “I don’t think I can run back to the lab. Not right now.” 

Cisco nodded, and formed a breach that engulfed all of them and brought them back to the lab. Ralph had already collapsed onto a chair, presumably from when Iris came and rescued him only moments before she came to Cisco’s aid. Once Barry took a moment to sit down and catch his breath, he was feeling better already, and he turned to Iris with a grin. 

“We did it.” Barry said, first to Iris, then repeating it to Ralph and Cisco. “We did it, guys.” 

“What, you think this is a win?” Cisco had already crashed into a chair and rolled up his pants legs up to his knees in an attempt to investigate the damage on his legs. “We would’ve been screwed if Iris hadn’t come and saved our asses. I can hardly stand up because of what that Green Goddess did to me.” 

“Hey, nice name.” 

“Do not change the subject, Ralph.” 

“Look, I get it! Does it look like I was playing around? I had two metas coming at me at once from different angles. Ralph got an electric shock to the chest. Iris was having to juggle all three of us.” Barry said. “All I’m saying is, it was hard, but we got through it. That’s celebratory.” 

“What, so we can just ignore the elephant in the room? You can’t live in denial forever, Barry.” 

“We’ve tried everything we can think of to get her back, Cisco, and nothing is working! What do you expect us to do?” 

“So what, we’re just supposed to give up on her? Turn our backs on our friend? All these years working with you, I never thought you were a quitter!” 

“Barry, Cisco!” Iris intervened before the argument got worse. “We all miss Caitlin. We’re all a little tense. I get it. But fighting isn’t going to help anyone.” 

They knew she was right. Barry and Cisco both sighed and backed down. 

“We’ve tried everything.” Barry spoke with a much calmer tone now. Instead of getting defensive, he instead sounded… regretful. “We tried tracking her kidnapper. We can’t get an identification on him because of his mask. We tried tracking his mask. Turns out it’s sold from pretty much every Halloween store in the city. We even tried tracking Caitlin’s cold signature. Nothing.”

“It’s hard when we know virtually nothing about the guy who took her.” Ralph pitched in. “I mean, I’ve had to drop many cases before because there just wasn’t enough to go off of.”

“This isn’t some random P.I. case, Ralph.” Cisco said. “This is Caitlin.” 

“I know, but he has a point.” Iris spoke with a sympathetic tone. “We know virtually nothing about her kidnapper. We know he was a meta. We know his powers have something to do with the mind. That’s… pretty much it.” 

Cisco bit his lip. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he knew they were right. What else could they possibly do? 

“Caitlin’s a strong girl. She’ll be able to hold her own until we can rescue her. She’ll be okay, I promise.” Barry’s words were meant to be reassuring, but somehow they only stung. 

I just don’t know if I can do this without her.

When Cisco looked around Star Labs, all he saw was memories of Caitlin. The time she worked late to help him with a project that he just couldn’t quite figure out. The time they spilled Big Belly Burger sauce in one of the computers and blamed Hartley. The time Cisco found Caitlin crying so he just read off a bunch of corny puns he found online until she laughed. The time they placed a bet on how much ice cream they could eat in one sitting and both got stomach aches afterwards. 

Cisco saw history in the walls. He recalled the day he realized that Caitlin was his best friend, and the day he realized she was so much more. Every nook and cranny of Star Labs was taunting him with memories- memories that brought a smile to his face, and memories that felt like blows to his already-sunken heart. 

Without Caitlin, Star Labs would never feel like home to him.

“I just need to get out of here. I’m going to Jitters.” 

“Are you sure your legs will be okay to walk?” 

Cisco stood up, and instantly regretted it. The pain came searing through his legs the second he applied pressure, which made it a hassle to even just stand up. And yet, Cisco decided he could live with it. 

“I’ll be fine.” 

Sure enough, he made it through. He breached to Jitters instead of driving to make it easier for him, but he made it nonetheless. He figured the pain would eventually wear off if he just pressed on through. Either that, or he’d just make it worse. Either one. 

He got in line and mentally decided on an order without having to look at the menu. You’d think Team Flash practically lived at Jitters with how often they met there for casual coffee chats, or just an early morning pick-me-up. 

The lady in front of him placed her order and moved on to find a table, and Cisco stepped up to the counter. He had opened his mouth in preparation to state his order, but the second he met the cashier’s eyes, everything stopped. He forgot his coffee order, his name… everything he had ever known. None of that mattered to him anymore, not after he saw her. 

Brown eyes, but not just any brown eyes. The most perfect brown eyes Cisco had ever seen in his life. They were the eyes that lit up with passion when she was talking about everything scientific, everything medical. They were the eyes that twinkled with fondness every time they met Cisco’s. They were the eyes that gave Cisco a playful glare whenever he made a bad joke, but also the eyes that sparkled with the laughter she was trying to keep in. They were the eyes that shined with the beauty of a thousand stars. Gentle, joyful, calming. Her gaze never failed to stir up the butterflies in Cisco’s stomach, and he never grew tired of the feeling. 

“Caitlin?!”

Caitlin blinked, clearly startled. She stared at Cisco for a short moment before speaking.

“I’m sorry. Who are you?” 

~~~

Her legs dangled off of the bed in the Star Labs medical bay. She looked around the place with a mixture of confusion and awe in her eyes, she met everyone’s gazes with an unfamiliar distant look. As everyone else stood around her, Cisco had gotten a chair and sat, fiddling with his thumbs and trying not to look at Caitlin. Just hearing her voice was painful enough. He knew that if he met her eyes and only saw her blank stare in return, his heart would shatter all over again.

“You really don’t remember anything?”

“That’s the fourth time you guys have asked me that.”

“So that’s a no.” Ralph sighed. 

Barry turned to Cisco. “You said you saw her at Jitters?” 

Cisco nodded.

“Today was my third day on the job.” Caitlin said. “I had to get a new job, seeing as how I didn’t remember enough about who I am to show up to my last one. I’m assuming this is it, though?” 

“This is Star Labs.” Barry said. “You’re our bio-engineer, and resident doctor. Do you know your name?”

“Caitlin Snow. That’s what it said on my driver’s license.” Caitlin said. “When I woke up with no memory of who I was, that was the first thing I checked.”

“So, what exactly do you remember?” Barry asked. 

“Well, a few weeks ago I woke up in some abandoned warehouse with no memory of how I got there or who I was. I was alone. I know how to drive, but I don’t remember ever learning. I couldn’t tell you my name or age or anything about me, until I checked my wallet.”

“You had your wallet on you when you woke up?” Ralph asked. “You were kidnapped and abandoned, but he left your wallet?” 

“He didn’t want money.” Barry’s voice was solemn. Cisco recognized that look from when they were up against Devoe, or when Cicada had injured Nora. “He must’ve kidnapped Caitlin for a different reason.” 

“Kidnapped?” Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “That sounds intense.”  

“Caitlin,” Iris spoke with a gentle tone, careful not to overwhelm Caitlin. “Do you remember the warehouse you woke up in?”

Caitlin nodded. “I wrote down the address in case I needed to go to the police.” 

“Smart move.” Iris said. 

“Okay, then that’s our next move.” Barry decided. “Tomorrow, we go check out the warehouse and stop this meta once and for all.” 

Nods of agreement followed from Ralph, Cisco, and Iris.

“So then it’s settled.” Barry said. “I’ll head over to CCPD and fill Joe in on what’s happening. He can get CCPD on alert.” 

With that, he walked out of Star Labs.

~~~

The stars shimmered against the nighttime sky. Cisco leaned forwards against the balcony’s metal railing and stared up at the moon, his mind still racing from the events of that day. It was getting late, but Cisco was still at Star Labs. Just earlier that day, he couldn’t find it in him to stay, but now, he couldn’t find it in him to leave. 

He heard footsteps coming from the Star Labs lounge behind him, and turned around to see Caitlin walking up to him. She stepped with hesitation, as if silently asking permission to join him. Cisco nodded and stepped aside as if allowing room for her to stand next to him.

“I’m surprised you’re still here.” 

“I wanted to stay a bit longer.” Caitlin said. “It’s weird, but… I wanted to check out this place. I think part of me was secretly hoping that if I could explore this building, somehow it would help me remember something from my life.”

“Did it work?”

Caitlin shook her head. “It’s pointless.”

“That’s okay. Nobody expected you to get your memories back in one day.” 

She leaned her body against the railing and sighed. “There’s just so much I don’t understand. I’m so confused, and I know everything would make sense if I could just remember, but it’s… not that easy.”  

“What’re you confused on? I could try to explain.” 

“How did I end up in that abandoned warehouse? Why was I kidnapped? Why did they take me if not for money?” 

“Ah.” Cisco said. “That’s a bit of a long story, but I’ll try to put it simply. Do you know what a meta is?” 

Caitlin hesitated for a moment, as if trying to come up with an answer. “Sorry, but I don’t think I do.”

“That’s okay.” Cisco gave her a gentle, reassuring smile, and went on to explain it. “A meta, or a metahuman, is someone with powers.” 

“Like… Iron-Man?” 

“Famously a hero without powers, but yes, you have the right idea.” Cisco said. “Years ago, there was this particle accelerator that malfunctioned, and it exploded, causing a large ripple of dark matter to spread throughout the city. That dark matter infected certain people and physically changed their DNA structure, giving them superhuman abilities.”

“So superheroes are real?” Caitlin said. “You’re serious?” 

Cisco nodded. “Absolutely serious. In the few weeks that you’ve been conscious, have you heard of The Flash?”

“The Jitters drink?”

Cisco laughed softly before shaking his head. “The drink is named after the superhero. You see, when that particle accelerator went off, it made villains, but it also made heroes. The Flash was struck by lightning and sent into a coma, and when he woke up nine months later, he was given the ability to run faster than the speed of light.” 

“No way. So there’s a hero with super-speed, here in this very city?” 

“Yup.” Cisco nodded. “And you haven’t even heard the craziest part.” 

“Which is?”

“The Flash just so happens to be Barry Allen.” 

Caitlin’s eyes grew twice their size as the realization dawned on her. “No way. The guy I met earlier was a superhero?”

“But wait, there’s more.” Cisco said. “We’re all superheroes. I’m known as Vibe. Ralph- you met him earlier- is Elongated Man. Iris is the team leader. She doesn’t have powers, but she’s just as heroic without them. And you… you were Killer Frost.” 

For about thirty seconds, all Caitlin could do was blink and process what she had just heard. “I’m a hero?”

“One of the best.” Cisco said. “You have cold powers. Everything ice and snow.” 

“My last name is Snow, and I have ice powers?” Caitlin tilted her head. “That’s convenient.” 

Cisco couldn’t hold back a smile at that. “You’d be surprised at how many villains we face that have names sounding like they came right out of a comic book.”

“I’ll bet.” Caitlin hesitated for a moment, then something occurred to her. “This whole thing, me being kidnapped, me losing my memories… it happened because I’m a superhero, didn’t it?”

Cisco nodded. “My guess? He didn’t kidnap you for money. He kidnapped you to handicap the Flash. It was a lot harder to face metas without you helping out, and I think that’s what he wanted.”

“How did it happen?”

“Well…” Cisco let out a brief sigh, and began to tell the story. “About a month ago, CCPD started getting reports of various attacks from throughout the city. It was a different person each time, but they all had one thing in common: when the culprit was brought in for police questioning, they would always claim to have no memory of the event. We suspected that there was a meta with mind-control behind these attacks. A few days later, CCPD got an anonymous tip telling them to check out the Central City Park that night, and they’d have their guy. Well, CCPD went, and it turns out it was a trap. Joe called Barry and told him what was happening, so we all showed up to the scene. But this meta was… powerful. He could get inside our heads and throw us off our rhythm. Before we knew what was happening, he took you and got away.” 

“Wow.” was the only response Caitlin could muster. “So that’s how he erased my memory, then. He had powers.”

Cisco nodded.

A moment passed between the two of them, neither one saying a word. It felt so strange, and yet, it felt so comfortable. Cisco knew that she didn’t remember him, but one look at her and all he saw was Caitlin. His Caitlin. Caitlin, the one he’s been falling for a little more each day for the past six years. 

Then she spoke.

“Cisco?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

Cisco tilted his head in his confusion. “Sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for.” 

“This whole thing must be really hard on you.” Caitlin said.

“That’s not your fault.” Cisco said. “For the past month, all I’ve wanted was for you to come back. And now you’re back, but it’s… not the same. Yeah, it’s hard, but you shouldn’t blame yourself. I don’t expect you to remember, I don’t expect you to make it up to me. You’re the most amazing person I know, Caitlin. I just wish you knew that.” 

Caitlin met Cisco’s eyes.

“You and I… we weren’t just friends, were we?” 

Cisco shook his head. “How’d you know?”

“The way you look at me.” 

“Caitlin, what we have, it’s… escaped definition.”

“But it’s love?”

“Yes. It’s love.” 

“Do the others know?”

“No.” Cisco said. “You and I have worked together for years. We became instant friends, and for a while, that was all it was. But as the years passed, we survived every little crazy thing together, we never left the other’s side, and… the feelings formed on their own. We were in denial for a long time. I dated other people, I thought that I could move on from you if I found someone I loved just as much. But it never happened. Not a single soul in the universe is as perfect for me as you are. You’re practically my soulmate. Then you confessed. And I realized that our love for each other was mutual. After that, we started dating in secret. The team was going through a lot at the time, and frankly we both wanted to keep it on the down-low for now. But then you were kidnapped. After all these years, I finally had you, and then I lost you. Just like that, you were gone. For a whole month, I had no idea if I was ever going to see you again.”  

“And now I don’t remember anything.”

“But you’re here.” Cisco said. “We’ll get your memories back one way or another, I promise.” 

“What if we can’t?” Caitlin asked. “I mean, you said yourself that things were so much harder without me helping you out, but without my memories, I can’t help. I supposedly have powers, but I don’t have the slightest idea how to use them.” 

Cisco paused for a moment, then his whole face lit up. “Wait. I have an idea.” 

“Yeah?” 

“When you use your powers, you become this whole other persona. You physically transform into Killer Frost. If you could transform now, maybe that would be enough to trigger your memories.” 

“But… I don’t know how.”

“It’s okay, just try.” Cisco said. “It was hard for me to use my powers at first, too. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and focus on becoming Killer Frost.” 

Caitlin inhaled a shaky breath, stood up straight, and closed her eyes. Cisco watched with a hopeful grin, crossing his fingers and wishing for the best.

A beat. Nothing.

Caitlin let go of the breath she had been holding and opened her eyes. “I can’t do it.” 

“That’s okay.” Cisco placed a gentle hand on Caitlin’s shoulder reassuringly. “You did your best. Thanks for trying.”

“I should be getting home soon. It’s late and I’m starting to get tired.” 

“Do you want me to take you to your apartment?” Cisco asked. 

“You sure you’d be okay driving me?”

“Who said I was gonna drive you?” Cisco’s eyes twinkled with a hint of playfulness. “I never did tell you what my powers were. Watch this.” 

Cisco outstretched his palm and concentrated for a few seconds. Before long, a bright blue shimmering breach appeared in front of the two of them.

“Whoa. You can make portals?”

He nodded. “We call them breaches. They can take me anywhere I wanna go in the multiverse at any time.” 

“Multiverse?” Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “The multiverse theory is real?” 

“Yeah. We have a couple friends from different universes, actually.” 

“Alright, I definitely wanna know more about that. But not tonight.” Caitlin started to step through the portal, but turned back and met Cisco’s eyes one last time. She smiled in a way that made Cisco’s heart melt. “Goodnight, Cisco.” 

He smiled back.

“Goodnight, Caitlin.” 

~~~

The day was just getting started as Team Flash gathered in Star Labs and prepared their ambush on the warehouse Caitlin woke up in. Cisco brought a granola bar and was snacking on it. Ralph was tapping his foot against his chair. Caitlin sat in the cortex, keeping quiet while everyone else made plans.

“Alright, everyone has to be on high alert. He doesn’t know that we’ve found Caitlin, so there’s no way he can be expecting us, but we can’t let our guard down. He’s bested us once before, let’s not give him the chance to do it again.” Barry said. 

“I searched the address Caitlin gave and found this warehouse near the edge of the city.” Cisco set his granola bar down and pulled his search results up on the computer screens. “In other news, I’ve been brainstorming a name for this guy. I’m thinking… Mind Master.”

“You really like alliterative names, huh?” Barry raised an eyebrow.

Cisco shrugged. “They sound nice.”

Everyone was suited up and ready to go. Cisco threw away his empty granola bar wrapper, sighed, and outstretched his hand. A shimmering blue breach appeared before the team, ready to transport them right to the warehouse. 

“Wait.” 

The team turned around. The voice had belonged to Caitlin, who was now standing in front of her seat, staring at them with a look of determination that reminded them all of her old self. 

“I want to go with you.” 

Barry spoke up. “Caitlin, without you being able to access your powers-”

“I know, but I’m the only one who’s actually been in the warehouse. And if this guy took away my memories… maybe he could give them back.” 

“She has a point.” Cisco said.

“If she wants to go, let her go.” Iris reached into the cabinet behind her and pulled out an energy rifle. “Here, Caitlin. To defend yourself.” 

Caitlin took it. “What’s this?”

“It’s an energy rifle. Basically a fancy gun, but it shoots energy instead of bullets.” Iris said. “Just pull the trigger, you’ll be fine.” 

“Okay, I don’t mean to rush us here, but I’ve been holding this breach open for like, almost a full minute, and it’s very draining.” 

“Right. Sorry, Cisco.” 

With Caitlin now holding the energy rifle, the team stepped through the breach and into the unknown.

The warehouse was dark, empty, and cold. It felt unwelcome, like the creepy mansion you’d expect in an old cheesy horror movie. Chills crept down their spines as they treaded lightly into the unknown. 

“This is the place.” Caitlin confirmed. 

“Yikes. You woke up here, all alone?” Ralph raised an eyebrow. “Respect.”

“Well, it’s not like I had a choice in the matter.”

“Let’s just find Mind Master and get out of here.” Cisco said. “This place is creeping me out.”

“It’s… empty.” Barry said. 

You really fell for the same trick twice? The Flash isn’t as smart as I thought.

They didn’t hear the voice. It wasn’t spoken. It appeared in their heads, as if it was a thought, but it wasn’t their own. It was his.

“That’s him.” The tremor in Ralph’s voice reflected the fear they all felt. “He’s here.” 

Do you think I wouldn’t expect you to find your friend again? Do you think I didn’t expect you to try to find me?

“He led us here.” 

“This is my fault.” Caitlin looked like she was gonna be sick. “I brought you here. This is on me.” 

“No.” Cisco reached out and laid a hand on Caitlin’s shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t think that. It’s not your fault.” 

A purple mist surrounded them, clouding their view of the warehouse. They heard footsteps somewhere nearby, but they couldn’t tell where. Whether it was real or just in their head, they had no idea. 

Then they saw him. Walking through the fog towards them, there he was. The master behind it all. 

A deep, hearty, intimidating laugh escaped his throat. 

“You lot are no match for me.”

Cisco shot a vibe blast out of his palm. The blast was aimed right for Mind Master’s chest and it should have hit, but to the team’s dismay, it only passed right through and instead left an impact on the wall behind them. Magic Master’s image glitched and disappeared, gone from sight.

He lowered his hand in defeat. “It was a hologram.” 

“Wow.” Ralph muttered. “This guy’s no joke.” 

Barry cursed under his breath. “Once again, he could be anywhe-”

Caitlin’s shriek cut Barry off. Mind Master had taken advantage of the distraction and was pinning Caitlin up against the wall, facing the team with a sly grin. 

“Try and stop me now, heroes.” 

Caitlin was practically whimpering. Cisco felt his heart pounding in his chest. He hated seeing the panic on Caitlin’s face. She could get out of there, if only she remembered how.

“Caitlin, you can take him. You gotta transform.” Cisco stepped forward, meeting Caitlin’s eyes and trying to appear as calm as possible in spite of the situation. 

“I- I don’t know how.”

“Think about what motivates you. Fear, anger, spite…” Cisco recalled all the times he would get Caitlin to transform in the past. “I know you can do it. I believe in you.” 

“Oops. Not soon enough.” Mind Master raised his fist and aimed it at Caitlin.

“No!”

A flash of lightning whipped past them, soaring through the air with enough force to blow Cisco’s hair in front of his face. Before they knew it, Barry had knocked Mind Master onto the ground, freeing Caitlin from his grasp. After that, all the others saw of the fight was Barry’s yellow lightning and Mind Master dodging, throwing punches. 

Until Mind Master got away.

Cisco didn’t register what was happening until it was too late. He felt a force throwing him back, knocking him against the ground. He looked up and saw Mind Master’s fist only inches from his, his eyes holding more malice than the Reverse-Flash. Cisco shut his eyes and his heart skipped a beat…

“No!”

The voice was all so familiar, and yet distorted at the same time. She spoke with a hint of an echo, a magical voice perfectly fit for the person it belonged to. It was icicles and blizzards and the crunch of fresh snow beneath a traveler’s foot, and yet it was warm, and sweet, and so very Caitlin, all at the same time.

A blast of icy whirlwinds knocked Mind Master off of Cisco and against the wall with enough impact to render him too weak to fight back. Barry grabbed the metacuffs and put them on him before he could try anything else. Mind Master slumped in defeat, his powers no longer at his expense.

Cisco got up and faced his savior. Sprinkles of white were dancing around her fingertips. The frozen mist was still fading around her. Her hair sported a shade of white that matched the piercing frostiness of her eyes, the ones that were looking at Cisco with a warmth someone wouldn’t normally expect from an ice queen. 

Killer Frost.

“You did it.” Despite his heart still thumping in his chest, he couldn’t stop grinning. “I knew you could.” 

“It worked.” 

“What?” 

“It worked!”

Frost shut her eyes and exhaled the breath she had been holding. The ice around her faded, her hair reverted to its natural warm brown, her eyes lost their frozen touch. Her grin was accented with her natural warm brown aesthetic, the excitement in her expression was something so genuinely her. She ran up to Cisco, not caring about anything in the world except for him. She cupped his face, and she kissed him.

“I remember.” She huffed, a joyful grin stuck on her face. “I remember everything.” 

~~~

“So, when were you two planning on telling us about your relationship?” 

Cisco and Caitlin laughed. Iris was looking at them with a sparkle in her eyes, one that showed how happy she was for the both of them. The heroes were all still a little worn out from the battle beforehand, but Caitlin hadn’t been able to stop holding Cisco’s hand since they left. Even now, in Star Labs, Caitlin was leaning against the chair that Cisco was sitting in. 

“Just throwing it out there, I totally called it.” Ralph said. 

“You did not.” Barry raised an eyebrow at him. 

“I did! Remember when I pulled up Ralph’s Guide To A Healthy Relationship and I said, ‘huh, Cisco and Caitlin would be great for each other’.” 

“That doesn’t count. You said the same thing about Kamilla when Cisco was dating her.”

“I’m supportive of all Cisco’s romantic interests!” 

Cisco laughed softly at the team’s playful bickering, and reached into the desk’s bottom drawer to pull out a Twizzler. He offered one to Caitlin, who took it and held it in front of her teeth.

“This monitor is old.” Cisco said. “I think this is the same one from that time maybe about six years ago when we spilled Big Belly Burger sauce on it-”

Caitlin laughed. “Didn’t we blame it on Hartley?” 

“Yeah, we did!”

“Dr. Wells was pissed.”

“Oh well. Hartley was a dick anyways.”

The two of them shared memories and giggled to themselves like schoolchildren for one long, precious moment. When it ended, Cisco was simply looking up at Caitlin with lovestruck eyes.

“What?” Caitlin smiled. 

“Nothing.” Cisco shrugged. “I’m just glad to have you back.” 

Caitlin leaned over and kissed Cisco one more time. “I’m not leaving. Ever again.” 

“You didn’t leave. You were kidnapped. And for the record,” Cisco tucked Caitlin’s hair behind her ear. “The next person who tries to take you away is going to have to pry you from my cold, dead hands.” 

“Yeah?” Caitlin’s voice reflected her amused smile. “I thought I was the one with the cold hands.” 

“You just had to make a cold joke, didn’t you?” 

“You love it.”

Cisco chuckled softly. “I do.”

[armadil-lo]

if when he sees me (3/6)

PREVIOUS // FIRST

Chapter Summary: He thinks about Shitty Hair a lot. Stupid things remind him of the other boy all the time - the colour red suddenly seems to be everywhere, and fine, it does fucking make him smile.

Being scared, however? That doesn’t sit right with Katsuki. Bakugou Katsuki isn’t scared of anything, least of all facing some stupid crush.

My Notes: thank you all so so much for your patience while waiting for this chapter guys. i'm incredibly sorry for the almost four-month-long wait, but i must yet again make no promises on when the next update will be. motivation is fickle and i've always been terrible at juggling my responsibilities with my creative projects. i hope that the length and content of this chapter made up for the wait though <3

oh yeah. and happy birthday bakugou ;)

Words: 6420

AO3

Deku is practically hanging all over Katsuki as soon as he walks in the door.

Him and his half-and-half boyfriend are sitting on the couch in the living room when Katsuki gets home that night, watching something together. Deku looks up from where his head had been leaning on Todoroki’s shoulder. His eyes flicker from Katsuki, to the clock on the wall, and back again.

“You’re home pretty late, Kacchan,” he comments with a small smile. “Did they need you at the diner for a bit longer?”

“I went for a walk,” Katsuki replies flatly, heading over to the kitchen with his groceries.

“And bought food, I see,” Deku continues and Katsuki rolls his eyes. Todoroki also looks up from the television now, fixing him with a neutral expression but eyes glinting in curiosity. Because, of course, his flatmate knows better than anyone what his eating habits have been like recently - or rather, how he hasn’t been taking care of himself that well.

“I felt like fucking cooking, is that a crime?” Katsuki dumps his bags on the counter and glares at the couple.

“No,” Deku says. “Do you have enough for the three of us, by any chance? Shouto and I hadn’t made plans for dinner yet.”

Katsuki scoffs. “You’re a fucking leech, Deku.” He busies himself with unpacking the food he bought, filling up his shelves in the fridge and cupboard for the first time since the start of the summer. Neither of them say anything else, but he can feel their eyes on him.

After a moment, Katsuki sighs.

“Only if you help me chop the fucking vegetables,” he finally growls.

Deku hops up from the couch immediately, rushing over into the kitchen with a stupid fucking grin on his face.

“How is it that you’re always fucking here when I don’t even live with you anymore?” Katsuki grouches, begrudgingly handing the green-haired boy a bag of carrots.

“It’s your fault for introducing me to Shouto, Kacchan,” Deku states mildly. And the IcyHot bastard blows him a kiss from across the apartment, making Katsuki want to gag.

The two of them get to work making dinner together with minimal trouble. They’ve always been able to work well together when it came down to things, though their relationship is a lot less volatile now than it had been in middle school, or even early high school. Cooking together is easy - and, though Katsuki would loathe to admit it, something he’s actually missed since he and Deku lived together in their first year at Yuuei University.

Deku is adding the last ingredients to the stir-fry when Katsuki’s phone buzzes on the kitchen bench. He ignores it at first, but then it goes off again, and again in even intervals. A phone call.

He frowns, because there’s only one person that regularly calls him nowadays. Katsuki picks up his phone.

Ma, the contact on the screen reads.

He hits decline and places the cell face down.

“You’re still dodging her calls?” Deku asks quietly. Because of course he read the name on the phone over the blonde’s shoulder. Katsuki grunts in the affirmative. “She probably just wants to know how you’re doing, Kacchan.”

“I couldn’t fucking care less what she wants,” he snaps, jaw clenched.

“Okay.” Deku holds his hands up in defense. There’s a pause as Deku watches him mixing the vegetables and rice with maybe a little too much vigor. He holds his hand out for the wooden spoon. “Here, Kacchan, let me,” he offers gently.

Katsuki imagines for a moment how he would’ve reacted to this treatment five years ago. He probably would’ve blown up in Deku’s face, yelling and screaming. He might have even punched him back then, completely and utterly offended at the thought of his enemy looking down on him.

Now though, he makes eye contact with his friend, keeping his face guarded even if he knows Deku can read him like a book. Katsuki likes to think he’s still stubborn, but he relents after only a second at the expression on Deku’s face, handing the spoon over and stepping aside to let him finish off the cooking.

“So,” Deku starts after a minute, changing the subject. He glances up, a certain cheek in his smile now that Katsuki definitely doesn’t like.

“What?” he demands from where he’s grabbing plates and cutlery for the three of them.

“How’s Kirishima doing today?”

Katsuki nudges him sharply with his elbow, making the other boy merely chuckle. “None of your fucking business, nerd.”

“So then you have talked to him today?” he persists, smile growing by the second.

“Fucking hell. Yes, I have talked to that goddamn idiot,” Katsuki admits, stomping the few steps over to the table to set it up.

“Interesting,” Todoroki hums, moving from the sofa to the dining table, the tiniest of quirk to his lips.

“You shut the fuck up, IcyHot,” Katsuki seethes, feeling his cheeks get warm. “We literally just talked about what fucking gym he should go to.”

It’s not the whole truth though, because he’d been messaging Kirishima for pretty much the entire hour on his way home, and the conversation had taken many ridiculous turns in that time. He’s not going to let the two of them know that, however.

“Did you tell him about the Riot Rec Center?” Deku asks.

“Of course I fucking did.”

“But you know you could bump into him there, Kacchan, if you suggested he go to your regular gym?” Deku points out.

Katsuki thinks about it for a second. Admittedly, that hadn’t crossed his mind earlier, but he can’t really see it being a problem. “Unlikely,” he snorts, unphased. “Shitty Hair seemed pretty fucking interested in the rock climbing wall, and he’s probably more into weightlifting anyway. The RRC is huge, there’s no way we’d cross paths even if we are there at the same damn time. I don’t think he’s much of a swimmer, so he’d be nowhere near the fucking pool.”

“I can just imagine it. Bakugou would fall off the treadmill if he saw his mystery man there, Izuku,” the half-and-half asshole says, properly smirking now.

“Mystery man? Where do you get off, fucker?” Katsuki scowls at his flatmate. The couple both ignore him.

“I actually think Kacchan is the mystery man in this situation, Shouto. He is the one refusing to meet Kirishima after all.” The other asshole actually nods in agreement at that.

“I’ve already told you why I’m not meeting him, Deku!” he cries. “It’s a stupid idea to meet strangers from the internet - he doesn’t even fucking know me!”

“It seems like you’re starting to know him though,” Todoroki chimes in, “if you think you can peg him as being a weightlifter over a swimmer. Spend a lot of time admiring his muscles, hm, Bakugou?”

“What the fuck, Todoroki? He only has one blurry fucking photo on his profile!” he splutters.

Katsuki knows he must be bright red by now. Because he can’t deny that he has spent some time looking at the one picture he has of Kirishima. It seems like a group photo that’s been cropped and zoomed in so much it’s lost all definition, nothing much more discernible than a toothy smile and his offensive hair. His muscles aren’t really visible in it anyway - that was more an observation of his character and the things he’d been saying about the gym earlier.

“I bet you wish there were more pictures,” Deku sing-songs, finally coming over to serve up the food.

“Oh my god, fuck off! Both of you!”

The grilling about Kirishima doesn’t stop through dinner. The couple doesn’t get any more information out of him, but their teasing successfully grates on his nerves enough that he storms straight to his room as soon as he’s done eating.

And of course, because there’s nobody else to tell, the first thing he does is text Kirishima about it.

Bakugou (7:23): He’s just so fucking annoying about it. Acting as if me talking to you is the most exciting thing in his life right now.

Kirishima (7:23): and this is your best friend? >.>

Bakugou (7:24): Well. Yeah. But don’t fucking tell Deku that. He’d probably cry, knowing him, the nerd.

Kirishima (7:24): aw, he sounds sweet! ^.^ you said you’ve known him since you were kids?

Katsuki worries his bottom lip between his teeth. He’s been trying this whole time not to give too much information about himself to Kirishima, yet here he is venting about something that happened in his personal life. Telling him about Deku is fine though, Katsuki reasons. It’s a friendship Katsuki no longer shies away from, is comfortable discussing.

(And anyway, Deku isn’t even the nerd’s real name, so it’s not like Kirishima could track him down and hurt him to get to Katsuki if he did turn out to be some sort of psycho murderer.)

He deems it a safe subject for the time being, and replies again.

Bakugou (7:25): Toddlers actually. We grew up in the same neighbourhood.

Kirishima (7:26): he’s probably just happy for you, katsuki! if you’ve only had the one best friend for your whole life, then i reckon he’s pretty proud of you for finally branching out a bit! and i gotta say that i’m pretty happy that it’s me :D

Katsuki bites down on his lip, frowning. That feels wrong somehow. Sure, the green-haired idiot might be proud of him or whatever. But it feels like a lie to have Kirishima believe things between him and Deku have always been like this. Their explosive relationship in school was a large part of his reputation, and played a huge role in many people’s first impressions of him. It’s kind of always been something people just knew about, and suddenly it’s weird that Kirishima doesn’t.

Bakugou (7:28): That’s... not entirely correct.

Kirishima (7:28): ?? what do you mean? O.o

And so he types. Tells Kirishima the truth. All of it.

Katsuki used to be a piece of shit to Deku. He knows it, Deku knows it. Uraraka witnessed the tail end of things in high school, and he wouldn’t be surprised if Todoroki had been told about it by now too.

He mentions their rocky childhood - a feeling of superiority as a youngster, only accentuated by the praise he’d receive from teachers, lead to him seeing Deku as weak, as lesser. The bullying was almost arbitrary; a shove here, a mock there. Mostly though, he tells Kirishima about middle and high school. Because no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get rid of the nerd. And it grated on him. How scared Deku was of him sometimes and yet how determined he’d be at others. How the insults and threats grew worse, more serious, punctuated now with physical altercations here and there too. Eventually everything boiled over though. The stresses of school, adolescence and home life piled up for the both of them, until a brutal physical and verbal fight in the middle of the night brought things to some sort of resolution. They had a mutual understanding after that somehow, that turned into civility over time, and friendship a couple years later. Deku may have forgiven Katsuki for the things he did and said all that time ago, but Katsuki himself has not forgotten.

He presses send without re-reading the message, then flops down on his bed and tosses his phone off to the side to wait for Shitty Hair’s reaction. Katsuki throws an arm over his eyes with a heavy sigh. He’s not really sure why he told Kirishima that. He certainly wasn’t planning on it when he first brought up Deku. Maybe he just wants to destroy the perfect image the idiot seems to have of him in his head; Katsuki doesn’t deserve that. And if they’re going to keep talking, even if Katsuki never tells Kirishima another thing about himself ever again, he thinks the other boy at least needed to know about that.

Eventually, the phone vibrates.

Kirishima (7:44): wow.

No emoji. That’s bad. Shitty Hair’s messages always have emojis in them.

Bakugou (7:44): Still happy you’re talking to me now?

Katsuki is positive he’s about to receive a notification saying that Kirishima has unmatched, or even straight up blocked, him.

Kirishima (7:44): of course i am! :’)

Wait.

What.

Kirishima (7:45): it was really manly of you to tell me that. clearly you’re putting the effort into befriending him to make up for the stuff you did to him when you were younger. i can admire that. :)

Kirishima is too nice. Too fucking nice and naive for his own good. Fuck. Katsuki doesn’t deserve that, he knows he doesn’t.

Bakugou (7:46): You are such a fucking idiot, Shitty Hair. Like, the biggest fucking idiot.

Kirishima (7:47): why? for still wanting to be your friend? everybody makes mistakes, katsuki - you’re only human! you might call my hair shitty and tell me to fuck off a lot, but you also ask me questions and make suggestions like buying a fan or telling me what gym to go to. i get the impression you’re the kind of guy who wouldn’t still be talking to me if you didn’t want to. so, i’m not just happy, i’m honoured! :’D

“Fucking hell,” Katsuki mutters aloud.

Katsuki starts to feel like a broken record. Between Deku and Round Face, Dunce Face and occasionally even the IcyHot bastard, he’s constantly having to repeat why he doesn’t want to meet Kirishima in person. It’s tiresome - sometimes all they need to do is make a face or raise an eyebrow while Katsuki is on his phone and it sets him off. It all seems perfectly logical to him, but none of his so-called friends seem to understand it.

And so it becomes almost a game, for Uraraka at least, that every day when he comes in to work he has a new reason as to why he won’t meet with Shitty Hair in the hopes that one of them will eventually get through her thick skull.

“He could be a criminal. Some sort of deranged psychopath, or an escaped convict. I’m not fucking going out with someone who has a record.”

But she always seems to have a counter argument of some kind.

“That’s why you meet him in public,” Uraraka shrugs. “Easy solution. Plus, you do know people used to call you a deranged psychopath in high school, right?”

(That earns her a flick on the forehead so powerful it leaves a mark.)

“He could be colourblind,” Katsuki points out another time. “In fact, I’m ninety nine percent sure that he is.”

“Why is that?” Uraraka asks as she rearranges the baked goods inside the cabinet.

“Because of his hair!” Katsuki punctuates this with an aggressive wipe on the glass right in front of her face. She blinks up at him from behind it. “He’s clearly fucking colourblind and if he can’t tell how obnoxiously offensive his hair colour is, then he must be an untrustworthy fucking snake,” he all but growls.

Round Face only shakes her head at him and places a tray of fresh muffins on the shelf. “Dyeing your hair bright colours doesn’t make someone colourblind, Bakugou. And being colourblind isn’t a part of someone’s personality, so it doesn’t automatically make him shady or two-faced, or whatever it is you’re trying to imply.”

(He doesn’t like the glint in her eyes whenever she looks at him for the rest of that day.)

One morning Katsuki storms into the diner in a fury and simply declares, “He eats the cookie before the cream! What the actual fuck is wrong with him?”

“Huh?” Uraraka looks up from counting the money in the register.

“Oreos, Angelface,” Katsuki clarifies. “He eats the fucking cookie first.”

“Unacceptable,” she deadpans in response.

“I know!” he cries, throwing his hands in the air. “He’s a fucking maniac!”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Is the world really going to end just because he does that?”

“No, but there’s no way in hell I want to fucking witness it.” Katsuki walks past her now to get changed, satisfied with his point being made.

“So you’re not meeting him because you don’t like the way he eats oreos?” she asks his retreating figure.

“Exactly,” he calls over his shoulder as he rounds the corner.

“You’re overreacting!” Katsuki hears her yell after him when he walks through the kitchen. He decides to pretend he didn’t hear that.

(He also decides to pretend not to hear every time she calls him ridiculous and dramatic during that particular shift, too.)

Katsuki scrunches his nose up at a message from Kirishima while Angelface is serving customers across the restaurant. After she’s put their order in, he puts his phone away and tells her, “Shitty Hair is too friendly, he’s probably really fucking embarrassing to be around in real life. I bet he’s the kind of guy who calls waiters by their first name. Doesn’t it weird you out when people do that?”

Uraraka squints suspiciously at him. “You know he probably only calls you by your first name because he’s trying to flirt with you, right?”

He huffs and crosses his arms. She must have gotten that tidbit from Deku. “Well, what kind of guy even uses a fucking dating app seriously, anyway?” Katsuki grumbles.

“Hm, I don’t know. Maybe someone who’s bored and lonely.”

(She says it flippantly enough, but her gaze is pointed.)

Eventually, his comments stop having any kind of effect on her at all. He’s been talking to Kirishima every single day for over two weeks, and he knows she watches him sometimes when he’s texting at work. He’s running out of good reasons to give her, because he honestly wasn’t expecting his and Kirishima’s messaging to continue for this long anyway. The more Katsuki gets to know Shitty Hair, the more it feels like he’s grasping for straws. But he’s not giving up that easily - he’s still determined not to fucking meet him, no matter what Round Face says.

“What if he decides that he’s suddenly allowed to ask me really gross personal questions? He thinks there’s no fucking boundaries in person because I give in to meeting him, but he’s really just one of those fucking assholes that makes people super uncomfortable?”

Even as he’s saying it, it feels wrong. He can’t picture Kirishima being anything but kind, if maybe a bit boisterous. His reasons are all but lies now, and Katsuki thinks he’s not the only one who picks up on it today.

Uraraka sighs heavily from across the restaurant and puts down what she’s doing to come over to him. She meets his gaze, jaw set and a serious expression on her face. But there’s a softness Katsuki sees in her eyes - a concern that has him instinctually bristling.

“Has Kirishima ever done anything like that to you yet?” she asks plainly.

Katsuki purses his lips. “No,” he tells her begrudgingly.

“No, because if he pushed you like that, you probably wouldn’t still be talking to him.”

It’s not a question, so Katsuki doesn’t answer her. They both know she’s right anyway.

“I’m going to level with you, Bakugou,” she drops her volume enough that the concern leaks through into her tone now too. “Deku-kun and I have been talking a lot about this. He doesn’t want to interfere too much, but do you want to know what I think?”

He doesn’t. Yet he doesn’t open his mouth to say so.

“I think you’re scared.”

“What the fuck?” he chokes out, hating the way his voice cracks.

“I think,” she continues solemnly, “that you’re scared of him getting close to you, because you actually really like him.”

Katsuki is reeling. “Don’t be ridiculous, Round Face,” he manages. “That’s fucking stupid.”

She’s quiet as she lets him gather himself. He doesn’t know why her words have affected him so much but suddenly he can’t even hear, let alone think, over the ringing in his ears. A customer walks in at that moment and he turns away from her, fiddling uselessly with the coffee machine.

The man orders something to take with him from the cabinet and is gone within a minute, but it’s enough time for Katsuki to take some deep breaths and get his bearings again. When he feels a comforting hand on his shoulder, familiar anger bubbles up in his throat.

“He makes you smile, Bakugou,” Uraraka says softly. “Not a lot of things do nowadays.” He turns his head and fixes her with a glare. The corners of her lips quirk upwards. “See?”

Katsuki shrugs her hand off and faces her head on once more, making a show of rolling his eyes. “You’re just being stupid, Round Face. Like I keep fucking telling you all, I don’t even know the guy.”

Katsuki grits his teeth as he watches her lift her chin stubbornly and square her shoulders.

“That’s the thing though - I think you do,” she protests. “I think you just don’t want him to know you. You’re an acquired taste, Bakugou, and you know it. If Kirishima decides he doesn’t like that when he meets you in person, well. There goes your ‘summer past time’ as you’re so adamant to call him. I know he means more to you than that.”

Katsuki swallows roughly. They stare each other down in silence for a moment. He can’t even say anything. Because saying something would be admitting she’s right about that too. He knows she’d hear the lie in his voice if he tried to deny it.

Fuck, and he’d been doing such a good job of denying it to himself too.

In truth, he does really like talking to Kirishima. At first, messaging him was genuinely just something to do with his time. But he quickly found himself enamoured by the other boy, God fucking knows why. And look, he won’t say it’s all connected, but he’s started actually doing things again these past couple weeks. He went back to the pool at the Riot Rec Center for the first time in months the other night after work. He’s been cooking more, taking longer routes home just for the sake of it, actually coming out of his room to talk to Todoroki and Deku sometimes. He’s been feeling a lot more like himself again. And on top of all of that, talking to Kirishima gives him something to look forward to. He anticipates the buzz in his pocket at work, pulling his cell out at the first chance he gets to see what inane thing Kirishima has said this time. They talk for hours every night; mostly Kirishima rambling about nothing and Katsuki content to message some jab or ask a question every now and then too.

He thinks about Shitty Hair a lot. Stupid things remind him of the other boy all the time - the colour red suddenly seems to be everywhere, and fine, it does fucking make him smile.

Being scared, however? That doesn’t sit right with Katsuki. Bakugou Katsuki isn’t scared of anything, least of all facing some stupid crush.

So he shoulders past Uraraka. He’d tell her she’s wrong, but he can’t have this conversation anymore.

The two of them don’t talk for the rest of the afternoon. When Dunce Face arrives a few hours later, Katsuki stalks into the changing room and grabs his bag without a word. Uraraka’s father, prepping for tonight’s dinner rush, raises an eyebrow as he hastily scurries through the kitchen without even getting out of his uniform.

Uraraka offers Katsuki a small smile as he leaves. He averts his gaze.

Katsuki goes straight home, directly into his room, and locks the door behind him. He takes his phone out of his pocket for the first time since the conversation, but he purposely doesn’t look at the screen as he plugs it in to charge and places it face down on his desk.

Then he crawls into bed.

The sun gets lower, the evening light gets dimmer, and then it’s dark outside and Katsuki is lucky the aircon still works in his and IcyHot’s apartment because he knows it wasn’t forecasted to cool down very much overnight.

Katsuki ignores the way his stomach growls, ignores Deku’s voice outside his door, ignores the thoughts that just won’t shut up. His phone vibrates periodically on his desk for the first few hours, but he ignores that too and eventually it stops.

The road outside his window quiets. He hears Todoroki’s bedroom door shut down the hall. His bones feel heavy and his mind still won’t fucking shut up.

Katsuki tosses and turns for what could have been minutes or months. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling, eyes wide open. He doesn’t know what time it is.

The world around him has been still and quiet for so long that he jumps when something penetrates through his inner turmoil.

A buzz from the desk. The first in what could have been hours or years.

Katsuki’s feet are swinging out of bed and padding across the room before he even knows it. The first thing he sees when he looks at his phone is the time. Katsuki grimaces at the early morning hour.

The second thing he sees is the message from Kirishima that he just received.

Kirishima (3:17): do you ever get homesick?

Katsuki frowns. Where did that fucking come from? Taking the phone back with him to bed, he opens up their message thread to see if he missed anything leading up to the question. But nothing seems out of the ordinary - just a couple updates on what Kirishima was doing that afternoon, one asking if Katsuki was held up at work, a few more saying he assumed Katsuki is just busy tonight and they’ll catch up tomorrow. He feels bad now, admittedly, for not replying all day, but Shitty Hair’s messages don’t actually sound too hurt by that at least.

He rereads the newest text so many times he starts to see the words behind his eyelids when he blinks.

Kirishima (3:17): do you ever get homesick?

He has no idea what possessed Shitty Hair to send him a message like this. Was it meant to be another one of his dumb conversation starters? Just some random thought that popped into his mind?

Another message comes in as he’s staring at the screen.

Kirishima (3:21): nevermind. please ignore that.

It clicks, and Katsuki suddenly gets the feeling that Kirishima needs him right now. There’s no fucking way he’s going to ignore that - what kind of person would he be if he did?

Bakugou (3:22): No, I don’t, but I’m from around here. Why?

He breathes a sigh of relief at the quick reply. Kirishima doesn’t even ask about the lack of responses earlier, or why Katsuki is still awake now.

Kirishima (3:22): you still live at home? you’re so lucky man omg

Bakugou (3:23): Fuck no. I got the fuck out of the old hag’s house as soon as I could.

Kirishima (3:24): oh shit, sorry. not a good relationship with your parents then?

Katsuki tells himself he’s simply tired, tired, tired as he types out the words and presses send before he can regret it.

Bakugou (3:24): We’re too similar. She wanted me to go into real estate like my dad, but she knew I never would.

It’s not something he would’ve told Shitty Hair twelve hours ago maybe. But he’s been trying and failing to sleep literally all night, he’s just tired and not thinking straight, that’s all.

Kirishima (3:25): oh, what are you doing instead of real estate? you mentioned you’re at ua too, but i don’t think you said what for

Bakugou (3:26): I’m studying chemistry. Fuck selling houses.

Kirishima (3:26): you’re a chem major? damn, you must be really smart :o

The sight of the little emoji makes Katsuki let out a rush of air he didn’t know he was holding. But he bites his lip immediately after, because he still doesn’t know why this conversation started or why Kirishima was clearly so upset he couldn’t bring himself to use emojis in the first place.

Bakugou (3:27): I am, now shut up and stop changing the subject. You said you were homesick before?

Kirishima (3:29): oh. it’s not a big deal, katsuki, don’t worry.

Kirishima (3:29): :)

But the fact that the smiley is added on, almost like an afterthought, only makes him worry more.

Bakugou (3:30): It’s a big enough deal that you’re awake and messaging me about it at 3 in the goddamn morning. So spill it.

Kirishima (3:31): really, i’m fine. i just miss my parents a little bit i guess.

Humming, Katsuki wishes he could relate to the issue enough to give Kirishima some solid advice. Instead, he writes the only solution he can think of.

Bakugou (3:32): Call them?

Kirishima (3:32): i do, i do! it’s just not the same as being able to hug them in person though, y’know?

Katsuki doesn’t know. But he replies in the affirmative anyway.

Kirishima (3:35): i guess i’m used to missing my sisters, because they moved out way before i did. but they both stayed in the same city at least? i literally moved four hours away from them all just to follow mina.

Bakugou (3:36): And for Yuuei.

Kirishima (3:38): sure. i know, ua is a great university. but i could’ve done geology somewhere closer to home if i’d actually looked. i just decided ua was where i was going to study after my gap year, i didn’t even really think about the distance from home until i got here

Kirishima (3:38): sometimes i wonder if i made the right choice coming all the way out here.

Katsuki feels like he’s been slapped in the face. Everything stills for a moment as he reads over Kirishima’s words. Regret isn’t an emotion Katsuki is overly familiar with, but it’s definitely not something he ever thought Kirishima would express. Shitty Hair is usually so upbeat, so positive about everything. To hear him in this much distress makes something in Katsuki’s chest tug painfully.

Before he knows it, he’s typing furiously.

Bakugou (3:42): Bullshit. What happened to all that manly ‘a life led without regret’ crap? Everyone has to move out of home eventually, Shitty Hair. You’ve only been in the city for like a month. You haven’t even started studying yet. Of course it’s going to be a big fucking change from living at home with your parents, you’re twenty years old and this is the first time you’ve been away from them for this long. You need to give yourself more fucking time to adjust and stop being so hard on yourself about it. Your family isn’t going to stop loving you or anything because you’ve moved a few hours away from them. From what you’ve told me, they actually sound really fucking supportive. So be grateful, and just make the most of it when you go home to visit. You’ve got Ashido, and you’ll meet heaps of people when the semester starts, and you’ve fucking got me too, so everything will just work itself out, alright?

The time it takes Shitty Hair to read and reply to his wall of text has Katsuki anxiously checking his phone every ten seconds to see if there’s been a response yet, wondering if maybe he said too much. One comes several minutes later after he’s all but chewed through his bottom lip.

Kirishima (3:48): you’re actually so right, katsuki. i’m sorry.

Bakugou (3:48): Don’t be.

Kirishima (3:49): okay :’) thank you for talking to me, i seriously feel heaps better now after reading that. i’m really glad i know you dude. ^.^

Katsuki feels his cheeks warm and tries his best to stifle the smile rising on his face, despite nobody else being around.

Bakugou (3:50): It’s fine. Get some sleep now, Kirishima.

Kirishima (3:53): you too! goodnight katsuki xx

Katsuki locks his phone without responding and this time tosses it onto the ground somewhere near his bed. He squeezes his eyes shut, puts his hand over his face, and curls into a ball. Try as he might, he’s unable to dampen the overwhelming feelings that rise in his throat.

If Katsuki thought he’d be able to get any sleep after talking with Kirishima when he picked up his phone half an hour ago, he was dead fucking wrong. Because now he spends the rest of the night tossing and turning anyway, going over all of the possible meanings and implications behind what was at the end of Kirishima’s last message to him.

Katsuki would swear to the moon and back that it’s because of the lack of sleep he finds himself letting his guard down far too easily the following day.

In total, he maybe only gets about an hour or two of sleep. He trudges into the empty diner five minutes late for his shift and meets Uraraka’s stern expression with a defeated sigh.

“You got in my head,” he admits yet again. Her gaze turns sympathetic, the scolding he was about to receive falling from her lips. “I definitely have a crush on Kirishima.”

He lets Angelface give him a hug.

And when he’s talking to Shitty Hair in the changing room after work later that day, all it takes is one mention of Mina texting him something funny for Katsuki to realise that he’s lost the other boy’s number from when he messaged it that one time. So with no hesitation, he finds himself typing out his own number and pressing send.

Bakugou (4:05): Do not make me regret this.

The text is instantaneous.

UNKNOWN NUMBER [16:05]: uwu what’s this? >.>

Katsuki [16:07]: Never fucking say that to me again, or I will block you.

UNKNOWN NUMBER [16:07]: haha dw xD at least i can delete that app now though! thank god haha

What? Why is he so keen to delete the app? Katsuki’s never heard Shitty Hair complain about it? He’s always assumed Kirishima was talking to other people on the app as well. Unless he wasn’t…?

Katsuki desperately wants to ask, but doesn’t.

Katsuki [16:08]: Already put that garbage app in the fucking trash can where it belongs.

Katsuki slings his bag over his shoulder and makes his way through the kitchen, fingers hovering over the new contact options for a bit too long as he debates what name to give Shitty Hair in his phone.

Just as he hits the save contact button, he receives another text.

Kiri [16:09]: oh! you need a new picture of me for my photo in your phone! :’D

Katsuki [16:09]: What? I literally don’t even fucking use contact photos, idiot.

Kiri [16:09]: <IMAGE ATTACHED>

Katsuki stops dead in his tracks right as he rounds the corner.

The photo is a selfie of Kirishima, complete with a big grin and peace sign. It’s clearer than the one from the dating app, and closer up. His hair is falling down around his face rather than gelled up in spikes. The natural lighting makes the red a softer colour; less harsh on the eyes, more like a warm glow framing his face. It matches Kirishima’s eyes.

A low whistle over Katsuki’s shoulder breaks him out of his trance. “Damn, he’s attractive, Kacchan.”

“Yeah,” he breathes without even thinking. He feels the other person lean out of his space and whips his head up to meet the amused look on Kaminari’s face. Katsuki’s face warms. “I- Fuck off, Dunce Face! I told you to stop fucking calling me that!”

“Hey man, I’m just stating the facts here.” Kaminari raises his hands in surrender, but there’s a shit-eating smirk on his awful face.

“Whatever,” Katsuki growls and shoulders past him.

But he isn’t wrong, Katsuki concedes later, when it’s past midnight and he’s lying in his room with all of the lights off, just holding his phone and staring at the photo Kirishima sent him. He’s tired, his eyelids are heavy, and yet he keeps on staring.

Kirishima has a defined jaw, but it’s cancelled out by round cheeks and overall quite boyish features. Small nose and tiny eyebrows above his big, round eyes framed by dark eyelashes. The smile on his face is enthusiastic, all sharp teeth, but there’s something quite charming about it. His skin looks soft to the touch, looks sunkissed, like it might be slightly darker than Katsuki’s. There are callouses on the hand making the peace sign that are just begging to be traced by his own. A black and white patterned bandana on Kirishima’s forehead keeps the loose locks from falling into his face. It looks like he’s shirtless because Katsuki can see the top of his broad shoulders, the dip of his collarbone disappearing at the edge of the screen.

Katsuki’s phone buzzes and his eyes shift to the notification at the top of the screen.

Kiri [00:44]: no i promise, it was this angry little ball of fluff and it hissed at me but then it let me pat it and it was adorable!! ^.^

Katuski rolls his eyes and opens the text to reply.

Katsuki [00:45]: I have no idea why people are surprised you’re a cat person when you never fucking shut up about them after you see one.

Ignoring the upturn of his lips, Katsuki goes back into his photos and opens the selfie of Kirishima again. This time, he notices a small pointed scar above Kirishima’s right eye and is suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to press his lips to it and ask how it happened.

Katsuki sighs.

He makes you smile, Bakugou, Uraraka’s words from yesterday echo in his mind. Not a lot of things do nowadays.

Without giving himself time to think it through anymore, he sets the photo as Kirishima’s contact picture and tosses his cellphone to one side of the bed.

Then hesitates.

Shakes his head.

Mutters, “I’m so fucked.”

Katsuki scrambles to pick up his phone again and sets the damn photo as his home screen too.

[xtswifts]

in all my years on tumblr, this is still one of my favorite gifs of tay in existence, so i shall use it now on my mega ooc appreciation post.

i am still on hiatus — it has been a ROUGH 36 hours my dudes — but i did want to drop in and post some ic/ooc appreciation things while this week is still here because i am all in the business of sharing the love. it’s one of the many reasons i absolutely adore this group. this group has always been about love, for me, and would probably be the singular word i’d use to describe my experience here.

i joined this lovely bunch back in july, i do believe? i had actually just finished up writing and self-publishing my third book which wound up being a behemoth (seriously it was a lot) and while i was absolutely and completely braindead when it came to writing, i still wanted to write. i’m a writer. that’s who i am and that’s who i’ll always be. i wanted something a lot more low-stakes, kind of go-with-the-flow, no real pressure and more collaborative than the isolating fun of novel-writing, so i turned back to roleplay. hollywood rps have always been my absolute favorites in the rpc for whatever reason; i have such fond memories in hollywood groups and it’s a fun and creative way for me to just project the love i have for my faves. after a few experiences in groups during late 2017 and early 2018 i was pretty sure that i was done with roleplay. it just wasn’t the same for me, no matter where i went. priorities had shifted and it was no longer about writing because you loved to write. but, me being ever the optimist, i decided to dive back into the tags and see what was still around or had recently popped up. i found this group and i saw that they had just had a taylor swift removed from the group, and hi hello nice to meet you i am taylor swift trash no. 1!!!, i felt like it was all Meant To Be or something like that (plus, she was taken in every other group and that’s who i really wanted to put a hand at writing). so i put in an app for her, got accepted, and i have been plaguing your dashes ever since :~))

in the four-ish months that i have been here, so much has happened in my life. i started my (outrageously stressful) junior year of college, i lost my grandma, i went to go see queen swift in atlanta and meet my baby princess camila, i have had major friend complications and doubts about my career track and i have had just really boring, empty days where everything was going seemingly okay. this group has been there for me through every high, low, and in between. this group has been my escape to run to when i’m stressed or up late at night and can’t sleep or just really looking to be social or want to write something. this group has been so welcoming, warm, and fun; i have had the opportunity to explore my character any which way that i please and form awesome plots with people, and even more awesome friendships ooc. some of you send really, really kind things my way which, fyi, i’m super grateful for and have probably cried over because this was the first time i not only felt welcomed in a group as taylor, but felt welcomed in a group as me. i am so grateful that i get to call this place my internet home and there is absolutely nowhere else i would rather be spending my free time writing. i stand by what i say: this is the best group in the tags, hands down. you could not ask for a more inclusive, diverse, welcoming, creative playground to spend your time on. to all the lovely admins over on main @hollywoodfamerp​ thank you for doing the heavy lifting and giving us a safe and warm place that we can call home. the work you do never goes unnoticed. you are appreciated and you are so, so loved. ♡  

some ~personal~ shoutouts:

@nhxran​ — peyton, you are without a doubt one of my best friends both in this group and just in general. we had an immediate chemistry as writing partners from that very first starter reply and nothing about that has changed. you are the writing partner i always hoped i would find in a group due to how generous you are in every reply, the way you are willing to headcanon and brainstorm (even at the craziest of hours) and i still remain in awe of you as a roleplayer with the way you juggle such diverse characters, all of which have their prominent voices that never seem to overlap. you are the roleplayer i wish i could be. even though we might sometimes be ships in the night ic, ooc i know that you are always there and you always have my back, and i truly hope you know that the same goes for you. i love you, you intelligent, creative, witty, beautiful, heart-of-gold woman you. i would not have stayed in this group if i had not met you. you are one of my favorite people, period. thank you for being one of my dearest friends.

@cara-x-delevingne​ — mickey, the first person to ever pop into my ims and say hello (and you were FAST about it too, lol), you have been one of my favorite people to write with! the way you breathe a life into your characters is almost unparalleled to any writer, much less any writer in a hwood group. you have such a talent and not only that, you are funny and kind and inclusive and i am so glad that there are people like you (and you) still out there in this world. we need more people like you. thank you for one of the most epic friendships i’ve ever written in a group and always challenging me to step up to the plate and bring my a-game with taylor. you inspire me and i love you. never change.

@armiehmmer​ — graaaaace, the law to my swift! you were actually one of the reasons i joined this rp; before i joined i stalked a few blogs and as i have told you (and you have probably seen via my wildin’ ass on twitter) i love jen, so much. i saw how dedicated you were to your jen and how included she was, which i thought was amazing because like my girl t, some people just aren’t about. i figured if you could put in the effort and grind hard enough with her and get positive results, i could do the same for taylor. and here we both are, killin’ it. you are such a lovely person who has always been nothing but kind, i am still endlessly jealous you were in pasadena for rep tour but we’ll let it slide for now, lol. i love you, thank you for being the epitome of grace in this roleplay. you’re a pure light and the dash is dimmer without you on it.

@jstntimberfake​ — nicki, or should i say, GOD, i don’t know where to begin with you. you are the reason i almost took home a jt standup from 2nd and charles. i love everything that you do on both of your characters. you become them, they stand so far away from the person that you actually are and i think that is the testament of a true, talented writer: they are able to convince you that they’re someone else. and you do, every time. i’m just really, really happy that i get to say that i’m in the same rp group as you because it makes me feel like a Cool Kid on the playground who has light up sneakers. you are so cool and it sometimes lowkey intimidates me, how amazing and talented you are. thank you for always putting a smile on my face. love ya love ya  

@itsscarjo​ — aria, my magnificent love. you are so well spoken and kind and as my clumsy twin, i have no choice but to love you dearly. it’s so nice to just have somebody to talk to sometimes and every time we’ve talked, it’s like being all bundled up in a warm fuzzy blanket. you are so easy to talk to and i cannot wait for the things you and i do on all of our people now that our lives have calmed the heck down and we can come on and write. thank you for being such a spectacular, inviting person. i had several other people sing your praises to me when you joined the group and i can wholeheartedly agree with them. you are one of a kind. big love

@aubreycplaza​ — marissa, i mcfreakin’ adore you. i’ll be honest, i have not had the best experiences with aubreys in the past but that all goes out the window with you. i’m obsessed with you and all of your people, and to know you and get to write with you is an absolute pleasure. thank you for being so much fun to write with, thank you for giving me so much quality stuff to stalk while i’m on the dash and feeling like trash, thank you for being so understanding of me constantly feeling like trash, i adore you. can’t wait for tay and aubrey to finally go on their fuckin girls trip and become little jetsetters together (forevaaaa)

@jamesrodriqez​ — hello stranger idk you but i think you’re pretty cool! and i think that you have been one of the most entertaining, fun people to write with in these last couple of weeks when i feel like i’m barely able to write two sentences that haven’t been written onto a powerpoint that i’m copying off of. you just give me so much excitement about writing and plotting and that excitement is something that can be difficult to find again after you’ve gotten comfortable in a group. thank you for keeping things refreshing and new for me and taylor. i’m excited to get back to all of our fun shenanigans (and to love on your new people bc yes amen) #jandrea forever

@jarpadking​ — nikki! first of all, i’m in awe at how fast you can come up with replies on TWO characters that are so well-crafted and authentic to that person’s voice. i struggle just writing a single coherent reply on taylor half the time, lmao. you are one of the hearts in this group, the way you make it an effort to branch out and talk to every single person and create connections with both the mun and the character. you’re one of the unsung heroes and if we could all be a little more you like you, we’d be the best roleplayers around. love you so much, my dear, and of course, thank you for being so warm and inclusive. people like you are rare

@itskeeoone​ — i have spent all day binging pll because that is how i choose to veg out and every time i see keegan on screen now, i think of you, em. you just write him so wonderfully and truthfully and i don’t ever want to let you go (please don’t ever leave this group or i’ll cry). taylor and keegan have given me all the life, they are very similar people and i’m happy that my 15 year old self’s dreams are coming true by their worlds colliding here in the group. i’m so excited to write even more with you now that the holidays are coming and i’ll actually, y’know, BE AROUND, but yes. love you.

@goddamnjade​ — lucy, you know anybody that is as big into the dance scene as i am HAS to get a spot on this appreciation post ;) but also, you have just been one of the loveliest people ever? i think you’re one of the hearts in this group, the reason that it is why it is and the reason that it’s so warm and welcoming. you are so inclusive and fun to write with and i really hope that i get to talk with you more ooc because i adore youuuu!

@yosebstan​ — rileyyyy, gotta admit, sometimes you intimidate me but it is only because you are an absolute fuckin’ legend in this group, and not just because of your admin status. your characters have something that a lot of people try hard to encompass but can’t ever capture, and that’s longevity. your characters never feel stale, they always feel new and fresh and like real people, not just tropes or over-concentrated personality traits and i get so excited every time i see one of your people on the dash. i’m lucky to be in a group with you, so so lucky. i sometimes hope your natural inclination for rp will rub off on me and make me a better writer. love you, and i really hope we get to do some fun stuff in the future!!

@jpgsasha​ — cami, you and i clicked so fast when we started replying to each other’s stuff back when you still had camila and i cannot WAIT to write with you as my honey sasha (seriously, a fuckin’ plus switch). we had some of the LONGEST replies on the dash at one point but when you’re inspired, you’re inspired! thank you for inspiring me and being one of the most down to earth people in this group. you deserve all the fuckin’ love. please love me so i can give it to you.

@avycias​​ — katieeee!! it legit surprised me to find out how close we are to one another #hurricane watch friends, lol. you are so sweet and your alycia is absolutely legendary, i was biting at the bit to write with you from the minute i joined this group. i hope we get to do all of the things with taylor and alycia because writing with you makes me so happy. you are wildly talented and the way alycia comes to life every time you type something is magical. you write her with a conviction and you make her your own and i think that’s why i adore her so much. thank you for being you. love you much babes

@milesdominic​ — marie! miles and taylor had one of the cutest friendships ever and it needs to make a comeback asap, because 1) that, and 2) writing with you comes so naturally (*plays naturally by selena gomez and the scene*). i barely have to think about what i want to reply to you with because there’s a chemistry there that is hard to replicate; thank you for keeping me on my toes and my brain alert and being such a fun person to write with. you give me the chance to explore sides of taylor’s voice that other people look over and that i love, and that’s all anybody could ask in a writing partner, someone who allows them to run wild!

@blccmtroye​  — fiona, i fuckin’ love your troye. he is too much fun to interact with, and i am thankful that you gave this group a shot (and that you gave me a shot). i couldn’t imagine this place without the wit and the charm that you supply with every single post you make.

@flynnpls​ — marie, i’m just in love with all of your people and you. you’re one of the people i feel like i admire from afar because i stay in awe of the way you write and how effortless it seems to come to you. you balance all of these different personalities with finesse and i really do feel like i’m talking to or reading the words of the actual celebrity in every single reply. i am crossing my fingers that i get the opportunity to write some really incredible things with you here in the future because i have such mad respect for you.

+ to everyone else that i either forgot to mention, have not really formed connections with outside of replies or haven’t had the chance to talk to you/your babies due to my super fun hiatus: i stalk so many of you on the dash and keep up with your plots and where you take your characters and it really and truly is such a privilege to be in the same group as you. they say that birds of a feather flock together and if that’s the case, i am simply a reflection of all the things y’all are. kind, funny, clever, creative, welcoming, intelligent, and a part of something, and i could not ask for more. i love all of you, whether we’ve talked or not (believe me i probably stalk you and just love you from afar) and any time you ever need a friend, call me beep meeeeee. i’m always game to do things with taylor and explore her more through whatever plots or connections we could create, and i promise that if i don’t respond to an im, it’s because i’m off on hiatus or it got eaten. i want to do ALL the things with ALL of you. come hit me up! let me love you! k thanks!!!

obligatory thank you note to my queen taylor alison for existing. love u bitch.

xx, caroline

[cavehags]

how do you feel about marvel's runaways (2017-)? *i actually wanna know the dirt on it

thank you so much for this, i honestly appreciate it from the bottom of my grimy bitter heart

the backstory for those who haven’t been assaulted with constant subway ads for this show: marvel’s runaways is a new hulu drama series based on a 2003 series of comics that in retrospect may not have been very good but which i DEEPLY enjoyed back when i was a baby gay with bad taste. the idea of the series was to tell a story about a group of teenagers who have nothing to do with the main superhero dealings in the marvel universe - just normal kids who, on one otherwise uneventful evening, happen to find out that their wealthy los angeles parents are actually part of a secret supervillain ring. the idea is “every kid thinks their parents are evil - but what if they actually were?” it’s not the deepest metaphor by any means.

it was a really accessible and dialogue-heavy series that read more like YA than a traditional comic book and so really appealed to a heavy book reader like me since at that time i had never read a comic in my life. it also happened to make waves for including stories about sexuality through the lesbian character karolina and her partner xavin, a genderless alien (fun fact: joss whedon botched xavin’s story very badly). also, one of the main hero characters was gert yorkes, a snarky, sarcastic jewish girl who was fat and still got to do everything the other hero kids did, and she never got teased about it. i loved her so much.

anyway, maybe you already knew all that. fast forward to the new series, which first irritated me with the casting (gert: not fat; gert’s boyfriend chase: played by gregg sulkin; chase’s father: played by james marsters, who maybe we shouldn’t cast in projects with teenage girls anymore??). 

the casting blows but i’m also much more irritated by the writing, which includes unbearably slow pacing, tons of sexism and generally anti-sjw content, and no end of characters saying things that no one would ever say. for reference, in the first issue of the comics, the kids watch their parents murder a young woman and run away from home that same night (hence the title); we’re now past episode 4 and they’re still dicking around at home and on average nothing happens in each episode? 

a few new story elements are brought in that do nothing to advance the plot but simply add unnecessary gendered violence that makes the story far less approachable as an escapism narrative for girls. in the pilot, for instance, karolina passes out at a party and is almost raped. fortunately, right as the unnamed would-be rapists are taking off her clothes, chase saves her, then doesn’t tell her what happened! this is part of the story for no reason, since they don’t go after the guys who attacked her and it just is not dealt with in any way. the only thing this does accomplish is give chase a reason to be in the same vehicle as karolina so they can show up at the same other character’s house together after this scene. 

a similarly ill-thought-out and corner-cutting approach is brought to address the suicide of a character who was newly created for the tv series. this character is first mentioned in the pilot, when, out of nowhere, a character tells his dad that the video game he’s playing is the one he used to play with “her.” no names are used. the writers are attempting to convey the importance of this character to him, but it’s important that we all acknowledge together that people don’t use pronouns in this way, when a name hasn’t previously been stated. lazy!

this character comes up again in a flashback scene in episode four, where we actually see the moment that her sister found her dead in her bedroom. i have an issue with the way this scene is filmed, so let me describe it. the sister walks into the room in the morning. we see the sister’s face, then the camera moves to slowly focus on a pill bottle. then we see a shot of the dead character’s face, but from the nose down. she could be sleeping. cut right back to the sister, who immediately screams for help. and like, i get it, she took pills. however, this scene was filmed with two priorities in mind: 1) to spend as little time on it as possible and 2) to get as much drama as possible out of it by adding zero elements that would contribute any humanity to the scene. typically, if i walk into someone’s room in the morning and they are laying in bed with their eyes closed, i don’t immediately look to the prescription pill bottle on their nightstand because my first move is to tell them to wake up. that they might have killed themselves overnight is not a realization that comes instantaneously, i think? it seems like a small thing but i’m really bristled by the way this scene was shot to tell us exactly nothing about either character. why even show it? why not just say it happened? because drama. fucking 13 reasons why looking shit

another thing before i wrap up is that the comic series had some kind of love polygon (if i’m remembering correctly, it was: gert loves chase, chase loves karolina, karolina loves nico, nico loves alex, alex loves nico back?) and this was thrown unceremoniously into the pilot over the course of about two scenes when we still don’t know the characters very well and could use some breathing room. meanwhile, although this is a story about six people who used to be friends and aren’t now and need to get back into a rhythm with each other, the only relationship that has any of the tension you’d expect is one between two women! because women be gossiping, right? their dynamic is painted as the religious prude (karolina) versus the dumb sjw (gert). in one scene in the pilot, gert stands up in front of class and gives a lecture about her sjw stuff in front of an extremely uncaring audience, just to show how out-of-touch and unnecessary her principles are! (btw, i’m using the word “sjw” because that’s how the writers are definitely talking about her in the room.) later, she bickers with karolina and we get the sense that gert is trying to be feminist; however, what she’s saying is just mean and uninformed, and no one would say any of this. it feels like an intentional way to demean her as well as karolina by making their rivalry this specifically feminine thing

then you know there’s just general stuff like the bad pacing, the confusing and highly questionable age of the youngest character, molly (she’s told by her mom that she’s having her first period in the pilot, but the actress is 14 and the character is in high school???), the insertion of a fucking SCIENTOLOGY analogue for no reason… it’s really a lot. it is very different from what the comics were to me, which was a very relatable series about teens acting like teens even while they’re juggling hard issues like morality and identity. and i’ll own that the comics may not have been written well and certainly needed updating! for one thing, karolina’s coming out arc; i was interested to see what they’d do with a 2003-era coming out story, since 2017 is not 2003! unfortunately it doesn’t seem like the writers have ever met a teenager or a gay person and are doing their best to keep the tv version as close to the bad comics version as possible; making the character religious in the tv series when she wasn’t in the comics seems like a guarantee that her coming-out storyline will be long and annoying. 

finally, just listen to any moment of dialogue and you will want to die. a several-minutes-long scene in episode three concerns a conversation about LARPing, furries, and sex with animals. i should have led with that and closed with that, since there’s very clearly nothing more to say. i hate this fucking show, it sucks.

[cosmosogler]

it’s weird, the disconnect between how much i prevented things from happening today and how much things still happened.

i mostly avoided talking to people. slept in kinda late because i went to bed so late last night. tonight might not be any better...

it feels like i have the same conversation with myself every morning. where i suddenly think, “i had that dream again.” and then i say, “which dream???” and the only answer i have is “that one.”

except, like, i remember the dreams i am having to some extent, and none of them have been the same! it’s not a recurring dream or anything! i just wake up and make yet another tally mark for absolutely no reason and it bothers me periodically throughout the day.

in the morning i took care of some stuff for snoopy’s rabies tag. then i did basically nothing all day, i had a nice breakfast, and i cleaned up the apartment, and i felt really sick and painful all morning. then i made veggie burgers for lunch and that turned out ok, except the burgers got burned even though i followed the directions.

i also listened to the adventure zone for like four hours. i dunno. i didn’t feel like doing anything else. i felt lonely. not sure about what to do. the podcast is a nice way to pass some time without having a panic attack from being alone for too long.

well, not a panic attack just from being alone. but the things that happen while i am alone and don’t always happen when i am around other people. being with people doesn’t always prevent me from getting really bummed and sometimes upset, but it feels like it helps sometimes. 

i also sat with snoopy for a while... as the day rolled into evening i realized i hadn’t really done anything so i went out to the gym. the gym was closed though so i decided to just take a walk along main street and see the shopping area.

well, it was only a shopping area for one avenue. after that i ended up on like a country road. i felt... exposed. i also got stopped by a woman trying to pay for a ride back to her home in another city before the hurricane arrived. i felt really powerless, because, i only had my water bottle and my keys, because i’d been meaning to go to the gym. i had my ipod but it’s not a phone. it’s an old regular ipod with no cell connection and a cracked and chipped screen because my pockets are always too small and it falls out.

as the woman dumped her life story on me i had to cut her off after a minute or two. i told her i didn’t want to waste her time and i didn’t have any money or anything that could help her. i could walk with her somewhere if she needed that. she seemed really upset, but she shook my hand and thanked me. i kind of put my hand under my bangs when i said i didn’t have my phone, but i don’t know if she recognized that my ipod is not a phone. i don’t know anyone in town who could help her anyway but just having the ability to make a call for her... i dunno.

i kept walking and ended up way out where there were no buildings. i looked at the street signs. i had gone about seven blocks. five? not that far at all. i turned east and kept going for a little while, then i made a loop around. i kind of nodded at people as i walked by to acknowledge them but i don’t know if that actually does anything. i felt like they were glaring at me. one guy was out walking his dog and the dog really wanted pets but i didn’t want to talk to the owner so i just smiled at the dog and kept going.

i was only out for like 40 minutes. well, “only.” maybe 45. it didn’t feel like enough even though i was sweaty and thirsty. i dunno. walking alone is intimidating. walking in cities alone is worse. walking out in the middle of nowhere with a lot of tree and bush cover alone is just not fun.

i hope that woman got what she needed. i hope she’s ok. they always start talking before i can turn off my ipod and i never really catch the first sentence they say to me.

i just don’t have a lot of money to give right now. by not a lot i mean none. my budget’s really tight between mine and snoopy’s meds and the rent payment compared to my first paycheck...

like. i know my parents can bail me out in an emergency. but that’s not spending money, and it’s not money i can take to give to others, and it’s not cash i actively have in my wallet. 

i wish i had the means and energy to volunteer again but i just don’t. and that wouldn’t stop me from getting stopped on the street anyway. it makes me not want to take walks.

i talked to oz about it a little bit afterward, just a little. i spent some of the evening after dinner watching some youtube videos, and then i listened to another taz episode. i got to the end of 52, and i also got through the live episodes today. it’s... a lot. lethargy and procrastination manifest in strange forms. i’ll have all the motivation in the world to clean or to watch something i’ve been meaning to watch, but by god is reading hard! or, i’ll want to do a lot of homework and i won’t have any energy or interest at all for personal projects or feeding myself or keeping my apartment as clean as i like. 

today i swept and washed up the bathroom a bit and did exercise but i didn’t do the dishes. the stuff i do actually finish never seems as important as the stuff i didn’t do. like everyone expects me to juggle with five balls but i can only manage three, or on a good day, four. but even on a good day i still fall behind everyone else.

no matter what i do, no matter how urgent or “adulting” the things i did were, the things i didn’t do were ALWAYS more “real” work i was avoiding. the things i like to do are all “fake” work. sweeping is “fake” work, taking out the trash, securing snoopy’s license, faxing papers to my psychiatrist. dishes would have been “real” work.

ok that sounds dumb when i put everything there like that. but i really didn’t do homework today and that’s upsetting, even though my homework is sitting literally less than a foot to the right of my elbow. my eyes just slide over it and find something i could put away instead. i didn’t want to interact with anyone in person today so i just didn’t buy stuff i might need during the storm. i guess i could deal with it when it happens during the storm but like... i could have prevented that if i’d just tried harder.

ngh... people always joke about binge-watching shows being an “i felt lazy so i watched a lot of tv” thing but that stuff takes a significant amount of energy to start and continue doing. i enjoy it, and i know i’ll enjoy it, but starting is still work for me. when an adventure time episode airs, even when i’m vibrating with excitement over it, watching it is still work. talking to friends is work. talking to friends about things besides frickin black holes or whatever the hell is on my mind is work!!! and it’s super disappointing when i fail to put in that work and people think i’m either ignoring them or steamrolling them. being not “too much” is WORK.

i love taz. i love it so much. but since it takes so much energy to start an episode and get all the way through it (i take breaks sometimes and then have to come back to it), doing that feels like work! it takes energy!! and then when it comes time to do other things that take energy i go to do it and then i suddenly don’t have that energy, because i spent it all trying to do something i enjoy so i don’t feel like garbage for a few hours. 

that’s why watching movies is SO HARD for me. they’re meant to be watched all at once. the pacing and editing don’t work as well when i stop and get up for a few minutes. and i can’t stop and get up when i’m watching them with friends so it feels like a huge commitment even for an 80-minute animated movie about balto. or the iron giant, which is a fantastic movie. tokyo godfathers is a fantastic movie. but it’s still work.

why am i like this. maybe i’m lying to myself. maybe things i enjoy aren’t actually work and i’m just making excuses so i don’t have to do REAL work. or smart work. or creative work.

everyone who isn’t my family (or like two therapists) tells me i work so hard. and they seem confused that i feel like i’m not working hard. but sometimes i have a suspicion that i am so supremely lazy that i just build up depression and anxiety around myself so i’ll have a reason not to do something important. like live my life! all the obstacles are my fault, yes, that’s it!!!

i am confused about my relationship with the real world and my, like, place within it. i don’t get the confused feelings as much when i’m actually interacting with other people, even just over text. sometimes i feel powerless and terrible and i don’t see the point. other times i feel all-powerful and like everything is my fault and i’m terrible because all my problems are my own fault and i’m not good enough to just stop having problems and i don’t see the point.

i feel like i have some kind of other underlying problem that is hiding behind depression and anxiety. 

it’s not... what mom thinks it is. i think about it all the time. i look at symptoms and signs over and over. i don’t seem to have the key lack of social skills, and mother has never mentioned to anyone (she likes to tell my life story a lot) that i suddenly experienced developmental problems, which is like, the big thing for that. there is some overlap in my experience... but i don’t know what’s super important for that diagnosis and what isn’t.

but hey! the internet says a lot of things happen when small children have depression!! and mine went basically untreated until adulthood!!! so!!!! maybe!!!!! it’s just that!!!!!!!

looking at the ways you’re supposed to prevent and treat childhood depression makes me cry because my parents basically failed at literally every level there. my pediatrician failed at literally every level with both the mood disorder and the heart defect. my teachers failed at every level at every school with the bullies and the other students’ parents bullying me. the hospitals and doctors failed me for seven months while i wasn’t able to eat because the first guy just didn’t feel like doing the normal gallbladder test!

and now I’M an adult, and I’M failing everyone! how could i not hate myself???

the storm isn’t projected to really get into full swing up here until sunday. but maybe... maybe tomorrow i’ll try to talk to someone over text. one of my classmates i guess. and i guess i could try to go buy the bathroom supplies and wash my dishes before things get any sort of bad. it might not be fun but it should be ok. the water treatment plant expects to keep emergency power, if not regular operational power. that doesn’t mean it’ll happen, and i still have my extra water in the fridge, but i know that these people have lived here a long time and can generally tell when something will definitely fail and when it won’t definitely fail.

and... at least snoopy likes me. and eve likes me, even though i can’t be with her now. and snoopy is depending on me and she hasn’t starved to death or anything yet. she seems happier and healthier than she was a few weeks ago even. 

barbara, dad’s mom, called me the other day to tell me to be careful during the storm. she seemed to think i was on the coast. i never know what to say to her. i feel dirty accepting any kind of love or concern from her. pet killer. people are multifaceted. i know. but some flaws are just unacceptable. her concern feels insulting at this point. her and mom and dad have gotta have noticed by now that i call her barbara and not grandma. but it’s easy to lie and just say “thanks” in a nice tone of voice where she can’t see my face. it’s easy to lie to mom too and just say my rehearsed “love you too.” keep the wheels greased i guess. 

lying is so easy. i don’t know if other people can tell. maybe they can and i think lying is easy but i’m actually super bad at it. at this point it’s like, i’m following a script, and as long as people expect me to follow that script they won’t think about it. if i really want to lie i just, kind of, omit information. or straight up don’t say anything. i guess that’s not the same as lying.

does that make me bad? does that make me a sociopath or something? that’s not the same as bad, it’s a separate question.

... am i stupid? i feel like i’m stupid. i need someone to tell me i’m not stupid. no, do it again, i didn’t believe you the first three hundred times. dude, i don’t even believe MYSELF and i’ve said it over a thousand times. i can’t seem to validate myself, but it seems like i won’t let anyone else validate me either. i tell the same stupid stories all the time over and over and it’s boring. i’m not creative enough to have any new thoughts or find third options or figure out shortcuts or whatever. and i’m not smart enough to believe it when other people (or me) tell me i’m intelligent or clever or talented.

i mean, i do appreciate it. it feels better for a few minutes. then i just fall into the same dumb hole on my ass like a dunce again.

[hard-satin]

Wolf Moon (Part 1 of my ongoing teen wolf rewritten series)

Masterlist

**This is a project I will be working on that is going to cover every episode of teen wolf, but with the reader inserted into the story as Scott and Stiles other best friend. I will try to keep as close to the actual story line of each episode while writing in a new character. 

“Well if you don’t believe me about the wolf, then you’re definitely not going to believe me when I tell you I found the body.” Scott told Stiles.

  “Are you kidding me?” Stiles asked over excited. I rolled my eyes at his antics.

  “I wish, I’m going to have nightmares for a month.” Scott confessed.

  “Oh this is freaking awesome. Seriously this is going to be the best thing that happened to this town since… since the birth of Lydia Martin. Hey Lydia, you look… like you’re going to ignore me.” Stiles said becoming distracted as the girl walked by. I smacked my friend upside the head.

  “Ow. What was that for?” Stiles asked turning to me.

  “You were leering.” I told him before turning to the school and heading to class, my friends following after.

  “I was not leering.” I heard Stiles mutter under his breath.

  “Dude, you were totally leering.” Scott informed him.

 -

  I was staring out the window, ignoring my teacher's first day lecture that we heard in different variations every year when I saw her. She was sitting on a bench in the court yard digging through her bag. She must be a new girl. I watched as she picked up her phone reading her lips as she greeted her mother.

  I watched her panic about forgetting a pen before she was greeted by the vice principal and led inside.

  I noticed how she caught Scott's attention when she was led into our class. She sat in the empty seat behind him and I watched in confusion as Scott wordlessly handed her a pen. Scott couldn’t read lips. I know because I had tried to teach him and Stiles a couple years ago and it was pretty clear early on they were lost causes. Something was weird about Scott, but I couldn’t quite place my finger on what it was.

 -

  I sat in my usual seat across from my two best friends as I picked at my lunch. I had become lost in my own thoughts as the boys discussed lacrosse. I couldn’t help but think about the body in the woods and who the police might have taken into custody.

  “Okay, fine right after lacrosse. You coming too Jamie?” I was pulled from my thoughts by Scott's voice.

  “Coming where?” I asked having not been paying attention to the boys conversation.

  “Nowhere. Nothing.” Stiles tried to brush it aside in his usual less than elegant way. Stiles and I might have been friends since childhood but we rarely got along. I rolled my eyes at him before looking back to Scott.

  “We’re going back out to the woods to find the other half of the body, and my inhaler.” Scott explained after elbowing Stiles in the ribs.

  “I’ll be there.” I told them before finishing the rest of my sandwich.

  “You gonna watch lacrosse practice too?” Scott asked digging into his previously ignored food.

  “Something like that.” I told them before picking up my tray.

  “What does that mean?” Stiles asked, his mouth full of food.

  “Don’t worry about it.” I told him sending him a wink that I knew would piss him off before taking my stuff and heading to the library hoping to proofread my summer reading essay one more time before I printed it out and turned it in.

 -

  I sat in front of the glowing computer screen in the library. I’d read the same paragraph four times and still had no idea what it said. My mind was somewhere else. I was more than nervous for lacrosse practice this afternoon. I hadn’t told either of the boys that I was on the team now. Over the summer I had learned a lot from the both of them while I helped them practice and I got really good. I started practicing on my own and one day at the park coach had literally run into me while I was doing drills.

  I had always been coach's favorite student. Unlike Scott and Stiles, I was a natural athlete and coaches prized track star. So when he saw I was practicing lacrosse, he demanded I show him my skills. At that point I wasn’t great but coach said I had potential and told me he needed some fresh meat for the team, and having a girl start this season might be just what the team needed to get their asses into gear. So he worked with me a couple times a week doing drills until I was the best player he’d ever seen. His words.

 -

  The rest of the day seemed to pass far to quickly. Before I knew it I was picking the lock to the girls locker room because coach forgot to unlock it, and changing into the brand new lacrosse gear I bought over the summer. I pulled on the official Beacon Hills high school practice jersey that coach had given me that morning before stepping back to look in the mirror. I picked up my freshly laced lacrosse stick before jogging out onto the field.

  “I know we made it all the way last year, and the year before, and the year before that, but that doesn't mean we can get lazy. This summer I found the perfect spark to keep our team strong after we lost three starting seniors last season. The key to winning for a fourth year in a row.” Coach was already addressing the team when I jogged onto the field. He paused when he noticed me, a smile spreading over his face.

  “What is it coach? What’s the key?” Stiles asked, forever impatient.

  “Turn around and see her for yourself Stilinski.” Coach said pointing over the boys heads to me. The team turned around so fast I thought they might all have whiplash. A weird silence feel over the field.

  “Good one coach.” Jackson was the first to break the silence as he laughed at me. Coach didn’t laugh along with him and soon enough the smile fell from his face.

  “You can’t be serious.” Jackson said looking between coach and I.

  “As a heart attack.” Coach told him. Jackson opened his mouth to protest but I was done with the whole bit.

  “You don’t think I deserve to be here? I’ll prove it to you. Grab a long stick, pick anyone you want to back you up. Put your best man in goal, and I’ll show you why I deserve to be here just as much as you.” I challenged him pulling my mask on and twirling my stick in my hands. Jackson scoffed at me. The rest of the team watched him and he soon realised he had no choice but to accept the offer. He quickly put Danny in the net and grabbed some big guy I didn’t recognize to be his second defenseman. Everyone else jogged off the field to watch as the four of us took our positions on the field.

  I sized the trio up before rolling out my neck  and taking my position. I waited eagerly for coaches whistle and no sooner had it sounded than I was charging into action. I scooped up the ball and raced at the two defenders. Eager to prove himself as always Jackson charged me. I tripped him up easily spinning around him as he stumbled. The giant boy left between me and the goal would be harder to get around but his legs were spread wide so I raced straight at him, and at the last second dropped to my knees leaning back as I slid under his legs. I popped up on the other side and sent the ball flying into the back of the net with a hard snap of my wrists. I pulled my mask off and smiled at my handi work. I jogged off the field at coach's whistle passing Scott who was juggling the goalie equipment that coach had dumped on him. I grabbed my water bottle taking a deep swig before splashing it over my face to cool off from the California heat.

  “What the hell?” Stiles strained voice came from behind me. I sighed before turning to face him.

  “What?” I asked crossing my arms over my chest.

  “You know what. How could you not tell us about this?” Stiles said waving his arms wildly towards the field.

  “I didn’t realise you wanted 24/7 updates about my life.” I told him, picking my stick back up and shoving past Stiles to get into line on the field to shoot at Scott.

  I watched at the back of the line in aw as Scott effortlessly caught every ball thrown at him. I snuck off towards the bench where Stiles sat as Jackson angrily pushed his way to the front of the line.

  “Somethings off with Scott.” I told Stiles who was cheering wildly for our friend.

  “I would say somethings on.” Stiles said letting out a piercing cheer as Scott caught Jackson's shot with ease.

  “No, I think something's going on with him. It happened last night after we left him in the woods.” I tried to explain my feeling to Stiles but he wasn’t paying any attention to me. I groaned before leaving him on the bench to rejoin the rest of the team on the field.

 -

  I changed quickly after practice. Waiting for the boys at Stiles jeep in the parking lot. I was scrolling through my phone looking at fungus common to California that could have steroid like effects on the human body, when a loud slam beside my head startled me. I looked up into the very close face of Jackson.

  “I don’t know what your game is, but you better watch yourself this season Jamie or I might just have to put you in your place, and don’t think I’ll go easy on you just because you’re a girl.” He hissed in my face, his spit flying into my face causing me to wince. He mistook this for weakness and smirked at me.

  “I definitely wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Stiles voice rang out behind Jackson causing him to turn his head.

  “What are you gonna do about it Stilinski?” Jackson mocked not moving his arms from beside my head.

  “Not me.” Stiles admitted as I wiped the spit from my face. I grabbed Jackson's wrist and spun slamming his head against Stiles jeep. I twisted Jackson's arm up behind his back pressing him harder into the jeep.

  “You really need to learn some manners. I would be happy to teach you, though I doubt you want me to. It wouldn’t exactly be a comfortable experience for you.” I hissed into his ear before pulling him off of the jeep and shoving him away. He rubbed his arm and glared at me, but didn’t say another word as he walked off.

  I threw my bags into the back of the jeep along with Stiles, Scott joined us a couple minutes later. I climbed in the back and we drove off to the preserve.

 -

  “So all this started with a bite?” Stiles asked Scott who had just explained to us all the weird things that had been happening to him.

  “What if it’s like an infection, like my body's flooding with adrenaline before going into shock or something?” Scott asked mirroring my concerns from earlier that day.

  “You know what? I actually think I’ve heard of this. It’s a specific kind of infection.” Stiles said. Scott and I turned to look at him.

  “Are you serious?” Scott asked fear creeping into his voice.

  “Yeah, yeah. I think it’s called Lycanthropy.” Stiles told him. I rolled my eyes at my overly sarcastic friend before turning back to search for Scotts inhaler in the leaves.

  “What’s that? Is that bad?” Scott asked.

  “Oh yeah it’s the worst, but only once a month.” Stiles reassured him. I snorted.

  “Once a month?” Scott asked still convinced of Stiles story.

  “Yeah, on the night of the full moon.” Stiles teased him letting out a howl. Scott scoffed finally catching on and pushing Stiles away. He rejoined me in looked for his inhaler as Stiles giggled behind us.

  I ignored the boys as the argued further. Stopping to look where Scott was convinced he’s dropped his inhaler. I looked up and saw a man standing a couple yards away in the trees. Stiles noticed too and smacked Scott's shoulder who as usual was none the wiser.

  “What are you doing?” The man asked crossing to us. I didn’t hear Scott's answer I was too busy studying the man, he looked familiar but there was also something about him. Something predatory but not in a creepy perverted way, but almost like an animal stalking its prey. Suddenly Stiles stupid werewolf theory didn’t seem so stupid to me. I watched with fascination as the man I realised was Derek Hale walked away after tossing Scott his inhaler back.

  Stiles explained who Derek was to Scott as we walked back to the jeep. I tuned most of what he said out. Thinking over the werewolf idea in my head. My mythology teacher always told me that every myth, every legend was based in fact. I would have to do some digging to understand what was really going on but research was like second nature to me. It was how I taught myself a bunch of “useless skills” as my mother called them. But I liked being able to pick locks, and pockets, and read lips.

  Stiles dropped Scott off at his house before driving home and parking the Jeep next to his dad’s cruiser in the driveway. I waved goodbye before crossing the street to my house. I raced past my mom who was on the phone in the kitchen and opened up my laptop. I stayed up for hours researching before falling asleep at my desk.

 -

  I overslept the next day missing most of my morning classes. I didn’t see the boys at lunch because I had to go to the library to catch up on what I missed, not wanting to fall behind my second day.

  I was stretching on the side of the lacrosse field watching Scott as he strapped on his pads. I didn’t need to participate in elimination today, coach already put me on first line. Scott however was freaking out about it, so I neglected to tell him about my theory. Stiles nearly knocked me over as he scampered over to Scott. I jogged over to see what the fuss was about.

  “Scott, Scott! Wait up.” Stiles called catching him before he could take the field.

  “Stiles I’m playing the first elimination right now. Can’t it wait?” Scott told him shrugging out of his friends grasp and heading onto the field.

  “Just hold on okay. I overheard my dad on the phone. A fiber analysis came back from the lab in LA, they found animal hair on the body from the woods.” Stiles told him his words flying out a mile a minute.

  “Stiles I gotta go.” Scott said jogging onto the field, Stiles desperately chased after him.

  “Scott no. Scott you’re not going to believe what the animal was.” Stiles said stopping at the edge of the field watching as Scott joined the other players up for first line in the huddle.

  “It was a wolf.” Stiles said to no one having not realised I had come up behind him.

  “Did you say wolf?” I asked causing Stiles to jump at my unannounced appearance.

  “Yeah, why?” He asked.

  “I was thinking about what you said to Scott yesterday in the woods, I think you were right.” I told him turning as I heard coach call my name.

  “What are you talking about?” Stiles wasn’t quite following me.

  “Lycanthropy. Wait for me after school I’ll show you some stuff I found back at your place alright?” I told him before grabbing my stick to shoot on the potential goalies for coach.

  “Okay yeah.” Stiles agreed before going to sit on the bench and watch Scott anxiously. I joined him twenty minutes later a sense of dread filling me as coach announced Scott was first line.

  Stiles and I raced into his bedroom after school. I showed him all the notes I had printed out the night before. He opened up his computer looking for more information, I kept detailed notes of what he found highlighting the information that seemed to remain the same through multiple werewolf legends.

  “It looks like the full moon is a key factor. Shifting seems to be a universal truth to the myths too, but it’s not clear whether it’s turning into a large wolf or just growing fangs and claws. Super strength, speed and healing seem to come up a lot too.” I said rereading our notes. We sat in silence contemplating what this could mean for our  friend when a loud knock at the door had us both jumping out of our seats.

  I watched anxiously from my spot on the bed as Stiles opened the door for Scott.

  “Good, come in. You won’t believe what we found.” Stiles told Scott ushering into the room.

  Stiles spoke a mile a minute trying to explain our theory to Scott.

  “A whole pack of wolves?” Scott asked confused by everything Stiles was trying to say.

  “No werewolves.” Stiles corrected solemnly.

  “Are you two seriously wasting my time with this. I mean I can understand you doing it Stiles but you Jamie? Isn’t this a little juvenile for you?” He asked disapprovingly.

  Stiles tried to reason with him. The reasoning soon became and argument, It tried to jump in but Scott pushed me back out. I sat begrudgingly on the bed watching my two best friends argue. Scott wasn’t listening. I grabbed Scott's phone from his bag beside me tossing it to Stiles.

  “What are you guys doing?” Scott shouted at us.

  “I’m canceling your date.” Stiles explained fingers moving over the buttons on the phone.

  “No! Give it to me!” Scott yelled grabbing Stiles and slamming him against the wall. I was off the bed immediately across the room wedging myself between Stiles and Scott. My back was pressed to Stiles chest as I pressed my hands on Scotts slowly coaxing him away. His anger didn’t dissipate though and he turned it on Stiles desk chair knocking it to the ground before looking back at Stiles and I. Stiles hands were wrapped around my middle holding me to him, both of us trying to protect the other. Looks of pure terror must have been on both of our faces because Scott's expression softened as he looked at us.

  “I’m sorry.” He told us as he realised what he’d done. That didn’t stop him from taking his things and leaving us.

  Stiles and I picked up his chair. My eyes widened as I saw the deep scratches across the back where Scott had hit it. I looked to Stiles, his eyes met mine and the feeling of dread from practice returned ten times as strong.

  “We have to go to that party.”

 -

  Stiles changed quickly while I ran over to my house so I could do the same. I grabbed the first dress I saw hanging in my closet and a pair of nice sandals before running back out to the jeep and climbing in the back.

  “What are you doing?” Stiles asked.

  “The party already started we need to make sure we’re there before Scott so we can watch him. Just drive!” I told him before pulling off my top and shimmying out of my shorts. Stiles hit the gas and sent us flying down the road.

  “Shit.” I heard him curse before I felt myself fly into the front seat as Stiles hit the breaks. I groaned before looking up at him from where I was bent over the center console. He looked down and me apologetically before taking in my appearance and gaping at my state of undress. I brought my finger up turning his slack jaw back towards the road before pulling myself into the backseat again to finish dressing.

  We arrived at the party a couple minutes later. I stumbled out of the car grabbing onto Stiles arm to keep from falling over before pulling him side to wait for Scott. We took turns watching him after he arrived but I lost sight of him when he went to dance with Allison. I tracked down Stiles and dragged him onto the dance floor to keep watch. I danced against him my eyes not leaving Scott as something seemed to come over him. I turned my head to tell Stiles and suddenly our faces were very close.

  I paused my eyes searching his as I tried to remember what I was going to say, I didn’t have to think very long before Scott was knocking into us.

  “Whoa Scott, you okay buddy?” Stiles asked his arms still around me.

  Scott didn’t answer he just stumbled away almost in a daze. Stiles and I shared a look before running after him.

  We watched as he got into his car and drove away, leaving Allison behind. I saw Derek walk up behind her. I elbowed Stiles in the side and pointed Derek out to him. We watched as he led Allison to his car. Stiles ran to get the jeep, I hesitated for a second before deciding I was more worried about Scott then Allison and chasing after Stiles.

  I was out of the jeep before Stiles could put it in park in Scotts driveway. We raced through Scott's house, when I reached Scotts door I found it locked. I pounded on the door as Stiles caught up to me.

  “Scott it’s us let us in.” I called out praying my friend would answer.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as the door opened a crack, but when I tried to walk in Scott held the door firm keeping Stiles and I on the other side.

  “Come on Scott we just want to help.” Stiles tried to reason.

  Scott refused and insisted we needed to find Allison.

“Dereks the werewolf okay, he’s the one who bit me.” Scott said, I turned to Stiles my eyes wide.

  “Scott, Derek’s the one who drove Allison home from the party.” Stiles told Scott. Suddenly the door slammed shut sending Stiles and I stumbling back. I tried the nob again but it was locked. I froze as I heard a roar coming from outside the house. Scott must have used the window.

  “We need to get to Allison's house.” I said before we raced back outside to the jeep.

 -

  We pulled up to Allison's house. Stiles pressed the doorbell repeatedly as I pounded on the door. A wide eyed but intense woman answered the door. Stiles tried to explain why we were there but before he could the woman called up the stairs where Allison appeared perfectly fine.

  Stiles mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, for once he was at a loss for words. I mumbled some excuse about being worried Allison hadn’t made it home from the party okay before grabbing Stiles shoulders and steering him back to the car.

  We headed back to Scott's house to wait for him. When dawn arrived and he still wasn’t home we got back into the jeep and went out to find him.

  Two hours later we spotted him walking along the side of the road shirtless and holding onto his arm. I hopped into the back and pulled a blanket out for him. We drove in silence for a while before Scott spoke up.

  “You know what actually worries me the most?” Scott asked.

  “If you say Allison I will punch you in the head.” Stiles threatened.

  “And I’ll punch you in the dick.” I told him popping my head up from the backseat.

  “She probably hates me now.” He whined ignoring our threats.

  I groaned sliding into the backseat listening as Stiles tried to reassure him.

  “Come one we can make it through this. If we have to (Y/N) will chain you up every full moon and I’ll feed you live mice. I had a boa once I could do it.” Stiles said.

  “Liar.” I told him flicking Stiles in the ear and popping my head back up again.

  “Whenever your dad wasn’t home to feed him, you made me come over to do it.” I reminded him.

  “Fine I’ll lock Scott up, you feed him the mice. Better?” He asked smiling at me. I nodded happily, before turning to smile at Scott. He looked between Stiles and I before laughing at us. We spent the rest of the weekend in Stiles room doing research and eating takeout. By Sunday night I was convinced we could handle whatever having a werewolf for a best friend would entail.

[the-telegraph-sport-yahoopa-blog]

Serena Williams beats sister Venus to claim Australian Open title and record 23rd grand slam

Serena Williams’ 23rd major title, catapulting her beyond Steffi Graf as the most decorated champion of the Open era, can be depicted either as a stirring affirmation or a chilling warning.

It is easy enough to subscribe to the first school of thought, given the serenity with which she swept aside sister Venus for a 6-4, 6-4 victory and a seventh Australian Open title, itself another record in a career creaking under the weight of its own history.

What tennis struggles to accept, though, is the counter-argument that Serena’s sustained pre-eminence casts her would-be rivals in a deeply unflattering light. For all that the sport bathed in a soothing all-our-yesterdays feel at Melbourne Park, as Venus and Serena met in a Grand Slam final 16 years after their first, it needed also to come to terms with the pitiful lack of depth among the chasing pack.

The reality is that Serena, at the age of 35 – Graf, let it be noted, retired at 30 – has won her latest major without dropping a single set and despite playing nowhere close to her best. Just listen to the verdict of her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. “She played well enough to win, but she can play much better,” said the Frenchman, doing little to enthuse about a match where, yet again, sport’s most celebrated sister act seldom caught light.

In nine major finals between this pair, only two have gone to a third set. The love and respect that Venus and Serena never tire of expressing for one another equates on court to an inescapable lack of intensity, to a feeling that, even after 28 meetings on tour, they have never quite become used to facing across the net for such heightened stakes.

The sisters had kind words to say about each other after the match Credit: getty images

It was different when they were little girls on the rutted public courts of Compton, Los Angeles, where one-upmanship could prevail, but few of their encounters with a championship on the line have touched the realm of classics. For both of them, this was a familiar replay of treasured memories but seldom a compelling contest, as Serena made a decisive break late in the first set and never took another backward step.

Today, only Australia’s Margaret Court stands ahead of her in the compendium of all-time greatness, with 24 titles to her 23, but it is largely an incidental detail. Court belonged to an amateur era when the main draw comprised 16 players, not 128, and when she could juggle the stresses of the tennis circuit with the demands of being a mother-of-four. Already, Serena stands alone.

Australian Open 2017 prize money: Men and Womens singles

A gesture yesterday by her sponsors, Nike, illustrated as much by fitting her out with boots emblazoned with ’23’, evoking not just her colossal haul of silverware but the number once famously worn by Michael Jordan.

She has long since acquired Jordan-esque stature, establishing a standard that none in her peer group can even hope to emulate. Having amassed her titles under four different US presidents, she has reached a stage where she can afford to enjoy herself more openly. “We’re thirty-fun!” she said, at a trophy ceremony where neither she nor Venus could stop smiling.

Serena has won the Australian Open seven times Credit: getty images

About the only frontier left for her to conquer is the calendar Grand Slam, which Graf accomplished in 1988. She came agonisingly close in 2015, ticking off the season’s first three majors before falling in the US Open semi-finals to Roberta Vinci, and there is little reason to suspect she cannot make another serious tilt at it this year. For where, exactly, is the competition?

Viktoria Azarenka is taking time away from tennis with a new baby, while Maria Sharapova is still to return from a 15-month doping ban. As for Germany’s Angelique Kerber, who briefly usurped her as world No 1? Well, heavy is the head that wears the crown. Kerber has won not a single tour event in her 20-week reign at the summit.

Venus was unable to match her sister when Serena landed her first serves Credit: epa

For all that Serena likes to project a certain humility, not least in a touching embrace with her sister once the match was done, she is clearly aware of her own claims on immortality. Asked whether she and Martina Navratilova deserved to be placed ahead of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, Sunday's men’s finalists, in the debate about the greatest players of all, she was unambiguous. “I definitely think so,” she replied. “Martina, myself, Steffi – hands down we are leading that conversation.”

Serena smashed her racket early in the first set Credit: ap

That is a moot point. The titanic battles waged by Federer and Nadal will be remembered far longer than any final in which Serena has been involved. The fault is less her own than the unsatisfying best-of-three format that the women’s tour insists on preserving for these occasions. The typical gap between the entertainment levels of men’s and women’s finals at slams is now so vast that the time has surely come, as Judy Murray argued recently, for at least the semi-final and final to be made best-of-five.

Serena, though, can only express her alpha-female qualities within the constraints of the format allowed. And there is every sign, after an impeccable fortnight in which she won 14 sets out of 14 for the sixth time, that her legend is likely to keep growing.

10:35AM

One down, one to go

So we have our 2017 Australian Open women's champion: for the seventh time in Melbourne (and the 23rd time in any grand slam) it is Serena Williams.

Attention now turns to Sunday's men's final between Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal. If you aren't excited by that then you need to have a stern word with yourself.

10:19AM

Never too late

To @Venuseswilliams: Thanks for showing us it's never too late. What an amazing run and what an amazing life. #championforever

— Billie Jean King (@BillieJeanKing) January 28, 2017

10:17AM

Coming to an end?

Working backwards, Serena's last 10 Majors, this in the alleged twilight of her career: W SF W F F SF W W W W

— Jon Wertheim (@jon_wertheim) January 28, 2017

10:16AM

Serena speaks

I would like to congratulate Venus. She's an amazing person. There's no way I would at 23 without her. There's no way I would have anything without her and she is the only reason I'm standing here today. She's the only reason that the Williams sisters exist. Thank you so much.

She deserves an incredible round of applause. She's had an amazing comeback and I definitely think she'll be standing here next year. I don't like the world comeback - she never left.

10:13AM

Venus speaks

I'm so happy to play in front of you all tonight. Thank you to my team. I love you guys. Serena Williams... that's my little sister guys.

Congratulations on No 23. I've been there right with you. Some of them I lost against you. That's weird but it's true. Your wins have always been my wins. Every time I couldn't be there or didn't get there, you were there. I'm enormously proud of you and you mean the world to me.

God-willing I'd love to come back. Thank you for all the love.

10:09AM

Presentation time

I won't bother giving you the words from the men in suits. Suffice to say it's mainly this: "Thanks to the sponsors". And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

10:07AM

The stats

It wasn't a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but it looks as though Serena is back on track to become the undisputed greatest female tennis player of all time (just in case anyone had any doubts). Court's record could disappear this year.

10:04AM

The magic number

So that's 23 grand slam titles for Serena Williams, one more than Steffi Graf (for an Open era record) and one away from Margaret Court's 24 claimed in the 1960s and 70s.

A lovely moment as the sisters embrace.

10:01AM

Venus 4-6 4-6 Serena - Serena Williams is Australian Open champion

Serena Williams is serving for her 23rd grand slam title. But Venus takes a quick 0-15 lead to send the crowd into whoops and cheers. That becomes 15-15, but Venus comes out on top of an epic 24-shot rally to increase the decibel count in Melbourne once again. Neither sister was willing to risk anything during that rally and it was Venus who won the battle of the defence. Serena continues to play percentage tennis and it comes off this time as Venus hits the net for 30-30. Her second serve then comes up trumps right when it matters to bring up championship point... and she wins it! Serena comes to the net, Venus sends her attempted backhand lob wide and Serena is the Australian Open champion.

9:54AM

Venus 4-6 4-5 Serena* (*denotes next server)

Here is Venus serving to stay in the match after just an hour and 13 minutes. Venus takes a 15-0 lead with an overhead smash at the net, but she appears to have tweaked something in her upper arm in the process. How much will that affect her? Serena levels, before sending a backhand long for 30-15. Who needs power when you have placement like this, asks Venus as she aces her sister out wide to the backhand side. One more point won keeps this match alive. And she gets it. A hold to 15.

9:51AM

Venus* 4-6 3-5 Serena (*denotes next server)

Can Venus somehow wrestle this back from her sister? Not if Serena keeps on landing her first serve. Unreturnable serve precedes ace, which precedes unreturnable serve and that is 40-0. Another unreturnable serve and the game is gone with Venus even hitting a ball into play.

9:48AM

Venus 4-6 3-4 Serena* (*denotes next server)

Great play from Serena at the start of this game, powering her opening return and then charging to the net to kill the point. She then piles into a backhand down the line, giving her sister no chance for 15-30. The younger sister comes out on top of a 16-shot rally (the longest of the match) to gain the first break point of this set at 30-40... but Venus's second serve comes up trumps and Serena cannot return it. Deuce, which quickly become advantage Serena. A big first serve restores parity, but Venus hits her forehand into the net to give her sister a third break point. And she takes it on second serve. That may be the crucial break.

9:43AM

Venus* 4-6 3-3 Serena (*denotes next server)

It hasn't been a vintage performance from either sister so far today, but you get the sense that Serena has enough behind her first serve to do the requisite damage. She is being helped by plenty of unforced errors from Venus, who twice fails to put her forehand in the intended location and allows Serena to hold to 15.

Sisters in sync #AusOpen#Venus#Serena �� pic.twitter.com/yXWudqSNps

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 28, 2017

9:38AM

Venus 4-6 3-2 Serena* (*denotes next server)

Great serving from Venus. Power and precision. A hold to 15. That was simple enough.

9:37AM

Venus* 4-6 2-2 Serena (*denotes next server)

There is no doubt about it, the Melbourne crowd is on Venus's side. They have been from the outset and they don't want this match to end in straight sets. Serena's first/second serve joy/woes continue as she eases into a 40-15 lead before double faulting to give Venus a sniff. It's a chance wasted though with the older sister failing to put away the simplest of forehands when advancing into the middle of the court and Serena holds.

9:33AM

Venus 4-6 2-1 Serena* (*denotes next server)

A wonderful forehand winner down the line from Serena puts her 0-30 up and, perhaps starting to feel the pressure, Venus double faults to give her sister three break points. The first is saved as Serena fails to return serve. The second is saved in the same fashion. Can she land her first serve again when it matters? Yes she can and Serena has no answer to it! Thrilling stuff. And that is the stark difference between the first and second serve. Venus then shows great defence to take the advantage and the first serve comes up trumps again! Back from 0-40 down to hold and take a 2-1 lead in this set. You get the sense that Venus may have just saved the match.

If Venus somehow makes this an epic, that hold from 0-40 was key

— Christopher Clarey (@christophclarey) January 28, 2017

9:27AM

Venus* 4-6 1-1 Serena (*denotes next server)

Both sisters have been so reliant on landing their first serve today. They are both winning the overwhelming majority of points when they land it... and losing the overwhelming majority when they don't. As if to prove that point, Serena flies into a 40-0 leave with unreturned first serve after unreturned first serve, before Venus gets herself into the game by capitalising on a fault to pull it back to 40-30. Ace, bang and the game is held.

9:24AM

Venus 4-6 1-0 Serena* (*denotes next server)

Serena is 20-0 in grand slam singles finals after winning the first set, which doesn't bode well for her sister. Venus is determined not to let this one go though and ups her serving game, tucking Serena up with a serve to the body for 40-15 and sealing the opening game of this set by sending her sister out wide and putting her backhand away into the open court.

9:22AM

How old?

She may be 36, but those limbs have more movement in them than 99.9 per cent of people younger than Venus.

Credit: reuters

9:20AM

Venus 4-6 Serena

So here is Serena, serving for the opening set. Venus hangs her head as she sends her backhand wide for 30-0 and Serena then nails two rapid aces to wrap up the game in a flash to love and seal the set 6-4. Have Serena's problems disappeared? It seems that way.

9:17AM

Venus 4-5 Serena* (*denotes next server)

Can Venus keep this set alive? Serena is starting to assert herself right when it matters, taking control of these points now and moving into a 15-30 lead, only for Venus to nail a bullet of a crosscourt backhand and then land a demon serve for 40-30. Another powerful serve out wide to Serena's backhand leaves the younger sister unable to return and the first set continues.

Venus holds for 4-5* in first set. V steady, if not perfect, while Serena's level dips in and out. Serena to serve for the set now. #ausopen

— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) January 28, 2017

9:14AM

*Venus 3-5 Serena (*denotes next server)

Oh yes. What a shot from Venus. The older sister looks in real trouble on the first point of the game, but uses every inch of those long levers to hook her way round a forehand on the run, pumping it across court and leaving Serena applauding in acknowledgement. Serena's serving troubles continue as Venus takes a 0-30 lead, but the deficit is quickly reduced with another timely ace and Venus is furious with herself when she sends a forehand wide for 40-30. Serena lands her first serve, piles into her forehand off the return and holds.

9:10AM

Venus 3-4 Serena* (*denotes next server)

A lovely change of pace sees Venus ace her sister out wide to Serena's forehand, deploying spin that would make Shane Warne proud, but she is also struggling on second serve and Serena capitalises. The world No 2 brings up break point, coming to the net and killing her volley dead... and she takes it! That could prove crucial at this stage of the set.

9:07AM

Venus* 3-3 Serena (*denotes next server)

Can Serena solve her serving troubles? Not at the moment. Her timing is all over the place and as Venus takes a 0-30 lead, although another Serena ace levels for 30-30. It's a tight battle between Serena's ace count versus her double fault count. Venus helps her sister out by looping a rank backhand long when it was right there for the taking and another unforced error allows Serena to hold to 30.

9:02AM

Venus 3-2 Serena* (*denotes next server)

What is going on in Melbourne? Neither player can win a game on serve, with Serena experiencing real struggles. In fact, the 22-time grand slam champion looks far less comfortable than her sister, with Venus dominating the exchanges and displaying more fluidity at the moment. Venus continues to fire deep into the baseline to take a 40-15 lead here and Serena - lacking any rhythm - floats her forehand long to give her sister a simple hold. Finally.

9:00AM

Venus* 2-2 Serena (*denotes next server)

Are we going to have yet another break? Serena flies into a 30-0 lead, but a sumptuous Venus backhand down the line as she stands right on the tip of her toes leaves her younger sister for dead and she levels at 30-30. Serena then double faults for deuce to continue both players' second-serve struggles. Another double fault gives Venus advantage and break point... only for Serena to whip out the timeliest of aces! That's ludicrous. Venus gains a second break point though and Serena double faults again. A fourth break of serve.

Here's that racket break from the previous game in slow motion:

Court = 1, Racquet = 0 #Serena vs #Venus#AusOpenpic.twitter.com/If59ZX0bYD

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 28, 2017

8:53AM

Venus 1-2 Serena* (*denotes next server)

When Serena piles into her forehand return off serve, she is borderline unstoppable. The younger sister does so with crunching power here, forcing Venus to double fault for 15-30. Venus then hits back with a millimetre-perfect inside-out forehand onto that just kisses the right sideline and she saves break point by coming to the net and putting away her forehand volley for deuce. Ooh, what a time to get a net cord break like that! The ball is killed dead off Venus's forehand as it just rolls over the top of the net, prompting Serena to scream with anger, destroy her racket and pick up a court violation for her troubles. Advantage Venus... saved. Advantage Serena (and another break point)... saved. Advantage Serena (for a third break point)...and Venus duffs her forehand into the net for a third successive break of serve.

8:45AM

Venus* 1-1 Serena (*denotes next server)

Is this going to be one of those totally one-sided affairs? Perhaps not. A double fault helps Venus out when 0-30 down and the older sister asserts herself to push Serena beyond the baseline to level at 30-30. A wayward backhand into the tramlines from Serena takes the game to deuce and the world No 2 then sticks her forehand wide to give Venus the break point. And Serena goes long with no pressure at all on the forehand! Venus breaks back instantly!

8:41AM

Venus 0-1 Serena* (*denotes next server)

Venus will kick things off and she does so with a fault. Hmmm, not great omens there and things rapidly worsen as Serena wins the opening two points of the match, prompting groans from a Melbourne crowd eager to see a close match today. An ace gets Venus off the mark, but that's as good as it gets, Serena first crunching a forehand return off the serve and then correctly guessing the placement of Venus's smash to drill it past her sister and break in the opening game.

8:35AM

Clothes-watch

Should you be at all interested in what the two players are wearing as they have a pre-match hit, here is your answer. One distinctly more flairy than the other:

8:30AM

What does it all mean?

Have a look at their respective records in Melbourne over the past week (not to mention their results over the past few years) and it's difficult to see anything but a comfortable Serena win today. But who would have predicted this as the final? And who would have called Fed v Rafa on the men's side? Can Venus do what appears to be so unlikely?

Should Venus triumph today, she will set a record for the biggest gap between grand slam victories in the Open era - Nine years.

Should Serena win today, she will surpass Steffi Graf at the top of the leaderboard of grand slam champions in the Open Era with 23 titles.

Either way, history is about to be made. The players have just come out on court and we are almost ready.

8:22AM

How did we get here?

Serena's 2017 Aussie Open timeline

Round 1: 6-4 6-3 v Bencic  Round 2: 6-3 6-4 v Safarova Round 3: 6-1 6-3 v Gibbs Round 4: 7-5 6-4 v Strycova Quarter-final: 6-2 6-3 v Konta Semi-final: 6-2 6-1 v Lucic-Baroni

Credit: getty images

Venus's 2017 Aussie Open timeline

Round 1: 7-6 7-5 v Kozlova Round 2: 6-3 6-2 v Voegele Round 3: 6-1 6-0 v Duan Round 4: 6-3 7-5 v Barthel Quarter-final: 6-4 7-6 v Pavlyuchenkova Semi-final: 7-6 2-6 3-6 v Vandeweghe

Credit: rex

  8:12AM

Career stats

Serena Williams

Age: 35 Grand slam singles titles: 22 Best Australian Open result: Winner 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2015 First slam title: US Open 1999 Singles titles: 71 Weeks spent as world No 1: 309 Prize money: £65.1m Wins against Venus: 16 Turned pro: 1995

Credit: paul grover

Venus Williams

Age: 36 Grand slam singles titles: 7 Best Australian Open result: Runner-up 2003 First slam title: Wimbledon 2000 Singles titles: 49 Weeks spent as world No 1: 11 Prize money: £27.4m Wins against Serena: 11 Turned pro: 1994

8:00AM

The greatest

The tennis world has never experienced anything like the Williams sisters before and the chances are it never will again. But do we appreciate what the pair have given us?

This piece was written by my colleague Charlie Eccleshare a couple of years ago, but it is just as relevant - if not more so - today.

The achievement is even more remarkable given that Serena is still the No 1 ranked player in the world so getting to this stage is simply business as usual, while Venus has had to deal with the auto-immune disease Sjögren’s syndrome as she has fought back to the upper echelons of the game.

But in spite of this, their achievements continue to be met largely with indifference.

And it’s an indifference that is so strikingly at odds with the seemingly endless praise lavished on Roger Federer, who is just one month older than Serena and as such a useful comparison.

7:47AM

Oiling the wheels

The Williams sisters do everything together, but not today.

.@Venuseswilliams limbers up ahead of her first #ausopen final since '03. #AusOpenpic.twitter.com/ManTQA7lBC

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 28, 2017

And right next door... sister @serenawilliams is firing up for her 8th #ausopen finals appearance pic.twitter.com/uMw8upFEM1

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 28, 2017

7:42AM

Turning back time

Between 2001 and 2009, the indomitable Williams sisters met eight times in grand slam finals. Together they swept through the women's game, brushing aside the establishment as on their way. And then it stopped.

Serena carried on winning but, hampered by illness, injury and the seemingly natural effects of ageing, Venus' star began to wane. Until now.

Eight years after they met in the 2009 Wimbledon final, the sisters are once again the last two women standing in a slam. The achievement of both incredible athletes is quite simply phenomenal and today in Melbourne, aged 35 and 36, one of them will be crowned the 2017 Australian Open champion.

Williams v Williams grand slam finals 7:35AM

Match preview

When and where is it?

The women's final is on Saturday, January 28, on the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.

What time does it start?

Despite being in Australia, it's not as bad as you might think. The final will start at 8.30am GMT.

What TV channel is it on?

Eurosport 1 from 8am. Or you can follow all the action with us when this very page turns into our live blog.

Scene setter

An Australian Open electrified by the revivals of seasoned champions will bathe in the warm glow of nostalgia on Saturday when the Williams sisters contest the women's final at Rod Laver Arena.

Melbourne Park was where Venus and Serena Williams first clashed in a tour match in 1998 and nearly 20 years on, the Americans will add another chapter to tennis's greatest sibling rivalry.

In 1998, they were teenagers with cornrows and coloured beads in their hair sharing in an awkward second round encounter that 17-year-old Venus won in two sets.

Williams v Williams grand slam finals

Venus hugged her sister, younger by a year, at the net and apologised for having to "take (her) out".

On Saturday, 35-year-old Serena will bid for a record 23rd Grand Slam title in the professional era while Venus will strive for her eighth, and first in almost nine years.

Serena drew level with Germany's Steffi Graff on 22 when she claimed her seventh Wimbledon title last year but her crowning moment was delayed when, as top seed, she was upset in the US Open semi-finals by Czech Karolina Pliskova.

Serena no longer cares to talk about the record and stiffened when asked about it after her semi-final victory over Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, as if the weight of such an achievement might prove too heavy.

Serena Williams is the clear favourite Credit: GETTY IMAGES

But a seventh title at Melbourne Park would add further credit to Serena's claim as the greatest of all time, despite being one short of Australia's Margaret Court, whose 24 major titles were split between the amateur and professional eras.

For 13th seed Venus, her first grand slam final in eight years is already a stunning victory of perseverance in the face of her struggles to manage Sjogren's syndrome, an auto-immune disease that causes fatigue and joint pain.

How did they get here?

Both players stormed into the semi-finals without a set dropped.

However, where Serena romped into the final with a 50-minute demolition of Lucic-Baroni, Venus needed to summon her peerless experience to fend off feisty fellow American Coco Vandeweghe in three sets.

Saturday's final will be the Williams sisters ninth at a grand slam and their first since Wimbledon in 2009, where Serena won in two sets.

What are they saying?

Serena Williams

"We definitely talk. I think now more so than anything. Nothing can break our family. If anything, this will definitely bring us closer together, knowing that I want to see her do the best that she can possibly do. I know that she definitely wants to see me do the best that I can do.

"This is a story. This is something that I couldn't write a better ending. This is a great opportunity for us to start our new beginning.

"I just really feel fortunate to have been there for the highs and the lows and everything. I never lost hope of us being able to play each other in a final. This probably is the moment of our careers so far. For me, I can definitely say for me.

"After everything that Venus has been through with her illness and stuff, I just can't help but feel like it's a win-win situation.

"It's the one time that I really genuinely feel like no matter what happens, I can't lose, she can't lose. It is definitely 100 percent the best-case scenario that I could have ever dreamt of." 

Venus Williams

"I don't think there's necessarily anything to exploit. She doesn't have too many weaknesses.

"It would be beautiful (to win). I have to earn it, so... It's not a given. I'm going to do what I can to earn it. I'm not thinking about, 'Oh, what would it be like to win?' I'm thinking about, 'What do I have to do to earn that?' That's my mentality right now."

What are the odds?

Serena Williams to win 1/5

Venus Williams to win 4/1