#my relationships are all strained because of my inability to feel close and my fear of trusting anybody

[erstwhile-elster]

ae

[its-me-im-coraline]

Cry Baby // Ethan Torchio // Playist Fic

words // 1244

warnings // angst angst angst, mentions of struggling with mental illnesses but nothing graphic, but also fluffy caring Ethan

pairing // Ethan Torchio x GN!Reader

author's note // if you want to be on the tag list let me know. aghhhh this is the first fic on my little playlist thingy omg and i am excited although this is v angsty oops. If you don't know what this is supposed to be, i have a playlist tagged on my masterlist, you can send in a song from there or an entirely different one and I use that song, the lyrics and the feeling its music gives me to write a fic.

song is cry baby by the neighbourhood

also, maybe im projecting or maybe im affected by fallon carrington singing her wedding vows lol. also the photo of ethan here, sooooo cute

request // nope

summary // Reader has a hard time trusting people. When Ethan comes into their life it get’s worse. Reader is preparing for unavoided heartbreak but Ethan just might change their mind heart.

They were too stuck in their own thoughts for this relationship. Maybe it started at the wrong time or it was the perfect time but they had the wrong mind. They felt like a narcissist, making everything about them, while having a hard time hearing his side.

He was perfect, too perfect to ever be in this relationship, and maybe that thought scared them. Living around people who only cared about themselves, people who never cared how much they hurt Y/N, they were afraid to admit they might be doing the same to him.

They had not been together for long, only a few months, but the man acted as if he knew them forever. He did not care if they knew each other for a month or five, he was not willing to let them suffer alone. There were the two am panic attacks, calling Ethan at that time, waking him from his sleep, crying about the inability to calm their mind and sleep. He never complained. Or the days he spend at their house, Y/N having a hard time getting off bed, the depressive episodes hitting a little too hard; Ethan spend those days rubbing their back, making sure that they were alright.

Maybe that is what drove Y/N to be defensive, maybe their mind was alarmed by the man’s caring behavior -something so unfamiliar yet needed for them- that they felt defensive every time he was around. Maybe they spoke too much, and they thought the man would be scared away from them. “I’m not going away, Y/N, not for a long time, not at all if it’s on my hand,” he’d say after every fight, when Y/N would say yet another thing they did not mean. He was just too perfect.

“I really meant what I said that, Y/N,” he all but whispered to his lover. “I do love you.”

“Don’t say that, Ethan. How do you even know, it’s too soon!” Excuses, excuses, excuses and more excuses to plain and simple sabotage to themselves.

“You just know, when you know, amore, and I do.”

They could not look at his eyes anymore, afraid that with just one glance from the man their tears would fall, their guards would fall. And, if they let the guards fall even for a moment, it made them vulnerable to twice the heartbreak. So their eyes stayed glued to the floor, never leaving or daring to think about looking elsewhere. Every other place felt like a danger zone.

“You don’t have to say it back, amore, but you can not expect me not to.”

The fear never left, the fear that the young man was lying. He could not actually feel that way, could he?

Just as Y/N spiraled into yet another anxiety attack, there he was again with his soothing words and his soft touch on their face, his breath so close and so fresh hitting their face. “I’ve got you, it’s ok, follow my breath baby, come on, you are doing amazing, that’s it…” It did not take long for them to calm down a bit. Maybe it was the fact that a person finally respected their emotions rather than getting offended by them, but they felt safe even if only for a moment. “I’m here, I love you.”

It kept happening, over and over and over again. The man would profess his love but his love was not ready to believe him. It got him exhausted. He did not mind waiting for them to say the words back, he understood their past and their pain and how hard it is to vocalize something you feel. What he did mind was their active refusal to believe him, so it was the time to confront them.

“Hey, Y/N, do you have a moment?” If a single phrase could put their mind in a frenzy it was this one. The words could not form so they simply nodded their head, moving towards the sitting man.

“Look, Y/N, I-”

“If you are to break up with me just do it,” they said, the words leaving their mouth before even getting the chance to be filtered. They did not want to say that, hell they simply did not want Ethan to break up with them, but the fear was impossible to be hidden.

“What?! Amore, are you even listening to yourself?” He was exasperated. How could Y/N possibly think that, even now, after almost a year together. It hurt the man, it hurt him how much they refused to open up but it also hurt him that someone caused that fear to them before.

“I know what is happening, Ethan. I know I am hurting you with my inability to say those stupid words back. I’ve heard what you said to Victoria the other night -I did not mean to (!)-” “Hey, hey, let’s pause for a second there, amore. I’m not breaking up with you, that is not the problem. But, if you really heard what I said to Vic that night you would not be saying what you are,” he paused for a moment, taking a deep breath, holding his lover’s face between his palms, “I’ve told you countless times I love you, and I will never take that back. I know you do, too. You don’t say it but you show it, but my love, the issue is not the words. The issue is you don’t believe me.”

Y/N was left speechless, not knowing what to say to the man besides that he is right. They’ve been having a really hard time believing that they even slightly deserve this love, the love that the Italian drummer in question has given them more than enough of. He was so kind, so caring, so loving that the more the relationship progressed the harder they found it to believe in his words.

“You can’t possibly truly love me, Ethan,” Y/N said calmly, tears in their eyes, mostly from anger, anger targeted at their mind.

“Then why are you even with me, Y/N? Huh? If you don’t believe that why are we together for almost a year now?!” The high volume of his voice was a stark contrast to the soft and collected tone he usually had, but his emotions were starting to take over and it was utterly obvious at this point.

Y/N did not know what to do, being left speechless for the second time in less than two minutes. Their mind raced for an excuse, a reason as to why they kept being with him if they really did not believe him, until the answer came to them and it was like a lightbulb going off: “Because I know that I love you.”

It came out almost as a whisper, as if the words were trying to not be heard. It was a strain of their voice, a sudden sob accompanying the words that broke Ethan’s heart. His love, his sweet, sweet love, the person he could not stop yearning for no matter how close they were… they were hurt, afraid of being loved - or more so afraid of being lied to. Ethan pulled Y/N into his arms, hands rubbing comforting cycles, lips letting the sweetest of nothings to come out.

“It’s ok, it’s alright, I got you, I’m here, I’m holding you, I am not leaving, I love you.”

tag list: @bieberhoodforever @tabi-toast @ginny-lily @moriro-da-regina @the-killer-queenie @makapaka11

[darlingandmreames]

I rewatched The Ritual the other night for the first time in a while and am officially Back On My Bullshit, which means lots of thoughts and opinions that I am now going to make everyone else's problem. So without further ado, here are my thoughts on The Ritual's themes, character dynamics, and how the movie (in my opinion) improved upon the book

(spoilers for both the book and the movie)

Themes

So what is The Ritual actually about? I mean, obviously it's about a freaky forest monster that kills people and grants one of those kinds of immortality where you really gotta read the fine print, but underneath all that what is it actually about?

The answer depends a bit on both whether you're talking about the book or the movie, and how detailed you're being about it. Both the book and the movie share the very broad theme of "moving on", but what the characters are "moving on" from is different in each. I'd argue that the book primarily deals with moving on from past chapters in your life- cherishing the good memories, acknowledging and accepting the failures, and moving forward without becoming stuck on either.

The movie, on the other hand, is very explicitly about trauma, pain, and grief, and the process of confronting and moving on (or NOT moving on) from those experiences. This is achieved by the introduction of Rob, a character who didn't exist in the book. His actual appearance in the movie is brief, but his death is the driving force behind the entire movie. It's sudden, violent, and senseless, and it provides a very distinct and viscerally present context for the character interactions moving forward (more on that later). Rob's death faces the characters with a complex, heartbreaking, and traumatic loss and allows the movie to explore what it means to confront and move on from something like that, as well as the consequences of NOT doing so, by making that pain and grief into a very real (and beautifully designed) monster.

And that's where the movie's second major change comes in: the portrayal of the cult. I.... admittedly didn't really care for the cult portion of the book all that much honestly. It wasn't bad and some of my favourite lines were actually from that part of the book, but it felt almost jarringly different from the first part of the book to me. I felt like the heavy metal teen cultists were very much at odds with the sense of sinister supernaturality the first part of the book had spent building.

I loved the cult in the movie though. These are people who worship the personified (monstrified?) pain and grief that stalks the forest. They were chosen to survive specifically because of their own personal pain ("why me?" "Your pain is great") and by worshipping the monster they're kept in the forest and granted an immortality that saves them from death but not decay. It's a beautiful look at the consequences of being unable/unwilling to move on from pain/loss/grief and instead being consumed by it. The cultists are defined by their pain to the point that it eventually warps them into something almost unrecognizable. By worshipping Moder they are literally unable to move on, both physically (they're stuck in the forest) and spiritually (they can't die). Whereas the cult in the book felt jarringly different in tone from the story leading up to it, the cult in the movie tied into the theme beautifully and provided Luke with a look at his future if he allows his own pain to consume him.

Which brings us to....

Characters

A stories themes are often best portrayed through it's characters, and in this case that mostly means Luke.

Luke in the book is....well, to be honest, he isn't really that sympathetic or even that likeable when we first meet him or really for a large chunk of the story, at least not in my opinion. He's a 36 year old man-child who's clearly still chasing the glory of his college days and who's life up until now has mostly been characterized by failures, flakiness, and not taking responsibility for any of it. And on top of that, he's angry. The kind of angry that's violent, easily provoked, and generally unwarranted. All of the characters are facing failures at the end of this chapter of their lives to some degree (such as Phil being separated from his wife), but Luke is very clearly the least well adjusted- and least sympathetic- of them. His character arc revolves around him learning to move on from this previous chapter in his life, accepting the good and the bad and finally being willing to move forward with determination. In the beginning of the book Luke is characterized by indifference and petulant anger that masks fear and doubt, but he ends the book with a desire to move forward and determination to survive.

The inclusion of Rob and his subsequent death COMPLETELY changes Luke's character though and, in my opinion, makes him FAR more compelling and sympathetic. We still get similar notes to where he starts out as we did in the book; whereas Rob, Dom, Hutch, and Phil have all clearly settled down and moved on from their uni days, Luke obviously hasn't. This is made clear in his suggestions for the lad's holiday, his wanting to get a bottle of liquor after they leave the bar, and his conversation with Rob when they're in the liquor store. Movie!Luke really isn't all that different from book!Luke in the first scene or two.

Rob's brutal murder profoundly changes Luke's character though. He's left dealing with the grief and loss left in the wake of Rob's death, as well as the guilt associated with not having been able to stop it. By taking a character that may not otherwise be particularly sympathetic or likeable and having the audience watch him experience a deeply horrifying and traumatic loss, the movie makes Luke into an extremely compelling character and set him for a far more emotionally engaging character arc as he struggles to cope with both his grief and his guilt.

As I mentioned above, the cult in the movie provides Luke with a glimpse of the consequences of allowing his pain and grief to consume him. Now, the cult in the book sort of does the same thing- the indifferent anger and violence of the cultists mirrors Luke's own anger covering his fear and doubt and shows what could happen if he embraced that part of him. But the cult in the movie, in my opinion, works far better in this role because they feel more thematically and tonally in line with the rest of the movie and because Luke is a more sympathetic character. His decision to accept or reject that path carries more weight because we care about him. Moreover, accepting the same path as the cultist would provide him with a community that understands his pain, something he very much did not have with his friends; we understand that accepting the cult is a bad decision, but we also understand why Luke would be tempted to do so. Simply put, we feel for him and that makes the presentation of this choice much more emotionally impactful.

Interestingly, Luke's character arc in both the book and the movie end with him developing the desire and determination to survive. It comes from two very different places though. In the book, it revolves around Luke's willingness to finally close out the previous chapter of his life- highs and lows and all- and move forward into the future despite the fear and uncertainty doing so may provoke.

In the movie, though, this decision comes within the context of Luke's survivor's guilt. He feels guilty over Rob's death because he wasn't able to intervene and this guilt is reinforced by the other characters, most notably Dom and, later, Hutch. His decision to reject Moder, to fight back and refuse to kneel, represents not only his decision to move on from his grief and trauma but also the acknowledgement that despite what happened he still has worth and his life is still worth living. It also resolves his struggle with his inability to help (which plays a large role in his guilt), something that comes into play in all of the deaths in the movie even beyond Rob's. In Hutch's death Luke tried to find him but was unable to find him until it was far too late. In Phil's death he's initially paralyzed before running away, both in fear, in much the same way he did in Rob's death. In Dom's death he was able to take the necessary steps to help Dom (dislocating his thumb to get out of the restraints) but was ultimately too late and was forced to watch Dom die anyways. By recognizing that he still has worth and that is life is worth living, Luke is able to act in spite of his fear and make the decision not to allow his grief, pain, and trauma to consume him.

No discussion of Luke as a character is completely without also discussing how he interacts with the other characters and hoooo BOY did the movie really ratchet those interactions up a notch or ten. The interactions in the book were well written but they admittedly felt a little one note at times (though this is also probably somewhat due to me viewing book!Luke as not particularly likeable or sympathetic). By including Rob's death the movie adds a layer of complexity to the character interactions that I felt really wasn't there in the book and we get to see the interpersonal effects of traumatic loss. Luke may have been the only one to witness Rob's death but they're all grieving him, and we get to see how that (and how Luke's friends' perception of his role in Rob's death) impacts and strains their relationships. As I mentioned earlier, we see very clearly that Luke doesn't have any real support or understanding from his friends; Dom does little to hide the fact that he views Luke as directly responsible for what happened and while Hutch does initially attempt to provide support, it comes off as superficial and he later admits he isn't sure whether he blames Luke. Luke is very clearly struggling with what happened but can't turn to the people he would normally rely on for support, and his interactions with his friends often alienate him and further reinforce the guilt and blame he's grappling with rather than provide any source of comfort. This, again, makes the temptation to submit to Moder and join the cult, to give into his pain and grief and loss and let it consume him, that much more compelling and his choice to reject it that much more meaningful.

Overall, the movie's decision to add in Rob and his subsequent death and to change how the cult was portrayed was, in my opinion, a truly excellent one and helped move the movie from a story I would've enjoyed but shrugged off into legitimately one of my favourite movies of all time. It allowed for a more thematically and tonally consistent story and made both Luke and his character arc more sympathetic, compelling, and emotionally impactful. When it comes to adaptations I generally tend to enjoy the book more than the movie, but this is one of the few exceptions where I truly believe the movie significantly improved upon the book

[holidaywishes]

Marry You

Requested: 👍

  Summary/Request: Can you please do number ten of the music prompts with Brock Boeser? it’s a beautiful night, we’re looking for something dumb to do / hey baby, i think i wanna marry you” (marry you, glee version or bruno mars)

  Warning: fluff

  Author’s Note: Here is another music prompt request! These are so fun to do and they’re relatively easy so, obviously, I like that. So, if y’all have any requests for more music prompts, send ‘em my way! I hope you enjoy this fluffy little Brock Boeser imagine. Stay Golden, Loves <3!

  masterlist

  the other masterlist

xx

Brock’s P.O.V

  You couldn’t say you were a huge fan of weddings. Dancing and drinking aside, it was a lot of overly sentimental people gushing about the bride and letting the groom mindlessly wander around but this wasn’t about you. It was about your girlfriend, who’s best friend was getting married to her high school sweetheart

  “Don’t be bitter” you joked

  “Don’t be an ass” she joked back and you gasped sarcastically

  “I would never” 

  “Brock, I’m serious. I know you hate weddings but this day is important to Shelley,” she pleaded, “so it’s important to me, got it?”

  “Got it” you said, pressing a kiss to her forehead before leading her out to the car. She cried during the ceremony, like you knew she would, and you kept your arm around her so she would know that at least you were trying. You had to drive about an hour and a half to get to the reception, talking (Y/N) into stopping for something to eat because “wedding food sucks! you have to admit that”

  “Fine, yes. But we have to be quick okay?” you smiled, pulling into the parking lot of an A&W, “really?” she chuckled

  “It’s the first thing I saw and they’re fast” she scoffed at your response but followed you inside. You got your order and found a booth so you could huddle together in, like you always did, before you tried to steal her fries

  “HEY!” she laughed, “you have your own fries”

  “I like yours better” you teased

  “Pssht, yeah right,” she scoffed, “fry thief.” The two of you had been dating for about two years but you both agreed that work was a priority, even when yours and her friends were all getting engaged or having kids. You could see that she was thinking about it. You caught her on more than one occasion looking up wedding dresses and available venues. She even went so far as to buy Bridal magazines in line at the grocery store. You just weren’t there yet.

  “So.. do you know what their first dance song is?” you asked

  “Yes,” she smiled, “it’s that Shania Twain song, You’re Still the One”

  “Oh that’s so cheesy!” you groaned

  “I KNOW!” she replied, leaning into your chest, “but it’s Shell’s favourite song. She always wanted it to be her first dance song and when she met Craig--”

  “Craig and Shelley..” he interrupted with a scoff, “what suburban names”

  “‘Cause Brock is so edgy...” she chirped, “anyway, when she met Craig she had this plan to see if they’d last. They’d go on their date and she’d find some way to play the song for him and, depending on his reaction, it would mean something to her about the state of their relationship”

  “That sounds crazy...”

  “It worked!” she said, sitting back up, “they fell in love, they have their first dance to their song, her favourite song, it’s perfect”

  “For them...” you corrected and she rolled her eyes

  “Yes, Brock,” she smirked, “for them”

  “We should probably head out...”

  “Okay” she smiled, leaning up for you to kiss her before hopping out of the booth. You made your way to the reception, (Y/N) flipping through the available radio stations while you tried to find the right road

  “Babe,” you said, “I think we’re lost”

  “Very funny, B” she scoffed

  “I’m serious, (Y/N),” you admitted, “I must have taken a wrong turn or something...”

  “What?” she exclaimed, “well what do we do?”

  “Hold on,” you replied, “I’m sure we can get there”

  “You’re just doing this so we don’t have to go to the reception” she chuckled

  “Not true,” you added with a laugh, “I was distracted by your inability to pick a song”

  “Smart ass”

  “You know it!” she laughed as you turned around, making your way back onto the main road. It didn’t take long for you to figure out where you were going, a fact that you made sure to gloat about to your girlfriend, pulling up in front of the hall and helping her out of the car, winking at her as she wrapped her arm around yours, “what do you want your first dance to be?”

  “It depends who it’s with, I guess...” she said, pushing you teasingly, her face lighting up when she saw the room. “Wow,” she chuckled, “I didn’t expect.. all of this”

  “Really?” you scoffed, “I did”

  “You did not!” she hit your shoulder, directing you to the table to find your seating arrangements, “you didn’t even think about what this would look like”

  “Tell me something,” you said, ignoring her point, “if Shelley is so important to you and you’re so important to her, why aren’t you in the bridal party?” she gasped at your question, taking her arm away from you

  “Wow,” she said, “low blow, Boeser, low blow” you shook your head as the two of you sat down in your seats. You took her hand and brought it to your lips, watching as she smirked at you

  “I didn’t mean anything by it babe” you whispered

  “I know” she said before kissing your cheek

  “I’m gonna ask again...” you teased, “what do you want your first dance song to be?”

  “I don’t know, it depends on what kind of dance it is...” she said, “and that depends on the person”

  “So if you were marrying me...?”

  “Oh we’d definitely need a dance routine,” she laughed, “maybe something cheesy like Can’t Stop This Feeling or something fun like How Sweet It Is”

  “You don’t think I’m serious enough for like... Sarah McLachlan?”

  “If that’s what you wanted... or what suited us, then yeah,” she smiled, “I didn’t really see you as that guy but hey, maybe I’m wrong”

  “No you’re not wrong,” you admitted, “I just wanted you to say that I could be Mr. Sensitive”

“You wanna be Mr. Sensitive?” she smirked, placing her fingers under your chin and bringing your lips closer to yours

“Not all of me” you joked and she pushed you away

“Behave.”

xx

Once Shelley and Craig entered the hall and everyone had their food, people began to strike up lovely conversations until the first dance was announced; you paid close attention to Brock’s reaction, smacking him when he pretended to fall asleep. He managed to stay positive for the rest of the night though you suspected the alcohol had more to do with that than his attitude but when the party seemed to die down early, he got grumpy

“Hey!” you yelled in a whisper, “be nice! It’s a wedding not a... club”

“Club?” He laughed and you rolled your eyes in return

“People are allowed to hang out when they’re tired, they don’t have to be drunk and dancing throughout the whole night...”

“These people are old...” he whined, “let’s just get out of here, go somewhere. Just the two of us”

“Brock, it’s a wedding. My best friends wedding”

“Yeah, a best friend who wouldn’t even make you a bridesmaid. Some best friend” he scoffed before finishing off his beer

“You know what?” you smiled to yourself, not believing the words that were about to leave your mouth, “you’re right!”

“Wait... I am?” he said, confused

“Yeah! We’re young, we’re alive... let’s act like it!” You took his hand and rushed toward the door, “I don’t even think they’re here anymore”

“I don’t either!” He laughed, running in front of you so you could jump on his back. He took you, first, to grab a drink at a bar down the street, “chug it, baby,” he laughed, “we have a lot to do!”

“I can’t chug bourbon”

“Then you shouldn’t have ordered it!” When you finished your drink, he paid and turned around so you would jump onto his back once more.

“Off we go!” You laughed, pointing your finger to the door to direct him outside as he laughed in return. The two of you wandered all over the city, stopping in bars when either of you wanted a drink or a shot, laughing at each other’s terrible jokes, and almost buying out a convenience store when you wanted candy. It felt like the easiest thing in the world, to be with him, like this, but there was a part of you that was nervous about what your future looked like

“Do you not believe in marriage?” You blurted out, making your boyfriend chuckle

“What?”

“I just— I wanna know if you hate weddings because you don’t like the extravagance of them or if it’s because you.. don’t believe in marriage”

“Ugh,” he groaned, “I don’t know. I mean you look at married couples and like what? Half of them get divorced, a percentage that stay together only stay together because they have kids. Plus, they’ve spent all their money on one night before they’re marriage even starts so they’re struggling to get back to how they were before all of that”

“But money isn’t everything...” you tried

“No but it puts its strain on relationships and I just don’t get why people get so focused on the importance of a piece of paper”

“Why are you so cynical?” you laughed, linking your arm with his

“I’m not cynical...” he corrected, “I just wanna be... with someone who loves me with no strings attached. With no fear of something changing that”

“Why would the love change when you get married?” You scoffed, “I would think it would make the love stronger”

“But wouldn’t there be resentment too?”

“I don’t think so...”

“Look, let’s just enjoy this beautiful night, forget about marriage and everything for a bit okay?”

“Fine,” you scoffed, “come sit with me.” You sat on a small bench and looked up at the stars, holding onto Brock’s hand while your head fell gently on his shoulder. He had made his feelings on marriage clear and the love you had for him felt like it could last but it also felt like a ticking time bomb, “I love you” you said quietly, still looking up at the stars, the wind blowing across the street, sweeping the length of your dress up with it

“I love you, too” he whispered. You could feel him looking at you so you shifted so he couldn’t see you smiling to yourself, “do you wanna marry me?” He asked and you scoffed

“What?”

“Come on...” he moved, turning his body to face you, “I love you, you love me, let’s go do something dumb!”

“Something dumb? Getting married is dumb?”

“I didn’t mean it like that” he sighed

“So why would you say it?”

“Do you wanna marry me?” He asked again and you looked at his eyes, a glimmer of light dancing across his blue irises and you smiled at the question; earning a smile from him as he squeezed your hands

“No” you replied softly, placing your hand on his cheek before kissing his lips

“What?” He whispered back

“I love you, Brock,” you answered, “but I want you to want to marry me. Because you can’t imagine life without me. Not because you’re bored and the sky is beautiful and the wind is blowing my perfume in your direction” you smirked, laying your head back on his shoulder. “But I’m glad you asked”

“You are?”

“Yeah,” you laughed, “‘cause now I know you wanna marry me”

“I could’ve just asked because I was bored”

“No.. you wanna marry me” you teased happily before turning your gaze to a shooting star and he kissed the top of your head.

“Don’t let it go to your head” he smirked

“You loooove me” you laughed

“I do love you”

“And you wanna marry me”

“Let’s just.. not talk” he stuttered, pulling you close to him

“I love you.”

[glenncoco4]

You Can Count On Me

A/N: Chapter 4

••••

4 months later...

Hetty walks into the bullpen, interrupting Kensi and Sam’s conversation, and quickly notices one looking a little worse for wear. “Ms. Blye. Mr. Hanna. Oversleep again, did you?”

Kensi tries to bite back a smile as the ex-SEAL gets called out because of his partner’s inability to show some decorum when it comes to being a house guest.  

The OSP Manager begins to pace back and forth between the desks before abruptly stopping. “Early this morning, I got a call from the LAPD. They’ve lost contact with Detective Deeks. He’s been on an extended undercover assignment since he left us.”

Callen walks up to his desk just in time to hear his boss’ announcement. “How long has he been out of contact?”

“Yesterday afternoon.” The small woman quickly answers. 

“It’s kind of soon to be hitting the panic button, isn’t it?” Sam states, wondering why LAPD is so quickly to sound the alarm on a detective that’s undercover. 

Hetty nods in understanding as she turns to the tech operator. “Mr. Beale.” 

The three agents turn towards the screen being met with an image of a charred car. All knowing that it’d be almost impossible to survive something like that. “14 hours ago, a bomb detonated in this car in South Central. Two occupants, both killed.”

“Emilio Ortega and his bodyguard, Luis Fellano.” Eric states, sending a wave of relief through the junior agent’s body. 

Hetty looks to Kensi,  knowing that this situation will be affecting her more than the others. “They were both targets of Detective Deeks’ undercover assignment.” As soon as she locks eyes with the brunette, Hetty watches the sinking feeling cross her features. 

As dread fills her heart, Kensi’s mind can’t help but go back to the first time she feared for her best friend’s life.

Her eyes go wide in terror as her father turns down the street and the raging inferno spews from Marty and Bertie’s new apartment.“Daddy!” 

Quickly pulling up to the building and slamming on the breaks, Don and Kensi both jump out of the truck. The older man turns to his little girl. “Baby girl, I need you to go next door and call 911.”

“But, dad.”

“Do it!” 

Before she can respond again, she watches her father run towards the front door, kicking it in just a gulf of flames come out. Once clear, he covers his nose and rushes into the apartment. 

The 9 year old feels as if time is slowly passing by, it feels like hours before she’s able to pull herself together and start towards the neighbor’s house, doing what her father told her. She’s just about to start heading next door when a sudden shatter pulls her attention back to the building. 

As the smoke continues to build, Marty hurriedly runs out the front door, coughing and wheezing. His eyes are burning but suddenly become clearer when his eyes meet hers. The shaggy blonde watches as his best friend rushes over to him, panic written clear across her features. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better.”

Shaking her head, the brunette carefully avoids the gash across his left forearm and throws the other around her shoulder helping him towards the blue pickup truck. She opens the tailgate, prompting him to sit down before she rushes to the front seat, returning with a bottle of water and old rag. Kensi douses the rag with some water before handing the bottle over to Marty and starts to wipe the soot off his face. “What happened?”

“He found us.”

Her brow furrows in confusion before it hits her. He? Gordon. “He…where is he now?” 

Marty takes a sip of water and turns back to the inflamed building once again. “Your dad, he was-“

A loud explosion interrupts the 12 year old, making both their eyes go wide in trepidation. 

She may be young but only takes a few seconds after seeing the explosion that makes her realize what it most likely means for her dad and Roberta. “Oh my god.”

“Kensi!”

The two pair of eyes fly to the side of the building as Don comes into view, in his arms Roberta’s limp body lays, blood running down her face. “Marty, buddy, hop up.”

The blonde does as he’s told, watching as the man who’s more like a father to him than his own lays his mother down on the tailgate. “Is she okay?”

“Yes, she’s going to be fine. Gordon just hit her over the head.”

“Where is he?” Kensi questions, looking around ready to open a can of whoop ass. 

“He’s had a knife. I had to fight him off.” Don turns his attention away from Roberta and towards the 12 year old, a frown playing at his lips. He knows how horrible Gordon treated the pair and frankly he’s not sorry for how it ended. “He’s not gonna hurt either of you any more.”

As Don’s words it him, tears begin to pool in his eyes as a sudden sense of relief takes over his being. Before he can truly process what’s happening, Don places his hand on the boy’s shoulder, pulling him in for a hug to end all dad hugs. “Thank you.”

“Kensi?”

She’s drawn out of her thoughts, at the sound of the team leader calling her name. “Huh?”

“Did you get all that?” Sam questions, noticing she’s caught a bit off guard, who could blame her. 

She shakes her head, trying to focus her attention back to the present. “I’m sorry, what?”

Stepping up to her, the ex-Navy SEAL bends down, now eye level with her, his eyes gaining the attention of hers. “Hey, look at me. I know you’re close to this. Can you keep your head in the game?”

She nods before taking a deep calming breath. “Of course.”

“Okay, now lets go talk to Detective Traynor and see if we can get your boy back.”

Her boy. She wishes.

••••

She steps inside the boat shed, immediately meeting the eyes of her best friend’s handler. “Hey, Jess.”

Detective Traynor takes the agents offered hug. “Hey, Kens, I’m doing everything I can to find him?”

“I know.” She nods, knowing that after her, Jess is one of the people that Marty can trust and has a solid relationship with.

Hearing the door close, Kensi turns towards her teammates. “Jess, this is agents Callen and Hanna.”

Each of the boys shake her hand before quickly getting to the situation at hand. 

“Detective Traynor, tell us what you know.” Callen asks, knowing how pertinent each and every single detail is.

The three listen as the detective explains the situation and operation that Deeks is involved in. 

As Jess is explaining the case, Kensi can see in her teammates eyes that they’re thinking Jess and Marty may have had something going on by the way she’s talking about him. Little do they know that the detective is batting for the other team, Jess that is. It kinda makes her smile for a brief moment as she thinks back to when she and Marty unexpectedly ran into the detective and her girlfriend at the beach one evening. The pure and utter surprise written on her best friend’s face was the definition of a Kodak moment. But it was her elbow connecting with his ribs, making him wince after he mentioned that she should join the girlfriends for a threesome, that really makes her smile. 

••••

Once Jess leaves Kensi and the guys decide to head back to the mission to see if Eric has any lead. Just as she steps outside, her phone starts buzzing. She quickly pulls it from her pocket, seeing an unknown number and pushes the green button, hoping and praying to anyone that will listen that it’s him. “Marty?”

“Kens.”

“Where are you?”

“Our spot.”

She takes a deep calming breath, focusing on the sound of his voice. “Okay, just stay there. I’m on my way.”

“Kens?” 

Her throat strains, trying to stop herself from crying as she hears the turmoil in his voice. “Yeah?”

“I...”

He’s still stunned, and she knows it. She can’t help but think about the photos of the charred car and how close he was to losing his life. How close she was to losing him. “I know. I know. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

[captaincvans]

Chapter Five: Hello

03/09/20

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Word Count: 1430+

Warnings: Language

Series Masterpost

A/N: I decided to split the last chapter because I’m still very undecided about how I should end this. If you have a few kind words to spare, please leave some in my Ask- I really need it. 

Chris’s POV

The first time I saw her in real life after our breakup was before the trial. She was standing outside the doors with a white blouse and black pencil skirt with nude heels to match. She looked like she lost a few pounds from the last time he saw her, her makeup doing little to hide the dark circles underneath her eyes. My eyes were drawn to her stomach, seeing it unchanged from the last time I saw her made it all real that something had happened with our baby. Perhaps there wasn’t even a baby to begin with? Only she can answer my questions. But do I deserve an answer?

There was a necessary trial for Daniel and John to be convicted, and as much as they tried to keep it private, they couldn’t stop the press from waiting hours outside the court. Finally it was their turn to stand in trial, we all made our statements, including Y/N. She avoided looking at me, opting to look at the back of the room as she stuttered through her statement. I frowned at her unease, heart clenching everytime she jolted when a new voice cut her off. Finally when she was dismissed, she ran to the back of the room, sitting down at the bench chair.

Finally, the investigation was finally over, the jury found John and  guilty of all charges. My lawyers comforted me that this was all just procedures. A trial was just a necessary step, and that there will be administrative paperworks still after this. Either way, I just wanted this to be over. I thanked my lawyer again, and parted ways. Naturally, I was looking around for Y/N. I saw my family motioning for us to make our leave, but I raised my hand, silently asking them for a few minutes. I found Y/N in the corner, peering at the entrance, her face etched into worry and fear at the sight of the crowd of people. My heart broke, seeing her display her vulnerability with no one to support her was enough to make me want to build a time machine and break my face before I had the chance to break her heart. I slowly approached her like one would to a wounded animal, heart racing at the thought of speaking to her again.  

“How are you getting home?” I asked, wincing at how the volume of my voice seems to be amplified when she jumped to look at me.

Her eyes widened with surprise and something else I couldn’t put my hand on, before shifting her view to the floor. “My car,” she mumbled.

“Your car?” I repeated, straining to make sure I heard right. When she nodded, I nodded my head coming to a decision before speaking again. “Where are you parked?”

“Back of the parking lot.”

“Okay. I’m going to ask if there’s another exit we can take. I’ll be back.” I made my way to my bodyguard, going through the options of a different exit, and unfortunately they only had the back doors that were for staff only. We had to go through the front entrance if we wanted to get to her car. “Hey, there’s no other entrance that we can use, but me and Eric will take you to your car,” I nodded towards my bodyguard, thumb sticking out in his direction.

“You don’t have to,” she mumbled, her eyes never once leaving the floor.

“I want to.”

The crowd was in a frenzy as the two got out of the building. My bodyguard and I flanked on either side of Y/N, trying to protect her as they tried to navigate through the crowd. I placed a hand on her lower back, remembering the times I would tuck her by my side as we ran away from the shutter of the cameras around us. I knew it wasn’t easy for her to be in the spotlight like this, she was never one to ask for attention from the public. I resisted pulling her closer, knowing it would draw unnecessary headlines and more trouble for her than I was worth. There was so much I wanted to say, so many things I wanted to apologize for, but I knew this wasn’t the right time. I lowered myself near her face when she got into her car as Eric fended off the crowd, I just needed her to know one thing. “I’m so sorry about everything, Y/N. If I could I would go back in time and re-do that whole night, I would do it in a heartbeat.” I had no intention of asking her to call me or give me another chance, it was not a burden I wanted her to carry. She looked up at me, eyes wide and shiny, a permanent look of unease etched in her furrowed eyebrows, and I felt my own eyes prick with unshed tears. “I love you, Y/N,” I whispered, ignoring the ache in my chest when she closed her eyes and a tear escaped. I made sure she was tucked in the car properly before gently closing the door, and turning back to the crowd, trying to move them away from her car.

I walked back to my family, a tight feeling in my chest growing. They all smiled at me sympathetically, unable to offer anything more than their presence. I knew they wanted me to reach out to Y/N, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. I had no right to come crawling back to her after hurting her this much. It’s as if the three years together went down the drain with my inability to hold back and listen. Y/N knows about my trust issues, she’s the one who would validate me when I felt like an asshole whenever I drew boundaries with people. How could I have not believed her?

-

It was another month of finishing up all the paperworks that Chris finally had time to sit down and think about his next steps. Right now he’s taking a break from the industry, being a free agent as his friends would call it, and focusing on himself as well as his friends and family. More than ever, the whole ordeal helped him realize who his actual friends were. Some stood by him, and some disappeared the minute they heard he was bleeding money thinking it was going to be permanent. He got up, checking his phone to see that his mom texted him about having dinner. He responded that he would be there, and went back to his photos app, pulling one up of him and Y/N at his birthday dinner a few months prior things went to shit. Over the past month he thought a lot about the reason he didn’t believe his girlfriend of three years. He had to take a good look at all his flaws, opening Pandora's box of everything he hated about himself. He had to admit that he was a commitment-phobe, that he’s been looking for a way out since he thought about proposing and settling down with her. He hated the feeling of being enveloped, so he tore it to shreds before it could even happen. It was something his therapist told him when he retold her the events of what happened, and it took him awhile to process the fact that his three-year relationship crumbled because of his childish fear of being trapped.

He sighed, leaning his head back against the couch. “What am I gonna do?” Just then his phone pinged. His heart skipped a beat as he recognized the familiar numbers. 

<– (Chapter 4)          (Chapter 6) –>

- Tag List -

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[starseed-twenty]

Chakra Healing

disclaimer: some of the notes here come from a good website I found on Healing: https://shop.liveyourtruth.com/pages/healing-center-chakra

Root Chakra – aka Muladhara – aka Earth Chakra

Problems –

-         “I feel like I don’t belong in this world.”

-         “I am afraid of spending money because I might run out.”

-         “I tend to need permission from others to make myself a priority.”

-         Difficulty prioritizing own needs and a sense of belonging/groundedness.

-         Straying away from reality a lot.

-         Blocked by fear.

Activating –

-         The feeling of belonging in this body, this life, with this existence.

-         Contributing to the good things of this world without overcommitting (e.g. spending money)

-         Feeling connected to life’s purpose and attracting money with a good flow of spending it too.

-         Accumulating a lot of money and being okay with making good money.

 Sacral Chakra – aka Svadhisthana – aka Water Chakra

Problems –

-         “I hold back tears when I feel like crying.”

-         “I experience guilt throughout the day.”

-         “I find it hard to experience pleasure.”

-         Lack of feeling liberated, free to be creative & sexual, safety in close relationships.

-         Blocked by guilt.

Activating –

-         Feeling safe and secure in own skin, body, mind.

-         Having confidence in exuding own creativity, sexuality, emotions.

-         Blocking all forms of unnecessary guilt.

-         Allowing thyself to feel and experience pleasure with no guilt.

-         Forgiving and being okay with the things you’ve done.

Solar Plexus Chakra – aka Manipura – aka Fire Chakra

Problems –

-         “In relationships, others can manipulate or have power over me.”

-         “I have a pattern of putting my own desires second.”

-         “I feel powerless to change my life.”

-         Self-sabotage through allowing others to inconspicuously manipulate you.

-         Lack of courage leading to resentment.

-         Blocked by shame.

Activating –

-         Strong ability to own your own power.

-         The spirit of defending yourself and others.

-         Not being ashamed, and accepting all aspects of who you are.

-         Creating healthy collaborative relationships.

-         Seen as [and see yourself] as an inspiration.

 Heart Chakra – aka Anahata – aka Love Chakra

Problems –

-         “It’s hard for me to honestly say ‘I honestly love myself’.”

-         “I have a hard time forgiving others.”

-         “I don’t feel worthy of love.”

-         Experiencing a lot of loneliness, grief or a broken heart

-         Fear in expressing emotion.

-         Negatively overthinking oneself / people.

-         Feeling envy a lot & carrying hate in the heart.

-         Blocked by hate & resentment.

Activating –

-         Loving yourself and feeling peaceful.

-         Forgiving and living with a lighter heart.

-         Allow honest emotions to be expressed.

-         Feeling deeply positive and thinking positive about oneself and own emotions.

-         Being loving and allowing others to love you and support you.

Throat Chakra – aka Visuddha - aka Sound Chakra

Problems –

-         “I tend to say what I think others want to hear.”

-         “I have a hard time speaking up in a group.”

-         “I feel like other people don’t hear me.”

-         Straining yourself from saying what you really think.

-         Tendency to lie or bend the truth a lot.

-         Worrying that nobody will listen to you, leading to passiveness.

-        Blocked by lies (including the ones we tell ourselves).

Activating –

-         Speaking with authority, honesty and compassion.

-         Being comfortable and confident with speaking.

-         Allowing yourself to healthily express your needs, desires, fears.

-         Enjoying being heard and supported.

-         Good belief that someone is listening to you (including yourself).

 Third Eye Chakra – aka Ajna – aka Light Chakra

Problems –

-         “I worry that things will never change.”

-         “I have a hard time seeing my next step forward.”

-         “Life is depressing, why do I have to experience it?”

-         Mental confusion or foggy thinking, many thoughts clouding up your mind (also leading to a lot of headaches).

-         Inability to hear your inner voice.

-         Having a lot of illusions (unexplainable thoughts and theories that are unhealthy).

-         Blocked by illusions.

Activating –

-         Thinking clearly, with mental strength.

-         A feeling of excitement and zeal about life.

-         Trusting your intuition and ideas, with a good mindset.

-         Trusting your own insight & intuition to guide the decisions in your life.

-         Mental capacity to belief in your own. [thoughts, ideas, emotions, body, life path, voice] Knowing all of them begin with the right mindset.

Crown Chakra – aka Sahasrara – aka Thought Chakra

Problems –

-         “I have a hard time recognizing inspiration.”

-         “I feel as if my prayers go unheard by a higher power.”

-         “I feel lost on my spiritual path.”

-         Spiritual confusion and frustration (influenced by earthly ideologies or the idea of having to be 100% realistic).

-         Low to no belief of higher powers/celestial beings/ancestors.

-         Blocked by earthly attachment.

Activating –

-         Naturally thinking more hopeful thoughts.

-         Connecting spiritually to your higher self and divine energy.

-         Ability to tap into universal love for yourself and others.

-         Being able to love and let go of all you’ve grown to love. [Allowing the pure cosmic energy to flow in from the universe.]

-         [personal tip] Believing that the body is here for this life. Your soul is connected to the universe.

-         Ultimately (for every chakra and this one), allowing your soul, mind and body to really feel and release love.

[exosmuttytalk]

Guardian

Characters: Do Kyungsoo, unnamed female OC (told from the perspective of DO)

Genre: angst.

Rating: mature.

Warning: this deals with topics darker than my usual. Death, suicide and mental health problems mentioned. Proceed with caution and take care!

Summary: there is no summary because the core happening of the story is what makes it as a whole, so you gonna have to read to find out lol

(excuse weird formating, I'm on mobile)

First thing I noticed the moment after you quietly stepped through the front door were the deepest dark circles I'd ever seen rimming your eyes.

Your eyes had always been beautiful. Big and bright, they usually shone with a mischievous spark of intelligence and expressivity. Many times I looked at you and wondered how it was me who became the actor when you seemed able to tell stories with your eyes. On the rarer occasion, your eyes also warned me of the times you slipped closer to your darker-than-reality inner world, that one you were able to scape from when you were barely older than a teenager, through sheer will, family support and a necessary dose of drugs to balance your neurotransmitters. But the longer we were together, the more fulfilled your professional life became, the better relationships you held with other people, the more you enjoyed your hobbies, the more seldom I got to see those hints of sadness barely concealed behind fake content smiles.

This time was not one of those rare times. This time, when I looked at you, I felt genuine fear for you.

This time, your eyes did not show sadness. They didn't even look tired. They were just...completely indifferent. They glossed over our living room and didn't even acknowledge my presence, although I had occupied my usual spot at the armchair for quite a few hours already. 

Greetings weren't exchanged either. 

I vaguely remembered last night's fight. Even though we used to pride ourselves in the fact that communication was easy for us, daily life, stress fuelled by our jobs and our inability to sometimes see each other as often as we wanted would put a strain on any relationship. But we always managed to solve those issues. They were never such a big deal for us. Or were they? 

As you carelessly dropped your oversized folder on top of the dining table, I remembered about the project you needed to hand in at the end of this week. 

"How did they like the design this time?" My question was aimed towards finding out what may have caused the icy expression in your eyes. You adored your job at the firm you and some colleagues had set up a few years after you finished your architecture studies. You never missed an opportunity to  ramble on and on about what was your life's passion project; even though most of the times I wasn't able to follow every explanation, I was always happy to listen. 

Not this time. You turned on your heels swiftly and walked into the kitchen, followed closely by Jackie, but leaving me behind with my unanswered question. 

Was it bad enough to deserve this silent treatment? 

I could hear you rummaging through the shelves and then I saw you making your way back to the living room, Jackie swiftly walking behind you. You always cradled Jackie for a little while before opening the can of delicious cat food that would go into her plate. You absolutely adored that little rescue cat and the feeling was mutual; a relationship I had never been able to partake in. But this time, you simply dumped the contents of the can into the bowl and gave the animal a absentmindedly pat on the head. You didn't even look at her. 

After that, you lied down across the sofa in the same clothes you'd gone to work in and pulled out your phone and headphones. That made me wonder where my own phone could be. I was always aware of my terrible memory even if there were more pressing issues at hand. Headphones were covering your ears just seconds after and I was left there, silently wondering what the hell was wrong. 

Maybe you'd had a truly awful day at work? Maybe you were overworked and needed to rest? Could you actually be that mad at me? I truly don't remember what I said, but whatever it was, I'm so sorry. 

As I got lost in my thoughts, Jackie had already finished her food and, after grooming herself a bit, she hopped onto the sofa and nestled herself up against your belly. That was the only moment I saw you react. You briefly glanced down from your screen to the cozy creature in your lap. But you didn't smile. You didn't pet her. But I got to see your eyes and there was no indifference in them no more. They were miserable. 

I was so scared, baby. I had never seen you so unresponsive and distressed in all our years together. From experience, I knew better than to try to touch you in some instances, so I went for the second best option. I got up and rushed down the hallway to our room, where I supposed I had left my phone. It was time to call your mother, your best friend, whoever was around you when you first had an outbreak. They would know what to do better than me.

I had barely started looking around when I heard the door bell ring. Then I heard it again, insistent. I stopped on my tracks and listened, expecting you to go get it, as you were closer. By the third time, the visitant had switched to knocking and I guessed you weren't able to hear it due to the headphones, so I turned around and rushed back to the front door. 

I peeked through the peephole and felt a rush of relief when I recognised your best friend. Bless her soul, she may actually have some sort of mental connection with you. 

"It's Sarah!" I shouted in your direction, getting no response back. Just before she knocked for a second time, I reached out for the door knob. The door didn't open. I stared at the door knob in confusion. It was the same piece of silver metal that had been attached to that door since we first got the apartment together years ago. The same familiar and innocuous whatnot I made use of every single day. Maybe it was stuck? 

Once again, I reached for it, although this time I was intently watching my right hand. 

My fingers. 

They went right through the knob. As if it wasn't actually there. As if it wasn't even corporeal. 

The impression made me fall down on my butt, but I didn't have time to process anything, as Sarah gave a final loud bang to the door and shouted. 

"I know you're there. You either open yourself or I'll call the police" 

The threat finally made you stand up and go open the door. From my position down on the floor, I could see how you were easily able to grab onto the doorknob to at last let her in. Being sort of your polar opposite on that regard, Sarah immediately latched on to your neck and you stoically responded by patting her back with one of your hands. As for me, I stared at my own hands in disbelief. 

What the fuck was going on!? Could I be dreaming? I tried pinching myself hard and I felt it hurt, but nothing else happened. I was freaking out and seeing both of you in front of me behave in such a mellow way only increased my alarm. 

Of course, Sarah lead the way to the kitchen, pulling your arm and stepping right beside me as if I wasn't having a straight up meltdown down at the floor. Jackie had trotted behind you to the hall and was now looking straight at me with what seemed to me a full of disdain expression. At least someone recognised my presence. 

"When was the last time you ate?" Sarah's usually loud voice came booming from the kitchen. This question was odd enough to spark my interest, so I stood up and headed that way. 

"Yesterday," you responded in a monotone voice. 

Sarah, who had started stocking up plastic boxes full of already prepared food in the freezer, turned around to look at you with an eyebrow raised. 

"You sure about that?" 

"Yeah. Also, there's no point in that, I'm not even hungry," you answered again before turning around to occupy the spot you'd left at the couch. 

To be fair, she had filled the sad looking fridge with at least a week worth of meals for two. Was the fridge that empty last time I checked? 

"Baby, you can't be doing this to yourself."

"I'm not doing anything, OK?" you suddenly snapped back at her. I had never heard you speak to her in that tone. "I am fine and I will be fine. I just need you all to leave me the fuck alone!"

With that said, you went back to adjusting the headphones over your head and to rummaging through your phone. Sarah stared at you with a dispared look on her face.

"And you know that is definitely not healthy. I am done with this. I'm looking for a therapist and you're coming to an appointment on Monday."

"Do whatever the fuck you want. I am not telling you how to live your life." 

Sarah sighed and nodded in response.

"I can't even imagine what you're going through and how absolutely devastated you must be feeling right now. And I know it's barely been a month, but you can't let yourself slip this way, not with your records." 

A month since what? 

You shrugged her worry off. 

"I'm leaving. I will call you later. If anything, please, at least send me an emoji or something so I know you're okay."

You grunted at her before she kneeled down next to the sofa to press a soft kiss to your forehead. Then, she left the house without even glancing at my direction.

I had witnessed the whole scene from a corner of the room and I had grown in my bewilderment with every spoken word.

As soon as I heard the front door softly closing, I walked up to the sofa and circled it, so I was able to see what you were doing that had caused such disagreement. 

"KSoo <3" read the letters at the top of the easily recognizable screen of the chat service we used on a regular basis. As I approached you even closer, I could hear my own voice coming from your headphones. I remeber sending you that audio barely a week ago, when I asked you to make a quick run to the grocery store before coming back home, as I needed some more ingredients for that night's dinner. 

Your eyes were filled with silent tears.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Second part: GUARDIAN II

MASTERLIST!?

Other Kyungsoo shizs

Everyday

Stories of my downfall  + Kai

@exosmutxoxo​

[chaoticly-shy-dragon]

Today was the day.

Today was the day, they were going to execute him.

Today was the day Darth Vader would finally meet the fate, he sentenced so many to.

He, of course, had been on trial, even if it was a closed and discreet one, specifically requested by the Alliance hero and Jedi - Luke Skywalker.

The Dark Lord’s fate was publicly announced on the Holonet approximately a day before the execution.

At first, the early reactions to the sentence were good and happily accepted. Those were the reactions from the high society in the Core.

The backlash that happened during the Coruscant night was massive and utterly unexpected.

Alliance’s posts were brutally attacked on some of the Outer Rim planets, many of the Imperial forces, who had been standing down, were arming up and thousands upon thousands of troopers were preparing to storm the city-planet.

Hundreds of planets started passive measurements against the notion - many planets, from Wobani to Cato Neimoidia, had stopped their trade with the Core.

The still vulnerable Senate was shocked and confused by the whole situation. When the people of Coruscant, started protesting in front of the Senate and the regulation posts that were installed on the planet, many senators didn’t know what to make from it.

The Senate was truly bewildered. Didn’t the people of the Galaxy know what atrocities the man had committed?

No matter what the public thought, in order not to sentence themselves to another war, the Senate agreed to delay or utterly change the sentence.

Once again Darth Vader had to stand a trial, but this time publicly.

The media jumped at the opportunity. Many reporters were sent to different parts of the galaxy to get answers.

The information they found was a bucket of cold water, spilled over the Alliance leaders.

Many articles popped out and with every one of them, the new government grew more and more bewildered.

Stories of Vader allying himself with local rebels to overthrow the Moff in charge of the planet, of him helping the flooded Akiva and other planets having a crisis due to some natural disaster.

Vader was even found responsible for the final liberation of Ryloth, and the death of more than several dozens of warlords from the Hutt clan.

One really fearless reporter even went to Mustafar and got access to Vader’s mission reports. But the real gold found there was an old videotape from around the creation of the Empire. Unfortunately, parts of the video were destroyed (after all Sidious couldn’t allow his apprentice to see Kenobi and his very-much-alive wife escaping the hellish planet), but the reporter still managed to acquire one spectacular Jedi fight (even if they couldn’t see what it had to do with Vader, anything connecting the Jedi was finally allowed once again).

All these articles were slow blows to the government and the idea that they protected.

The final blow came when the public required a meeting with Darth Vader.

At first, the idea seemed fine, after all, what else could possibly go wrong.

They had forgotten the request put in by Luke Skywalker after it came to light that Vader might live. The request for extra medical attention.

The man that they led into the studio had little visual connection to the imposing Dragon of the Empire. The only similarities were the built and the height.

His face was half-covered in a clear mask, showing on full display his scars.

And there were scars. Every visible inch of his skin was covered in scar tissue and was so very pale, that it was whiter than the stormtrooper’s new armor.

The interviewer, the screen directors and staff were starting for quite some time, brought back by the insistent cough of Luke Skywalker who was the one guarding the ex-Sith.

The live broadcast started with easy questions with not so easy answers:

“Are you really Lord Vader?”

“If that’s not your real name, what is it?”

“Why are you in the state of requiring life support suit?”

Then it came down to the hard ones:

“Why were you sentenced to execution in the first place if you haven’t actually done anything of the things they accused you of?”

Darth Vader’s real name was apparently Anakin Skywalker. He had been Jedi for more than ten years and a General in the Clone Wars for three.

He described his life as a Jedi, his inability to fit in because of his past. He explained the non-attachment rule of the Jedi, about the age at which people were accepted into the Order. Anakin told them that the Jedi couldn’t have strong relationships with their birth families and non-Jedi (a fact which surprised the Jedi in the room as much as it surprised the staff). He told them about their decision that a nine years old was too old to become a Jedi (the statement was met with denial and outrage).

He explained that during his years as a Jedi, the Order was mistrustful of him and because of it he grew closer to his friend in the Senate - the Chancellor.

Anakin started talking about the Clone Wars, about the horrors, the atrocities. He told them about the planets ruined because of the inability of the galaxy to listen.

The ex-Sith told them about the clones, his men, who were bred to die and never even complained about it. He told them stories about heroism far beyond the capability of anyone else. He told them about their lack of rights. He told the galaxy how his men fought for the Republic, killed for the Republic, sacrificed their lives for the Republic and the same Republic never gave them citizenship but treated them as objects, possessions.

Almost every member of the crew was moved by his words.

Anakin continued telling them that even if many tried to stop it, the war continued. He told them about how he fell in love, right at the beginning of the war. How he and his angel agreed that they could not live without one another. He told them about the little secret wedding on a Mid-Rim world.

If there had been someone who hadn't been crying, now they were.

Anakin was breathing hard, silent tears running down his cheeks.

He explained the strain the war put on people, who then put the blame on the Jedi. He told them how The Senate ordered the Order around, how they were forced to follow their orders so the Jedi could keep the little favor of the public.

He told them about the propaganda, about the campaigns, about the millions of people dying because there was no more food. About the greedy corporations and clans that spend all their money on more droids and clones, feeding the war machine more and more.

They had called him The Hero With No Fear. He and his Jedi Master became The Team - The Hero and The Negotiator. Unbeatable.

But ironically they were. They were beaten more than once. He had been constantly afraid -for his men, for his wife, for his student, for his brother.

A sob cut off his speech allowing, letting the silence settle.

Finally, they had the courage to ask him how old he had been during the war.

The man, the war veteran left with almost nothing to show for his accomplishments, answered “I was 19 when they sent me on the front. I was 20 when I became a General. My padawan, my apprentice was 14 when they sent her on the front. My men were 10 years old. For those of you, who had read about the war from your pads or in school, let me tell you how old was the youngest Commander- 11. There were teens on the front fighting, getting shot, being tortured for information, and nobody then, found it strange and unnatural,” the man was stopped by a hard pat on his shoulder. Luke Skywalker was looking forward, not seeing anything with a glassy look over his eyes.

The silence was like a heavy blanket over the people. There was horror, anger and sadness, oh so much sadness, in the air, drowning the inhabitants.

Anakin started talking once again. He told the galaxy about Count Yan Dooku of Sereno, once a Jedi Master and a Sith Apprentice, Master of Makashi. He told them about Asajj Ventress, once Jedi Padawan and a Sith Apprentice. He told them about the terror bringing Jedi Killer General Grievous. He told the galaxy their stories, their tragedies. He told them about their deaths.

Anakin was breathing hard, mind somewhere else. He took one much-needed pause and spoke about the rise of the Empire.

He told them about his wife's pregnancy, he told them about his mother’s death. He told them about the sleepless night and the pressure of both sides - the Senate and the Jedi.

The Dark Lord told them about Sidious, about the Grand puppeteer, the master manipulator, the Sith Master behind the war.

Ignoring the viewers' shock, which resonated through the Force, he told them about Order 66, about the Jedi Purge and his own involvement. He told them about the round of applause, Palpatine received when he took control over the galaxy as a whole.

Anakin took a deep breath and told them about Mustafar “I was sent there to kill the Separatist Council. On my way back I met my wife, my angel. She begged me to come with her, to help her raise our baby together, to be happy. She only wanted from me, to come back to her.”

There was something that was utterly broken in Anakin’s gaze, “I didn’t accept, instead I called her a liar and... I tried to kill her.” His voice started trembling from emotions too intense to be understood. “My Jedi Master, Obi-Wan engaged me in a duel to keep me away from her. To keep the galaxy safe from me. We fought as we have never fought before, and in the end, he won - he cut off my three remaining limbs and left me to burn on the shore.”

The broken man ignored the sharp intakes of breaths, the gasps and the sinking feeling of horror that was filling the room.

After a tense pause, Anakin continued “I was found by the Emperor who saved my life and put me in that torture device he called life-support. When I woke, the first thing I did was ask for Padmè, only to be answered that I had killed her.” His voice became more and more emotionless as he kept talking, “Later I found out I had had a psychotic break caused by the stress and lack of sleep. In my weak state, Sidious had managed to influence me even more than before. You asked me why I allowed them to accuse me of crimes I haven’t committed? Because even if I had been manipulated, influenced and lied to, I am still the person who took those choices. I am the horrible human being that helped a man commit a genocide, helped a man create a dictatorship and I am a man who deserves nothing else than the same sentence I sent so many others to.”

The silence that followed was heavy, pregnant and absolutely no one had an idea how to break it.

Finally, a movement caught their attention, and the staff all turned their heads to follow the path of the war veteran and the Jedi Knight out of the room.

Right before they made their exit, Anakin Skywalker turned and said “I did the good things in her name. In the name of Padmè Amidala Skywalker, who supported democracy until her dying breath. I did it in the name of Shmi Skywalker who let her son be taken away, while she was left in slavery. I did it for my son and daughter who could have grown in a better galaxy if it weren’t for me. I did it for the bright-eyed free boy who wanted to free all the slaves.” He took one last calming breath, “I did it because the galaxy needs more people ready to help each other.”

A quiet laugh broke through the grave silence, and for the first time today, the Jedi Knight spoke, “Come on, Father. You promised to show me that restaurant.”

The father and son left, leaving the reporter and his crew gaping like fish.

Finally, someone managed to say, “We can't edit any of this. This was live.”

Nobody answered, letting the silence fill the room once again.

...Or an idea, continuing my Sidious is Sympathetic! Fic. There was more but it got deleted... again. I think I went a bit overboard so, sorry.

In addition, I started series connected to this AU on ao3. If you want, you can check it out here.

[ironxkid]

👨 = What’s your muse’s relationship with their father, what made it that way?

Family Headcanons

((dfgjdghj I was literally just talking about this to my best friend yesterday xD

so, Carter’s relationship with Tony is... messy, tbh - and, I just wanna make a disclaimer again real quick, this is just going off of Carter’s general canon and can absolutely be different if plotted otherwise with Tony muses!

Carter absolutely adores her father - no doubt about that. And she always has! She loves him dearly, and it was definitely a blind adoration for him when she was little - he was still the self-destructive mess we see in the movies, but he managed to keep her sheltered from it all. Honestly, that... all began to fall apart when she was 11, shortly after her father was kidnapped

her inability to communicate was something she absorbed from her father. She developed severe separation anxiety when he returned home, and became codependent on him during this time - while the separation anxiety was something she was able to curb and basically free herself from it completely, the codependency... is still an issue, and something that definitely plays a role in why their relationship is messy

the reason why things began to fall apart, was because of said codependency and separation anxiety. Upon returning home, Carter was practically glued to her father’s side - because of that, she began to see his flaws. She began to realize he was not the perfect person she had fully believed him to be, and began to see his self-destructive behavior. At first, a lot of that was covered by him working on the Iron Man suit, and it all came crashing down when he went back to Gulmira to destroy as many of his weapons as he could

I’ve actually been meaning to write something for this, but Carter overhears Tony telling Pepper, “There is the next mission, and nothing else.” 

and that is something that continues to haunt her. She needed her father (she still does, but far more then), and to hear him say that, with absolutely no regard to her or Pepper... really messed her up. She never said anything about it to him, of course, and she still loved him dearly, but it changed something in her - she began to realize there was so much to him that she was overlooking, and it just continued to go downhill from there. The communication became an even bigger issue when she learned Tony had been dying from Vanko - when he’d called Tony and Tony said he sounded good for a dead man, which prompted him to throw it back at him, Carter was there. She heard the entire exchange because she was sitting next to her father, and it did shake her trust in him temporarily 

but, the biggest issue that carries on as she grows older is her codependency and inability to communicate. She... went through a lot, privately, at school that she refused to speak of to anyone, even though she needed to (especially given that, with one of those events, the school had more or less gotten Tony involved), and although her trust had been fully restored in her father, she couldn’t get herself to tell him. She knew there was so much he was going through, that she didn’t want to add to it - she didn’t want to become a burden. It’s also the reason why she never told him just how bad she’d gotten during the events of IM3, because she didn’t want him worrying about her stability and she was far too ashamed of how low her mental state had plummeted

I feel like this is getting dangerously close to suggesting that Tony’s to blame, so I want to clarify this now: a lot of this is fully Carter’s own doing. They’re similar in many ways, and, unfortunately, it does include being self-destructive. Carter has put herself in a position, something she is fully aware of, that has ultimately led to her being stuck in her father’s shadow, and she’s choking on it. She won’t say anything to him, won’t do anything to help herself, and won’t even talk about it to her therapist - unfortunately, that is from her inability to communicate, which did stem from her father. So, in that regard, Tony is, inadvertently, to blame for that, but the rest is on her

anyway, her keeping herself in his shadow, and ultimately seeing herself as an extension of him and not her own person, has ended up straining their relationship. She won’t reach out to him for help unless she feels like she has no choice, but it’s also made her becoming his champion, albeit... rather reluctantly at times. She knows he’s a good man deep down, and she still loves him dearly, but she feels like she has to defend him when people try to rip into him, even if it’s on a matter of his own doing, and it takes a toll on her. There’s only so many times she can run in circles insisting he’s good while he does something that suggests otherwise, and she knows it

and there are times where she does get angry with him. With AoU, there’s an obvious tension between them - she’s angry that he’d built Ultron in the first place without talking to anyone other than Bruce, especially considering he used the very thing that had mind controlled Clint and so many others thanks to Loki a few years prior. She doesn’t understand why her father went to that extreme, and with him shutting her out, it doesn’t do either of them any good

going backwards a bit, in regards to what I mentioned in the headcanon of her relationship with Maya, there is an underlying fear of Carter’s that, maybe, her father doesn’t want her. That he took her in out of obligation, and her shutting herself down around him is her way of minimizing any risk of him regretting his decision or resenting her. What she fails to see (despite wanting to believe it true), is that that isn’t even remotely the case at all, and it’s just something else she unintentionally is hurting herself with. Mix that with her codependency issues, where she needs him to be able to remain steady, she’s going to do everything in her power to keep herself in the background and keep the appearance of someone far more put together than she actually is

it’s just... Carter feels the need to try and protect him, and actually, another huge reason for that stems back to when she was 11. She had seen Obadiah rip out Tony’s reactor, and she had fought him in a futile attempt to save her father - in hindsight, she blames herself for not staying hidden. She knows, had she done so, she would’ve been able to get the other reactor to her father much sooner, and believes she would have been to blame had her father died that night. She feels the need to make up for that, even if it ends up wearing her down

however, Tony is the first person Carter is going to turn to if she ever needs someone else there for her. She trusts her father and still loves him dearly despite it all, and there is a part of her that still looks up to him. She enjoys helping him in his workshop when she can, and he was the one who had gotten her fully invested in astronomy, because he had seen her interest in it and encouraged her to chase it. He was the one to teach her about the different constellations and the stories behind them, and had supported her after she’d dropped out of college the first time around when she was 17, even though she had believed he was going to be majorly disappointed in her. He means the world to her, just as much as she means the world to him

[duker42]

AHHH ok I’m sorry ur so busy omg. But here’s my request (deep breath): could you write a one-shot set around the rise of Floch and the Yeagerists, and y/n and Levi are together but the tensions have put a strain on their relationship and they’re not sure if they’re gonna make it as a couple. But when Levi has to escort zeke in the woods, y/n is the one who smuggled pregnant historia to the safe house to protect her (in my mind my character is always a medic for the sc) CONTINUES!

I LOVE THIS ONE SOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

*****WARNING*****NSFW

💜Making It Count💜

She glared at him from across the table. Captain Levi just folded his arms and glared right back at her. Bastard.

Yet another day spend arguing. Another petty squabble that had started to tear their seemingly solid relationship apart. So many nights were now spend trading hot words, or cold silence. Too many nights spent alone in a bed for two to find that he had resumed his habit of sleeping in his office chair the next morning.

Y/N blamed the fucking Yeagerists. They were fine until that bastard Zeke Yeager had been brought back to Paradise and Eren had decided to put more faith in his bastard brother who had killed all their friends, rather than trusting the military and his comrades. Some days Y/N believed that maybe Eren needed to be eaten by another Titan.

Everything about their current situation had put Levi in an eternally bad mood. Which he decided to express by picking the most random fights and having it blow up into full on screaming matches sometimes. At least on Y/N’s part. He just stared with that dead eyed look that made Y/N want to slap his face.

She honestly didn’t know if their relationship was going to make it. They had been together since the 53rd Expedition, but all the changes over the last few years, but especially the last few months made Levi withdraw more, act more aloof.

“Right! So Y/N, I’m going to need you to escort Historia to the farmhouse. Luckily neither Floch or any of the others we suspect of being Yeagerists have ever been there. I want you to stay with her through the delivery of her baby, for obvious reasons.”

Y/N nodded at Commander Hanji. As a Medic, Y/N was trained to handle everything from severed limbs to childbirth. Being with their Queen as she entered the final months of her pregnancy made complete sense.

“Levi, I need you to go babysit our guest of honor.” Hanji turned her eye on the stoic raven haired Captain.

Levi scowled. “Why don’t I just kill the bastard and we get on with this?”

“We need him alive to control Eren right now. Take him out the forest and wait there. I’m sending a large group of Scouts with you. Try not to scare all of them, or kill them.” Hanji teased.

“No promises.” Levi shot back, glowering at the prospect of having to camp in the woods for Gods only knows how long with a man he completely loathed.

“Alright you two, dismissed. Enjoy your last night together for awhile.” Hanji waved them off as she turned her attention to the desk behind her loaded down with paperwork.

Sighing, Y/N got to her feet and walked out of the Commander’s office. She knew that Levi was behind her, she could feel his eyes bore into the back of her head. She refused to apologize for accidentally soiling his extra cravat when she dumped her laundry in the basket, not realizing he had not gotten his clean clothes out of it. She had offered to clean it, but after screaming at her that she never would do it right, she had shut up and not said another word do him.

When she reached their room, she pushed the door open and had a split second idea to close it in his face, but decided to be the bigger person. She walked through the sitting room to the bedroom beyond and pulled out her travel bag. She ignored him leaning against the door as she pulled her clothes out of the wardrobe they shares and neatly packed it into the bag.

Levi watched as Y/N almost emptied all of her belongings into the bag. If it weren’t the few books and baubles laying around the room, he would believe she was moving out of their room for good.

He frowned. She might not come back, or he might not. It could be one person living in this room without the other, but not because of a break up. Even if they did survive this shitty predicament, they may not see each other for months. He didn’t like either option. Despite all the troubles over the past few months, he loved her more than anything.

He knew he had been an unreasonable asshole. She hadn’t deserved everything he had harped on her about. He got so damned hypercritical due to the stress of the situation, his inability to control what was a rapidly spiraling situation. Even during the time they had been hunted by their own government, Levi had never felt as helpless as he did right now.

He watched the graceful movements of the woman he desperately loved as she prepared to leave in the morning. If all they had was tonight, he was going to make it count.

“Y/N.......I’m s-sorry.” Levi hated when he stuttered. It had happened when he first discovered he felt something more for Y/N. It had gone away as he got comfortable with her, but he hated the weakness every time it showed up. Even if Y/N always claimed she found it cute.

Y/N paused and turned around. It had been a long time since Levi had apologized for any of the squabbles they had been having, opting for stony silence. He had finally let down the guards that he put back up after their flights had started, letting her see the emotion in his eyes.

His grey eyes watched her softly, as if he was trying to memorize her in this moment. He had been thinking the same things that had been running through her own mind. She knew the risks they were both taking, especially Levi. She didn’t like the idea of him being in the woods with the man that controlled the Beast Titan.

She put her bag on the ground and move over to her lover, laying a hand gently on his cheek. “I’m sorry too, for all the fighting. Our last night needs to be just us, together, no harsh words or feelings.”

“I know I’m an asshole. You deserve so much better than me, Y/N.” His eyes closed as he leaned against her hand. He wanted so badly to be what Y/N deserved, but always felt he wasn’t good enough, the blood on his hands and his past deeds keeping him from that goal.

Y/N smiled as Levi opened his eyes again. She moved that hand from his cheek to the back of his neck and let her other hand join it, her fingers running through the fresh undercut of his hair. “I want no one other than you, Levi Ackerman.” She whispered. “I love you.”

He leaned his head against hers, foreheads touching as he sighed. It had been so long since he had heard those words from her. The same feeling he had the first time she told him that washed through him. “I love you too, Y/N.”

He pressed his thinner lips against hers, letting himself show her how he really felt about her. He hadn’t felt her against him in so long, denying himself the pleasure of sleeping next to her during the night. It wasn’t because he was mad at her like he knew she assumed, it was because he was mad at himself for being unable to just express his fears of the future like a normal human being.

He wouldn’t let anything interfere with tonight. He would make sure that Y/N had no doubt about the love that he had for her as they parted ways tomorrow morning for their separate missions.

Y/N moaned into the kiss, enjoying the feeling of his warm lips and the emotions behind them. She moved her hands to run down his chest, savoring the feeling of his hard body beneath her fingers. She pushed his jacket back as she moved to take it off of him.

Levi felt his heartbeat speed up. The jolt of lust that he had been repressing through all the bickering and fighting came rushing through his system, making him burn to feel her beneath him, around him. He started to harden at her almost innocent touch, but he knew exactly what she wanted and he wanted the same.

He set her away and pushed her down lightly on their bed. He let himself grin wickedly at her as he moved to remove his cravat, unraveling it from his throat and setting it on the bedside table. His straps were quickly shed, years of practice making it look easy. He watched her eyes darken with lust as he reached for the buttons on his shirt. A thrill raced through him at that look, something he was always surprised to see when she watched him undress.

Her eyes traced the hard lines on his chest and stomach as he threw the shirt on the chair. He pulled his boots off but left his trousers on as he climbed on the bed to join her. His hands roamed over her, reacquainting himself with her curves as he started gently removing her own clothes. His blood pressure rose with every inch of her beautiful skin he exposed.

Soon enough she was bare on their bed, her body flush with excitement from the light touches he had run over her as he stripped her. Levi groaned at the sight. She was so damned beautiful. He leaned down and kissed her hip, letting his hand wander up from her hip to cup her breast as he nipped at the soft skin.

Her nipple was hard as he brushed a thumb across it. He groaned as she arched up, eager for his touch. Even after all these years, he was amazed at how responsive she was to him. Her hands were moving, clutching at his hair and shoulder, wanting him to come up to her.

Granting her wish, he rose up slightly, moving his mouth from her hip to her breast, laving the forgotten mound with his tongue as he continued to pluck at the other breast with his fingers. Her legs shifted restlessly beneath her, rubbing and pressing together as he knew the heat between them was increasing.

She launched her own attack of touches. Her hands tracing every muscle line and scar she could reach. Stroking his back as he continued to suckle her. Her lusty cry of pleasure when he gently bit down on her breast make him push his hips into her thighs, grinding his covered erection against her.

Y/N was desperate for him as she felt his heavy length against her thigh. It had been so long since she had felt his weight on top of her, received him into her body. She moved her hand down to reach in between them and cup him, feeling him shudder as she pushed her palm against his cock.

“Levi...please....” She panted as he finally released her breast and moved up her chest slowly, sucking at the skin harshly to leave marks that would last for days.

Levi grinned against her skin. He loved when she begged. “What?” He asked, his normal dry tone lust filled and husky.

“I need you!” She grabbed the button of his trousers as she hurried to free him from the materials keeping him from her.

When she got his pants unbuttoned, she didn’t try to strip them off like he expected, instead shoving her hand in them and firmly grasping his cock in her hand to pull him out. It was his turn to groan at the feel of her hand wrapping around him.

She wasted no time in smearing the pearl of liquid that had built up at the tip of his aching cock all around the head, making him clench his jaw from the feeling.

He pushed her hand off of him, afraid if she continued, he was going to finish too soon. It had been way too long since he had cum to allow her hands on him for long. She knew exactly how to make him loose control. He moved up and straddled her chest, reaching for the cravat he had laid beside the bed as he brought her hands up to the headboard.

Y/N shivered in anticipation as Levi tied her hands to the headboard with his cravat. His body so close to her, with his cock bobbing so temptingly in front of her as he concentrated on making sure she was secure. She couldn’t help but lunge forward and engulf the reddened tip in her mouth, taking him as far as she could reach. His hands fumbled with the cloth as his hips bucked forward involuntarily at the feel of her hot mouth around him.

Levi gasped as he regained his composure. His teeth gnashes together as he finished tying her up. Y/N looked disappointed as he pulled his cock away from her, like a child who had been denied their favorite sweet. But there was no way he was going to unravel before she had cried out his name tonight. He climbed off of her and removed his pants, groaning at the relieved pressure from his tight confines.

He gave her a hot look as he moved down her body, not angry but dark with desire. Her own dark eyes watching him intently, eagle eyed as she wondered what his next move would be. Under normal circumstances, he would slid into her and start fucking her relentlessly as she ached to touch him, but tonight wasn’t normal and he wasn’t leaving this bed until he had tasted her.

Her eyes widened with surprise as he moved down in between her legs, his shoulders spreading her thigh wide for him to settle comfortably. It was rare he loved her with his mouth, opting for his talented fingers to prepare her for him. It wasn’t because it was nasty or what he would have normally thought about the act with someone else, just something that fell by the wayside as they progressed into a less sex-starved stage of their relationship.

He broke their gaze to look down at the glistening pink folds of her pussy. She was already so wet and slick with desire, he felt his cock jump. Looking back up at her, he reached down and devoured her sex in his mouth with unrestrained enthusiasm. She arched up and moaned, Levi’s eyes flashed his approval as he continued trying to pull as much of her into his mouth as his could. His tongue was roaming, mapping the slits and creases, teasing over the bundle of nerves.

He had always thought of it as a French kiss to her pussy, her clit was her tongue and his job was to tangle his own tongue with it as much as possible. He saw her already pulling at the cravat keeping her from moving too far, her legs tightening under his arms, where he had them looped around her, holding her open for her. Her chest was heaving with excitement, trying to draw in enough breath as he decided to nibble on the little nub of skin lightly, moving his teeth back and forth as her hips rose to meet him.

He was driving her crazy. His mouth on her with those eyes that looked like molten iron from desire watching her. Every flick of his tongue was pushing her closer, making the spring of tension wind tighter deep inside her. She felt his tongue prob her entrance and she shook her head, pushing her hips down into the mattress, forcing his tongue back to where it was. He chuckled as he complied with her demand, dark and lusty.

He was done playing, he wanted her to cum, arch against the restraints while crying out his name. He pulled her clit back in between his teeth and started to suckle hard, flicking his tongue around it as he did. The trigger was instantaneous. She lunged forward, her face surprised as her orgasm coursed through her entire body. He could feel the contractions of her core against his chin as he continued his assault on her. The rush of juices from her center started wetting his chin as he felt her tremble beneath his hands and her hips lift up, pushing into his face harder as she screamed out her pleasure.

Working her through the intense experience, he soon felt her try to pull away, her body overstimulated as her hips pulled down, trying to get away from his tongue. He released her cllt and moved down to lick up the fruits of his labor. He lazily lapped up some of her juices as he felt her relax underneath him.

Moving up, he wiped his chin, smug in his prowess and positioned himself at her entrance. She felt the tip of his cock slid around her, him moving himself with his hand fisted around his length, a small sigh slipping out of his lips at her wetness. He hovered over her, gathering her boneless body to him as he slid into her and released her from his cravat at the same time.

It was like slipping into a hot, tight pouch made just for his cock. Her walls instantly tightened around his invasion. Her arms feel down around him and her fingers dug into the skin of his back as he started to move. Surging into her body felt like coming home, every thrust a reaffirmation of his love for her.

His hips moved forward as he felt her legs wrap around him. He moved his hands to her rotating hips, his fingers gripping the soft flesh hard, knowing he would leave marks for days to come. His shaft filled her, the head pressing against the back wall of her cervix, slightly pushing it in with every push against it.

Her breathing had started to catch. Little high pitched sounds coming from her throat as he found that spot deep inside her that drove her crazy. Every rub against it, a little more of wetness emerged around him, causing him to groan against her throat. He moved his arms up, sliding them under her and crushing her chest to his. He couldn’t get close enough to her. The sweat and the arousal coming off of her addicting, as they moved as identity, striving to reach the stars together.

He felt his own threads of sanity snapping, causing him to move a bit faster, pushing a little deeper. Y/N’s walls were pulsing around him, pulling him closer to the edge with every tight throb. Her hands had moved up to his hair, pulling just enough to sting as she started chanting his name, practically sobbing it as she balanced on the knife’s edge of her own precipice.

Levi lifted his head and covered her mouth with his right as she fell off the edge. His tongue tangled with hers as she cried out, his mouth swallowing the sound, pulling it into him to savor on the days to come as she clenched around him. Her feet locked tighter, as if afraid he would try to leave her before she was done. He wouldn’t dream of being anywhere in that moment than where he was, deep inside her as he stopped pulling out and just pushed his hips harder against her, driving her deeper into the mattress.

His own body tightened as she maintained her vice like grip on his cock. Heaving against her, he felt his own release slam into him, making him lightheaded and his own startled cry of pleasure ripping out of his throat as he thrust as hard as he could against her. The jettison of his cum pulsing into her body made white dots appear in his vision as he desperately kissed her with every ounce of his being.

When it was over, his gasping breaths against her mouth were mirrored by her own. His weight fully relaxed on top of her as he felt her moved to idly stroke his back, her body humming with satisfaction. He closed his eyes and just enjoyed the moment, his own body completely sated and limp.

Eventually, he rolled off of her, pulling out gently and lay beside her, his arm still under her as he moved to pull her against him. She came to him easily, her head resting against his chest and her leg thrown careless over his. Those gentle fingers of hers started stroking the flesh over his heart, making him shiver with the unspoiled emotions of the moment.

As soon as he could recover, he had every intention of making love to her again. He was selfish, wanting more of her, more of what they created together. The feelings it brought out of him paired with the physical pleasure was more than what Levi had ever hoped to experience in his life. He wanted to make every last second he had with her count.

They would have to get up, clean up eventually. Tomorrow they would have to part, unsure if or when they would see each other again. The tension and strife of their daily lives would return, but this moment was perfect in its simplicity. Just Levi and Y/N together in their love for one another. It was their own little version of Heaven in their cruel world.

Mobile MasterList

[franziska-writes]

blackberry (1/2, second part in reblog)

warning: if you're sensitive to mentions of or reading about deceit, acting, teeth, general themes of romance, arguing, death, harm, manipulation, swearing/cursing/bad words, dramatized themes of danger, stress, fear, crying, mentions of food, negative self talk, poor and unhealthy coping mechanisms, fire, emotional masking, trauma, god/religion mentions, self blaming, oversharing, grandfather mentions, caps, no caps, then reader discretion is advised.

as I laid myself down to sleep that night, images of her flashed across my eyelids, and questions floated about in my brain like the remnants of light I saw when I closed my eyes. who was she? how did she know how to charm me so well? so intuitively? what was it about me that gave her such intimate access to my wants and desires? but then, as that question toppled off the heap of other such queries, there was a stillness in which I made a revelation.

it wasn’t anything about me in particular that allowed her entry into my mind—it was the woman herself.

I’d had my eyes on her all night, keeping careful watch after I narrowly realized what she was doing. I’d seen her change her colors like a chameleon or an octopus or something entirely otherworldly. her body language would shift to match and compliment whomever she was speaking to—where the sparks of playful rivalry took hold in one conversation, a childlike innocence possessed her in the next. and I had no clue how she could possibly come to have all these different, impossibly perfect qualities possessing her at just the right moment—up until I realized that she was the one possessing them.

this woman was a marvellous actor, far greater than any seen in film.

where film actors worked with a script and set motions and cameras ready to re-record any scene, she worked with real people, with real situations, with moments she had no choice to re-do.

and it was in this moment that her danger fully struck me: this woman, whom I’d all but fallen head over heels for the moment I’d met her, was a shapeshifter.

no, maybe not in the fantastical sense—but it was there.

the gleam in her eye, childlike and bright and new. the glint of chandelier light off her teeth, summoning and bold and terrifying. the shimmer bouncing off her lipgloss, romaticible and flirtatious and seemingly unknowingly breathtaking. she shot to stun.

it was all instinctively woven, all created on the spot from a single introduction alone, all seamlessly stitched together so well that you’d see depth where there was only darkness.

but then again, perhaps she was a siren.

the tantalizing pull when her eyes met yours, like you’d known each other your whole lives and knew no world without the other. the sweet lull of her voice, melting over every syllable like molten metal. the poetry that she spoke, like fire trailing down my limbs as she spoke to me and said my every desire out loud for only us two to hear……. the performance never gave up. she struck to kill, and oh, I think I let her already……

this woman.

this peculiar, dangerously endearing, disarmingly charming woman—this woman, whose eyes were hazelnut whilst also being lizard-green, whose hair was a shifting multitude of different shades of blonde, whose lips were just pillowy enough and whose cheekbones could cut more than glass and whose brows perked just in that right way—oh, dear god, had she enchanted me.

only for me to be told it wasn’t real, only for her to be told to give up the illusion, only for something realer and angrier and bitterer to rear her sharp-defined face for me to see as she laughed at my inability to see through her.

and even then, there was nothing.

only the cold shell of what was born into this world as a human being, but was now something entirely different—simply put: gone.

when I looked into her eyes around the others, they were hollow, hateful, devoid of any and all goodness or emotion or anything even remotely close to that undeniable spark that all life supposedly held.

but when she was out there—out there, doing her job, the one we’d brought her on for…...she shapeshifted, truly, and fully.

her eyes gleamed gold and brown and green and even red under the different lights. her mouth twisted upwards and rested downwards and was open enough for me to see her bite her bottom lip and glance over just to see me cry on the inside. her shoulders were lax and back and shrunk inward depending on just how much she was leading the conversation—though, no matter what, she always had complete control.

and now, as I laid myself down to sleep, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.

how flamboyant and intoxicating she’d been to everyone at the dinner party, how she’d melted in through the cracks to form whoever she needed to be for them, how she’d caught the void in every person’s heart and filled it with illusions of her own making—god, I needed to know how it was so convincing.

and several weeks of using her talents to extract valuable information later, I’d know.

she’d had exactly the same baseline with me every time we met around the others: somewhat withdrawn, burnt-out almost, a faded capture of what she thought a real human being ought to be underneath all the sparkle and jazz-handing of showbiz. she was a performer, through and through, and even this was a performance—although, I got the sense that I was seeing something I wasn’t meant to: she was tired.

and finally, I’d have clarity on that, because I was left alone with her for the first time.

she’d just blown up on everybody, snapping off like she usually did until one of the group said something particularly choice that I didn’t catch. suddenly, the shell before me erupted into roaring flames—the way her voice deepened as she bellowed, the way her tongue slipped over every personally hurtful word she spat out at everyone, the way she rose up and was suddenly more physically imposing than I’d ever thought a person could be….! I was scared for my damn life—I thought for sure she would kill me if I looked at her for too long. and she did it all without breaking a sweat—her hands didn’t shake, and her voice never wavered or clipped, and her eyes were dry and her face was pale. she chewed every single person in the room out, assaulted them at their weak spots and threw the verbal equivalent of boiling hot acid their way—and she did this to everyone except for me. I thought I was lucky to be alive. I was glad for being ignored, and prayed to god that she’d forgotten all about me in the act of getting some apparently well-deserved insults out to settle in the dust of her past with everyone else.

but when she ordered everyone out of the room, I went to go with the rest of them—but she boldly said no, glared them all in the eyes and said that I could stay. when I looked back to my friends for some sort of excuse to go with them, to convey my complete and utter shock at her words, to beg them all through my eyes to get me away from this horrifying display of power so far beyond anything I’d ever seen in a person………….they just stared back. upset, and hurt, and also just as confused as I was.

they left me all alone with that snake—because by then, that’s what I’d been calling her: a snake. not based off any old garden snake or viper, but based off the serpent that convinced Eve to take a bite of the forbidden fruit.

based off temptation and willful deceit.

the moment the door shut and the group meandered away was the moment I felt the room change with her.

it was like the power being cut in the middle of a wild storm, only for the storm to be cut with it; it was silent. still.

and then, she gave a great sigh, and slid back into her chair which was turned away from me for reasons I could only describe as god’s sweet mercy on me.

I, slowly, tiptoed as silent as I could back to where I’d been sitting, but still stood because I was afraid I’d have to make a run for it.

the energy in the room was terribly unsettling.

it was like I’d just watched two strangers end a decades-long relationship in a quiet, deserted waiting room, and half of the pair had walked away and now I was left alone with the other half.

I kept my gaze fixed on her.

it was soon that I noticed just how run-down she looked—just how….different she was.

she was slouched over the desk with her head in one gloved hand, and her fingers were on the brink of carding through her hair. I could feel the stress radiating off her, and for the first time, it was something real, something substantial—I could feel it. it was so, so different to how she’d acted with me when we’d first met. she’d been charming and witty and smooth, and had fit herself into me like a puzzle piece. but now…..there was a noticeable difference. no longer did she seem to exude good and exciting vibes, the kind you’d find within the thrumming thrall of a party, but instead, she was just……….there.

she looked tired, worn out. looked like she hadn’t slept in days and it’d only just caught up to her.

eventually, this nightmare would soon change into a different nightmare—a minute or so after the door shut, she spoke to me, keeping her back turned to me and her face pointedly hidden from view.

“do you know why you’re still here?”

her voice was…..oh, dear god, it was strained, like she was fighting back tears with the small amount of strength she had left. but I was sure I knew not to comfort her—the others had told me just how professional of a deceiver this woman was, and I’d observed it to be true.

I fumbled so hard for an answer that I simply didn’t give one in my panic—but that was alright, because like the perfect actress she was, she seemed prepared to monologue.

“it’s because you’re the only one here who’s acted even remotely like a human fucking being.”

oh?

….oh…..

…………….oh.

oh, god.

“honestly, I—” she began again, cut off by some unheard thing I assumed was a suppressed cry. she took in a deep, faintly shuddering, breath, and continued. “—don’t know why I let them near me. all they do is make me feel like a villain. and I—know that I am one, but…..” and here was when she tried to mask herself with social relatability— “...just because I am one doesn’t mean I have to feel like one, ahah……..”

she fell flat.

she fell flat, and I knew that was wrong, wrong because I’d seen her in action: becoming part of other people in beautiful, polychromatic splendor, matching energies and mirroring body language and altering pronunciations and changing names and smiles and shapes.

but now…..now, she was monochromatic: captured in gray light, a beautiful intellectual—broken but full. full, now, for the first time before my eyes, because everything else I’d seen as hollow and empty. after all—lies were only lies, weren’t they? there was no truth in them, no genuine emotion, no…...anything, really, in my experience.

I felt spurred to comfort her—not because of the daydream she’d probably have rathered to pretend to be, but instead because I saw a glimpse of the human being inside of her.

“y-you’re…...not a villain.”

a sad huff of amusement through her nose as her whole upper half jolted just slightly, “sweetheart, you don’t even know me. everything you’ve seen has been a lie. you know that.”

…..I didn’t know where to go from there.

she was right. she was absolutely right. I had no idea who this frustrated, sad being before me was—but now, I…..I wanted to know. wanted to know her interests, her hobbies, her favorite book, her favorite television show, what joke made her laugh the most, or if she even genuinely laughed at all.

“...........how do you do it?”

my voice was feeble, small, like that of a rabbit cowering behind a great lion.

“how do I do what?” she responded after a short pause, voice clicking even with the smooth ups and downs of her vocal pattern. she really was tired…..if only she’d look at me so I could be sure—

“d-deceive.. like you do. how do—how can you create something so lifelike out of-of thin air? y-you’re lying every minute I see you, and-and yet, I—I-I’m tricked every time. ho-how do you do it?”

it was poorly worded, poorly phrased—but she picked up on what I really meant by it.

I had no clue how she could always know so much.

she laughed, darkly and quietly, with such bitterness that I could taste it like an unripe blackberry in my mouth—and then she turned her face so I could see it, and that was the moment something real began.

her eyes were misty, and her cheeks were flushed, and there was a smile stuck on her face by sheer inevitability.

when she spoke, her words—it’s so difficult to describe, but they evaporated like honey in the dim lamplight.

“there’s a drop of truth in every lie.”

it was simple, yet packed full of meaning, and my mind reeled as I had another revelation.

she wasn’t just playing a part, was she….?

“when I’m with people, I see these voids in them—what they want out of people, what their perfect compliment would be, what they want out of me. I see a void, and I fill it—it’s an instinct that I’ve sharpened to be useful over time.”

oh……

“but of course, no performance is perfect. my execution is only flawless because, to me, it’s a game of survival, and the slightest hair out of place means game over.” her eyes were cast down then, apparently unable to hold my gaze. was she that exhausted? “it drains me. I can’t be around people for very long as I am, but having to act every moment of it just takes more away from me. I’m tired. but I’m a good masker—it’s what growing up in my particular circumstances caused me to have ingrained in me. seared into my flesh and bone and brain….. I must perform perfectly because this to me is the art of survival—yet even so, no performance is perfect. I am more than a good liar. a good liar will feel his performance and give it everything he’s got—but I can do so much more.”

oh.

“with just a brush of my fingertips, I can get a man to weep at my feet. with just the quirk of a brow, I can drive a woman mad. with just the right word, I can draw out a person’s deepest secrets and intrigues. I can control any variable you want me to. I can dominate a conversation, I can be invisible in a crowd, I can make someone resent me. the only thing I’ve grown too much to do is be immune. I can control any situation without saying a word. I can control myself and my body and my responses at the drop of a hat. the only thing I cannot control……...are my emotions.”

oh.

“the moment I leave the conversation, more of me dies and fizzles out into smoke. I...know I could have everything. I could rule the damn world if I wanted to, I’m sure of it. I could have people and friends and enemies and rivals……...but I don’t.”

…….there was a lull there, as she traced the edge of the desk with a finger and cast her forlorn gaze over the carpet.

I’d been so enraptured by the mental pictures she painted for me that I’d completely forgotten I was here with her.

like the stammering idiot I was, I made myself speak up.

“wh-why…..why don’t you? is-is it because you don’t…..uh…..w-want people i-in your life?”

I could’ve cursed at the way her next expression made me feel—a look of anguish flashed across her face, and god, it was more beautiful than any of the lies she’d been before.

“yes, but also no. I…..believe me, I want people—I think that much is obvious, in how entangled my emotions become with my victims, but…...but I—”

a sad smile.

I could feel reminiscence in her eyes.

“I’m not cut out for people.”

...huh?

“wh-what d’you mean?”

she looked up at me, and—and for the first time, I saw a spark of life in her eyes. it made me want to do foolish things, made me want to jump and scream and laugh and cry and—

“I ruin them. I’m the perfect weapon, sweetheart: I’m built to ruin and destroy and conquer. I can override my own body’s signals and ignore my emotions and run for hours on empty. but people….” her brows rose and she looked off to the side, as though impressed and annoyed at the same time. “......people can’t do that. people fall to their emotions and make irrational and poor decisions and struggle to keep it together no matter how rehearsed they are. they drop when they’re tired and their functioning derails. they are not like me. they are soft, and I am sharp and callous. they are warm, and I am cold and mean. they are sensitive and careful with themselves, whereas I fling myself into traumatic situations on the daily even when I am hurt.”

I couldn’t think.

all I could do was process—twenty minutes ago, I’d barely been certain of her status as a human being, and now, she was spilling over in front of me.

and then I realized that she was cracking. breaking. faltering.

no longer was she a carefully maintained shell—now, now she was……..on the verge of tears…..

“there is a shred of truth in every lie that I embody. and my truth is my insatiable desire to be not alone as I have been all my life.”

I stood there in shocked silence for a solid ten seconds.

insatiable……….?

“wh-why...insatiable?”

she looked me dead in the eye and suddenly I understood how the ocean’s tides felt about the moon.

“because I won’t let myself be satiated. nor will I ever let myself be soothed, nor will I ever let myself be comforted.”

my eyebrows pinched above the bridge of my nose.

“why?”

“because that is the most dangerous act of all.”

I was confused. how could it be dangerous to—?

“if my emotions make me want people so desperately to love me when I am simply performing for them…..then I shudder to think what would happen to me if I allowed myself to relax into someone. it’s the same reason no one’s allowed to touch me.”

………….ah. I’d…..I’d noticed that.

no matter how physical my friends were with each other and with me, none of them ever came too close to her, and she actively kept herself at a safe physical distance from most people we encountered. I only steered clear of her because, if I was to be honest, I’d been scared of her up until this point.

even now, she intimidated me—but I was slowly coming to grasp a portion of who she really was.

“but…...but, surely, that- can’t be healthy.” I attempted to argue, feeling a dark weight settle over me. I never liked it when people hurt themselves like that on purpose.

a small, resigned smile found its way onto her face. she hadn’t looked at me for some time now. it was odd to see someone with such a big presence refuse to make eye contact…

“it isn’t.”

my brain paused to compute that.

“then—why do you do it?”

“survival. people get close to me, I hurt them, and they hurt me back, and then they leave. it’s a cycle. I’m simply protecting myself, because I know that the moment I am shown true kindness, I will be floored and malleable in ways you cannot imagine. another reason I wear so many masks—even if I am touched or on the receiving end of kindness, it is still never really me. simply a vision of what they think I ought to be.”

“.......o-oh……..” softer than a whisper.

“I don’t need kindness. I don’t need comforted, and I don’t need people. and so long as I am acting, I am safe from whatever could be.”

now, in this moment, I was feeling stupid. but not stupid as in the unintelligent kind—stupid as in the daring kind.

I’d just made up my mind on a lot of things. I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew there was no stopping my own nurturing instincts, and I knew I was one of those people she’d described earlier that fell constantly to their emotions.

“well, you’re...you’re not acting right now, are you?”

I phrased it simply, casually—like it was any old question without intent hidden under it like the mud under the plank of oak wood outside my grandfather’s home.

she squinted her eyes at me, like she was meant to be wearing glasses but had forsaken them.

“I………..n-no. no, I’m—not.”

she sounded more shocked than I’d been during this entire conversation.

“then come here.” I instructed her gently, taking a few steps towards her as if to show her it would be a joint effort.

she was reluctant and slow in her movements, but smooth nonetheless. (CONT'D)

[jace-the-writer-guy]

A Very Important Discussion

Word Count: 2,115

To say the past few months in Aerial's life had been amazing would be a huge understatement. It was her first year of Atlas and she had met all the members of her new team when they were paired together on the first day after initiation. Snow was still coming around, and Aerial knew he needed more time and she absolutely understood that. Aliah was much more talkative and warm regarding her as a teammate, and a new friend and constantly, softly tries to get Snow to open up more with Aerial and Kuro. Kuro was absolutely fantastic, and already grew to being like a big brother to her and he had quickly grew to fry bacon in the mornings for the team if he could, but mostly for her after a discussion she had with them all a little while after being teamed up.

And then the tournament rolled around, and two certain teams arrived to Atlas from Beacon. Teams ASHE and KRSC. She had very quickly grown attached to them all from when she had met and helped Ebony get over her fear of crowds when they arrived if only for a little while that day. She was almost immediately smitten with the leader of Ebony's team, Wave Aideen. She had even asked him to the dance when he, Ebony, and Sakura had accompanied her to her team's own borrowed recording studio where they continued to bond over their shared love of music, each of them having their own instrument to jam out with. 

Then a dark, albeit short period of time passed with the missions app her newest friends had taken part in. Ebony was stabbed, and Carlisha was eaten by a Sand Leviathan and nearly every single muscle in her body was torn from the strain they were put through to save a man's life from the fate that almost fell on her. Before the missions, Aerial and Wave began to date, even though it would soon have to be long distance between them. And right after that, Carlisha had confessed her love that had grown for Wave, and left them to their relationship and began to continue with the medication for her heat.

But after those missions and after Carlisha had talked with Wave and Aerial, they agreed to a relationship where Wave would date both of them, but they would only date Wave. Or… so Aerial thought. Aerial and Carlisha had grown close and during the dance, Carlisha offered Aerial a dance to where the aspiring pilot had accepted, and Carlisha had relentlessly teased her but also helped her in a huge way. It made Aerial start to realize that she was bisexual, and dear lord Carlisha was making her fall in love with her as well.

And Kuro almost won the tournament that year! A team of freshmen students nearly won the tournament over the other teams! Perhaps if it wasn't for Ebony defeating Kuro in the final match, and if Ebony wasn't in the finals in the first place then he would have won, but still. He and Ebony had the final match. Aerial was just so happy that her team had made it so far, and she was happy that Kuro had ended up losing to one of their new friends and not someone they didn't know.

Then after the tournament, the relationship between her, Wave, and Carlisha had taken a turn and became another form of polyamorous, and everyone was dating everyone in that relationship. Carlisha had grown very fond of Aeriall due to how cute Aerial was with all the teasing, and no matter how flustered it made Aerial, she really liked it. Especially when they both teamed up on her to do the teasing. It never failed to make her smile, and blush of course. Aerial had definitely grown to love both Wave and Carlisha equally, and to know they both loved her was something that just always made her happy.

And now…

"What did you wanna talk with us about, Aerial?"

She had something she needed to tell them before they left for Beacon.

Aerial lightly smacked her cheeks with her palms to focus herself after thinking back to the past few months. "W-wellll… I kinda need to talk to you both about… me. Like everything about me."

Wave and Carlisha sat down and left a space for Aerial between them, and she sat down with them. "What is it?" Wave asked curiously.

"W-well the th-thing is…" Aerial gulped and took a deep breath, "I-I'm t-trans!"

Wave and Carlisha both looked at her in surprise. "You're… trans?" Carlisha asked in a soft voice.

Aerial nodded slowly. "Y-yeah. Male to female. S-still umm… t-taking some hormone medication f-for some stuff, but I have to keep taking that like… once a month f-for what I'm taking because yay A-Atlas medicine. I f-figured I sh-should tell you both before you went back to Beacon in a couple days, s-since I don't wanna hide it f-from you."

"And… does it make you comfortable?" Wave asked her, "Like… Are you comfortable, or getting there?"

Aerial nodded a few times. "O-oh, yeah I'm slowly g-getting there I think. I feel weird still, but… I think I always will no matter what. I'm not sure I'll ever really be fully comfortable in my body, but I'm h-happy to at least be getting closer to the body I've always felt like I should have. I think my boobs should grow more in time with the hormone medication, but… y-yeah."

"And… are your parents okay with it?" Carlisha asked this time in a much lighter tone.

"Oh, y-yeah!" Aerial answered immediately, and she smiled, "When I told them what I thought and knew about myself, they were really supportive of me. It… took them a while to get out of the habit of saying "son" and "boy"," She shook her head a bit, "but they did their best and now they say "daughter" and "girl". Thankfully mom's a pharmacist so she was able to get me the medications I needed and still need after we all did more and more research," Aerial began to grow nervous once more, "U-umm… is my v-voice okay?"

"It sounds very feminine, Aerial," Wave told her, and he gave her a smile, "I never would have guessed you were anything but a girl."

Carlisha nodded. "Right. You sound great."

Aerial breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh thank Light. That's always something that worries me is that I don't sound very womanly. I've always had kind of a feminine voice but I still had to train it to get it to where I think is alright. I'm really glad you both think it's good. Also, I guess you both saw me eating pickles a lot, right?"

Both of them nodded and Carlisha spoke up. "Right. I've hardly ever seen people eat pickles as much, just a couple girls back at Beacon."

"Well, th-that's because of medicine I take that lowers and suppresses testosterone, and that really messes with my sodium levels," Aerial explained, "I learned that pickles have a lot of that, so I started eating them and kinda learned to like them. If I don't keep my sodium up, I'd have to go pee a lot. And if I let it get any lower than that, well…"

"It's… not good is it?" Carlisha asked.

"Nnnope… If I let my sodium levels get too low, I can get headaches and nausea, and start throwing up. That stuff's the worst I've gotten but…" Aerial shuddered, "It could lead to seizures and… it could put me in coma."

"Oh… fuck," Wave said lowly, "You're keeping them up then, right?"

Aerial nodded quickly. "Y-yeah, I am. Haven't had any bad nausea or vomiting episodes since the months right after I started my transition. Since I told my team all of this, Kuro's really been cooking bacon every morning he can for me too so that doesn't happen again. Well, he cooks it for everyone but cooks me more, and bacon is great soooo yeah. Aaand there's a reason I'm the one that asks for jerky from April the most." She finished and laughed a bit, getting less and less nervous the more she talks.

"And you've been alright with your sodium levels lately?"

"Oh, yeah! Kuro has been making sure I keep them up since he's like the team dad and like a big brother to me now."

"That's really good to hear," Wave said and he began to hold her hand in hers, "Aerial, thank you for trusting us both with this."

Aerial gulped a bit, and her nervousness returned. "S-so… wh-what do you both think?"

"I think…" Carlisha grinned a bit and lightly took hold of her other hand, "you're still adorable. I see only the cutest, dorkiest girl here."

Wave grinned as well and kissed Aerial on the cheek. "I agree with Carli. I just see two girls sitting with me that I really grew to love. I'll do everything I can to help you feel as much of a girl as you know you are."

Carlisha nodded. "Right. Maybe I'll start pampering you a bit more…" She leaned in close to Aerial's face, "Hmmmm~?"

Aerial blushed at that. "Aaaah C-Carliii!"

Carlisha began to giggle and kissed her on the cheek. "See? Adorable~"

Aerial huffed a bit. "You're mean…"

"But you love it," Wave remarked, and he took his free hand and gave Aerial some headpats, "Is there anything else you want or need to let us know? Neither of us want to make you uncomfortable at all."

Aerial thought for a few moments before her eyes widened a bit. "O-oh, one more thing yeah. I… s-still have a b-boy's… y-y'know…"

Wave and Carlisha nodded in understanding of what she meant. "Are you gonna have them removed?" Carlisha asked.

Aerial shook her head. "N-no, I don't think so… Like I said, I think I'll always feel weird with my body no matter what, plus… I-I kinda l-like them? Does… th-that-"

"No, it doesn't sound weird." Carlisha assured her with a smile.

"And it doesn't change anything," Wave said afterward, "Penis or not, you're a girl and we both love you and accept you."

Aerial's face just lit up at hearing the acceptance from the two and she took her hands from theirs, and she pulled them both in to hug them. "Thank you both so much for listening to me and accepting me…"

Both of them easily returned her hug, both squeezing her comfortably in their arms. "I understand your worries. I mean, you've met Opal," Wave said and shuddered a bit, "I'm nothing like what she is. I don't care what she would ever think anymore. I love you, and I will do my absolute best to never make you feel bad or uncomfortable."

Carlisha nodded her head against the side of Aerial's inability agreement. "Exactly. If I ever tease you in any wrong ways, you tell me to stop and I'll immediately stop. Don't let either one of us slip up without telling us what we did wrong. I don't want to do that over and over and never know if it hurts you or makes you uncomfortable."

"I-I will... Thank you both. I love you."

"I love you too." Both Wave and Carlisha said to her at the same time, and they all sat in their embrace for several moments.

To say Aerial was happy was an immense understatement. The biggest smile grew on her face and tears or relief and happiness formed in her eyes, rolling down her cheeks soon after. She closed her eyes and took in a deep, shaky breath and let it out as evenly as she could. She couldn't wait to tell her team, and she absolutely couldn't wait to tell her parents. She knew she still had to tell each of her new friends as well, and she would one day, but for now she was just so happy to have told her boyfriend and girlfriend and to hear their acceptance and love. It was exactly what she had hoped for. She knew Wave was nothing like the mother he had disowned and broke away from recently, and she knew he would do his best for her. And she knew that Carlisha would do the same.

The only thing that sucked about this was the fact that Wave and Carlisha would be returning to Beacon soon. But around a year later her team would be transferred to Beacon academy, not that she knew at the moment though. For now though, she was just happy to be with them.

[softkaimin]

Us and Them | p. 1

Pairing: Im Jaebum | JB x Reader 

Word Count: 3.3k

Genre: fluff / angst / royal!au

Summary: All you’ve ever wanted was to live a normal life without the stress of being a princess, so when your bodyguard, Jaebum, gives you the perfect opportunity, you don’t hesitate to take it

a/n: special appearances by Jinyoung, Bambam, and Yugyeom

The sound of people bustling in and out of your room began to irritate you. Fading and growing conversations about wedding decorations, wedding dresses, and the noble men and women who would be attending, you couldn’t take anymore. You just wanted to disappear into silence.

“What about this one?” Your handmaid held up a beautiful white lace gown that was adorned with brilliant jewels and hand stitched embroidery. You were awestruck at how even with a fully stretched out arm the dress dragged against the ground. The train splayed across the floor, extending a few feet away from the dress itself, and the matching veil rested against the silky fabric of the bodice.

You hated it.

This was the twelfth dress you’d turn down since you were forced to participate in the planning of your upcoming wedding. Frankly, everything fit you beautifully. The flowy ones and the tight ones. Even the extravagantly frothy, voluminous ones shaped you in such a way that would make every woman pray they looked as beautiful as you on their own wedding day. But every time you fell in love with one, you would remember the circumstances in which you were getting married, and it suddenly became the most hideous dress you’d ever seen.

You shook at your head, and closed your eyes tightly.

You were never meant to sit on the throne, that was your brother’s job and, truthfully, you were just happy to watch from the sidelines as you lived your own life with your own family. But the law of attraction doesn’t always give you what you want.

The fantasies that we create of what our lives are going to look like were just that. Fantasies to be lived out in our minds whenever we felt down. Fantasies to trick ourselves into believing we had a goal so as not to give up before we could reach them. But your fantasies were short lived, ripped out of your hands before you could finish perfecting it. And what you were given in return was a life you never asked for.

Your handmaid sighed, gently setting down the dress on your bed as she proceeded to kick everyone who wasn’t you or herself out of your room. The room grew silent instantaneously, and for the first time in a while, you could hear yourself think.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” Your handmaid asked, taking your hand into her warm ones. “Are none of these dresses to your liking?”

“The dresses are fine,” you assured. “It’s this wedding that’s the problem.”

“Oh, those are just the nerves, my little princess. You’re getting married to Prince Jinyoung, the most gorgeous man in all the kingdoms and soon the two of you will begin your reign. It’s normal to get nervous. Your mother was like that on her wedding day too.” She caressed your hair tenderly, trying to soothe whatever anti-wedding monster was beginning to reveal itself before it sent you on a rampage. Not to say you weren’t already on one.

“But that’s just it. My mother and father married because they loved each other. I’m being married off because my father royally fucked up, and now I’m the one who has to fix it.” You noted, rather crossly.

“Language. You are the Crown Princess, after all. Set an example.”

You rolled your eyes at your handmaid's sermonizing, and you wished the room would just fill with noisy wedding conversation again. “There’s no other way to really explain the situation my father put his kingdom in… put me in,” you muttered, letting your head fall onto the wooden surface of your vanity with a thud.

You could waste your life trying to explain to everyone what exactly your situation was, but who except you could understand what it was like to live it. Who except you could understand the dread of stepping out of your bedroom, the fear that the people who took your brother’s life would finally be back to take yours, paralyzing you to the bone? The way you let the the clear skies roll by you without giving them a second thought, yet you wished for anything to be able to lay underneath them again, free from the worry that relentlessly anchored you to the bottom of the oceans of anxiety. You felt like you were suffocating little by little, and even your home was becoming a source of pain. You could explain the situation, but no one but you could truly understand.

Your handmaid shuffled across the room to grab one of the chairs that sat in the corner, and quickly moved back to your side. She sat down and watched you for a second, admiring how much you looked like your late mother. The resemblance was uncanny, the way you spoke and the way you acted. It’d been more than half your lifetime since the Queen had passed, but to those who could remember her clearly, watching you was as if time had gone back and they were witnessing the Queen in her youth once again.

“Listen,” your handmaid started. “I know this isn’t how you pictured getting married, much less the person you would be getting married to, but you have to remember why you’re doing this… Your kingdom is relying on you.”

You lifted your head just enough to see her over your arm, and you remembered what your brother had told you the day before he died. Being in charge of a kingdom isn’t easy, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world. You’re still young, but with my help you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. This is everything we’ve ever wanted.

What a load of bullshit.

You groaned, propping your head against the palm of your hand. “I know that, it’s just… he made it seem like some kind of dream being Crown Princess,” you admitted. “He made it seem like it would change my life in some fascinating way, but all it did was make me realize how much I am not him.”

Your handmaid knew you were talking about the late Crown Prince – to you, your eldest brother. She felt a sense of relief that you’d finally found enough strength to talk about him after an entire year of avoiding it, but some part of her also felt sorry. Not for you, but for the King. She’d always hoped it was him whom you’d have this conversation with, but considering your strained relationship, not even a higher power could force you to open up to your father.

“Prince Jinyoung is a great person. I’m sure he’d bring nothing but prosperity to his people during his reign, but…” you smacked your lips in frustration, “…he’s not the one I love. I- How am I supposed to be everything my father expects me to be when he himself said I could never be good enough?” You paused, waiting for your handmaid to interject a clever remark, but she only smiled at you.

What the hell is she smiling at? You thought.

She looked as if something in her mind clicked, and every muscle in her face reacted to it with joy. It was a look that made you feel uneasy; a look that told you she knew something about you that you didn’t want anyone to know. Anxiety coursed through your veins, and you quickly grew uncomfortable, not to mention annoyed at her inability to take you seriously.

“What?” You finally asked, your fingers nervously fidgeting with the lace of your dress.

She chuckled, finding your anxious state rather amusing. “If Prince Jinyoung isn’t the one you love, then who is?”

Your eyes widened, and you physically felt your brain short-circuit as you tried to come up with some lame excuse to get you out of answering the question. And, as if the universe were purposely trying to make a fool of you, your bodyguard entered the room.

“Jaebum,” You announced, looking past your handmaid at him. He stood by the door, clad in his newly polished armor as he patiently waited for you to finish up with your previous engagement. He shot you a small smile, and you felt your heart palpitate.

“Hmm, I thought so,” she grinned, and you snapped your gaze back at her, frantically shaking your head.

“Ah, no no. I was just-”

“It’s alright dear, your secret is safe with me.” She took your hand in hers again and patted it gently, a sigh escaping her thin, wrinkled lips. “I know you hate the idea of this wedding, and I know the kind of person you are, so I just ask that you not do anything stupid. Please.”

Your wide eyes lowered into a solemn gaze, and you began to regret every word you’d uttered to her about your brother and Prince Jinyoung. She felt so much like a mother to you, and you hated making her upset. She was there for you when you were born, and when your mother died she helped your father and your brother raise you. But while she taught you to refine the virtues that every royal was expected to have, she also taught you to fight for what you believed in.

And that was exactly what you were doing.

“I can’t promise you that,” you whispered.

She pursed her lips and stood. “Well… I’ll be going now. I’ve got to check on the girls and make sure they’re not royally fucking up the wedding, as you say.” You chuckled lightly, and watched her exit the room, briefly bowing to Jaebum as she moved past him.

Jaebum shut the door behind her, observing the mess of decorations and dresses that the girls had left behind. He bit his lower lip, his chin protruding as he felt the jealousy reigniting deep in his chest again. It was a like a beast he had no control over, and the harder he tried to fight it, the more he noticed it. He never felt this feeling as strong as he did whenever he thought of you and Prince Jinyoung and your impending marriage. It was a strange feeling that stretched across his body, entangling itself with every fiber of his being and splitting him at the seams.

“Have you decided on a dress, yet?” He asked, the words themselves like a poison that left an acrid taste in his mouth. He had no right to put you in a difficult position by confessing his feelings to you, especially when he wasn’t even sure you felt the same.

Besides, the marriage had already been decided by the King himself and there was no going against a King’s declaration. No sane person would even think of it.

He took the empty seat where your handmaid was sitting for himself and smiled at the disgusted look on your face. “I’ll take that look as a no.”

You groaned as thoughts of Jinyoung began to fill your frazzled mind again and you shook your head, trying to evict the images of him from your head. “They all look ugly on me.”

“I doubt that.”

“I’m serious!” You whined, noticing the smirk on Jaebum’s face. You swatted his arm at his thoughtlessness, your hand lingering on his bicep for a moment too long.

He watched you, his heart fluttering at the way your grasped tightly onto his arm. The look in your eyes as if you’d forgotten what pain was for a moment, and he could help but smile at you.

You noticed him looking at you and you quickly took your hand back, returning to the conversation as if the moment had just been some hallucination you had on your own. “It’s not funny, Jaebum! Can’t you see how much I am suffering in this hellhole of a palace? I��m seriously considering running away.” You blinked hard, your thoughts suddenly becoming clouded with pictures of your wedding, except you weren’t marrying Jinyoung.

You bit the inside of you lip, your core heating with images of Jaebum taking Jinyoung’s place, and you silently cursed yourself for thinking of him that way. It was impractical to dream of such a thing happening when Jaebum wasn’t even of royal blood… Wasn’t it?

Jaebum rubbed his arm in faux pain and huffed a silent chuckle, his voice startling you out of your thoughts. “I can, and I close my eyes so I don’t have to see you ‘cause it breaks my heart.” You rolled your eyes, but Jaebum could see a small smile starting to creep on your lips.

But as quick as it came, it was gone. You tapped your fingers against the surface of the table rhythmically, the realization that by this time next week you’d be a married woman, ruling beside Prince Jinyoung and not Jaebum, making your stomach nauseous. “I’m serious this time.”

“I’m sure,” Jaebum hummed.

You paused for a moment, then allowed yourself to slouch against your chair, something your handmaid always scolded you for doing. “Can you honestly tell me that you think it’s okay for me to marry someone I don’t love? What am I supposed to do when literally everyone, not just from our kingdom, but from Jinyoung’s too, is relying on this marriage? I want to be able to be like ‘yeah, for the sake of our people,’ but I can’t. That’s something my brother did, and I’m not him no matter how hard I try to be… no matter how much my father wants me to be.”

Jaebum nodded along, listening and responding to every word you uttered. “Mm. Yeah. Hmm.” Until you finally took a breath, allowing a small window for him to get a word in.

“So, say you do run away. What then? What does it fix?” He asked, his deep gaze making you feel exposed.

You huffed, quickly breaking the intense eye contact with him. “I’m not trying to run away from my duties, Jaebum. I… I just want to know what it feels like to not have the weight of the world on my shoulders, you know. I want to know what it feels like to just be another person. Not a princess, or a queen to be. Just a normal person,” you explained.

Jaebum licked his lips in thought. He could see the wedding dresses from the corner of his eyes, and he was sure you could too. They were the most extravagant dresses he’d seen in his life, almost like they demanded for any and all bystanders to look at them and appreciate the work that went into them. They were truly fit for a queen.

He noticed the frown on your face and the way your eyes had dulled out, and he wondered how long it had been since he’d last seen you genuinely laugh. How long it had been since you forced him to go on one of your ill-planned adventures in town, searching for the next best street food that you would then demand the servants to bring everyday for an entire month until you got sick of it.

Ever since Jaebum became your personal bodyguard, you relied on him for more than just physical protection. You quickly found a friend in him, someone who actually cared about you as a person and not what being close to someone of your status would do to benefit him. He made you laugh, and he held you when you cried. He was your friend who always listened to you, no matter how small or insignificant your concern, and he never once complained. He got to see you as an ordinary person instead of the mature and sophisticated princess you strained yourself to be in front of your citizens.

You changed when your brother died, understandably, but when you father announced to you and the rest of the country that you were getting married, you completely lost yourself. You despised your father after that, and every day afterwards you wished it had been you who died instead of your brother. It angered Jaebum to hear you speak that way, but he couldn’t blame you when he too wished it had been him instead of the prince.

Jaebum extended his hand toward you for you to take it. He wasn’t sure if it was the jealousy of seeing you with Jinyoung or the promise he made to your brother – his best friend – that caused him to make such an abrupt decision, but his mind was made up. He was ready to give up everything, even if all he got was a smile from you in return. A genuine smile. “Then let’s run away. Tonight.”

You opened your mouth to speak, confused at his sudden change of heart. You fumbled for your words, wondering if he was saying this to mock you or if he was being serious. But Jaebum wasn’t the type to mock, especially not you. And especially not about this. “W-Why?” You managed.

“Because your brother wouldn’t have wanted this for you. His greatest joy was seeing you carefree and happy, and you haven’t been in a long time. I made him a promise to protect you, so if you really want to run away, then let me be the one helps you find the place you’re looking for.”

You huffed. No one ever listened to you the way Jaebum did, and it was only now when you understood why your heart ached for him every time you weren’t with him. Why every time you embraced him in a hug, or even just brushed your hand against his for a moment, everything in the world felt right.

It was because the one you loved was him.

But Jaebum was rarely impulsive, and you wondered if you being with him was a bad idea. He was the one who usually talked you out of doing things on a whim. He was cautious, wise the way he perceived ideas and situations, and you were recklessly spontaneous, never thinking things through until it was too late to avoid the consequences. So, what if your idea of starting over, of running away, brought unavoidable consequences that Jaebum would have to deal with by himself? You could never forgive yourself if something happened to him.

Though, one thing was sure now: you were in love with him.

But how could you even be sure he felt the same for you? What if it was your vanity that let you think he could ever see you that way? Or what if he was just offering to go with you because he felt it was what he had to do? It would be humiliating if you confessed and he turned you down, not to mention it would certainly ruin your friendship.

You shook your head, and as you were gathering your thoughts to refuse his offer, you felt the warmth of his hand cup your cheek. He ran his thumb against your cheekbone, and your body physically relaxed, almost as if this simple embrace were expelling the demons inside of you. You were no longer scared of failing your kingdom; no longer scared of the uncertain future.

It astounded you how the one person you could never have was the only one who could make you forget what being in conflict with yourself felt like. Because for this quick moment while the two of you sat in silence, his hand caressing your skin and yours holding onto his wrist for dear life, you felt at peace.

“Please say yes,” he whispered. “Please say you’ll come with me.” He inched his face closer to yours, your lips so close to his. You’d never felt such an ardent desire to mold your lips against them as you did now, and it took everything in you to keep from doing so.

“Would you really give up so much just to help me make a stupid decision?” You asked, your fingers now intertwined with his. You stared at his lips, watching the way they moved, the way they parted whenever he took a breath. It was mesmerizing.

“I’d walk to the end of the earth as long as it’s with you.”

You closed your eyes, imagining what pure, yet simple life you could live with Jaebum, even if it was just the two of you living far away in isolation, away from the perverse influence of others. You felt alleviated. Lighter. Freer, at just the thought. And even if this fantasy remained as such, it would be better to live in a world that you could control instead of one that you couldn’t.

“Then let’s run away.”

[casually-inlove]

Hi! I love your analysis and i want to know your opinion about he tian and jian yi jealous How did you think they gonna react if they see xixi and Mo with others o maybe if xixi and Mo have a good friendship, did you imagine he tian and jian yi watching them jealous?

UPDATED: added the Jian Yi bit I missed.

Gosh, you guys make me embarrassed lol. I honestly never expected these kinds of posts to get positive feedback. But I’m very excited that you enjoy reading it so thank you so much!

Back to your question. Firstly, as preamble, I’d like to state that I do not consider jealousy an entirely healthy sort of reaction nor do I endorse it in any way. A little jealousy is natural, but extreme jealous outbursts are truly unbecoming, nor do I want to romanticize them in any way.

(This is gonna be long, so better grab a chair).

Now when it comes to He Tian, I truly believe that feeling jealous will be a new and entirely unnerving experience to him. Looking back at his past experiences and childhood traumas, it’s quite obvious that he’s somewhat disconnected and detached from his own feelings. This is most evident in the emptiness that fills his life: he has no real passion (save for basketball maybe), no close relationships (until he meets MGS and co, and still he’s not open about himself yet), no deep ties to his family, and he practically stripped himself bare of any personal possessions. Hell, with all the money he has, his apartment is empty and all his stuff fits nicely in just a couple of cardboard boxes. So bottom line, He Tian isn’t used to getting attached to things or people, consciously or subconsciously he ends up avoiding it. That, of course, can be traced back to the puppy incident which basically splits itself into three points: 1) the puppy he came to love and care was gruesomely taken away from him 2) his brother, the person who He Tian trusted the most, betrayed him 3) He Tian was weak, so he had to entrust something he loved into another person’s care, and thus it ended up in a disaster, because he couldn’t protect the puppy himself.

Now that he is becoming more and more attached to MGS, I’m pretty sure that some of his deep-rooted fears will intensify, particularly the ones that relate to his past inability to protect something he cherished. On the other hand, He Tian clearly wishes Mo well. It’s evident from the way he went out of his way to find him a well-paying job at the photography studio, and even tried to compliment Mo on being industrious and finally looking like somebody. I do believe that He Tian is somewhat familiar with Mo’s reputation, at very least he probably heard the rumours and we know for sure that he had been checking the detention board. So he probably knows that in fact, MGS doesn’t have that many friendships outside his henchmen. With that said, I believe a part of He Tian would want to be supportive of Mo building healthy connections with other people.

And that’s where He Tian’s inner conflict will come into the light because he’ll be faced with his deep-running internalized fears that he may not rationally understand battling his desire to be supportive and selfless. Considering that He Tian’s upbringing probably caused him to shut off his own emotions, this is going to be very hard for him. The novelty of it, the inner turmoil of conflicting feelings, his inability to adequately process and express his emotions – all of it will likely put a strain on He Tian. While I don’t see him throwing a jealousy fit (he just doesn’t seem like the type, besides as I mentioned, he ultimately wants to be good for MGS even if he doesn’t always know how), I could see him getting crabby to the point Mo notices and wonders wtf is going on. Or, more likely, I could see him becoming extra-clingy, invading Mo’s personal space or y’know, going all “excuse me, let me borrow Little Mo for a sec”. What I do not see is He Tian being downright nasty about it and fending off anyone who comes into close vicinity of Mo. Absolutely not.

As for ZZX, I believe that as of right now he’s taking Jian Yi a little bit for granted, however, once Jian Yi gets kidnapped, his attitude will change. We know that ZZX is somewhat annoyed by Jian Yi’s antics. It just happens that our lovely airhead fits the bill of a boy who cried wolves. OX scattered these moments throughout the narrative, like when Jian Yi does that careless hide-and-seek thing making ZZX worry for nothing. So I expect that as the story goes on, ZZX will be taking him with a grain of salt.

Obviously, ZZX worries for him. And I think we’ve noticed something like distrust mixed with maybe some airs of disapproval when Brother Qiu gave Jian Yi a lift on his bike. The face that ZZX makes doesn’t look like one that endorsed Jian Yi being so careless around a stranger.

There’s also a strip from the earlier short comic series (it takes place after Jian Yi reappears), where a drunk older Jian Yi apparently ends up leaning against a very imposing stranger, to ZZX dismay at that. ZZX, who had previously pushed Jian Yi off, now quickly rectifies himself and tugs Jian Yi away from another dude. He’s silent but yeah, you can see it written all over his face: ZZX does not approve Jian Yi hanging around older men, haha.

Anyway, back to my original point. I think that post Jian Yi’s return, ZZX gonna treat him with greater care, precisely because he had lost him once. Those feelings of loss and inability to prevent it will probably cause ZZX to act low-key possessive like he did in that strip. Sure, he’s worried about his safety, but I cannot help but feel that ZZX feels a bit inadequate when he sees Jian Yi get close to someone older… and bigger? If we go waaaay back to the first kidnapping attempt, we see that in the aftermath ZZX feels down allegedly because he wants to grow up and become strong in order to protect Jian Yi. Perhaps that is why he appears slightly pissed when Jian Yi ends up close with someone ZZX can’t take on?

As for ZZX and Momo… well, I just don’t see them giving off couple vibes. They are probably gonna spend their time in rather comfortable silence. For Momo ZZX is someone who doesn’t annoy him with endless chitchat, and for ZZX Momo is someone who doesn’t indulge in silly ideas. So no, I don’t imagine them spending time next to each other would somehow bother Jian Yi or He Tian. It’s just not that type of bond.

EDIT

Apologies to the anon who asked the question. I seem to have misread it a bit. I usually answer these things when I’m back from work and by the end of the day, I’m thoroughly braindead and confusing 3’s for 8’s, lol. Again, my apologies.

So the question was actually about how would Jian Yi react to seeing ZZX with other people, not the other way around.

I do see Jian Yi as someone prone to jealousy. In fact, I think we can safely assume that Jian Yi displays some signs of anxious attachment style. Attachment styles are, by and large, the behavioural patterns that define our habits of building and maintaining long-term and short-term relationships. Anxious attachment forms in children when the parental figure vacillates between being there for them (caring, feeding, being emotionally supportive, etc) and being either distant/absent, or insensitive and otherwise not providing them with attention and care. The child thus undergoes greater levels of distress, because the parent is unpredictable, and the child doesn’t understand what to expect and whether they will be cared for or left on their own. As they grow up, they start displaying such behaviours as being clingy or smothering, since they subconsciously believe that the only way for them to survive is to cling close to their attachment figure, often both in the emotional and physical sense of it.

Now from what we know of Jian Yi, his father was absent from his life, while his mother seems to be frequently missing. We have seen tell ZZX that some auntie is picking him after kindergarten. Some flashbacks also show him being lonely and apparently alone at home. There’s also a scene where a young Jian Yi is weeping and coming up with an idea that “mother doesn’t want him anymore”, which are also quite telling.

From the narrative, we learn that it is ZZX who becomes a significant attachment figure to Jian Yi. Hell, during the kidnapping, Jian Yi isn’t thinking about seeing his mom again, he’s thinking about ZZX. Apart from clinginess, people with an anxious attachment style may indulge themselves in constantly testing whether their partner worries about them. Now I’m not saying that Jian Yi is manipulative in any way or that he plays games with ZZX, however, he does often want his attention/approval, like when he does that pounce thing or when he half-heartedly tries to play hide-and-seek in an inopportune moment. Also, quite clearly Jian Yi doesn’t like being separated from his boyfriend, lol.

Typically, jealousy in people with anxious attachment manifests itself from their own deep-running insecurities. Insecurity makes people become very critical about themselves, so they may often have these lines of thinking: “you are so desperate/needy/selfish, of course, he/she will be annoyed by you” and thus they may often feel unfulfilled because they tend to suppress their need for affection. These suppressed feelings, in turn, may result in short anger outbursts and some distrustful or controlling behaviour. We have seen bits of both when Jian Yi had to deal with a love-letter from a girl who had a crush on ZZX (what’s her name again?).

How Jian Yi would behave if he became jealous: likely he’ll become emotionally withdrawn due to deep-seated insecurities, might fluctuate between emotional outbursts and clinginess. Will he be nasty to the other person? No, not very likely. However, he did display the so-called behavioural jealousy (the set of defensive measures against the perceived threat of a romantic rival): he agreed to help the girl deliver the love-letter on condition that she’ll never approach ZZX again.

So yes, I do see him being inclined to some jealous behaviours, but again not towards Momo x ZZX. As I said, there isn’t anything remotely romantic about them spending time together.

[dontshootmespence]

Purposeful

A/N: A request from @dropsofkink for a Spencer x Reader smut, where she has a habit that drives Spencer crazy.

Warning: Smut.

                                                            ------

They were mundane movements. But not on her.

Plenty of men and women around him did the same things day in and day out.

Yet he was sitting here across from her unable to unglue his eyes from her. It was fairly obvious, even to him, that she liked him. And he liked her too, so nothing was keeping anything from happening between them except fear. Fear of what? He didn’t even know. 

As he tried desperately to keep his eyes on his paperwork, she sat at her desk chewing delicately on the end of her pen. Occasionally, she wrap her lips around it. Sometimes she would drag it along her lips like a lipstick. Either way it made his mind jump to very obvious places that made his body react in a way that was definitely not appropriate in the workplace. On top of chewing on her pen, she tended to cross and uncross her legs very deliberately. It was painstakingly slow. If she happened to be wearing pants that day, then he found himself wondering about the skin underneath. If she was wearing a skirt, it was even worse. The flimsy material of her skirt would ride up her thighs as she lifted one over the other, her legs rubbing gently against each other. It drove him wild. Truly distracting on a level he’d never experienced before. 

With a deep breath, he forced his gaze back down on the papers in front of him,  but that didn’t do anything to stop the raging thoughts and the raging something else going on behind the desk. 

One more time, he found himself glancing up just as she uncrossed her legs, the right calf sliding down the front of her left leg in such a languid, silky fashion that he would swear she was doing it on purpose. When she got up a few minutes later, he decided to stop kidding himself and got up to follow her. He had to say something. Maybe she wanted a relationship, maybe she didn’t, maybe she wanted friends with benefits. He had no clue. All he wanted was for this racing in his head to stop. “Hey Spence,” she said excitedly when she realized he was right behind her. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” he replied, obviously lying. “I just have a question for you. Are you trying to kill me?” He tried laughing it off and hoped it sounded more easy going than it felt. 

Her eyes widened in surprise as she laughed. “What are you talking about?”

“The way you chew your pen and cross and uncross your legs. It’s driving me crazy,” he spat out. 

Just as she stopped in her tracks, her lips curled up into a smile. “Why Spence, I never knew how you felt about me.”

“Really?” 

“No,” she giggled. “I knew. I just didn’t know whether you’d want to pursue anything...you know, because of the fact that we work together and we’re friends first, so I never said anything about it. I can’t deny I knew what I was doing though.”

“With your legs? So you do that on purpose?”

“Yea,” she said guilty but with no trace of guilt on her lips. “Didn’t know about the pen thing though. Good to know. Great way to torture you, especially when you lick your lips every five seconds.”

“I do?”

“All the time. Drives me nuts.”

Well, if it drove her nuts that probably meant she was thinking about his lips being in a particular area. All of a sudden, he felt his mind wandering again. “So to be clear, we’re both sexually frustrated with each other?”

“Apparently.”

“Should we do something about it?” He asked.

Finally, they approached the ladies room. “Maybe tonight after work?”

“Today’s going to be a long day,” he sighed, chuckling as he glanced down her body once more. 

“Damn straight.”

                                                           ------

They’d taken separate cars back to Y/N’s place after work and each mile felt like a 1,000, but ten minutes after leaving the Bureau they arrived in front of her complex. “Can we hurry upstairs please?” He asked. “Because I’m starting to get to a point where keeping myself from getting an erection is getting really hard...pun intended.”

She snorted and turned her back against the door, pushing it open with her behind, which she noticed really wasn’t helping him. “So I shouldn’t tell you that the entire time I was driving, I was driving with one hand so I could touch myself with the other?” 

Spencer swallowed hard and rushed up the stairs before her, reaching back to grab her hand. “That was rude,” he laughed.

“What?” She asked indignantly. “Now I’m all ready because I can tell you right  now this first one isn’t going to be slow and sensual.”

No. It definitely wasn’t.

Shakily, she fiddled with the keys before getting them into the lock to push the door open. Before he could even close it, he lifted her up by the backs of her thighs and backed her up against the door, his length straining against his pants to search for her heat. She arched into him, leaning her back into the now-closed door, which croaked under their combined desperation. “So Spence, how about you show me how crazy I make you? I’m dying to know.”

“Gladly,” he mumbled, his voice deep and needy. Reaching his hand under her skirt, he slipped her panties to the side and touched her, reveling in the way her eyes fluttered closed. She was already so wet and it was for him. That was something he couldn’t comprehend. As he slipped her finger up and down her slit, she groaned, hips shaking and arching further into him. 

Both thought they were in control, but neither truly was. She pushed back against him and slipped off his hips, shimmying her skirt down and onto the floor before reaching for his belt and pulling it free of its loops. 

Underneath his shirt, he could feel the sweat start to form, making his clothes cling to his skin. It was too close for comfort but he was already too far gone to care. Before he buried himself inside and truly lost all control, he crouched down and lifted her skirt, tonguing her sex and pressing it against her clit. The way she shook, whimpering before she breathed his name - it made him wonder how he ever thought he had any control. “Fuck, you’re so sexy.”

“Mmmm. Now get up here and kiss me.”

As he rose, she slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. She tasted herself on his tongue, her desperation, fed by his own as he arched into her dying to get closer. “I’m sorry this isn’t going to be very romantic the way I imagined it,” he said breathless as he pushed his boxers down and stepped out of them. 

“You imagined it?” She craned her neck back and brought his mouth to it. She’d imagined it too.

Spencer’s tongue darted out against the expanse of skin below her ear feeling satisfied with himself when he heard her moan. “Yes. But I think the longer I waited to say something the more desperate I got hence my inability to keep from doing this, right here and now.” With her pinned against the wall, he grabbed his length and placed it at her entrance, sliding in gently but swiftly. “Oh fuck.”

As the entire world around them faded into the background, Y/N gave herself over to the shaking, shivering, all-encompassing sensations he wrought. She clung to him as he thrust into her, her nails digging small crescent-shaped indents in his skin. “Oh my god, Spence. Please don’t stop.”

He had no plans to. With each thrust, he knocked her hips into the wall behind her, filling the room with only the sounds of the creaking wood and their own labored, desperate breaths. “I’m gonna come, Spence,” she cried, her hand reaching back and scraping against the door frame. “Holy hell. Please.”

Spencer buried his head into her neck and picked up his pace, crying out as he spilled himself inside her. As the waves of pleasure subsided, he cradled her by the small of her back and watched as she came with his name on her lips. “Oh my fuck,” he laughed.

“Oh my fuck indeed. Bedroom?”

They were sweaty and out of breath and weak in the knees but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t get enough. He wondered if it was possible to. “Absolutely. We’re going to keep doing this until we collapse in each other’s arms.”

She smiled into him as he walked them inside. “That could be a while.”

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