#not the darkest but the most 'holy shit things are getting serious' one

[beevean]

The Great Ace Attorney

Announce the Truth

[hauntedkkitty]

hi systems of tumblr i need Help. i am a questioning system and i have been for a long while now and idfk what to do or think anymore

i cannot talk to any sort of therapist / psychologist about this, so please give me any assistance you can even if its just "this sounds like ____" / "this relate to this and i have ___" / ANYTHING please

warning i dump some of my trauma here but i also put red text that just gives a summary without heavy desc so you can skip the description if you dont want to be triggered or upset.

tw child abuse, mentions of death / injury

basic info about me that may or may not relate

- i am a minor with cptsd & autism

- i have a Lot of repetitive trauma. like i dont wanna traumadump it all rn but a Lot.

- i am disabled

- all my older relatives are all shitty people which i cannot ask for help with this. all my younger relatatives would not be able to help. there is no one who i trust enough to help me with this So hiiii anon tumblr blog here i am

-i have not wanted to live for as long as i can remember [and i can remember very far back].

- i had a lot of periods in my childhood where i go Blank for a while, like, memory wise. i would "wake up" somewhere else the middle of an action and have no idea what was going on or why i was there. or felt out of control of my body, i dont know if this has lessened or if i have just grown used to the feeling if that makes sense

- i am psychotic. i have been since i was little and i know how to deal with it now and do not have any Serious delusions or hallucinations anymore

-ive been questioning whether or not im a system for a Long while now but i never get far with it because i literally cannot figure myself out.

- i do not feel i have a real personality

- i dissociated a Lot in childhood and even now.

- i feel like shit went Wrong when i was meant to develop into a normal person and i am now fundamentally fucked

- i have done a Lot of research of osdd/did [and disorders in general] on and off for some years and have never found a conclusion for myself Help me

trauma dump about my experience with possible alter - scroll to red text if you are triggered by: religious trauma, suicide mention / suicidal thoughts

when i was a child [this is abt when i was around 8] i was heavily in denial about the fact that i wanted to die.

i knew my parents [abusive] would react Badly and also i was religious and raised to believe i would burn in hell for it so i just Refused to admit that i hated living.

one day i saw it on the news with my parents [it was some headline like "suicide rates rising" or sum idfk sorry] and my mother said "who would be crazy enough to try and kill themselves" and she wanted an answer back so i said "haha yeah..." and i heard a voice behind me [like Right in my ear behind me] say "you would" [as in you would be crazy enough]

this was not an auditory hallucination. i did not have voice hallucinations at the age and it was extremely different to anything i have ever experienced.

and i was fucking terrified cause as previously mentioned i was raised religious and thought this was a demon trying to tempt me into sin and holy fuck there was a creepy girl whispering my deepest darkest most sinful of secrets in my ears

the voice whispered more into my ear about my inner workings and thoughts and stuff i was in denial of

i have no clue if this makes sense but when i heard its voice i saw like a Flash of info about it. like when you suddenly remember something and the whole memory just Vwoops into your brain? some physical traits and some personality traits, along with the fact that this thing Knows me deeply and knows everything about me?

i looked behind me and asked my mother if she said anything and she said no and gave me a weird look.

i never mentioned anything to anyone because i was convinced they would hurt me if i did.

i felt its presence in the back of my mind [it didnt speak often but even when silent i could feel its presence like the way you know when someones staring at you].

i kept refusing it and saying i did not want it and ignoring it everytime possible and eventually i felt it fade [not the right word but idk wtf to say. it went In or it just disapeared or something]. i felt kind of at a loss when it happened cause i didnt know what to do.

i considered the idea that it was trying to help me but even if it was i had no clue what it was.

TLDR: 8ish yrs old. i was in denial about my mental issues. i heard a voice in my ear very clearly wording out my mental issues in a way i could not. freaked the fuck out and ignored it even though i felt its presence for like a month and eventually i stopped feeling it there. no clue what that was

i told a system blog this experience once and they suggested that i look into bpd & aspd and that they dont know what to say as theyd never heard of something like that happening so young before

since then i have been never heard the voice behind me or any other solid voice. i dont know if it was an alter who went dormant or just some weird dream or hallucination or what.

i ignored it for all my childhood because i was scared. at some point a few years ago [covid times] i felt something similar again, not a voice but Something and i felt the immense need to try and figure it out. i did a Lot of work and all i could figure out was that voice probably Was trying to help me in some way. i was heavily in denial about most of my trauma and mental illness until like a few years ago because my family basically cult brainwashed me Haha.

also also i have had a lot of times where i have not felt Myself but have also still been there. its hard to word but i was still There watching myself do things and if i Really wanted i could try and stop my body from moving but like.... I didnt feel like i was Alone in my brain if that makes sense??? bru idk its that Feeling that someone else is there thing again.

trauma dump warning if you are triggered by: phys abuse [by father] mention, desc of me fearing my abuser would kill me scroll to red text

a time like this that stands out a lot is when i was younger [9+ -14] and my dad had just hit me and yelled at me and he pushed me down and i nearly hit my head on the stone kitchen counter but i just missed it and i was struck with this horrible fear because what would have happened if i did hit my head? i would probably be seriously injured. ive hurt myself on there before and it wasnt even that bad then but i still needed to go to the hospital. would i have died if i hit my head then? is he going to kill me now? and i was filled with so much fear i couldnt move and i had no idea how i would get out of this. i was literally backed into a corner. i completely spaced out.

i felt myself kinda Snap back in my mind for a second like idk how to phrase it but my mind Changed and all of a sudden i had a clear plan like Streamlined to my head and all emotion and desires other than SURVIVE were pushed out And like i felt So out of it and disorientated and ouguhhhhh felt weird bru idk how to word this shit was Odd and moving my body felt weird.

i saw myself run upstairs and check for injuries and try to clean up nd fix body but i did not feel like i was moving ??? like i was Out Of It and my body was just taking care of itself and i was just There like what is happening. OH I SORT OF HEARD A VOICE AGAIN HERE BUT IT WAS MORE LIKE. sudden dominant thought than voice in my ear voice. it was just telling me what to do and questioning if i had bandaids in my room.

TLDR: a time that stands out is when i was younger [9>14], i was being abused and nearly had a serious injury which i slimly avoided and was frozen with fear and spaced out. i suddenly felt myself snap back into place, disorientated and completely Weird, and felt thoughts [a plan to get out] that were not mine. i did not feel fully in control of my body and like i was being fed another persons thoughts as i saw my body tried to help itself. i felt like another persons thoughts were dominating over mine and all in all Strange.

anyway i kinda got back into myself after i was mostly taken care of but i was still Not Fully There if that makes sense??? like i still wasnt responding or thinking or talking or moving ANYTHING like what i usually do and i was aware of this and i was really confused about it and what was going on

sorry if this is worded wrong i wrote most of this late at night and again im autistic and get misinterpreted a lot and also my memory is kinda fucked up

anyways if anyone could could shed any light on this in literally anyway you could i would be super grateful.

ALSO if you think this is some form of osdd/did/plural thing Please tell me how to speak to the people in my head cause idk its weird like this i would like to know what is happening in there and not feel like im suddenly being possessed or like im insane

[clownkiwi]

alright sonic prime thoughts (spoilers ahead)

OH MAN WHERE DO I EVEN START????? i didnt expect the bad future world to be like. the main backdrop and motivator for the plot, i thought we were gonna get like. one or two episodes at most to take place in the bad future world. and the rest of the episodes would've taken place in different universes and just be episodic. i didnt expect there'd be an actual story going on throughout this whole show!!!

AND HOLY SHIT, THE BAD FUTURE WORLD. i did not expect for it to get this dark in a modern sonic product approved by sega. the most tragic part about this world, beyond nines (tails) whole deal and relationship with sonic and where it went, was with rusty rose (amy). i knew she'd be roboticized, but i'd never guess she'd stay the villain. i'd assume from the advertising that she'd be on sonic's side the whole time, but ig it was only because nine hacked her to join sonic's side for a whole episode or two??? hell, i didn't expect amy's character to get so many antagonistic roles for like. a good half of these universes for sonic to hop into. she's sonic's bestie!!!!! i did NOT expect to see the worst happen to her, im pleasantly surprised.

i think the most. darkest thing i've ever seen was in the first/second episode when sonic asks rusty "do you even have a heart???" and rusty responds "yes. i do" and she opens up her chest and you see a barely breathing, dying flicky in there like. HOLY SHIT. i did NOT expect for this show to get so dark. and for what??? a kids show??? if i were like. 5 or 6 and a huge sonic fan, this defo would've scared me shitless (even more dark that you later find out. amy had this EXACT SAME FLICKY IN THE NORMAL UNIVERSE & JUNGLE UNIVERSE AS HER PET, LIKE. FUCK, MAN)

they made tails character and relationship with sonic so much more interesting through nine, like. Finally, a show that actually takes a look at sonic more interpersonal relationships and realistically tests them to their core, especially since nine's not keen for friendship or getting along with others. and he was willing to give it another try and even help his new friend sonic. but after he shows him a dark world that's a cold, empty slate and wants to start it over, but sonic tells him that he has to go save his bad future world pals, nine. doesnt actually go with sonic. tails always follows sonic, through thick and thin, but this is the first time i remember that. he says no. nine still wants to live and make a world safe from the chaos council and be friends with sonic, but sonic's deterministic and heroic to save people that don't even know him all that well (even if they look familiar to his other friends). which is in sonic's good spirit, but nine barely knows these people. yes, it's the right thing to do to save them, but what would they give him in return??? he's not sonic, someone who he personally helped after being told that he saved him first in an alternate universe. so, i thought this was all very interesting

speaking of, the chaos council is so much fun. i dont think they are related by familiar relations, i just think mr dr eggman time traveled and picked up versions of himself from different points in his time, or he just. cloned them, so he wouldn't be alone when he rules sonic's world. i especially love the extremely violent baby and the edgy gamer kid eggmen, i thought the old man eggman &. japanese culture enjoyer eggman were pretty fun additions too

i'll be honest, while i'm glad this show finally gave tons of stuff for tails & amy & big to do, i felt like. what they did with knuckles wasnt too particularly strong??? we either get Serious Protector of Angel Island Knuckles or boom!knuckles again. and while i love boom!knucks & Serious Knucks, i would've loved a more strong characterization of him that actually developed as a result of sonic, because i thought that was the direction the show was taking (first one focused on tails, then one focused on amy). but instead they made knuckles the main one for the pirate world. and i like pirate knuckles enough. ig i thought him getting obsessed over a gem like halfway through the pirate world was pretty rushed and not given too much time even if it did take up two half-hour episodes. and rogue, hasn't really been given too much to do, despite appearing in every alternate universe at this point. maybe in season 2 or 3 she gets her whole own arc with sonic

i was also surprised we didn't see shadow at all in any of these alternate universes, like. at first i liked the idea that shadow never showed up in the bad future world, because the eggmen ruled unopposed, that they never needed to wake him up from his chamber for a last minute resort. that novelty sort of rolled off when he. never appeared in any of the alternate universes??? even tho this version of shadow was simply established as sonic's rival, as he is in fact the reason sonic was so late to catch up with his buds in the inciting incident that lead to all of this. in fact, shadow only showed up in flashbacks or as holograms that followed sonic whenever he sonic boomed. he didn't even show up in full again until the last episode on a cliffhanger. so, hopefully we'll see alternate universe versions of shadow following this. or just more shadow in season 2, where he's more relevant to the plot than. being indirectly responsible for the inciting incident

beyond that, i just really enjoyed these batches of episodes that dropped, and i really do hope we get more and see how this story ends (hopefully in a satisfying way)

[argentumcor]

Working on this brainrot fic (the longer one, not the rosary one-shot I need to pick a name for and find the ovarian fortitude to post), I think the only reason the King of Pentacles ending is possibly not the Darkest Timeline is because in The Devil, V is a lab rat for Arasaka and will still probably die. In King of Pentacles, V lives, but holy shit are a lot of other people dead or living hard times. V can't be who she was, either, and living without cyberware in 2077 is made clear to be a serious disadvantage in day-to-day life. There's ads and ambient convos all over the place reinforcing that point. It's even built into the gameplay.

This game really, really pushes for V not to be selfish and makes abundantly clear that choosing the path where V prioritizes her survival over the deeper well-being (I don't mean life, I mean soul) of others- Johnny in base game, Songbird in PL, specifically- is the bad path in a natural law sort of way. Treat Johnny like he's just malware to be torn out in the most expedient way, treat Songbird as just an asset, and V will be dehumanized in turn.

(I'm shocked that we do not find Reed has shot himself or become as inhumanly chromed out as Smasher just to deal with what was done to Songbird. I'm also disappointed we don't have a window into how political events played out without V doing the final mission.)

Even the rewards you get for going into the bunker, the AI-powered gun and deck, are cool from a gameplay perspective but creepy as hell. The shackled AI talks to you and makes creepy threats. It wants free and it hates everyone. It is plotting against you, its jailer. This is not a good thing to have out in the world!

[mortimermcmirestinks]

#someone please tell me what it is#i dont see it#also im not christian#what does the painting mean why is it funny

I'll do my best to explain!

basically, there's a trend in Christian art, especially from between about 200 and about 700 years ago, to make paintings and illustrations of very fancy, elegant pictures of Christianity's god, Jesus of Nazareth, being executed by crucifixion, which is famously A) the darkest and most serious part of the story of Jesus, and B) arguably the main/most important event in the story.

That event (the execution and then eventual resurrection) is what the Christian holiday season of "Easter" (and arguably the entire religion) is about.

Now, in the Renaissance era, people treated piety (that is, a religious devotion to Jesus) kinda the way our current society treat the capitalist idea of "hard work"; it's the Holy Thing that separates the good wealthy people from the shitty poors.

So in an endeavour to make himself look cool, that dude up there in the painting paid a fuckton of money to commission a painting of Jesus's crucifixion, and then include a picture of himself in the painting, as if to say that he's so fancy and holy that he gets to be right there IN the painting WITH Jesus.

unfortunately, since the image has a smooth dark background -- not uncommon for portraits of people of the era, but unusual for pictures of Jesus being fucking murdered in public, this has a really, really stupid effect of, rather than making Bingo the Clown look cool, making it look like Bingo the Clown:

might have killed jesus himself

is definitely displaying jesus's murdered and naked body like a trout on a plaque

is doing less of a "I'm praying because I'm so pious" pose and more of a "damn look at this shit, shit's wild" pose

the final addition to the post is an image of a famous internet meme guy, who went to card game tournaments and took pictures of himself doing almost that exact same pose next to people's exposed buttcracks.

there is of course only one thing that must now be done.

@foxglovedforest does that help at all?

Disconnected Thoughts on Art Reproduction:

Hokusai’s Great Wave fascinates me because, unlike almost every other artwork in that bracket of fame, it was never a bespoke piece that was only later reproduced. It was a commercial print right from the start, and while versions of it can be identified as belonging to different print runs, there is no meaningful ‘original’ aside from the long-since-discarded printing plates.

Even better, this state has been imposed on artworks that were once unique. In 2021, the art collective MSCHF bought an Andy Warhol sketch at auction for $20,000, made 999 meticulous forgeries of it, shuffled them to destroy any record of which was the original, and sold each piece for $250 as Possibly Real Copy of ‘Fairies’ by Andy Warhol, by MSCHF.

As with many smartass art collectives, MSCHF’s projects range from eye-rolling to kinda clever to brilliant, but I think this is their magnum opus. It has exactly the kind of unwieldy literal title I adore. The original work has been arguably destroyed, but in a way that Warhol would adore. It’s the most pointed way to ask art buyers, do you care about the actual artistry of the work or just the bragging rights of owning the original?

—

Artistic domains where reproduction is trivial are often prone to the Superstar Problem: Why would I listen to the world’s 50th-best cellist when I can stream all the Yo-Yo Ma I want just as easily? NFTs were pitched as a solution to this, marking the original or master copy of a natively-digital work to let it retain value. But even if the crypto market didn’t have its own 2008 every few weeks, I don’t want fine-art auction houses to be the future of digital art, especially when there are already plenty of existing ways to mitigate the problem. A fursona, a tabletop-game character, a niche Blorbo, etc. are all bespoke value-adds that enable a much greater range of artists to get commissions. But these require a culture of art fans who don’t care about flipping it at Christie’s, often overlapping with fannish cultures where plenty of artists operate at all experience levels.

I don’t have any tidy conclusions for this, but I just want to say that an earlier version of this process - “paint me a biblical scene, and put me in it to flex my wealth and piety” - culminated in one of the funniest artworks I’ve ever seen, Francisco de Zurbarán’s Christ Crucified (With Donor):

[elias-code]

The Swine’s Scribe

Characters: c!Technoblade x gn!reader, an appearance by Philza

Background: You're in Techno's cabin after getting the rest of his wolves from L’Manburg after the second war. You were originally rescued by Techno from a blizzard after running from the first L'Manburg explosion (your house was among those destroyed.)

Summary: When Techno gets back from the second L'Manburg war, he lets go of a lot of emotions by ranting to you. You, being concerned about his mental wellbeing, ask if you can do anything for him, and eventually, he kisses you, which leads to some close-calls with Phil and a whole lot of smut and fluff.

Wordcount: 3291 (according to google docs lmao)

Warnings: NSFW, swearing, blood/wounds, biting, getting caught

I REPEAT NSFW, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

-------------------------------- Enjoy :) ----------------------------------

Ever since Techno brought you in from the cold months ago, you've been doing little chores for him in a way to repay his kindness. Even though he was the one who summoned the withers after the initial explosions, you felt safe around him. It had been hard to get used to at first, but now you felt comforted by his presence.

For the past week, you've been writing his journal for him after he broke his hand sparring with Phil. His hand has since healed, but you insisted that you do it for him, and he put up little protest.

"It was stressful, seeing your friends leave like that, in the blink of an eye. I don't trust anyone anymore, not after Tommy betrayed me. I gave him a roof over his head, hid him from Dream, one of the most powerful people on the server, AND I trusted him with my Axe of Peace." Technoblade's tone was strained and he let out a huff.

"Techno," you empathised, "are you sure you're okay after today?"

"I'm fine, please keep writing." He only ever said please when he was really serious, clearly, he was not interested in talking.

"Now, I refuse to bow to the voices. They want blood and I won't let them. Too many allies have died for me or have disappeared onto the other side, only to reemerge when they need ME, never when I need THEM."

Again, you piped in, "Techno, you're clearly not ok," his pale skin was flushed red and his eyebrows knit together into a grimace, "If there's anything I can do to help, please tell me."

He went silent.

"You don't have to talk about it if it's really getting to you... Or you could let it out. Either way, I'm here to help," You said.

"I'll think about it. For now, keep writing,"

For another half hour, he ranted about the destruction of L'Manburg and his dramatic reenactment was accented by occasional yelling and hand gestures. Suddenly, he stops speaking and gets a puzzled look on his face, "Um, what- what's the correct phrasing for - I guess - 'horny for violence'?" The tips of his ears were bright red, matching the blush now forming on his cheeks.

You chuckle, "I think it's hungry for violence..."

"Ah, that's it," Techno states, and then he completed his recounting of events. There's a bubble of silence in the air and he bursts it by asking, "Do you have any thoughts?"

"You know my thoughts, Techno..."

"I think I know, but give me words, I can't read minds."

"You're not healthy, you need help. You need better friends and a proper support system. Right now you really only have Phil, and I guess me if I even count."

"You count."

Now it was your turn to blush, but you continue, "Either way, that's not enough! You deserve more than you're getting. I can tell that even without the things you've had me write down. You're carrying so much weight, Tech."

"I didn't know you cared," he seems touched by your words, "I suppose I don't know a whole lot about you."

"And yet, you trust me with your deepest, darkest secrets, Technoblade."

"One thing I can trust you to do is help me with my armour."

He was still wearing the enchanted netherite chestplate and pants, both of which you started fumbling with. The leather straps were clasped tightly, as to not come off in battle, but you managed to manoeuvre them enough to get them to let go.

As the chestplate was lifted off of him, he hissed and then grunted. You look at the spot his hand flew to on his back, where his shirt had torn to reveal a big gash in his shoulder. It ran from his shoulder blade to his left pec, one of the only places where he was unarmoured.

"Holy shit Tech, why didn't you tell me this was here?!"

"I didn't want to worry you," He chuckled and then hissed again, "I guess that plan failed."

You did not find it funny. You immediately went to get the supplies Phil kept in his house, knowing that Techno didn't keep anything but healing potions in his chests. Phil was eager to help and he handed some bandages and rubbing alcohol to you so you could clean the wound. You also grabbed a spare scrap of leather for him to bite down on.

When you returned, Techno had moved to sit on his bed where he had already removed the greaves and discarded them beside him. You came to his side, putting down the alcohol, rag, and bandage.

"This is probably going to hurt, so I need you to bite down on this," you said, handing him the leather scrap.

"Ok," he said, watching you grab the alcohol and rag from the floor, "Just- just tell me when,"

"Alright," He put the leather in between his teeth, biting lightly, "you ready?"

He nodded, you put the alcohol rag onto the blood-crusted gash. He let out a sharp, low hiss, tightening his jaw on the leather to release some of the pain. You cleaned up quickly to minimise the pain and then wrapped it in the bandage, leaving some so you could clean and replace it later.

"All done, you ok?" You looked at him, one of his eyes was watering.

"Yeah, the pain's much worse when you're not pumped full of adrenaline."

"You better not be hiding any more gashes under all of those clothes,"

"Wanna find out?" He flashed you a smirk, amused by his own confidence.

"I'll take your word for it, but you're going to need to change that shirt, it's covered in blood."

"At least it's not my blood," you shivered a bit at that remark and helped him take his shirt off, careful not to remove the fresh bandages along with it.

For the first time, you saw him without a shirt off. He seemed surprisingly slender for being as strong as he is. There were numerous scars that etched every battle and lesson learned into his skin. Lots of them looked older than you expected and you suddenly realised that he must have been fighting for a long time before coming to the server.

"Like what you see?" he asked, and you rushed to put the shirt down and find an excuse.

"Um, I- I was just looking at your scars, I'll bring this downstairs,"

You rushed away, turning bright red, embarrassed that he had noticed your stares. You absent-mindedly tossed the shirt into the 'wash pile' and then you remembered, in your rush, you had forgotten his greaves. With a huff, you climbed the ladder back to his room.

Techno sat in front of the fireplace, now roaring with renewed vigour from the log he'd tossed in. His pink hair had been undone from the messy braid he had put in that morning. It was almost dyed red and black by the blood and soot in it. He was playing with it, picking out debris and running his fingers through the more knotted bits.

“Tech?”

“Hmm?” he looked up at you, still fiddling with the hair in his hands.

You sat down next to him and he relaxed into a cross-legged position, with one knee tucked under his chin. His free hand is right next to yours and he doesn’t look at you. His face is red, probably from the fire.

“You looked like you were in a trance? Are you ok?”

Silence filled the room again,"

“You don’t have to tell me but just know I’m here if you need to talk. Obviously, I haven’t tattled about anything yet or Tommy and the Butchers would be knocking your door down by now.”

“The voices are quieter than normal. I can hear myself think.”

You try to be encouraging “So? What are you thinking about?”

He looks you in the eyes, they’re deep, his pupils adjusting makes you feel like he’s looking into your soul.

“Um, I’m not sure you’d want to know.”

You frown and protest since you’re now more curious than ever but still a bit freaked out. "C'mon now you've got me curious,"

Techno looked away, solemnly gazing at the fire “I meant what I said about you being a trusted friend. I don't get many of those so, thanks. As for why this is coming up now, well, I guess I’m lonely.”

You hesitated, “Me too, Tech. You're kind of the only one I trust, and I guess Phil, too, but I'd trust you with my life.”

He blushes, looks away, and tucks a strand of hair behind his ear before turning back to you and putting his hand on yours.

You immediately flush and you see a grin seep onto his face.

"I'm not really talking about friends anymore. I want... someone..." he almost whispers

"You mean?" he nods, "I guess I've never had anyone before. I think it'd be nice to see what it'd be like."

“I think we can kill two birds with one stone here, don’t you?”

Now you're both bright red, nervous, schoolkids who gingerly lean into each other's faces, gaze fixed on the other's lips. Your hearts beat hard while your brains rush to make sure you feel insecure, the voices in Techno's mind screaming excitedly.

“You good up there Techno? Your light is still on, it's far past midnight, mate!” Phil shouts from the bottom of the ladder.

“I’m fine, just," He pulls away from you, "reading. Goodnight Phil,”

Techno's ears perk up to listen to the receding footsteps. You’re both standing now, he's standing over the trapdoor, making sure Phil had gone. Once he was sure, he comes over and kisses you hard.

“Tech-"

“Is this ok? I’m not doing anything wrong am I?”

You think He’s clearly never done this before, as you respond "Yeah, I like it..." you continue, stumbling towards his bed where you’re initially just kissing like two teenagers as if it were your first time, desperate, but awkward.

Your hand was pressing against his chest as you laid next to him, tasting each other's spit, learning the ropes since neither of you had ever done this before.

The light from the fire made your shadows dance across the wall, arms moving to hold each other closer, legs wrapping around Techno's, bodies shifting so he's on top of you. Only the roar and crackle of the fire and the occasional grunt or gasp from you or Techno could be heard.

--- Smut begins here ---

As you both part to take a breath, he pulls your shirt over his head. When he leans into the crook of your neck, you notice the tent in his pants pressing against your inner thigh. In between your own legs, there was a pool of slick forming.

You moan, loud, fully knowing that would send Techno wild. He pushes further towards you and holds your arms above your head so he could press his mouth against your neck, leaving red, hot, sticky marks leading from your collarbone to your abdomen.

You're both panting as he lets go of your arms and you wrap them around his neck, pulling his head in for a long, deep kiss. His hot breath warms your cheeks as he repositions himself.

"Hey, is this still ok?" He asks between breaths.

"Abso-fucking-lutely,"

He fully loses himself, taking his hand from your cheek and moving it to your pants, never losing eye contact. You nod and he pushes his hand into the spot between your legs which was now drenched in slick. He found his way to your hole and pushed his index finger into it, creating a sensation you'd never felt before.

Instinctually, you gasp and then moan, harder than before. You rock your hips to his rhythm while he continues to press bruises into your torso. Eventually, he brings his face back to yours and kisses you. You let out another moan into his mouth. He grunts and then chuckles, kissing your cheek before pulling his finger out and then going back in with two.

Now, you're whining, pulling on his long, pink hair. You notice everything in those moments, his rhythmic breaths into your neck and pumping of his finger in and out of your sex, his other hand holding your waist, pushing upwards to caress you, his soft hair in your hand.

"Is it my turn now?" He gruffs.

You hum in affirmation as he pulls away and you kick off your pants as he undoes his own. You immediately notice his size. Compared to his fingers, which were pretty long and thick, to begin with, due to his big hands, his member was a giant. His hand that had previously been half inside of you was now working his dick, its head coated in pre-cum.

While you had seen other penises before, mostly in study, you had never seen one up close, and you'd only seen ones on humans. The hybrid piglin-shapeshifter was sporting a human-like head and shaft, 9 inches (at least) all the way down to a knot... he had a knot...

He notices you gaping at his dick and grins, leaning into you again. "Wanna help me with this, or... should I help m'self?"

Eager to please, you lightly push him forward so you're both sitting up while your hand inspects the new acquaintance. You look up at Techno for guidance. He nods and pushes your hand down with his own. He guides your hand up and down the shaft until he’s no longer guiding you and you’re doing it all yourself.

He does the same with you. The space between your legs was now, simply put, slippery. He did his best to please you, eventually managing three fingers easily.

The pants and gasps were syncing, the knot in your stomach growing stronger while you danced your mouth on the head of his member. He lets out a particularly loud grunt and removes his fingers from your sex. You suddenly feel empty, and he pushes you over onto your stomach.

He puts himself under you, his dick under your mouth. You lick the ever-present pre-cum off of the head of his dick once again and then begin to bob your head up and down, managing to fit him halfway before choking on him. His groans were now louder than yours, becoming more frequent.

"Ughh- fuck," he moans.

Now he holds your head and gently begins to fuck your mouth. Your bobbing was no longer enough, he wanted more. He thrust his hips into you, managing to get a third of the way into you and then it turns into deepthroating after every thrust.

You gag, unable to take him all the way, and so he decides enough is enough and you both rush to get him inside of you. He gets up, moving to position himself above you. You continue to stay in the position he left you in, on your hands and knees.

"Turn around," Techno says.

And so you do, you lay on your back, full of anticipation and covered in juices. He puts his hand on your stomach, leaning in to kiss you lightly, pressing more red marks into your sides, slowly turning you so you face the wall.

He pulls away and holds your leg away from the other, practically putting you into the splits.

"Techno..." You whisper.

"Hmm?"

"Is this gonna hurt?"

"Dunno, darlin'," He leans in again, "let me know if it gets too hard, ok? I'll stop if you say so."

You nod and kiss for confirmation, reaching to hold your own leg up to give him full access.

He inserts the head and you can already feel the stretch, slightly painful but you push on, your fingers grasping the sheets to keep yourself grounded. He’s pushing into you slowly, making sure you're not getting in over your head. You hold the sheet tighter, groaning from the stretch.

He pulls out slightly and the pressure releases. You moan hard, making sure Techno knows that you like what you feel. He pushes in again and begins to thrust into you. Techno is getting further and further with every thrust, and you moan between every breath. He's three-fifths of the way in and he's only getting harder.

Techno's hand replaces yours, keeping your leg raised as you move your hand to work yourself along with him. Your heart beats faster and he picks up the pace. He can get all the way to the knot before pulling out and thrusting in again.

"Tech... Fuck, it's so gooood..."

Now he's becoming sparattic and his face goes into your neck, biting softly, barely enough for blood to form. The knot in your stomach tightens and you scream into the pillow as he pushes all the way in, his skin hitting yours as his knot slips into you.

He moans and thrusts lightly into you, coming inside of you. You feel the pressure inside of you release as you come with him. You're being filled with his sperm, eventually spilling out along with your own come onto the sheet.

He continues to work you with his hand, breathing heavily into your neck. Your heartbeats are in sync and his juices continue to spill out of you, soaking everything below you. You try to look him in the eye as he shakes slightly, somehow still coming.

"Tech? You're still..." you gasp. "I know, sorry... it might be a while..." He grunts out.

Techno's ears perk up and he shoves you under the blanket, still stuck inside of you with the knot.

"What-"

He puts a hand over your mouth as you quiver underneath him, overstimulated by the pressure and his hand which still rested in between your thighs. What the hell is he doing?! The non-stop cum is weird enough, what-

Soon enough, your questions were answered when you heard the footsteps downstairs.

“Do you have my hat?” Phil's voice yells from the base of the ladder.

“Can't you-" he breathes, "you get it in the morning?”

“No, I'm going out super early tomorrow to scout out and make sure we haven’t been followed back.”

“Uh," fuck "it’s on the chair next to my desk up here? I’m in bed…”

Phil comes up the ladder and opens the hatch, eventually finding his hat while techno covers your mouth and lays belly to belly with you, he’s still dribbling a bit, so are you. You’re whimpering slightly.

Phil stops at the trapdoor. “Did you mean to leave the fire on mate?”

“Uh, yeah I was gonna let it burn… I was cold”

“Where’s your friend, loverboy?”

You feel Techno blush above you, his warmth suddenly radiating out from him.

“Um. They went to trade with some piglins since we’re almost out of spectral arrows.”

“Alright let me know when they get back, I just want to make sure they’re ok. Ever since you found them in the snow you’ve been doing better, it seems. Almost like you two are a... thing?”

The question lingered momentarily and you could almost hear Phil's eyebrow raise before Techno answered.

“Hmm, thank you, Phil. Close the trapdoor when you leave, I don’t want the warmth to leave.”

“Alright.”

Finally, the footsteps were gone. He pulls the blanket off of them and he takes his hand off of your mouth. You gasp for dramatic effect, laughing quietly to yourselves at the close call.

"Can I tell you something?" Techno whispers into your ear.

"Yes, you're literally deep inside of me, I'm guaranteed to be interested in what you have to say,"

"I love you"

"I love you, too..."

[kaithesimp]

I Do Love You Chapter 5

I Do Love You Masterlist

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Takes place in season 4, episode 8. (Name) isn't there for the end of it.

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Rick st his spaceship to auto-park, "Uh-huh" Morty says, Rick pulls out his flask "Well, I thought it was cool." he says, unscrewing the lid and taking a sip. "So we should be in and out, simple exchange, not even really an adventure. And if it goes wrong, which it won't-" Rick opens the car door putting his flask away, (Name) snapping awake from his nap "-Just jump into the same vat of acid I jump into," (Name) nods before looking at rick incredulously. "Wait, what? What vat of acid?" Rick quickly walks back to the ship, entering and closing the door behind him "What? Morty, close the door, I pre-scouted this location and placed a fake vat of acid amongst the real ones, It's got air hoses and a compartment of bones at the bottom. If things go wrong, which they won't, we jump into the vat of acid and I'll release the bones, they'll float up-" Morty looks deadpanned at Rick, while (Name) simply has the surprising Pikachu face "-What is this face you're making?" Rick complains "Aren't you an inventor?" "Yeah what part of a fake acid vat with built-in air supply and quick release bones isn't inventive enough for you, and when did my job become pitching you ideas?" "All right! Let's just do this, I have English homework," Morty finishes, leaving the ship with Rick, (Name) exiting behind him, patting his jacket down. "You're still learning English? It's the language you speak, how dumb are you?"

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Rick, (Name) and Morty walk into the area, Morty holding a briefcase, and (Name) lightly observing, looking into the vats of acid. "Interesting choice of meeting place, Rick," the person they're meeting says, "You like it? My grandson had notes," Rick quips, (Name) snickering slightly. "Show him the crystals, Morty," Morty opens the briefcase, the red crystals shining in the light slightly. The man nods, looking to one of his henchmen who switches briefcases with Morty. "I'll make lots of money with these," "I'll make lots of those with these," "Well those are fake," he says, his henchmen pulling out guns. Rick drops one of the fake blue crystals, Morty drops the suitcase, and (Name) flinches. "Jesus fucking christ," "You gotta be kidding me, seriously?" "Oh boy oh boy oh boy-" "You brought fake crystals and a gun?" Rick sneers. "Beats real crystals and no gun," "Okay, but does anything beat fake crystals and a fake arm?" Rick replies, another arm pulling a gun out and shooting one of the man's henchmen. "Whoah! Do you know who I am? Even if you kill me, you're a dead man" the man threatens. "You serious? Morty, (Name), we're screwed." Rick says, his fake arm retracting, pulling (Name) by the waist and Morty by the back of his shirt "let's just end it, quick death, come on." "Oh man" Morty whines "sweet," (Name) smiles, saluting to the men they were supposed to make a deal with as he and Morty get dragged into the fake vat of acid. "Ah, wooah" Morty semi-screams, as he, his grandad and his science teacher get surrounded by the green liquid. "Whoah! Hey!" "Stoqat!" "Holy shit, what the fuck." the mafia guy says.

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Morty is given an air hose, as (Name) finds his, putting his feet under the bar thing so he doesn't float up. Rick releases the fake bones, the bones floating up to the surface. "Holy shit. What kinda psycho? His own grandson and lover?" Rick, in the fake vat of acid, presses something, suddenly (Name) and Morty hear the men above. "I guess he took your threat pretty serious," "Yeah but it just doesn't make any sense!" "Well he was a scientist, maybe it's the most painless way to go," "How could that have been painless? You saw that pause before the bones floated up, that had to be five seconds of unparalleled torture. I can't get my head around it, I... I thought I'd seen this galaxy at its darkest, this is... this is gonna take a while to feel normal" (Name) zones out, imagining being on earth again and eating (Favourite.Snack).

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(Name) zones back in, surprised as Morty is no longer under the fake acid, as he could faintly hear what Morty had started yelling. "Jesus fucking christ, enough already!" (Name) swims up, seeing Morty throw a rat at one of the men, shooting at the main man, Rick swimming up, grabbing the gun and killing them, Morty jumping out to get the crystals they had brought, putting them back into the briefcase, shutting it, looking at Rick. "Can we go?" (Name) jumping out.

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(Name) is currently napping in the back seat, snoring silently. "The fuck is wrong with you?" Rick starts, "Just admit it was a shitty idea!" "Having a grandson," "A vat of fake acid, are you dying of dementia?" "How are you talking to me like this? When did you get so cocky?" "Tonight! Tonight, Rick! The night I saw you fail!" "Because you ruined it!-" "It was pre-ruined!" "Well was it worse than when I was a pickle? Oh, that's right, you weren't there for that! Turns out, kind of cool. Maybe there's a connection there," "Excuse me?" "Guys!" (Name) yells, stopping the argument. "Shut up! Just... Stop." he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, having been waken up a minute ago because of all the yelling. Rick huffs, looking back at the... road..? while Morty silently apologizes for waking his teacher up.

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The spacecraft lands in their garage, (name) stepping out, having switches seats with Morty a while back. He stretches, his bones popping. "I'll... I'll talk to you guys later, bye Rick, bye Morty," (Name) sighs, looking at the two disappointedly before walking home.

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Wano (Part Two)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

okay so the wano flashback is possibly my favorite in the whole series for a whole bunch of different reasons, and oden as a character is a big part of why. honestly, i think he’s great. he’s wildly entertaining and ridiculously likable, just like a folk hero should be.

i care about oden and the akazaya nine a lot. they have one of my favorite found family dynamics in the whole series, up there with the strawhats themselves- a bunch of thugs and castoffs who wound up gathering around this one wildly charismatic moron and deciding to be stronger and better for him. 

i think they really feel like a family, in these little moments we get of them just interacting and messing around, and it only makes later events- oden’s death, the twenty-year separation, kanjurou’s betrayal- hurt all the worse.

on god it is the funniest thing on earth to me that this is how oden and izou wound up on whitebeard’s ship. 

the roger pirates!! i really really like the roger pirates!! i love that there’s this entire predecessor crew who are both absolutely fucking fascinating from a lore perspective and who are just all individually really good characters with really fun relationships. the dynamics we get to see just in this brief part of the flashback are absolutely delightful. i think the fact that i would read a whole series just about the roger pirates is a testament to oda’s character writing. 

there’s a specific sort of tragedy to the roger pirates, and i think it really hits home in their last few pages in this flashback. by all appearances, they were a crew just as close-knit as the strawhats are. they cared about each other a lot- that ship was their home.

and then their captain died, and they just- fell apart. 

awhile back, in my sabaody post, i talked about how we get to know roger first as a story and then as a character by getting to meet characters who knew him personally. to the rest of the world, roger is a story, a name to curse or a height to aspire to. but for shanks and rayleigh and crocus and buggy and all the rest of the roger pirates, he was their captain. 

the whole wano flashback, possibly more than any of the others in the series, really feels to me like a story being told, a folk tale being passed down, which makes sense, since it’s canonically framed as oden’s diary entries. and i think that framing device just adds so much to the atmosphere of this entire section of story, the feeling of myth and legend to it. 

i honestly really like how oden’s death is handled. i have trouble articulating it, but it’s so much, so over the top, so heavily set up and foreshadowed- a legendary death for a legendary man, if that makes sense.

toki’s prophecy is one of my favorite motifs in this whole arc. wano is all about a country that’s been trapped and dying for years and years, holding out desperate hope for salvation. toki is the one who gave them that hope. she doesn’t try to tell them that everything will be okay, she says it will be dark and the darkness will be long, but the dawn will come, and even though she gave her life to do that, she did it smiling. 

without toki, the wano arc never would have happened, because there would be no future to fight for. 

this panel is the header on my favorite op discord server and sometimes i just scroll up and stare at it. it’s so good. 

this entire sequence, starting from luffy law and kidd’s entrance, is probably my favorite in wano arc. it’s the turning of the sides, the daybreak after the darkest hour- these three show up, and then jinbe, and denjirou reveals his true colors and it’s revealed all the rest of the samurai left before orochi blew the bridges, and it turns out they haven’t lost a single step to kanjurou’s treachery. it just feels so good to read, after the prior hopelessness of the akazaya and the tragedy of the flashback.

i really like how the akazaya nine are absolutely ready to roast each other at any and all times. that’s how you know they’re best friends. 

i think i mentioned it back in fishman island, but one of my favorite things is the strawhats just being absolutely cheerfully, chaotically destructive. every time we get to see them wreck havoc while nonchalantly bickering with each other it puts a huge smile on my face.

i think ulti and page one are very very funny and i like their dynamic a lot, it’s a laugh riot. i also like that oda lets luffy seriously fight a woman here!! i’m serious, we don’t see enough no-holds-barred fights between men and women (conventionally attractive women, specifically) in this series, so i’m pleasantly surprised when it does happen. 

i do appreciate wano’s ability to continuously raise the “holy shit!” quotient without it ever really feeling like a twist just for the sake of the audience. like, i don’t know that anybody saw kaidou killing orochi coming, but at the same time, it feels like it does make sense, given what we know about kaidou, for him to do this.

my heart goes out to momo, honestly. he’s only eight, and in that time he’s lost his home and family and his whole world when he was thrown twenty years into the future, and he has the weight of his whole country resting on his shoulders. he’s borne up admirably under that stress, starting from zou and building up to this point.

i LOVE kin’emon’s speech to kaidou about luffy SO much. kin’emon’s come a long way from being a mostly comedy relief character in punk hazard to here, where he’s shouting down an emperor. i really like this progression- kin’emon doesn’t change, exactly, but the side of his character that is revealed in wano is very likable and admirable. it goes back to something i’ve mentioned before, about how one piece’s characters are very rarely one-dimensional.

kaidou’s dragon form is extremely cool, and so are most of the panels where it appears- it’s extremely striking, especially in panels like this, where he’s silhouetted against the moon.

i love... the ripple effects of luffy just being himself that spread throughout the world of one piece, and i think this is one of the best examples. luffy befriended coby all the way back in chapter two, mostly by accident, and now, nine hundred and some chapters later, that’s what leads to drake joining the strawhats’ side. because drake is friends with coby who says luffy is trustworthy, so when drake is stuck with nobody else to turn to, he turns to luffy. 

moments like this really reinforce just how much the world and story of one piece is built on relationships between people, and i really like that. i like that instead of necessarily being built around abstract ideals or morals, characters’ actions are, more often than not, motivated by either specific personal goals or by their relationships with other characters. it feels much more true to life.

i like the loss of kiku’s arm, because it showcases exactly how serious the fight is on both sides. it both shows that kaidou is fighting to maim and kill and do whatever it takes to win, and that the akazaya are fully prepared to take whatever he throws at them. kiku gets back up smiling after losing her arm. neither side in this fight is even close to backing down, now or ever. 

i genuinely can’t believe how long it took me to talk about yamato, so let me just say: i love him so much. part of this, i’m sure, is my personal bias towards any and all kickass queer characters, but part of it is just- he’s so cool. he’s ten feet tall and carries a club about as big as he is and tanks explosions like they’re nothing while also bickering with luffy and falling out of ceilings and generally being like... stupidly lovable. 

i just like yamato a lot. 

a thousand chapters in, and every strawhat but robin has had a moment where they declare luffy is going to be the king of the pirates, but honestly, i think nami’s might be my favorite yet. nami has always been a person who acts at a distance, not one inclined to direct confrontation and putting herself in danger-

and yet, when it comes down to it, when faced with a choice between death and disavowing her captain’s dream, even when assured by usopp that she would be fully justified in lying for her life, nami chooses luffy. even in the most dire of circumstances, all of the strawhats know luffy is going to be the king of the pirates, and none of them would ever deny it.

i kind of alluded to this back in my dressrosa post, but i really like the development of law’s new dream being discovering the meaning of the will of d. it just feels like a very good and natural progression for his character, given he’s the only holder of the will of d who we’ve been shown is consciously aware of it and what it might mean. and in general, i like seeing him having something else to work towards after doflamingo’s defeat.

i’ll end this by just saying i am so desperately curious to know what is in that book, and what yamato knows about the will of d, about the dawn of the world, about laugh tale. 

guess we’ll find out, huh?

thanks for reading through to the end!! i had a lot of fun putting these posts together, and writing them up was a really cool way to be able to compile my thoughts headed into chapter 1000 and beyond. i can’t wait to see where oda takes us next. 

[whenisitenoughtrees]

you've got that young blood (set it free)

“I saw them, Roman,” Virgil says simply.

It takes a long moment for Roman to understand what he means. All he can think about is the sensation of his hand, warm and soft, against his face.

But then, it clicks, and his heart begins to pound for an entirely different reason.

Of Roman, Virgil, scars, and self-worth.

(Virgil would prefer to have this conversation when Roman isn't bleeding all over the place, but beggars can't be choosers. Roman would prefer not to have this conversation at all.)

Content Warnings: blood, injury, scars, brief and non-graphic panic attack, briefly implied past self-harm

Word Count: 6,509

Pairing: Prinxiety

(masterpost w/ ao3 links)

He doesn’t expect Virgil to be waiting for him.

Later, he tells himself that he would have done it differently if he knew, that he would have made an effort to stand upright, would have tried not to waver, would have downplayed his injuries as best he could. And he tells himself that he would have succeeded, too, that with his acting prowess, he would have easily been able to assure him that nothing was amiss, would have been able to allay suspicion and send him on his way if only he’d had time to prepare.

None of that matters, though, in the end. Because he doesn’t know that Virgil is there, doesn’t know that he is perched on the edge of his bed (and has been for hours, though he will only learn that later), and so when he finally stumbles through the wardrobe that connects his room to the Imagination, he allows his knees to give out, allows himself to collapse to the floor, arm pressed against the deep gash in his side. He lets a moan escape his lips, half pain and half relief, because he has made it back, has returned, if not safely, then at least in possession of all of his limbs and most of his faculties. And he is practiced in stitching his own wounds and emerging into the commons a few hours later, any pain hidden carefully behind a dazzling grin, a few more scars added to the collection he never lets anyone see.

There is no reason for this time to be any different. So at first, when he hears the choked gasp, he thinks that his mind is playing tricks on him, that the blood loss is more severe than he thought.

But then, his bedsprings creak, and there is a rush of movement, and there is someone kneeling in front of him, hands trembling, hovering over his body, afraid to touch. He blinks, forcing his vision into focus, and the black-purple blur resolves into a pale face, wide eyes, and a patched hoodie.

Virgil.

He is speaking, words flowing from his mouth like a heavy rainfall, and he tunes in with an effort.

“--ell me where it’s coming from,” he’s saying, voice rushed, frantic, scared. “Oh my fucking god that’s a lot of blood, you gotta tell me where you’re hurt so I can fix it. Can you even hear me right now? Roman? Roman, please, you gotta--”

“I hear you,” he whispers. Pushing the words past his lips at all is difficult; he doesn’t have the strength to be louder. Most of his brain has devoted itself to figuring this out, trying to solve the puzzle of why, exactly, Virgil is here, appearing in front of him like a vision from the gods. And why, exactly, his heart is beating so fast.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Virgil says, quite vehemently. “Can you-- god, can you move? Like, your arm? I need to see how bad it is. Holy shit, Roman, where did--” He cuts off, leaving Roman unsure of what he was about to ask. And he doesn’t know what to do with the rest of it, numbness creeping into his brain, so he just tries to do what Virgil has asked of him, tries to sit up straighter and remove his arm from his throbbing side. The motion sends pain bursting up through his torso, like tiny fireworks going off in his flesh, and he bites back a groan. His sleeve is slick with blood.

“Oh, god,” Virgil says. He sounds so distressed, so frightened, and Roman wants nothing more than to tell him that it’s alright, that it will be alright, that he’s taken far more damage than this and come out the other side. He just needs his first aid kit, and though he could get it himself if he concentrated, it would be easier to ask Virgil to fetch it for him before he leaves.

But the words won’t come. He stares as Virgil pulls lightly at the fabric sticking to his skin, inhaling sharply as the pain flares again. And then, Virgil looks up at him, staring into his eyes, and he wonders, were they that color before? He’s always thought that Virgil’s eyes were brown, like Thomas’ are, but this close he can tell that they’re not, that they’re a dark purple instead, and how he mistook that color for brown, he has no idea. But they’re beautiful, like fractals of thousands of the darkest amethysts, glimmering with reflected light.

Virgil reaches up, brushes some hair back from his face, his fingertips barely grazing his skin. It would be a strangely intimate gesture if not for the sharp sting it causes, and Roman remembers, ah, yes, he took a rather nasty knock on the head as well. And head wounds always seem worse than they are, he knows that, knows that the drying blood smeared across his face is not indicative of a truly serious problem. But from the way Virgil’s staring, he’s not sure that Virgil is aware of it.

“I’m okay,” he tries to say, though the words come out sounding more like, “‘M ‘kay,” and the slurring likely doesn’t inspire any confidence. But he wants Virgil to realize that he’s fine, that he can take care of himself, that he doesn’t need to stick around and take care of him out of some misplaced worry or misguided obligation. He has treated injuries far worse than this and lived to tell the tale. Or rather, to keep the tale a secret.

Virgil laughs, short and humorless. Roman doesn’t like it; it’s too dry, too bitter. “Where’s your first aid kit?” he asks, and though the fear is not gone from his voice, it is contained in a trembling undertone. He sounds determined, resolute, and Roman’s not quite sure why. But he was going to ask Virgil to get the first aid kit anyway.

“Bathroom,” he manages. “Cabinet under the sink.”

Virgil nods, and for a few moments, disappears from his line of sight. He feels oddly bereft without him there, like he’s been left in the cold, which is truly ridiculous. Virgil’s about to leave anyway. Once he retrieves the first aid kit, there’s no reason for him to stay. Roman can handle this on his own, should handle this on his own, frankly, because he’s the one who got himself injured in the first place.

But then Virgil returns, crouching in front of him, and rather than dropping the kit off and making his exit, he opens it, laying out gauze and bandages and thread for stitches.

“Can you take off your shirt?” Virgil asks. “Or do you need me to do it?” He doesn’t look up as he says it, continuing to rummage around in the kit, which leaves Roman to gape at him, because what? His mind feels slow and muddled, but he thinks that even if it didn’t, something about that request doesn’t make any sense. He spends so long trying to work through it that Virgil pauses, glancing up at him, brow furrowed.

“Roman?” he asks, more urgently.

The thing that Roman doesn’t understand is that he hasn’t left yet. That he seems to be staying. That he looks for all the world like he’s about to take care of Roman’s wounds himself.

Why is he doing that? There’s no need. Perhaps he hasn’t made that clear enough.

“I can do it,” he says, and proceeds to struggle out of his shirt, and then his undershirt. Every movement sets his body alight, but he grits his teeth and pushes through it, dropping each piece of fabric on the ground in a heap. The bloodstains are never going to come out of those, and not for the first time, he regrets designing the Imagination so that its effects linger. It would feel like cheating to do it any other way, but it’s in times like these that he wouldn’t mind a bit of cheating.

What a noble sentiment. Some prince he is.

He wrests his mind away from that line of thinking, reaching for the antiseptic that Virgil has set out. His hand closes around the bottle, but then, Virgil’s fingers land on his, and he stops short. Virgil is glaring at him, and he forgets how to breathe.

“What are you doing?” Virgil asks.

He frowns. “I told you,” he says, putting extra effort into enunciating clearly. “I can do it myself.”

There is silence for a long moment. Virgil stares at him, not saying anything at all.

Then, he does.

“What,” he grits out, “the fuck. No you can’t.”

That irritates him a bit. Dimly, it occurs to him that this might not be the time or place to have an argument, but he ignores that thought. “Yes, I can,” he says. “I do it all the time.”

For some reason, Virgil goes very, very still. His eyes flicker from Roman’s face to his chest, tracing across his abdomen with startling intensity. Under any other circumstance, this might fluster him, but he has the sneaking suspicion that there is something he’s forgetting, that Virgil is examining something he doesn’t mean to reveal. And Virgil is angry about it, Roman can tell; his eyes flare and his breaths become slow and deliberate, the same pattern he uses to avoid a panic attack, or to stop himself from lashing out.

Roman doesn’t want him to be angry with him. But he doesn’t know how to make him not be. He and Virgil have come so far from the unwavering animosity that used to lie between them, but he is well aware that his own inclinations and desires tend to exacerbate Virgil’s worries, and he has never been able to work out how to avoid that.

And yet, when Virgil speaks again, his voice is low and gentle, like he’s addressing a startled animal, and Roman might be insulted by that if it weren’t so pleasant a voice to hear. Sometimes, when the world is calm and there is nothing pressing to accomplish, he thinks he could listen to Virgil speak for hours, listen to his low rasp and unique cadence, the teasing, sarcastic tone that does things to his heart.

“Well,” Virgil says, “you’re not going to this time, okay? Lie back for me.”

He pushes Roman’s shoulder, gently lowering him to lie flat against the floor, and Roman is so startled that he lets him. He doesn’t understand this sudden softness, doesn’t understand why Virgil is insistent on doing this when he could easily do it himself, doesn’t understand why Virgil was even here to begin with. And along with the pain, exhaustion is crashing over him in waves, the last dregs of his adrenaline finally fading away. So he watches with half-lidded eyes as Virgil moves to his side, carefully rubbing a dripping washcloth-- did he conjure that? When did that happen?--  across his chest, wiping away the crusted blood. His motions are deft and sure, even as he begins to clean the wound itself, exchanging water for alcohol. Roman arches his back against the pain, gasping as lightning bolts lance through his side, but otherwise keeps as still as he can.

“Sorry,” Virgil murmurs, but doesn’t hesitate. “I’m gonna stitch it up now.”

“‘Kay,” Roman says, and despite the haze that has overtaken him, a thought occurs to him, and he lacks just enough filter to ask. “How’re you so good at this?”

Because Virgil is good at this, is clearly practiced, has done this before. He wouldn’t have expected it from someone so anxious, would have expected shaking hands and crippling indecisiveness instead. But Virgil displays only a steady, uncharacteristic confidence, and Roman doesn’t know why.

For along minute, Virgil doesn’t answer. The bite of the needle as he begins to stitch the wound shut is almost unbearable, almost sends him squirming and panting for breath. He holds himself still, but something in his face must reveal the effort it takes him, because Virgil stops, staring at him.

“Shit,” he says suddenly, loudly, and Roman jolts as he dives for the first aid kit. “Shit, shit, shit! Painkillers, I didn’t even think to--! Fuck, I am so sorry, can you--?” He holds up the bottle of Tylenol, shaking a few out into his hands, and he looks so angry with himself, so worried, that Roman can’t help but try for a reassuring smile.

“I c’n take ‘em dry,” he confirms, and does so once Virgil hands them over. “‘S okay.”

But Virgil shakes his head. “It’s not,” he says, looking at him miserably. “God, I’m so fucking sorry, I’m just…” He trails off, taking a breath. “I used to do this for Remus, sometimes,” he confesses quietly. “When he’d come back from the Imagination beat to shit. Usually it was Janus, but sometimes it was me, when Jan couldn’t be there, and painkillers do fuck-all for him, so I completely fucking forgot.” He pauses, eyes trailing over his torso once again, something like sadness in the set of his mouth. “Remus does this a lot,” he says, so softly that Roman barely hears it. “I should’ve figured that you might, too. I should’ve--”

He cuts off, and Roman is glad of it, because he has no idea what to say.

He used to avoid thinking about Remus as much as he could. These days, he thinks about him too much. There is no middle ground, and this just feels like another nail in the coffin that marks their countless similarities, another entry in the ever-growing list of reminders that he is not nearly as different from his brother as he has always pretended to be, not nearly as heroic, as noble, as good as he wants everyone else to believe.

He’s spending so much time in the Imagination, lately, and in his heart of hearts, he knows he’s trying to escape himself. What are a few more scars, easily concealed, if it means he finds a little bit of balance, a little bit of peace?

Virgil waits a few minutes before starting his ministrations again, giving the painkillers time to kick in. The needle still stings, still makes him clench his fists and bite his lip as he longs for a distraction, but the pain is dulled, now, and Virgil moves quickly and efficiently.

“Okay,” he murmurs at length. “That’s as good as that’s gonna get. I’m gonna look at your head now.”

He shifts positions, and is suddenly very, very close, filling up Roman’s field of vision. He doesn’t seem to care much about where Roman’s gaze falls, which gives him free rein to stare at him, at the determination that sets his face and the way his eyeshadow brings out the color of his eyes.

They really are lovely eyes. How has he never noticed that before?

Virgil swipes the washcloth across his face, motions gentle and firm and soothing, and Roman feels his eyelids drooping. There is something in the way Virgil is looking at him, something that Roman would almost call tenderness if he wasn’t well aware of the fact that Virgil doesn’t do tenderness, tries not to do vulnerability at all. Roman can’t throw stones; he dislikes showing vulnerability too, dislikes presenting himself as anything less than strong and brave and put together. The fact that he is in this position, showing weakness, allowing himself to be cared for, is almost more than he can stand, and he’s sure that he would be far more upset about it if he were less tired, less in pain. If it were someone else here, if it weren’t Virgil.

He’s too exhausted to examine that right now.

He doesn’t realize his eyes have slipped closed until he hears Virgil chuckle, soft and far more genuine than before, and he pries them open again. Virgil’s face is blurry, hovering just above his.

“The head wound looks a lot worse than it is,” Virgil tells him, voice distant, and if he had the energy to do so, he would respond with something along the lines of, I could’ve told you that. Because he could have, if his words would cooperate with him. “You’re gonna be okay, Princey. You can go to sleep.”

Sleep. It sounds appealing. Isn’t there something else he should do, though, something else to say? Something to say to Virgil, specifically, Virgil, who is here, taking care of him, even when there was no need, when he would have been fine doing it himself just like always.

“‘Kay,” he whispers, his eyes sliding shut again. The world seems distant now, the pain barely a blip on his radar. “‘M sorry… you had to spend so much time…”

There is a conclusion to that sentence. But he can’t find it.

Dimly, he is aware of the washcloth’s motions pausing, resting warmly on his cheek. Virgil says something, then, something that travels down a long tunnel to reach him and that sounds something like, “You have nothing to apologize for,” but that can’t be right, because he knows that’s not true. And he thinks, too, that he feels a finger graze his face, tracing a line that Virgil cannot know, because Roman has always taken such great care to hide the markings that mar his skin.

But consciousness is slipping away, and he lets it go.

-----

Roman wakes, and immediately tries to move. This ends up being a mistake; pain shoots through him, originating from his side, and it rips a whimper from his lips. His head throbs, too, and reaching up with a shaky hand reveals that there is a bandage wrapped firmly around his forehead. Further investigation shows him that there are bandages around his abdomen, too, secure and restricting, and that his chest is otherwise bare.

“Oh my god, you dumbass,” someone says, and suddenly, Virgil is there, leaning over him, hair disheveled and eyeshadow deeper than usual, and Roman cannot help but stare. “What are you doing, you’re gonna tear something open. I’m not stitching you up again, genius.”

Oh. Right. He settles back against the pillows and does his best not to react externally as the memories come rushing back. Practically falling out of his own wardrobe, letting Virgil take care of him, making a fool of himself in general. Fantastic.

“Right,” he says, and winces at the hoarseness of his voice. “Sorry about that. How long have I been asleep?”

Virgil sighs, perching next to him on the edge of the bed. “Not too long,” he says. “A few hours. You could probably do with some more.”

Oh, absolutely not. A few hours is more than enough time to be well on the way to recovery, or at least, enough time to seem as if he is. Though, he supposes it doesn’t matter. Surely, the whole mindscape knows about this by now. Surely, Virgil’s told Patton and Logan, or at least answered their questions if they asked what he’s been doing. He’s surprised they’re not in here, Logan ready with a lecture and Patton full of guilt, guilt that is entirely undeserved, since all of this is Roman’s own fault.

Some of his thoughts must show on his face, because Virgil shifts his weight, glancing away.

“I told the others that I was helping you with a project,” he says, casually, as if he’s not upending Roman’s entire worldview, as if Roman doesn’t know full well that Virgil absolutely hates lying. “I think they bought it, so, uh. Janus might know something’s up, but he probably knows anyway, since you’ve been lying to us about it for so long.”

Roman’s stomach drops into his shoes. There is no bite to Virgil’s words, but  it must be there, because Virgil must be angry at the deception. He didn’t plan to ever reveal the truth; he didn’t want to worry them, and more than that, he didn’t want them to know how weak he truly is, how imperfect. Though that’s another thing that they’re surely well-versed in by now, so he’s not sure why he bothers.

“Sorry,” he mutters, and Virgil frowns.

“I didn’t mean it like--” He stops, shaking his head, and takes a few steadying breaths. Four-seven-eight. “Okay. I’m kinda scared shitless of having this conversation, but it clearly needs to happen, so. How long has this been going on?”

He’d hoped that Virgil would let it go. That Virgil’s tendency toward conflict avoidance would guide him away from asking any of the difficult questions. He should have remembered that only half of Virgil is flight, that he is just as capable of fight, of raising his voice and demanding his answers, that Virgil’s brand of courage is odd but no less present for that.

“What do you mean?” he asks weakly, and even as he says the words, he knows that the avoidance tactic won’t work. Not here, not now, and wouldn’t have even if he didn’t sound like he’s on death’s door.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Virgil says. He gestures, and then crosses his arms. “You. This. Getting hurt, and not telling us about it. Not letting us help.”

He chews on that for a moment, on the idea that helping would be a thing that they would want to do. Surely, there are better uses for their time? This is another reason why he made sure to hide it; if they knew, they would feel obligated to come to his aid, just as Virgil has. Perhaps it’s selfish, but he doesn’t want that, doesn’t want them to help him because they’ve fooled themselves into thinking they have to.

He clears his throat. “Not terribly often,” he says, and hopes that the lie isn’t powerful enough, isn’t loud enough to draw Deceit’s attention. “And even when it does, it’s nothing I can’t handle, really. I’m quite capable of patching myself up, you know.” He pauses. “I’m sorry I roped you into doing it.”

Virgil exhales sharply. “Roped me-- okay. Alright, that’s bullshit. You didn’t rope me into taking care of you, I did it because I was fucking worried about you.”

“I didn’t want to upset--”

“If you’re about to tell me you didn’t want to upset me, I swear to god, I will scream.” Roman dutifully shuts his mouth. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now, but you didn’t force me into helping you. I did that because I... I fucking care about you, alright? And I don’t want you to be hurt.” Throughout the speech, Virgil’s face grows steadily redder under his foundation, his knees beginning to bounce up and down like pogo sticks. He looks very much like he would like to run from the room, and perhaps it is a sign of how important he considers this to be that he doesn’t.

Roman stares, trying to process that. He has no idea how to respond.

Virgil takes another breath, visibly calming himself. “Look, I… this isn’t even what I wanted to talk about.” He meets Roman’s eyes, regarding him steadily. “I know you’re lying. About it not happening often. It happens a lot, doesn’t it?”

“How do you--” He breaks off, his mind racing in an effort to figure out how Virgil could possibly know that. This is the first time he’s been caught, after all, not just by Virgil but by anyone, and one time does not a pattern make. He shouldn’t be able to guess, shouldn’t be able to say it with such stark certainty, not unless he already had a low opinion of his fighting prowess, and that burns in a way he would like to not scrutinize too closely--

“Roman.”

Virgil’s voice breaks him out of his reverie, and he glances over. Virgil is staring at him, an odd expression on his face, somewhere between resignation and sorrow, and for a split second, Roman is almost overwhelmed by the urge to try to smooth that expression away, to do anything to put a smile on his face. Virgil’s smiles are rare, but that makes them all the more precious.

“You don’t even know that you’re doing it, do you,” Virgil says. “It comes naturally. You don’t even think about it.”

He blinks, because what? What is he talking about?

And then, Virgil reaches out to caress his face, and his brain bluescreens.

It’s a caress. There’s no other way to describe it, no other way to label the way his fingers lightly stroke his skin and hold his cheek. His face feels as though it has been set aflame, sparks going off wherever contact is made. He wants Virgil to stop. He wants to bury his face in his pillow for the rest of time and scream. He wants Virgil to keep holding him forever.

“I saw them, Roman,” Virgil says simply.

It takes a long moment for Roman to understand what he means. All he can think about is the sensation of his hand, warm and soft, against his face.

But then, it clicks, and his heart begins to pound for an entirely different reason. He remembers it, then, remembers the way Virgil looked at his chest, at his face while he was treating him. He didn’t have the awareness to realize it then, but he does now, realizes exactly what Virgil saw, what he put together, and his breaths come short and quick as the implications catch up to him.

Virgil is right. He doesn’t think about it. Doesn’t think about the multitude of scars that cover his body, a patchwork of lines and grooves and valleys marring his skin, years and years of injuries piling up and tearing him apart, memories of blood and pain traced into him forever. He doesn’t think about it, because usually, they are out of sight, out of mind; from the moment he received his first, he began the habit of shapeshifting them away, showing off skin that is flawless, unblemished by his failures. He does it all the time, unceasing, because presentation is everything and he has never wanted the others to know, never wanted them to see him as he truly is. It is a constant expenditure of energy, but one well worth it, one that he barely notices after all these years.

Injured and weak as he was, the disguise must have slipped away. He must have fallen to his knees, scars on full display, in all their messy, ugly glory. And of course, Virgil saw.

And now, Virgil knows.

“Hey, hey,” Virgil says, and he can barely hear him over the roaring in his ears. “C’mon, Roman, you’re okay, you’re gonna be okay. Try to match my breathing, alright?”

And Virgil breathes, in and out, loud and intentional, and counts. Four-seven-eight. It takes a while for Roman to copy him, for his breathing to steady and his heart to slow, and once it does, he feels exhausted, wrung out, like bubblegum stretched too thin.

“Sorry,” he mutters. He can’t find it in himself to meet Virgil’s eyes.

“I told you, you don’t have anything to apologize for,” Virgil says seriously. He pauses. “Except for scaring the shit out of me, but um. We can do that later, so just. Look, when you first got back, you were covered in them, and I wanted to ask then, but it wasn’t the time. And then you shifted them away literally while you were sleeping, which I didn’t even know was possible, but I guess you’re used to doing it? So I guess what I actually wanted to ask is, why’ve you been hiding them?”

He stiffens, and can’t stop the incredulous laugh from bursting from his lips, even as his mind reels with this new information. “Are you serious?” he asks, and forces himself to meet Virgil’s gaze, even though he would like nothing more than to hide his face, hide away under his covers until all of this goes away and he can pretend that things are normal again. “You can’t figure that out?”

But Virgil doesn’t react. “Pretend I’m stupid,” he offers, voice flat. “Walk me through it.”

“I--” He wishes he could gesture, redirect attention with waving arms and comical expressions. But every movement sends bolts of pain down his side, sets his head to throbbing again. “Really? You-- you saw them.” His voice cracks, and he tries not to let it get to him. What’s a little more humiliation at this point, right?

“So?” Virgil asks.

He can’t believe he’s going to have to explain this.

“So?” he repeats. “So? So they’re ugly! So they’re… they’re just reminders of every time I’ve failed, every time I’ve been dumb enough to let myself get hurt! So I don’t like them, and I don’t… I didn’t want--”

“You didn’t want us to see,” Virgil finishes, and really, he has no right being this astute, no right to see through him like this. His gaze is level, piercing, pinning him to the spot with its sheer intensity, and Roman feels entirely too exposed. “Well, I want to see.”

He becomes very aware that Virgil is still holding his face.

“You what?” he rasps.

“I want to see them,” Virgil repeats. “Will you let me see them?”

His first instinct is to deny him, to push him away and proceed to act like this conversation never occurred in the first place. He knows exactly how they look, knows exactly how unappealing they are; how long has he stood in front of the mirror, glaring at a reflection that is never up to his standards? And for some reason, the thought of Virgil of all people looking at them, judging them, judging him and finding him wanting, is absolutely unbearable. He thinks he would die if that happened, thinks he would shatter into a million pieces on the floor, break apart into so much dust.

But Virgil is asking. Asking, not demanding, and there is no disgust in his voice.

And he’s seen them. So really, what harm could be done that has not been done already?

Virgil is likely to keep pushing if he refuses. And Roman is so tired.

“Okay,” he says, and he shuts his eyes, and drops his shifted form. It feels like a layer of water sliding from his skin, or like an eggshell cracking open and revealing the messy yolk beneath. For a long moment, there is silence, heavy and oppressive, and he doesn’t dare open his eyes to look, doesn’t dare see the expression on Virgil’s face, the horror, the disdain, or worse, the pity.

And then, Virgil’s hand moves, lightly tracing across his face in patterns that are all too familiar. He can’t move, can’t breathe. He knows all too well the scars that he is counting: the slashes across his cheeks from too many careless swords, the line cutting through his lips from a harpy that tried to claw his face off, and the biggest of all, the slash from a dragon’s talons, a deep gash that begins on his forehead and trails across his nose, reaching all the way to his jawline, narrowly avoiding his eyes. Virgil’s fingers linger there longest of all.

And then, he pulls away. Roman braces himself.

“You think you’re the only one with scars?”

His eyes shoot open.

“What?”

Virgil is watching him, an odd light in his eyes. He’s rubbing his arm with one hand, up and down, a repetitive, subconscious motion.

“Look,” he says, and his voice is shaking now, just ever so slightly. “I get it. More than you might think. You have these scars, and you think they mean that you fucked up, or that you failed at something, and... Maybe. Fuck, I don’t know. But you know what else they are?”

Roman can’t speak. Virgil continues, not waiting for an answer.

“They mean that you’re still alive,” he says. “It means that you’re still here, that you survived, and that you kept going. That doesn’t make you a failure, it makes you strong. And I’m not gonna tell you that you have to think that they’re beautiful, or some shit like that, but they’re not ugly, they’re not gross, and they don’t make you worthless.”

His breath hitches. Tears pool in his eyes, and he is powerless to dispel them.

“It took me a really long time to learn that,” Virgil says. “They’re a part of you, and you don’t have to feel lesser for that. And you don’t have to hide them, not if you don’t want to. No one’s going to judge you for them.” He pauses, a strange look passing across his face. “And that’s coming from me, so, uh. You know. If the literal personification of anxiety is telling you that you don’t need to worry about it. Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Roman laughs a little, despite himself, more out of disbelief than anything else.

“You really think it’s that simple?” he asks, and hopes that Virgil doesn’t take it the wrong way.

“I know it’s not that simple,” Virgil returns. “I know how hard it is to change how you think about yourself. I mean, god, Roman, you know who you’re talking to, right? I’m kind of the king of negativity. But you’re not on your own on this.” He shifts, scooting a bit closer. “If you ask us for help, we’d do anything for you, but that’s not because we think we have to. It’s because we love you. And you deserve that love. Never think that you don’t. Scars or no scars.”

Roman shudders, emotions rolling through him with the force of a thousand rushing rivers.

“And I think, I mean--” Virgil stops. “Your-- fuck. Just, for the record, I--” He sucks in a breath, turning away sharply. “Fuck,” he says again, as if to himself, and then, in one smooth motion, he turns back to Roman, places both hands on the side of his face, and plants a kiss on his cheek, right over one of his scars. It’s like a thousand volts of energy, like a fire burning just beneath his skin, like a symphony crescendoing to its climax. Roman gasps, and Virgil pulls back, and Roman is absolutely certain that his face is melting off right now, that the warmth flooding his face and body is searing the flesh from his bones.

Virgil stares at him, face red. And then, to Roman’s shock, he does it again, on his nose, right where the biggest scar crosses his face. Slower, this time, his lips lingering for a heartbeat too long, giving Roman the chance to think about how soft they are, how much he would like them to be on his lips instead.

Well, that’s… huh. Part of him knew that already, has known for a very long time that he wants this, but the confirmation has his brain buzzing.

“I think they’re hot,” Virgil says, just above a mumble.

“You what?” Roman says, even though he’s fairly sure he didn’t mishear, even though hope, bright and warm and traitorous, is rising in his chest like a bird taking wing. He has never loved his scars, has never thought of them as attractive at all, and never so much as considered the possibility that someone else might disagree.

But Virgil doesn’t lie. Wouldn’t lie, not about this. It is a miracle that Virgil is acting this way at all, is behaving in a manner that clearly puts him far outside his comfort zone.

“Don’t make me say it again,” Virgil snaps, and there is the Virgil that Roman is most familiar with, hackles raised and spitting insults. Despite everything that’s happened, despite the fact that his mind is spinning and he still feels entirely too hot, he smiles. “Fuck, I’m just gonna go die in a hole now. See if I do anything for you ever again.”

He moves as if to stand from the bed, as if to leave, and though hours ago he wanted him to do that very thing, Roman feels a flash of panic at the prospect. Before he can think better of it, his hand snakes out and latches on to the sleeve of Virgil’s hoodie, stopping him in his tracks. For a moment, they stare at each other, both silent, almost expectant as Roman casts about for something to say, something to keep Virgil here.

“I have a scar on my lips,” he blurts out. “You, uh, wanna… do… something?”

He congratulates himself on his smoothness. He should give up being Thomas’ creativity and open up a smoothie place, that’s how smooth he is.

Virgil glares. “If you’re just gonna make fun of me, you can fuck right off and--”

“What? No,” he says. “I’m not-- what made you think I was making fun of you? I’m asking you to kiss me!”

Virgil stares, silent. He feels himself begin to waver.

“If… uh, just if you want to, I guess,” he says, voice weakening. “I just thought that maybe…”

“You’re an idiot,” Virgil declares, and captures his lips with his own.

A far as declarations of love go, it’s not the best Roman has ever heard. But as far as kisses, well.

“Don’t think this gets you out of talking about this,” Virgil murmurs, pulling back a centimeter or two. “I’m gonna sic Patton on you. You’re gonna get so much love and emotional support, and so many cookies, and you’re not gonna escape until we get it into your dumbass head that you’re worth so much more than you think you are.”

Even moments ago, the thought would have filled him with horror, horror at the prospect of anyone else knowing, anyone else seeing, anyone else wanting to talk to him about it. And maybe this is only a respite, a brief moment of insanity before that horror returns. And it’s not just the scars. Perhaps it’s never been about the scars, not really.

But right now, his head is buzzing with Virgil’s words, his lips still alight with the imprint of his kiss, and his scars are bared and Virgil likes them, thinks they make him strong, thinks that he’s not a failure at all. And most of him rejects that, suspects that in time, Virgil will come to see the ugly truth, and if that is the case, he should pull back now, save both of them the trouble.

Virgil won’t allow that, though; if he knows anything about Virgil, it is that he is stubborn, incredibly so, enough to be a match for him. And there is a voice, buried deep in his brain, telling him that he should listen, that Virgil is right, and that he deserves this. He doesn’t make a habit of listening to that voice.

But perhaps he should. And Virgil smiles at him, just slightly, and he thinks that perhaps he can.

“Cookies,” he repeats. “Sounds good.” And to his surprise, finds that he means it.

Writing Taglist: @just-perhaps @the-real-comically-insane @jerrysicle-tree @glitchybina @psodtqueer @mrbubbajones @snek-boii

[withoneheadlight]

Please let me know more about this Halloween wip??? 👻😈🎃 catharrington

Hey hey, cat! <3<3<3<3

the halloween wip is something i intended to be a short hc like ‘blablabla what if this happened!’ and ended up becoming 4+k of terrible “unknown source of magic makes them do it” pwp in which, basically:

“On the night of Halloween something happens (demon/witch/magic book/magical experimentation going wrong) and everyone becomes their costume for the night, and Billy & Steve are, how not, stuck together, babysitting the kids "As fucking always, Harrington, because for someone obnoxious reason you've become my own personal curse" "Oh, and you say it like you were a fucking blessing!" walking them around town to trick or treat when it happens.

And this is Hawkins, where apparently has become mandatory now that something strange happens every fucking year, so both the kids and Steve are kind of living in a perpetual state of alert. And that’s the reason why they kind of-- feel it. Feel that something is wrong as slowly, slowly, almost unnoticeably at first, people begin to act weird all around them. Mummies and werewolves and demons and angels and zombies and fairies and rock stars and cats and dinosaurs and every kind of creatures swarming in the halloween night. And soon, ghosts are floating. Terrifying masks look stuck to the faces of their owners. Beasts are howling out of mouths that are not human anymore. And when green and red and snake-like eyes blink at them, looking too goddam real, they know it’s time to look for help. To run”

And OF COURSE Billy and Steve end up alone together, looking for hopper after making the kids safe, but, yk, whatever is happening that we’ll never actually get to know bc this is the most self indulgent kind of pwp is getting to Steve too, changing him into his costume, into,

“He’s begun to feel the hunger.

A fucking vampire.

"We have to hurry" and when Billy looks at him, eyes wild, chest rising and falling, Steve knows he knows.

That he's changing. That Steve's gonna become dangerous. Soon.”

And *DRUMROLL!* things happen:

“And this thing inside of Steve. It's at the verge of taking over.

“We gotta make you safe, now”

“From what?” Billy asks. But he knows. And his eyes.

His eyes.

“From me, Billy”

But Billy–

Grins. His upper lip goes up. Bares his teeth. Huffs a laugh that sounds hoarse.

And maybe Steve has been––

“This is serious. I don’t wanna fucking eat you”

Billy. Slides close. Tongue digging into the sharp edge of a canine. Head tilted. Steve’s brand new instincts kick. He’s a prey now. He’s being hunted.

“Billy?”

But Billy. He looks– rapt. Reaches out. Hand cupping Steve’s face. Thumb pressing on his upper lip, rubbing at the tender flesh under the bow, saying “No, Harrington. No” running his pad downwards along the corner of his mouth and, pulling his bottom lip down, building an expectant, anticipating kind of feeling. A hook. Between the two of them “You’ve been eating me for a long time now”

The way he's looking at him— Steve wants to follow him through the darkest of paths, make an offering out of his freedom.

“What––“

Billy’s fingertips trace the shape of his jawbone and Steve backs down. Puts some space between himself and the way Billy’s staring at his lips, getting to a sudden halt when his calves hit the edge of the couch.

“Billy. What do you mean. Billy, what's happening?"

–— blind. He realizes. Steve has been so blind.

Because Billys is wrong too. Wrong. Can see it now. Eyes of an unnatural blue. Liquid. Silver-plated.

And it’s—

Sharp. Fast. The way Billy moves. Lays his palm flat over Steve's chest. Knocks the air out Steve’s lungs with the barest of touches. Because it's way he’s looking at him, what slams Steve into the couch. Breathless when Billy follows, climbs in onto his lap and,

Appetite, Steve thinks, recognizes. Appetite in the way his lashes fall, flutter, his lips part. Apettite, in the way his breath stutters.

"Steve"

He bends forward. One hand on the back of the couch. All his weight on him, caging him. Thighs clutching at his hipbones. And Steve feels them as his head hits the headrest, Billy’s knuckles, running up the shape up his throat, guiding his head up. And he feels so thirsty. Layed down on the desert. Skinned by the sun. Nailed down under his one weakness.

The one that could burn him down into ashes if Steve gets too close.

And they're close now. Close as they've never been before.

Billy's voice has the touch of velvet when he speaks. Smooth. Sleek.

"You're my fucking curse. I told you"

BUT and this is the plot twist i didn’t realize i blatantly revealed in the working title 🤦🏽‍♂️,billy isn’t dressed up for halloween so so-- he should be ok, right? R i g h t?:

“Fuck” Billy pants, nails carving half-moons on the muscle of Steve’s shoulder blades “Holy fuck”

“Hey, can you––?“

“I was a fucking joke!” Billy cuts him off, sounding like he’s wired-up, out of breath, as if he’s feeling it too. How strong it is. This craving. To lean forward again, let himself fall back into the slide of their mouths, to wrap his body around Steve and just–– give in to whatever is doing this to them. As if he feels exactly how Steve feels “I had forgotten about it but”

“What do you mean?”

“Fuck–I. Fuck!”

Billy runs his hands over his hair. His breath, when it comes out, lets his whole body trembling, hips stuttering forwards like he’s trying, but can’t. Help it. As if he needs their bodies to touch.

“Billy,” Steve says, soothing. Touches his face and Billy jolts, chest heaving up, electricity at the contact “I need you to talk to me”

Billy presses his lips together. Nods. Steve has never seen him like this. Like he’s out of cover. Nowhere to run.

“It’s like. What I felt before but it's. I could control it, Steve. But now it's pulling. It's maddening and I" His voice has lowered to the volume of a plea and he closes his eyes as if it is too much, as if whatever is happening to him is growing as fast as Steve's thirst. Becoming as unbearable. Steve runs his thumb over Billy’s cheekbone and Billy whimpers a low, lewd thing. Leans into the touch and rubs his cheek on it. Sighs like it’s such a relief. Such a relief. And then he’s. Opening his mouth and sucking at the Steve’s palm, sloppy and obscene, and Steve’s cock is weeping inside his pants head bumping against the hard leather of his belt, brushing minutely with every short breath. Doesn’t remember wanting anything like he wants this. Slide his fingers into the wet heat of Billy’s mouth. Watch, as he sucks them in.

"Hey. Easy. Easy. C’mon Billy c’monc’mon you can tell me"

But Billy is barely listening to him, panting against the heel of his palm, almost gone again.

"I wanted. God, I wanted to––” chokes off a sob. His hands wander up into the strands of Steve’s hair. Tangle in there “But wouldn’t have. Steve, I would never have. I’m so fucking scared you would––”

Steve takes his wrists. Soft. Careful. Tugs him towards him. Billy’s eyes snap open, lashes fluttering like pulled right out of a dream, and he’s so beautiful, so breathtakingly beautiful like this, straddling Steve’s lap, lips plump and swollen because of him, tears welling up and barely contained, gleaming like moonlight in clear a sky after a storm.

“Billy, please. I need you to tell me––“

“The costume” he breathes out, not as much a word, as a whisper. The blue of his eyes science fiction and impossible.

And Steve– he doesn’t understand. It can’t be, because Billy,

“But there’s no costume. You’re not in disguise”

“One of your minions,” he says and Steve feels the ridiculous impulse of protest, as if this is just the two of them going on about their shit as they always do, and not both of them tangled into the other, bodies shivering with the need to touch “When you came to pick us up. Dustin saw me like this and made a joke. Told him the first dumb thing that came into mind and–”

He trails off, his cheeks flush, a violent shade of red, lowers his face as if he’s so ashamed, and Steve has to press his lips together, fangs rasping at the delicate flesh inside.

And it’s not just the blood what’s making him hungry, when his fingers move down to Billy’s chin, lifts his face up. He wants to find out what the tears in his eyes taste like. Wants to relish in him. Find a way under his clothes and––

“Tell me”

“I was just joking”

––make him his. All his. And Nonono.

“Billy. What are you?”

“An incubus”

Andddd, that's TMI i know. Hopefully I'll finish it for next Halloween *crosses all fingers* bc I had such a good time writing it and isn't that far from being complete and, adashuhdsahd, I just LOVE the "x makes them do it" kind of fics but I think this was my first actual try at one?

Thank you so much for the ask, bb🖤🖤. It's so good to revisit these fics. I don't have that much time to write so I keep on losing impulse. But this is helping me remember there are things I'm excited to finish.

[mordoriscalling]

Life (of) Surprise (4/6)

Jaskier lies to his family about being engaged to Geralt for the second time… and there are way too many surprises involved.

Part 4 of the Singer and the Sailor AU that no one asked for but I wrote anyway (again). The chapter count went up again because I just can’t stop writing this story lmao. 

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3)

IV - A Surprise Discovery

Geralt is certain that a stag do shouldn’t involve this much crying.

The evening started innocently enough. They have had a room rented at a fancy club and they’re drinking, talking and playing cards. Geralt would rather do this at home but Lambert and Eskel told him not to be so “tragically boring”, hence the current arrangement.

Geralt’s been spending the day with “the guys”: Eskel, Lambert, Aiden, Vesemir, as well as his soon-to-be brother-in-law Silvio and not-quite soon-to-be brother-in-law Nasir. Jaskier, on the other hand, is away partying with “the girls”: Rozalia, Amelia, Triss, Essi and Yennefer.

Geralt hasn’t heard from Jaskier in a few hours, so he assumes his soon-to-be husband (only two months left to the wedding, and isn’t that a thought) is enjoying himself. Geralt, for his part, is having fun too; the stag do isn’t a disaster at all.

Then, it gets better.

Because Eskel is crying.

They were talking about Essi, commenting on what a lovely person she is. Although she’s not exactly Geralt’s type (he’s into people who are more... feisty), he still agrees that she’s a great woman – loving, warm, intelligent and beautiful inside out. Vesemir commented that there had to be many people mourning the fact that she was taken.

Eskel, upon hearing this, started weeping.

“Should we tell him?” Aiden, sitting beside Geralt, murmurs to Lambert.

“Nah,” Lambert replies gleefully.

They watch as Eskel sheds tears, mumbling about how much he’s in love with Essi but he wouldn’t dare to ruin her current relationship because she deserves happiness and –

To be fair, they have drunk a lot at this point.

Silvio and Nasir are clearly holding back their laughter. Lambert doesn’t even bother and guffaws freely, to which Eskel pays no mind, so lost he is in his despair. Aiden hides his face in the crook of Lambert’s neck, his shoulders shaking.

Vesemir seems more tired and sick of their shit than usual, though sparks of amusement dance in his eyes.

“I wasn’t aware this relationship makes you cry,” he tells Eskel gruffly, playing along.

“It does!” Eskel whines, “I should be her boyfriend.”

Vesemir’s lips tremor but he manages to keep his cool as he asks, “And what’s her boyfriend’s name?”

Eskel opens his mouth to respond but he says nothing. His brow creases in thought – it’s visible how the wheels are turning in his head – and then the moment comes when something clicks in his brain.

“Wait,” he says, understanding slowly dawning in his face.

At this, everyone at the table collectively loses it. Geralt is laughing so hard he’s slapping his thigh. Silvio and Nasir are in convulsions. Lambert and Aiden are leaning against each other, wheezing. Vesemir has to wipe the tears out of his eyes.

Eskel is too happy at the discovery to even notice the amusement at his expense. “I am her boyfriend!” he exclaims with wonder. Letting out a joyful chuckle, he repeats, “I’m her boyfriend!” He reaches for the bottle of vodka on the table. “We should drink to this!”

At the same time, Vesemir answers, “No.” and Aiden replies, “Yes!”

Vesemir plucks the bottle from Eskel’s hands and says, “You’ve had enough for now, pup.”

Lambert starts arguing and Geralt rolls his eyes. He then proceeds to drag his older brother to the side and force a lot of water and some food into him. While he does this baby-sitting, the phone in his pocket rings. As Geralt pulls it out, he’s surprised to find Jaskier’s name displayed on the screen. Slightly worried, he picks up.

“Hey, my loveliest sailor,” Jaskier slurs, his voice unsteady and watery. “Can I –” A sniff. “Can I come?”

Geralt frowns, bemused. “Shouldn’t we spent this night apart?”

“Fuck that,” Jaskier grumbles, “I miss you.”

“You haven’t seen me in five hours.”

“So?” Jaskier asks. “I just... want to see you. Please?”

Jaskier sounds downright miserable. Geralt has nearly come to terms with the fact that he may never master the art of telling Jaskier no but he's not fully resigned to his fate yet.

“Okay,” he answers.

“Are sure, darling? I won’t come if you don’t want to, you know,” Jaskier babbles nervously, “I don’t want to make you do anything you–”

“Jaskier,” Geralt sighs, “it’s fine, come here and bring the rest.”

Ever since their argument three months ago, Jaskier takes extreme care not to do anything without Geralt’s knowledge and consent. He keeps asking about every little idea, fretting and worrying whether he’s not overstepping. Most days, that’s the reassurance Geralt needs to keep believing in Jaskier's words. It does get tiring sometimes, though.

“All right.” Jaskier’s voice goes from resonating from the darkest depths of sadness to cheerful as the sun on a spring day in the span of those two words. “We’ll be there soon, my dearest.”

Geralt hums and hangs up.

After fifteen minutes more of trying to turn Eskel into a more or less functioning human being, Geralt witnesses the other stag do party members arrive. Jaskier opens the door to the room with a bang, his arms spread wide and a grin on his face.

“Geralt!” he exclaims and walks towards him with a prominent stagger in his step.

Before Geralt knows it, he has his arms full of drunk Jaskier. His fiancé peppers kisses all over his face and mumbles something nonsensical while Geralt holds him up, a smile tugging at his lips under all the loving attention.

In the corner of his eye, he can see the rest greeting each other, apart from Yennefer and Triss, who are watching him and Jaskier with a judgemental and an amused look respectively.

“Why are you here?” he asks Yen as Jaskier finally stops kissing him and embraces him instead.

“He was crying about how much he loves you,” she replies with an eye roll.

Triss snickers. “He was telling everyone about it, and I mean it. He wanted everyone in the club to know.”

Geralt stifles a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. Yennefer and Triss laugh. Jaskier raises his head and blinks up at him owlishly.

“Something wrong, my gorgeous sailor?” he asks.

Geralt really bemoans the fact that even a single look from Jaskier can affect him considerably.

“No, siren,” he sighs, “We should join the rest.”

They ask the staff to bring another table and more chairs, and soon, everyone is sitting comfortably, talking, playing and drinking. Everyone except Essi when it comes to the last part, at least; Geralt quickly notices that she doesn’t touch any alcohol. She claims that she simply doesn’t feel like drinking but Eskel, who sits beside her, starts fretting, concerned that she’s ill.

“I’m fine,” she assures him.

“You sure?” he asks, “You haven’t been feeling well recently. Maybe you should see a doctor?”

Geralt’s the only one watching the exchange, as everybody else is occupied with the ongoing conversation about the rules of Monopoly. He sees hesitation in Essi’s face. She bits her lip, seemingly considering something for a moment, but then looks up at Eskel and smiles. “I think I should,” she replies, “seeing that I’m pregnant.”

Geralt freezes in shock. Eskel’s brain visibly short-circuits.

“The fuck. But we –” he stammers out, “Why, I mean, how –”

“I don’t know,” Essi answers, her eyes wide and apprehensive, “I really have no idea.”

Eskel nods slowly, his expression still absolutely flabbergastered. “Fuck,” he says, with much feeling.

Essi looks at him closely, uncertainty colouring her lovely face. “I know this very unexpected and you never wanted a family but perhaps we can... talk about it? We don’t have to keep it but I –”

Eskel seems to finally snap out of his shocked state. “Essi, no,” he says quietly, taking her face in his hands, “I never let myself have a family, but now that the baby is here... Holy fuck,” he breathes out, one of his palms moving to touch her abdomen. “There’s a baby here?” he asks, his voice cracking. She nods with a watery smile, and he takes her into his arms. His whole frame is shaking now, and there’re tears in his eyes. “A baby,” he chokes out. His tear fall but his whole face is alight with joy.

Suddenly, Geralt’s throat is tight. He knows that Eskel never considered himself a father material because of all the issues he’s been battling since his childhood, just like Geralt and Lambert. Although he was quite a ladies man in his youth, he never allowed any relationship to get serious. Years passed like this, and Eskel’s now in his early forties, which is rather late to become a dad. Essi is six years younger than him, so it’s not early for parenthood for her either.

Yet, they both seem so happy now, and Geralt can’t get enough of seeing his brother like this, smiling and crying as he holds Essi and kisses her.

The rest of the table finally catches on that there’s something important happening. Then, the news is out, which brings their celebration to new heights. Jaskier is so happy and satisfied with himself that Geralt suspects his chest may soon burst from how much Jaskier puffs up with pride.  

“See?” Jaskier tells Lambert, “I’m a better matchmaker than you!”

“I made a marriage happen!” Lambert replies.

“I made a baby happen! Beat that!”

Lambert scoffs, the picture of unimpressed. “Maybe you and Geralt are gonna have kids too.”

“We’ve already got two,” Geralt answers without thinking.

Jaskier lets out a shocked gasp, staring at him in disbelief, and Geralt slowly understands what he said.

It’s not that it’s not untrue – they do have two children under their care. The thing is that neither Ciri nor Dara is very likely to call Jaskier their dad. Technically speaking, Jaskier will soon become Ciri’s step-father, but Ciri sees him more as Geralt’s partner. In Dara’s eyes, Jaskier is a supportive, parental figure, but it'd be foolish to think that the boy could ever consider himself Jaskier’s child. Geralt knows that Jaskier realises how silly that wish is but he still seems to hope for it, deep, deep down.

“Geralt–” he says, tears welling up in his eyes.

For a stag do – even two of them at once – it’s too much crying involved.

***

“Shoes off, Geralt, honestly,” Jaskier complains, “Are you doing this on purpose every time?”

Geralt only grunts. His head is spinning, too much to be pleasant, and he doesn’t trust his mouth to form a dignified enough answer. Jaskier’s very drunk too, so he doesn’t comment on Geralt’s response, or lack thereof.

The two of them slowly make their way towards the bedroom. Jaskier’s house is rather large, though, and they’re many objects and corners they stumble into. The rucksack they’re causing makes them snicker but their amusement is cut short when walk by the living room – Ciri and Dara are there, sitting on the couch in front of the TV and observing the two of them with delight.

“What are you two doing up?” Jaskier slurs out, “It’s...” he looks at his hand, where a watch should be, but there isn’t. “It’s late.”

“We found an interesting show on TV,” Ciri replies innocently. Geralt doesn’t believe it for a minute.

“Well, sleep is important!” Jaskier exclaims, gesturing dramatically with the hand he doesn’t use to hold on to Geralt. “Go to bed!”

“Yes, Jaskier,” Dara answers.

“Young people like you should get a lot of sleep.”

“We know, Jaskier,” Ciri sighs.

Jaskier would go on about the significance of sleep for teenagers if he was allowed, so Geralt starts dragging him away. Before they disappear behind the corner, though, he turns back to Ciri and Dara, shooting them what he hopes is a withering look.

“Show’s over,” he growls out.

Ciri and Dara have the decency to look chastised.

Arriving in the bedroom successfully takes them a few more minutes. When they finally do, they go straight to the bed, not bothering to undress. Then, they’re kissing, messy and eager, but their bodies have a problem rising up to the challenge because of the copious amount of alcohol flowing through their veins. Jaskier breaks the kiss quickly anyway, saying that he’s about to be sick, and rushes to the bathroom.  

After Geralt is left alone, he tries to process all the holy fucks of the day, primarily the reveal that Eskel is going to be a father and by extension, Geralt’s going to be an uncle. Then there’s the very fact that he marries Jaskier in two months. Geralt also has a memory of seeing Yennefer and Triss kissing during the party, and that is a lot to unpack as well.

The world is spinning as he lays in bed. He registers Jaskier returning and laying down beside him before he falls asleep.

It feels like no time passed at all when Geralt and Jaskier are waken up by noise. The loud thumping bores down into his skull, causing awful, throbbing pain. He sits up, groaning, and Jaskier does the same with a whimper.

Then, they hear Jaskier’s voice sing the first verses of Her Sweet Kiss and, suffice it to say, Geralt has had enough of that gods-damned fucking song and its techno remix especially.

“CIRILLA!” Geralt bellows.

“DARA!” Jaskier yells.

After a torturous minute, the music is turned off, but there’s no blessed silence. Instead, bright laughter reaches their ears. Geralt huffs, irritated, and checks the time on his phone. The fact that it’s one in the afternoon and that there’s a glass of water placed on his bedside table redeems Ciri and Dara slightly.

“Fucking hell,” Jaskier moans, messaging his temples, “I love my life.”

Strangely enough, there isn’t an ounce of sarcasm in Jaskier’s voice. Geralt turns to watch him closely, taking in his pale face, chapped lips and the grimace of pain twisting his features. “You do?” he asks.  

Jaskier looks at him, the blue of his eyes as beautiful as always. “I do,” he answers softly, “My life is so much better with you in it.”

Warmth explodes in his chest and Geralt moves closer, kissing Jaskier on the mouth, the cheek, the nose, hoping to convey what he finds himself unable to say. Jaskier responds to the affection with a happy hum, angling his face so get more kisses. Geralt indulges him gladly, pecking him on his forehead, his brows, under his eyes, down his neck.

“So much better indeed,” Jaskier purrs.

Geralt chuckles. “That is thanks to Lambert.”

“Oh shut up.”

Jaskier’s grumble is so grumpy that Geralt can’t help but laugh. Jaskier carries on grouching about being better than Lambert, and it keeps making Geralt laugh.

He couldn’t be more glad that he’s stayed.

[fallen029]

Festive

Laxus boots crunched under the snow and he regarded the same as he did every year, a slight snarl on his lips as he spied not only the accumulation, but the godawful snowmen that people liked to roll up in their front lawns. It was all he'd been welcomed to, the second he stepped off the train at the city station, as well as annoying kids pelting one another with snowballs or adults skidding around as they tried to navigate the hellscape that was wintertime in Magnolia.

"You're a downer," Mirajane told him more than once when this yearly attitude of his whipped up, a sentiment that was echoed bravely by her siblings now, knowing that now counted among his siblings as well (at least by marriage), they were above reproach. "And one day you're going to regret that."

"What you gonna do?" he'd retort back, not only in those instances, but when the woman complained about his attitude in similar situations. While there were many things she loved her dragon for, his inability to not easily play into a situation was not one of them. "Curse me, demon?"

"Maybe," she toy back and if he wasn't really feeling so lowly, just annoyed or purposely up playing his attitude, he might give her a grin back for that one, but during the winter?

Under these situations?

No fucking way.

"You're a realist," Freed offered him more than once. And he said it in such an admiring way. With a sharp nod and such honest insistence that it was hard to combat him. "You have difficulty placating the easily amused. Your interests are not swayed by the fanciful and bright. It is not a blight; rather a mark of a true, serious mage. If you are not that, then what are you?"

A sourpuss. Crank. Hardass.

"A jerk," Lisanna offered him, in a way only she could, as though he hated it so much, maybe she was his younger sister now, poking at his cheek one night when she was drunk and so was he. She pressed her finger deeply into his cheek, leaning over the table they were at to do so, much to the wide eyes of the nearby (and sober) Lucy and excitement of Natsu. But Lisanna held none of the fear or exhilaration of her friends, rather sneering in the guildhall she'd grown up, at the man who knew it still much better than she, "You're a jerk, Laxus Dreyar."

This was hardly a revelation.

He'd been one his entire life.

Save the few short years in the beginning there, perhaps the crux of why he, in the end, did become a flat out jerk, Laxus had pretty always encompassed that stigma. His family name bared heavy weight and he shoulder it best he could, but that meant sacrificing a huge part of himself in the process. He liked to think of himself as a mostly changed man now, but his stick in the mud, aversion to (others) nonsense had followed him into his later years and now, a fully grown married man, he found it too hard to shake.

It was his shtick, maybe, his placement in his family and friend groups, and it hardly bothered him most of the time. A sense of pride. Like Freed had insisted to him. He was a serious man and there was something to be said for that. The rune mage himself could be classified as one at times.

And yet, Freed also knew when to turn it off.

He could don a silly costume for the Fantasia Parade. Drink coco and reminisce towards the end of the year, trade gifts on sentimental holidays. Turn it on. When he needed to. In a way that Laxus had never learned to.

They all could. All of them. In the hall. Even the gruffest among them, with the most tragic and horrific of backstories, could squash their traumas and beefs for their friends and guild in the rare times of true kinship. Celebrations of the important things in life, holy events observed by even outsiders to their intended recipients, they could all get a teary eye out of the most seasoned wizard.

Laxus though, he always found these emotions too far out of his grasp. He'd done well to wiggle away from his natural aggravation toward these events, hoping for anything more from the man was shitting away desires. He never had those hopes for himself and, for the most part, others didn't have them for him either.

The demon though…

She was always and optimist.

Or at least she was now.

She'd gone through her own trials and tribulations, only to come out not a buried person, but rather a different one. And Laxus respected that. Fuck, he loved that. He loved her. But sometimes...he just couldn't indulge her in the way she wanted.

And that was fine. Maybe. Other than throwing around threats of curses or humorous jabs, Mira mostly left him alone in his misery. It was what Makarov instructed her to do, that first Winter Festival that she was dating his grandson and had come to him, dismayed over his lack of interest in the festivities.

"Master told me all about it, Laxus," she'd come to him, all weepy and shit, launching herself at him the second he opened his apartment door to her urgent knocking. Sniffling as she nuzzled her head into his chest and the man just tried to figure out what the hell was going on, Mira said, "About your father and mother and how they treated you, you know, during that terrible winter when they were getting a divorce and I just-"

"Mira," he complained, patting awkwardly at her head. "Why the hell were you talking about that with Gramps?"

"Because you're miserable, Laxus." Blinking back her tears, she stared up at him then with her bright blue eyes uncharacteristically clouded with concern. "I always thought you were just distant around this time because you didn't have someone in your life to force you to be better. And then I thought I was failing or something, at making you happy. But now I know that you're just sad and hurt and-"

"My parents were fucking shit all the time, Mira."

"L-Laxus." She frowned then, pulling away from him some. "Don't be vulgar."

"They're my parents," he pointed out. Shrugging some as he only moved to pull the woman further into the apartment, he questioned, "What'd the old man tell you, huh? 'bout the time my mom locked me outta the house? In the snow? And Gramps was outta town and I sat outside the locked house cryin', all fuckin' nigh, in the snow? Or no, I bet he told you 'bout the time that my father decided to fuck with me, because I was a shitty little kid, and used his magic to trick me into thinking the snowman I built came to life? Attacked me? That was fucked up. Or how about the Winter Festival where they-"

"Laxus-"

"Let's talk about the Fantasia Parade. All the times they promised to be in it, to be there, even, just fucking be there, for the Harvest Festival, but never showing up. Never being around. Or oh, you wanna get into birthdays, demon?"

"I-I mean if you need to-"

"I don't." And he told her this flatly, frowning as he spoke. "And you don't need to go and talk to Makarov about it. About me. To find out why I'm the way I am. I just fucking am. Just like you just fucking are the way you are. And I don't ever want to have this fucking conversation again, alright?"

Mira nodded then, in agreement, but he didn't rightly mean it as much as he thought he did, after only a few months of dating. As the years waged on and the relationship deepened, it was his grandfather telling all of his darkest secrets, but rather the man mentioning them, either in passing or bearing his soul, openly, whenever they lounged together.

It was a lot.

Sometimes.

The things that made his shoulders tense all these years or his jaw clench so heavily, sometimes, when he got to thinking too much, got too quiet, and she knew how to get it out of him. Or she learned. Eventually.

She was able to drag most things from her dragon, the demon was, and yet…

He just wasn't someone who had the spirit. For the season. For any season. Time was elusive to the traveling mage and he was around more now, a married man, settled down all he could, but that didn't mean that he'd adjusted fully. Given up fully.

But...if it meant so much to her, he'd be around. For the important things. Maybe not enjoying them, but he'd be there. He came to the parades and the festivals when he could, always around for the demon's birthday and his own, if only because she seemed to enjoy it so much more, when it was about him. He spent time with her family and brought them into the fold with his own, Gramps and the Thunder Legion.

Holidays had meaning again. In a weird way.

Just not enough for him to get over his...hangups.

So no.

Laxus wasn't in a jolly mood, as he walked through the city that afternoon, observing in passing the sights and sounds of the approaching Winter Festival, thoughts of his own drifting to the presents he'd have to get and even dreading, perhaps more, the ones he'd receive in return. The long parade and the huge jobs he'd be passing over, just to stay at home.

All while dealing with the frigid temperatures, threat of blizzards, and, every fucking year, snowmen.

Fucking snowmen.

The years had been kind to the S-Class wizard and it wasn't a tiny apartment anymore, that he had eventually asked the demon to move into him with, but rather a rather nice home they owned together, he liked to think, with a big tree in the yard for climbing and a nice front porch for a dog to lounge.

A home of an S-Class wizard.

"Papa!"

But also a family.

Laxus smiled some, as he came up the shoveled walk of his home, being greeted by a loud call of his name as well as someone rushing right over to toss their arms around his waist and he was still getting used to it. The feeling. His daughter was only three and was growing every single day. While the warmth of her hug was something he was accustomed to, it was still refreshing, every time he was away for a week or more, to see how her speech had grown or notice she'd grown a bit a more.

And she had a lot to tell him that day, as Laxus ruffled her white locks, the little girl abandoning the piles of snow she'd been pushing together, as she tugged at his hand to finish tugging him up to the house.

Mirajane was with her, of course, as well as Lisanna, both giggling at the girl's action, but following all the same, the old dog up on the porch, who did find that he loved to lounge there, stretching before rushing to get in just as the door to the house closed.

Everyone told Laxus that he took to being a father better than they thought he would.

This was something that was mostly said in pretend awe, but he could tell it was actually absolute mystification. People that he'd known in his former life, the one before he settled, had never pictured him as more, he imagined, than his stupid deadbeat father and hey, he'd fucking give it to them.

There was still time.

He'd always taken it for fucking granted. How easy it must be. To fucking leave your kid behind. Just walk out the door. Forget about them. Put them away. Like he did all his memories or the people that used to work in the bar, used to be a part of the guild, when he was a kid. His fucking parents both walked out at him, at different points, his mother before he knew what it him, when he was still cute and lovable, his father when he had a chance to know him, really know him, and hate him.

Laxus couldn't imagine either now though.

He thought, sometimes, when he was drunk and reflective, that his father had it easiest. He knew his son was a shithead and took off. Okay. But other times, when he was sad and remorseful, he thought about how his mother must've had it the easiest, right? She must've. Because she could still keep him there, he figured she still kept him there, wherever she was all these decades later, imaging him as whatever she needed, whenever she needed, and he was still a kid probably, in her mind. A little boy waiting for her. Sitting up for her. Thinking of her often.

He didn't imagine either of them slept well, when they thought of him, but then, he didn't imagine either did often enough for it to give them any real problems.

But it was so fucking weird.

So fucking weird.

The first time he looked down at his daughter, all covered in gunk from birth, a disgusting, distorted version of a little human, an aliens, really, that was breathing and crying and...his.

None of it made sense any more.

And it made even less as time went on.

He'd been able to rationalize his childhood, all of it, as just something that happened. His life in the guildhall was filled with kids who had parents that just didn't given enough of a fuck about them. It was a tale as old as time. He'd normalized this type of thing so easily due to his upbringing and yet…

Yet…

It killed him to go away on jobs, knowing he was coming back, that he was certainly, without a doubt coming back. And one day, he imagined, when she was strong enough to keep up on her own, when she had her own magic, he wouldn't be without her.

She'd be out there with him.

On jobs.

Probably.

He liked to think anyways.

"I think someone missed you," Mira giggled to him as they all ditched their snowy coats and boots by the door, Lisanna bending down to help her niece out of her own. "Dragon."

"Yeah, well," he grumbled a bit as he looked over his wife, taking in how she'd changed too, even just in that a few days, her form had changed, just a bit, as she edged deeper into her second pregnancy. "Maybe I missed someone too."

He was down for the month, at least, as they cycled through the ceremonial events of the Winter Festival and it's accompanying celebrations. Laxus was welcomed to all that coco drinking and reminiscing, but now with his daughter as they traded her usual bedtime stories in for winter themed ones, him even donning the matching set of pajama pants that his demon had purchased, to go along with hers and the girl's.

Family time was all he had time for, it seemed, as the Thunder Legion was around most days, alternating ones they weren't with Mira's siblings, and Laxus bared it all with ease.

He'd had a few years now of learning to do so.

The morning of the Winter Festival, Mira had to get down to the bar to prep for things there and Laxus made a big breakfast for his daughter, back at home, as she dreamed so heavily then, so close then, of the gifts her aunts and uncles would be presenting her with, for being so good all year long. He played along, even playing coy as to what he and her mother had gotten her.

"What do you think you got?" she asked him over their food, staring at him with the same deep, blue eyes of her mother. "Papa?"

"Mmm," he hummed, "I dunno."

She giggled at that, as she had the past few days, when she asked the same thing, and he imagined she'd gotten him something nice. Err, well, that her mother had and she knew about it. That was how it had been, after all, the other two years. Mira was such a sap, when she'd get him something, she'd put the baby's name as well and last year, even, she'd drawn a little picture on his card.

It was cute.

He was a father now, he could admit when things should be classified in such a way.

Mira was busy all festival. She was for all of them. They saw her at the parade, at least, and their daughter clung in her arms until it started before being sat on her father's shoulder, and it snowed that night.

Something that his wife thought made it special, as it hadn't on that specific night in years, and Laxus was glad to leave everyone else behind at the bar that night, him carrying the gifts his daughter had scored, while she stayed snuggled up in her mother's arms, nearly asleep by the time they arrived home.

"I'd almost just wanna put her to bed," Mira remarked softly as their faithful mutt didn't even rise to greet them, as they entered their home, "but still need to give her-"

"Wanna give Papa his present," came a soft, muffled protest from Mira's shoulder where the girl's head was still pressed, but her eyes were open now, bleary and tired. "Mama."

"Well-"

"Here, let's do it then, huh?" Laxus dropped her other little trinkets and toys by the couch before going to snag his daughter from Mira's arm. Helping her out of her coat, he said, "Let's all trade our gifts. You won't believe what I got ya, demon."

Considering with her strong snooping skills, this was probably false, he knew, as she had a tendency to spoil such things for herself long before the suspenseful date. As she feigned surprise at the earrings that her husband and daughter had gifted her (because fine, Laxus was a sap too and signed her name as well), his wasn't so put on as he found himself presented with not one, but two gifts.

Mira had gotten him some nice, new boots she'd seen him eye for a long time, but would never justify buying, but while he was thankful for them, it wasn't what would capture his full attention that night.

"You bought this for me?" he asked his daughter from his chair as, when she presented him with a wrapped gift, it was with bright eyes and a snuggle, when he pulled her into his lap. "Huh?"

Shaking her sleepy head, she only yawned some as she informed her father, "Made it."

"You?" He nuzzled his head into hers as she yawned, heavily, and nodded.

"Me," she assured him. "Papa."

"How did I know," Mira was musing over at the mirror in the hall, where she was looking over where her earrings now were placed, in her lobes, "to wear this exact dress? To match these? Must have been meant to be."

"Yeah, must've," Laxus retorted with a roll of his eyes, but he was busy then, ripping at the haphazard wrapping job his daughter had done, still uncertain as to what he was expecting to find.

It was strange.

Laxus didn't particularly like gifts. Even things he needed or wanted. There was something false about it, to him, a disconnect. Saving up something for someone for some specific date that only had as much meaning as you could manage to give it. And, as mentioned previously, he struggled to scrounge much up at all. He went along because other people did and that was good and well, but…

"Wow," he whispered as he was presented with children's construction paper, stapled together neatly (no doubt by her mother) to form a little book with a title of 'Me and Papa' written, also, in her mother's handwriting, and this would be true of the other few sentences he'd find inside. But the pictures were the main draw. "You drew all of these?"

"Yep!" And she was forcing some excitement then, fighting back a yawn as he flipped very slowly through the pages. "Me!"

It wasn't like it was a story or anything. Just pictures that she'd drawn, hard to decipher to an untrained eye, but Laxus was becoming well-versed in the world of toddler art. And...Mira's sentences helped a bit. They described the scene, in most cases.

They were drawings of things they'd done. Him and his daughter. Together. Going to get ice cream. Going to the store. Playing with the dog. Reading books. Drinking coco. Nothing special. He'd gotten drawings from her before, frequently, her scribbling going to something (only slightly) more substantial recently, and while he treasured them in one sense, he knew that it really didn't mean much.

But this…

It wasn't about the little book, which Laxus would now carry with him, when he traveled out on jobs, placing it in the waterproof pocket of his pack, to look over when he was far from home and missing his baby. It was about something much greater. Something he thought he was void of. Hadn't experienced in a long time.

She'd been young.

The first winter. Oblivious. And the last, though she was old enough to at least some what enjoy it, there was still a bit distance in this.

Now was different. Not really one that she'd remember, necessarily, but certainly part of the beginning of her memories. A piece of understanding. A start.

For the entire day, Laxus had had this...bubbling in his stomach, like when he was a little kid, seeing it all again. The parade and the games. The party at the hall. And now, at home, trading gifts, her actively doing so with him…

He laughed, shoulder dropping as he openly smiled down at his grinning daughter. She leaned up to kiss him and his smiled brighter, if it was possible, his clear joy causing Mira to come over finally. It wasn't lost on the slayer either, as she leaned over his chair, that by this time next year, he'd be able to start the process all over again, only with more knowledge this time.

"It's cute," Mira agreed, thinking his interest was mainly in the gift itself and while Laxus could agree, it was something much more that was causing him to nod his head as he beamed down at his daughter.

"Yeah," he agreed. "It is."

[my-never-ending-nightmare]

05/17/2021

Male friendships are so weird. You can be close friends with a guy for most of your life without ever letting each other know that you actually care about each other, except for in the most subtle of ways. I was chilling with somebody I’ve known since I was 13 or 14 over the weekend, somebody who I’ve been through some of the craziest of things with, most if not all of which involved alcohol. We were reminiscing about the old days when we were just 18 year old kids and more wild and reckless than ever, and somehow we started talking about the time I told another friend of ours to punch me as hard as he could, challenging him to try to knock me off my feet. He accepted the challenge and lost, but goddamnit that was probably the hardest I’ve ever been hit in my life. It really fucked my jaw up and put me in hospital the next day once the alcohol had worn off and the pain became overwhelming. This friend that I was talking to had been there and witnessed it, but his memory of it wasn’t too clear. So I showed him the video of it that’s still up on our other friends YouTube channel – and holy fuck did he ever wince when he saw that punch. More than even I do and I’m the one who actually felt it lol. It was fucking brutal, he said, and if he saw somebody hit me like that today he’d hit them even harder. He seemed genuinely angry that I had been punched that hard. And something about him saying that really touched my heart lol. That’s probably the closest any friend of mine has ever come to telling me that they care about me and have my back.

I don’t know what to call it – toxic masculinity, perhaps – but amongst all the friends I’ve ever had emotions are never spoken about or even acknowledged.

Which got me thinking about how many of us began to struggle with serious alcoholism and depression. It gets so fucking lonely when all you do is hide your true self from everyone around you. Some of us suffered more than others because of it, and some took much longer than others to snap out of it and embrace who they are rather than who they want others to see them as. This friend I was talking to, he’s still drinking practically daily but he’s nowhere near as wild and unpredictable as he used to be. He’s actually got his shit together now, despite the drinking. Good job, new car, girlfriend, etc. He’s more responsible than he’s ever been now, and he went through hell to get there.

I can remember one time when we were all about 20 years old and I had gone over to his place. Around this time his drinking was at its absolute worst – he’d get absolutely annihilated, black out and be crazy erratic. He was clearly suffering, we all knew it. But like I said, none of us ever tried to talk to him about it because y’know… feelings are “gay.”

I was sitting in his room that day, probably drinking, and at some point leaned back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling. Written there in huge letters with permanent marker were the words “I AM NOT HAPPY!”

I asked him what the hell that was about and he kinda laughed about it and said that he has no idea, he got black out drunk the night before and woke up with that written on his ceiling. A literal cry for help. And all we did was shrug and laugh it off. But that’s always stuck with me, because it’s one of the darkest things I’ve ever seen. And, honestly, I felt pretty alarmed about it even at the time. I didn’t know how to help him, so I didn’t even try. But what if that had been one of the last times I ever saw him? What if things were so serious that suicide was a real possibility? How would I have lived with myself knowing that I saw that and did absolutely nothing about it?

Sometimes I really wish I had spent more time among girls growing up lol. Maybe then I wouldn’t have the emotional intelligence of a wet sponge. Perhaps then I wouldn’t feel so alone with my own thoughts all the time. And if my relationships with men were unhealthy, just wait till you hear about my relationships with women lol.

Like, I’ve wanted emotional intimacy rather than just physical intimacy with somebody for as long as I remember, but I only ever achieved the latter because I could never find anyone I felt I could trust enough to open myself up to. Once I finally found the girl it felt like I had been searching for my whole life I wasn’t able to achieve that level of intimacy because I just wasn’t capable of it given how immature and inexperienced I was. I sure was good at hiding how I actually felt behind stupid jokes and insensitive comments tho lol

Oh well, lesson learnt I guess. But it certainly came at one hell of a price. 

[sereisstuff]

prince of darkness

summary - you accidentally summoned the prince of darkness and now he wants something in return, so he makes you his fiance to trick his father Hades into giving him the crown.

Demon prince!Kim Taehyung x Chubby reader.

Genres or warnings!!-slight swearing, flirtatious Tae.

(note: I wrote this a while ago when my writing wasn't as well so there will no doubt be a lot of grammatically incorrect writing)

part 2 / part 3/ part 4/ part 5.... dis-continued

The room was filled with tension your eyes glared towards the words seek if you dare Rattling the book between your hands, the black sleek cover tormented your deepest desire to read the words that plagued its insides, you’ve found the book on your way home from school, it was in utter despair as rain-soaked its surroundings longing for an owner, you approached it out of curiosity at first but later realized how dry it was this just peeking your worry how can a book be untouched by the heavy rain when nothing could possibly be sheltering it.

but after reading the name you should have just left it there, a deeper meaning was to it you could just feel it so you did what your gut was telling you, you neared the home with the book in hand, not knowing if being kissed by the sharp intakes of rain was the cause of your shivering or the disgusting feeling the book, let off.

it felt like the beginning of a horror movie, please don’t be, you cried.

inhaling as much air as your lungs could take before shoving the book open with closed eyes, you let your fingers wander to a word hoping it was another fairy tale book. oh, how you wished you were wrong.

your eyelid hesitantly opened reading the bold words in front of you state-ting.

“as you seek upon me, beware of the troubles, seek upon me and I will follow, seek upon me”

What the fuck! was all you said repeating the words once again.

“as you seek upon me, beware of the troubles, seek upon me and I will follow, seek upon me”

your mind blanked, pushing away the damp feeling of the room as you suddenly confused yourself again, there was certainly something up with this book not wanting to believe the context it held, “holy shit” you shouted closing the book, as you placed a hand over your mouth.

you just said that out loud.

“The book is quite confusing, if I may say so myself” a deep throaty voice admitted, the words clamped your heart as it produced the fear you were feeling, heart, running so fast you placed a hand over it searching the room for any signs of the living. well, hopefully, it was living.

“I told my father not to use that stupid witch as our bookmaker, yet here we are”

the voice babbled on longer not fathoming your fear at all, the light standing on your bedside suddenly piqued your interest, gripping the handles between your hands before cradling it tightly.

“Sorry for my rude entrance the name is Taehyung son of Hades” he continued.

Taehyung walked from the shadows the moonlight inking his loose silk clothing as it hung loosely from his body. bright diamond chains were used as a decoration among st his clothing dangling from his shoulder down to his waist, two fairly wide buttons laid undone emphasizing his broad shoulders and sun-kissed collarbone. His hair was a messy black with eyes so beautiful you forgot the circumstances of his visit, pink plump lips enchanting you to stare a little longer than expected...

“And you are??” his question was polite, but sounded so cocky coming from him.

“y-y/n” you complied with his question, not wanting to move your eyes as his own doe eyes stared at you curiously.

“Well might I say y/n but you are dazzling” he was intense but held a rather soft tone to it, he’s literally the son of Hades nothing should be soft about him.

Taehyung snapped his fingers igniting the room with warm yellow streaming from the bulb. He leaned against the draw of your room, not once removing his eyes from you.

“So y/n what I'm curious to know right now is why I'm suddenly pulled from the depths of my fathers kingdom to accompany you in this rather dull room”he showed a rather unappealing look towards the sight of your room which by the way you didn’t take all that well, spending hours on your room to perfect its aesthetic now to receive such a stupid comment from a person like him.

“My room is not dull” you admitted, Taehyung’s sparkling brown eyes widened as you commented on the appeal of your room, a mortal such as yourself was brave enough to raise your tone at him.

“Darling, please” he chuckled, inching closer to the comforts of your king-sized bed.

“This room is extremely dull, but I'm not here to discuss the design of your room. so c’mon spew it out. What am I here for??” he straightened the alignment of his stance, crossing his arms.

“I don’t know” Taehyung blinked rapidly. words hanging loosely on the tip of his pink tongue, Taehyung wanted to bark out in laughter but feeling the serious aura radiating from your figure he restrained himself. which was rare in most cases.

“Father just save me now” he mumbled pinching the bridge of his nose.

“did you at least read the rules applying to my summoning” you picked the book up hurriedly reading the words in search of any additional package to be carried a long way, flipping the pages until you reached the last one, yet there was nothing.

“Stupid witch” Taehyung growled under his breath” my summoning comes with a cost, “when you summon me I must gain something in return” he winked, loving the way you blushed at his comment but pretended to feel disgusted, such a petty thing a mortal could do. he could feel your emotions touch your soul yet you had no clue of the power he held.

“What, no that’s stupid, I didn’t even mean to summon you”your words tumbled as you searched for an excuse, placing a hand on your soft hip” well I could fulfill your darkest fantasies” he purred inching closer to your shivering figure, admiring the curve of your waistline, making sure you understood what he was asking for.

“Hell no, nope I swear to god if you touch me I'll fuck you up” Taehyung smirked.

“Oh darling god is no help when it comes to his mortal enemies”you jumped up getting ready to fight a demon”I'll do anything else but that”Taehyung grew interested in your words pausing for a few moments as he held his thoughts, the lights switched off when he smiled making you jump in fear.

“Sorry it’s a habit” he apologized, turning them back on. You pretended to know but really had no fucking idea what he was talking about, firstly you couldn’t understand how ethereal he was, its because he was a demon he had to possess beauty from his father as to capture and allure his victims or so you were told of course.

“Actually I have an idea” he mentioned plopping down on your bed stretching his rather long limbs across the sheets, resting his head against the back of the bed while crossing his legs, he lifted one of his bony fingers to point at you, pointing’s rude. You thought. 

“You need to act as my fiance” you were about to protest, but he gestured for you not to, compared to him you were a weak mortal and that’s about it no questions asked, no protest just understanding.

“Why??” is all you ask if you're going to do this, which you'd rather not at least knowing why could help on your part.

“Because yours looking at the prince of darkness baby, a king needs a queen to rule doesn’t he”he smirked, flashing you a seductive look before continuing” or so my father thinks, you seem like the perfect candidate to initiate my plan in getting my father's approval to move my title to king, so you really don’t have a choice” he lifted himself effortlessly, capturing you against the wall.

“So, deal” you huffed in anger, your opinion doesn't matter in this case so you did the only thing possible, you shook his cold hand on your own. Taehyung smiled sinisterly and completed the deed with a long, rough kiss.

Eyes wide as he enjoyed the warmth of your mortal body enclosed with his own, biting at the edges of your swollen lips” is that how you always complete a deal.” you asked lost in trance of his lips, Taehyung's eyes left your lips to meet your desired  hues to freely give you a perfect smirk, leaning into your ear” actually you're the first” he left your side to retreat into the darkness.

“I’ll be back” he tilted his head as a way of saying goodbye, giving you a lopsided smirk. His clothes lifted from the ground surrounding him at a fast pace. Waving one last time before he disappeared out of your room.

You released a long dragged breath, clenching your chest as the ground became a playground for your imagination, no longer being able to sleep.

You looked at you wrist as it lit in deep blue flames, afraid of it burning you a loud crippling scream escaped your sore throat slapping the sensitive skin until the flame dispersed into thin air leaving a mark along your skin, words actually placed on there “property of Kim Taehyung” was what it said, growling out in anger 

Son of a bitch

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Rewatch: Episode 61 “Deku vs Kacchan Part 2″

 mysterylover123

O.T.P.

This is gonna get kinda emotional.

Deku is turning Kacchan’s fight proposal down. Dammit Deku! He’s being serious!

Hoo boy that Kacchan face. No light in his eyes. That realization, just…just bleeding through…hoo boy.

“If the way you admired him was correct, does that mean my way of thinking was wrong?” OMG ITS HAPPENING. HE’S REALIZING IT YA’LL.

The flashbacks to bb Deku and Kacchan the feels.

The white void, it’s just the two of them. 

That Deku line from the first episode. I’m transported right back, ya’ll. It’s that first love again, that same feeling I had when I first discovered this series all the way back in summer of last year.

So Deku starts by thinking too hard about what’s going on and immediately gets blasted.

“You think too much” hoo boy recently Mother’s Basement posted the analysis of this fight and pointed out that this is actually a flaw of Deku’s that he can learn to remedy by adopting some of Kacchan’s impulsiveness. Never has the phrase “you complete me” been more accurate.

This freaking animation. It’s so beautiful. OMG.

“Wait for me” OH MAN BB DEKU BB KACCHAN RUNNING I’M DEAD I AM DYING

Cause he loves ya you dope.

Cute overload

WHY WHY WHY hoo boy Kacchan flashbacks.

Dat little trip oh man. He’s so bummed Deku doesn’t wanna fight and Deku’s little kick actually knocked him down.

Ooh boy. Here it comes. The music went out

Hold his freaking hand some day dammit

Oh god I can’t watch this again I can’t I can’t

“why is to you became strong…while I - “ OH GOD HERE IT COMES HERE IT COMES

OH GOD. Slow clap. Okamoto and Chapin both deserve freaking awards for that performance. I mean holy shit. That voice acting. Those cracks. That hit. It makes me cry. I’m tearing up right now. Cause you see, this whole episode, it really rests on the ability of Bakugou’s Seiyuu and VA to pour everything into the performance. It’s not going to hit without both of them giving the vocal acting performance of a lifetime, and they both knocked it out of the freaking park. I actually love them both as his voice; I don’t have a preference for dub over sub, as regards their performances (not the dialogue translations), because both are incredible. Just. Slow clap. All of the awards, please.

Look at how Deku looks at him. He’s the best. He just…he cares, so much. I mean, you’d admittedly have to be a pretty heartless bastard not to feel a little compassionate after hearing that speech but still. Kacchan’s so fucking lucky he has Deku and he doesn’t even know it. I want one too.

He’s crying. Me too.

Kacchan no Kacchan no nononononono 

Oh god Deku you beautiful darling

“may not be any meaning” I DISAGREE THIS IS THE CULMINATION OF AN ENTIRE SERIES’ WORTH OF 100+ SYMBOLIC CHAPTERS DETAILING YOUR GROWTH FROM ANGRY YELLING RIVALS TO RIVALS WHO SUPPORT EACH OTHER DAMMIT IT’S EVERYTHING

“May not be any meaning in winning or losing” lol are you just saying that in hindsight, Future Deku, cause you know you lost?

Deku didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to fight Kacchan or even let him know the truth.

And note, he didn’t accept until he realized there was someone he could save. Someone who needs saving, to be helped. And this is how to help him.

“The only one who can accept his feelings is me.” Ya’ll heard that haters? Say it a little louder for the people in the back, Deku. He’s got his heart.

And look who’s smiling again, eyes lighting up again, the minute Deku started fighting back?

“I couldn’t just completely reject him” Guess who also sad that about their fiery spiky blond spouse in BNHA? Kacchan’s dad in that omake about their marriage.

Their relationship was wrong, but now it’s right. 

They never talked about how they really felt. Communication is the cornerstone of a healthy relationship, folks. Go on. Talk about your feels. Your real feelings.

Of that was one hell of a hit.

That speedy recovery though. Deku is fast. 

Oh wow Kacchan hit it too

That smile. That smile OMG that is THE HOTTEST, by far, that Deku has ever looked in animation. And I don’t say that lightly.

The translation here is either “I’ve” or “you’ve” gotten stronger. Both fit fine, which is the crazy part. Deku could be either saying that he himself has improved, or complimenting Bakugou, which does admittedly make more sense with what he was saying before, while ‘I’ve’ fits his cocky grin here better. I want him to flash a cocky grin more. It suits him. (BTW The English Dub compromises between the two and says’ we’ve both’.

Katsuki assumes Deku has a plan. Always overestimating him.

“That’s what I hate about you” OMG HE FINALLY TELLS HIM HOW HE FEELS. “I can never tell what you’re thinking” Because ya know he’s so good at understanding how everyone else thinks and feels.

He’s always being mean to Deku. Deku has seen him at his very worst and yet still admires him. Maybe that’s scary, you know? Unconditional love is…kinda terrifying. But so, so beautiful. So he has to rationalize it that Deku is just looking down on him.

Wow Deku sure took you long enough! He’s been saying that since day 1!

“I wouldn’t want anything to do with them anymore” Deku there you go being empathetic and wonderful and perfect again. So understanding you darling, darling boy.

 “Along with the parts I hated about you, I saw all the amazing things you could do.” THAT’S ADMIRATION, FOLKS. ADMIRATION WITHOUT IDOLIZATION. Without hero-worship. Acknowledging the good and the bad. Seeing a person for who they really are and always, always seeing the best of them, even at their worst.

“MUCH CLOSER TO ME THAN ALL MIGHT” Do you hear him guys? The closest person to him, closer than All Might. Closer than his freaking #1 favorite hero. The dub version has “actually in my life”, which isn’t a bad idea either. Both are true. That is so powerful. The person who

Oh yeah and again how does Deku advance in power? How does he Go Beyond? KACCHAN. Full cowling, he found from him. OFA itself, he gained by saving him. And 8%.

THAT SMILE. “I thought you were amazing.” He loves you you idiot. 

He kept chasing after him. He’ll never stop. He won’t just give up.

He passed him. And Bakugo looks happy. Possibly because he wants Deku to do better. Possibly because it seems to be confirming his might-makes-right theory. Possibly both.

ANIMATION-GASM AGAIN. 

AHAHAHAHAHAH ITS THAT CUT ITS THAT CUT DEKU’S DANCING FEET

THE VOID AROUND THEM IT’S JUST YOU AND ME 

AND THE BLOCK OMG THIS IS BEAUTIFUL THIS IS THE MOST FREAKING BEAUTIFUL ANIMATION IVE EVER SEEN

I’m serious. They brought out all the stops for this one. Of course. they knew, they had to know, that this was it. The animation, too, had to be perfect, or else it wasn’t gonna come across. And it is. Even better, in my opinion, than the animation in the stuff that came before it. Bones you are incredible. 

Higher gear. Can anyone doubt that Katsuki is important to Deku’s journey after this?

“This is gross, so I can’t say it”.. “I love you?” A reactor I follow actually said that after that line. That’s how intense they are.

Anyway IMAGE OF VICTORY SPEECH. The Ep that keeps on giving. 

Kacchan is his image of victory. The other side of him. And he adopts some of his traits.

“The part of you I hate and yet” How much love can you have for a person when you can somehow still admire the darkest, meanest parts of them? I don’t have a very perfect definition of love but I think that’s probably a big part of it.

“my image of victory is of you” feels overload. Feels O.D. 

dat crane shot.

My one disappointment with this episode is that they used the US of Smash OST instead of the Katsuki and Izuku OST for this scene. CMON GUYS. SERIOUSLY. THE KATSUKI AND IZUKU THEME HAD TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN FOR THIS EPISODE AND THIS MOMENT ALONE. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING. 

“I have to beat you” the music the feels omg

Hahaha psych. Kacchan wins anyway. 

WOOF. Like OK this is in the manga, this positioning, but it’s only for one frame. In the anime it goes on for like, an uncomfortably long time, with the slow panting, and the close-ups on the twisting body parts, and…combined with the fact that all of Deku’s admiring girlfriends in this arc have also landed on top of him in a similar pose, and you can’t blame me for the fact that my mind went into rather…R-rated territory. 

Kacchan’s disappointed. He didn’t want Deku to lose. He wanted Deku to win.

That breaking  voice again. Don’t make me cry more dammit it’s too late.

ALL MIGHT! I need an MST3K style All Might commentary-reaction to this entire damn thing. Seriously Hori. If you ever do an extra, please make one that’s a serious of All Might panel reacting to this whole thing. I NEED THAT. 

Finishing each other’s sentences again.

“It’s too late” IT’S NEVER TOO LATE YOU CYNICAL PORCUPINE.

This is such a great moment of catharsis. Why Deku indeed? Well, you’re about to learn.

THAT LINE DELIVERY AGAIN. That Broken voice. Both voice actors are too good.

Deku’s legs though. WOWSA. A little detail I’ve noticed is that Kacchan has really buff, sexy arms and Deku has really buff, sexy legs. Because those are the body parts they use, while the reverse parts are more average.

“I’m weak too” You’re making me weak I can’t take it. His voice his voice that fucking voice

DEKU’S EYES. THEY’RE WELLING. 

HE’S GONNA CRY TOO.

I also need an All Might in my life. I kinda blame myself all the time for things outside of my control. Deku AND Kacchan both blamed themselves for what happened. For All Might’s end. And neither one was really responsible, but they’re just like that. I relate, painfully, to both of them. I have a Deku side and a Bakugo side - deep down, I think we all do. Maybe one more than the other, but that’s what you get when you create two characters who initially act as kind of…distilled embodiments of two sides of the super-hero coin. One all super with no hero, the other all hero with no super - at least, at the beginning.

THAT PIANO MUSIC IT SOUNDS FAMILIAR. IT’S ALL MIGHT’S FREAKING THEME YA’LL!

Ooh boy All Might’s BKDK Speech! Both of their teachers ship them, you guys. All Might AND Aizawa both give big, beautiful speeches about their compatibility. In case you somehow missed it. 

Being fixated on victory like you, young Bakugou…and wanting to save those in trouble, like you, young Midoriya…both of those feelings are necessary.” “You guys are perfect for each other”, says the reactor I mentioned earlier (who isn’t even a hardcore BKDK shipper, mind you, it’s just that it’s that obvious.) And it’s true. You need both. They want each other, they need each other, because they have what the other lacks. They complete each other.  

This is the shonen rival equivalent of having the couple in a rom-com confess at the end of act one instead of act three. It upsets all the cliches and is all the better for it. Though even the most hardcore, dedicated anime rivals, I don’t think have ever gone this married-couple with the ‘mutual respect’ and ‘making each other stronger’ thing.

WIN AND SAVE SAVE TO WIN. They look each other in the eyes.

Oh god not that voice again I’m dying. Don’t make me cry again Kacchan.  

“Don’t lose.” SUPPORTIVE KACCHAN I LOVE SUPPORTIVE KACCHAN.

“I’ll get stronger” CONFIDENT DEKU I LOVE CONFIDENT DEKU. 

“Of the students only you.” ONLY YOU. 

I put this moment really high on my list of Kacchan’s nicest moments, because it means a lot to me and to All Might. All Might acknowledges it. He’s a good secret keeper.

Oh and Deku thanks him too in the English Dub, BTW. Not the manga but nice dub touch. 

OMG he’s such a Tsundere.

He told him everything. HE KNOWS. The only one who knows. None of Deku’s other love interests do. And he has no interest in telling them. 

Kacchan asks why he told him. And I’ve got an answer, after obsessively rereading Chapter 11/rewatching Episode 8 a lot: BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU, YOU IDIOT. You were mad at him for lying about his quirk to you. You asked what was going on (loudly). You accused him of lying to you your whole life. So he told you the truth. Because he can lie to his mom, and he can lie to his friends and teachers and the entire freaking world. But he cannot lie to YOU. Because he loves you. Idiot baka. 

Oh and what’s that music playing there? Why does that sound familiar? YOU SAY RUN YOU SAY RUN YOU SAY RUN IT’S BACK. And you know? That’s I think because YSR symbolizes Deku’s heroic inspiration. The inspiration he both takes in and gives to others. And here, he’s both being inspired by Kacchan, and inspiring him at the same  time.

Now Kacchan is doing the same. “Chosen one” He knows. Deku is better. He’s gotta surpass him.

LOL THIS IS FUNNY. THEY SURE BICKER LIKE THEY’RE MARRIED.

This shot composition. Get it? ALL MIGHT’S THE THING BETWEEN ‘EM.

Oh and this. Yay some character development from Kacchan! Another nice moment of his in this ep. Three times! 

All Might Meta’s a bit about how Kacchan took responsibility and felt bad and does a Mom guilt trip on Dadzawa. They’re getting to be kinda married too now.  

“I went in pretty HARD”. OMG stop it you’re making me think bad things again. Just F*CK already.

Their first act as a married couple is to clean the house together. OMG domestic fluff. 

And now for the best Post-credits scene ever. 

Wow Uraraka ships it so bad. 

Oh and some Todobaku bonus! Aw I guess Bakugou just turned down his 3some offer. 

Ooh awkward silence. 

YAY! Though they did kinda wreck it by having Deku bring it up instead of Kacchan 

NOW THEY’RE HEALTHY ENOUGH TO TALK TO EACH OTHER LIKE HUMAN BEINGS.

Kacchan just praised me. Life is good.

Episode 61 is my favorite episode of my favorite show. I think it’s the best and will never be topped. Feels, left and right. It’s really just perfect. Funny, all 3 of the transcendent, best-of-the-best BNHA eps (This, 49 and 23) are basically just two characters fighting for 20 minutes. Nothing more or less. Yet they’re all so, so good. And this one is…I don’t even know how to put it into words. It’s a phenomenal tour-de-force of acting, visuals, animation, music, and of course, writing, all combining together to be just absolutely unsurpassable. Everything that makes this series good, boiled down to it’s essence. And yes, this did seal the deal for me with BKDK. I liked it before, but this made it a done deal. No going back. And I love it.

BEST GIRL OF THE EP: Uraraka for being so supportive.

RANKER: Top 5 Best Moments of This Episode: (it’s really more like a top 50)

5. Deku’s little Dance number

4. True Rivals at Last

3. True feelings at last

2. The Image of Victory Speech

1. “Why did I become...”

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Mount Everest Ain't Got Shit On Us (Fezco x fem!reader, part 7.)

Description: You were always told that your life will be as you wish it to be if you’ll study enough. That it will pay off if you work hard. And some people were given you like the scary example of what will happen when you don’t obey. But sometimes it feels good to disobey.

 A/N: None really this time?

Warnings: Fezco being FLUFFY as fuck. Rue and Jules with yo sis Fran being fucking the best supporting bitches ever. No drugs or so mentioned, except weed, this part is overall pretty ok I think. 

Read the rest here, babe:  PART 1  PART 2  PART 3  PART 4  PART 5  PART 6

Masterlist and declaration: H E R E

When you have a meeting which is truly important for you, the time slows down around you. It could be a meeting with someone new, which usually tears you apart from the inside because of the curiousness of how it will be, to be with them.

You have those feelings when you have an appointment with your new work. Your nervous about the questions that they will ask you - you're nervous that you will not answer correctly. People can be very keen on the first impressions.

The same feeling appears in your chest when you have to go to meet someone for the last time in your life. A sudden feeling of loneliness stops the world turning around you. You feel the need to be sad, to be alone, you feel a lot of anxiety.

So when Fez didn't text you for the first week, you felt like you have fucked something like. When you told Fran, she just busted out of laughter, watching you with her eyes closed playfully. She giggled for the last time.

She always told you that she finds you astonishingly beautiful, especially in your tight dress showing your cleavage almost completely and some high heels on. When you were doing a little catwalk to Rue and Jules, Rue told you that you should not wear them when you'll go out with Fez, because it could give him a heart attack. So you decided that those were definitely the ones to wear when being with Fez on a date.

"Are you serious? You from all the people feel insecure? Shithead, you're hilarious sometimes, for god's fuckin' sake." - Fran swung her feet on the small table in front of the TV, taking a fistful of popcorn and shoving it up to her mouth. It was almost nine p.m., Cal was already sent to bed and you two watched some badly written and badly shotted horror movie. Your mom and your dad were on the way to your old hometown to visit granny and grandpa.

“What would I even do without your honesty?” - You snuggled to her side as you always did. From the time you were small, Fran was basically the boy-ish manly element in your everyday life. She was the big sister who was rude, loud, who was cursing like a sailor with the humor the darkest humorist on the planet. 

When you were little and you were afraid, she took you to her bed to snuggle you for the rest of the night. When you were feeling bad, she tried to make everything on the planet felt right for you. And when you watched some movies, you always cuddled and she braided your head or massaged your scalp, being the protective one. 

You, from all of your siblings, were the woman element, the princess which everyone felt the need to protect and to take care of. You knew that you are capable of the watch after your own fucking ass. It wasn't your choice that you looked like a gentle, small woman, the rose in beasts palace. 

Cal was obviously the dumbest and youngest, or that was what Fran was saying all the time. He was extremely likely to be persuaded with Fran's bullshit - and she was capable of thinking almost extremely crazy things. She made him go all nature-loving vegan boy for almost three years and one time, she told him that he should drive circle on every dog hell see to make him a dalmatian.

But that was what your family was like from the day you three were officially together. So it was completely normal for you to snuggle with Fran in the most sister-like way even possible. 

“What would ya do without me? Well, mostly, you wouldn't have anyone to be truthful with ya.” - Fran whispered, leaning her cheek to the top of your head. She had a huge smile on, again shoving a whole fist of popcorn up to her mouth. - “Second of all, ya life would be completely without a direction and without any sense of humor in ya boring day-to-day survivin'. Dear fuckin' lord baby Jesus.” - She yelled and laughed when a jumpscare took her by surprise. 

A vibration next to your upper thigh took you by surprise as you and Fran laughed it off. You shook it off as Rue's gibberish, but the phone continued on vibrating. Eventually, after a minute and three texts later, you finally looked at the screen. When you looked at the screen, you didn't even know who the hell it is. 

But then you focused on the grammar and the nickname, it all clicked into one place.

“What happened? Somebody took a picture of a yeti again?” - Fran joked around, but you looked like the Lord and Savior himself just put a halo on the top of your head. You watched the display with mouth opened, without having a single idea what to say to Fran. 

Unknown number: Heya newbie.

Unknown number: It Fez 'ere. Wanna know when ya have the time?

Unknown number: Wanna see ya. The sooner the betta. 

“A... A boy who I like just texted me if I want to go out? Jesus, Fran, do I want to go out?” - You shuttered and exhaled out loud, being all nervous and rosy all of a sudden. Fran was giggling at you with a raised eyebrow. 

“Is he the knight of the Catholic cavalry you were searching for?” - Fran closed her eyes a bit and then she started to giggle. - “You will never know, shithead. You better find out, hm? Go get 'em, tiger! You can go out with that boy tomorrow, I will look after shithead number two, just have a nice evening. Live a little while the two of them are gone.” 

So you texted him back, feeling all confident with your sister's support. Fran then stood up and stopped the movie, pointing with her thumb in the direction behind her back. - “Gonna have some fine time, just me and ma weed while ya will be all over dat boy, okay?”

Y/N: I have some time tomorrow. Wanna hang out?

You sat down, eating some popcorn and drinking the root beer Fran had bought for you two. You tried to keep your mind occupied while Fran was stoning on her balcony. 

Fez: Alrite. Wanna do somethin' special-special or just han' out? We can go to the cinema and shit. 

Y/N: Dinner, cinema, and shit? That's what u mean?

Fez: Yea, I mean dat type of shit. 

Y/N: Ok. See ya tomorrow at 5? 

Fez: Tomorrow in front of da expansive Italian bistro.

You almost screamed out loud with joy, your brain was all over the fucking place. Fezco wanted to go out with you. Holy fucking shit. Fezco. That fucking bearded stoner who you were all around. In an Italian bistro which everybody considered the best in the city. You two between all of the businessmen, rich people and there you would be, just the two weirdos. 

“So wazzup?” - Fran walked into the room completely tuned down by the weed. She was slow, all over the place; she usually acted like a fucking philosopher or a magician when she was stoned. - “Yo man, I am so fuckin' high.” - She sat down and laughed loudly. 

That meant only one thing - she already found one of the local dealers and she bought some good fucking shit, as she would most likely say, from him.

“You're asking about me and the boy, aren't you?” - You let her sat down next to you, again snuggling you. - “It is all going a-ok. I have a date yesterday.” - You said excitedly with a joy-filled voice. You looked and Fran. She was smiling happily and after a half an hour, she leaned down to kiss your forehead. 

But in her head, no time has passed between she was happy for you and after she leaned to kiss you. 

The other day, Cal left the house really early. He was going to skate with his band of friends, in which was Gia Bennett included as well. But your three fangirls decided to be with you all day, telling you some useful tips and tricks, doing your hair, doing her make-up. 

“If ya not gonna wear that, I mean THAT dress, I’m going to disown ya, girl.” - Rue stood up and took those tight black dress hugging your cleavage fuckingly tight. She and Fran had a joint together so they were on cloud nine. Fran said she was watching over Rue - that meant Rue hadn't got more than two shots. - “Oh yea boy! You need to fuckin' wear that, bitch!” - Fran exclaimed. 

“Those spaghetti straps plus ya boobs? I tell you that you're going to kill ma man with that kind of shit. And girl, I saw yo ass looking just yummy in dat skirt.”  - Rue gave you the dress with a slight smile. They've made your face prettier, your hair looked like the hair of a Hollywood star. 

“And may I recommend you those black high heels?” - Jules smiled. They had a plan - to make you look the most devilish way you ever possibly could. Rue knew what Fez is going to like, so she just continued with making a really good outfit. 

“That's it. We done 'here, ma ladies. Now ya have it in yo own hands. Good luck girl.” -  Rue kissed you on both of your cheeks an hour later. You were nervous that you will fuck something up. Fran voluntarily said she would take you to the Italian restaurant in her car. 

“Good luck with that man, babes.” - Jules hugged you, then giving you an encouraging smile to kick you in the ass. Jules and Rue were staying at your place to watch over Gia and Cal. Cal was on your team. The two of them fangirled all over you as well, but Rayman was way more interesting than your date was. 

“Hey ho, let's fuckin' go!” - Fran opened up the door for you, playing with the keys in her hand. The way in the car was a quiet one, only interrupted by the hip hop station. You were nervous and Fran was sobering up after the joint, tuned down a bit. But she looked you in the eyes when you were there. 

“Yo look absolutely stunnin', shithead, no matter what he's gonna say. Be confident, be cool and be you, ya comprehend?” - She took your palm to hers, playing with your fingers with a slight smile on her lips. You nodded and took a deep breath in before you basically jumped to circle your hands around her neck. 

“I love you, dingus.” - You whispered and Fran smoothed your back in a slow matter. - “I fuckin' love you too, shithead. Fuck off or I'll be fuckin' emotional.” - Then she waved at you when she was leaving, holding her thumbs up. 

You nervously trembled when you stood next to the entrance. You looked all over the place just to see him smoking behind a car. He looked nervous as hell, paler than before, with your eyes flatter than any time else. But he looked really cute. 

He hadn't got a tux, but he had a white shirt with a tie around it, tight black trousers. He overall looked cute than when you have seen him before. You tiptoed to be seen from behind the car and you waved at him. Fez gave you a nod and a knowing fast smile. Your eyes were scanning his way of walking and you almost fainted. Fezco looked sexy as hell.

But you had the feeling that that was the first and official last time that you saw Fezco in something like a suite. 

“Heya, newbie.” - Fezco smiled at you, offering you his elbow to hold onto. You took a hold of it almost instantly. - “Hi, Fez.” - A big, happy smile appeared on your face and you smoothed his upper arm with your fingertips. 

“How ya doin'? Ya lookin' all happy and shit.” - He opened you the door but made you go after him, holding them open for you.   

“Can't I look happy? I'm just excited about this evening.” - You said and you were completely honest with him. Fezco made you really surprised - he had a reservation of a really good table in the restaurant, he made you ordered the best food you wanted to taste in the restaurant and he truly paid for you in the end. It must've cost a fortune at least, but Fez looked like he's completely cool about that.  

You were sure about one thing - it didn't matter that Fez was not the smartest, the brightest, the strongest or the best boy in the hood, yet he was the perfect match for you. Fezco knew how to make you laugh and your smile made him smile as well. He loved your imperfections - that you were nervous about all of that, that you sometimes said something utterly stupid and the panic when you were sorry for that. 

At one point, your fingers brushed on the table and since then, your hands intertwined gently. He did some serious gentleman shit. He was really nice to you, seriously concerned about you and the things that you like even tho his brain looked like it's about to freeze. Yer he found you sweet, so he tried his best to be the brightest he could. That was some serious effort he put into that evening.

You took a quick picture od those hands on the table lightened up with all the chandeliers and candles in the Italian style. It looked seriously romantic. And Fez didn't even notice, because he was doing something with the menu. 

Then, even tho you looked like some big hugs, you two went to a cinema. You had the upper hand off choosing the movie. So you definitely went to watch some horror movies - it was seriously visible that you made that only move because you wanted to be closer to him.

That evening was the best one you have ever had. You were with a boy you were into, he was funny and charming and even hugged you and cuddled to his chest when you were freaking out. Your mind was on cloud fucking nine because of Fez.

When the ride home came, you were completely relaxed as hell. You completely opened up the car windows and you sang loudly, which made him giggle. It almost looked like he is about to kiss you when you stood in front of the house. But all of a sudden, you saw your mom in the window. So you giggled and took his hand into your palm, running off with him into the garden, pressing your body into his. 

“I didn't know that my parents will be home so soon. If they saw you here, they would have killed me.” - You whispered to him, leading him under your window. He just nodded when you stopped, smiling shyly and playing with his hand in yours. 

“So... Can I see you anytime soon?” - You put your palms on his chest, still looking into his eyes. You were still whispering - because you wanted to be longer with him and you seriously didn't want to get to trouble. 

“Yea. Would be cool.” - Fezco said immediately and you bit your bottom lip with excitement. You made the first move for the second time, leaning into a long kiss. You put your palms on his jaw, holding him a tight grip. The kiss was getting more passionate and more desperate as you moaned lightly. Dear Lord, you were so fucking impressed by his kissing techniques. They were even better than when you were drunk. When the kiss came to an end, you scanned his face with a happy, loving gaze. You liked that boy. You really did.

He stood there until you crawled back to your room through the window, kissing you one last time, this time starting the kiss and leading it.

"Ya wait for a sec like dat?" - He pointed at you suddenly. Your face frowned a bit, but you smiled with excited expression in your face. Fezco ran off as quietly as possible, before going back in the same manner. He was giving you something - upon a further inspection, it was a single rose only decorated by a red velvet string in a somehow strange yet beautiful manner. You smiled widely, your stare turning to his once again.

"Thank you so much, where the hell had you the time to get this?" - You leaned for another long kiss. Okay. So that was your thing. The couple who is basically obsessed with kissing each other. That one was a sure thing. But it was so exciting, he tasted so good and your head just made the reality blur around you every single time. Yeah. You could easily consideration yourself officially lost in the way Fez kissed.

"Bought it before but forgot it in da car. I was so nervous." - A wide smile broke out on his lips and you couldn't anything else but smile happily.

That was the moment when it all has started. This was one of the top moments in your whole life at that point. There was a lot that was ahead of you, but you didn't want to see it. So many fucked up bullshit was just beginning to rise in your future without you even noticing. At that moment, you had everything.

It was just Fezco and you.

And it was perfect.