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peachysunrize · 2 months ago

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[ TANGERINE DREAMS ]

Summary: being stood up on his wedding day, Aemond’s life takes a turn for the worse. Heartbroken and humiliated, he finds unexpected help in Helaena’s childhood friend, who helps him move back into his family mansion. Summer cocktail parties and a long stay at the Targaryen residency, Aemond might let the girl who’s always been in his life make a home in his heart.

Tangerines, in general, symbolize prosperity, good luck and happiness. So if these delicious fruits appear in your dreams - whole or in the form of juice - it is usually very positive. A dream with tangerines expresses the desire and the possibility of progress and prosperity

Warnings: 18+ mdni! Smut, fluff, ANGST ANGST, English isn’t my first language<3

Word count: 7k+

A/n: so so sooo sorry for the delay of this chapter but I managed to get a long chapter out!! Hope you like it and I hope the angst hits (I’m not really good at writing angst so I need to know ur thoughts on this chapter)😭😭😭

-> series masterlist <-

Chapter 8: ruins of a birthday

“Hmm,” Aemond hums, stirring in his sleep as he feels something on his face, gently going from one place to another, clearly not wanting to wake him up. “Fuck off.”

“Don’t be rude, birthday boy.” He hears you mumble against his cheek, trailing your kisses to his soft lips. “Happy birthday.”

“Hmm,” he hums again, wrapping his arms around you while he tries to kiss you sleepily, but only whines when you pull away a little, reaching to push his hair out of his face.

“A thank you would be nice, you grumpy old man,” you tease him, kissing his forehead gently as you play with his hair, holding yourself up by your elbow on his spare pillow. “I remember your first day at school—“

“Don’t,” he grunts, pushing you on your back suddenly, resting his head on your chest as he tightens his arm around your middle, breathing against your boobs while he smirks. “This is nice.”

“Yeah? Wanna cuddle the day out?” you ask, threading your fingers through his unruly wavy hair. “Or I can take care of you…all day, every hour, every minute. I’m gonna spend the day with you and spoil you rotten, Lil nerd.”

“Hmmm, how are you going to take care of me?” he asks, looking up from your chest, his sleepy blue iris staring into yours. “Because I can lock us in the room and spend the entire day in the bed with you.”

“I can give you a blowjob.” You bite your lips, wiggling your way through his embrace until he is pushed on his back and you are hovering on top of him. “A really good, soul-crushing blowjob that blows your fucking mind.”

“Really?” he whispers, his breathing heavy and quick. “How good actually are you?”

“I can show you if you are interested,” you peck his lips before trailing your lips to his jaw, noticing how his chest goes up and down with each deep breath.

“I’m more than interested.” He leans his head back on his pillow, one of his hands coming up to caress your back while you keep your lips locked on his skin, moving from his jaw to his neck. “Fuck, darling, no marks—“

“Shh.” You sink your teeth in the junction of his neck and shoulder, earning a low groan from him. “I can cover them up with a bit of makeup, now let me have some fun with you.”

You go lower, tugging on his t-shirt until he pulls it off, revealing his chest and abs to you, and you take this chance to kiss your way to his nipples, sucking on the hardening buds slowly, and you feel his cock throbbing against your hip.

You flicker your tongue around his nipple, pulling a shuddering breath out of him, and he takes this chance to bring his hand to your head, petting your hair gently.

“Don’t tease me, baby,” he says, closing his eye as you let go of his nipple with a lewd ‘pop’ sound and kiss a path down to his belly button and lower until you reach the waistline of his pajamas. You pull the fabric down with your teeth, eyes staring up at him as you do, pulling back to help him push his pants down completely. He lifts his hips up, pushing his pants and boxers down, flopping back on the bed when his cock springs free, twitching with need and desire.

“Already so hard for me,” you say, smirking at him when you find his cheeks burning, reaching to hold his heavy member in your palm before leaning down. “Happy birthday, sweet boy.”

You close your lips around the tip of his cock, flicking your tongue around the slit, making Aemond sigh in contentment. You open your mouth, letting his cock rest on your tongue as you lick the underside of it, putting on a show for him.

“Fuck, darling, please—“

“Already begging? How cute,” you say, grinning at him devilishly before letting your spit drop from your lips, smearing it all over his cock with one hand as you lean down to take him in your mouth, this time more than just his tip.

Aemond groans, feeling the warmth of your mouth engulfing him thoroughly. He throws his head back, the hand on your head pushes your hair out of your face, gently guiding you down to take more of him, and you oblige silently, humming around his cock as you take him deeper and deeper, gagging slightly when the tip of his cock reaches the back of your throat.

“You look so fucking gorgeous like this.” He lets out a breathless chuckle, a small smile on his lips as his breathing gets more rapid and shallow.

You close your eyes as you hollow your cheeks, stroking whatever you can not take, humming and stroking his slim hips and abs, and trying your best to ignore the wetness that pools into your panties.

“Eyes on me, sweetheart,” he whispers, his face twisting with pleasure when your hand goes lower and cups his balls, squeezing and rubbing them in a way that makes his mouth go dry, and you do as he says, opening your eyes to look up at him. “There she is, my gorgeous girl.”

You feel him twitching in your mouth when you hum again, the vibration going straight to his core. He is close, closer than he should be but with the way you are sucking him off, he can no longer hold himself back.

“I’m— I’m coming, fuck—“

He groans, pulling you up by your hair and you gasp, taking this as your cue to stroke him with both hands. “Come for me, love, come on my face.”

His hips stutter upwards, his free hand fists the bedsheets, and his toes curl, spurts of cum coating your face while he lets out broken moans and groans. His back arches off of the bed a little, and your heart beats in your chest faster as you look at how beautiful he is with his reddened cheeks and gaping mouth.

“Shit, baby, I’m—“ he starts to apologize when he sees the state you are in, sitting up immediately to pull you in his lap, grabbing his t-shirt to wipe his cum off of your face. “Fuck me, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey,” you chuckle, grabbing the fabric from him to wipe away the remnants of his seed before you look at him lovingly. “I’m okay, baby, don’t worry! I enjoyed it, did you?”

“Of course!” he replies immediately, his grin matching yours. “I didn’t enjoy it, I fucking loved it. You’re a menace for this birthday gift.”

“I’m glad! But—“ You give him a kiss on his lips before wiggling out of his embrace to reach for the box on the ground, picking it up before you hand it to Aemond and crawl back onto his lap. “Happy birthday!”

“A gift?”

“It’s not something huge, just a little thing to remind you how much you mean to me!” you explain, watching how he pulls on the ribbons of the box and takes the lid off before his gaze softens as he looks at his gift.

He pulls a polaroid out; it is a picture of him with his siblings and you at Daeron’s fourth birthday, grinning at the camera with cake smeared all over your faces. He then reaches for the book inside the box, huffing out a small laugh when he finds out which book it is — the philosophy book of Maester Orwyle, identical to the one you poured coffee on a few weeks ago.

“I hope it’s not too cheesy, but I thought—“

He silences you with a deep kiss, one of his hands going to the back of your neck, pressing your lips further to his as he moves them in sync. Aemond licks your bottom lip, flipping you over so he can hover on top of you with your lips still locked until you part them and let his tongue slide against yours, exploring your mouth.

“It’s amazing, darling,” he says, looking at you with a softness he never knew he could muster, but the adoration in his gaze is evident, and the warmth that drips from his look is enough to melt your worries away.

“There’re still some pictures left in there! Come on, look at them.” You bite your lip, suddenly remembering how you called him a nickname that is probably too soon to say, averting your eyes from his face to look down, finding him fully naked. “And put your clothes back on! Unfortunately your dick is talking to me and we’ll be suspicious if we take hours to join the family.”

“Magic dick, huh?” He drops next to you on the bed, pulling on his pants before he lies back down with the box on his chest, pulling another polaroid out. “Oh, fuck you, why did you choose this photo?”

“Because! Look at you! It was the time you wanted to dye your hair with Helaena—“

“I hate you—“

“Na uh, you…” You pause, looking at him with soft eyes before you distract him from the unfinished sentence. “You were so cute though! You looked exactly like your Mum with your short orange hair.”

“You are mean,” he whines, looking back at you, finding you lying on your side as you smile at him. “I don’t think I can ever get tired of seeing you like this.”

“Like what?” You cuddle closer until your faces are inches away, your noses brushing against each other as he looks at you as if you have hung the sun in his sky.

“Like you feel safe and happy with me.”

“I am safe and happy with you.”

“Happy motherfucking birthday, you giant lizard!” Aegon whistles, earning a pinch on his side from Alicent with a disapproving glare. “Sorry, Ma, but look at him! Twenty-six years old and still a long way to go to be as cool as his big bro.”

“Ignore him.” His mother walks towards Aemond, putting her hands on his shoulders to pull him down in her arms, hugging him tightly. “Happy birthday, my darling boy.”

“Thank you.” He hugs her back, smiling softly at her and he notices you and Helaena giggling from the corner of his eye, shaking his head a little before he thanks his mother again.

“Look what we have got here!” Rhaena’s voice makes Aemond and Alicent break their hug, standing next to each other while they watch Rhaenyra and her family walk downstairs. Rhaena takes the lead and walks towards him, pulling him in a quick hug, “Happy birthday!”

“Thanks,” he nods, patting her back awkwardly, clearing his throat as he looks at the family all together, everyone grimacing at each other as if the mere thought of the whole family together bitters their moods.

Jace is next; he congratulates Aemond with a hand on his shoulder, earning a nod in response from the birthday boy. Others do not say much, a cold happy birthday is all. But he can see the malicious glint in Daemon’s eyes when he appears out of nowhere, standing close to Viserys while he keeps his gaze locked on Aemond before glancing behind him, looking at you and Helaena.

“Son,” Viserys nods at Aemond, the room falls silent, no one dares to say a thing, and for the first time he feels uneasy when you walk beside him, trying to act cool and congratulate him, hut his father interrupts you, “A lovely day, don’t you think? We’ll celebrate later at night, come, Rhaenyra I wish to walk outside.”

His half sister and his uncle leave, but the way Daemon shakes his head and chuckles under his breath while looking between you and Aemond makes him uncomfortable, as if he knows something he should not.

“Aren’t you lucky, nephew? You could have had a wife to celebrate with, but now—“

“He doesn’t need a wife to be happy, he has us,” you cut him off, letting Daeron take your place by Aemond’s side as you walk back towards the girls, “He is lucky, we’ll make his birthday one of the most memorable days for him.”

“Absolutely,” Daemon smirks, “I have no doubt it will be a very memorable day,” and with that, he follows his brother outside the room.

“I have something to take care of for tonight’s dinner, I assume you kids know how to take care of yourself,” Alicent says, reaching to give Aemond a kiss on his forehead before she leaves with Cole following her.

“So!” Jace starts, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “What do you guys say to a game of Tennis? We pair up, and I’m sure I can beat your asses one by one.”

“You? Beating Aemond? In your dreams, asshole,” Aegon says, rolling his eyes at his nephew, “But I suppose we can have fun doing this, right? What do you say, birthday boy?”

“I don’t know,” Aemond shrugs and turns to look at you, “Do you know how to play?”

“What do you take me for, Targaryen?” You reply, raising your eyebrows at him, giving him a challenging look which you know he is secretly enjoying, “I may not be of a really rich family but I grew up with Hel. We are quite the pair.”

“Fine, let’s go!” Daeron whistles, throwing his arms around his brothers’ shoulders before the group moves towards the path leading to the courts, the Targaryen twins and Velaryon brothers following you outside.

“Good thing I packed you a pretty little Tennis skirt, huh? I can totally feel Aemond losing his mind just by looking at you,” Helaena whispers in your ear, giggling when you shush her, trying to fight off the smile growing on your lips, “He is so pussy whipped, it’s disgusting!” “Yeah, well, he’s got a really hot girlfriend, what can I say?” you nudge her, laughin quietly before Lucerys speaks up, making your heart dropping to the pit of your stomach.

“Aemond has a girlfriend? When did that happen?”

Aemond stops dead in his tracks and so does Aegon but with one glare on your way, you and Helaena leave, not wishing to look suspicious. Aemond and his brother turn around to look at Luke, both of them nervous and anxious and with every second that passes, Aemond feels his body tremble more and more.

“I don’t,” he replies harshly, louder than he intended to, and unknown to him, you can hear his response from the distance between you, “I can’t be bothered to be in a relationship now.”

“And that’s none of your fucking business, weirdo,” Aegon jumps into the conversation, giving Luke a sarcastic smile before he forces Aemond to stop glaring at their younger nephew and move away, whispering in his brother’s ear, “Don’t worry, no one knows, yeah?”

“It’s stupid,” Aemond replies, rubbing his hand against his face, “Why should I even think about hiding her, let alone doing it?”

“Because our Grandpa is a pain in the fucking ass,” Aegon shrugs, gently tapping behind Aemond’s neck affectionately, “Don’t worry, bro. You’ll figure this shit out. Just don’t be too touchy with her, ey? It’s just one fucking night, we gonna get through this together.”

“Yeah,” he looks up from his shoes, finding you and Hel waiting for them outside one of the courts, “It’s gonna be a really rough night.”

“Hey,” you say, giving him a questioning look when you notice his tense shoulders, “You okay, Little nerd?”

“Yeah, fine,” he shrugs, giving a soft quick smile before he motions for you to enter the court, a ghost of a smirk making its way to his face as he watches you sway your hips in a very evidently teasing way.

“So! We gotta team up!” Rhaena says, finding the balls and rackets ready on the benches, “obviously I’m with my sister.”

“And I’m with—“

“Me! Me!” Aegon nudges Aemond before he cuts Helaena off and wraps his arms around his younger sister, “We need to kick some ass, sis.”

“Oh, fuck yeah! Let’s show them who owns this place, right, Eggy?”

“Yup, girl, go get our rackets. We gonna fuck them up so bad,” Aegon laughs when Baela makes a disgusting face at him, walking to the other side of the net, waiting for the first team to get in place, “Who you playing with, birthday boy?”

“Team up with Aemond,” Daeron tells you, sitting on the bench next to the fences, “I’m not gonna play, it’s not in my style.”

“As if you don’t have the most expensive racket among us,” Jacaerys says, rolling his eyes at the youngest Targaryen before he grabs Luke by the shoulders and they go to sit down next to Daeron, waiting for Baela and Rhaena to play with the oldest siblings.

“Hey! I just wanna let Hel’s bestie have some fun!” Daeron throws his hands up, sticking his tongue out for you when you snicker and stand beside Aemond.

“Thank you so much for your generosity, asshole.”

“My pleasure! You gotta have some fun, right?”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s got a mouth on him. I can beat him for you, you know?” Aemond whispers, leaning down so no one hears him.

“Is that right?” You give him a teasing smile, humming and looking up at him, finding him blushing under your gaze, “That would be so hot though. I mean, imagine your brother’s blood on your white Polo Tennis shirt.”

“Actually, I can wipe the blood off with my money. Does that turn you on?” He narrows his eye at you, his silver hair shining under the burning sunlight before he asks you silently to hold his racket before he starts shifting his hair into a low steady bun, making his shirt rise up and you get a really good peek at his abs.

“It does actually,” you reply, sinking your teeth in your bottom lip, handing him his racket, “So you better keep your distance from me, I might jump on you.”

“Oh, no, so scary!” he pouts a little, side-eying Aegon and Helaena as they play with the twins, “I desperately hope it does happen.”

“Cheeky brat,” you chuckle, sending him a sly wink, walking away from him towards the benches, sitting down without looking back at Aemond, knowing he will definitely follow you.

“They’re a power couple,” Daeron says, watching Helaena and Aegon argue over the missed shots like kids, Helaena twisting Aegon’s ear with her fingers.

“Nothing beats Aemond and Alys though, right?” Jace laughs, “She couldn’t even swing the goddamn racket! Man, Aemond, you had so much patience with that one.”

You tense in your seat, glancing at Aemond who only looks unbothered by Jace’s remark — silly or not — but you can see it in his eye that there is something brewing in his blue iris.

“Well, lucky us! We have this babe to make up for that witch’s mistakes,” Daeron nudges you, grabbing his cap before dropping it on your head, “She’s a pro! Don’t fuck with her cause she bites.”

“Not that I would mind—“

“Enough,” Aemond interrupts Jace, the icy glare he sent in his nephew’s way is enough to make the young boy shake.

“Ooo, man, are you jealous?” Luke jumps in, snorting when he sees Aemond’s clenched jaw, “I mean I don’t think having a thing for your sister’s bestie is something you should really do—“

“I’m nothing more than a friend to him. I understand him, I think that says a lot about our relationship right? You know, what’s that thing called when you understand someone? When you’re willing to talk and show them you care?” You raise your eyebrows at Luke, leaning forward to look him dead in the eye, before gasping and humming sarcastically, “It’s called empathy! I’m sure the concept is lost on you but not me.”

“Right, kidos! Buckle up, you’re next! We gonna make our birthday boy a sour looooooooooser!” Aegon announces, making his way towards where you are sitting, sweat dripping from his nose on his shirt, “Come on, I’m on the right fucking track, baby.”

“Ew, you’re just fucking disgusting,” Helaena shakes her head at his older brother, “But he’s right. Sorry, ladies, not a fair game I know! A junkie and a professional player make a powerful team.”

“I’m not a junkie!”

“Then prove it or Aemond will beat our asses!”

“Oh, come on!” Rhaena whines, pulling on the zipper on the side of your dress gently, “This is not just a formal party! It’s Aemond’s birthday, we need to have some fun!”

“And having fun doesn’t mean smoking whatever that is in my room!” Helaena says, clasping her butterfly clips on her wavy hair, the soft, shiny strands falling around her shoulders, “We should take this fun to the boys.”

“Babe, we both know Aegon won’t let us take even one whiff of this if he gets his hands on it,” You chuckle, thanking Rhaena before you walk towards where you have left your heels, sitting on the edge of the bed to put them on.

“Actually, I’m just trying to avoid getting high before having a meal with that man,” Hel shrugs, her golden dress hugging her curves beautifully as she twirls and asks for final approval, “besides, Otto and Uncle Gwayne are coming, and I seriously don’t wanna make a fool of myself!”

“You’ll do just fine,” Baela says, putting her hands on her hips, “It’s not Viserys you should be worried about. He can’t do much, but my father? Keep an eye on him.”

“I doubt he’ll do anything irrational tonight,” Rhaena reassures Hel, resting her hands on the silver-haired girl’s shoulder, “He might try to annoy the living life out of Otto but that’s it.” “I just—”

“Darling—Oh,” Aemond barges into the room, lips parted in surprise when he finds you and his sister in the company of his cousins, “Ladies.” “Hey! You probably shouldn’t be here, darling brother,” Helaena says through gritted teeth, trying her best to cover the mess Aemond nearly made, “I’m quite busy, maybe you should talk with her, right?”

“Yes, absolutely, darling sister,” Aemond then looks at you, extending his hands for you to take, and you do, biting the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from laughing out loud, “I just wanted to know your opinion on something if that’s alright.”

“Yes, yeah, perfect! Let’s go,” You walk side by side outside the room, closing the door behind you as you follow him towards his room, not daring to even look at each other just in case.

“You look so gorgeous,” Aemond says, pressing you against the door as soon as he shut it, looking down at you with nothing but pure affection in his eye, “All this for me?” “Yup,” you wrap your arms around his neck, smiling from ear to ear, “Anything for my man.”

“I might lock you up,” he leans down, brushing his nose against you while his grip tightens on your hips, “You look too good to let you leave this room.”

“Isn’t that right? Well, too bad for you, Aemond Targaryen, I’m invited to a very important dinner and it’s my boyfriend’s birthday, he’ll be so upset if you lock his girlfriend up in your room.”

“Will he now?” he chuckles lowly, hiding his face in the crook of your neck as he starts kissing and nibbling on your skin, mindful not to leave any marks, “poor guy, he doesn’t know I can throw his girl on my bed and fuck her ‘till sunrise. I pity him, truly, you’re even wearing green, my…” “Maybe I just wanted to impress someone,” you scratch his nape, humming softly as he rests his forehead on your shoulder, enjoying the subtle touch.

“Consider me impressed,” he whispers in your ear, kissing your earlobe before he brings his face back up, pressing his lips to yours gently, tasting the sweet lipgloss from your lips, “It’s been such a long time since I’ve felt this happy on my birthday.”

“Even while you were with Alys?”

“What?” he asks, taken back by your sudden question. The only time you have ever mentioned his ex was when you were hesitant to get into a relationship with him, but now, it shocks him to his core, “Why would you say that?” “I didn’t mean it like that, Aemond—”

“No, you clearly have been thinking about her for some time,” he lets go of your hips, stepping back to sit on his bed, “What’s going on?”

“Aemond I…” you sigh, resting your head on the door as you ponder about what to say, “I didn’t mean it like that. Everything is new about our relationship and I… I don’t want to sound bitchy but when they mention Alys…I just feel like there’s a lot that is left unsaid about her and by extension left unsaid about you.”

“I’ve never lied to you, I’ve been open about-about everything! Where does this sudden insecurity come from?” Aemond asks you, huffing from his nose as he watches you scoff and shake your head in disbelief. “Insecurity? Aemond, all I meant was that if you felt happy with Alys too! You don’t have to put a fucking mask on when you are around me!” “Of course I was fucking happy!” he yells, hiding his face between his hands, “I wouldn’t think about marriage if I wasn’t happy!”

“But you just said—” “What is this? A fucking trial because I wanted to show I appreciate you and how much I care about you? I just wanted to make you feel special because you are special to me,” he replies, shaking his head before he lets out a water chuckle, “I don’t even know what to think.” “Little nerd, please just—” As soon as you try to reach for him, he stands up, and for the first time you take a good look at his outfit; nothing too special just a dark grey button-up with black pants, but it suits Aemond so well in a way that makes your heart clench tightly in your chest.

“I’m leaving, don’t be late,” with that he leaves you alone in his room.

Waiting in the corner of the dining hall with a glass of champagne while everyone greets — or tries given the family feud — Otto and his oldest son, Gwayne, is not how you thought your boyfriend’s birthday was going to be spent.

You try to make yourself as small as you can, not making eye contact with anyone while gazing out of the large windows, waiting for everyone to shake hands and appear happy.

You spot Aemond on the other side of the hall, giving his Uncle Gwayne a side hug before he steps back, watching as Daeron throws himself in his uncle’s arms. But that is not what catches your attention the most — it is Otto who approaches Aemond slowly, an emotionless expression on his face as he extends his hand for his grandson, waiting for a handshake. Aemond nods and shakes his hand, reaching to grab a glass of champagne himself when the waitress walks past him.

Suddenly, his eye finds you, and you feel as if he’s pulling you in just by a glance. His gaze is drowning in emotions, and even from such a distance you can feel him tugging at your heart.

“Trouble in paradise?” Helaena appears next to you, resting her head on the wall before she reaches and wraps her arm around your middle, “Talk to me, babe.”

“I think I fucked it,” you reply, frowning slightly when Aemond looks away from you, leaving you staring at him.

“Elaborate on that, because we had the same discussion a month ago,” she chuckles but when she receives only a sad smile in return, she grows quiet.

“I brought up Alys again…”

“Fuck her, my gosh, I don’t know why this woman won’t leave us be…” she sighs, grabbing your glass to drown your champagne.

“I think I should be getting drunk not you,” you chuckle this time watching her face twist at the taste of the bubbles, “easy there, soldier.”

“Spit it out, gorgeous, or else I’ll make a fool of myself and we don’t want Mighty Otto busting my ass for having fun.”

“As if he’ll ever do that to you, dumbass,” you thank the waiter when they bring a full tray of champagne for you, and you and Hel both take a glass before you find enough courage to talk about the mess, “You know how I am. I open my mouth and suddenly an intrusive thought comes out.”

“How bad was this time?” She asks, wincing when you bite your lip and shake your head, “Come on, I need to do damage control as soon as possible.”

“He said he’s never been this happy on his birthday for a long time and my stupid ass decided to ask even when he was in a relationship with Alys,” you spit the words out, clearly angry at yourself for ruining the moment, “It’s not just that, everyone around here talks about her. Luke, I think, has caught up on something between me and Aem. But… the comparisons, the hiding… it’s all exhausting even though I understand why Aemond does it.”

“He’s hesitant,” Helaena smiles sadly at you, “This is the first time after the breakup that he’s meeting all these people, especially after Mum found out it was Viserys who sent the paps to the church—“

“What?” You gasp, “I had no idea it was him! That’s so fucked up. Does he know? I mean…”

“He does—“

“Then why didn’t he say anything about it?” You cut your best friend off, watching as her amethyst eyes narrow at you.

“Because! He is hesitant about opening up! Babe, your relationship is new, his wounds are still open and a fucking bandaid isn’t going to stop the bleeding. You need to be patient with him. He likes you, hell he even fucking loves you! But please, don’t do this to him.”

“He basically lied to me— it’s fucking silly, why am I overreacting over my own fucking mistake?” You sigh, closing your eyes to stop the tears from falling down.

“Hey, hey, sweetie,” she cradles your head in his hands and rests your forehead on her shoulder, “I know how you feel. He’s been nothing but sweet, touchy, and absolutely lovely to you, and you want this to not change in front of other people. But please, he’s got many rumors going behind his back and now if anyone, especially Daemon, finds out about you and him, they’ll start telling people he cheated on Alys and that’s why she left.”

“But that’s not true, she— she left and all she did was use him for his money and status,” You sip on your drink, “I’m not like her, I’ll never do that to him.”

“Babe, I know that, but now? Aemond needs you more than ever, you’re not just a fucking rebound but someone who makes him feel at ease when he is around Aegon because he knows you’ll have his back.”

“Our fight wasn’t even about that… I don’t even know why I brought up Alys and why he got angry.” Helaena rubs your shoulders, pondering over what to say next.

“Okay, look at me,” you straighten your back and look into her eyes, “She is a really sensitive issue to talk about out of the blue. You shouldn’t have said that, I know you know this, okay? Aemond just wanted to spend time with you, and he’s still trying to push his pain down to kind of… I don’t know but he’s trying to run away from the pain and neglect it so you won’t feel like he’s the one using you. That’s why I think he got mad because he’s just trying and you hit him with ‘I know you're lying’.”

“Yeah, we haven’t had the important conversations yet,” you nod, smiling at her, “Let’s see if I can make him look me in the eye for a second so I can apologize.”

“He loves that you are here, he’s happy you are here. Don’t let someone from the past make decisions for you,” she links her arms with yours when she notices everyone is rounding the table to take their seats, “Come, let me introduce you to our uncle.”

“Sure,” you smile at her, walking side by side towards his siblings before finding his uncle; Gwayne, a tall man with auburn wavy hair and warm hazel eyes, and even a warmer smile.

“Well, hello there,” he greets you, reaching to shake your hand before he brings it up to his lips, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet Helaena’s friend.”

You notice how Aemond’s eye lingers on his uncle’s fingers on your hand — does he want it to be him who is touching you? Maybe. Probably.

“The pleasure is all mine, sir,” you say, retrieving your hand and taking your seat by Helaena’s side, Aegon sitting next to Aemond at the head of the table with Baela and Luke in front of them on the other side while Daeron and Gwayne sit next to Hel, Jace at the corner of the table.

“So, before we start,” Alicent stands up, holding her champagne glass in her hand, sighing softly to calm herself down a little and not let her nerves get the best of her, “I wish to raise a toast to my son, Aemond! You… you have been one of the greatest joys in my life. I could have never thought that little boy would turn into this wonderful man. I am glad to see you happy with your siblings and friends, and you will forever be my little boy. Happy birthday, darling!” “Hear hear!” Helaena raises her glass, and so does everyone, and you take the chance to take a good look at Aemond, surprisingly finding him already looking at you. You give him an apologetic smile, hoping he can see the sincerity in it, and to your luck, he does, giving you one of his quick yet soft smirks before he covers it with his glass.

“So, Aemond,” Viserys starts, and with the way Otto is looking at him, everyone can sense an unsettling uneasiness brewing, “how is your wife?”

Your breathing stops for a second, eyes wide in shock as you glance between Helaena and Alicent, both looking just as shocked and paralyzed as you while Aemond only glares at his father, his grip tightening around the rim of his glass, and you wish for nothing more

“Wow, Dad,” Aegon laughs sarcastically, catching everyone off guard, “How thoughtful of you to see if his wife is okay! Wow, I wonder who could have talked you into this,” he looks at Rhaenyra with a sneer shaking his head when he finds her cocking her to the side.

“We broke up—” “No, nephew, come on,” Daemon tsks, feigning disappointment, “Everyone was there! Your dad just forgot how your wife left you, right, Viserys?” “Yes, yes,” Viserys agrees absentmindedly, not even paying attention to the rest of the conversation.

“I’m glad she left, at least someone dared to leave this family,” Daeron mutters, earning a flare from Otto who has been eyeing everyone tonight, “What? Am I wrong?”

“Can we please just… eat something? It’s a birthday for god’s sake,” Alicent says quietly, clearly defeated, “Don’t do this tonight, please.” You sigh, squeezing Helaena’s hand while you desperately wish it was Aemond’s hand to hold on to, to tell him and reassure him that these people are just like that. Unfortunately, you can’t, but the stealing glances you share is enough for now. You will show and tell him about your feelings later tonight.

“I wonder though…” Jace starts, sounding unsure and a bit nervous, “Luke said he saw you kissing someone, Aemond. Why would you hide her from us?” This time, you choke on your food, coughing and trying your best to even your breathing, but it seems with all the eyes on Aemond and his eye on you, your little secret is spilled all over the table. “I’m not hiding anyone—” “After a failed almost marriage, don’t you think it’s a bit suspicious to get into a relationship this quickly?” Rhaenyra adds, looking at Alicent, “Were you aware of this? Because we just got the rumors to cool down, we do not need more of them flying around, butchering the reputation our father has worked so hard for.”

“As if sleeping with multiple men in a ‘loving’ marriage isn’t doing more damage to your precious reputation,” you mutter, anger bubbling inside you like a failed potion, stabbing your steak with the knife in your hand. You have no idea where this courage came from; one second you were choking on your food and terrified of people finding out, the next second you are defending your not-so-secret boyfriend as if your life depended on it.

“Atta girl,” Aegon whispers, but when you look up, it is Aemond who catches your breath away — maybe no one has ever stood up for him so fiercely and that is precisely why he is reluctant to show affection in front of his family to you.

“My, this girl has a tongue on her,” Rhaenyra doesn’t say anything more than a simple sentence and continues to sip on her drink. “Who is the girl if you are so confident that he is in a relationship?” This is the first time Otto says something, and with how his steel eyes stare back at Daemon, you realize it is a matter of seconds for you to be exposed.

“It’s her,” Lucerys points at you, “I saw them kissing yesterday on top of a horse.”

“How romantic,” Daemon smirks at you before he looks at Aemond, and that is when chaos fucking ensures, “You seem to have a type, nephew; poor, older, beautiful, a runaway bride—” Aemond presses his lips into a tight line, his fist clenching and unclenching as he keeps his gaze locked on Daemon, not even sparing a glance your way.

“Hey,” Helaena whispers to you, grabbing your hands into hers, “You’re not those things, babe.”

“Is it true, Aemond?” Gwayne asks, a small smile on his lips, ignoring his seething father next to him, “Because we will be happy that you have moved on and found joy again.” “Come on, that’s bullshit,” Daemon starts, leaning on the back of his chair, “Does anyone look happy to you here? His ‘girlfriend’ is on the verge of tears, his mother looks like she might die and him? Does he look happy to have his relationship announced? If anything he’s ashamed he’s been caught dating another woman who will eventually leave him—”

Aemond bangs his fists on the table as he stands up, making everyone jump from their seats, but that is it. He doesn’t say a word, just a silent glare that he shoots everyone — even you — before he straightens his back and pushes away his chair, leaving the room wordlessly.

You follow him after a few seconds, gathering the skirt of your dress in your hands before running the path he took outside, finding him entering the field around the lake.

“Aemond, wait!”

He doesn’t listen to you and keeps walking to the edge of the lake, bringing a hand to his face before he turns around and watches you run as fast as you can with your heels.

“What the fuck do you want?” “Aemond—” you scoff, laughing breathlessly, “What do I want? Maybe I want to talk to my boyfriend who just stormed out.” “Righ, right,” he chuckles but the humor is lost in it, “Or maybe you want to confront me about Alys again, how does that sound?”

“It sounds fucking ridiculous, Aemond—“

“You know what is ridiculous? Us!” He shouts, his voice cracking slightly, “Because however fucked up those words were, they were the truth.”

“You mean when they were insulting me, yeah? When they called me a gold digger?” You tear up a little as you look at him, trying to find a glimpse of your Aemond, “Do you think I will leave you?”

“No, darling,” he shakes his head, and you notice a tear falling on his cheek, “I know you will leave! Because that’s what everyone does! My father left, my brother left for years, my fucking fiancé who I would die for left! Why do you think you’re so special and different from them? You will leave as soon as you are bored of me!”

“Have I neglected you so much that you believe I will just walk away from you? Aemond, we’ve been together for so little time and that still won’t change the fact that I would set this entire place on fucking fire!”

“That means nothing!” He yells at you, walking away with his fingers threading through his hair, “Alys said all those things she still fucking left me! She said she loved me, she showed she cared, even if all of those moments were fake, I still believed her! Why do you think we will make it through this mess without you leaving me?”

“Because I was honest with you from the beginning, I was there for you when no one wanted to be! Your grandpa was fucking with your head about not getting into a relationship with anyone but I stuck with you through all the shit you went through because you mean the world to me!” You sob, trying to make sense out of whatever chaos his family has bestowed upon you

“No,” he shakes his head, walking away from you, “I’m not going to be the one who’s left alone at the end. I’m gonna do the leaving now before you get the chance to do it.”

“Aemond, no, please— I’m sorry!”

But your plea falls silent as you watch him leave you alone with a heavy heart, both of you hurting with each step he takes on the opposite direction.

“Please, Little nerd…”

356 notes · View notes

inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 3 months ago

Text

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 10: Nobody Likes You, Everyone Left You]

A/N: I sincerely apologize for the delay, but Maggie Sundays are back, besties!!! And we have a new poll! Be sure to check it out AFTER you finish Chapter 10 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.

Series title and chapter title are lyrics from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.8k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

Here’s how it happens.

Let’s say you’re on a subway, or at a bus stop, or walking in or out of a grocery store, maybe fumbling with your purse or corralling small children, or talking on the phone, or wondering how you’re going to make rent, or trying not to drop one of your shopping bags, and out of nowhere some stranger lurches over and grabs you. They are filthy and noxious and moaning, and you assume they are insane, or on hard drugs, or maybe both. Your fellow upstanding citizens rush to your aid and the assailant is apprehended and carted off, unbeknownst to you surely to infect many more blithely unaware victims.

Maybe you notice that you were bitten, even just barely, even just a scrape of the teeth hard enough to scratch the skin; maybe you don’t. If you do notice and you seek medical attention, the best a doctor will offer you is disinfectant and antibiotics, maybe a rabies shot if they’re extra ambitions. Perhaps you have too much on your plate already without a detour to the doctor’s office (or perhaps you don’t have medical insurance), and you opt for at-home remedies, a vigorous scrub with hydrogen peroxide and a large rectangular Band-Aid slapped on top. Of course, none of this will do you any good. It was over the moment a drop of zombie saliva slipped painlessly into your bloodstream and began to replicate there like an invasive species, like an insurgent force. It only takes once.

You go home, and maybe when you start to feel really bad you call an ambulance and go to the hospital, and when you turn you bite anyone you can get your claws on there. Maybe you die at home and then attack your partner, your children, your parents, your roommates; maybe this new version of yourself ends up chewing bits of gristle off the bones of your dog or cat or ferret. And if any of your victims manage to escape once you’ve gotten a taste of them—no matter how fleetingly, no matter how trivially—they are sure to die in agony and reanimate too, and to pass along this plague you’ve gifted them, the bloodiest game of telephone.

Now millions are getting sick, fevers, headaches, purging, bleeding, but where do people go when they need a doctor? The hospitals are overrun, the clinics are swarmed, and doctors and nurses are falling ill too. There are unimaginable reports of the carnage. There is censorship to smother the panic. There are public figures vanishing from sight. There are zombies-in-progress boarding planes, checking into hotels, tottering onto cruise ships with armfuls of luggage, sweating through their bedsheets in crowded military barracks, silently ticking timebombs as the world as everyone knows it hurtles towards its end.

You would be amazed what people can refuse to believe. Once you believe something, that makes it real.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are no shovels, so Cregan tills the earth with his axe and then you dig with your hands. There are no headstones, so Rhaena finds a large sand-colored rock and writes on it with a jagged piece of slate: Baela and Briar, Summer 2024. Then she hesitates, the slate hovering in afternoon air, amber sunlight and eighty degrees, dust thick in the wind. She wants to say more. There needs to be more. How can two lives end with five words? At last Rhaena adds: Mother and child who perished en route to California. They were loved. They mattered.

“That’s good, Rhaena,” Luke tells her, voice gentle, hands on her shoulders. She stares at the grave for a while, and you don’t have time to waste; the bear could return, there might be wolves or mountain lions, eventually the sun will set and you will be stranded in an infinite darkness like the ocean at night. But Aemond waits until Rhaena is ready. She tucks the shard of shale into her backpack, and then you are fleeing once again: from this day, from this world.

You hike back to I-80 and walk west towards the next ranch. All of you are here in south-central Wyoming, and yet none of you are: you are in the earth with Baela, you are back in Nebraska where Jace died, you are in Ohio where he was swept away by a river, you are in Pennsylvania where you and Rio climbed down from a transmission tower, you are in your lives before the world ended: Saratoga Springs, Boston, cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a part of Kentucky called the Wildlands. Aegon is limping along on his own and shoving Rio away each time he tries to pick him up.

“Stop,” Aegon says, wincing and exhausted, his bandages coated with dust.

“Come on, Honey Bun. You’re going to rip your foot open—”

“Stop it!” Aegon demands. “I’m not going to slow you down anymore! I’m not going to be a burden!”

There is a sound you don’t immediately recognize: a rumbling, a squealing. A car is pulling up alongside you. Instinctively, you unholster one of your M9s and raise it as you turn.

“No, no, no, we’re cool!” a woman says, showing you both of her hands. She is around fifty and driving a Subaru Outback; there is a man in the passenger’s seat, perhaps her husband, and two wide-eyed, hoodie-swathed teenagers in the backseat. “Are you…are you guys okay?”

All of you stare blankly at her: shellshocked, distraught, covered in dirt and blood. “Yeah,” Daeron says eventually.

The woman peers around, east, west. ��Do you have a car or something?”

“We have a Tahoe,” Cregan says. “It’s out of gas.”

“We have a few cans in the trunk,” the Subaru woman replies. “I can give you one, five gallons. That will get you to Rock Springs, and you should be able to find more supplies there. We came through that way, it wasn’t too bad.” And then, before anybody can ask if she’s serious, the woman steps out of the car and opens the hatchback. She lifts out a red can and hands it to Rio, who is standing the closest.

“Thank you, lady,” he says, astonished.

“I’m sorry about that,” you tell the woman, meaning the fact that you were prepared to shoot her.

Rhaena adds: “We’ve had some…bad experiences.”

The Subaru woman smiles. “Haven’t we all. Where are you headed?”

“West Coast,” Aemond answers quickly: vague, guarded, inviting no further disclosures.

She nods; she can’t trust you, and you can’t trust her, and everyone agrees, an unspoken acknowledgement of what the world is like now. “Well, you don’t want to go anywhere near Salt Lake City.”

“But that’s the only direct route,” Aegon says, crestfallen.

“I know.” The Subaru woman is sympathetic. “And it’s going to burn a hell of a lot of gas and time to drive all the way around, but you have to. There are tens of thousands of zombies, and a lot of people are trapped there without fuel. I’m telling you, if someone sees you driving by in a working vehicle, they’ll try to put a bullet in your head so they can take it. So don’t give them the opportunity.”

“Okay,” Aegon says glumly, already pulling his map out of the pocket of his khaki shorts to plot a new course.

“Stay far away from Chicago,” Rio offers the Subaru woman in return. “And any nuclear power plants.”

“We’re headed south,” she says, then grins. “I’ve got a sister in eastern Tennessee. We’re going to learn how to fish and cook moonshine and make clothes out of deer hide, and live up in the mountains where nobody will ever bother us.”

People glance at you, the resident Appalachian; and you remember the crackling of woodstoves, flecks of ice in the creek, kicking up snow as you ran through the woods, following tracks of deer and opossums and raccoons. “It’s a beautiful place. I think you’ll like it.”

Rhaena asks the Subaru woman: “Is there anything we can do for you? To thank you for the gas?”

“Oh, I couldn’t take from a bunch of bloodied people who are stranded on the side of the interstate.” But her eyes catch on the pistol in your hand and stay there, envious, longing. You have another, so you give it to her.

“The safety is on. There are only nine bullets left, unfortunately.”

“That’s nine more than I had before,” the Subaru woman says as she takes the U.S. Navy’s standard-issue Beretta. Then she says to everyone: “Good luck.”

“Same to you, ma’am,” Cregan replies. The Subaru woman gets back into her car and disappears eastbound with her family. The nine of you that are left—ten, if you count Ice—trek back to the Tahoe, where Rio pours five gallons of combustible liquid gold into the gas tank.

Rhaena climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition. The rust-red Tahoe growls to life, the engine idling. Then she rests her arms on the steering wheel and breaks down sobbing. In the passenger’s seat, Aegon looks up from his map—which he is annotating with a glittery green gel pen—to gaze at her with shining, wounded eyes. After some hesitation, he extends a hand to hold one of hers. From the seat behind Rhaena, Luke is rubbing her shoulders and murmuring words you can’t hear.

Aemond says softly: “Rhaena, you can take some time if you need it.”

“No,” she insists, her voice quivering but determined. “We can’t wait. We have to get as far as we can before dark.” She shifts the Tahoe into drive, guides it onto I-80, and speeds west towards Rock Springs and the Utah border.

Rio is saying something to you, but at first you can’t grasp it. Helaena is scratching Ice’s ears as the massive grey wolfdog lies sprawled across her lap. Daeron is sniffling and wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his orange t-shirt. Cregan is talking to Aemond about needing to find an auto shop so he can get supplies to change the Tahoe’s oil and filter. One of Aegon’s mixtapes whirls in the CD player:

“My face above the water

My feet can’t touch the ground, touch the ground

And it feels like I can see the sands on the horizon

Every time you are not around…”

You are watching Aemond, your heartbeat growing loud in your ears. He won’t look at you at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the sun begins to set, you find a vacant house on the outskirts of Coalville, Utah overlooking the Echo Reservoir. You wash away the remnants of Wyoming in the cool blue water, dried blood and caked-on dirt, hopes eclipsed by horror. Dinner is soup spooned out of cans from the pantry—Dinty Moore beef stew, Campbell’s condensed chicken noodle—and caffeine-free sodas, Sprite and Fanta and Seagram’s Ginger Ale. Then Rhaena and Luke go straight to bed, and Helaena scuttles through the house with a flashlight to search for clothes, making each person a separate pile on the dining room table: large flannel shirts for Cregan, pastel-colored polos for Aegon. Aemond and Cregan are outside on the front porch, Daeron is carving sticks into arrows on the kitchen floor, Aegon has been passed out in one of the children’s bedrooms since Aemond debrided his burns again and dosed him with the last of the Vicodin. Fortunately, Helaena found a translucent orange prescription bottle of Tramadol in the upstairs bathroom, so Aegon won’t have to suffer too much tomorrow.

Rio tosses and turns on the living room couch. You know what’s wrong, but you have to wait for him to say it. You stay with him, kneeling on the beige carpet in the murky artificial luminance of Rio’s Moonbeam flashlight, threading your fingertips through his dark curls. And then at last Rio asks something that you know must have crossed his mind a thousand times since you left Saratoga Springs, but he’s never voiced aloud: “What if Sophie and the baby are dead?”

“They’re not.”

“But you don’t know, nobody knows—”

“Bryan, they’re not dead,” you say, and he is listening.

“I joined the Navy for Sophie.” And of course, you’ve heard this before. “I was just a stupid kid who couldn’t commit to anything, not work, not school, not a future with her, so she dumped me. And I decided I was going to get her back by proving I could make commitments after all. I could sign my life away for five years, and come out of it as someone who would be a good husband and father. And now…what if by enlisting and being so far away when everything happened, I abandoned her? What if…what if she’s gone, and she died terrified and in pain and alone, and I’m the reason why?”

“Sophie and the baby are waiting for you in Odessa. You have to believe that until we get there.”

“Because if they’re not, my life is over?” he asks bitterly, this man you have never known to be wrathful, defeated, weak, hopeless. But these are beasts that live inside all of us, waiting to be shaken awake by the perfect string of calamities.

“I believe they’re still alive.”

And Rio looks at you, wanting desperately to be convinced. “Why?”

You’ve never believed that you are someone who knows the right things to say; but you have to try. “If your parents’ community in Odessa is like you’ve always described it to me, I can’t think of a better place for someone to hide from all the disorder and the violence. It’s remote, but there’s support from other families who are living the same way. People have gardens, cows, goats, pigs, chickens, enough canned food to live on for years, homemade clothes and systems to collect rainwater. There are women who’ve had five homebirths and men who’ve built houses with their own hands. And the people in Odessa have guns and know how to use them. I think when you told Sophie to go there, you saved her life. And now she and the baby are both waiting for you to come home.”

“We’ve crossed this country by raiding dead people’s homes.”

“Yes. And we’ve seen plenty of living ones too.”

Rio takes a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling; and now he is calmer. “Okay,” he says, grabbing your hand where it rests on his head and smacking a noisy kiss onto your knuckles. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I think I’m done freaking out for tonight.”

“You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Try to sleep.”

Obediently, Rio closes his eyes, and within five minutes he’s snoring.

You rise and open the door to the front porch, thinking of what you’re going to tell Aemond when he is low, distracted, wary: You did everything you could, Aemond. It’s not your fault. It’s this world, it’s poison, it’s cursed, and you can’t turn back the clock to when it wasn’t. You’re just one man. But you can try to save the people who are left.

Yet Aemond does not speak to you, doesn’t even notice you; when you peek outside you are on his blind side, and he is deep in conversation with Cregan as they keep watch in the moonlight.

“I mean, yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too, man,” Cregan is saying. “A mansion by the ocean sounds nice and all, don’t get me wrong, but that ain’t me. I don’t see myself somewhere like that forever. Hell, I’ve never even seen the ocean, and to be honest I never really cared to. But a community of folks who are living off the land out in the woods? Those are my kind of people, that’s a place I could be useful…”

You retreat back inside the house, flashlights and shadows, doubts and fears. You stand there in the quiet for a while, then go to Aegon’s bedroom, where he is awake now and snuggling with Ice in a child’s bed shaped like a red racecar, listening to his pink Sony Walkman—Ava, the gleaming rhinestones proclaim—through one earbud.

Aegon coos as he ruffles the dog’s shaggy grey coat: “You’re so sweet, Blue Raspberry Icee. You were always my favorite flavor. Do you miss 7-Elevens too? Wrinkled old hot dogs and taquitos on rollers, drenching tortilla chips with the nacho cheese and chili dispenser? Did you guys even have 7-Elevens in Iowa? No offense, but your home state kind of sucks. It’s just fields and barns and whatever. You would have loved Boston. You could have fetched my golf balls when they rolled into ponds.”

Then he sings along to the song he’s listening to, effortlessly melodic but so softly you can barely hear him:

“You really had me going, wishing on a star

But the black holes that surround you are heavier by far

I believed in your confusion, you were so completely torn…”

Aegon spots you in the doorway. He smiles, then turns serious when he gets a good look at your face. “You okay, Mint Chocolate Chip?”

He feels like the only person you can say this to. You confess in a weak, hoarse whisper: “I hate this world.”

Aegon offers you the other earbud. “Then let’s go somewhere else.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Come on,” you say to Rhaena as Rio and Luke rummage around inside the Shell gas station for food, drinks, batteries, medicine. You know they’re fine; you’ve already cleared the store, and you can hear them in there laughing. Rio is telling Luke about the bizarre Thanksgiving dinner you once had in Chinhae, South Korea: duck instead of turkey, fried rice with pears and squash instead of stuffing, candied sweet potatoes for dessert, a choir of solemn schoolchildren brought in to sing—for reasons you will never understand—Africa by Toto. You take your remaining M9 out of its holster. “Target practice.”

“Really?” Rhaena asks excitedly. She volunteered to stay back at the little blue mobile home with Aegon, Daeron, and Helaena—only a mile away—but you knew she needed a distraction. Truthfully, you do too. Aemond is in the Tahoe somewhere searching for gas with Cregan, a strange new alliance. He still hasn’t really spoken to you. You are trying to give him what he needs, but you don’t understand what that is.

It took all of yesterday to navigate around Salt Lake City, stopping every few hours to scrounge for gas, gallons siphoned piecemeal from cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats on trailers, four-wheelers left forgotten in garages and backyards. It was after nightfall when you rolled into Battle Mountain, Nevada, a gold mining town in what is known as the Cowboy Corridor, beginning at West Wendover just over the Utah border and ending in Reno. Today supplies must be replenished; tomorrow I-80 will take you to Winnemucca, where U.S. Route 95 branches off north towards Oregon while remaining on I-80 leads southwest through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into the Bay Area of California. A decision needs to be made, which means Aemond will have to talk to you tonight. You’re relieved. You don’t want to have to be nervous and watchful with him, studying every inflection of his voice, reading some dire premonition in each line that creases his face. You’ve spent enough of your life that way already.

Battle Mountain is cloudless and hot and sandy, dry shrubs and gnarled mesquite trees, flat secretless earth. Staggering towards the Shell are three zombies, all dressed in faded blue uniforms like a mechanic’s or a miner’s. You hand Rhaena your M9.

“How many bullets do you have left?” she says, still a bit giddy.

“Fifteen. And you can have five of them.”

She raises the pistol and closes one eye. “I’m going to miss.”

“Well you’re not going to hit anything if you don’t turn off the safety.”

Rhaena giggles. “Oh, right. Whoops.” She clicks the tiny lever, then takes aim again.

“Line up your sights. Front looks like an I, back looks like a U. Put the I in the center of the U, and keep looking at that front sight. That’s where your bullet is going. Don’t blink when you fire. Don’t be scared of the recoil, that’s not your problem, your priority is getting the shot. Your arms are a little stiff…yeah, perfect, nice and limber. The recoil won’t hurt so much that way. Don’t try to fight it, just accept that it’s going to happen. If you’re all tensed up because you’re anxious about the recoil, it’ll throw off your aim, so forget about it.”

“Okay,” Rhaena says. “I am actively attempting to forget.”

“Remember, try not to blink.”

“Don’t tense up. Don’t blink.” A few seconds pass, and she pulls the trigger. There is a spray of dark curdled blood from one of the zombie’s collarbone, but it’s still stumbling towards the Shell. “Damn,” Rhaena says defeatedly, then tries to pass the M9 back to you.

“What are you doing? You have four more shots.”

“But I’m going to miss. I’m going to waste them.”

“Practice isn’t wasteful. You have to know how to do this in case something happens to me.”

“You do it,” Rhaena insists. “I’m terrible.”

“Is it alright if I help you?”

“Yeah,” she says, her doe-like eyes brightening. “Okay. Totally.”

“Go ahead and aim.”

She raises the pistol and peers through the sights. You stand behind Rhaena, place your hands lightly over hers, adjust her angle just barely. When she fires—she’s still tensing up just before she pulls the trigger, a common mistake—you hold the M9 steady. The bullet explodes through the same zombie’s rot-soft skull and the corpse tumbles facedown into the dust.

Rhaena gasps, exhilarated, triumphant.

“No celebrating yet. There are two more.”

“Right.” Very businesslike, she lines up the next shot. You provide your slight adjustments; a second zombie receives a lethal dose of lead.

“Want to do the last one on your own?” The third zombie is quite close now, maybe ten yards. It should be an easy kill.

“Okay…but if I miss, you have to save me.”

“Obviously.”

All on her own, Rhaena aims and pulls the trigger. She hits the zombie near the top of its head; an inch higher, and it would be functionally unharmed. But the corpse’s skull snaps back and its blood and brains spill out onto the asphalt of the parking lot, and it is of no further danger to anyone. It is carrion for the scavengers: raccoons, foxes, condors, vultures, crows.

“And with one of your allocated bullets to spare,” you say with a smile, accepting the M9 when Rhaena surrenders it. “Good progress.”

“That felt great,” she admits, perhaps a little dazed.

You know what she means. “It’s nice to have some control over what happens in your life.”

Luke is saying to Rio as they reappear from inside the Shell: “Maybe those Korean children were singing Africa because they knew your unit had been in Djibouti. Maybe they thought you were homesick for it or something.”

“Oh my God, you know what, kid? You might be right. I never even thought of that.”

“Find anything?” you ask.

Rio shrugs, adjusting the straps of his backpack. “A few bags of trail mix, a box of Band-Aids, some Life Savers, cans of Arizona tea. Oh, and Marlboro Golds for Honey Bun.”

“You shouldn’t be encouraging Aegon to smoke. It’s bad for him.”

“Give him a break, he’s sad and crispy.”

You can’t think of a rebuttal. The four of you walk back to the mobile home.

In the small patch of parched dirt that serves as the driveway, Cregan is—with great difficulty—shimmying out from beneath the Tahoe. Then he reaches back under to grab a pan of old motor oil. “Just about done here,” he announces. “Gotta put the fresh oil in and then we’re set for another 5,000 miles.”

You glance around. Ice is panting in the narrow aisle of shade of a mesquite tree. Aegon is napping on the tiny front porch, sprawled on his back and snoring, his plastic neon green sunglasses shielding his eyes; Helaena is surrounded by a jumble of empty cans and stirring a pot of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs as she heats it over a fire. She begins dishing out bowlfuls of it. Rio, Rhaena, and Luke all graciously accept their dinner.

“Did you guys find gas?” you say to Cregan.

“Not much. A few gallons.”

“Where’s Aemond?”

“Said he’d be back soon.”

“What?” You are incredulous. “You left him? He can’t be alone out there, Cregan. Someone has to watch his blind side.”

“He ain’t alone. He took Daeron.”

“What’s Aemond looking for?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.” Now Cregan is pouring a bottle of Pennzoil into the Tahoe, and Rio is prodding you with a bowl of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs, and Aegon is waking up and yawning loudly.

“What’d you bring me?” he says, lazy and grinning; and when he receives his pack of Marlboro Golds, he immediately sticks one between his teeth and lights it. Luke goes to sit by a shrub and then jumps up when he hears a rattling noise. Almost too swiftly for you to process it, a streak of red-gold scales slithers across the earth and vanishes into the desert.

“Western diamondback rattlesnake,” Helaena notes. “Venomous. Potentially fatal.”

“Great,” Luke says, carrying his bowl towards the front door of the mobile home. “I think I’ll eat inside.”

Aemond and Daeron don’t return until shortly before dusk, the sky turning to rust, lavender, gold, fire, blood. When they walk in, Rhaena is curled up on the floral couch—shredded in spots by a cat, though there are no signs of it now—and reading Mockingjay. Luke is sitting with her and keeping watch with periodic peeks out the window. Ice is resting with her muzzle propped on her large front paws. You, Rio, Cregan, Helaena, and Aegon are playing Uno on the floor.

“What color?” Aegon asks Helaena when she puts down a wild card.

“Blue.”

He groans. “How do you always know what I don’t have?!”

“Rhaena,” Aemond says, and then tosses something to her that glints in the artificial, sickly yellow radiance of the flashlights. She catches them in midair: a set of keys. She is mystified.

“What are these for?”

“The Ford Expedition that’s parked outside.”

“What?!” Luke says, twisting around in his seat to snatch the curtain aside and peer through the window. “Oh wow. Yeah, it’s out there.”

Rhaena is staring confoundedly at Aemond. “Why do we need a Ford Expedition?”

“Because that’s what you’ll be driving tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong with the Tahoe?”

“They will be driving the Tahoe to Oregon,” Aemond says, pointing to you, Rio, and Cregan. “We are taking Expedition to California.”

Everyone is too stunned to speak at first; even Daeron looks at Aemond doubtfully, as if this is the first time he’s learning of it. Aegon’s hand hovers frozen in the air above the draw pile of Uno cards. Ice whimpers.

Rio chuckles uncertainly. “You’re…you’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m not,” Aemond says. “When we leave Battle Mountain tomorrow, you’ll take I-80 to Winnemucca. We’ll take Route 305 south to Austin and then head west so we can get off the interstate and avoid the Reno area.”

Your voice comes out dark and poisonous. You can feel your eyes glaring, searing; Aemond won’t look at you. “What are you talking about?”

“We can’t stay together?” Luke asks.

“No,” Aemond says again, and now he’s getting impatient. “We have two different destinations. That’s been the situation since the day we met, and now it’s time to split up.”

“Why can’t we all travel to one place and then the other?” Rhaena says. “We could drive to the Bay Area, see what’s going on at the beach house, and after—”

“I can’t wait,” Rio interrupts. “My wife and baby are in Oregon, I’m going straight there even if no one else is.” As distracted as you are, you touch your palm to one of his broad shoulders. You’re going too. You promised.

“So we’ll drive to Oregon first,” Aegon says agreeably. “Right? We could do that. Go north and then swing by the Bay Area later.”

Aemond shakes his head. “It’s almost impossible to find gas now. There is just enough in the Tahoe to last it until Winnemucca, and just enough in the Expedition to get it down to Austin. There is no guarantee we’ll be able to find more. Every day there’s less gas and food and bullets, because there are less places that haven’t already been looted. There are 400 miles between where we are right now and either Odessa or San Franscisco. There are another 400 miles that separate those two destinations from each other. So let’s say we drive all the way to Oregon and then can’t find any gas to go south to the Bay. How long do you think we’d last like this on foot? A month? Because that’s how long it would take us, assuming not a single rest day. So if we travel to one location together, there’s a good possibility we’ll all be trapped there.”

“Maybe I’m okay with getting trapped in Oregon,” Aegon mumbles.

Aemond lashes out fiercely. “Are you serious? What about Criston, what about Mom?!”

“Maybe there are some things about home that I don’t miss!”

“Then go the fuck to Oregon!”

“You know I have to stay with you!”

Aemond scoffs. “Because you’re so capable of protecting anyone.”

Aegon rubs his sunburned face with both hands. He murmurs softly, miserably: “I’m trying, Aemond.”

“So that’s it?” Rhaena says, staring at you and Rio and Cregan, stunned and mournful. “We’ll just never see each other again?”

Aemond shrugs and averts his gaze. He doesn’t have an answer; maybe he doesn’t care.

Aegon turns to Cregan accusingly. “You helped plan this?”

“Nah,” Cregan says, avoidant and downcast, which is unusual for him. “I mean…I said I didn’t really see myself spending the rest of my life with a bunch of millionaires in a California mansion on the seashore, and that’s still true. I’d rather live in Oregon with people who are more like me. But that’s different than wanting to split up forever. I could always try to find y’all later for a visit, I guess…”

“Sure,” Aemond replies briskly. “Whatever you decide to do afterwards isn’t my problem. But you get them to Odessa first.”

Rhaena bursts out with sudden urgency: “This feels wrong. Don’t you see how this is wrong?! We’ve been through so much together, and now we’re just going to wave goodbye and disappear? Leave them to fend for themselves?”

“You want to add 400 miles to our trip?” Aemond asks her, and Rhaena falls silent.

“You know,” Luke begins. “We…we’ve already lost people. Maybe Aemond’s right. Maybe we’re forgetting how dangerous the world is now. It would be great if we could stay in contact, but the most important thing is to get everyone safely to where they need to be.”

“Exactly,” Aemond says, and something jolts awake in you as you remember what he told you in Nebraska, and in Wyoming, and in so many quiet moments that you’ve shared since you met, each an oasis in the desert. He said we would figure it out. He said he wasn’t going anywhere.

“So you were lying when you pretended not to know what we were going to do when we got to Nevada.”

Aemond nods towards the front door. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

You stand up; Rio watches you apprehensively, wondering if he should follow. Your eyes flick to his. I’m fine. He relents, redirecting his attention. Aegon is slumped and despondent; Helaena is starting to cry, and Cregan tries to console her. She’s saying that something bad is going to happen, but she doesn’t know what.

On the porch of the mobile home, beneath a lilac sky pierced with stars, Aemond does not attempt to hold your hands or kiss you goodbye or give any other indication that you have ever been someone who mattered to him. “This isn’t personal. This is what gives everyone the best chance of survival.”

“You’re afraid of making a mistake and getting hurt,” you tell him. “And I understand, I know what that feels like, but Aemond…with the way the world is now…you can’t afford to wait for things to happen or cut them loose to see if they’ll come back to you. You might not get another chance.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Aemond says flatly. “Your route is safer than ours. Less cities, less zombies.”

“You’re honestly going to act like you are completely unbothered by the thought of never seeing me again?”

“I don’t know what you expected. I’m just some guy who helped get you off a transmission tower back in Pennsylvania.”

“Really? That’s all you are?”

And then Aemond smirks to himself, a cynical, mocking twist of his lips, something so dismissive and so cruel you almost believe for a razor-thin second that you could hate him. “Look, I’m not the one for you. Go to Oregon. Fuck Cregan.”

“There is nothing romantic between me and Cregan!”

Now Aemond seems annoyed. “Well, you two seem exceptionally suited for each other.”

“Because we both grew up shopping at Dollar General and know what it’s like to have an alcoholic parent?! That makes us soulmates, that’s the end of the calculation?!”

“Then find a man like him!” Aemond flares. “That’s what you really wanted, right? That’s what you were after this whole time. Some hero to convince you he’s worth it. Someone to break you in.”

You are seething, thunderstruck. “And you just said that in the most hurtful way possible to…what, prove how little you care about me?”

“I didn’t say I don’t care about you.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“We were never going to end up in the same place.”

“Except we were, you told me that, you told me we’d figure something out, I mean, you…you…you said you’d be there if I wanted kids someday, what was that if not some kind of commitment?!”

“You don’t trust me,” Aemond says, so sharply and so abruptly it startles you.

“I do,” you object softly.

“No, you don’t. And I don’t blame you. But there’s nowhere for us to go from here.”

You can feel yourself becoming young and powerless and desperately afraid. “Please don’t do this, Aemond. It won’t bring Jace or Baela back. If we don’t have a plan before we split up, this is over. We’ll never find each other again. We’ll never have another chance.”

And he shakes his head like this was such a needless mistake. “I knew you’d fall in love with me.”

He’s leaving, you think, hazy and omnipotent like a nightmare, the present inseparable from the past and the future. I left my family and now my family is leaving me. “I’m not in love with you,” you reply as ruthlessly as you can. “I think you’re right. Cregan is a better man.”

“Yeah,” Aemond snaps.

“And I need someone like him.”

“Yeah,” Aemond says again, staring into the west where the last rays of the sun are sinking below the horizon, you erased as you stand where his left eye would once have seen you.

“And you need someone who’s going to fuck with your head so much you can’t possibly mistake it for something real.”

You walk back inside the mobile home and leave him speechless in the dying light.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I drew this for you,” Aegon says, handing Rio a folded piece of paper torn from Helaena’s spider notebook. It’s a map, illustrated in forest green gel pen ink. “Your route is actually really straightforward, it’s impossible to get lost. You’ll follow I-80 northwest to Winnemucca, then Route 95 north until it intersects with Route 140, and you stay on 140 all the way to Odessa. The only real city you’ll go near is Klamath Falls in Oregon, and I’ve marked that. Route 140 mostly stays along the outside, but you can cut it wider if things look dicey. The whole trip is just a couple days by car, assuming you don’t have to spend too long hunting for gas. But listen…” He points to the green dot labelled Winnemucca. “Between here and Denio Junction up by the Oregon border, there’s 100 miles of nothing, just desert. So make sure you have more than enough supplies to last you in case something happens. Then from Denio Junction to Adel is another 85 miles with no towns in between. So just…be careful, okay? You’re not back east anymore. Things are a lot farther apart, and it’s harder to find everything. If you run out of gas or bust a tire, you can’t just call AAA to come pick you up.”

“We got it,” Rio says, touched but trying not to dissolve into too much sentimentality. The three of you are standing in the short dirt driveway the next morning, Aegon putting most of his weight on his good leg. Cregan is waiting behind the wheel of the Chevy Tahoe that once belonged to his parents. Ice is peering out at you through one of the rolled-down windows. “Thank you, Honey Bun.”

“No problem. Now flip it over.”

Rio does; on the back of the first map is another, this one from Odessa south to the Bay Area, a place just north of San Francisco called Bolinas.

“Go all the way to the coast and follow it down,” Aegon says. “You don’t want to bump into Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, San Jose, any of those places. Too many people.” Then he smiles, kind and warm. “I’m going to see you guys again, one way or the other. But first I have to make sure Aemond is safe. And Rio has to meet baby Otter.”

Rio laughs. “Man, don’t even joke about it. I’m seriously concerned that’s my firstborn’s name.”

“If you end up not staying in Odessa, leave me a note carved into a tree trunk or something so I can track you down.”

“You do the same at the beach mansion.”

“Totally.” Then Aegon turns to you; and although he’s still smiling, his eyes—those pools of murky, melancholy blue that remind you of the Gulf of Tadjoura, Corpus Christi Bay, the East China Sea, the Indian Ocean—are catastrophically sad. “Tortilla Chip, it’s been real. Don’t forget about me.”

“I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

He pats your backpack and winks, and you don’t understand why until ten hours later when you’re lying on the rooftop of an abandoned RV in Winnemucca, Nevada, gazing up at the stars as Rio and Cregan swap stories to weave affinity until it’s thick like a braid: Rio hiding a dead lemon shark in the Jeep of an officer he hated when you were stationed at Key West, Cregan’s fiancé leaving him after she got a field hockey scholarship to the University of Iowa. You haven’t found any gas for the Tahoe yet. You’ll have to search again tomorrow. You reach into your backpack for a pack of Life Savers and instead are surprised to discover Aegon’s pink Sony Walkman. The rhinestones spelling out a doomed little girl’s name glint in the moonlight.

You slip in both earbuds and press play. Aegon left it paused at an Enrique Iglesias song; you assume he must have been thinking of Rio.

“You look at me and, girl, you take me to another place

Got me feelin’ like I’m flyin’, like I’m out of space

Something ‘bout your body says, come and take me

Got me begging, got me hoping that the night don’t stop…”

You try to see constellations in the night sky instead of random, indifferent distant suns. You try not to remember the way Aemond was when you thought his mark on you was permanent.

“Girl, I like the way you move, come and show me what to do

You can tell me that you want me, girl, you got nothing to lose

I can’t wait no more

I can’t wait no more…”

You spot a glimmer of light among the stars and choose to believe it is a comet rather than a fighter jet, or a forgotten satellite, or the refracted remnants of a solar storm, or something you only imagined and that never existed at all.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x y/n

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a-sock-in-a-sandal · 2 months ago

Text

What is happening in Czechia right now - heavy rains and floods

So as a Czech citizen I felt like saying something about it here so here you go, it's mostly my experiences and some official data.

For context, the first week of September 2024 (2nd to 8th) in Czechia was a burning hell - the temperatures were around 30°C or even above for the entire week. Some schools even ended their classes earlier because of the hot weather - they usually ended before afternoon when the weather was worst. So when we found out that everything will stop the next week, we got happy. We were told the temperatures are gonna get under 20°C, sometimes above, but usually under, it's gonna rain and it's gonna get windy.

All of it happened. The first few days of this week (plus maybe the weekend of the previous one) were chilly, windy, and cloudy - it did sometimes rain, but usually only for a few hours a day. Sooner it started to rain more, for more hours a day, somewhere even for the entire day.

But then the Czech government scheduled an emergency meeting because they were worried about the rains - and they had a reason to. Such rains could cause major floods that already happened in Czechia twice. So they didn't want to waste any time on preparing.

The weather progressively got worse - in my region, it rained the whole day for like three days and it is still raining now. The wind is strong and cold and the temperatures are very chilly. I live right next to a stream at the lowest part of my village in lowlands and the water has risen a few meters (like 2 or so).

The worst situation is in Moravia, which is where I live, but where I am it is still good, only heavy rains and the water levels rising but not as much as to cause a trouble - however there is a few places in my village where it is completely underwater, but not anyone's house or cellar. But Northern Moravia/Silesia is flooded, especially parts like Jeseníky and Opava. The more it gets on west the better it is, mostly a few regions on the north-west are the safest ones. It is usually the Karlovarský/Ústecký and maybe a piece of Plzeňský kraj that is safe.

Most events got cancelled and/or delayed due to bad weather and flood warnings. However the schools are still opened, and it's kind of a meme between students that "we're gonna kayak into our schools on Monday!" Electricity stopped working at many places, including my village. When I woke up today there were firefighters in my street but nobody knows why but I heard that someone's cellar might be flooded.

Our Czech subreddit r/Czech is "flooded" (I couldn't help myself) with maps of flood situation and tips on what to do in case you have e.g. an animal in floodplains. If you switch on the news channel ČT24, you get 24/7 segments and reports from different parts of Czechia, interviews with meteorologists, politicians talking about it and such. Most channels stream as normal but there are some emergency broadcasts. Social media is filled with it.

However, there is a group of mostly older people who are those old conspirators and are strongly against our government because their favourite politician isn't the prime minister (the situation is more complicated but that's enough for this), and they claim that all this is fake and "it's actually to keep people at home before elections (there are ones to happen soon) so they can't meet and talk about the politics", or that "it's a punishment for sending help to Ukraine" (Czechia has sent a lot of help there and these people are mad for some reason) and such. It makes me sick because some people already died and many are injured and many homes can be destroyed.

Czechia has already had two major floods in the near past - in 1997 there were ones in Prague and in 2002 over the entire Czechia. They were catastrophic, people died and were injured and lost homes. So that's why everyone is scared and the government tries very hard to keep us safe.

I already shared my experience, but I just talked on a group chat with my friends from different villages in my region so here goes what I found:

Electricity is out on most places because it is flooded near some important place for electricity

Plenty of places are flooded with like 10-20 cm water, people can still walk in it and some cars drive in it

A football pitch right next to a stream in my village is completely flooded, only the nets are visible

Plenty of bridges are closed and plenty of them are also underwater

We're debating whether or not our school is gonna be closed since most of us take bus to school and we don't know if it would be able to arrive, plus electricity isn't working in the town where we have school, but we'll still see, we didn't receive any news about the school closing

It's starting to get clear (less cloudy) as I'm typing this but I hope it'll get better, the rain is not as heavy as it was

I just hope it's gonna get better ❤️ I'll update you tomorrow or even today if anything major happens

#czechia #čumblr #floods #what is happening #emergency #current events #world news #floods in czechia #czech republic #czech

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ryescapades · 3 months ago

Note

Hiii!! I was recently reading some of your writings which absolutely slap ‼️

A scenario came to mind after recently reading a webtoon named Pure Villain(which I defo recommend) and I was wondering if i would be able to request a Narumi Gen x Mitsuri!Reader where the reader is a new officer added into the first division and is somehow on par or even stronger than Narumi himself??

And similarly to Mitsuri i was hoping she would have joined the KDF to help find a man and due to her being so strong and what’s better than fining a man who’s part of the KDF!? And for a little prompt if needed then maybe add a moment where Narumi needs support or in trouble with a Kaiju she’s there to help!!

wild heart | kaiju no.8

— sure, you've thought about giving up on love sometimes, but that doesn't mean you had completely lost hope. luckily, narumi is there to burn that hope back aflame.

genre/warning: narumi gen x fem mitsuri!reader, fluff, reader's former division is not mentioned, set in pre-canon timeline (around b-side era probably??)

a/n: sorry for the delay and thank you for the request anon!! hope i got everything down as per your req :> i read a few chapters of pure villain too!! wanted to understand the plotline so that i could write this better. maybe i'll read the rest of it once i'm through w all my other work TT

1.97k wc

"you're amazing and all, y/n-san. but i'm sorry, you're just not my type,"

it's been... what? three times? four? five??? you don't even know. you don't bother keeping track anymore. it's always the same reason in the end. confessing to boys you've had a crush on throughout your adolescent years had become something you would dread every time.

you confessed, they acknowledged your immense strength, how clever you were, and then ended up rejecting you, saying you're not their type. which was utter crap in your opinion. those were definitely backhanded compliments.

you've never pointed that out to them, obviously. you were too nice for that.

regardless still, were they intimidated? did they refuse because you were too strong for them? too strategically intelligent for your age? did they just want a sweet, pretty book smart girl as a partner instead?

or maybe it's just the boys from your old high school who were like that. or the ones from the neutralization college that you used to attend. who the heck knows?

hence growing up, you've learned not to easily be swayed by and get attached to those who were too sweet and too friendly, locking away your fragile heart. if you were to settle down, you'd decided it would be with someone who is as strong, as capable and as brilliant as you are. an equal, if not more.

"starting today, all of you here will officially be appointed as defense force officers,"

and where else can you find such a capable partner if not the jakdf?

assigned as the representative of your batch after scoring the highest in most categories, everyone in the division admired you. you were sweet, kind and passionate in your job. not once have you gone a day without expressing your compassion and honest praises to others.

even your superiors admitted you were one of a kind, a talent so outstanding they almost offered you a high-ranked position if not for your current lack of experience in the field at that time.

as you progressed further in the division, you'd become close to your fellow officers. fighting and training alongside them, getting to know them better as you worked together during missions to neutralize kaiju. but alas, none of those you've met in the defense force ever caught your eye. they were astoundingly strong, sure. but no one has been it for you.

along the way, you'd almost gave up in believing that love was ever meant for you, now only focusing on honing your own talents and relishing the satisfaction of getting to save people from the monsters using said skills. it was only until one day you were conveyed a message to meet with your captain, though you were initially not informed of what business you were called for.

“you wanted to see me, captain?” you greet just as you enter the office, the usual shy and sweet smile plastered on your face.

"i received a letter from the headquarters. it's addressed to you," your captain says, handing over a piece of parchment paper.

you eyes rove over the lines of formal sentences as soon as you have the letter in your hands, eventually they widen upon registering the words in your head. "a transfer offer to the first division?" you ponder, fingers idly tracing the ink swirls.

your captain eyes you for a quick moment before speaking, "you should accept it. it's not often that the higher-ups themselves offer a place in the first division. it's a place for the elites, after all. not to mention they'd freshly appointed a new captain there," the almost-grimace in their expression at that last sentence does not go unnoticed by you.

your eyebrows raise in bewilderment, "must be someone extra, extra capable to be replacing captain shinomiya,"

"oh, he's capable, alright..." you hear your soon-to-be former captain mutter quietly, causing you to wonder just what kind of person the first division's new captain is.

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

you don't even get to meet your new captain.

hell, you don't even get to introduce yourself to any of the first division members because as soon as you had arrived in koto ward which houses the ariake maritime base, there's already a kaiju attack happening.

you're about ten minutes drive away from the base when you were notified to engage in battle, quickly suiting up and your rifle at the ready as the vehicle you're in immediately changes direction to head towards the location of the attack.

an unfamiliar voice pings in your earpiece. "officer y/n? i'm hasegawa eiji, vice-captain of the first division. firstly, i'd have to apologize that you're not exactly receiving the best welcome to the base right now but we clearly have more pressing matters here,"

your head perks up at that. "no, vice-captain. i'm perfectly fine with it. if anything, i could maybe see how my skills can stack up with the best of the best there is," you say with a giddy smile growing on your face, barely holding in a squeal out of pure excitement..

there's a small chuckle before your new superior continues, "i hope you won't end up disappointed then. feel free to take down any yoju you see on the way here. i wish you luck, officer."

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

on the other side of the battlefield, narumi frowns as he stands perched on the edge of the bridge, looking over the kaiju in the distance.

the yoju is easy enough to handle. shoot the core, bam, dead. the honju, however, is quite a hassle to deal with. it's fast, incredibly fast. sure, narumi's RT-0001 is able to detect synaptic impulses and produce foresight, but that doesn't mean it's any easier when there's two of the same speedy type of kaiju raging around in the area.

it's even more of a hassle when those two looming honjus response almost similarly to the other, as if their minds are one and the same. what are they, freak twins or something? narumi scoffs, running a hand through his bicolored hair and shaking off the dust from his combat suit where he nearly got crushed twice consecutively between two humongous fists, one from each of the twin kaiju.

well, nothing his ridiculously immense power couldn't beat, actually. but still, it'd have been nice if there's something...— his thoughts are interrupted by a loud gunshot to his right, his head quickly snapping to the side in search of a potential threat.

narumi's expression switches to a mix of a surprise and a little confusion, staring at what seems to be an officer who has her hand holding a... winch cable? he glances at the tow truck nearby, taking note of the slight burnt mark at the spot where the winch cable is supposed to be attached to the crane.

what the heck is that person doing? he thinks incredulously.

when you first shot the pulley that once held the cable in place, you didn't think your plan would work. it's kind of impulsive and a bit suicidal if you were to carry it out alone, you'd thought. but there's nothing else you can come up with, so you end up proceeding with it.

grabbing a dagger strapped on the side of your thigh, you manage to tie several overhand knots with the cable around the hilt before straightening up, bracing yourself for your next action.

"i really shouldn't be doing this... i don't have a death wish. i don't! i'm not even married yet. i can't die now!" you rant to yourself, taking a deep breath. you don't notice that a certain captain is staring at you clumsily fussing to yourself from afar, he himself jolting in shock when you land a harsh slap on your own puffed cheeks, as if sensing the pain himself.

you let out one last exhale before swiftly making your move, dashing forwards with the cable-tied dagger in your hand. your plan consists of only two moves; stab and wrap. stab the dagger into the leg of one of the kaiju, and then with your agility, wrap the cable around both its legs to hinder its movement.

you succeed in doing those two steps, of course. now who's going to get the second honju while you kill the first one? the cable isn't long enough to cover both giants. you could only pray that there's someone around strong enough to do that...

and pray you did.

because as soon as one of the honju had fallen down from having both its legs trapped together, you almost didn't notice the figure rushing forwards beside you, taking the same stance as you ready your rifle, pulling the trigger to finally finish off the first fallen honju at the same time the person next to you pulls his, two explosive gunshots ringing at the same time throughout the area.

the twin monsters fall dead simultaneously, blood pouring out of the large gaping holes as you stagger slightly, not aware of the overuse of your high combat power. a sudden but warm hand immediately grip your bicep, startling you from your exhaustion.

"how did you—?" narumi's astonished. you're so... powerful. you're also flexible and quick on your feet, maneuvering yourself around the stomping feet of the twin kaiju with so much ease. that blow you delivered with your measly rifle was almost as lethal as his own bayonet. probably the same type as ashiro, he wonders.

he stops for a second when he gets a good look on your face. "you're the newbie, aren't you?" he realizes as you too, survey him and his appearance with curious eyes. one thought comes to your mind almost right off the the bat when your sparkling eyes land on him.

"pretty..."

"... what?"

"what?"

the two of you stare at each other, dumbstruck for a moment. the man's cheeks flare, heat creeping up his neck that has your pupils zeroing on them out of pure fascination. "you just said i'm— i..." he sputters, causing you to finally grasp what you had just said. "oh my! sorry, i didn't mean to say that out loud," your own cheeks flush slightly, though your apology doesn't really sound like you mean it at all.

"you— you know what, nevermind! if i wasn't such a nice captain, i would've questioned you for your lack of respect! now report yourself to me, officer!" he fumes, still feeling the abnormal heat under his skin.

your mouth gapes at his statement, your mind backtracking to the fight earlier and remembering how he had quickly yet silently arrived to your aid when you most needed it, how eruptive his killing shot had been, how big and strong his hand felt when he steadied you. of course he's a captain, out of all things.

the sound of heavy footsteps approaching you interrupts both of your predicament. "ah, i see you've met the latest addition to our squad. narumi, allow me to introduce you to your new division member, officer y/n," the burly older man who you assume to be hasegawa states, sending a respectful nod towards your direction.

you've only heard of the name in passing, never seen the person himself as you were constantly stuck in your old division, never really had the chance to venture out on faraway missions and he was barely an icon only until recently. the most naturally talented soldier, on his way to become the strongest combatant of japan's defense force.

and he's your captain.

you don't bother looking at the second-in-command, too engrossed in observing the utterly gorgeous specimen of a man that is narumi gen. your heart thunders against your ribcage, the vibration steady yet tumultuous as if it's trying to free the organ from the chains binding around it.

he's it. he's the one for you. you just know it.

not a narumi fic of mine if it doesn't consist of at least one(1) blushing narumi lol /hj

©🅁🅈🄴🅂🄲🄰🄿🄰🄳🄴🅂. do not steal, translate or repost my work anywhere else !

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bangchansdirty-slut · 8 months ago

Note

I definitely need that hyunjin idea with the new piercing and male reader. Like I need it so bad

Hidden Piercing

Paring:D Piercing!Top!Hyunjin x Bttm!Male Reader

Genre: Smut

Requested

More: Masterlist

A/n:Sorry for the delay in uploading, I had some school work to finish. Also, I will be posting tons of fics next Wednesday for my birthday. Please feel free to send me your requests.

Hyunjin and M/n, college roommates, had been in a blissful relationship for several months now. Their bond was nothing short of fluff, with only occasional makeout sessions as their form of intimacy. However, there was one secret that Hyunjin had been desperate to share with M/n; before they had even started dating, Hyunjin had gotten an eyebrow piercing, which M/n was well aware of. The truth was, Hyunjin was so obsessed with his eyebrow piercing that he decided to get another one; this time, a dick piercing. He had heard good things about it, and wanted to try it out.

Fast forward to the present day, where the two lovers were cuddled up on Hyunjin's bed, watching a movie together. As the film progressed, their affection for each other only grew, and they soon found themselves entangled in a passionate makeout session. Amidst their heated exchange of tongues and saliva, Hyunjin finally managed to confess his secret to M/n. "I-I got another piercing… a dick piercing," he stammered between kisses.

M/n's eyes widened in surprise before a playful smirk spread across his lips. "Really? Show me," he purred, arching his back invitingly. Hyunjin could feel his cheeks flush with embarrassment and arousal as he reached down and unzipped his pants, revealing his pierced member. "Oh my god," M/n breathed, unable to tear his gaze away from the sight. "It's so sexy…"

Their lips met again, their tongues dancing together as their hands explored each other's bodies. Hyunjin felt M/n's warm, bare skin against his own, and he knew he couldn't wait any longer. He positioned himself between M/n's legs, guiding his pierced length to his lover's needy asshole. M/n moaned loudly, the sound filling the room as Hyunjin slowly thrust forward, feeling the heat and tightness engulf him.

The friction was exquisite, and Hyunjin moved faster, his thrusts becoming deeper and harder. M/n arched his back, grinding his hips against Hyunjin's pelvis in perfect rhythm. The sensation of Hyunjin's pierced cock sliding in and out of him was unlike anything M/n had ever felt before, and it sent shivers of pleasure coursing through his entire body.

Their moans filled the room, echoing off the walls as their passion grew. Hyunjin reached down, grasping M/n's cock in his hand, stroking it in time with his thrusts. M/n felt his orgasm building, the tension coiling tightly in his belly. He gripped the sheets, digging his nails into the soft fabric as the pleasure threatened to overwhelm him.

Hyunjin's breath came in ragged gasps, his muscles tense as he fought to maintain control. He could feel M/n's hole clenching around him, urging him on, and it drove him wild. He leaned forward, burying his face in M/n's neck, inhaling the sweet, intoxicating scent that emanated from his skin.

M/n arched his back, throwing his head back, his eyes rolling back in his head as he felt the intense pleasure wash over him. His inner walls clenched tight around Hyunjin's pierced cock, milking him as he came, his cum spilling over both their hands and chests. The sensation of being filled by Hyunjin, feeling the vibrations of his orgasm as he thrust deep inside him, was more than M/n could bear.

Hyunjin felt M/n's body tense and relax around him, the warmth of his cum spreading through his fingers as he continued to thrust. His own release built inside him, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he fought to maintain control. He looked down at M/n, watching as his lover's eyes fluttered open, a dazed expression on his face.

"That was incredible," M/n breathed, reaching up to touch Hyunjin's cheek. "I didn't think anything could feel better than your eyebrow piercing, but…" He trailed off with a wicked smile, his hand moving down to grip Hyunjin's hip. "I guess I was wrong."

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nobodyfamousposts · 2 years ago

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Why Scarlet Lady Is Better Than Canon: Lila Rossi

I had mentioned before at length regarding my distaste, dislike, and dissatisfaction with the character of Lila Rossi in Miraculous Ladybug canon. A character so horrible, so poorly written, and so two dimensional that I did not think it was possible to make any iteration of her I wouldn’t dislike.

And yet it seems @zoe-oneesama has come through for me yet again in Scarlet Lady by taking what was quite possibly one of my biggest issues and most despised characters within canon and with only a few changes, turning her into something enjoyable. Dare I even say…likable.

More than that, even. It says something when my least favorite character in Miraculous Ladybug canon can somehow become one of my top favorite characters in a different variation of it.

It’s because Zoe shows an understanding of the characters and what makes them engaging, and other than SL Adrien, it shows the most in the form of SL Lila.

See, Canon Lila Rossi is a selfish, manipulative, egotistical, petty, and self-centered liar.

Scarlet Lady Lila Rossi, on the other hand, is a selfish, manipulative, egotistical, petty, and self-centered liar.

Now I’m sure all of you are looking at those two sentences and noting that they’re the same thing. And you are right. That’s the point! Because the difference between the two versions isn’t who Lila is but rather in how the narrative and writing treat her and what Lila ends up doing because of it. And it’s why Scarlet Lady is superior in its handling of Lila.

Lila in Scarlet Lady is not a good person. Nor does she become a good person. She admits that she lies for fun and just to see how far she can take it. She’s fully on board with continuing her lies and trying to fool her mom and the school to get away with staying out of school for a year. This is all in lines with regular Canon Lila and shows that they are still the same person, it’s just the events and situation and narrative that differentiate them. It’s in how the Scarlet Lady story handles Lila and her character.

For the sake of convenience, I'm going to be using Scarlet Lady to refer to the comic itself and Scar to refer to Chloe's hero identity specifically.

Let’s review and compare Lila in Scarlet Lady to canon:

1. Lila in Scarlet Lady is NOT a plot device.

She doesn’t need to be. It’s clear that the plot is and has been moving forward on its own without her. Even if Lila were to have been removed from Scarlet Lady altogether, it’s pretty evident from everything else that’s been happening that we would still be getting to some plots and story points without too much difference or delay.

Scarlet Lady has a natural progression. The story and characters aren’t so rooted in the status quo that sudden additional character like Lila or Felix are necessary to throw in just to move things along. And Lila isn’t simply forgotten about when she’s not needed to do so. She doesn’t vanish without an explanation only to return also without explanation just to be able to force the plot to move.

Events within a story can be dependent on the characters, but the plot itself should not be dependent on what feels like a third party to show up and force things to happen when they should already be happening. That speaks of bad writing.

Canon Lila existed for the purpose of getting the Grimoire into Marinette’s hands so she could be the one to take it to Fu and learn about the Guardian and Miraculous secrets, as well as to be a future helper to Hawk Moth. Up until that point, the plot had done nothing with Fu and had done nothing to move things forward in learning about the Miraculous or why Hawk Moth would want the specific two. And after Volpina, the episodes that feature Lila are the ones that display more plot progression or involve Hawk Moth having layers to his plans. Lila only appears when she’s to be used to further a plot, then disappears until needed again.

In Scarlet Lady, by the time Lila appears, it’s already clear to Adrien, Plagg, and Fu that Scar is a horrible person and that she had no business being a hero. It’s also clear that Adrien is handling the hero work on his own and needs help. This is part of what causes Adrien to know that Lila is a liar and call her out on his own because in addition to Lila stealing his book, he already knows Scar well enough to know Lila’s story of Scar saving her would never happen. Lila isn’t the reason they find this out, nor is she the reason that the book is discovered and gets to the Guardian because Plagg chooses for himself to take Adrien to Fu. And afterwards, Lila’s appearances are more natural. Plot progression happens with and without her. Her appearances involve her interacting with her classmates like a person. They don’t have to have a plot-relevant purpose.

Narratively, there are three reasons to put in a scene.

Plot

Expansion/information/character focus

Entertainment

In canon, all of Lila's scenes are plot-focused and plot-driving.

In Scarlet Lady, they vary. Some are plot (like Lila's anti-Scar attitude getting more focus and validity over time). But more of Lila's scenes are focus in on her character and entertainment. This builds Lila as a person and makes her enjoyable to watch.

Lila is not a plot device as the plot doesn’t NEED her to progress. But that’s not to say that Lila doesn’t matter…

2. Lila has a role that nobody else in the story could cover.

As I’ve stated before, Canon Lila is pretty much another Chloe and there was nothing she was used for that Chloe couldn’t have or wouldn’t have been able to do. As a rival/foil to Marinette, as another love interest for Adrien, and even as a helper to Hawk Moth—by the time Lila started any of these roles, Chloe was already there and fully capable of filling them.

In Scarlet Lady, due to Scar being the hero Lila is butting heads with and being outted earlier on, SL Lila ends up not filling those same “roles”. She’s not a rival to Scar or Marinette, just a hater/critic of the former and a friend to the latter. She was called out by Adrien so she is shown to have no further interest in trying to pursue him. And as of yet, there has been nothing of Lila helping Hawk Moth.

Instead, Lila’s scenes show her engaging with the other classmates. More of the results of her being revealed as a liar. Her being a queen of sass and snark. And most importantly, her going head to head with Chloe and Scarlet Lady in verbal lashings that prove her silver tongue is no duller for people knowing of it.

In fact, she’s a part of people starting to realize that Scar is in fact horrible and her popularity starts to break down.

Yes, yes, we do have both Adrien and Marinette who realize how horrible Scarlet Lady is and hate her, but other than some snarky comments at her expense, they don’t do much about it. Mostly because they can’t. Especially early on, it’s clear that they’re forced to keep Scar around because as useless as she is otherwise, she is the only one who can purify the akuma and undo the damage. And as Fu has told them, Scar is still too popular with the city that trying to take the earrings from her would result in more problems. The two of them have to focus on dealing with the akumas more than trying to deal with Scar. Plus let’s be real: even as snarky as they both can get, they’re just too nice.

Others are also similarly of no help. Alya is still completely wrapped in Scar’s facade of a hero to see how selfish and unheroic she is. Most of the other classmates also go along with this narrative. But even the ones who DO know like Alix and Nino aren’t that active. They know but they don’t do anything with that knowledge.

Lila has no such barriers. She’s not a hero. She doesn’t know how “necessary” Scar is in akuma battles. And she doesn’t have to worry about not upsetting Scar since the “hero” already hates her. And thanks to Marinette and the other classmates with their “we still care about you for you” bit, she now has no reason to put up a mask…or a filter.

This makes Lila in prime position to try to push more against Scarlet Lady’s popularity and talk at length about how horrible she actually is. Something she is MORE than happy to do.

Lila is essentially the first main civilian hater of Scarlet Lady.

And with that in mind…

3. Lila’s actions are reasonable. Perhaps not intelligent, but they are reasonable.

She commits a number of the same acts as canon in Volpina. Stealing Adrien’s book, buying a necklace to be a fake Miraculous, trying to claim herself as the hero’s best friend for attention, and trying to claim she is a hero herself to get Adrien’s attention.

SL Lila is not a master manipulator or an up and coming villain. We are not expected to view her as a real threat to anything except Chloe’s ego.

Sure, she wants to speedrun the popularity and attention and maybe a nice rich blond boytoy to be her arm candy, but it’s clear in the very first comic she appears in that Lila has NO IDEA what sort of people she’s interacting with or telling lies about, and so has no way to prepare for what happens. First in that Adrien is so DONE with everything that he calls her out himself from the get go. Second in that Scarlet Lady appears to “save” Adrien from Lila’s lies when it was no longer necessary, proclaims aloud to the multitude of bystanders that Lila is a fraud, and then dumps her in a fountain for good measure and further insults her to boot. And at the end of it all, Scar doesn’t apologize for her actions, doubles down, and only further insults Lila. And as if all of that wasn’t bad enough, still being wet AND being on top of the Eiffel Tower results in her getting sick.

As such, Lila’s hatred of the Ladybug Hero in this version of events feels more understandable and based on a legitimate grievance. Several even. Scar’s actions go well beyond canon’s version. We clearly see how hurt and humiliated Lila is. Plus we have all of Scar’s previous antics to look back on and…well, we already came into this with more reason to hate Scarlet Lady than Lila, and Lila simply jumped on the bandwagon that was already there.

It also makes more sense then that Lila never even pretends to forgive Scar. Scar never apologized. She caused emotional and physical harm to Lila. And unlike Ladybug, Scar never tried to make an offer of friendship so Lila isn’t losing out on any opportunities out of spite. Heck, Scar’s treatment of Alya shows us that there is nothing to be gained from even pretending to be a fan of Scar. So Lila’s hatred of Scar is understandable and her refusal to be friends with Scar makes perfect sense.

When she hides away at her home, there’s a valid reason behind it due to her being sick. Her “plan” to fool her mom and the school in order to avoid going back also makes sense given the fallout she knows she would have to face if she did. (At least more sense than it made in canon for her to disappear for months just because Ladybug outted her to one guy who clearly seemed to be on her side more and neither of them did anything to inform anyone else of the truth.)

And when she returns to the school and the classmates, it isn’t out of nowhere. Once she was no longer sick, she was planning to continue some ruse. We clearly see how despondent Lila was over her situation and the feeling that she’s on her own and no one would side with her over Scar. This was deep. It shows real fears and feelings on Lila’s part. And it’s telling that it was the assurance from Marinette and support from her classmates that convinced her to rejoin the class. It doesn’t look like she would have had the willingness or perhaps the courage to do so if Marinette hadn’t reassured Lila that they had her back and had taken steps to try and help her, even when she wasn’t there and as of yet had done nothing to warrant it.

Here we see a Lila who is vulnerable and real. Who is clearly impacted by events on a deeper and more personal and meaningful level—or at least better than “GRR! Superhero revealed I was lying about her to a boy I like! I shall join the terrorist attacking the city and potentially destroy the WORLD for revenge!”

In this way, Lila is portrayed more like a normal girl. Since the narrative isn’t trying to play her off like she’s supposed to be some master manipulator the way canon does, Lila for all intents and purposes IS a normal teenage girl. A normal teenage girl who was humiliated and injured by someone with more power and social status than she can fight back against. She’s less of an archetype and more of a person with her own thoughts and feelings and ultimately choices which—even if we don’t like or agree with, we can at least see and understand.

Her actions are reasonable. Not just in that we as the audience can empathize with them but that they make sense. For Lila’s character, for her personality, and for someone in her position.

4. No plot armor.

SL Lila’s plans don’t just seamlessly work out. If anything, they go very wrong very quickly. Even before Scar calls her out, Adrien already made it clear that he knows she’s a liar. This effectively ruins her plan to try and get his interest and not just in the “Adrien being nice but not in to her” way. Furthermore, as she’s revealed as a liar in front of the entire class, we clearly see some of her classmates (Alya) continue to take issue with her later on. And even the ones who don’t have such issues are at least fully aware of Lila’s personality and don’t allow her to fool or manipulate them.

Sure, she still tries to manipulate her mom and the school to avoid having to go back, but that doesn’t last that long. And in Lila’s defense at that period of time, she was legitimately sick as a result of her dip in the fountain.

So it’s pretty clear that Lila lacks the plot armor that she had in canon. But it’s not just that Lila experiences losses, it’s also in the ways she succeeds. And unlike Canon Lila, SL Lila is not reliant on the plot to accomplish anything or make things work in her favor.

Some classmates still consider her friends. She’s still welcomed back—even with a bit more trepidation than before. She gets some epic zingers on Chloe and Scar. She got to have another interview with Alya just to be able to go on at length about how horrible Scar is. She manages to get on live TV just to heckle Scar. And over time, more and more people are seeing the problems with Scar.

Lila still gets some victories. Certainly not as many and not as big as what she gets in canon, but at least they don’t feel so forced. And they’re entertaining to see.

Which delves a bit more into an additional point I wanted to make…

5. There are consequences and responses to Lila and her lies.

With Canon Lila, everyone is in this weird sort of limbo where they automatically believe Lila JUST ENOUGH to not question her but at the same time NOT ENOUGH to actually follow through with some of her lies. In Chameleon, Lila claims to have and then magically be cured of Tinnitus and Bustier believes her just enough to rearrange the seats for her at her will but not enough to require some doctor’s note or confirmation of either the presence or recovery from the medical issue—even in the event the former could be overlooked, the latter could NOT and any school or teacher worth their salt would require SOME proof to discontinue an accommodation for someone with a disability because that would be a liability. In Ladybug, Lila claimed Marinette pushed her down stairs and the adults believed her just enough to admonish Marinette but not enough to get Lila actual medical attention, which is a liability and gross negligence. In Ono-chan, Nino believes Lila’s lies about needing Adrien to help tutor her just enough to give her an opening to go to his place but not enough to follow through, check up on her afterwards, or reasonably consider that maybe the supermodel with the super strict father might not be the best person to tutor her and he should ask for help from Max or Sabrina instead?

Each and every time, Lila is believed in the exact way she wants to the exact extent that would most benefit her with minimal effort on her part when it shouldn’t work that way. Even if we disregard how stupidly obvious many of her lies are, there is something wrong when they believe her enough to trust what she says over anyone else telling them otherwise but not enough to follow through on what that belief should then involve. They believe her when she says someone pushed her down the stairs but not enough to get her medical attention? Make sure she has no broken bones or internal bleeding? This has the issue of ruining the suspension of disbelief and making it look like the problem isn’t Lila being amazingly smart and evil so much as it is everyone around Lila being infuriatingly stupid and negligent.

Scarlet Lady nixes that problem in one episode by having Lila be revealed as a liar immediately, but furthermore follows up on it and the fallout of those lies. Nothing big or major or life-ruining—it’s middle school, after all. But the impact is still there.

Even episodes later, we see effects of Lila’s earlier lies. Chloe of course keeps referencing them in their encounters and yeah, it is reason for no one to really take Lila’s word against Scar’s—at least at first. Alya and Adrien both give her some pretty evil looking stares, showing that even five episodes later they both still very much remember what she did and do not approve of her getting free jewelry. Alya in particular stands out. She is shown to bear such a grudge against Lila for lying on her blog that she holds no sympathy for her being sick. And in the second intermission, she looks physically pained when she has to ask Lila for an interview on why she hates Scar. Something she had apparently sworn she would never do again after being fooled the first time. And something Lila looks completely overjoyed to do. There are people who are angry with Lila. They have every reason and every right to be. But it doesn’t have to mean the end of the world for her. It just means that there needs to be something.

The classmates don’t have to be made out to be stupid to make Lila work. They are canonically very kind and forgiving people. But canon makes them come off that way more because the lack of continuity seems to erase the lessons of previous episodes or somehow make them forget that certain people are horrible.

Zoe fixes this and a lot of problems in canon by having not just the classmates but EVERYONE in Paris remember and respond to things that have happened previously, even if just in little ways. Given how little room Zoe has to work with, this is HUGE. Simply adding comments here and there puts the scenes from canon in a new light and makes the classmates feel more fleshed out and like…dare I say it: PEOPLE.

The difference from Canon has a lot to do with how everyone else reacts to Lila, which makes these other characters and Lila appear more real and like fleshed out people rather than caricatures who only exist and move as the plot requires. They don’t have to bash Lila or try to light her on fire for it to be clear that Lila isn’t a good person and that there are consequences to her actions.

This is all leading up to the real possibility of…

6. Character arc?

It says something that contrary to most expectations, Lila is not what one would consider to be redeemed in Scarlet Lady. Lila is not a good person here just because she rejoins the class and becomes their friend and Zoe at no point tries to pretend that she is.

Marinette and other classmates made the choice to reach out and try to befriend Lila, but unlike most other arcs in other stories, this doesn’t result in Lila being redeemed. And she in no way got Lila to admit she was wrong and try to be a good person.

Lila is not necessarily forgiven or absolved of what she did. Nor is anything Lila did magically erased. All Marinette did and all she had to do was encourage Lila to not run away now that the truth was out. She helped convince her to return to the class with everyone fully knowing what she’s done and the type of person that she is and move forward with that. She informs Lila that despite her lies, there are people in the class who genuinely care about her and are worried about her.

Hell, it’s not even all up to Marinette. We see Alix sending messages to Lila encouraging her to join the class for Marinette’s birthday party. Sabrina fully admitted to inviting Lila to that party. Same with Rose, who has also been expressed to be worried about Lila. There are members of the class who are shown to care about her and who were noted to have made an effort to help Lila even after what had happened. Because they consider her a friend despite what she did, and that’s what friends do. All they asked was that Lila stop with the lies, stop with running away, and give people a chance.

And the result is the more mellow but passive aggressive Lila Rossi we see in Scarlet Lady. Not a Lila who is a good person or who is redeemed. This is a Lila who is at least honest with everyone about the sort of person that she is. She’s not pretending like she was in canon. She’s not being fake. She’s not putting on a mask of niceness anymore. This is a Lila who is fully acknowledged by everyone to have been a liar, to still be very selfish, and in some ways...a bad influence.

With a few episodes left, perhaps there is more we’ll see of Lila’s development and who she’ll become. Maybe we’ll get to see her take the steps to become better. To be a good friend, a good person, and maybe even a better hero than Scar. I don’t know for sure just yet what Zoe has planned for a character like Lila, but I do know what I see here:

A good start.

#ml analysis #scarlet lady #scarlet lady is better than canon #lila rossi #lila salt #for zoe #merry christmas

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katerina-marie · 7 months ago

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Don't Go Slowly, Tell Me If You're Lonely (Series)

Chapter 1

Gojo Satoru x Reader & (past) Geto Suguru x Reader

Your relationship with Geto Suguru came to an end somewhere between the day of his betrayal and the day of his death. Your relationship with Gojo Satoru began somewhere in the midst of it all, even without you realizing.

WC: 6.2k

Content: Canon Divergence, Gojo x Female Reader (referred to as such but left descriptively vague), (past) Geto Suguru x Female Reader, Geto's canonical death, friends to lovers, angst, eventual happy ending, fluff later, reader is a sorcerer (left vague tho sorry), SFW (may change in later chapters idk), no use of y/n. More notes below.

Chapter Count: Chp 1, Chp 2, Chp 3, Chp 4, Chp 5, Chp 6 (Final)

Notes:

Product of an angsty Suguru Tik Tok. I have roughly five or so more chapters thought out for this, but that is subject to change as none of it is written yet. Canon events are loosely followed from Hidden Inventory and JJK0, but future events (Shibuya/Kenjaku) will not happen.

I've taken liberties with JJK canon/timeline for this fic. While not explicitly mentioned in the story, reader, Gojo, and Geto are all 20/21 with Nanami and Haibara being a year younger when the hidden inventory arc starts. There would only be 5ish years between HI and JJK0, and then another year or two between JJK0 and present day JJK where Megumi, Yuji, and Nobara are at the school (their ages stay the same and I’m sorry cause I know that wouldn’t fit with the changed timeline, but they will most likely only ever be mentioned through conversation in this story).

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Chapter 1: Don't Go Slowly, Tell Me If You're Lonely (For the Sake of Understanding)

September

“Suguru?”

The dial tone was constant and unyielding, just as it was with the previous four phone calls.

Unanswered. Ignored. Avoided. Did it happen gradually, the pulling away of a boy who sat nestled in every major part of yourself? You could recall your last conversation, only a few days prior, and it was stilted in a way they hadn’t ever been before.

“Suguru?”

His reply was delayed, as if the distance that separated the two of you actually affected how quickly your words reached him. There were currently hundreds, maybe thousands of miles in between each of your current locations on Earth—missions and curses…they never gave consideration to lovers or their quarrels—and for the first time, the distance felt detrimental and significant.

“Hm, yes?”

“I said, ‘I love you,’ and hopefully I’ll be home in three or four days. We’ll spend that evening together, yeah?”

In the silence, all you could think was ‘he’s slipping, he’s slipping, he’s sl — ,’

“Sure, I’ll see you then.”

Had his voice always been so tired and hollow? Had he always felt so distant and uninterested in the words coming out of your mouth? You were used to his rapt attention and soft affirmations in your conversations, always letting you know that he was focused on you. So when, in the last year, had Suguru become a shell of himself? You should have known, and your conscious would tell you that your level of intimacy (‘girlfriend’ felt like such a lackluster term for what you were to him, but your relationship hadn’t progressed further yet to earn you any other title) demanded you be aware of the moment things began to crack and crumble. All you knew was this: that there was the murder of a girl with a purpose that had been determined years prior—whose fate had changed under his watch—along with the brief but insurmountable amount of time that Suguru believed his best friend was also dead.

Gojo Satoru. A close friend he was to you, once maybe out of obligation to your partner in the beginning, but there had been enough time to have built a friendship of your own over the years. Surely, now that you took a second to consider the situation, he would know what to do.

“Satoru,” you mumbled, “I should call, Satoru.”

And yet, the dial tone remained unrelenting. The A/C unit of your hotel room hummed under the bottom edge of smoke-beige curtains, and the muffled slam of a door down the hall caused you to jump from your seat on the edge of the bed. The phone remained tightly clasped in your hand and it pushed just hard enough against your ear that pain began to erupt from where the post of an earring dug into your skin.

“Suguru?”

——————————————

Your phone rang an hour after leaving the hotel room to begin your journey home. It was in the middle of a foreign airport, your clothes were sticking to your skin after the rushed shuffling through security, and Shoko had just told you that Geto Suguru was currently wanted for the murder of 112 people and his subsequent defection from jujutsu society.

“Is he…does anyone know where he is?” The question slipped out quietly as you dropped into a black leather seat and dragged your suitcase in front of you so you could lean your elbows on it. You took a quick glance up at a screen and tried to decide if “Gate 7” was truly flashing in the top right corner or if it were the building tears in your eyes that were starting to blur the number into a different shape entirely.

“No, he hasn’t been located, and he’s not responding to our phone calls either. Not even Gojo’s. Have you—,”

“No.” You let out a wet laugh and the man in the seat next to you cast a long sideways look in your direction before getting up and moving a couple seats away. Did you look so distraught that the idea of possibly spending hours on a plane next to you was so unappealing? Another stare from a woman in the seat across from you and the tear-drop shaped spots appearing on your pants convinced you that you were better off not knowing.

“I’m so sorry,” Shoko began, and for the first time, her voice brought none of the comfort and healing it usually did. “We debated telling you and waiting until you touched down back home, but Gojo figured you’d…”

Shoko trailed off without any other indication of what considerations for your feelings were taken into account during their discussion, and all that you could respond with was a shake of your head and a hushed “no, no.” You couldn’t decide if you were grateful to know immediately of what had transpired instead of being surprised with the news upon arrival home, or if you were appalled at their thought that sitting trapped in a plane with hours to despair at the unbelievability of it all was the better suited alternative.

A flurry of sudden motion and shuffling around you jolted you back into awareness, and you realized with a sudden panic that your plane was beginning to board. Your only connection to what was going on was about to be severed. You stood with the others and began the slow march to line up at the terminal.

“Shoko, I’m about to board my plane but please—,” A sob cut you off, and you knew that you were further from finishing that sentence than you were from the one person you yearned to be beside at that moment. A heavy ache settled in your stomach at the thought. Suddenly, there was a realization that some great reconciliation was to be made in regard to who Suguru was to you before this point and what he would be now and going forth. In no possible scenario did you see yourself emerging totally unscathed.

Shoko was silent for a moment before offering some reassurance you didn’t really hear and then muttered a quick goodbye. Between that minute and the next, you had boarded the plane, stowed away your suitcase, found a seat next to the window, and picked a spot in the sky to stare at lest the environment around you remind you of how trapped you were.

“Suguru?”

——————————————

“Suguru!”

Screaming your boyfriend’s name from across a crowded street wasn’t what you had envisioned when you thought of your return home, even after the news had broken. But time hadn’t let you attempt to catch up before it decided that the person you treasured most in the world was to continue unraveling on a schedule you had no hope of following.

You had barely taken your first steps out of the airport onto paved sidewalks when your phone rang again. The ringtone could only play its first few chimes before you had it up to your ear with a breathless reply already on its way out.

“I found him.”

Shoko sounded neither relieved nor any more worried than she had when the two of you had spoken hours earlier, but you didn’t have a chance to question her further before she set your whole being on edge.

“Suguru confirmed the reports, and I’ve called Satoru already.”

For a split second, dread filled your limbs and you stumbled in your step that took you from a standstill to a sprint. Why did the thought of Satoru confronting your boyfriend offer anything other than utter relief?

“Where are you? Shoko, please tell me where you are, and I’ll be right there!”

‘Right there’ had you struggling against the hold Shoko had on your shoulders as you watched from a distance as Suguru and Satoru stood opposite each other. People weaved in and around the two, unaware of the danger, the devastation, of the complete dismantling that was occurring just beside them.

“Suguru! Suguru, Suguru, Suguru!” Your screaming seemed to have no effect on him, and you would have lied and told yourself that he just couldn’t hear you, but the disdainful stares of the oblivious people all around kept you from denial.

Suguru remained placid as he stood and took the brunt of both yours and Satoru's desperate calls to bring him back. He looked so much like the boy you had fallen in love with, but then again not at all the same. His hair was different. Half of it laid unbound against his neck, though the piece that framed the left side of his face still hid the corner of his eye. You stared at him, and you weren’t sure if you were trying to commit every inch of him to your memory or simply beseeching him to spare just a glance in your direction. Had his cheeks always been so gaunt? Did the delicate skin under his eyes always bruise purple like they were now? What else had been missed in the last year that could be counted and added to this moment?

Before you could damn yourself further for missing the signs of Suguru’s slow deterioration, the raising of Satoru’s arm had your whole existence narrowing until it was just the two of them in frame. The sound of your heartbeat thudding in your ears faded. The warm feeling of panic that had started in your chest, radiated down your arms, and made your fingers feel numb blended in with the shuddering of Shoko’s chest against your back. All the background noise—the clack of dress shoes on concrete, the whir of car engines flying by that also shuttered the view in front of you, to the incessant wailing of your boyfriend’s name—suddenly ceased as two of Gojo Satoru’s fingers began to close in on one another.

“Satoru!”

One day, Gojo Satoru would be brave enough to remember what it felt like to hear you lament his name. He could recall fondly and effortlessly how his name and the one of his best friend could slip so seamlessly, interchangeably, from your lips. But now, when he swore you were moving your mouth though nothing else but his name came out, it would haunt him in his dreams, his memories, and everything in between.

“Satoru!” Urging, demanding, and shrill.

Do it, do it, do it.

“Satoru!” Pleading, shrieking, and broken.

Please, don’t do it. Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.

Satoru’s fingers remained a hairsbreadth apart, and Suguru’s back turned as he walked away with nothing more than an unaffected wave over his shoulder. Shoko still trembled, Satoru’s face crumpled, and your heart and mind had broken into pieces that scattered far beyond your reach.

All the while, there would be a day upcoming when all of this would have to be condensed into something that was capable of being understood.

Today was not that day.

——————————————

December 24, Years Later

Did your footsteps have to echo what your heart was chanting?

Suguru, Suguru, Suguru.

Your walk to the communal lounge of the Jujutsu High-Tokyo campus was different, in some ways, from usual. Familiar stone scraped at the bottom of your shoes. Acrid smoke still hung in the air, and pieces of wood and rock falling to the ground could be heard echoing from where buildings and walls were left in ruin. The fading orange of a winter sunset was dipping below the remaining trees, leaving behind a night that was dark and dreadful and devastated.

Suguru, Suguru, Suguru.

And then you were here, at the door you had to open and walk through before any number of questions you had could be answered. With a deep inhale, you took your first step forward to pass over the threshold and the room that was full of people, though couldn’t be considered noisy, went silent.

Principal Yaga stood in a corner to the right with a cell phone at his ear. Nanami sat at a table with his spotted tie loosened around his neck and his suit jacket thrown over the back of his chair in an uncommon show of haggard exhaustion. Behind him, Shoko was washing her hands in a sink where the water swirled with something pink. You jerked your head to the left to avoid having to process the sight further, but what you looked upon instead didn’t spare you any relief.

The underclassmen, Maki, Panda, and Inumaki, hovered around a loveseat where Okkotsu sat slumped with his head in his hands. All four of them were covered in varying degrees of debris, bandages, and scant traces of blood. It made you feel a little better to think that’s all Shoko had been washing off in the sink.

What didn’t help ease the knots in your stomach was the way Okkotsu never raised his head to acknowledge the entrance of your presence—a contradiction to his normal deferential behavior—but also how the rest of the eyes in the room all looked at you with varying degrees of emotion. None were malicious, but unnerving nonetheless.

Pity, unsureness, sorrow, regret, and condolence—,

Your sharp inhale was enough to make a person or two flinch, but no one else moved and you were left to contemplate whether fleeing to solitary misery would hurt less than receiving answers about what had happened tonight.

Before you could decide what to do, the door to the back of the lounge slid open and Satoru stepped inside. His bandages around his eyes were off, and he was looking at you in a way he never had until now. How you were supposed to interpret that look and what it could even mean…well, you didn’t have the slightest clue, and that would be the final blow to your being.

You had already lurched back to reach for the door when Satoru called your name, and you were slow to turn around to face him. When you did, he used his head to nod to the garden through the door of the lounge in a bid to get you to follow him before exiting the room the same way he came. You took a deep breath and gave a helpless search around the room before following after him into the night. Someone had the grace to close the door behind you.

The two of you walked a few steps into the garden, and while it did nothing to ease the turmoil you were feeling, the vastness of the night sky and coolness of the air was preferable to the atmosphere in the lounge you were just in. When you and Satoru finally came to a halt, you weren’t close enough to touch, but if you tried, your fingertips would just miss the fabric of his uniform. You waited for him to speak, swallowing once, twice, a third time to try and clear the tension out of your throat. Your hands began to tremble, and a stinging burn rushed up through your nose to prick at the corners of your eyes.

With only a whisper of clothing as a warning, Satoru’s hand reached out to cup the back of your neck and draw you into his shoulder, his arms capable of closing the distance between you without requiring him to step nearer. His other hand settled between your shoulder blades while yours loosely gripped the fabric at his ribcage. The embrace only lasted another second before he was pulling away with a gentle squeeze around your arms and letting his own drop to his sides.

“You’re aware of what led up to all this tonight, correct?” Satoru asked, gesturing vaguely to the campus surrounding you both. There was no preamble from him and you watched as his eyes flicked between yours.

“Yes,” you nodded, “I was there in the city with everyone, Satoru. I saw you leave, and once everything finished I stayed after to check on everyone from Kyoto before coming back here.” You let your eyes wander around over Satoru’s shoulder, and you could just faintly make out a persisting plume of smoke in the distance.

“He was here,” you continued, no more asking him a question than you were stating what you already knew, “and this was him?” Even though it was meek, your voice didn’t crack.

Satoru hummed out an affirmation, not needing to clarify what you said in order for him to know that you were referring to the damaged state of the school as a result of Suguru’s presence.

“Alright,” you started, firm and as prepared as you could make yourself in this moment, “where is he?”

Satoru carried on without acknowledging the question you asked. “Some of the damage is from him fighting Maki, Panda, and Inumaki, but most of it is from his fight with Okkostu and Rika after the others became too injured. I arrived just at the end.”

It was here that you started to feel like you were listening to his words from somewhere outside your body. There was an outcome that you were waiting to learn of, and you knew you either needed to ask a question or make some kind of noise or movement to prompt him to go forward. But really, your head felt like it was full of static and you couldn’t begin to piece the words together to make them sound even remotely coherent.

The end, the end, the end, the e–,

“The end?” You asked on an exhale, stunned when you saw Satoru’s chin quiver just once. You realized then that you hadn’t ever really taken the time to study the world’s strongest sorcerer. Did the blue of his eyes always reflect even the dimmest of light, or was there something else that caused them to swim as they did now? He stood rigid, but then again Satoru always held himself up to his full height, unbothered by the weight that sat on his shoulders and unencumbered by the threat of a physical blow. Maybe now that you could notice, as you saw how his head hung slightly and weariness lowered his stature, it was apparent that the time Satoru spent constantly guarding his person never allowed for the same courtesy to his mind. You wondered if the vulnerability of it, of how he sacrificed himself to the heavy weight of emotional torment, was what eventually managed to dim the spirit of the person in front of you right now.

“Suguru’s dead. ”

One day, you’d look back and wonder if you already knew what was going to come out of Satoru’s mouth. The news had the ground beneath your feet tilting in different directions in a way that threatened the contents of your stomach, and it did expel the air from your lungs in a pained-sounding moan. But it didn’t send the electrical current of shock through your body that you were waiting for. You’d suspect that you were aware of it from the moment you set foot on campus, that the tension in the air and the stiffness of everyone in the lounge had been direct indicators that the worst had occurred. Perhaps you knew, but needed Satoru to deliver that blow in order for it to land.

You struggled to find a way to think past the roaring in your ears, so you tangled your fingers together in order to dig your nails into the skin on the backs of your hands. When the pain didn’t register and the blood welling up underneath them didn’t scare you into looking away, you fixed your gaze up on Satoru’s eyes in a desperate attempt to pull yourself out from inside yourself. They were wide in concerned alarm from whatever he saw on your face.

“God, so…,” you heaved a breath and closed your eyes to try and focus on getting your thoughts into something more than garbled syllables, “so that’s why Okkotsu looks the way he does…in there? He, uhm, he ki—,”

“No.” Satoru pulled his bottom lip under his teeth and rolled his head back to look up at the sky before returning back to you. Did he feel the same trepidation that snaked under your skin and knocked at your chest? Did your eyes reflect back to him the pleading that was going on in your head? To who, though? Certainly, the time for bargaining was long past. “No, Okkotsu didn’t kill Suguru. He wounded him…badly. But Suguru was able to retreat in the haze of the smoke and I…he…”

He what? Suguru? Okkotsu? If allowed, the endless possibilities of “what if” would steal whatever peace remained from you, and if closure wasn’t something granted to you, you would respond in kind.

“What, Satoru? He what? You have to be clearer. You have to tell me, for the sake of my own understanding.”

The sliding of the lounge door caught your attention and interrupted whatever Satoru was going to say next. You glanced over, watching as Nanami stepped out from around the door, shut it, and leaned back against it with his arms crossed over his chest. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught Satoru giving him the faintest nod and you wondered if he had asked him to come out here. The reason wasn’t quite clear to you yet, but you stared at him, trying to figure out what part the blonde-haired sorcerer was about to play in all of this.

Ever present Nanami, stoic as he was strong, but soft spoken and never cruel for cruelty’s sake. Always maintained rigid self control and composure, even in the face of his best friend’s death. He was steady and stable, easily beat against but never yielded, made to never move under such intense pressure.

The thought had you turning back to Satoru, perplexed about what Nanami’s presence might be implying. What was about to come out of Gojo Satoru’s mouth that made him think he wouldn’t be enough for you? Or—in an even worse consideration—that he was about to become too much for you.

“I found Suguru after his fight with Okkotsu in some obscure corner of campus,” Satoru whispered, and you dared not move or breathe as you waited for his next words. “I found him…and I killed him.”

You had to hold a hand up to your chest, right between your breasts and over your heart as it began to rise and fall with the rapidness of your breaths, if only to ensure that it kept beating as every second ticked past the next. You felt your mouth drop open, felt your throat vibrate with some wounded noise, and watched as Satoru held out his hand to you, immense regret tightening his features, along with glistening tears clinging to the tips of his eyelashes. What hurt more though was the memory of Satoru’s arm reaching out like it did now, some years ago on the day Suguru left, his fingers trembling as they inched towards each other in his best friend's direction. You wondered—painfully, regrettably—if that’s what Suguru saw too right before it all went dark, and the sight of it was enough to send you staggering backwards. Someone caught you with large hands curling around the tops of your shoulders and—,

Oh, that’s what Nanami was for.

Taking advantage of your friend behind you, you wilted backwards against Nanami’s chest and sobbed, neither of you unnerved by the ugly gasping of it. The hand that wasn’t still clutched against your body in the hopes of keeping yourself sealed shut shot up to grasp at Nanami’s forearm in an effort to abate the buckling of your knees. Because in front of you, the honored one stood a few feet away from you with eyes made empty and full of loss, and you struggled to reconcile which one of you were owed more the space to fall apart. Perhaps it was you both, as grief in situations like this happened to be a great equalizer, and you considered, as your friend stared at you with pained hopelessness, that maybe—certainly—Satoru was entitled to his own moment of sorrow in front of you. The thought lent sturdiness to your stance and you pushed forward off Nanami and used the momentum to propel yourself into Satoru. You worried briefly that maybe the two of you wouldn’t make contact, that he wouldn’t allow you into the space of him, but your arms landed around his neck, your chest met his, and his hands pushed you past any remaining distance.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice shaking and hands hovering infinitesimally over your hips before they settled against you. All you could do was shake your head against his shoulder. There was no question about how equally wounded Satoru was. Where you now mourned the forever plans that once existed in the bright eyes and easy laugh of a man since gone, Satoru had the honor of shouldering the burden of knowing he was the one who snuffed those plans out, though the fault could be no more placed on him than it could you. Did he wonder as he waited for you, whether you would blame him for the duty in which he owed the world protection from people like Suguru? Where he would always be the one to know what it was like to take away the life of his best friend, did he worry about how you would look at him once you knew? Did you confirm his fear when you fell away from him? For a time, did Satoru bemoan the physical loss of Suguru and wonder if he would have to do the same for you when you couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes anymore? Satoru might have been the one who made you something akin to a widow, but Suguru’s choices and decisions were what put the two of you here, who really held responsibility for the damage inflicted on the two people he had valued most.

You squeezed Satoru a little tighter and then tilted back some so you could peer into his face.

“Don’t be sorry,” you said, shaking your head at him when he opened his mouth to protest, “at least not to me.” A weak smile pulled at your lips as you did your best to reassure him and the spasming of his grip at your waist. You didn’t have the energy to explain to him the depths of emotion that swirled around in your head. How you didn’t blame him, but regretted the situation Suguru thrust the two of you in. How you would never leave him to carry this alone, but that you would need time before looking at him didn’t make your heart throb with painful memory and imagination. Or how the two of you would be forever connected by the loss of someone so important to each of you in vastly different ways, but that you wanted nothing more than to flee from his presence now.

So you moved away from him, trailing a hand down his arm because you could and because you didn’t know what else to do for him. You kept stepping back, already turning to retreat back the way you came and ready to seek solace in the privacy of your room. To do what, you weren’t sure. To cry, you guessed. To distract yourself enough that you didn’t replay every single second of the last few years over and over in your head so you could pick every word and touch between you and Suguru apart. Whether that was for the sake of your own memory or to try and figure out that which couldn’t be solved was unbeknownst to you. In the depths of your grief, maybe you would wonder what the last moments were like for Suguru. Did he think of you? Consider what he had done to you and to Satoru? What were the last words to come out his mouth? Were they for you or for—,

You whirled around from your spot halfway back to the lounge door and caught sight of Nanami placing a heavy hand on Satoru’s shoulder.

“Did Suguru say anything to you?” Your voice carried out clearly on the emptiness of the night, but Satoru didn’t turn in your direction, nor did he hardly move. “Did he…did he have anything for you to tell me?”

Satoru was still until he eventually twisted his head towards you just enough so he could look at you from the corner of his eye. They were guarded, maybe the slightest bit afraid, and you held your breath in anticipation.

“No.”

You deflated and were unsure how to feel about his answer. You had hoped, thought, that maybe having Suguru’s last words for you would bring about some relief for the burning heartache that had started at some point in the last hour—the last couple of years—but you had also been hesitant to receive one more thing to occupy the scant emotional bandwidth you had left for everything that Suguru was. It would be one more thing to keep you up at night. On the other hand, the fact that your lover had left the world with nought an expressed thought or word for your condition left a blistering bitterness to swell within you. Insignificant were you not, but maybe to Suguru, in his last moments on Earth, you were to him. And that thought was enough to tip you into the realm of excess, surefly filled and overflowing with enough contemplating and pondering and general overthinking to last the rest of your life.

So you turned away from Satoru and Nanami and walked back through an empty lounge and out the door from which you came earlier in the evening. The night was still dark and devastated but relatively silent, the noise of utter ruin having mostly ceased. But your shoes still scuffed against stone and tiny pebbles skittered away from under feet, skipping and tumbling with every step you took.

Suguru, Suguru, Suguru.

——————————————

“You were lying.”

Nanami’s tone was no more judgemental than it was inquisitive, but nothing about him seemed to press Satoru for answers that he wasn’t yet ready to give—or understood himself. He did lie. He wouldn’t deny that. But under no circumstances was he prepared to tell you what his best friend, your other half, had told him in the minutes before his death. They replayed tortuously in his head as he tried to make sense of it all. Satoru would have to speak them to you one day, and the fear of doing so brought the same panicked apprehension he had felt as he watched you try and hold yourself together as he had told you about Suguru’s death. As he waited for you, he had imagined every which way your face could have pinched and drawn up in enraged despair as you threw yourself against him to beat as his chest, to wail in his arms as you cursed his existence before finally retreating in a similar fashion as how you did just moments ago, but perhaps with less acceptance and a goodbye that would prove final in its anger. You hadn’t reacted that way, of course. You had fallen against him in sorrow and with a barely concealed need for comfort as much as you were ready to give it to him, and he had been filled with desperate relief at the feeling of you and how you hadn’t shied away from him. But maybe that was to come later one day, after Satoru spent time considering what was said and implied by Suguru’s words, and felt brave enough to share them with you. Surely then you wouldn’t have the same patience for him as you did tonight.

“I was.” That was all he said back to Nanami, refusing to elaborate on the specifics of something he owed to you and couldn’t yet come to terms with himself. Thankfully, Nanami simply nodded and glanced in the direction of your departure.

“I’ll check on her in the morning,” he offered, betraying no emotion or thought to the idea, but Satoru had a feeling it had something to do with how you had done the same for Nanami when, a few years ago, death had come for Jujutsu High and taken Haibara with it. Neither man said anything else as they departed, Nanami heading your direction towards staff lodging and Satoru leaving to walk aimlessly along crumbling corridors. His head spun, and he remembered.

Satoru had heard Suguru before he came upon him, dragging his shoulder against stone walls and mumbling nonsense to himself until it came to an abrupt halt as he spotted Satoru a ways in front of him. It was painful to take in the sight of his best friend, covered in blood and viciously mangled, but looking so achingly familiar. But the ensuing conversation, a mindless back and forth of words that meant much and nothing at all proved that the person in front of him wasn’t the same as he remembered.

“Tell me, do you have any last words?” Satoru had asked, a simple opportunity given to the man sitting in front of him, yet he cursed the universe for his lot in life, the unfairness of it all bittering the taste of his mouth and landing heavy in his chest as Suguru spoke back to him.

“She's yours now, it would seem.”

Satoru couldn’t ever say he had been rendered speechless before, but he choked on his own spit as he recoiled from Suguru’s words. He grit his teeth as he felt his face scrunch in anguished rage.

“God, Suguru! You can’t just—that’s not something you—!” What came out in a fit of bewilderment was followed by more jumbled sputtering before Satoru could mind his tongue again. “You don’t just say that! You can’t pass ownership of her like an object. Not like this, not ever!”

Suguru just chuckled, out of breath and clearly fading, and leaned his head back against the wall. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

“It does!” Satoru shouted, panic and desperation lacing his tone,“She doesn’t want me! She would want you to come back, to make amends and live your entire life trying to repair what you broke. You don’t get to decide our future for us!”

“Consider it a dying wish,” Suguru said calmly, and Satoru wondered if anything else someone could ever say would hurt as badly as that (a picture of you flashed unbidden in his mind).

“She would rather have you—I would rather have you!”

“You haven’t exactly said ‘no’, Satoru.”

His words pinned him in place and Satoru was stunned into silence. His friend’s dying delusions were no better for his psyche than considering what Suguru implied would mean for him. Satoru had never let himself think so far, to entertain a thought about his best friend’s girlfriend in any other way except strictly platonic. Sure, no one could ignore your beauty, and a couple times Satoru had silently envied what Suguru had and he did not—intimate companionship, physical comfort and pleasure, and the eagerness for a future with someone, all that could be had with a friend but on levels not belonging to such a term. However longed for, it was never with you strictly imagined, just a simple yearning for something of his own.

“No,” Satoru managed, “not like this. Not without her consent, and certainly not in place of you being alive.”

Suguru made a motion similar to a shrug, or what one would look like if half of his shoulder wasn’t missing. “If you insist.”

“Do you not have anything to say to her? To leave her with?” Satoru beseeched on your behalf, hoping Suguru would tell him anything else to pass on to you other than his attempt to give you to him. Satoru would get his last words with Suguru, and it was all the same too much and not enough. He wondered if you would feel the same.

“What’s there to say?” Suguru said, his voice light, as if the discussion was more about the weather or something else equally mundane. “‘I’m sorry’ seems pointless without action behind it, and there will be none. ‘I love you’ is nothing she hasn’t heard before, and I would call into question the truthfulness of those words in light of my actions if I were her.” It was then that Satoru finally spotted a hint of regret and sorrow on Suguru’s face, but it disappeared only a moment later. “She would not want me as I am now, and there is no going back. The damage resulting from my choices is something the two of you will wrestle with, both individually and together, I suppose. Hence, why I said what I did.”

Satoru would laugh at the absurdity of it all if it didn’t pain him so badly. Instead, he walked towards Suguru and dropped into a crouch to get eye-level with his friend. His head lolled toward him.

“Damn you for that, Suguru,” he said, “but you’ll always be my best friend.”

Shock fluttered over Suguru’s face before amusement wrinkled his eyes and a tired laugh shook his body. His eyes slid shut and as Satoru stood and willed his arm to move, he desperately wished he could be anywhere else.

-----------------------------------

I hope I didn't ramble too much and that this made sense! The next chapters shouldn't be as thought/monologue heavy. I can't promise an update timeline, but I will do my best to not take too long. I am writing in the breaks between chasing my toddler around, so patience is appreciated:)

Cross-posted on ao3 as well.

Thanks!

#gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #geto suguru #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo x you #gojo x reader #geto x you #geto x reader

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barracuda-shark-games · 8 days ago

Text

Progress Update 11/19/24

Hey everyone, apologies for my absence lately. (Posts have been coming from my queue.) I've had a lot going on*, personal details under the cut.

Writing has been difficult due to these circumstances, so I think the best thing I can do to move forward is just write what comes to me first or what comes from prompts. Coding is the biggest obstacle without my ADHD meds, so I might be restricted to writing snippets and scenes for now.

For example, I've been able to write the first meeting with the knight because it's something I really wanted to put down. But that doesn't happen until the end of chapter 1, so I haven't written most of what leads up to that meeting yet.

I was going to hold off on creating a patreon until I finished chapter 1, but I'm strongly considering starting it now so I can share these snippets somewhere and have that external motivation to continue. (Ngl, money has been really tight especially with medical bills piling up, so this would help in a lot of ways.) I might put out some polls to see what kind of content readers would be interested in.

Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. I apologize for the delay, and appreciate everyone's patience and understanding. <3

-Janus

*I have a super painful ear infection that hasn't gone away after over a week of antibiotics, found out one of my parents might have cancer and it will be a while before we can confirm because appointment wait times are ridiculous, and one of my siblings is a teacher and has a student who wants to kill them (and has other behavior issues) and the school district isn't being much help. On top of that, my ADHD meds have been out of stock for over a week with no news of when they'll be back in stock, so it's been rough, to say the least.

#progress report

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aquaquadrant · 8 months ago

Note

I was wondering if you had an estimated date of when you will post the next HTP chapter?

Like, leaving us on such a cliffhanger must be a crime! It cant be legal!

Anyways, while I wait for it, Ive decided to copy paste every chapter into a doc and mark it up color code style for all my over analyzing needs. It took me an hour but it was worth it.

Have a good week and take care :)

(This is meant to be genuine, not mean or passive aggressive, just so you know. While I indeed am anxiously awaiting Chapter 10 by highlighting the chapters on a doc like that one photo of a bible page that’s highlighted with different colors. This isn’t meant to be mean or pressuring, take your time and take care of yourself)

⬆️(Ah poo, Im an over thinker

hey there, no worries y’all- i love seeing my reader’s enthusiasm and it’s reassuring to see continued interest in the series. i’d been hoping to have BOTH of the final ‘from eden’ chapters done before summer. but i have to admit, progress on the next chapter hasn’t been as forthcoming as i’d expected, for a couple reasons.

the first is health-related. not to be too TMI, but i recently got diagnosed with crohn’s disease. my symptoms started ages ago but have really ramped up in the last couple months, and the diagnosis was a lengthy and involved process (started the hunt back in november, presumptively diagnosed after a colonoscopy in feb, definitively diagnosed when biopsies came back over spring break) and even when i was simply waiting for results, it occupied a lot of my mental capacity. and ofc it happened to line up with me turning 26 and needing new insurance, which has caused lots of delays. anyone dealing with the american health care system while chronically ill will tell you it’s a frustrating, exhausting process. as of right now, i’m still waiting to start treatment 🫠

but honestly, even more than that, the biggest thing stopping me from writing is… me? 😂 so there’s this thing that happens after i post a chapter that’s like… decision paralysis? except it’s just that sometimes, i literally can’t bring myself to start the next chapter. it’s like, i have this unfounded fear that all my writing up until this point has been some magical fluke out of my control, and i’m not capable of ‘pulling it off’ again. i guess you could call it a form of imposter syndrome (which i already encounter enough in my vet school life). it gets worse after posting something that was a particularly massive undertaking or was insanely well-received bc i’m scared i won’t be able to top it- even though the impact of storytelling is supposed to be cohesive, and it’s unrealistic for every chapter to be ‘bigger and better’ (what does that even mean?) than the last one because they serve different purposes at different points in the story. i know this, rationally, but that doesn’t stop the irrational fear of failure from making me avoid writing.

i’m not sharing this to make excuses or garner sympathy, or fish for compliments, and certainly not to make anyone feel guilty for asking about updates. i just feel like maybe this will resonate with anyone who has the same experience. and also to share hope, because despite how often this feeling rears its ugly head, i’ve still been able to push through and get back to writing- and i’m always very happy with the result. sometimes it just takes longer than i’d like (pro tip: writing on ur phone is less intimidating, tho it’s more of a pain). but in any case, the next chapter of ‘from eden’ is well underway and i still hope to have the series done before summer’s end^^

#hels to pay au #HTP ask #wow that’s WAY more rambling abt my personal life than i typically do #but NEVER FEAR i wouldn’t leave y’all on that cliffhanger forEVER i’m not THAT cruel <3

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cs-blank-au-official · 20 days ago

Text

So hi guys

I've been inactive lately despite me saying that im going out of hiatus, but as it turns out i'm gonna need more time thanks to school 💥

Funny story, Back in the early stages of this au, Player x Blank was supposed to be fluff and soft. i ended up finding that boring in 2024 and was about to scrap Player x Blank entirely because I couldn't pick a good trope for them that really stuck to me.

Until RECENTLY.

I have a knack for basing my au on irl relationship dynamics i have with people, and this new dynamic between Player and Blank is definitely going to be spicy

@rositasnowie has been seeing the whole situation unfold, and she'll KNOW what i mean (ROSITA, VOUCH FOR MEEE)

In other words, Expect something new between Player and Blank unlike how i've been interpreting them in the past ^^

oh and the whole cs2019 is gonna get a huge change in character and theme after s4. because the current plot was a little underwhelming for me.

---

And to the curious ones who decided to look more into this, hallow :3

Let's just say, there's gonna be allot of individualism, cooperation issues, a shit ton of miscommunication, and a ton of allies you'd never expect to ever be possible

I'm pretty sure you'd expect some of these changes, but i assure you that i have more up my sleeve than what i tell people ^^

I have a knack of straying away from predictable tropes and scenarios, and having direct copies of other franchises themes and other aspects as compared to what i've seen from other written works, not that it's a bad thing but i just prefer my au to be unique in a way that makes it canonically connected and realistic (with a few tweaks here and there)

i've been very discreet about it lately as i've noticed how people have been taking a lil too much inspiration from my work :') i'm happy that people are moved by what i make ^^ but i hope you understand that i don't wanna end up like Hazbin Hotel with a whole season being leaked 😭

---

Overall, my au has been super delayed in writing progress thanks to stress 👍

But that ain't gon stop me bitchess

There were moments in my life that could've made this au unachievable, but while i'm still breathing and my heart is still beating, i ain't giving up on this passion of mine.

This au had been my drive in life when i felt lost. and now with something to hold onto, when i feel lost, i can just retrace my steps back here ^^

I've met so many wonderful people in this community throughout my time around. their words kept encouraging me to continue. This post isn't just to announce that Blank x Player is gonna have something new, this is also a very big appreciation post.

I've vented my struggles and hardships to the people i know in this community. (IYKYK) and they've seen me grow from what i've told them. I've been inactive but that doesn't mean i'm out just yet.

I just wanted to say, thank you for being what kept me moving forward. if it weren't for this and everything that came along with, i wouldn't have made it far enough without getting lost.

Thank you, Dearest CS Community.

#carmen sandiego #carmen sandiego netflix #carmen sandiego 2019 #10leon13 #cs-blank-au #carmen sandeigo 2019 #cs community #csrmen sandiego #little did you know #player x blank #blank x player #thank you #appreciation post

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ktownshizzle · 22 days ago

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k's WIP update - 11.05

Hi! So I wanted to start this WIP list as a way to keep track of my progress, to update you guys, and to also do polls about the current stories in the works.

Apparently, I’ve got 6 stories in the drafts!! Lawd help me. Also, Please make sure to answer the poll below! xo

Existing Stories

Terms & Conditions

Chapter 6Status: 10% Vibes: Most likely a continuation of the sex spell the two is under so smut is there, maybe a double date somewhere there, maybe meeting more members, maybe more jealous yoongi Blockers: Still on the fence about scootergate which is delaying the story progress in my brain. Also, smut is not my forte, so I take a fair bit longer doling out chapters with smut.

2. Wild & Free

Youth drabbleStatus: 30% Vibes: Lil angsty, ngl. But there’s also fluff. It’s the origin story of the couple's friendship, meeting at the piano school, etc. This explores their several missed connections along the way before MC ended up working with Yoongi in BigHit. Notes: Most likely will be a 1000-notes milestone for W&F, so it’ll still be a while since we’re only at 800 ish for now.

New Stories

Gratuitous Tiktok-inspired Story

Status: 20% Genre: Fluff, Smut, Attempt at Comedy. Work rivals!au (non-idol au) - I’m writing another office/workplace romance - pretend to be shocked! Vibes: Busan! Yoongi / Manbun Yoongi is your work nemesis–one you’ve always wanted to fuck if he wasn’t so goddamn cocky. You see him in a club.. Blah blah… Drinks, dancing, and doing the nasty in a dingy club bathroom. Notes: I am thirsting over Busan!Yoongi as if this is the first damn time I’m seeing him. Don’t be surprised if this gets posted first because man, I’m so drunk on this dude.

2. Fic request: Love & Lullabies

Status: 30% Genre: Fluff, Smut (tbc), Angst. Idol!au. Reader Nanny x Single dad Yoongi Vibes: It’s 2025 and BTS is prepping for their comeback. Summary: What begins as a simple favor for your best friend Namjoon soon pulls you into the rhythms of Yoongi’s life—afternoons spent caring for his son, late nights filled with candid conversations, and a connection neither of you expected. You’re just fresh from a long-term relationship with an ex who didn’t want a family with you, so did you really just stumble into a life you’ve always dreamed of? (Thank god Namjoon isn’t the only one who’s clumsy.) Notes: This is a request that I really vibed with. I even have the mood board done. Teehee

Teaser is out

3. Fic request: Let Me Love You drabble

Status: 20% Genre: Angsty, Neighbors!au, Reader Singer x Producer Yoongi (non-idol au) Vibes: A lil different from my other fics, reader is in an abusive relationship

4. Fic request: Untitled Grumpy x Sunshine Fic

Status: 10% Genre: Fluff, smut, idiots to lovers kinda, non-idol au Vibes: College, I believe. Friend group getaway with the maknaes, you, and Yoongi. Chaos ensues, obviously. You and Yoongi has always had that unspoken tension since you became friends, but you’re both idiots. This friend vacation becomes your tipping point.

#k yaps #wip

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sadquickchristmassnowman · 11 months ago

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Hiiii I have a community question I wanted to ask!!

Abed mentions all sorts of movies and tv shows through out Community, but I just wanted to know if maybe you have like a list of which ones are real and which ones he seemed to like more than others.

I can only think of the dark knight because of the dvd Annie broke, and the Star Wars movies (except he apparently hates the prequels) and cougar town!

great question! sorry for the delay on a response.

so, he mentions/references an insane number of movies and tv shows throughout the series, and I unfortunately do not have a list of every single one. although, I am (VERY slowly) working on an in-depth episode-by-episode analysis of the entire series, and listing every pop culture reference is a subsection in that. but that's not helpful right now. moving on

I don't have the picture, but there's this questionnaire abed filled out (outside of the show, it must have been uploaded to a website as promotional material for the show). he says his favorite movie is a tie between:

ghostbusters (1984, comedy/horror)

an american werewolf in london (1981, horror)

back to the future (1985, sci-fi/comedy)

blade runner (1982, sci-fi/action)

stand by me (1986, adventure/comedy)

stripes (1981, comedy/war)

star wars (1977, sci-fi/fantasy, also called "a new hope")

star wars: the empire strikes back (1980, sci-fi/fantasy)

star wars: the return of the jedi (1983, sci-fi/fantasy)

ferris bueller's day off (1986, comedy/drama)

jaws (1975, thriller/adventure)

raising arizona (1987, comedy/crime)

jurassic park (1993, adventure/sci-fi)

seven (1995, crime/mystery)

the matrix (1999, action/sci-fi)

the goonies (1985, adventure/comedy)

the breakfast club (1985, comedy/romance)

real genius (1985, comedy/sci-fi)

better off dead (1985, comedy/romance)

the fog of war (2003, documentary/war)

pulp fiction (1994, crime/thriller)

(btw if anyone knows what I’m talking about and has the screenshot please rb with it! I cannot for the life of me find it lmao)

I believe this is a list he apparently made in 2009, either in the first few weeks of school or right before the school year started. so it's possible he would answer differently as the series progressed. also, I do take some of these extra-canon things with a grain of salt, as on the same form he said his favorite place on campus was study room D or something, when obviously they definitely meant to write study room F. so, the credibility of my source for this information isn't exactly rock-solid. although, he does mention a lot of these movies on screen, and expresses love for many of them (the most notable ones probably being star wars episodes IV-VI, the breakfast club, and pulp fiction)

as you can see from the list, abed particularly loves american movies from the 80's. just a trend I thought I’d point out.

here's a few others he mentions loving, or just pretty notably references:

the dark night (2008, action/crime, as you mentioned)

rudolph the red-nosed reindeer (1964, musical/animated, is the whole basis of 2x11 abed's uncontrollable christmas)

the shawshank redemption (1994, horror/crime, is the basis for his plot with troy, annie, and shirley in 4x05 cooperative escapism in familial relations)

freaky friday (I believe it's the original one from 1976 specifically, but it's been remade a bunch. comedy/fantasy. it's the basis of abed and troy's story in 4x11 basic human anatomy)

rambo/first blood (series starting in 1982, action/thriller. abed talks about how messy the progressive series titles are in 3x14 pillows and blankets)

ocean's eleven (2001, crime/thriller, the basis for the heist scene from 3x21 the first chang dynasty)

hearts of darkness (1991, documentary/war, abed mentions it while pointedly filming dean pelton's production of his greendale commercial rather than helping with the commercial itself. similarly, hearts of darkness filmed the making of apocalypse now)

apocalypse now (1979, war/action, see the above explanation)

die hard (series starting in 1988, action/thriller, abed mentions wanting to do a die hard homage for christmas multiple times throughout season 4)

good will hunting (1997, thriller/romance, troy and abed's story in 1x24 english as a second language is filled with references to this movie. abed is doing homages on purpose, troy is not)

my dinner with andre (1981, comedy/drama, abed does a very elaborate homage at jeff's accidental expense in 2x19 critical film studies)

indiana jones (raiders of the lost ark, temple of doom, and the last cruscade only. he mentions loving the first three indiana jones movies in 1x04 social psychology)

aliens (1986, action/adventure/sci-fi, he and troy dress up as an alien and ripley in 2x06 epidemiology) (side note, I believe they're specifically referencing aliens, which is a sequel to alien. could be wrong though)

blade (1998, horror/action, they watch it over the course of 3x15 origins of vampire mythology after troy and abed assert multiple times that it is an amazing movie)

I think he generally talks about movies more than he talks about tv shows, but he does mention quite a few of them. some notable mentions are:

friends (1994, sitcom, mentions at least twice)

m*a*s*h (1972, sitcom, mentions in passing in 1x05 advanced criminal law, and references throughout 1x13 investigative journalism)

the cape (2011, action, mentions throughout 4x13 advanced introduction to finality)

who's the boss (1984, sitcom, is the premise of his whole storyline in 2x20 competitive wine tasting)

LOST (2004, sci-fi, mentions at least twice)

obviously there are a LOT more, but I just tried to list some of the most important ones, plot-wise and for understanding of his character. hopefully I’ll be able to get back to everyone with a super long list of every tv show and movie he ever mentions lmao, but that'll take a while. (there are lists online that say they list every movie and tv show abed has ever mentioned, but ngl I don't 100% trust those, so I’ll make my own lmao. but I put the link to one of them if you're curious. here's another one too)

at this point anyone who has seen community knows there are some really really big ones that I haven’t mentioned yet. pieces of media that are INTEGRAL to abed as a character. I was saving them for last lmfao. they are:

kickpuncher

inspector spacetime

cougar town

if I had to pick a holy trinity of media for abed, it would be these three things. these are EASILY the things he talks about the most, which is interesting, as both the kickpuncher movie franchise and the inspector spacetime series are completely fictional, and only exist in the community universe. (this is probably so they can show abed actually watching some of the shows/movies he talks about, without the obvious copyright issues that come with playing clips from an already existing movie/tv show on your screen. they kind of do that with blade in 3x15, but they only play vague fighting sounds, and never show their tv on our screen. anyway. not relevant.) to answer one of your questions from the ask, I believe those two are the ONLY fictional pieces of media abed talks about. as far as I know, everything else he mentions is real, including cougar town.

kickpuncher is obviously reminiscent of sci-fi/action films from the 80's, like robocop. like I said earlier, taking their place so that they could have a more substantial role in abed's on-screen life without any copywrite worries. it's a whole franchise, so there are multiple movies: kickpuncher, kickpuncher 2: codename: punchkicker, kickpuncher 3: the final kickening, kickpuncher: detroit, kickpuncher: miami (?), and kicksplasher (?). kicksplasher is apparently shown as a poster on abed's wall, and I’m assuming it's from the same franchise, although that could be wrong. the point is there's a very elaborate universe for kickpuncher, and it's a big part of abed's, and later troy's, film taste. the first time they mention it is in 1x15 romantic expressionism, when abed, troy, shirley, pierce, and chang all get together in abed's dorm room to make fun of stupid movies together. it's funny that it was introduced as a stupid movie to watch ironically, then troy and abed both end up genuinely loving it lmao. classic

inspector spacetime is obviously reminiscent of doctor who. they're both british sci-fi series that have been running for decades. doctor who uses a police box to travel the multiverse, while doctor who uses a telephone box. doctor who has malicious daleks who chant "exterminate," while inspector spacetime has blorgons who shout "eradicate." the concepts of the shows are obviously the same, with the actor for the doctor changing every season, etc etc. they're essentially the same exact show, but, like I said before, changed slightly so they can world-build without getting copywrited. there is something a little bit silly about this, though. it's definitely a continuity error and it's up to everyone whether they want to accept it as canon or not, I guess, but there's an episode where abed is actually wearing a doctor who t-shirt. (it also references bill and ted, but the doctor who part is what's relevant.) here's some pictures:

awesome shirt tbh, but it is a little bit funny that is essentially makes it true that doctor who and inspector spacetime both exist in the community universe. and, these pictures are from the cold open of 4x11 basic human anatomy, which is way after inspector spacetime is introduced to the show (3x01 biology 101). so, is inspector spacetime just a rip-off of doctor who? is abed a fan of both shows? if he is, clearly he likes inspector spacetime better. anyway. I would guess that this wasn't intentional. but that is definitely a tardis on that shirt. maybe it's just a classic season 4 continuity mistake. oh well. I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles. anyway.

cougar town time! yes, it's a real show. I didn't think it was but it is. what's not real is cougarton abbey, the short-lived british remake that britta gets abed into in 3x01 biology 101. but yeah. it has 6 seasons and is streaming on hulu, if you're interested. I’ve heard it's not good but who knows for sure. something cool about cougar town is that abed is actually in an episode. let me be clear: not danny pudi. ABED. it's similar to the story abed tells about being invited to the cougar town set and shitting his pants while having an existential crisis about the layers of reality. here is a youtube clip of the scene. I found out about it while stalking danny pudi's wikipedia page months ago, you know, a typical sunday afternoon activity, and I saw a cougar town credit on there. I didn't even know it was a real show at that point so you can imagine my surprise lmao. anyway. idk if you knew that already but it's one of my favorite community easter eggs. so funny.

okay! I hope this is enough information to suit your needs, and I am once again opening the floor to anyone who wants to add anything 💯 this was fun, thanks for the ask, and stay fresh everyone ✌️

#classic sadquickchristmassnowman blunder of writing an entire goddamn essay to answer a simple fucking question #also just to be clear george lucas went back and fucked with the original star wars trilogy #so unless you really put some work in to find the original versions of the original trilogy #you won’t be watching the versions that abed loves the most #sorry my indoctrinated me into his elitist star wars opinions #but I’m keeping it in the tags as to not clutter up the information with more of my senseless yapping #anyway #community #nbc community #community nbc #abed nadir #media analysis #community encyclopedia

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