#oh my god i have got it so. fucking. bad.

[sonotpattismith]

while i'm here writing songs for you

pairing: musician!choso x childhood friend!reader word count: 10.6k content: childhood friends to lovers, everyone knows they're in love except them, jealousy, mentions of virginity loss, dying on the grunge choso hill, lil angst, fluff, smut, 18+ inspired by: bless the telephone by labi siffre

“Hah! Your old man’s gonna kill me.” 

Through shut eyes, a freshly eighteen-year-old Choso bit back an amused grin as best he could as to avoid disrupting his uncle’s work against his face. 

“Nah, he caught Yuji at a casino this week, so I’m the golden boy for the foreseeable future while he’s grounded.” The boy muttered with a small smirk. He did feel for his little brother, often sneaking into his room with his console to entertain him for at least a short while in the midst of his prison sentence. Still, he had to admit that his timing was impeccable— giving the older sibling the perfect cushion to fall back to when Jin sees what his son had done to celebrate his birthday. 

“Shit, yeah, I almost forgot.” Sukuna mumbled with a tickled shake of his head as he gripped at his nephew’s forehead in concentration. “Let the brat know I’ve still got his money whenever my boring ass brother lets him off house arrest.” 

“Choso!” 

The boy was eternally grateful that his uncle wasn’t as jumpy as he was, the man tightening his grip around his head in preparation for his jolt of surprise at the sudden shout. 

“Ohhh, I’d be more scared of your girl than your dad, punk.” 

You had burst through the doors of the tattoo parlor like a bat out of hell, your breath heaving slightly with the expended effort of hauling ass all the way over here from the restaurant you worked part time at. After receiving a cryptic picture from your best friend of him sat in his uncle’s tattoo chair with that deceivingly sheepish smile on his face, you could barely concentrate on taking orders correctly the remainder of your shift. Huffing out a sigh, you spotted those familiar, black combat boots hanging off the end of one of the leather seats. 

Choso didn’t bother to correct Sukuna’s labeling of you as his girl, as it was proven a wasted effort after years of telling him that wasn’t the case. It also didn’t hurt that the title made his stomach flip excitedly each time he heard it. 

“Oh my god.” You gaped once you finally reached the chair he was laid at. Half of the deep burgundy, nearly black mark that was being tattooed across his nose was already finished, and you could already picture the crash out Jin Itadori would have when he laid his eyes on his eldest son. 

Cracking one eye open, the birthday boy took in the sight of you, cheeks still red and puffing from the run you took to get to him. Underneath that first layer of shock though, he could see the barely disguised wonder in your eyes as you assessed the situation at hand. Sukuna paused his ministrations to give his nephew a break, and so that you could see the progress. 

“What the fuck! Your dad is gonna kill you.” You laughed incredulously, stepping closer to get a better look. Choso was just glad that his face was already tinged red from the irritation of the needle so you wouldn’t notice how he flushed insecurely under your gaze. 

It was his main reasoning behind the oddly placed tattoo, actually. Since he was little he could remember his face growing noticeably hot over the tiniest of compliments, looks, or touches. Maybe it was far-fetched, but he hoped the imposing mark across his nose and cheeks would draw the attention away from that little quirk of his. It also didn’t hurt that the stencil looked cool as fuck. 

“Not if you’re with me, he won’t.” Choso suggested with a sly, hopeful smile on his face, and you quickly shook your head at him. His face fell into that pout he had mastered to use specifically on you. “C’mon, he’ll take it easy on me if you’re there, please!”

“It was bad enough having to be your human shield when you got your nose pierced, Cho— no way.” 

“I’ll let you check my back for blackheads.” 

It fell silent for a moment as you contemplated his offer.

“You two are fuckin’ freaks.” Sukuna scoffed in disgust beside you before dragging his nephew’s chin back to face forward to continue working. You winced watching the needle begin to pierce at his already irritated skin, and you found yourself instinctively slipping your hand into his to squeeze it. 

“Does it hurt?” You grimaced, leaning a bit closer to watch. 

Choso almost said no, because, truthfully, he had gotten used to the pain about half an hour ago, but he took note of the way you clutched at his hand to comfort him. His lips twitched nervously at the feeling as he closed his eyes once again. 

“Uh— yeah, kind of.” He mumbled, taking the opportunity to lace his fingers through yours under the guise of having something to squeeze onto when he was in pain. His uncle watched the interaction with a deadpan expression, knowing full well that the kid hadn’t so much as flinched once since he’d sat down. Shaking his head with a quiet tut, he barely tried to conceal his amused smirk. 

“What about you, birthday girl, huh? You getting some celebratory ink too?” Sukuna questioned, wiping at the side of Choso’s nose that he’d just filled in. You cringed as you watched the tiniest amount of blood trickle at the bridge of his nose. 

“Don’t know, I think Cho took all the balls in this friendship.” You admitted with a defeated smile.

“Don’t be such a wimp.” Your best friend teased with a careful smile as he stretched his lower half against the stiff chair. The black sweater he was wearing rode up a bit, practically commanding the attention of your wandering eyes. There was a barely noticeable trail of dark hair leading down into the band of his joggers, and your lips parted as you tried to recall when the fuck that had happened.

The last couple of months in your friendship with Choso had been… getting a little difficult. You two had been practically joined at the hip since you were six years old and yelled at a group of first graders for not singing happy birthday to him as well after having overheard his dad wishing him a happy birthday that morning during drop off. For a while, the two of you would tell people at school that you were twins even though it was so clearly not the case, but six-year-old you and Cho were sure that you had everyone convinced. 

He had always been a bit of an introvert, so you had been the greatest birthday gift he could have ever hoped for. So, the awkward boy stuck to your side from that day on. Wherever one was, the other was never too far behind, and this would now be the twelfth birthday you two would be spending together. 

Choso had certainly been… changing though from that lanky little boy who would sniffle and cry each time you two parted for the day (as if you didn’t attend the same school). He had grown taller, his voice had dropped a few octaves, and these days you were finding yourself worrying about the timeline of your best friend’s happy trail. For a while you blamed it on the raging hormones that came along with puberty, but you were eighteen now and weren’t sure how much longer that excuse would hold up in your denial-filled brain. 

This was just one more way he was changing, you convinced yourself as you anxiously waited for him to unlock the front door of his house, his nose and cheeks still glistening with the antibiotic ointment Sukuna had slathered onto his fresh tattoo. He would have never had the courage to do something so bold even just a couple years ago. You had to admit though, the odd choice of tattoo did suit him, emphasizing those tired, chocolate eyes of his so nicely. 

It was silent in the Itadori house as you two crept in, scanning the area apprehensively with each step you took. You clutched at the back of his shirt, tugging him to lean down as you whispered into his black-studded ear. 

“I don’t think anyone’s—”

“Happy birthday you—” Poor, sweet Jin Itadori’s shout of celebration got stuck right in the back of his throat as his eyes fell upon his eldest son, a lit up birthday cake still clutched in his hands. He blinked a few times as though there was possibly just something in his eyes, but the wide-eyed expression of anxiety on the boy’s face gave him away. “What in god’s name did you do to your face? Was this your uncle? Did he tell you this was a good idea because I—”

“It was my idea.” Choso corrected, not-so-subtly attempting to nudge you forward as if you would soften the blow of his father’s wrath, who’s honey eyes fell frantically upon you. 

“Did you know about this? Please tell me you two are punking me or something.”

“She didn’t know.” He quickly defended despite the fact that it would have been a lot easier to share the blame. Rubbing at the back of his neck, he attempted a light-hearted smile. “C’mon, don’t I look—”

“You look like you’re about to be stuck working in that tattoo shop with your uncle the rest of your life because no one is going to hire you with that thing!” The man had begun pacing the length of the kitchen with the cake still in tow, shaking his head in disbelief before stopping to gape at his son in horror once again. “You couldn’t have at least waited until after prom? Graduation? All your photos— ruined! Oh god, I think I’m going to pass out—”

“Calm down, it’s not that big a deal— not like I did anything illegal, y’know like sneaking into a casino while underaged.” Choso attempted to distract him with a sheepish smile, stepping forward to take the cake out of his hands lest he really pass out. With his now free hands, Jin was tearing at the roots of his hair as he continued his frantic pacing, mumbling about not reminding him of Yuji’s recent run in with the law. “Besides, I’m not going to prom anyway.”

Now it was your turn to gape at the freshly-tattooed birthday boy. 

“You’re not?” You questioned, desperately trying not to sound as dejected as you felt. Though you two had never talked about it, you had just assumed that you’d be going to prom together given all the other important milestone events that you had completed hand in hand. Hell, you had even been putting off an offer from a fellow classmate of yours with the impression that Choso would be asking you to be his date— platonically, of course.

“You’re not?” Jin echoed in horror, finally looking up from where his face had been shoved into his hands. The man didn’t miss the disheartened expression that flashed across your face despite your best efforts to conceal it. “Why not? You’re only a high-schooler once, Choso, don’t be silly.”

Perhaps his nervous convincing was a bit overkill, but damn it how he was tired of watching his clearly love-sick son grow older and older without growing any wits about him on what was going on right under his nose. After hosting years worth of playdates for you two as mere children, to encouraging his son to be a little gentler with you as you began going through those awkward years that plagued every pre-teen girl, all the way to having to watch with barely concealed frustration at the way you two fell into one another’s ebb and flow so gracefully without any semblance of self-awareness— Jin was sure that he was more excited than the actual seniors for prom to come around, eager to force you two into the most obvious of couple’s poses for photos before sending you off for the night. 

“Why would I go to prom? You know I hate that kind of stuff.” He explained obviously before turning to see the settling shock lingering on your face. It made him blink a few times, brows furrowing in confusion. “I-I mean, are you going?”

“Um…” You stammered over your words, trying to suppress the flush of embarrassment that you felt creeping up your neck for having assumed that Choso would ask you to prom. He felt his heart in his throat, breath hitching in slight anticipation, because he was sure he wouldn’t have too terrible of a time if it was you he was going with, but the last thing he wanted to do was make things weird by asking you to be his date. “Y-Yeah, I was planning to go. Geto had asked me a few days ago, so—”

“You’re going with Geto?” It felt like his heart had fallen straight through his ass, and it took every inch of restraint in him to not begin banging his head against the dry-wall in a bitter rage, because why did he not think to ask you first? “I didn’t know you two talked like that.”

Jin wasn’t sure how much more of this he could stand to watch before he wrung his son’s neck out. He cleared his throat in an attempt to subtly get Choso’s attention and hopefully send some sort of telepathic communication to him, but he was far too focused on this Geto character that you had mentioned to get his head out of his own ass. 

“We don’t really, but… he asked me, and I wanted to go.”

My god, does she have to spell it out for him? Did I fail somewhere along the way as a father that my son turned out such an oblivious hard head? Just ask her— ask her!

“Oh. Well… that’s good, I guess.” 

Jin hoped to god that as Choso blew out half the candles on you two’s shared birthday cake that he was wishing for some common sense. 

You two did the best you could to shake off the sudden awkwardness following the conversation about prom. At the very least, you two still had to give each other your gifts, so you figured that would cushion the tension. You followed him up the familiar path to his room where you had had Yuji drop off his gift for you so it’d be here when you two got back, biting down an excited smile. 

“No way.” Choso gaped just seconds after opening the door. Stepping in to get a closer look, he quickly turned on his heels to stare incredulously at you. “No way— this is too much. I-I can’t take this.”

There leaned upon the side of his bed was a sleek black electric guitar— one he’d been keening over since the acoustic guitar his dad had gotten him damn near nine years ago now had mysteriously snapped at the neck. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so mysterious because you did tell Choso that climbing up onto his shoulders to get the spider that had been terrorizing his ceiling wasn’t a good idea, because sure enough as soon as the wretched thing moved an inch, you jolted back, sending both of you tumbling to the ground with only his poor guitar to break the fall. 

“After all the fake flirting I had to do to rack up enough tip money for it? You sure as hell can take it.” 

“Please, I can’t—”

“You can, and you will.” 

His face was burning with the guilt of how much you had spent on him, but the glimmering shine of the fresh guitar in his peripheral was helping to soften the blow a bit. The boy’s fingers were practically twitching with the anticipation of getting his hands on the thing, but he stopped himself. With a shy smile shot your way, he crouched down to pull out a box that had since been hiding under his bed. You smiled eagerly before sinking down to sit criss-crossed straight across from him, your present filling the small gap left between you. 

He laughed affectionately as he watched you struggle to pry the box open, deciding to put you out of your misery after a minute or so and tearing the cardboard apart for you. The first thing that caught your eye was a vinyl record— your favorite album that you had introduced Choso to a few years back. It held a tender spot in both of your hearts for that very reason, and its lead single had consequently been the first song he learned to play on his guitar all those years ago. 

Even all these years later he could still feel the sting in his fingers that had yet to callous protectively against the instrument’s strings as he stayed up until the sun rose that next morning trying to perfect each chord so that he could play it for you when you came over. It was choppy at best, what with all the scrapes on his irritated fingers and the lack of sleep, but the dewey eyed look on your face made him feel like he was Jimi fucking Hendrix, only fueling his motivation to get better— to impress you. So, despite how his fingers began to bleed, he played it for you over and over again until you were satisfied.

The sight of the nostalgic album nearly made you tear up pathetially, but you pulled yourself together to beam up at him with all the light of a thousand suns. He flushed under your gaze, quickly looking down to push the box toward you again with a jut of his chin. 

“There’s still something in there.”

Tearing your eyes from him, you pushed back the flaps of the box to get a better look, finding a far too expensive looking record player sitting at the bottom of the large box that he’d definitely been begging neighbors to let him clean their car or mow their lawn in order to afford. Gasping softly, an incredulous laugh bubbled up your chest as you shifted onto your knees. 

“Cho, this is so cool!” You guffawed, fingers struggling to wrangle the turntable out of the damned box to no avail. Unable to fight back his smile, he moved to brush your hands away and grab it for you, setting it down atop his black comforter. Running your fingers down the glossy box, you looked up at him with raised brows. “You’re gonna come back to my house to help me set it up, right?”

“You putting me to work on my birthday?” He quipped with a smirk as he fell back against the bed, hoisting up his new guitar to rest on his stomach. 

“I’ll give you the day.” You caved in mock resignation as you laid beside him, head shifted to observe the way he fiddled with the tuners. “New face tattoo, new guitar— your rockstar look is really coming together.”

“Yeah?”

“For sure— just missing some guyliner.”

His nimble fingers paused against the strings, lips pursing as he peered over at you. It was dead silent as a slow smile spread across your face— because you could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. It was only a mere five minutes later that you found yourself digging your fingers into his jaw to stop him from flinching away each time the eyeliner pencil drew a little too close to his iris. 

“Sit still, dude.” You grumbled, stepping closer between his spread legs as he sat impatiently in his desk chair. 

Huffing out a sigh, he tried not to squirm at your burning proximity. Your tongue was creeping out the corner of your mouth in concentration, and the hand that had since been on his jaw moved to brush the hair away from his forehead. He could feel the warm puffs of your breath fanning against his face, driving his legs to squirm against the floor, which seemed to be the final straw for your patience. 

Choso thought his heart would leap out of his chest when you planted yourself firmly on his lap, your legs hanging over the side of his chair. His arms quickly fell to his sides as though weighed down by bricks, dangling limply as his fingers flexed  apprehensively. Gulping anxiously, he tried not to focus on the way the fat of your thighs squished against him. 

“Close your eyes, Cho.” You murmured quietly as you began working on his lids. He did so swiftly, eager to not have to worry about where to place his gaze.

“So, um…” The boy cleared his throat, trying desperately to get his mind anywhere else before he created a problem that would be embarrassing for the both of you. “You’re really going to prom with Geto?”

“Mhm.” You hummed simply, chewing on your bottom lip as you smudged the freshly placed liner with the edge of your thumb. Perhaps you should have said more, but you weren’t sure that you trusted your voice if you were to speak right now. 

“Do you… I mean are you—” 

“Look up for me.” 

Cursing himself mentally to just get it the fuck together, he tried again as he did as he was told, warm eyes glancing up at the ceiling. 

“I just didn’t know you liked him is all.” He finally got out as his pulse pounded against the fingers you had pressed against his jaw and neck once again. “You’ve always told me about stuff like that.”

With a tickled smile, you leaned back in his lap to narrow your eyes knowingly at him. Upon noting your silence paired with the way you had stopped your work against his eyes, he finally looked back down, and you had to bite back the delighted gasp from seeing the way the smudged, dark liner paired so beautifully with the rest of him, making his already mysteriously dark eyes that much more sultry. 

“You’re jealous, Choso!” 

“What? N-No, I was just—”

“You are so jealous that I didn’t tell you about Geto.”

“I’m not jealous!”

“You are!”

“Am not!”

He was so jealous, Choso determined as he stared up at his ceiling the dreaded night of prom. His fingers idly strummed at the new guitar that laid across his stomach, trying to get his mind off of the fact that you hadn’t even bothered to send him a picture of your dress. It had always been him that was the first to see your new haircuts, fresh manicures, and imaginative outfits, and it was eating him alive that for the first time in twelve years, another guy was going to get to witness that little spin of display you did each time you wore something you felt particularly pretty in. 

It didn’t help that he’d already gotten an earful from his dad when he got home from school that day about the fact that he still hadn’t righted his wrong and asked you instead. Jin must have gone on for at least an hour about what a shame it was that of all the experiences you two had shared, one as important to you as this one would be hand in hand with someone else. For the first time since the start of your long-winded friendship, he was sharing you with someone, and Choso was quickly realizing that he was selfish— and unashamedly so. 

The event had already been going on for about two hours now, and he was coming to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t hear from you tonight. The familiar notes of that favorite song of yours that he had learned all those years ago filled his ears as he began absentmindedly plucking at the strings under his fingertips. Ever so slowly, the melody began shifting into one he’d never heard before, taking its own shape as it filled his melancholy room with feelings of you, and how much he’d taken it for granted all those times he had you laying beside him as he toyed with the notes, telling him what sounded nice and what he needed to work on.

The notes suddenly screeched awkwardly as his phone began buzzing in his back pocket, yanking him from his pensive sulking with its imposing tune. Blinking a few times, he frantically tossed his hips up to wrangle his phone out from behind him, the head of his guitar smacking him in the face with the sudden movements. 

He shot up out of bed pathetically upon seeing your name lighting up his screen along with a picture he’d taken of the two of you in the mirror a few months ago when you tried to give him red highlights. There was dye nearly everywhere except where it was supposed to be, yet you still beamed up at the mirror despite the red streaks covering your face and arms, gloved hands still tangled into his hair. 

Clearing his throat, he quickly swiped to answer the call before it went to voicemail. 

“Did someone spike the punch or—”

“Choso?” Your voice sounded hushed, but it still wavered ever-so-slightly against the sound of music blaring in the distance. The smile quickly fell from his face. “Do you think you could… come get me?”

“Y-Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. What’s going on?” He was barrelling through his hectic room to find any pair of shoes to shove on, nearly tripping over himself as he hopped toward the front door on one foot. 

“Um… nothing, I just… really wanna go home.” 

There wasn’t even the tiniest part of him that was convinced, but that would just have to be a conversation for later because there was a timid vulnerability and tremor in your sweet voice that he’d never heard before. Snatching his dad’s keys from the hook by the door, he was requesting your location before racing down the street. There was a slight possibility that he had run more than a few red lights on his way to the hotel that was hosting your school’s prom in the banquet hall. The car had barely come to a stop when he was flinging the door open to rush toward the bench you were sitting at out front. 

“What are you doing out here by yourself? Where’s Geto?” 

But your eyes were fluttering around you cautiously, scoping the surrounding area with a shake of your head as your best friend pulled you up by your arm. 

“Please, can we just go? I don’t—”

“Right— yeah, okay, come on.”

It was silent on the ride home save for your hushed request that he take you back to his house for the night instead. Cautionary side long glances were continuously tossed your way throughout the drive, and you could practically feel the concerned curiosity eating alive at him as your body faced the passenger side door. You were eternally grateful for the fact that the other two residents of the Itadori household had already turned in for the night when you two arrived. 

Choso flipped the lights on in his room, carefully inching the door of his room closed so as not to wake anyone up. When he turned, he was finally able to get his first good look at you, and he was absolutely bursting at the seams to know what Geto must have done to fuck up a night with you as his date looking as ethereal as you did standing in the middle of his room. 

You were sighing dejectedly as you tugged open his drawers to fish out something to change into, but Choso was still stuck by the door, eyes taking in each detail of your glittering makeup and intricately lined lips. 

“You…” His words drifted as you turned your back toward him so he’d undo your zipper. “You look beautiful.”

You paused, head slowly turning to look over your shoulder at him with misty eyes. 

“Thanks, Cho.”

Quickly working your zipper down, he turned to face the door as you stepped out of your dress to shrug on a pair of his sweatpants and a crewneck. His leg swayed anxiously while he listened to the gentle rustling of clothes behind him. 

“Did… did something happen?”

Upon hearing the subtle creak of his bed as you sank down onto it, he carefully turned around. The bed dipped by your head where he sat himself, and you felt him absentmindedly begin pulling the myriad of pins from your hair. Flushing red, you covered your face with your hands as you recalled how your night had progressed, not caring how you were smudging your makeup against your hands. 

“He… he just wanted to have sex with me.”

Choso felt his heart crack at your shaky explanation, the guilt he had been experiencing for not having asked you to prom himself returning tenfold. The bobby pin in his grasp bent between his fingers as he thought about how Geto had ruined what was meant to be a special night for you. 

“That guy’s a loser, he’ll probably die a virgin anyway.” He attempted to lighten the mood with a hesitant, breathy laugh, but it died in his throat when you slowly sat up to look at him, your now loose hair falling messily in your face and tears brimming your eyes. His stomach dropped at the mortified expression scrunching up your typically cheerful face, and he gulped down the bile rising in his throat. “Oh.”

A sob racked your body as you moved to curl into a tight ball, your head resting against his tense thighs. His hands hovered over you uncertainly before slowly coming down to brush at the hair invading your face.

“So, you…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it, the words tasting bitter on his tongue.

“I feel like an idiot.” You cried, fisting at his pajama pants. “I stopped him right after he— he put it… in, but—”

“It’s okay.” Choso cut off your embarrassed rambles, pulling you up to wrap you in a tight embrace. He wasn’t sure if he could handle listening to the details. “Did he stop when you asked him to?”

A heavy sigh of relief left him when you nodded against his shoulder. It was silent for a few minutes, your soft cries soaking into the fabric of his tattered, band t-shirt.  

“I’m sorry.” He whispered dejectedly, trying desperately to get the image out of his head of you underneath of Geto with your makeup done up so prettily for someone who didn’t deserve it. He thought about how none of it would have happened had he just grown a pair. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you to prom. I should’ve taken you, none of this would have—”

“It’s not your fault.” You interrupted, finally lifting your head from where it had burrowed into his neck to look up at him, your lip still trembling as your once pristine makeup smeared down your red cheeks. 

As you stared into his dewey, warm eyes, you allowed your thoughts to wander to how your night might have ended had Choso been your date, how you had stopped Geto after the gruelling realization hit you that no hands felt as right against your skin without the gruffness of guitar-string callouses. Your stomach churned nervously, and you laid back down against his lap, unable to face him as the words came tumbling from your lips. 

“I wish it would have been you, Cho.”

Choso’s heart sputtered to an abrupt halt— at least that’s what it felt like as your words sunk in. Slowly, he laid back against his pillow, careful not to jostle you in your spot against his thighs. Staring up at the ceiling, his mouth opened and closed a few times. 

“Y-You mean as a prom date, right?” The question came out apprehensively, because, deep down, you both already knew the answer. You closed your eyes nonetheless, a final tear slipping down your cheek. 

“Yeah, as a prom date.” Your lie came out barely a whisper as he chewed on his bottom lip.

“I wish it would’ve been me too. Y’know, your… prom date.”

It was the first time both of you knew that something had shifted in your relationship, though neither of you were brave enough to mention it the next morning when you woke. 

That fateful night was two years ago now, and you had had ample time to come to the realization that perhaps you should have been more upfront with him, because Choso was now hundreds of miles away at an arts school with only a telephone keeping you two together. 

It had been a difficult conversation with shifting eyes and unnecessarily guilty frowns, but when your best friend had broken the news to you that he’d been accepted into a different university than the one you’d be attending, you couldn’t have been happier that he was pursuing his passion for music. When he dropped the bomb that it was nearly six hours away— that was a tougher pill to swallow.

You two had been doing the best you could though— calling each other every other night and texting in between to make sure to keep up to date on everything university life had to offer you. Still, things would get busy sometimes, what with Choso’s occasional shows that he’d been playing with a local band in his college town, and your downright diabolical class and exam schedule. Things certainly weren’t the same anymore, but you desperately tried to cling onto him.

Additionally, in your absence Choso was reminded of just how much of a clutch you had been for him. He had never been the best at talking to others, relating to the types of casual niceties that seemed to connect people, but he had never had to until now because you had always been just enough for him. Sure, he had warmed up enough to his bandmates, but it was never the same— not when he sat alone in his room at night strumming melodies he only wished he would have played for you earlier when he still had the chance to do something about these things he was feeling.

On your end of the world, it certainly didn’t help that his band had grown a modest following, and it seemed that for the first time, the rest of the world was also beginning to notice Choso. 

Choso, the one boys and girls alike used to veer away from in the halls at school because of his terrifyingly blunt, resting bitch face. 

Choso, the one who spent the majority of highschool with limbs that seemed too long for his body until he grew into his own. 

Choso, the one who, unless you were beside him, often took jokes too literally and ended up embarrassing himself each time he opened his mouth. 

Choso, the one who you had stuck beside throughout each awkward phase and experimental hairstyle until he landed on the shag cut that suited him so nicely. 

Choso, the one who had been receiving the nastiest of thirst comments under each of his band’s social media posts as the rest of the world caught onto what you had known all along.

And, god, how it stung to scroll through each one, but it was like you couldn’t look away, wondering with each username if he was enjoying all the new attention he was getting. You wondered how far he had leaned into this rockstar persona he had been dreaming of his whole life, if he snuck girls backstage and pocketed their bras as evidence of his conquests.

 I mean, the guy had gone damn near his entire life without so much as a second glance from any girl he’d come in contact with— except for you, of course, and you underestimated just how deep his loyalty ran and how much he remembered who it was that had been with him through it all.

So, to hell with every creatively intricate thirst comment under photos that even had you contemplating starting a burner account to appreciate with the masses, none of them mattered despite all the nights you’d spent chewing at your fingernails with thoughts of what he might be up to. Each fan account could burn in hell though—  because it was you he called as soon as he’d received the news that his band would be touring, opening for an indie band that you two had actually been fans of for quite some time. 

“I wanna fly you out.” Choso insisted breathlessly, still winded from the sheer velocity at which he raced for his phone upon hearing the news. It made your heart stutter, because it had been now going on three years since you last saw him, your schedules never having seemed to line up just right. There were a few times when you had contemplated flying out to surprise him at one of his local, bar shows, but with your building mountain of school work, you’d had little to no time to get a job that could afford you the extra change at the end of each month to buy a plane ticket. At your silence, he huffed, and you could practically hear that damned pout from over the phone. “C’mon, our birthday is coming up. We used to spend all our birthdays together.”

Smiling wistfully at the memories of how easy you two once had it, you shook your head. 

“Well that was before you became some heart-throb rock star, Cho.” You teased, fiddling with the hem of your shirt as you wondered if he still blushed so easily at little comments like that, and, if so, what shade his cheeks were at the moment. 

“How am I supposed to be a rock star with no groupies? That’s just lame.” 

“Oh, trust me, I’m sure you have a long list of contenders waiting in line. Have you been checking your instagram comments lately?”

This made him pause, the tiniest of knowing smiles creeping onto his face. 

“No, but it sounds like you have.” 

For once, it was you flushing that burning shade of red that once graced his cheeks so frequently, and you wondered when he’d begun reciprocating your teasing banter instead of just stammering through his responses while trying not to look you in the eyes. Shaking his head with a nearly silent chuckle, he decided to put you out of your misery, clutching his phone tighter against his ears. 

“Let me fly you out, please? I know you’ve gotta break coming up. I wanna see you.” 

So just three months later, though truthfully it felt like a year as you and Choso counted down the days until you would see each other again, you were on a flight courtesy of his now modest earnings from his band. And sure, it was no fancy seat with the luxury accommodations he just knew you deserved, but he felt so proud to know that he was able to do something for you. He had been waiting at the airport nearly two hours before your flight was actually supposed to land, flowers clutched in his clammy hands as he checked the time repeatedly. 

Much to his frustration, your flight kept getting delayed, and, after the third push back, he had to begrudgingly resign himself to the fact that he wouldn’t get to be there when you landed, having to get back for sound check for the show tonight. After sending a long winded explanation text, he insisted that you text him as soon as you land as well as as soon as you got to the hotel and as soon as you made it to the venue, and— well, you got the point. 

With all the sudden delays, you only had time to drop your luggage off at the front desk of the hotel, who assured you they’d get it to your room for you before you had to haul ass to the venue before you missed any second of Choso’s band opening. He had given your name to security, who had your pass waiting for you when you arrived and quickly led you toward a less crowded section reserved for the talents’ guests. 

You were slightly winded from the nonstop moving you had been doing since you woke up this morning, but even with how spent you felt, you weren’t sure anything could have woken you up faster than the sight of your best friend on that stage after three years of not seeing him. Sure, the two of you had been keeping up with pictures and the occasional video call, but none of it did him justice— not with the way the boy you once knew had grown into such a… man.

The once lanky limbs that hung awkwardly at his sides had certainly filled out, emphasized nicely by the gaping muscle shirt he currently had on. His biceps flexed with each rip of his guitar as his grown out hair fell into his chiseled face. To your surprise, he had a mic situated in front of him and was occasionally offering back-up vocals that you were straining with everything in you to pinpoint amongst the rest of the music.

His eyes swept across the designated guest area, and you and your poor, weak heart nearly gave out upon realizing that he had begun lining them just as you did for him all those years ago, smudged out across his lids and adding a spine-tingling depth as they spotted you in the crowd. That earth-shattering smile lit up his face as he took in the sight of you looking up at him, because none of this success and fulfillment of lifelong dreams felt nearly as sweet without you being in the audience for him to impress.

Choso was breath-taking on that stage, commanding it with a confidence you had never seen on him before. It was a blur as the set went on, your shouting out the lyrics to the songs of theirs that you’d kept up with over the year, your already spent body expending the fumes of energy it had left to thrash around to the eardrum-crushing beat.

 You found yourself anxiously checking your phone when his band finished their set and disappeared backstage, not knowing if you were going to have to wait until the end of the show to see him. Thinking back to the phone conversation you two had had months prior, and how you really were starting to feel like his groupie. The thought made you smile in amusement, shoving your phone back into your pocket as the main band came out on stage. 

Your questions were answered just one song in when a pair of nearly steaming, sweat clung arms wrapped around your shoulders and chest from behind, squeezing you into an equally sweaty chest. 

“Ew, Cho, get off! You’re soaked!” You tried to sound disgusted, but your delighted laugh deceived you, because you were sure that he could have been covered head to toe in blood right now and you’d still allow him to latch onto you as he was doing so ardently.

“What happened to being my groupie?” He shouted over the blasting music, surprising you when his lips met your cheek in a sloppy kiss. Even he wasn’t sure where he’d worked up the gall to kiss you, but maybe it was the fact that he’d spent the last three years regretting his inaction, and he’d be damned if he was going to let you board that flight back home without at least trying. 

Hoping he didn’t see the way your cheeks flushed at the little stunt, you took note of the fact that he had yet to release you. 

“Your groupie is gonna need a few drinks if she has to deal with your stench for the next hour.”

In typical Choso fashion, he quickly obliged your request, planting yet another kiss against your temple before disappearing in the blur of security and venue workers to find you something to drink. You felt like your head was spinning with his sudden forward shift in behavior, but you chalked it up to the fact that you two hadn’t seen each other in so long.

 So, you didn’t question it when he came back with two vodka Red Bulls and continued to cling onto you the remainder of the show. He hoisted you up on his back when the crowd around you began to grow so you could get a better view of the band and didn’t care that you were screaming along to the songs right into his ear because you were finally here with him, and he could buy you drinks and give you front row seats to one of your favorite bands, and for once he thought that maybe he was brave enough to admit that he wanted something more with you after all these years of convincing himself that there was nothing he could offer you that’d be worth your while.

He was riding on the high of your giddy smile the entire taxi ride back to the hotel, unable to wipe that lovesick grin off of his face even when you asked him if there was something on your face that was warranting all the staring.

“I’m just gonna shower really quick, and then I’ll come to your room so we can order some food, ‘kay?” You explained while fishing out the room key that you’d received from the front desk earlier that day.

Choso’s brows furrowed as he pushed the respective button on the elevator and adjusted his guitar case over his shoulder. 

“What do you mean? We’re going to the same room.” 

Looking up from the inside of your bag, you stared at him with a slightly dumbfounded expression. 

“You only booked one room?” You questioned with a fluttering gaze. 

“We’ve always shared a room.” He explained obviously, making his way down the hall once the elevator doors opened. You could hardly argue with him on that logic, because you two had been sharing a room, hell— sharing a bed since you were kids. As you followed close behind him, butterflies churning in your stomach, you came to the conclusion that Choso had neglected to account for the fact that you two weren’t kids anymore.

Still, he had flown you all this way, and you had missed the endless nights you two would spend together watching horror movies until Jin would stumble into the room, exasperated as he asked you two to please turn down the volume or, better yet, watch anything else that didn’t have him jolting awake from the incessant sounds of blood-curdling screams emanating from his son’s room at ungodly hours of the night. Bonus points if you two had snuck Yuji in to watch them with you and had to shove him under the bed until their dad left the room lest he find out his youngest was watching movies far too mature for his age.

Yuji and Jin weren’t there to interrupt though, and you were currently hyping yourself up in the bathroom mirror to go out and spend the night with the man you’d known for fifteen years now. Looking down at yourself, you cursed at your choice of sleep wear that you’d clearly chosen before you knew Choso would be sleeping beside you. His old Metallica t-shirt had tiny holes in the shoulders and was discolored from so many years of wash cycles, but it was just so perfectly worn in, and it was a little reminder of him each time you went to sleep. 

The tattered hem fell just above your mid-thigh, and you were once again punching yourself in the leg because why would you not pack any pajama shorts? Pants? A longer shirt? Literally anything other than your fucking jeans that you’d rather bear the humiliation for than wear to bed? Huffing out a final sigh, you hung up your towel before exiting the steam-filled bathroom outwardly displaying far more confidence than was actually present in your muddled mind at the moment. 

“Shower’s open, Cho.” You informed with your eyes cast downward, shoving your dirty clothes into the respective section of your suitcase. 

He looked up from the room service menu he’d been studying for the past few minutes, his heart nearly leaping out of his chest at the sight of your bare thighs that still glistened from whatever lotion you had slathered on after your shower, and oh god was that his shirt? His brain was short-circuiting on the spot, and he was so grateful that he was jumping into the shower now, knowing that knob was about to be turned to the coldest setting he could manage. 

You sighed in quiet relief when the bathroom door shut behind him, thanking your lucky stars that he hadn’t mentioned anything about your choice of sleepwear— or lack thereof, hoping it meant that he didn’t notice.

 Finally allowing some of the tension to fall from your shoulders, you looked around the slightly bougie hotel room, smiling at the sight of his guitar leaning against the wall. Taking the opportunity to be a little nosy for nostalgia’s sake, you unzipped the case and carefully pulled the beloved instrument out. It was hardly recognizable now, what with all the decals and stickers he’d adorned it with over the years, but it was that same electric guitar you had scraped up all your tip money to buy for him.

Humming fondly, you sat crisscrossed in the middle of the plush bed to fiddle with the strings, recalling all the nights Choso had spent desperately trying to teach you how to play, but you never could make good on his diligent efforts. You could only vaguely recall the chords to that first song he’d ever learned to play, the one you’d watched him strum what must have been hundreds of times for you. Pursing your lip, you tried to angle your fingers just right along the neck as you dug into the far corners of your memory. 

“Your hand is too far up the neck.” 

In your fierce concentration, you hadn’t even heard Choso exiting the bathroom. Not looking up at him lest you break your focus, you shifted your hand as he’d instructed.

“Here?” 

He tutted softly, though you could practically hear the fond amusement oozing from him. After a moment, you felt the bed dip behind you, and your breath hitched as you felt his chest press against your back, and you suddenly didn’t feel as embarrassed at your lack of clothing since he hadn’t bothered to put a shirt on following his shower. His hands soon came up to close around yours, guiding them to the proper placement.

“Try now.” He instructed softly, tucking his chin over your shoulder to watch your movements. 

Trying to control the way your fingers trembled with the feeling of the muscles he never used to have pressed right up against you, you tried again. When he let out a quiet hum of disapproval, you didn’t have the chance to ask what you had done wrong before he was scooching you back to sit in his lap for better access to the instrument. 

“You’ve gotta spread out your fingers a little more.” Choso’s tips were falling on deaf ears, because his scent was enveloping you like a warm blanket, he was so warm pressed right up against you, and his cheek was brushing against yours as he adjusted your fingers. 

As he had been telling himself since he saw you in the audience earlier for the first time in three years, he wasn’t that awkward boy anymore who was too scared to be honest with himself, and he knew better than to believe that the flush in your cheeks right now was from your shower. Smiling softly, he eased up his hands as you began to get the hang of it, only occasionally reaching up to correct your placements. You gradually allowed yourself to relax against him, your shoulders drifting back to fall along his broad chest. 

“Do you ever think about that night of prom?” Out of all the ways he could have eased into this conversation, he wasn’t sure why that was what had come out of his mouth, but he was relieved when you scoffed out a light laugh. 

“You mean the night I lost my virginity to Suguru Geto?” You shook your head at the once damn near traumatic memory, a bitter smile gracing your lips. “I try not to.” 

It was silent for a moment, and just as he thought you had all but forgotten what you had said to him that night, you spoke up hesitantly.

“Do you? Y’know— think about it?”

“All the time.” 

Your fingers paused against the strings, but a hushed whisper in your ear to keep playing had you jolting back into action, but your subtle squirming against his lap gave you away. 

“Why the hell would you be thinking about that?” You mumbled, keeping your voice low as you desperately tried to maintain your composure.

“Because I can’t stop thinking about what would’ve happened if it was me instead.”

His hand came up to tighten your grip around the neck of the guitar that had loosened with the implications of his words, and you heard those familiar words falling from your lips just as they had from his three years ago. 

“You mean as my prom date, right, Cho?” 

His head shifted ever so slightly, and you shivered as his nose grazed against your temple. The hand that had been guiding your fingers over the strings drifted down to ghost over your bare thigh. 

“Yeah, as your prom date.” He lied, just as you had that night. The pads of his fingers dug into the fat of your thigh momentarily, giving you the opportunity to push him away should he have been reading all the signs wrong. You didn’t though, you only held back the softest of whimpers when the metaphorical green light prompted him to run his hand further up, brushing back your already maddeningly ridden up shirt. “I think about how much of an idiot he was, what I would’ve done different.” 

The way your comparably smaller frame was expanding and deflating against him in tandem with your labored breaths was making it hard for him to think, and he was sure his body was acting purely on autopilot. 

“Like what?” You dared to whisper, not even quite sure that you were ready to hear his answer, but oh was he willing to give it to you. 

“I would’ve told you how pretty you looked that night— because you did. You looked like an angel.” Choso rasped out against your ear, and his fingers were curling around the warmth of your inner thigh, just barely grazing against your rapidly heating core. Your fingers stuttered once again against the strings, and his other hand quickly came up to grip at the column of your neck, pressing you back against him. “Keep playing for me, angel.”

And you tried, hands trembling as they fumbled to find the right chords again. 

“Did he touch you like this before he ruined your night?”

“No!” You gasped out desperately, arching against him as he pushed your panties to the side to collect the pooling slick at your entrance, using it to aid in the tentative circles he began working against your clit. “H-He didn’t touch me at all— ah!”

With a vexed tut of disapproval, Choso’s fingers dipped down to plunge into your sopping heat. His movements were choppy, and it was clear that he wasn’t sure what exactly you would like, but his focused gaze on your side profile as he studied each of your reactions told you that he was going to figure it the fuck out.

“I would have taken the time for you— I would’ve made sure you were ready.” His regrets were spilling past his frantic lips in a manner teetering on a whine as your head fell back against his shoulder. “Keep playing.”

“I can’t— I can’t, Cho.” You cried deliriously as his fingers began curling up in response to your frantic reaction. You were soaking through the underwear that had been pushed haphazardly to the side, and if you were more lucid you would have been embarrassed at the way it pooled onto the sheets below you. 

At once, he had released the firm grip he had on your neck to push his guitar off the bed. 

“Then come up here and let me show you how I would have taken care of you.”

Choso, with his eagerness to please and this newfound Herculean strength of his, didn’t give you the chance to comply with his request, because he was ripping at your flimsy underwear and shifting you around to face him. It was enough to give you whiplash, but the bruising grip he had around your waist assured that your balance wouldn’t fail you as he laid back against the unsuspecting hotel sheets and yanked you up to hover over his crazed face. 

“Choso, y-you don’t have to—” 

“I want to.” He pleaded, his lips glistening with an anticipatory drool as those puppy-dog eyes of his locked onto your core, and he was once again reminded of the fact that Suguru Geto had to be the dumbest man on this fucking planet. Craning his neck up, he couldn’t help himself as he dragged his hot tongue up the length of your folds, his strangled moan vibrating against you. “Mmph, sit— please.”

Leave it to Choso to not forget about his manners as he begged you to suffocate him between your trembling thighs. You complied, moving ever-so-slowly to lower yourself against him before he dug his fingers into your thighs and made you sit. Hunching forward, your forehead fell against the plush headboard with a choked cry as he all but unhinged his jaw around your core. 

He watched through dazed eyes at the way your face crumpled with each symphony of pleasure that slipped past your bitten lips. There was no sense in dwelling on the past now, but he couldn’t help but feel so utterly idiotic for having been so blind all this time. It had always been there— in the lingering touches and the intimacy of trust that had forged between you two over fifteen years of falling back on one another.

Choso’s eyes rolled back as you rolled your hips against his tongue, momentarily blocking any passage of air through his mouth and nose, but, even with the clenching in his lungs that told him that he needed to breathe paired with the ringing in his ears, he thought he’d much rather have your weeping pleasure as the cause of death on his obituary, because any life where he hindered that impending high you were cravenly grinding toward wasn’t a life worth living.

His tongue dipped into your entrance for an exasperatingly brief tour before its pointed tip was dancing up to swoop under the hood of your already painfully sensitive clit. You squeaked out a pitched moan, nearly tumbling down if one of his hands hadn’t shot up to press against your sternum to keep you upright. A choked sob of pleasure shook your shoulders, and your hand flew down to tangle into the very haircut he maintained for so long just because you said it looked cute on him.

There was a sharp sting on his scalp as you yanked at the roots, the subtle pain at the hands of you nearly sending him to an early grave as his hips bucked up against the air. He was only met by the infuriatingly gentle friction of his sweatpants brushing against his leaking tip, but you were crying out his name and using him so sweetly with every craven thrust of your hips, and it was enough for him after all the sleepless nights he’d spent wishing he could have changed the past. 

Evidence of you was dripping grotesquely down his face, dragging as far up as his nose that glistened proudly in the wake of your sloppy thrusts against him. His eyes were barely open by the time you timidly glanced down at him, half-lidded to match the dopey smile you felt morphing against your folds. 

“Stop looking at me like that.” You murmured through burning cheeks as he leaned you back to sit on his chest. 

“I’ve waited fifteen years to look at you like this.” His words were damn near slurred, but the sentiment remained the same. Brushing the dishevled hair from his forehead, you slid down slowly to straddle his waist, gasping tenderly at the feeling of his abs brushing against your sensitive clit, though your eyes never once left his. 

With wanton eyes drifting down his pink-tinted face, his eyes drifted shut as he leaned up to meet the kiss he was sure he was finally about to get, but it instead landed tenderly on his forehead. A warmth spread down his spine, making his fingers curl tighter around your waist. 

“Put me out of my misery already.” Choso whispered, but his actions deceived him as he reached up to keep you pressed against his forehead. Just as you slipped out of his grasp, lips dragging down the bridge of his nose until they ghosted over his. With a clouded gaze, he whispered against your lips, “Did he tell you he loved you?”

With a delirious shake of your head, you crashed through the tiniest of barriers that had been left between you.  

“I love you.” He mumbled desperately against your kiss, hands sneaking up under your baggy shirt to graze along your spine. “More than just a— ah— a prom date. I love you.”

“I love you, too— more than just a friend.” You confirmed as you snuck your hand down between you to creep into his waistband. 

He flinched away from you with a quick, hissing breath, reaching down to grip at your hand in record timing. Pulling away from him with a start, you blinked down owlishly at him. 

“Oh— I-I’m sorry, I just thought you wanted to…”

“I do!” He sat up faster than you could blink to miss it. With that signature flush of his cheeks, he cast his gaze to the side. “Just… give me a little bit, okay?”

Raising a brow at his sudden timidness, you decided not to make it known that you had already felt the tacky wet splotch currently making a mess of his sweatpants. Saving him the wallowing self-pity you just knew he’d fall into for the rest of the night, you opted to lay beside him, tracing the tattoo that lined his nose absentmindedly as he looked anywhere but you. With a soft laugh, he finally turned his head to face you again after a moment of silence, smiling sheepishly down at you. 

“Happy birthday, angel.”

Glancing over at the bedside clock, you noted with a cacooning warmth that it read 12:02 AM.

“Happy birthday, Cho.”

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[sleeplessdove]

— twist the knife

♡ ghostface! e. williams x fem! reader

synopsis: just how much cruelty is your girlfriend capable of?

a/n: old fic while i work on vampire!ellie stuff …

warnings: DARK THEMES! - toxic relationships, murder, death, im serious she is on a killing spree, masked killers, name calling, mocking, tormenting, ellie & r! are in college, fighting, verbal arguments, breaking and entering, crying, begging, threats of violence, many of said threats are carried out, pet names, knife usage, blood, hair pulling, falling, smacking, a gun again who else is shocked, forced affection & apologies, r! gets eaten out, fingering (r! receiving), mentions of love cause why not, gun fucking ... guys im sorry, blackmail, photos with a lack of consent, and lots more !

wc: 9.6k

Even with the calm sound of the leaves rustling from the light breeze, you couldn’t help but continue to look back over your shoulder to ensure that no one was behind you. 

It was a nervous habit you had picked up after the murders began in your small town. You felt as if there was no amount of caution that would protect you from the psycho killer that was brutally ending innocent lives. 

The thoughts had flooded your mind so much that you had momentarily forgotten your girlfriend was right beside you, her fingers interlaced with your own as she carried out her usual routine of walking you home after classes were over. 

Your head was still turned back so that you could observe the people walking behind you, only being met with the sight of a students who you had seen around campus a few times. Ellie must have been trying to get your attention for a while, as she finally waved her hand in front of your face to snap you out of your trance. 

“Jesus fucking christ, I thought you were listening to me that whole time. Did you hear anything I said?” she questioned, a light chuckle leaving her lips despite her harsh words. Your eyes widened in the slightest when her voice finally reached you, flinching momentarily since you hadn’t expected the sudden sound. 

Ellie quickly snapped her head back in the direction you had previously been looking in, her brows furrowing to convey her confusion before looking back at you. “You’re acting like we have a stalker or something. Do you know something I don't?” she asked in her usual joking tone, your body relaxing in the slightest from how at ease Ellie seemed. 

“M’ sorry for not listening, I’m just a little scared— you know? All the people who have been killed are people we knew” you mumbled, lowering your gaze towards the orange leaves that were scattered all along the sidewalk. Ellie couldn’t stop the light scoff that passed her lips, almost seeming too relaxed despite the fact that you were absolutely right. 

“We didn’t know them that well” she added swiftly, a slight smile creeping onto her lips before she spoke once more. “Plus, it's not all bad. Classes are canceled till those dumbass cops can figure out what the fuck is going on. And considering the fact that they only know what costume the killer is wearing, we probably won’t have to worry about classes for the rest of the year” she blurted without the slightest bit of hesitation. 

It wasn’t unlike Ellie to be so sarcastic but you couldn't shake the nerves that were flooding your body, a small frown appearing on your lips despite her attempt to ease the tension. “S’ not like they’re gonna be missed anyways. Those jock assholes got what was coming to them. Shit, maybe we should be thanking ghostfa—” she began, although her words never managed to connect in your mind. 

You were far too distracted, as you had finally looked up at Ellie only to notice the slightest bit of blood seeping from a small gash that was covered by her hair. “Oh my god, what happened?” you questioned in a worried tone, your brows knitting together as you let go of her hand so you could try to observe her injury. With careful movements, you pushed her hair back only to find that the wound was far worse than you thought. 

There was a purplish hue surrounding it, dried blood having collected into the roots of her auburn hair. You couldn’t understand why you hadn’t noticed it earlier, only being brought out of your thoughts when Ellie pulled your hand away from her face ever so gently. “S’ nothing serious, baby. Just got into a little disagreement with someone yesterday” she muttered in a careless manner, trying to play it off as smoothly as possible. 

It wasn’t as if it was the most incomprehensible idea, as Ellie was known for her short temper and rather aggressive approach to resolving issues. However, that didn’t stop the small pout from appearing on your features, your eyes still lingering on the cut as you spoke. “You told me you were going to stop getting into fights” you huffed, not taking hold of her hand before you continued to walk in the direction of your home. 

Ellie was quick to follow after you, catching up to you before you could get too far from her. “I said I would try to stop getting into fights. There is a big difference” she retorted, wrapping her arm around your waist before using the back of her free hand to wipe off the smallest bit of blood that had dripped down her forehead. You only rolled your eyes at her words, grumbling a soft “whatever” in reply. 

The two of you had finally reached your home just as Ellie was about to make another excuse, and you were already pulling away from her so that you could make your way inside without her. Ellie wasn’t having any of that, pulling you back rather roughly so that you were facing her. “Can I come over later tonight, bun? I was thinkin’ maybe we could watch a scary movie together” she muttered, attempting to make you forget the fact that you were upset with her. 

It didn’t work all that well, as you shook your head quickly at the request. “Not tonight” you sighed, squirming in the slightest from how tightly she was holding you. Ellie didn’t seem pleased with your reply, her sweet demeanor dropping completely as a frown took the place of her previous smile. “Why not? Are you seeing someone else tonight?” she questioned in an accusing manner, her grip only tightening as you tried to get her to ease up. 

“No— I am not having anyone else over tonight” you scoffed, looking at her with an unamused expression. “I already told you that my parents are gone for the whole week and you know their rules” you began, only to be cut off by a low groan leaving Ellie’s lips. “No having your girlfriend over after dark” she mocked the rule your parents had made up the minute the two of you began dating, her voice making her irritation evident. 

You shot her a quick glare but nodded your head nonetheless, watching as Ellie tried to find the right words to convince you to just disobey your parents this one time. “How would they even know? Promise I won’t tell on you” she said with a cocky smile, as she had lied to your parents faces countless times after helping you sneak out at night to come over to her place.

 “I can’t take any chances after they caught you coming in through the window last week, Els. They still have me on house arrest for that” you whined in reply, not wanting to fight with Ellie about this any longer. 

Ellie’s reaction was anything but sweet, as she rolled her eyes and finally released the hold she had on you rather carelessly so that you stumbled in the slightest. “I don’t fucking get it— you’re in college and they treat you like you’re still just a kid” she grumbled, not at all pleased with the fact that you always insisted on following their rules. 

Your eyes narrowed at her words, a small sigh leaving your lips as you took in Ellie’s annoyed expression. You usually made an effort to not bicker with her over small things but she had been frustrating you more than usual as of late. 

With the way she was constantly ignoring your calls and clearly lying about what she had been doing these past few nights, you knew something was up. You were just as upset as she was and you should’ve bitten your tongue and shoved it down as you usually did, but you just couldn’t. 

“Not all of us can do whatever we want to, Ellie. Don’t try to give me shit just because you don’t have anyone back at home to give you rules to follow” you spat without thinking, your eyes widening the moment the words left your lips. 

It had been almost a year since Ellie’s only father figure, Joel, had been killed, the case never being solved which had left your girlfriend with a massive sense of resentment towards everyone and everything. She rarely opened up about it to you, but you already knew how much it ate away at her. 

It was a low blow but it was all you had in that moment. You just wanted to shut her up or maybe just piss her off enough that she finally explained her strange behavior. Despite your nervous expression, you stood your ground and offered her no apologies for your words. 

Ellie had momentarily gone silent— her lack of response putting you on edge as you awaited her reaction. People continued passing the two of you by as you stood in front of your home, the soft buzz of their conversation sounding far away due to the deafening silence Ellie had left you with. 

Her previous expression already showed her irritation, but once your words finally set in it changed rapidly. A little crease appeared between her brows, her breathing suddenly becoming uneven as she looked down at your unremorseful expression. 

It was a strange sight, as Ellie was always quick to find some hurtful reply to hit you with before you could even blink. She leaned back for a moment as if to take you in before moving in closer, her nails digging into her own palms as she clenched her fists at her sides. 

Your body was tingling with nerves, your eyes darting around every inch of Ellie’s infuriated expression. Her stare alone filled you with guilt and you tried to finally push some sort of apology out, but she was quick to cut you off. 

“You are such a fucking cunt” she spat, the disgust in her tone so prominent that you felt beyond humiliated. Over the course of your relationship with Ellie, you had grown accustomed to her outbursts. Whether it be calling you names or her picking a fight with you for absolutely no reason— she always found a way to piss you off. And yet this time it felt so different, as you had never dared to talk back to her before. 

Ellie backed up after she spoke, her piercing gaze tearing you apart so that you were left feeling embarrassed and exposed as you stood before her. “You always pull shit like this. Someone needs to teach you to stop running your fucking mouth” she said in a low tone, not even giving you a chance to reply before she started walking away from your home so that she could get back to her own. 

For a moment you acted on instinct, taking a small step to follow after her. You snapped out of it after you moved, only letting your eyes trail after her as she moved away. On any other occasion you would have pleaded for her forgiveness, but you were done with putting up with her constant shifts in mood. 

It felt as if you weren’t even in control of your body as you moved towards your home, unlocking the door with a blank expression on your face while your mind ran rampant over how Ellie had spoken to you. She had reacted differently than she usually would, as she had a tendency to raise her voice just to prove a point. And yet, she had kept an eerily calm demeanor as she spoke down to you. 

Some part of you wished she would have yelled or made some sort of empty threat, as her quiet reaction left you feeling nauseous. You knew dwelling on it wouldn’t make it any better, a soft huff leaving your lips as you dropped your bag on the side of the couch so that you could lay down. 

You turned on the television to have some background noise while you checked your phone, the news playing quietly as you fought with yourself on whether or not to text Ellie. Your thumb hovered over her contact, a frustrated groan leaving your lips before you shoved your phone between one of the couch cushions in an attempt to keep yourself from even thinking about speaking to her. 

Ellie was the one who had started all of this— not you. She was the one who had been disappearing for hours on end with pathetic excuses as to where she had been. You didn’t owe her anything, even if you had momentarily slipped up and said something hurtful. She had said absolutely vile things to you countless times and you never reacted the way she did. 

If she really wanted to fix whatever the fuck was happening between the two of you, she would just do it. You couldn’t make excuses for her anymore, as you had grown tired of her constant anger. 

You were a bit dazed as you stared at the screen in front of you, the low volume making it hard for you to understand what they were even saying. It was as if your mental exhaustion was manifesting into something physical, as your eyelids were heavy with the need for sleep. There was no way you could be bothered to close the curtains in your living room, your eyes fluttering closed as you continued to think about Ellie. 

Maybe this was for the best— the relationship you shared with her was anything but sweet. There was always something off about Ellie that you couldn’t quite discern and in all honesty, you were somewhat scared of her. You loved her a little too much and you had spent too long making excuses for her.

This whole argument had blown up in your face, and even as you drifted off you couldn’t help but think about how this was beginning to seem like a means to an end. 

-

Your heart was slamming against your chest as you were abruptly woken up by the loud ringing of your phone sounding throughout the dark living room. The only other noise within the space was the quiet hum of the tv, your eyes flickering towards the bright screen to try and focus on what was playing. 

With squinted eyes you read the breaking news title that read ‘GHOSTFACE STRIKES AGAIN!’ in crimson lettering, the vibrant red and blue police lights flashing on screen as they played a live feed of what was going on. 

The sight alone had you sitting up straight, your phone long forgotten as you scrambled to find the remote. You held down the volume button so that you could turn it up, leaning your body towards the TV as the newscasters described the situation at hand. It was hard to make out the words in your sleepy state, your fist coming up to rub the sleep from your eyes as you did your best to listen. 

You could only make out a few words—- a real life horror movie, another tragedy, gruesome, unlike anything we have seen before, and yet another college student has been lost. All of the words sounded strung together and they left you feeling uneasy, your eyes zeroing in on the screen so that you could get more details that would inevitably lead to you being paranoid all night. 

A shiver ran through your body from how cold the room was, your eyes finally flickering away from the screen so that you were looking at the window closest to where you were sitting. The thin curtains moved with the small breeze that was passing through, sending a wave of goosebumps across your skin. 

Why can’t you remember opening that window? 

Your thoughts were interrupted by the sound of your phone ringing once more, the sudden disruption making you let out a soft gasp. After you realized what the sound was, you let out somewhat of a nervous laugh at how dramatic you were being over the whole situation. 

There had to be an explanation for the window— as you did have a tendency to be rather forgetful and the phone calls were more than likely just scams. 

Nonetheless, you shifted around so that you could shove your hand between the sofa cushions, finally managing to yank your phone out so that you could find out who was insisting you at such a late hour. You were given no satiation to your curiosity, as you were greeted with the sight of No Caller ID instead of an actual number. 

It still provided you with a sense of relief, although some part of you had been hoping that Ellie was the one who had been so insistent on you picking up her calls. You declined the call, as you had seen too many horror movies thanks to your girlfriend's love for slasher flicks— and you refused to end up like those girls who die within the first 15 minutes since they pick up some unknown phone call. 

You dropped your phone back down onto the couch, doing your best to continue to listen to the news report as you made your way towards the window. Your hands were just about to push the window closed but you were distracted by what sounded like footsteps coming from inside your house. The sound made you whip your head back, your breath picking up within a split second. 

Fear was tingling throughout your entire body, your fingertips suddenly feeling numb as they pressed lightly against the window. The sound had disappeared just as quickly as it had come and for a moment you were able to convince yourself that it had just been some sort of hallucination. You had already been a little paranoid after seeing the latest breaking news and it was halloween time— of course you were bound to scare yourself a bit. 

Just as the tension was leaving your body, the silence was broken by your phone ringing once more. You flinched in the slightest from how startled you were, a quiet curse leaving your lips as you discarded your previous task to grab your phone instead. 

It was another blocked number and you momentarily thought about declining it once more, but curiosity was beginning to get the best of you. Against your better judgment, you accepted the call and pressed your phone against your ear. 

“Hello?” you called out in a meek voice, the quiet sound of breathing on the other side of the line being the only greeting when you first spoke. “Who is this?” the voice questioned, sounding somewhat distorted but you assumed it was just your shitty phone service. “Well who are you trying to reach?” you asked in return, settling down onto the couch. 

A low chuckle sounded from your phone, the person who was speaking to you seeming surprised by your question. “If you tell me your name, I’ll tell you who I’m trying to talk to” the disembodied voice quipped— and for a moment you could have sworn the person's voice was familiar. A light scoff left your lips, far too tired to stay on the phone with a creep who has nothing better to do than bother you. 

“Sorry dude, I think you’ve got the wrong number. Take it easy” you muttered in reply, already pulling your phone away from your ear so that they had no time to respond. You set your phone on the coffee table so that you close the window, your hands slamming down the window harshly enough that the sound of it seemed to reverberate through the eerily silent house for far longer than it should’ve. 

Just as you picked up your phone so that you could head upstairs to get to your bedroom, your phone began to buzz. You were growing frustrated with the calls now, your eyes narrowing as the lack of caller ID made itself known once more. For whatever reason, you picked up the phone once more and you were greeted by what you could only assume was the same voice of the person who was speaking to you before. “Why don’t you want to talk to me?” the voice questioned, their tone sounding a bit mocking which only added to your frustration. “Not a big fan of talking to strangers on the phone” you shot back quickly, your eyes focusing on the stairway that was just a few feet away. 

“There's no way you want to be left alone though” they said calmly, not giving you any space to add another snarky remark before they continued. “I mean, you’re all alone in that big house on the corner. Now that just can’t be safe for a scared little thing like you” they breathed, the words coming out so nonchalant that if you hadn’t been paying attention, you would have missed what was right in front of you. 

Your eyes widened once her words finally set in, your head immediately turning back to look at the window you had closed moments ago. “What did you just say?” you asked in a meek voice, your lips parting in the slightest so you could breathe a bit easier as your heart pounded against your chest. “Do you really need me to repeat myself, princess?” they questioned and this time you knew you had heard this voice before. Their condescending tone was something you had heard countless times, yet who had been the person to speak to you in such a way was barely on the tip of your tongue. 

Within a second of the fear finally taking over every last bit of your body, your finger was roughly pressing against your phone screen to end the call. You dropped your phone back onto the couch as if it was some sort of cursed object, your body seeming to move without your permission as you started rushing to each window you were near to make sure they were locked. It took a moment for you to gain enough courage to peer in the direction of the front door, the lock perfectly in place much to your relief. 

There wasn’t any time to relax, as your phone continued to ring as you moved around your home. It was all too overwhelming, the sound of the television mixing with the sound of your ringtone to create a garbled mess that only added to your already agitated state. You could feel a headache taking form as you practically tiptoed back towards the living room to avoid making an unnecessary noise. 

You knew it was idiotic to pick up a call from someone who practically confessed to knowing where you lived but some part of you was convinced you could still beg them to leave you alone. With shaky movements, you answered the call and backed yourself into the corner of the room so that you wouldn’t have to worry about someone coming up from behind you. 

“It’s a little too late to be making sure the house is all locked up, don’t you think?” the voice began the moment you pressed your phone to your ear, your whole body shaking from the shiver that overtook you. They were in your fucking house— and they were watching you. Before you had picked up the call you had the slightest bit of hope that this person was playing some kind of sick joke, but there was no way they could’ve just guessed what you were doing so easily. “Jeez, you’re already watching my latest hit. You must be a big fan of my work, huh?” they added on, clearly referencing the horrific news story that you had previously been engrossed in. 

Your chest began to heave as they revealed that they were the one person you feared the most, your nerves twisting with your rising frustration to create an awful mix of emotions that tore at your insides. “Listen asshole, my girlfriend is coming over any minute and she will kick your ass!” you lied, practically shouting into the phone although your voice shook in the slightest despite your attempt to sound intimidating. It wasn’t as if the person in your home knew what plans you had for the night, right?

“Oh no, not your girlfriend! I'm so scared” the killer said in a sarcastic tone, seeming completely unphased by your threat. Your brows furrowed at their reply, as you were done being toyed with. You took one final look at your surroundings to ensure there was no ghostly figure that was about to jump out at you before you sprinted towards the kitchen, your gaze landing on the set of large kitchen knives that sat on top of the kitchen counter. 

The space was only lit up by the moon that was shining through the window but you didn’t want to slow down to turn on the lights, your hand reaching for the largest knife and extending it outwards rather clumsily as if it would protect you from the invisible force you were fighting against. “Fuck you” you spat into the phone, already pulling the phone away from your face so that you could call the cops and get the fuck out of the house but your actions were quickly halted. 

“If you hang up on me one more time, I swear to god I will gut you like a fucking fish” they seethed, the threat making your hand tremble in the slightest as you brought the phone to your ear once more. It was as if all those horror movies you watched with Ellie countless times had taught you nothing, as all you could do was stand completely still while every part of your brain screamed at you to run out of the house as fast as you possibly could. 

The moment of silence was filled by the sound of creaking that now sounded as if it was coming from somewhere near you, your breath hitching in your throat as your grip on the large knife tightened. You couldn’t keep up a strong facade any longer, hot tears rolling down your cheeks before you could make any attempt to conceal them. Soft sniffles were all you could offer, as you weren’t exactly sure that speaking first was the best idea after the last words they had spoken to you. 

“Look at you, following my directions nice n’ easy. Your girlfriend must’ve trained you to behave so well” the distorted voice cooed, almost managing to sound truly affectionate. You let out a pitiful cry at the menacing words, the fight between you and Ellie that had occurred earlier in the day filling your mind. If you had just let her come over, none of this would be happening. All you could see was the look of sheer anger that had overtaken Ellie’s features when you had spewed those hurtful words to her and you would give anything to be able to take it all back. Tonight could’ve been spent curled up at her side on the couch with some cheesy horror movie playing on tv but instead, you were living in one. 

You just wanted to hear Ellie’s voice at this moment, to have her tell you what to do to defend yourself. She was always telling you that you needed to be able to fend for yourself but you had never taken her seriously and now you were left with the overwhelming consequence of your actions. The thoughts had consumed you so much that you hadn’t even given a proper reply, although your silence didn’t seem to offend the person on the other side of the phone.

“What? Got nothin’ to say now, baby? I wanted to hear more about that girlfriend of yours but you can’t even speak properly” they muttered in a false tone of disappointment, a small sigh passing their lips before continuing on. “How about we play a little game? If you win, I’ll leave you alone— but if you get it wrong, m’ gonna have to kill you” they spoke in a relaxed tone, making your death sound as if it was going to be nothing more than a chore to them. 

“I don’t want to play any games with you— please, just leave me alone. I won’t tell anyone about this, I swear” you pleaded, hiccups interrupting your words as you continued to cry. You were desperate to stop the tears, as they were blurring your vision further which made it practically impossible to see anything around you as you stood in the dark kitchen. A light scoff sounded from the phone which caused you to jump in the slightest, every little thing now scaring you beyond belief. 

“Well if you really don’t want to play, I’ll just have to kill you. It takes the fun out of it for me but if that's how you want to do it—” the voice began to taunt you once more and you were quick to cut them off, shaking your head feverishly as if they could see you, and in all honesty they probably could see you. “No, I’ll play!” you practically shouted, praying that whatever game they chose would be somewhat fair. 

Your eyes were darting around the dark space around you as if someone would jump out at any moment, your heart beating so harshly against your chest that you were almost positive it would burst through in a few seconds if you didn’t calm down. “Alright, make sure to listen cause I really don’t like repeating myself. There's four closets in your house, so go ahead and guess which one I’m in” they demanded, their confession of being inside already making your blood run cold. 

It was completely unfair to make you think at a time like this, your mind so muddled that you were practically whining at their question. How the fuck were you supposed to know where they were? You knew there was no chance of you making it out alive if you didn’t at least try to guess where they were hiding. It was only a little while ago that you had heard creaking downstairs— or was it upstairs? A frustrated groan left your lips, your shaking hand lowering the knife as you tried to think back to the moment when you had heard it.  

“Upstairs! You’re upstairs in my bedroom closet, the room on the left” you blurted without thinking it through, your eyes widening as you realized you had just taken your life into your own hands. “Ah— so close! But still wrong” they shot back quickly and you were almost positive they were smiling as they spoke. 

You were full blown sobbing now, raising your arm so that the knife was facing away from you once more as you tried to figure out what to do. There was a chance that they were still in the other closet that was upstairs which meant you could hang up on them, call the police, and run like hell before they had the chance to catch up to you. Or they could already be downstairs and there was no time to call the police. You remained silent as the options ran through your mind, the killer never once interrupting your train of thought which you were rather grateful for. 

After what seemed like hours of contemplating every little detail, you took a deep breath in and checked your surroundings one last time. Darkness seemed to consume all that you could see and that only caused your adrenaline to rise further. Your movements were done so quickly that you hadn’t even registered what you were doing until you were ending the call, shoving your phone into your back pocket before you took off towards the front door as quickly as you possibly could. 

You weren’t even wearing any shoes but you couldn’t be bothered to care with your life on the line, the knife you were holding remained in front of you in a defensive manner as you moved through your home. The front door was in your line of sight and it was so close— you could practically feel the cool autumn air that was waiting for you just outside the door. You were so close to being free, your tears continuing to fall but from relief rather than fear. 

This fucked up night could finally be over and you wouldn’t stop running until your lungs gave out on you. All you could think of was Ellie as you reached for the doorknob, already imagining how worried she would be when you told her about everything that happened tonight. Your hand was mere inches from the door, your fingertips barely grazing the cool metal of the doorknob before your motions were disrupted by the sound of a door swinging open. 

The cloaked figure lunged at you the moment they came into view, the sight of the white mask filling you with utter terror as they dragged you away from the door. You were screaming as loud as possible, doing your best to alert your neighbors about what was going on. They were far stronger than you were despite the strength provided by your adrenaline, as they were able to grasp your wrist so that you were unable to make any attempts to swipe at them with the knife you were holding onto. Before you could realize what the killer was doing, they grabbed your phone from your back pocket and slammed it against the ground so that it was reduced to a shattered mess that you were left unable to use. 

You were squirming around relentlessly, trying to free yourself from the bruising grip they had on you. They had gotten you pinned up against the wall to the side of the front door, knocking the last bit of air out of your lungs from how forceful they were being. It had taken an incredible amount of energy for you to finally manage to free one of your wrists from the hold they had on it, although it was devoid of any weapon. 

Your hand raised towards the ghostly mask, half expecting ghostface to kill you right then and there for making an attempt to find out who they really were and yet they made no effort to stop your movements. You finally grasped the bottom of the mask, a pained squeak leaving your lips as their gloved hands dug into your soft flesh to keep you in place. In one swift motion, you managed to pull the mask off completely and you were greeted with a gut wrenching sight. 

“Surprise, baby!” Ellie said in an all too cheery tone, her voice sounding a bit breathy from having to fight to keep you still. Her usually gentle features were splattered with blood, the metallic scent filling your nose due to how close she was to your own face. Her last victim must have gotten her mask off just as she sealed their doom, as that could be the only explanation for how she had managed to become covered in their blood. She must have come straight from her last kill— the one you had just viewed on tv. 

It felt as if your world had just caved in or even exploded, you really couldn’t decide. Finding words after realizing your girlfriend was the one person you should’ve feared the most was a rather hard task, your lips parting countless times to speak and yet no words came out. Your tears had ceased to fall as you took in her slightly amused expression, your shaky hand dropping the mask onto the floor as your mind ran a mile a minute. Despite the overwhelming fear you felt, the sense of betrayal was far too much for you to keep down and it gave you just enough momentum to finally do something. 

“You fucking liar” you spat, thinking of all the times Ellie had insisted that she had simply had her phone on silent or had fallen asleep early when you didn’t hear from her for hours at a time. You had confided in her about the fear you felt about all the murders that were happening in town and she had soothed you each time, insisting that she would be there to protect you if anything were to go wrong. 

All the while, she was the one who had been causing you so many sleepless nights and she was the person who had taken so many innocent lives. A sick smile was beginning to take form on Ellie’s lips after you had spoken and you could already tell she was about to give you some sort of snarky reply. Her grip on you had relaxed ever so slightly since she believed you were too frightened to do anything and you knew this may be your only opportunity to get away from her. 

Just as she was parting her lips to speak to you, you mustered up all your strength to tug your wrist up enough so that your hand that was still gripping the knife could make contact with her skin. You couldn’t reach very far due to her quickly realizing what you were trying to do, a grunt leaving her lips as she attempted to keep you still but she was too late. With a quick movement, you were able to make a swipe at her arm that was still making an attempt to hold you, blood rushing to the surface of her skin within the blink of an eye. 

Ellie released you once the warm liquid began to drip down her arm, instinctively bringing a hand up to cover her wound before she could think about what she was doing. You didn’t wait to get her full reaction, sliding from where she had you pinned against the wall and running as if your life depended on it— and at this moment, it really did. Soft whimpers left your lips as you desperately tried to think of somewhere to hide before she caught up with you, your hand taking hold of the door leading into the garage the second she began calling out your name. 

You hid behind the door, the knife still held tightly in your right hand while you clasped your other over your own mouth. Keeping your breaths quiet seemed almost impossible but you couldn‘t risk having any slip ups. The door was left slightly ajar on purpose, as you needed to be able to see Ellie as she moved throughout the house so you could make sure she was out of the way before you tried to get back to the front door. 

Her cloaked figure was moving slowly, your name leaving her lips tauntingly as she suppressed the pained groans she so desperately wanted to let out. You had managed to cut her fairly deep and the blood soaking into her cheap halloween costume was direct proof of that. “Get out here you fucking coward” she seethed, her head whipping back towards your direction when you accidentally let out a sound of surprise at her loud voice booming throughout the home. 

Your eyes widened at the realization of your mistake, squeezing your eyes shut momentarily as if it would make Ellie disappear completely. “If you come out now, I promise to play nice” she lied in a sickeningly sweet tone, her eyes narrowing as she got closer towards the very door you were standing behind. Her footsteps were heavy as she made her way towards you, your eyes beginning to well with tears once more as she got closer. For a moment you couldn’t tell what she was doing, as she had stopped so she could take off the black cloak completely. Wearing only a black tank top and jeans, you could now see that her body was littered with bruises, the gash you had just given her smudging her arm a dark red from her cloak pressing against her skin. 

Ellie had been wearing her hoodies constantly these last few weeks but you hadn’t thought anything of it, as the chilly weather was enough to explain it away. But it explained why she had been keeping her clothes on the last few times she had managed to get you alone, always insisting that she just wanted to make you feel good. She would have you completely bare while she remained fully covered and you had never even given it a second thought. You wished that you would’ve paid more attention to all the signs pointing to her being the culprit, yet there was no way you could have ever guessed that she would even be capable of such heinous crimes. 

After taking in her injured form, you watched her hand move towards her back pocket so she could pull something out. You could see something else that was tucked in the back of her jeans but you didn’t have enough time to get a look at it, as the sound of her switchblade flicking open had you focusing your attention back on her hand that now wielded the weapon. You felt as if the breath in your lungs was being stolen from you, your body backing up slightly so you could press yourself against the wall in the hopes that she wouldn’t see you. 

Just as she was reaching for the doorknob, a noise cut through the silence that sounded like a dish clattering. You did your best to not make a single sound as she turned away from you, clearly believing that you were the one who had made the noise. For a second you believed fate was finally on your side, as one of the dishes in the sink must have slipped just enough to get her distracted. “I’ve got you now” she taunted, swiftly making her way towards the kitchen. 

A quiet breath of relief left your lips once she was out of sight, your hand moving away from your lips so that you could take in a few gulps of air before making any sudden moves. Now that you could no longer see her, you could only assume her position in the house, her footsteps sounding far enough for you to open the door a bit wider. Your eyes darted in the direction of the staircase that was just down the hall, your heart pounding in your ears as you tried to decide if it was actually even possible for you to get upstairs without alerting her. 

You would rather go for the front door but that had already proven to be the wrong move and she would already expect that from you. After a moment of contemplation, you drew in a deep breath that seemed to cause your whole body to shake before you carefully pulled open the door and bolted towards the stairs before you could overthink it. 

You could spot your room as you reached the bottoms of the stairs, your body momentarily relaxing as you continued to rush as quickly and quietly as possible. You were so close— so close to being able to get away from whatever nightmare this was. 

And yet, just as you reached the bottom of the steps, an uncaring hand tugged you back by your hair. The cry you let out was pitiful, your head spinning as you tumbled to the ground. You already knew what had happened but that didn’t lessen the blow of having to see Ellie right above you, using her knee to keep the rest of your body held down as she kept a tight hold on your wrists. 

“You really are a fucking idiot, you know that?” she seethes, her chest heaving just the same as yours is. Crying would be futile at a time like this so you look up at her with nothing but betrayal and resentment. “Fuck you” you seethe, although your words only make her smile brightly. “Aw no, baby. We already played that game, remember?” she asks teasingly. You hated her more each time she opened her mouth and you wanted nothing more than to smack that stupid fucking smile off her face. 

“W— why are you doing this?” you ask abruptly, your eyes scanning her features for even the slightest bit of regret and yet you came up empty. The question makes her scoff, as she couldn’t believe that was what you chose to ask at a time like this. “You’re so unoriginal” she huffs, although her grip on your wrist falters as she begins to speak. “You should know already” she continues on, her eyes remaining focused on your fearful expression. 

“No one took his death seriously— no one. So why does everyone suddenly care when a bunch of asshole kids from a college get killed off, huh?” she begins, and you already know she is referencing Joel’s abrupt death. “I figured I’d give those cops something to do since all they’ve done is sit on their asses… those fucking bastards” she says, so lost in her confession that she doesn’t even feel the way you easily slip your wrist from her grasp and before she takes notice, you use all the strength you could muster to smack her, not giving two shits as to why she felt she had the right to harm others. 

The hit makes her groan, her head turning from the force of it as her whole body weakens for a brief moment, just long enough for you to shove her off of you and make another run for your bedroom. You could hear Ellie screaming meaninglessly as you sprinted for your life towards your bedroom, the sound of her footsteps right behind you making it hard to breathe. 

There was no time to slam the door before she got a hold on you again and she was going to make sure you knew she wasn’t fucking around this time. You were about to scream just to call attention to the house in case any neighbors happened to hear but you were quickly cut off when you felt a cool metal press against the side of your head. 

She had a fucking gun— that was what you had seen tucked in her jeans earlier. 

You felt as if your lungs were giving out, soft pleas beginning to fall from your lips as your body trembled in her hold. “Not so tough now, huh?” she questions, guiding you towards your plush bed and shoving you down on it, watching as you look up at her with teary eyes as she keeps the gun pointed at your head. 

The sight of you being reduced to such a pathetic sight made something blossom in Ellie’s chest, a sick sense of pride. She tucked the weapon into the back of her jeans before slowly crawling into bed with you, her body straddling your own as she looks down at you curiously. You can’t speak even if you try, the words dying in your throat as you watch her pull out her switchblade instead. 

She seems to relax, although you are tensing with each passing second as she brings the sharpened blade closer to your skin. You shake your head repeatedly, trying to reason with her. “Please— please don’t kill me” you begin to beg, the words leaving your lips countless times before they finally invoke a response from her. “Oh, angel. I don’t want to kill you. Just wanted to have some fun with you but then you had to make a big fuss, didn’t you?” she asks, her voice so soothing that you could feel your rational mind slipping away. 

“You really hurt me, baby” she sighs, beginning to use her blade to slice through the fabric of your top effortlessly. You whimper, a bit too loud for her liking. “Shut the fuck up” she snaps, cutting into the band of your bra next, her rough hand messily tugging the ruined material to the side so she could get a perfect view of your tits. You felt all too exposed, your frown deepening as you looked up at her. 

“So, are you gonna apologize for being so disrespectful?” she questions as she pushes up the material of your skirt, her blade catching on your panties. “Sorry” you mutter, squirming since her blade was uncomfortably close to your skin. Ellie’s patience was wearing, a low huff leaving her lips as she cut into the fabric. “Stop fucking moving!” she says exasperatedly, the loud words causing your body to still at once. 

She sighs as she pulls the thin fabric away from your body, her eyes shamelessly focusing on your cunt, her hand carelessly shoving your thighs further apart. “Say it like you mean it” she demands, not at all impressed. Her words make you burn with shame, your mind racing as she brings her hand closer to your cunt that was beginning to become embarrassingly wet. 

Just as your words began, her blade dug into your lower tummy in the slightest, barely enough to draw blood. “I’m sorry, Ellie! I didn’t mean it, I swear” you plead in a rushed voice, trying to focus on not moving at all so her blade wouldn’t push deeper into the soft skin of your stomach. Your chest heaved against your will and you were almost positive that this was the end for you, 

Seeing you all teary eyed and frightened made Ellie dizzy with power and she finally pulled away the blade, tucking it into her pocket before giving you a little kiss on your lips, not at all caring that you didn’t even have time to react to the action. “Was that so hard, sweet girl? Can’t believe you made me hurt you” she says with a mocking pout. 

All you can do is try to control your breathing, no longer attempting to struggle under the weight of her body. You knew your life was in danger but Ellie’s presence made it impossible for you to have any sort of rationality. 

“C’mere” she mutters calmly, finally scooting back so that you could sit up. She could already tell she had gotten you right where she wanted you so she felt no concern about letting you sit up for the time being. She carelessly removed your torn clothes so that you were finally completely bare for her. 

She couldn’t help herself, as her hand naturally lowered to deliver a few rough slaps against your tits. You flinched, the pain spreading quickly and making you huff a bit. It was hard not to be ashamed when you were completely nude and she was still fully clothed. Not to mention the fact that you were willingly allowing a ruthless killer to see you like this. 

No words were spoken as she laid you back down, not paying you any mind as she lowered herself so she could settle between your legs. You knew better than to move at this point, so you settled for raising your head in the slightest bit so you could peek down at her. 

Ellie didn’t bother to meet your gaze, her rough hands moving against your soft skin as she made sure you would be unable to press your thighs together. “Els…” you began, unsure of what you were even going to say. You didn’t even have the option to finish your sentence, as in the blink of an eye you could feel her warm breath against your cunt. 

You flinched involuntarily as she pressed a messy kiss to your sensitive clit, her tongue flattening to lick a stripe against your slit afterwards. She only backed away to speak a few simple words. “Just keep your mouth shut” she muttered before returning to her previous movements. 

The way her tongue sloppily moved against you showed a desperation you had never seen before, although the grip she had on your hips was proof of the anger that still lingered. You clasped your hand over your mouth, your brows knitting as you focused on how she would take little breaks to focus on sucking on your puffy bud. 

Your shaky hips rocked against her mouth, her own moans filling the room as she took in your sweet taste. “You gonna let me open you up?” she asks ever so calmly, allowing her middle finger to press into your slick cunt so she could fuck you with it. 

You were growing dizzy with a combination of guilt and pleasure, tears of frustration forming as she fucked you open. “Does it feel good, baby?” she asks, raising her head so she could look at your pathetic expression. You look at her for a moment, unsure if you were actually allowed to speak. 

The sight of your unsure gaze made Ellie grin in the slightest, not giving any warning as she pushed a second finger into you. “S’ fine, I wanna hear you” she says, granting you the permission you had been seeking out. Your muscles relaxed as you were finally allowed to let out small moans, your tears now aimlessly streaming down your face. 

“Mhmm,  I can feel it so deep” you whisper, curses slipping out as you press your head back against your bed. Your small movements quickly became erratic, your body writhing as endless pleasure built. “Need to cum, please” you beg, as something tightening in your lower tummy told you that you were getting close. 

“Not yet, we haven’t even gotten to the fun part” she hums, not caring about the shocked expression that took over your features. She halted the thrusting of her fingers to pull them out, your arousal still sticky against her skin. 

You momentarily believed that she had no intentions of letting you get off and you simply couldn’t bear the thought after all you had been through tonight. You needed to feel release, sooner rather than later. 

“I’ll do anything” you say quickly, your words so rushed that they almost don’t make sense to Ellie. Her eye refocus on you as she takes a moment to decipher what you had said, a smile making itself known as she reaches for an item still tucked into the back of her jeans. 

“I know you will” she quips, finally revealing what she had been reaching for. Ellie loved how heavy the gun felt in her hand and it offered her a sense of control she had never felt previously. Your heart nearly leapt out of your throat, your muscles aching from how harshly you were tensing up. 

The way you feverishly shook your head made you momentarily nauseous and you uttered the only words you could think of. “Please— don’t hurt me, I love you” you say breathlessly, feeling hurt at the way Ellie was quick to mutter a mocking version of your words. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you unless you make me” she states nonchalantly, inching the gun closer to your cunt but not before taking the time to spit directly on your pussy to ensure you wouldn’t be in too much pain from the stretch. 

You feel powerless as she finally presses the cool steel against your slit, the sound of her low voice reverberating inside your mind. “Make sure to keep still. You don’t want me accidentally pulling the trigger now, do you?” she asks with a sick smile. 

The two of you already know your answer so you don’t bother with a verbal reply, instead you close your eyes tightly and brace yourself. 

The barrel of the handgun eases into your cunt and you are thankful that she had the decency to make sure you were slick enough to take the weapon. Although that’s not to say that there wasn’t any pain, as low grunts were quick to leave your lips from how thick it was. 

“Keep taking it, just like that” she coos, now beginning to properly fuck you with it. You had fallen weak to your desires, as it dawned on you that you were truly nearing your orgasm due to the fact that you were being fucked with a gun. The thrusts were deep and fast, your moans becoming borderline screams as your pleasure continuously built. 

The barrel had grown warm from being within you and the way you were crying Ellie’s name let her know that you were on the brink of your climax. “Do it. Cum on my gun like the filthy girl you are” she mutters, rubbing your clit in time with the thrusts of the weapon. 

And you didn’t need to be told twice, as with one loud cry, you had reached your orgasm. Ellie felt pride swell within her chest as she saw the white ring of your slick that had formed at the end of the barrel. 

She eased the weapon out of your before using her tongue to shamelessly clean up the mess you had made on her weapon of choice. You were barely coherent, the exhaustion of all the fighting you had done catching up with you as well as the fact that your adrenaline was wearing off. 

You didn’t even notice as she stood above you, phone in hand as she took a flash photo of your worn down state. Once the light made you squint, you could hear her voice right next to your ear but you couldn’t even see her. 

“You tell anyone about what I did, I swear to god this picture will be plastered everywhere so everyone knows how much you love getting fucked by sickos. And if you ever talk back to me again, I’ll blow your brains out before you can even finish your sentence” she whispers. 

By the time you can see clearly again, she is gone, leaving you to clean up the mess she had made. But even with her gone, you swore you could still feel her eyes on you and you knew once and for all, there was no way she would ever let you get away from her. 

[haechanniesluvr]

Why’d you only call me when you’re high? | Thanos x fem!reader

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪now playing: habits by tove lo…⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

synopsis: you and thanos had a messy break-up after a 2 year relationship. you knew of his addiction, and he never did anything to change it. sick of him not changing and you beginning to develop your own addiction, you left him. of course, he won’t let you leave his life that quickly, deciding to ring you every other day when he got high.

warnings: mentions of drug use, swearing, …high people(?), this is a little toxic, making out… messily, kind of smut?? help OH GOD I CANT WRITE SMUR IM SO SORRY ITS BAD SKJDKHDUHDWJK, okay they dry hump sorry

songs for this fic: never be like you (flume, kai), habits (tove lo), why’d you only call me when you’re high? (arctic monkeys), headlock (imogen heap), me and your mama (childish gambino).

…

vrrrr… vrrrr…

your phone vibrated against your bedside table for the 5th time in 10 minutes. begrudgingly throwing aside the book you were reading, you picked it up with a groan. whoever this was was beginning to piss you off. big text flashed on the screen, ‘DONT ANSWER!!’. your adrenaline pulsed through you. it was thanos, who you had decided to change the name of in your phone to avoid any temptation of texting him. you were a sucker for drunk texting, meaning everytime you got a little tipsy, you fucking missed him, missed the names he’d call you, missed his bright hair that you would run your fingers through, missed his co-

“baby..”

did you just answer that fucking call? thanos’ voice struck your ears as your eyes widened in disbelief.

“oh fuck uh-“ you stuttered out as you tapped your screen repeatedly, trying to hang up. as quickly as you had declined, the buzzing persisted yet again. swallowing your saliva and your self-respect, you clicked that green button.

“dont hang up. please.” his voice rang out again. thanos’ speech was slurred, a clear indicator he had taken a pill. again. you let out a shaky breath, awaiting his next few words.

“please just listen to me, you don’t have to say anything. miss you so fucking bad. and.. and it’s not the drugs saying that.” he inhaled deeply. “come over.”

“what?” you spat out, immediately sitting upright in your bed.

“come over baby… please. need you here.. need you in my arms, my beauty flower.”

…

your lack of self-respect was seriously astounding. as soon as you had hung up, you were running over to your front door, stringing a scarf around your neck and shoving on a pair of shoes. is this seriously how you were spending your night? the time stood 11:13pm on your phone as you briskly walked over to thanos’ apartment. god, he had no idea how much he played on your mind. it was stupid. you decided to end things, convincing yourself he had issues you couldn’t fix. but in the end, you were just like him. but you weren’t battling a drug addiction, you were battling an addiction to him.

you ran up the first flight of stairs, quickening your pace right over to his door. hesitantly, you raised your fist to knock. before you could, the door swung open.

thanos stood slumped against the doorway, resting his elbow against the frame. his brows were knitted, a glaze visible over his eyes. suddenly, he pulled you inside, slamming the door and pulling you tight to his chest. burying his face in your neck, inhaling deeply, his hands roamed around your back, fumbling to remove your coat.

“hold on, hold on,“ you protested, pushing him off you. you began shaking your coat off your arms, letting it drop to ground along with your scarf. his apartment was filled with a dark purple hue, caused by his led’s he had around his tv area.

his face had melded into one of desperation as he watched you remove your outer layers, and he could barely hold back pouncing on you. grabbing your wrist, he took you over to the couch, pulling you onto his lap.

“missed this pretty fucking face.” he whined as he cupped your cheeks, moving his hands down to your hips, squeezing slightly. childish gambino’s ‘me and your mama’ rung out through the apartment, the deep purple lighting making it hard to see, and just a little more exciting.

“can’t believe you. high as shit.. ringing me up like some desperate dog.” you spoke into his ear, feeling him grip your hips a little tighter.

reaching into his shirt, he pulled out his signature cross, popping out a small pill. he held it out on his hand, watching how you stared at it with wide eyes, visibly battling your morals. an idea surged through you. taking the pill, you stuck your tongue out and placed it on the tip before delving to his lips. your tongues tangled against each other as you felt the pill dissolve. he angled his hips up slightly, causing you to gasp into his mouth. a string of saliva connected your lips as you pulled away, both of your eyes hooded with need.

“you were always so dirty, i fucking swear. you drive me crazy..” thanos groaned, grinding his hips upwards harshly. a small whine slipped from between your lips as he latched himself onto your neck, licking and sucking dark hickies into the sensitive flesh. his hand held the back of your head, his rings digging in with how hard he was gripping you. his other hand on your waist, he had you in a way that told you he never wanted you to leave.

the music got louder, as did your moans with the way he was practically humping you through his sweats.

“god m’sorry… m’sorry i left you alone..” you whined out, pressing your forehead against his. “should’ve helped you..” he stopped for a moment, holding your face tenderly.

“m’getting better. promise baby.” he smirked, nipping at your neck again, his hands holding you against him as he grinded slightly faster against you. he found that one sensitive spot he knew all too well, the area where your neck meets your shoulder. he nipped it slightly, causing you to tug his hair. as you tugged, he moaned, pushing you harder down onto him, his ministrations getting faster indicating he was getting close. with every movement of your hips, he let out a small whine. these whines became louder and more frequent before he finally dropped his head onto your shoulder with a loud groan, hips twitching and rutting up into you as he stained his sweats.

you carried on moving against him, chasing your own high. you ignored his desperate grabs at your hips to get you to slow down, too focused on cumming against his sweats.

“wait baby please c-can’t.. cant-“ you kissed him, quietening him before your legs started shaking. he moaned into the kiss as he felt you convulse in his lap, wrapping his arms around your waist tightly. as you came down from your high, your body melted into his chest. his heartbeat was erratic.

“god, fuck, i’m gonna get sober for you. won’t loose you again flower i promise.”

[annabelle--cane]

i wasn’t here when tma reached the height of its popularity (i only joined last year) so could you describe the Vibes (how bad the drama was, did it feel like there were too many people, etc.)

only if you want to :]

I've said this before, so this may be a familiar spiel to longer term followers, but 2020 tma fandom was honestly not the worst fandom I've ever been in, it was just by far the biggest thing I have ever been actively into at peak popularity and so the 1% of insane people that are found in every fan space were 1% of a much bigger total population. most people were fine and chill, but there were a vocal minority who Weren't.

major ingredients in the discourse pot:

from my observations, tma had a small but devoted listener base for its first few years, then it got a little bump in mid 2018, then a considerable bump in late 2019, then hit proper virality in early 2020, so there were a lot of people with hipster complexes about being Real Fans who were there first and weren't just part of the masses.

at this point I'm not even sure if this part was true, but the above was compounded by the perception that the earlier og listener base were mostly adults and the new wave of fans were mostly tweens and teens. whether the different waves actually fell along those age lines or not, a lot of people felt like the fandom was split into 80% Cringe Zoomers Who Are Here For Ships And Memes and 20% Millennials and Gen X'ers With Media Literacy Who Are Here For Horror. nice dichotomy, idiot, now what lies outside it, etc and such and such. our blessed fandom etiquette vs their barbarous dni lists.

which isn't to say that suddenly having a huge number of people, including young people, become interested in a single piece of media at a time of global stress where everyone had to be much more online and the content of the media itself was at its darkest and most socially relevant had no downsides. oh no. Oh No.

"my headcanon is not only objectively the best headcanon but it actually invalidates all of yours and if you hc something different then it's an act of bigotry against my Correct Headcanon." / "I have drawn up a list of Good Characters you have to like and aren't allowed to criticize and a list of Bad Characters you have to hate and can't acknowledge exist unless it's to make fun of and completely condemn them." / "I saw her username in the kudos of a jonelias fic" "girl what were YOU doing in the kudos of a jonelias fic" / "this latest episode handled a social issue unforgivably badly, I haven't experienced it myself but the vibes were off, everyone demand accountability and boycott the rest of the show" "hey that one was actually based on jonny's personal experiences" "ah fuck not again. well boys let's remember this for next time. this latest epis--"

honestly most of the discourse was down to like two or three friend groups. there was one group of people who you will probably remember if you were there at the time whom I have sometimes seen referred to as the Clown Gang. Clown Gang were ground zero for a good 90% of fan discourse ("hcing melanie as ace is ableist and lesbophobic" "fan content that focuses on jon's asexuality is biphobic. what's pansexuality I've never heard of it." "desolation tim aus are inherently ableist and racist"), but eventually they had a big falling out with Clown Prime and things calmed down. to be very clear I hold no ill will towards any of these people for four year old bad takes, hence why I'm not using any names, but god was it a time.

and this is only about the tumblr side of things. I was barely active of twitter so idk what it was like there but I was on tiktok for about a year during that time and the vibes were wildly different. iirc people there were less confrontational and there wasn't really a callout culture like on tumblr, but the extremes of the takes were FAR worse.

[thewertsearch]

@necrowyrm asked: happy new year!!! enjoy the last little bit of homestuck before act 6! Anonymous asked: You have NO IDEA how much I was looking forward to your reaction to this flash :D @teddy-bearer-of-bad-news asked: a very late congratulations from me for making it this far! i gotta say, saving CASCADE for new year's is probably the smartest thing i've heard all week. may your experience be nothing short of righteous, comrade Anonymous asked: Cascade … Even years latter knowing it almost by heart, every once in a while I will take a little quarter of an hour to rewatch it, Say what you want about Hussie but there is a good reason Homestuck became so iconic. @adeptarcanist asked: The leadup to Cascade was honestly my favorite sequence in Homestuck, and maybe one of my favorites in any media ever? The way the narrative splits apart into all of the different scenes swirling in towards the critical moment, both advancing main plots and finding time to spend a moment of melancholy with characters who’d been left behind (The Jaspers and Nepeta scene :( )… it’s such a strong narrative device, and the tone it generates is impeccable. @calamitascalliope asked: I literally watched the flash again, and it still gives me chills every single time. Welcome to your post-Cascade life. You won't be able to think about anything the same ever again @iris-in-the-dark-world asked: "she looks so cool… but she’s so tragic… but she looks so cool…" has become a brainworm for me. i too love the handmaid's design btw, cascade time has been i think the most anticipated non-personal event of the entire year for me. i'm so excited @publicuniversalworstie asked: I want you to know that I also opened Cascade and started watching with you right after I saw your "oh my god it has chapters" ask, and I finished just as you posted "I will never be the same" !! And I bet lots of other people did too <3 so it's like we all watched it together!!!! Happy New Year and thank you for liveblogging!!!! It's been a pleasure！(and will continue to be) @krixwell asked: I would like you to know that your "Right, we're good to go!" and "oh my god it has chapters" posts were posted right as I was outside watching midnight fireworks ring in 2025 for the Central European timezone. Happy new year! @captorations asked:

hey remember when rose just up and fucking said that. anyway congrats on reaching cascade! it absolutely wrecked me back in the day, i think i stared at those flaming curtains for a solid ten minutes as my brain permanently reconfigured. the first few notes of the track alone still give shivers. getting your reaction to cascade was a wonderful birthday present. (speaking of getting older: aradia 🤝 dulcinea also got that "distressingly short lifespan only to die early anyway" story thread going on. the parallels are paralleling.) anyway happy new year and congrats you are… slightly less than halfway done with homestuck. have fun!

Hey, guys. Cascade was so fucking good.

Like, there's really no competition; this is the best Flash page in the comic thus far. Peak music, peak animation, and absolutely a peak narrative. It tied up mountains of plot threads, providing complete answer to questions we're been asking for literally thousands of pages. It completed over a dozen arcs, both big and small. It made me gasp three times in fourteen minutes. It let Jade become a furry.

11/10, and I'm glad people had as much fun here as I did on New Year's Eve. Happy 2025, and happy Act 6!

@morganwick asked: Sally, predicting Cascade: "I have approximate knowledge of many things." @morganwick asked: "You literally have the whole world in the palm of your hands." -Sally to Jadesprite, December 16, 2024 (You might also want to reread post/770701212350857216 in light of recent developments.)

Hah!

I mean, based on her powerset, it made sense that Jadesprite would do something like this eventually, but it's pretty funny that she did it more or less immediately.

And in the end, CD really was a tricky little bastard. We'll definitely need to keep a closer eye on him, next time around.

Anonymous asked: Take a moment to consider that if anyone were to use the Homestuck website as it stands now instead of the Collection program, Cascade would have been presented in the YouTube player in Standard Definition, artifacted to hell, with a clear boundary showing the dimensions of the video from the very start. Preservation is so important.

Jeez, you're not kidding. The 1080p is fine, I guess, but it certainly doesn't hit like the Flash version does, especially with its lack of moving panels.

I know something had to change when Flash kicked the bucket, but surely there was a better way to preserve the video's soul.

Anonymous asked: to give you some of an idea of what homestuck fandom looked like during this time period, im cribbing from a very popular homestuck post: “first, this upd8 was something that we had been waiting for for WEEKS. A literally unprecedented wait period at the time. We were used to suckling at the teat of daily updates, a constant stream of conversation and plot twists and buildup, and as EOA5, we were finally going to figure out what all these countdowns and plot threads and disconnected elements were building up for. And when the progress bar reached 100%, and when the page FINALLY loaded on 10/25/11, it was chaos. This was 2011, a primetime peak point and growth period of Homestuck fan density.” (…) “MSPA crashed, as it had started to during the last few big [S] updates. Hussie had already bought new servers in advance, but even when allegedly thousands of dollars were spent it couldn't handle the accidental DDOS attack of Homestuck fans. People were up all night waiting for this upd8, the curiosity was killing me. I know at some point he was receiving at least 1 million unique visitors per day to his site [correction: according to Hussie’s tumblr, upwards of 2 million during this time], and even though Hussie had foreseen such traffic and thusly hosted [S] Cascade on Newgrounds, a dedicated video streaming site, Newgrounds was similarly unprepared for the sheer amount of people frantically mashing the play and refresh buttons, and also crashed. Immediately. MSPA and Newgrounds crashed definitively for at least two nights in a row” (…) “Andrew Hussie has gone on record to say this was one of the few times he thought Homestuck wasn’t worth it, because the sheer unbelievable cost (was it $10,000?) [correction: according to Hussie’s tumblr, it looked like it was going to cost $100,000 to keep [S] Cascade up for several days] of servers and the chaos of no one able to see the upd8 and crashing nearly every site after. He was tweeting during the whole debacle, stating he was reluctant to put it up on Youtube because of all the moving elements of the flash, and style, and how youtube degraded the quality of the file size, and how he tried to scratch out buffer time and pauses by putting periods of silence between each section of the 14 minute upd8, the longest upd8 yet” “So after Newgrounds patooted, he didn’t put it on youtube and instead put up the entire flash file on Megaupload, where it could be downloaded in it’s entirety to be watched. UNFORTUNATELY, Megaupload also crashed very quickly, which Hussie felt much headache over. But before that happened I managed to get the file, since I happened to be up very early that night! Next it was on dropbox, which didn’t crash but had “link unavailable” on and off. ”Spoilers were flying everywhere, people didn’t understand everything that had happened, and by the time the timeline of events in and out of [S] Cascade was all straightened out, people became even MORE hype. Like this whole thing lasted at least four days, and on top of that, the upd8 was good. Fandom exploded.” it is impossible to quantify the experience. The fact hussie was going to have to fork over A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to host it is crazy. I am never going to be over it.

Cascade's complete obliteration of the Flash-hosting internet says a lot about huge Homestuck truly was - but I think an even bigger indicator of the comic's success is the fact that Hussie dropped literally thousands of dollars on server upgrades to host the thing. That's not an investment you make unless you're expecting some serious returns.

[treatbuckywkisses]

this took me WAY too long to read and it's nobody's fault but my own

Fifth upon a time (I'm sad this is not ringy at all)

"She gave you about an hour before the hatch in the floor boards opened, even though for you, it was much longer. She didn’t know that, though. You sat very still, your breath finally silent again. Maybe she didn’t know you were in here." - THAT IS SO SAD WHAT THE FUCK I DID NOT EXPECT SADNESS IMMEDIATELY 

some real life good advice from strange ??? Where am I rn 😲 

SHUT UP HE GOT COFFEE 😭🥹

""You know me, doc," you answer, letting the power crackle again ever so slightly. It’s a thrill, getting to feel it again. "Careful’s basically my middle name."" - LIAR LIAR IM EXCITED SHES PLOTTING SOMETHING 

""What are you doing?" He doesn’t sound annoyed at all; more entertained. You take a step back, assessing, but his face doesn’t betray him whatsoever. " WE'VE BEEN MADE 😭

"Oh, you hate this. " - this interaction feels flirty and I'm ready to start yelling 

STOP BRINGING UP THE FLOOR DAMNIT IT HURTS 

"But you stop talking, because he’s already taking a tentative nip of yor drink, and then he licks his lips. And they curl slightly upwards." - this has me so soft ??? He likes her coffee order I'm so ?????????? UGH ?? HE LIKES HER FUCKING CODFEE BRO

"And then you realize what’s really happening, and the world chokes, like something falling into place." - I am the world and I am choking up .

GOD THE WAY THEY LOOK AT EACH ITHER AND YALK FO EACH ITHER UOU ARE SO BAD IM SO HSHSKSHAKHS AND YOU FUCKING MSDE THEM HOLD HANDS OHMYHFO ARE YOU JOKING RIGHT NOW 

"You’re going to fix this mess you’ve created, if it’s the last thing you do." - this is slightly worrisome (I'm scared of you)

LITERAL CHILLS for the whole ending sequence my God do you know how to write 😍 you're insane I hate this story 

How do you have me so emotional with some grand idea and some click clacking on a keyboard you have such talent i want to scream forever about

time after time [5]

series summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

word count: 10.9k

chapter warnings: nothing except the usual ones; another panic attack near the end; the riveting resolution of the coffee side quest? please note that my blog is rated 18+. minors dni. ageless/empty blogs will be blocked without warning.

a/n: after my week of technical difficulties (got shadowbanned, had a breakdown, bon appétit), this chapter finally made it to tumblr as well. thank you so much to everyone who reached out, it's meant more than you know!! <3 this one starts out fairly harmless and then i threw some punches again and for that i apologise

series masterlist | main masterlist | read on ao3

five: carousel

The first mission they took you on was nothing short of a disaster.

It should have been simple, was simple, a quick extraction to get a microchip from this decimated group of criminals operating out of an abandoned toy store that Nat had discovered through one of her contacts. You were only supposed to tag along to get a feeling for being out in the field, an additional pair of eyes just in case things went south.

Did they ever.

Not only was the chip accidentally destroyed, your ensuing panic got you stuck for a good twenty minutes until the world started spinning again. Steve fell down a full flight of stairs when you reappeared out of thin air next to him the moment it did.

Needless to say, you went into hiding as soon as you got back to the Compound.

She gave you about an hour before the hatch in the floor boards opened, even though for you, it was much longer. She didn’t know that, though. You sat very still, your breath finally silent again. Maybe she didn’t know you were in here.

"I know you’re up here, Y/N."

You pulled the cape off your head with a sigh. Natasha grimaced.

"Don’t do that, I’m not talking to a floating head," she said with a shudder. "You know how weird that is?"

You huffed and let her pull the fabric into her lap, watching your own limbs reappear, your arms hugged around your knees. She sat down next to you, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. You watched a spider scatter away from you.

"How did you even find me?" you asked quietly after she made no further attempts to speak to you.

"My sister had a similar hiding spot when we were little." You could hear the smile in her voice as she said it. "And you kicked up quite a bit of dust."

She didn’t elaborate on either of those things and you didn’t ask, even though you wanted to. Anything that could get your mind off what happened.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Yeah," you said dryly. "That’s why I’m sitting in the supply closet."

"That’s exactly what I told Steve." Your face fell again, but hers didn’t. "He’s alright. Or he will be, once he forgives me for laughing at him for five minutes."

That didn’t make you feel any better. "I fucked up today," you said softly, your voice still rough.

"You didn’t do anything wrong."

"I did, though. I literally froze as soon as things went wrong, and the chip—"

"Is expendable," Natasha interrupted calmly.

You shook your head. "I only mess everything up for you guys. I’m not a real agent, and my powers just make things worse, and I should just—"

"Do you realize that this thing you were given can be a gift?" You cringed and started turning away, but Natasha reached out for you, a gentle hand on your arm. "I mean it. You think every time you’re unable to use your powers is your personal failure, but you don’t see how every time you are able to use them is precious."

There was a delicate hue to her green eyes, a weariness that was visible even in the dim light of the closet. For the first time, you had the feeling she let you see something she usually wouldn’t.

"Our lives … they’re hard," she went on. "Unpredictable. We live on borrowed time. And you get to have more of it. That’s …" You waited for the words you’d heard before. Invaluable. Instrumental. Priceless. "Beautiful."

You swallowed hard. "Is that why you took me on? For the team?"

Nat looked at you for so long you were almost sure she wasn’t going to answer your question. Then, she said, "I took you on because you needed a reason to get up in the morning."

You stared at her, your nails digging into the palm of your hand until it hurt more than the ache in your chest. Natasha kept looking at you as she continued.

"I lost a lot of people over the years, you know. But never like this. Never this many at once. Something like that …" She trailed off, her eyes wet. "The entire planet was grieving and struggling and blaming us, because at that point hardly anyone understood any of it apart from the fact that the Avengers were involved. And then one day, out of nowhere, a letter materialized on our doorstep, and the security cameras didn’t show a thing." Her grip on your arm tightened, as if she needed to steady herself. "Do you remember what you wrote?"

I’m sorry for your loss.

You’d struggled to put it down for days, because how else could you apologize for something you might have been able to prevent had you only been there instead of hiding? In the end, you’d only added your name and the address of that diner in Brooklyn where you picked up a few shifts after their waitress had been blipped.

You’d gotten a call less than twenty-four hours later.

"You were the first person to say that," Nat continued, because she could see the memories flit across your face as easily as others watched a movie. "And yet, when you got here, you looked as guilty as if you’d personally murdered every single one of the Vanished."

"Well, if I’d been with you—"

"Stop it." For the first time, her voice was sharp. Your mouth fell closed. "We’re all trying to do better, right?"

You could only nod.

"That’s all anybody here is ever going to ask of you. And sometimes 'better' is just getting one hell of a kick in during a mission. Don’t think I didn’t see that."

You smiled ever so slightly. "I have a pretty good teacher."

"Yeah, you do." She shoved your shoulder lightly. "You can’t do more than show up and do your best, honey."

"My best looks like a dead possum next to yours."

"Then stop looking at me." Natasha got up to her feet slowly, patting you on the knee when she did. "Unless it’s for a post mission wind down because I have a movie queued up and I know where Steve hid the cookies."

"Can I have my cape back?"

"Nope." She folded it up with the green side out, letting it hang loosely over her arm. "You’re supposed to use it to hide from your enemies, not your friends."

You didn’t attempt to argue further, warmth rising to your cheeks.

"Nat?" She turned again, halfway down the hatch, caught by the emotion in your voice. "Thank you."

Her smile told you that, as always, she understood.

*****

There simply isn’t a world in which you can do this even one more time. It’s too much.

"You need to sort out your priorities," Sam says, zero sympathy in his voice. Bucky has the audacity to look amused.

"I’m serious," you say, looking between the two of them. "My day is bad enough already. I don’t care where we order, but it’s not going to be Italian unless you want me to puke on your cat."

Over the past couple of weeks, you’ve eaten your way through the entirety of your pizza place’s menu. If you have to smell the rank cheese Sam likes to order one more time, you can’t be held responsible for your actions.

"How about sushi?" Bucky says, and you almost start protesting out of habit before you realize that for once, he’s not arguing your side. You turn to Sam with an expectant grin.

"Fine," he grunts, shaking Alpine off his trouser leg as gently as he can while his nose twitches. "I guess Russian Doll has the right to choose his last meal."

Bucky frowns at him, but you gasp in delight. "Are you finally joining us in dark humor land, Sammy?"

He flips you off wordlessly as he leaves the room and you chuckle to yourself, pulling up the sushi menu on your phone. Alpine starts nibbling on the bandage around your foot that’s stretched out on the couch and you wiggle your toes a bit. It seems to entertain her.

"What," you ask when the staring becomes unbearable.

"Nothing."

When you lift your gaze to meet Bucky’s, his jaw is clenched again, his eyes fixed on you with a distant expression in them. You tilt your head, and he lowers his.

"So what’s the plan?"

You send your part of the order to FRIDAY and put your phone to the side. "I have to get back to Strange to figure out how to stop this loop from happening again."

You’ve almost felt sorry to see your series of library heists break, even though you have no reason to feel his way. This is progress. Strange’s offer to help has been genuine enough so far, even though you hate paying him in answers.

Now that he’s not deliberately keeping you out anymore, getting to the astral plane has been a lot easier, at least, even though emptying your mind enough to cross over without a prior emotional breakdown has still proven somewhat difficult. Weirdly, it’s easiest on the couch.

Bucky nods shortly. "And what do I do?"

"Whatever you want."

He scoffs. "Right."

It makes your insides twist. "Bucky, as much as I hope that today is the last time we’re doing this, I can’t guarantee it. So you should just, I don’t know, enjoy yourself." You cringe even as you say it.

"I wanna come see Strange."

You blink, watching him clench and unclench his fists slowly, deliberating. The golden parts of his arm gleam in the sunlight. "Why?"

His voice, when he speaks, sounds haunted. "I can’t just sit around and do nothing."

Something in his voice sticks with you as you lie down on the couch and stare up at the ceiling. You’re not even sure if what he’s asking is possible.

"No, it’s not," Strange says bluntly. "Not as long as you’re in the loop."

"Why not?"

"Stop asking questions and focus."

With a roll of your eyes, you raise up your arms again. So far, you’ve spent most of your so-called lessons trying to make sense of the cryptic texts Strange makes you read and then summarize like you’re in fifth grade. If you’re not doing that, you’re talking him through the events of your July 4th, or explaining your powers to the best of your abilities, going through the motions and habits you’ve taught yourself over the years. It all feels like you’re revealing something very personal for someone else to judge.

You don’t care much for any of it.

"Again."

"Is this supposed to teach me something new?" you ask, turning your thumb and first two fingers upwards again while your other hand balls into a fist by your side.Threads of sunlight glittering like spun gold. You take a breath and shake your head.

"Do you feel anything?"

Annoyance. You bite your tongue and reach out, carefully, like you would to a scared animal, searching for that old familiar feeling.

It takes a while.

Dim, at first, but clearly there, vibrating deep in your veins, hesitantly stumbling towards your hands like it was suprised, too, to be called upon again. Softly glowing embers slowly filling the void you’ve grown so hopelessly accustomed to.

You open your eyes to find the tiniest green spark dancing across your fingertips and almost laugh in relief.

"Interesting," Strange says.

You flick your fingers softly, once, twice, letting the spec of power grow until it’s the size of a pinhead, cradling it softly with your other hand as if to protect it from a gust of wind. Slowly, bit by bit, it settles back into your skin, and you feel it tingling all the way up to your ears.

Strange contemplates you for a long moment. "When did you get that cut?" he finally asks.

At this point, you should be used to his unfazedness. "Yesterday," you say, the 'obviously' clinging to every syllable. Riff was putting up a better fight than usual; or maybe you’re getting sloppy again.

Strange moves his right hand in that circular motion you’ve seen him do before, and the air in front of you cracks. It’s weird to see your own slightly translucent reflection suspended in the middle of your room. The gash on your cheek has barely had the chance to scab. You subconsciously reach for your necklace again.

"Look at the wound, and hold your hands like this."

You try and mimic Strange’s gesture. "I feel ridiculous." Like a mime. Or a really bad stage magician.

"Good," he says. "Now focus your powers, and follow my lead."

You watch Strange move his shaky hands out of the corner of your eye while trying to concentrate on that little spec of power you’ve felt earlier. Slowly, itchingly, the wound starts knitting itself together, as if it’s been healing for days. The skin smoothes over as if nothing had ever happened.

A rush of excitement goes through you at the sight, and there’s a stutter. With a flash of pain, the cut tears up again and you flinch, your hands falling.

"Fuck."

"I told you to focus."

"Well, if only saying it made it happen," you snap, then try again. This time, you let go of your power more carefully, almost coaxing it down. The gash doesn’t heal completely, but at least it looks better than what you started with. Strange watches you closely, brow furrowed deeply in thought.

"Let’s try something different," he says, and with another flick of his wrist, the mirror vanishes again. "Sit down."

You bristle at the command, but obey. A sidelong glance confirms that your sleeping body’s cut on the cheek has somewhat improved as well. There seems to be something connecting the two of you after all.

"When is this here, anyway?" you ask.

Once again, he doesn’t give you an answer. With another quick movement he grabs something through a small portal and throws it at you without any regard to your reflexes. You grab it off the bed incredulously.

"That’s … a meditation CD."

"Congratulations," Strange says. "You can read."

"You’re not serious."

"Deadly." He unfastens his cloak, which flies over to drape itself over the reading chair like a blanket, and then joins you on the floor, crossing his legs as well. It’s bizarrely casual. "If you don’t learn to focus," he continues, "there’s no moving forward from this point."

You huff, holding the CD out for him to take back. He doesn’t. "I’ve tried meditation," you say impatiently. "It doesn’t work for me. My mind—it doesn’t work for me."

"Your mind what?"

"It’s too loud."

You put the CD on the ground with a little too much force, moving to twist your rings around again, but they’re still absent. Your nails dig into your skin, instead.

"Did you know I don’t really forget stuff? Did I tell you that?" You laugh humorlessly, because what else can you do. "Fun side effect of the traveling back and forth through time. I always know where I’ve been and what I’ve done, and what everyone else has done while I was there. All that information is in my head, all the time, and I can’t get rid of it."

"All the more reason to have it quiet down every once in a while," Strange says calmly.

You want to strangle him.

"Believe me, I’d love nothing more, but I can’t. It’s not like I’m a computer and you can do the whole 'Hello, this is IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?' It doesn’t work like that."

"You do know a lot about how things don’t work."

"Welcome to my world," you mutter, flexing your fingers and crossing your arms before you draw blood.

Strange sighs. "Your mind isn’t a hard drive. No matter what your powers entail, your brain is still human. And it needs to rest every once in a while."

For some reason, in the middle of this whole crazy situation, that thought settles. Maybe it’s because it’s possibly the first genuinely kind sentiment he’s shown you so far. Maybe you’re just tired of pushing.

"How?" It’s more a croak than a question.

"Just stay like that and breathe." You look at him incredulously and he raises an eyebrow. "What? No one said you have to think nothing. It’s fine if you just sit there with your thoughts."

There’s a short pause. "That sounds terrifying," you admit quietly.

Strange considers you for a long moment, as if he’s contemplating what to say, until he finally admits, "I know."

***

You blink awake slowly this time, as if gradually awakening from a deep sleep. The TV is on again, quietly chattering in the background, and a weight on your legs tells you that Alpine has found a new spot again.

A glance at your phone shows that surprisingly little time has passed. When you sit up, the white cat on top of you complaining loudly, you can see Sam leaning against the kitchen counter, laptop closed, talking to Sarah on the phone.

The fact that you’re not alone quite yet is weirdly comforting.

In a moment of sleepy contentment, you reach out to scratch Alpine under the chin like you’ve seen Bucky do countless times. Curiously, she lets you without immediately extending her claws. At least for a moment.

"You’re awake."

Immediately, Alpine loses interest in you and jumps onto the backrest of the couch to nestle her head into Bucky’s palm. You roll your eyes.

"Keen observation, sarge."

He slowly peels his gloves off, not quite looking at you. "What did he say?"

Right. There was that.

"Nothing, to be honest," you say, folding up the throw blanket Sam must have put over you while you were sleeping. "Apart from the fact that he really can’t actually do as much as one would think."

"Can’t, or doesn’t want to?"

You shrug. "Same difference."

Despite everything, somehow you feel inclined to believe that there really isn’t a way to get Bucky to the astral plane, though. After all, things haven’t been normal ever since this loop began; and since you’re the only one who can lift it, maybe that also means you’re the only one who can do things like that.

You can only hope that at some point, something—anything—you do is going to stick.

Bucky studies your face, but doesn’t tell you whatever is still clearly gnawing at him. You don’t know why for a moment, you thought he would.

It reminds you of something you haven’t asked in a while.

"Is there something you want to tell me?"

His mouth opens, but he doesn’t speak immediately. "Like what?"

"It’s just …" You struggle with the words, as if your mind is still half-asleep. "In some of the loops, it was kind of …" You trail off when you notice he’s holding something in his other hand. "Did you go get coffee again?"

Bucky clears his throat. "Yeah. I thought since you didn’t get one earlier, ya know …"

You’ve stopped getting caffeinated drinks for yourself in the mornings to make it easier to get to that voidlike state you need to be in to enter the astral plane. It’s been making you rather irritable; though, truth be told, that might also be due to Strange’s charming personality.

"That’s nice," you say, reaching for the paper cup with your name on it, taking a sniff before tasting it carefully. It’s perfect. "I should change my habits," you say lightly, "if Lucy knows my order even if I don’t pick it up myself."

"Who’s Lucy?" Bucky says, sitting down on the couch next to you.

You stop yourself from rolling your eyes. "The pretty one on register? Stars and stripes on her cheeks?" He hums noncommittantly and you decide it’s not worth the effort. "What did you get?" you ask with a nod to the second cup.

"Just … coffee."

You squint to read the sticker, but he puts his fingers over it in a motion so smooth it almost hides its defensiveness. There’s the slightest hint of a grin on his face as you scowl, trying to catch his sleeve to get him to twist the writing back in your direction. Your thumb grazes cool metal and you still. Bucky does, too.

"Did she actually give you her number?"

Your laugh comes out through your nose, somehow, as if it’s not much more than a breath. The expression on Bucky’s face doesn’t quite fit his widening grin, or the slight tinge of pink on his cheeks, but you couldn’t say why.

"So?" he says. Alpine stares at you accusingly, settling in his lap once more.

"Nothing!" It comes out quickly. "I’m not surprised. I mean, she thinks you’re hot."

His eyebrow quirks. "Does she, now?"

You take a gulp of coffee so large it makes your eyes water. "Her shift’s probably over by now. You should call her."

"Why," Bucky says wryly.

"To take her out." Should you be weirded out by the fact that this is happening as soon as Bucky entered the store without you? You tug at the ring on your pinkie.

"Why do you want me to take her out if I’m gonna die later?" Bucky asks.

"Well, it might take your edge off for one."

"And why does my edge concern you?"

"Have you met yourself?" You shrug, your ears drumming. "Besides, it might be fun."

He doesn’t look at you as he takes a sip from his own coffee, as if still determined not to let you see his reaction. "You have a strange definition of fun."

Alpine yawns as if to agree. You stand up abruptly, suddenly nauseated from drinking too fast.

"I’m just gonna …"

Again, you don’t finish your sentence, and Bucky doesn’t stop you from grabbing your takeout containers and taking them with you to your room, where you stare at the toilet for a good minute, waiting for the queasiness to pass. Your meet your own gaze in the mirror.

The cut on your face looks better than it did a few hours ago.

You walk back into your bedroom and take a critical look at your bookcase.The Wind in the Willows is back in its place where it belongs. What isn’t there is the CD Strange finally managed to force upon you.

The rules of this multiverse crap are going to give you another migraine on top of your current one.

You sit down on the floor next to your window to eat, but your cheek keeps itching until you notice yourself tapping your chopsticks against the plastic container so hard soy sauce is splashing everywhere. With a displeased twitch of your mouth, you reach for your phone.

It rings for a very long time and you realize it’s already past midnight in Seoul when finally, there’s a voice on the other end.

"This better be good, agent Y/L/N."

Her voice is quiet, tired, and you press the phone to your ear even harder. "Can I ask you a hypothetical question?"

Doctor Helen Cho sighs deeply on the other end of the line, and you can almost picture her leaning back in her ergonomic office chair. "Alright."

You toy with the edges of the building scab on your cheek. "Is it possible for someone to go through physical changes and … not go through them at the same time?"

There’s a pause on the other end, followed by a sigh. "Are you asking me if Schrödinger’s cat is real or not?"

A living being that simultaneously is and isn’t dead? That’s a paradox you have an answer for.

The problem, as always, is you.

"Sort of. I don’t know." You bite your lip.

"You realize quantum mechanics is not exactly my specialty, right?" Even while she says that, you can hear the clicking of her keyboard. "You are talking about a body, I presume. A human one?"

"Mhm."

"And the changes?"

You think of the cut and the writing and Bucky’s blood on your sheets. And your changed clothes. "They’re only to the body itself. Everything around stays the same. Pretty much like Schrödinger’s cat, I guess. Nothing about the box changes." Ever.

There’s another pause before Helen speaks again.

"Look, as far as I know—and with all these new and upcoming aliens and superheroes and so on that have been appearing over the past couple of years that’s less and less, mind you—but as far as I know, humans can only be in one state at one particular time. There’s ways to accelerate healing processes or even meddle with the body in other ways, but it’s still an either–or scenario."

"So, it’s impossible?" you ask, biting your cheek.

"It’s improbable, based on what I understand." Time has definitely started to bleed into itself, then. Great. "But like I said, that’s not really my area of expertise," she continues. "Speaking of, though, I got an e-mail from your new captain earlier."

"You did?" you ask, surprised. Sam hasn’t said anything to you, not today or any other iteration of it.

"You can tell him I’m hearing the same things he has," Helen says. "My lab wasn’t approached, but I have a colleague at a partner institution who left for Madripoor a couple of weeks ago."

You’ve barely thought about ULTIMATUM and their experiments since you laid everything out for Sam and Bucky earlier this morning. Another wave of guilt flashes through you.

"I’ll tell him," you say tonelessly. "Thanks, Helen."

"In this hypothetical of yours," Helen says before you can hang up. "Who’s the observing party?"

You watch the green symbols circle around your wrist, once, twice, three times. "I’m not sure yet."

You stare at them for a while longer after the call disconnects.

"There’s nothing to observe when the flow of time is reduced to a single day," Strange says when you relay the question to him the next day, his voice dripping with annoyance.

"So there would be, usually?" you ask, eyes narrowing as you try to channel the flow of your powers into the palm of your hand, like he’s told you.

"It’s not a perfect comparison," he answers. "The cat is only dead or not because time passes. Time is only our way of perceiving space dimensionally."

"Time and relative dimension in space," you hum with a light smile. Your palm starts tingling. "But if it’s not that, either, then … I still feel like there has to be something I’m missing here."

Every single review of the mission fills in another piece of the puzzle, the map of the lab you draw on the whiteboard growing more and more detailed each day, but still, it’s never enough. You miss the way Steve would draw out detailed building plans and escape routes before any mission, such ease to the stroke of his pen; your own talent for drawing is borderline abysmal by comparison.

The green shimmer around your hand dissipates again. Strange groans, fingers massaging his temple like he, too, is getting a headache from this stupid realm. His cloak wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"What you’re missing," he says through gritted teeth, "is the point of this exercise."

"Enlighten me," you snap back.

You watch him take a deep breath before he answers. "Do you, or do you not realize that this isn’t all about you?"

You huff. "If you say something like this is the universe imparting a message upon me, I got that point. The message is that I suck at what I’m doing."

"If that’s the message, then how come you’re not the one who’s really getting knocked around every single day?"

The anger and remorse that wash over you make your power flare up like a bolt of electricity, your fingertips and the dark of your eyes flashing an eery shade of green. You can feel the little hairs in the back of your neck stand up. Strange only looks at you, his expression unexpectedly somber.

"At least he doesn’t remember," you say tonelessly.

Strange smiles, but there’s no joy in it. "Indeed," he says.

The rush ebbs off, bit by bit, and you blink to get rid of the last of the strange double vision you sometimes get when time stutters again.

"You keep telling a man he will die today because you think that’s best for him," Strange goes on. "Better than him getting to choose his own path. Have you ever paid attention to how he spends his last precious hours once he knows?"

Of course you have. Sitting around in the Tower, going over mission plans again and again. Getting coffee. Lurking in doorways, leaning against walls, thinking, talking, looking.

It’s all time spent with you, and Sam, and Alpine.

It’s weird that you shouldn’t have realized this fact when in the beginning, you kept wondering about the time he came back to the Tower. Because before you’ve started telling him, Bucky always left.

Maybe that’s what you’re missing.

"Careful," Strange says, noticing your change in expression.

"You know me, doc," you answer, letting the power crackle again ever so slightly. It’s a thrill, getting to feel it again. "Careful’s basically my middle name."

***

"Doesn’t matter," Bucky says when you ask him what he’d be up to if you hadn’t told him about the loop.

"Oh no, leave me out of this. That’s his thing," Sam says when you ask him about the whole thing, and he so clearly knows what it is and yet refuses to tell you.

"None of your business," Bucky says when you press the matter, his jaw clenched tightly, and you hate to do this, but you don’t exactly have limitless options here. Besides, it’s the first new idea you’ve had in a while, which means there’s an almost moral obligation for you to go through with it. And still.

This feels wrong, you think when Sam comes to knock at your door and you throw on your gym clothes, pulling the sweatband over your wrist tightly.

This feels wrong, you think when you climb into the ring as if nothing had ever happened, as if this was just a normal day. Your side is still a little sore, but you’re able to play it off as a scratch with ease. How would he know to call you out on it?

This feels wrong, you think when you close your eyes as you lie on the mat and wait. You promised.

"You look like shit."

Your head turns like muscle memory. "Hey."

"Hi." Bucky’s eyebrow raises at your silence, but you’re not sure if the words aren’t just going to come bursting out of you. You have a tell. "You alright?"

Your grin tastes just a little bitter. "Why wouldn’t I be?"

"Right." He doesn’t quite believe you, of course, but it’s fine. You can do this.

You turn your gaze back to the ceiling and try to recall the very first July 4th, the version of you that you were. She resists you slipping her back on, but you take another deep breath, just like you’ve been practicing. A chuckle slips free.

"Fuck you, Barnes."

Your heart is still beating fast in your chest, but he must chalk it off to the training, because you can hear him huff. "There she is."

You close your eyes with a petulant sigh, just in case he can see your conscience written all over them. Again, you remind yourself that you tried asking him, that you tried everything else, that this is the only option you can think of right now.

"You’re horrible." It’s more like talking to yourself out loud, but of course Bucky doesn’t know that. And the sad truth is, he’s used to your temper.

"Take the towel on the right, I already used the other one."

You give an affirmative hum, waiting until you hear the door close behind him. Then, you rush to the showers, wasting no time to get ready and dressed again.

Bucky walks out the door of the Tower at precisely 09:43, a fact you know thanks to the time stamps on the security footage from the lobby you had FRIDAY pull up early on in the loop. This leaves you with a pretty small window of time to clean up, add another line to the tally on your thigh, and get back to your room to grab your stuff without making what you’re doing to obvious to either him or Sam. You have FRIDAY call up the elevator with barely a minute to spare, going down to the second floor and quickly heading towards the stairs. Behind you, the elevator dings once.

You basically sprint downstairs, readjusting your backpack. You almost barrel into the fire door, peering through the window into the lobby after another glance at your watch. Only a few seconds later, you can see Bucky walk across the entrance hall, the usual resting scowl on his face as he looks around once and then ducks out the side door.

You tug the cap you found at the back of your closet deeper into your face and start after him.

This feels wrong, and it’s a terrible idea, you can’t help but think as you watch him head down Lex, hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket. His strides are long, but unhurried, and even though you know he’s the furthest thing from vulnerable, the fact that you’re seeing him unguarded like this doesn’t sit right with you. Nevertheless, you continue.

You expect him to head for the subway, but instead, he turns left after the Chrysler Building, going east. With a slightly confused frown, you briefly join a group of clearly lost tourists to cross the street and follow him back up Third Avenue. At least there’s just enough people around to make it easy enough for you to hide in a crowd, you suppose.

You’re going to follow him, and find out what he’s up to, and then you’re going to see if and how it all connects to this stupid loop.

Easy as that.

It’s about an hour and a half later when you seriously start cursing Bucky’s name. Inexplicably, he’s still just walking around the streets of Manhattan like a fucking peasant. Your clothes are sticking to your body in ways you don’t care to describe, and you’re sick of having to pretend to be interested in shitty Independance Day memorabilia and battered paperbacks on sale while trying to avoid eye contact with the people trying to sell them to you.

You’re also pretty sure you’re walking around in circles.

Letting your head fall into your neck, you blink up into the bright sunlight from underneath the shade of your cap. As always, there is not a single cloud in sight, a perfect Friday in July. It’s making your eyes burn.

You glance back at Bucky, who has continued walking after taking a look at his phone, and sigh. All of this would be so much easier with your powers.

"What on earth are you up to," you mumble to yourself as you watch him take another left.

You count to ten before rounding the corner as well—and then you yelp when you almost slam into Bucky’s chest.

"What are you doing?" He doesn’t sound annoyed at all; more entertained. You take a step back, assessing, but his face doesn’t betray him whatsoever.

"Going on a walk," you try cautiously.

"Yeah, right." He tilts his head, features despicably neutral. "Why are you following me?"

"I’m not?" He stares at you, and you groan. "Fine. I just wanted to see where you’re going?"

"Why?" There’s an edge to his voice that you can’t quite make sense of, but your thoughts tumble right over it, scrambling for an excuse and coming up empty. The glint in his eye is distracting.

"Because …" Because you don’t know what else to do at this point. "I don’t know, I was just curious."

Bucky raises an eyebrow. "That’s a lot of dedication when you could’ve just asked."

You look at him doubtfully. "So you’d have told me?" you say, already knowing the answer.

"No." He puts his hands back into his pockets and turns around, leaving you standing there staring at his back.

"Well, there you go then," you shout and start to follow along again. You take the stupid hat off with a sigh and stuff it into the backpack, wiping sweat off your forehead. "How long did you know I was there?"

Bucky shrugs. "About when I got outside."

"Seriously." He stares at you over his shoulder. "Seriously?!"

"You came down the stairs," he says, shaking his head. "And in a Yankees cap."

"So?"

"Don’t tell me you suddenly like baseball."

"I might like baseball," you mumble. "It’s a very fine … ball sport."

He snorts. "Sure ya do. I’ll remind you next time the game’s on."

"Circling back," you quickly change the subject, "why the fuck did you make me chase you halfway across Midtown if you knew I was there anyway?"

"It was funny." The shit-eating grin spreading on his face surprises you so much you stumble over your own feet. His arm extends to stop your fall if necessary, as if on instinct. "You know," he continues, "I thought you’d lost me on Times Square. Almost asked one of those guys in costume to help you out."

You slap his hand away. "You’re the worst, Barnes."

"And you’re a shit spy, time powers or not." The smile changes, but stays. Somehow, you’re glad.

Your fingers twitch inside your own pockets, your thumbs tracing along your rings. "So," you say, suppressing the nervous chuckle. "Where are we actually going?"

"Don’t know yet." Bucky turns his head to look out for cars before he continues walking. It takes you a second to match his pace again.

"What do you mean, you don’t know."

"Well, I had to cancel my plans because I got an amateur stalker on my heels."

"Wow." You squint at him and the blinding sunshine behind his head. "And you’re calling me stubborn."

"To your face? I would never."

Oh, you hate this.

"So we’re actually just walking around town for the hell of it." And you’ve done all of this for nothing.

"Yup."

The realization that you wasted yet another day by thinking you could be sneaky around Bucky almost takes you down a spiral, and you don’t even notice he’s still talking to you until he ducks his head to catch your eye. "Huh?"

"I said I’ll buy you a coffee. Think you might need it." He pauses. "That is, if you wanna."

"I could always go for coffee," you say, and it’s true. First, though, you should tell him. Rip the band-aid off and get it over with. "Listen, I—"

But then he looks at you, his eyes impossibly blue in the sunshine, and for the first time in weeks, you don’t have to deal with that damn preciousness in them, because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, and so he just looks at you like he has a thousand times before, the normalcy of it like a breath of fresh air after his eyes have dragged you under again and again.

How come you’re not the one who’s really getting knocked around every single day?

Maybe it’d really be a kindness to spare him the news, just once. It’s still so early.

"What?" Bucky asks when the silence stretches.

You think of the ever unchanging Tower and the neverending pizza delivery and the fact that you hate this. You hate lying to him. You do it anyway.

Just once.

"I thought of something, but it doesn’t matter now," you say. "We have time."

***

"Are you gonna tell me what’s up with you?"

You pretend not to hear him, shuffling the straws around in their container until they look a bit more orderly. Even though you’re not working, even though this isn’t even your store, it’s hard to shake the need to feel useful. Particularly if you’re trying to ignore Bucky’s gaze burning into your neck.

You’re saved by your name being called out because your coffee is ready. For some reason, you half-expect him to swoop in front of you and take the drinks himself, but of course he doesn’t. Why would he?

With a shake of your head, you rid yourself of the ridiculous thought and hand Bucky his coffee without looking at him.

"You know," you say, stepping out of the crowded Starbucks into the sunshine. "I have a blanket somewhere in here." You point at your backpack. "We could try to fight for a spot in the park."

There’s a pause, and then Bucky sighs. "What else do you have in there, anyway?"

"Spy stuff."

You don’t expect him to find that funny, but he snorts slightly. Then, like a habit he can’t break, his gaze falls on your hands again.

"I’m just tired," you say wearily before he presses the matter.

"You should try the floor," Bucky says. "If you can’t sleep."

It helps, sometimes. "I’ll keep that in mind."

You take a sip of your coffee and scrunch your nose when you realize it isn’t what you ordered for yourself; it’s what you ordered for him. In your haste to change the topic earlier, you must have switched the cups.

"Sorry," you say, "this is actually—"

But you stop talking, because he’s already taking a tentative nip of yor drink, and then he licks his lips. And they curl slightly upwards.

He blinks a few times, as if he’s as surprised as you are, and tries again, less hesitantly this time. Then he looks at the writing on the cup. "Wait," he says, frowning, "I think you’ve got mine."

Your mouth closes, then opens again. "How do you know?" you finally say. "They both have my name on them."

"Yeah, but you always get the same thing," Bucky says, as if him knowing your order couldn’t possibly be news to you.

"It’s fine," you say when he tries to hand you your cup back. "Maybe I should try something different sometimes."

Bryant Park is already bustling with people, and it’s just about noon. The little green tables are all occupied by chess players and chatting families, the carousel horses manned with happily shrieking children.

Still, you find a place to spread out your blanket near the edge of the lawn, almost within talking distance of the Public Library’s security guard, who is currently on his first smoke break. You demonstratively sit down with your back to him. If ever a man took his job too seriously.

"Aren’t you hot in that?" you ask doubtfully when Bucky uncomfortably sits down opposite you, the collar of his leather jacket pushing up.

"'Course I am," he answers, not elaborating.

You let your eye roam through the park. "Terrible news," you say dryly. "Not a single person is looking at you, Sergeant Cool."

Bucky shakes his head, not looking at you.

"No one cares," you say, more sincerely this time. "Even if they did, they’re not gonna say anything. And they’ll have forgotten about you tomorrow."

He huffs again. "And you’re wonderin’ why I call you stubborn."

"I thought you didn’t do that to my face?"

He pulls his gloves off, throwing them on the blanket between you with his eyebrow raised. "Happy?"

In the bright sun, his left hand is gleaming, the inlets reflecting the light in a way that makes it dance across the cotton like swirls of pure gold. You smile and lean back, closing your eyes.

You don’t come to this park often, even though it’s not far from the Tower at all and it’s easier than returning to Central Park with all the memories it holds and that have turned more bitter than sweet after everything. It’s the same as with the library, you suppose. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re missing something until you find yourself in the middle of it.

It might have been a Saturday, you think, the last time you were here. What a concept; Saturday. You sit with the thought for a while, and then you let it drift away, just like you’ve been practicing.

It’s such an unexpected feeling, to get to experience this moment of quiet reprieve when lately, most of your time in this loop has been spent studying, or training, or fighting. You already know you’re getting another talking-to if you don’t return to the astral plane at all today; but it’s just the one day. Surely, you can be allowed one day.

Your brain craves it more than anything.

When you open your eyes again, Bucky is contemplating your backpack with a frown so oddly different than the one you’ve gotten used to in previous loops. He seems so … It takes you a while to come up with the right word, because somehow, it makes you think of Alpine, and that doesn’t make any sense at all. Comfortable. He seems comfortable.

His shoulders are relaxed, his jaw unclenched, and even though he’s still wearing the jacket, his eyes aren’t flitting around to assess everyone within sight. His head tilts slightly.

"Are you trying to see through it?" you say, and the dryness tastes wrong on your tongue.

Bucky nudges the backpack with his foot. "Just wonderin’ what you thought you were gonna be up to."

"I like to come prepared."

"Since when?"

Well, ever since resetting has kind of stopped being an option whatsoever. "This isn’t gonna turn into one of your 'constant vigilance' talks, is it, Moody?" you say lightly.

He looks at you again, and you’re not really sure if that’s better or worse. "You’re deflecting, doll."

"Well, what do I know!" you say. It’s worse, definitely worse, but you don’t know why. "You might have been off on a covert mission or visiting a secret girlfriend or buying a beehive to put on the roof or—"

He unzips the backpack. "So you brought a blanket, a baseball cap, binoculars and a banana?"

You try to bite your tongue, but it’s impossible. "I was kind of set on the bee scenario."

Bucky laughs.

Genuinely laughs. His nose scrunches up, his eyes creasing and his head thrown back a little, shaking with a quiet and almost childish glee as you blink at the unusual sight. It’s over almost as suddenly as it began, but … still. A warmth spreads from your chest to your cheeks as you watch him, your own smile almost hesitant by comparison.

Joy looks good on him.

It leaves a twinkle in his eye even as the laughter subsides, like specs of sunlight.

"What?" he says, his mouth still twitching.

"You seem happy." And it’s astonishing.

Bucky shakes his head slightly, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think he’s blushing. "No need to sound so shocked about it."

"You sure?" you ask, your voice cracking only a little. "I feel like I need to call an ambulance."

"Shut up."

"Or Area 51. I think you might’ve been swapped with an alien doppelganger." You sit up properly. "Tell me something only the real Bucky would know. Oh, wait. He wouldn’t have told me, either."

"You are the most dramatic person I know, you know that?"

"You’re one to talk, Sergeant I Need Nobody’s Help, I Will Jump Out Of  A Plane Without A Parachute."

"So many rank drops today."

"Now who’s deflecting?"

"I take calculated risks."

Except he doesn’t even know his calculator is broken.

Bucky stares at you. "What’s that even supposed to mean?"

You didn’t mean to say it out loud. Not today. Your fingers twitch automatically to take it back, but of course, nothing happens. Nothing apart from his attention being brought back to your black rings.

"What did you do?"

The concern in his voice is quiet, but it’s there nevertheless, and it makes your heart ache, long desperately for it to go away, to be replaced by the joy that was there mere seconds ago. You want to make this day stop, make the world stop so you can continue living in that ease of just sitting here and laughing together without thinking about anything else.

And then you realize what’s really happening, and the world chokes, like something falling into place.

For a moment, you can’t breathe as you look at him, whole and confused and missing parts he can’t even remember leaving with you, and you feel as though your heart might stop because the only thought running through your head is Please, not now. Not now. Not now. Every single beat is an echoing no inside your mind.

You are so fucked up, you think, but you can’t find it in you to stop looking at his face, nearly flinching as you shove the feeling all the way down, down, down, until you can feel it like a brick in your stomach. It’s nauseating, like the vertigo you get at the very top of a roller coaster just before the car drops into freefall.

"Y/N?"

"I don’t know," you say tonelessly. He must have noticed your face change, he must have. So why doesn’t the frown deepen?

"Liar." Your heart is still pounding so loud he must hear it, even over the racket of children screaming in delight and cars blowing their horns in the distance.

Concern, you think again. Exact same thing that you see mirrored on Bucky’s face right now. You're concerned for your friend.

Roommate, really.

Colleague.

Guy you sometimes work with, professionally.

Exactly. That’s it. That has to be it.

You’re in deep enough shit already.

He’s still waiting for you to say something and you can hear the blood rushing in your ears, the buzzing in your head getting louder, and the only thing you can think to say is, once again, "I’m sorry."

Before Bucky can answer, his phone rings, and there’s the flicker of annoyance you’ve been waiting for.

"Hold that thought," he says. "Sam?"

Your heart sinks as Bucky presses his phone to his ear, reality catching up with you again. You try to rearrange your features into a neutrally curious expression when he glances back at you, but you’re probably failing horribly.

"No, I’m good, I didn’t end up going.Yeah. Alright."

You clear your throat as he hangs up. "So. Sam’s about to give his big speech then?"

Bucky looks bemused. "I’d hope not. That was hours ago."

"What?"

Confused, you look at your watch. Then you look at Bucky’s watch. Then you look at your phone.

Even though you can’t have been sitting here for more than thirty minutes, every clock you look at tells you it’s past 4 p.m. Confused, you twist your rings around your fingers, one by one, but they’re as pitch black as ever, and yet somehow …

"Should we go?" you ask, your voice just a little pitchy.

Bucky gazes at you for a very long moment, and then gets up to his feet and holds out his hand to pull you up. He still hasn’t put his gloves back on.

You take it.

"You’re really off today," he remarks and you hum noncommittantly as you fold the blanket back up and unceremoniously stuff it into the backpack. He shoulders it himself before you can grab it. "You’re just gonna complain again," he says, even though the Tower isn’t that far.

You don’t say anything, though, just trudging behind him without a glance back.

Probably because of the time of day, 42nd street is packed. You watch Bucky pass through the crowd with his head downcast and his hands back in his pockets. If it’s been a struggle not to get separated from him earlier this morning, it’s near impossible now.

He looks over his shoulder when, for the third time, several people have pushed between the two of you, and you shrug helplessly as you try to catch up to him. Again, you can’t help but think this would be so much easier with your powers working the way they’re supposed to; just stopping everyone else for a second while you move past them.

"Sorry," you mumble when you reach him waiting for you at a crossing. All of a sudden, you feel how tired you’ve been for a while.

"Wanna just go home?" Bucky asks.

"That’d be nice," you say, cringing at the thought of having to change immediately once you get back. Sam is probably already impatient.

Bucky’s mouth twitches. "Don’t make this a thing."

And then he takes your hand again and links his fingers with yours as if he’s done it a thousand times before. The light changes to green, but you don’t move, and Bucky softly tugs to get your attention. His hand is solid and warm in yours, and it does nothing to ease the feelings of unease and contentment that mingle in your stomach with his touch.

Neither does the fact that as soon as the crowd disperses and you slowly, reluctantly let go of his hand, he steps out into the street with his head half-turned to you and—well.

You wake up with a start to the sun in your face and FRIDAY blasting The All-American Rejects at full volume, and it’s like the air is getting knocked out of your lungs.

After that, the days start to blur.

***

"Why would it have anything to do with the mission?" Strange asks, and you can’t decide whether he sounds condescending or genuinely confused.

"Because it’s never happened before then, maybe?" you say, throwing up your arms. "I don’t know!"

"The loop is tied to you, not the other way around. If Sergeant Barnes has only ever died during the mission before today, the only other variable in that equation is you."

His cloak curls at the seams in a way that’s almost apologetic. What a stupid thing to say about a piece of magical fabric, you think.

"Great," you huff, sitting down on the ground and crossing your arms in order to not shake violently. "So first time’s skipping and now if I spend time with him, he’s just gonna die earlier?"

There’s a pause as Strange frowns. "Show me your wrist."

You press your lips together tightly and hold out the arm with the swirling green symbols. Strange examines it with a particularly grim expression.

"Just say it," you mutter when it becomes unbearable.

"Time is a precious thread in the fabric of the universe," he says, dropping your hand. His silver eyes are very serious. "You don’t get an endless supply of it."

"I literally do," you reply, flourishing your wrist demonstratively. "That’s the whole problem."

"No." Strange shakes his head. "Your reality is going to collapse if time can’t move on from where it’s stuck. Not today, not tomorrow, but it will happen."

You stare at him with wide eyes. "What does that mean?"

"It means, no more distractions. Things are detereorating more quickly than I’d hoped." He sighs, and there’s something about his demeanor that lets real fear course through your bones for the first time in a while.

"Okay," you say, swallowing it down. "Let’s do some overtime, then."

"I’m afraid that’s not how it works. Look at her."

You glance at your sleeping body, stirring in her sleep.

"You asked when this is," Strange continues. "That’s the thing with this version of the astral plane. It’s unstable. It only exists between dreaming and waking, and so our time here is very limited. You are then, and now. Past and present and future all folded into each other and wrapped into one. The nature of time doesn’t like this."

"So, what?" You laugh humorlessly. "I go through an endless day, and then reality crumbles anyway?"

"Do you understand now why it’s so important that you get a grip on your powers?"

Because you’re the one who created the loop, and therefore the only person who can untangle it again.

"So no pressure then," you say tonelessly.

"All of the pressure, I’m afraid," Strange says grimly. "There’s really no time to waste anymore."

***

"When we live such fragile lives, it’s the best way we survive. I go around a time or two, just to waste my time with you."

Your head has started pounding to the beat of the song and Sam’s fist at your door, but you keep staring at the ceiling, unmoving. It all just starts over.

Even this godawful song.

"Tell me all that you’ve thrown away. Find out games you don’t wanna play."

You must admit, the universe has a certain sense of cruel humor. Not that that’s any news. It doesn’t fucking matter what you do any of these days, because the outcome stays the exact same, and there’s a moment each and every time where Bucky knows that, too. Only by then, it’s too late.

"Geez, I hate you."

You’re so tired.

"I know, Buck."

Fade to black. Back in with a blast and the sun in your face, FRIDAY blasting The—

"I’m coming in," Sam finally shouts from the other side of the door. "You better not be naked!"

You hear him enter, but you still don’t move. You’re busy replaying that look on Bucky’s face in your mind of the exact moment it goes wrong. It looks so pale, his mouth twitching downwards, a bit like with his coffee, but much more devastating.

Black out. Rewind. His eyes are on you, not even on the white jacket shooting him.

Black out. Rewind. The fingers on his metal hand grasp so tightly around your wrist you feel something move underneath your skin.

"What is going on with—Y/N!" You feel Sam rushing to your bedside in three long strides.

Right. You’re still covered in blood.

You can’t look away from his eyes until the last second. Black out. Rewind.

"FRIDAY, turn this shit off. Call an ambulance."

"Calling 911."

The sudden silence slams you back into the present with a start. "Cancel call," you say loudly, your voice only slightly shaking. "I’m fine, Sam."

"You don’t look fine!" He helps you sit up, looking you up and down, a sense of urgency still vibrating in his every movement, but of course, you’re not bleeding. "You look like you just shot a man and then rolled over."

"You’re not wrong," is all you get out before you start crying.

Black out. Rewind. God, you’re pathetic.

You shrink back from his arms, cradling your wrist to your chest. It’s starting to swell.

And yet, the green symbols swirl.

You’re not sure why you’re reacting like this now, after … you’re not sure. It’s not like this is your first time. Does that make you an even worse person? Probably.

Sam is talking to you, you recognize his voice, but you can’t focus on the words. You’re desperate to find something to focus your attention on, like you’ve been trying, training, grasping to do, but you’ve got nothing. Just numbness, a gaping nothingness, and the scars to prove you’re not just stuck in a nightmare but this is in fact your reality, and you are the only thing that remains while everything else resets in an endless cycle of hell, over and over and over again.

Nothing stays.

And you can’t help but feel like you’re running out of time, anyway.

This is ridiculous, you know that. You know you’re worrying Sam out of his mind, that you just need to focus, damnit, take a breath, stop crying, anything. Your incompetence to do any of these simple tasks is like another slap to the face.

Time passes, and doesn’t pass; it doesn’t matter at all whether you’re there for a minute or six hours, it’s all the same to you.

Through the fog of it all, Bucky’s voice is like your lighthouse.

And you despise yourself for it, even as you reach out for him.

"Hey," he says quietly, his hands rubbing circles into your back until he slowly, carefully pulls you out of your head back to earth. "It’s alright. Everything’s okay."

He says it over and over and over again until you nod slowly. It’s a pretty lie, after all.

"What happened to your wrist?"

You know what you have to do, but that concerned undertone makes it so hard. You’re still not used to it, but you want to be. Fuck, you want … No.

It doesn’t matter.

"I need to tell you something," you whisper, barely loud enough for him to hear. "One more time. And then … Then that’s it."

You have to do this. Have to close yourself off emotionally. Distance yourself from Bucky in order to stay rational about this situation and find your way out. Treat this like you’re not involved at all; like this is just another puzzle for you to solve, and nothing else.

It’s the only way.

You’re going to fix this mess you’ve created, if it’s the last thing you do.

*****

"If we die here tonight, I’m blaming you," you told Steve through chattering teeth, and he laughed at you. If you hadn’t still felt bad about his bruises—no matter that they’d already healed completely again—you might have kicked him in the shin.

You’d reached the point of wanting to kick Captain America on a concerningly regular basis.

This time, though, you felt completely within your rights, because you’d been training hard all week, and thanks to New York being just about the most disgustingly freezing place on the planet if they asked you, you really didn’t see the point of driving into the city to a random ice rink. Particularly not on an evening in early January when it was already dark outside.

"You’ll be warmed up in no time," Steve said and waved at Nat, who was already waiting for the two of you, the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up so the red roots of her hair stayed hidden.

"Couldn’t we have done this at the lake?" you asked, looking around wearily. The crowd was substantial.

"Sure," Nat said and put an arm around you. "Do you have about fifty friends we can invite so we can properly train your powers around other people?"

You grimaced. "There are children everywhere."

"Oh, yeah. Some of them went home early, but most opted to stay when I told them Steve would drop by."

You groaned. Of course they were Natasha’s Blip orphans; they had the same mischievous shimmer in their tired eyes. "Thanks for that, Nat."

"You’re so welcome," she answered, patting your shoulder. You narrowed your eyes when her coat shifted to the side.

"Is that my hoodie?" you said.

She looked down as if she hadn’t noticed what she was wearing at all. "Yeah, I think so."

"I was looking for that everywhere earlier!"

Natasha merely shrugged. "It’s your own fault for leaving your stuff in the dryer for anyone to take."

"Don’t pay attention to it, she does it to all of us," Steve said, putting an arm around her.

"That is not true."

"It is. You’re like a clothes hoarding dragon."

"Did you just call me a dragon?"

You didn’t listen to the rest of their bickering, because your eyes had started to water, and not because of the cold. It’d been a long time since you’ve felt this warmth inside, this feeling of belonging, of, well … family. It made your powers pulsate through your veins soothingly.

Still, the worry came back when they gave you a helmet and knee pads to wear.

"I’m a travesty on skates, but it’s not this bad," you told Natasha again when you shakily followed her to the rink entrance.

"We’re here to train, not to have fun," she said, taking your hands. Of course, she moved like a dancer even on the ice. "Well, both," she amended when you looked unconvinced. "Oh, don’t look at me like that, it was Steve’s idea."

"Then why is he sitting over there doing nothing?"

"He’s got the day off." She pulled you to the side of the rink. "Here’s what we’re gonna do," she said, pointing to the far end. "I’m going to close my eyes and you’re going to guide me straight through the middle to the other side."

You stared at her. "You’re insane."

Natasha ignored you. "One straight line, you tell me when to dodge someone. We’ll go slow."

"I don’t know how many times I can jump."

"It’s not exactly a life or death situation, Y/N. I can survive a few bruises and so can the kids."

"I’d rather not injure a child if you don’t mind," you say, trying not to sound hysterical.

"And I’m confident that you won’t. Do you trust me on this?"

You met Nat’s calm gaze and took a breath, even though the knot in your stomach tightened. "Fine."

"Such a vote of confidence," she snorted. "Just watch what they’re doing, and keep it in mind. Think of it like a dance recital. It’s all just a sequence of steps in a specific order."

You bit the inside of your cheek and nodded. Natasha closed her eyes. "Ready?" you asked.

She smiled. "I love this song."

You could barely hear the music over the thrum of adrenaline, but you supposed that was her way of saying yes. This’ll be the day that I die.

You pushed forward.

chapter six

thank you for reading!! you can follow my library blog @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications 💚

[betsj]

Stress Is Bad For The Brain

*ੈ♡⸝⸝🪐༘⋆

ੈ♡⸝⸝🪐༘⋆

🌷🧺*:･ warnings: smut, blowjobs, female reader, use of good girl and baby

🌷🧺*:･ summary: The Heart Pirates have been underwater for the longest. Trafalgar Law is stressed and he hasn’t been able to grab you at all… only quick grabs and make out sessions. After things settle more, you take the time to visit him in his office

🌷🧺*:･ im a fein for law.

He couldn’t take any more of this waiting. The little touches, kisses and smirks you gave him… it was too much.

If the crew—Bepo, Shachi, Penguin—any of them! Took you away from him one more time, he was going to teleport them into the ocean and drive away so he can fuck you all over the ship (of course he would go back and find them). It’s not like he would tell you this anyways but, yeah, that’s what he would do!

ׂ╰┈➤

Hearing your voice from outside his office. Bepo was also out there

“No honey, I just got to talk to the captain privately, okay?” Just hearing your voice made him hard… which was happening, “Shit.” He cursed under his breath. Bepo whined from the outside, “Aw okay…” Once the door shut, Law turned in his chair with his tattooed arms crossed.

You smiled at him, mumbling “Hey cap.”

In a harsh tone, he said “I’m working.”

Obviously, you knew that was a lie. Putting your arms behind your back and tilting your head, “Working with an erection?” Taking your pointer finger, pointing it out. Law felt his cheeks heat up, clearing his throat, “It can be handled later.” It was frustrating for you, he never wanted to admit how bad he wanted you.

Rolling your eyes and walking over to him and in a sultry tone, “C’mon Law… I know you want your cock in my mouth.” Running your index finger along his jaw, slowly sinking on to your knees. His breath hitched, looking into your eyes, that were pleading.

“Hm… you wanna be a good girl?” He stiffened when you began to unzip his pants. Mumbling, “Yes… I’ve been wanting your cum down my throat for so long.” All that big talk from your lover just for him to have shaky hands. Law groaned as you palmed the print, licking on the wet spot that his precum created. “Can I? I promise I’ll be a good girl and make you come.” And who was he to decline?

Throwing his boxers away as soon as they hit his ankles and finally letting his hard dick out. Your eyes looked like you were about to eat him alive… wrapping a hand around the thick shaft, slowly rubbing up and down. Multitasking, of course, your tongue ran between his slit which had more precum leaking, making Law’s legs shake.

“Oh fuuckk…” His strong hand played with your hair, “Please baby… make me cum.” Giggling, flattening the tip on your tongue before finally taking him all in.

A slow pace, it’s what Law loved, mainly when you were in control. In the situation, he would’ve preferred a quick throat-fuck but you made him feel so good. “God damn, baby, I forgot how good your dirty mouth felt.” Moaning, loving how he talked… he chuckled, “Yeah? You like being a good girl?” Nodding on his dick, beginning to pick up the pace, making Law’s jaw drop while letting out a moan.

Trafalgar Law isn’t a loud man in bed, maybe a few moans and groans in your ear sometimes but that’s it. So he must’ve been real desperate to be moaning like a teenage virgin.

Looking up through your eyelashes, beginning to jerk off the part you couldn’t fit. Law began thrusting into your mouth, “Oh god—yes, good girl, I’m so close.” Pushing the back of your head, making you gag. “Want me to come down that pretty throat?” Nodding, whining on his dick, he grinned… god was he wrecked. Messy hair, cheeks pink, mouth agape, and those bedroom eyes… “Or,” Moving some hair “Come on this pretty face?” Moaning… you couldn’t chose.

So you were gonna let him decided. You picked up the pace, letting him fuck your throat raw.

“Fu—fuck, yes, ple-“ Before he could even finish his sentence, he pushed your head down one more time before coming down your throat. Law let go of you, letting you calm down, removing his dick from your mouth. “Lemme see,” Law sat up, grabbing your chin with his thumb, making you open wide. Humming, “Good girl.” You wiggled, pushing him back into the chair and sitting on his lap. “Now I need you to fuck me…”

Law smirked, “God I love you.”

Rolling your eyes and smiling, “I know.”

“Glad you know I do because Ima fuck you like I don’t.”

last sentence was inspired by smb I follow 🫶

[artificialbreezy]

Hi!!!

I’m here with another thought but it’s Jacky boy this time 😌😌

Best friend! Jack who is extremely possessive and doesn’t like you hanging out with other guys cause he’s actually in love with you and thinks you don’t haha the same feelings for him.

(P.S I’m gonna give myself a lil emoji so that you know it’s me 😂😂)

😈

oh my god, let’s FUCKING GO

CW: friends to lovers, Jacks pov! this is fully unedited.

it was never a thought that crossed your mind that your bestest friend in the whole world would ever look at you the way you look at him.

so you did what any person would, you push the heart eyes as far down as possible and try to move on.

one thing that Jack was big on was location sharing. the world is scary and he wants you safe, and the same peace of mind for you. especially with how often he isn’t home.

so when he’s in Toronto, he checks your location and sees you at a bar? you don’t go to bars, especially alone. it’s like pulling teeth to get you out.

“hey Flower! facetime in 15?” the text read.

when 30 minutes past and he saw no text back, he sent another.

“you okay? you’re at the bar. are you by yourself?”

“no Jack. why would i be by myself at a dive bar?”

he felt himself getting irritated. where did this attitude come from? you’re never snippy with him.

he sighs as he presses the little button, listening to the line ring.

“yes Jack?”

“go home. i’m calling you an uber. whoever you’re with will be fine. you’re going home.” he spoke, stern. leaving no room for arguing. immediately hanging up.

the only communication from him until he got home was the text your uber arrived and a “glad you’re home safe.”

the pounding on his front door pulled him away from his call with Quinn. listening to his brother ramble on his ear how he should just tell you how he feels instead of being a fucking weirdo.

“Quinn, gotta go. she’s here and she looks mad.” he spoke as he’s hanging up.

your hand was flat against his chest, pushing him into his apartment. you may be mad, but you’re not causing a scene in the hall. “you have some fucking nerves Hughes. you not only crash my date but then you full fucking ghost me? the fuck is your problem? game go sour so you take it out on me?”

he smiled at her, the red of her cheeks spreading up her neck a little. she’s hot when she’s mad.

“oh! okay! you stay silent then! i’m leaving. fuck this and fuck you.” she’s turning around, all but stomping back to my door.

“sit the fuck down, Flower. you’re not going to come into my home with all this attitude and not give me a god damn second to tell you why. so sit down, and shut up. 5 minutes is all i need.”

there she goes, huffing and puffing. at least she’s sitting down.

“i texted you. i asked to call. you never ignore me, you never say no to a facetime. i checked your location and asked if you were okay. you took a second so i texted your friend and she said you were on a date with her coworker. it was late, i know you hate bars and i wanted you home and safe. i’m sorry i went ghost. i was stuck in my head. i didn’t know how to tell you. Quinn said i was stupid. he’s right. i am. you’re my best friend and i shouldn’t feel bad about this. i just, i don’t wanna be your friend anymore.” he took a breath, seeing tears swell up in your eyes. “i want to be more.”

it felt like his world stopped. there was a silence he didn’t like. he didn’t know what you were gonna do or even say. you felt unreadable for the first time in 13 years.

“Jack,” she whispered. “what do you mean by more?”

“ideally i’m your husband but ill settle for boyfriend for a while.” he found himself playing with the back of his hair, that nervous movement he’s done forever.

“you’re not just saying this? please tell me you’re not joking.” her tears kept falling and his heart ached. why would he joke about this? why would she think he was fucking with her?

he didn’t trust his voice, knowing he’d just cry with her. he knelt down in front of her, his hands resting comfortably on her cheeks. leaning forward just enough that his lips were hovering hers. “i’m so serious, flower.”

“kiss me then.”

didn’t need to tell Jack twice.

[mintsturniolo]

♡ I'm Sorry

bf!matt x f!reader

summary: matt's in a bad mood and snaps at you, which leads to him having to apologize

You didn’t know what was going on with Matt today. He’d been agitated all day, but after filming with his brothers earlier, he’d stopped talking completely. You were sat on the couch watching a movie with Nick when you heard movement in the kitchen. Looking up, you saw Matt rifling through his backpack that he’d left on the dining room table. You glanced back at Nick who was still focused on the movie you guys were watching. “I need to talk with him alone real quick,” you told him. “I’m sorry.”

Nick shook his head as he stood up. “Do what you gotta do,” he told you. “I’ll go play Fortnite with Chris.”

As Nick left the room you made your way to where you boyfriend was muttering something under his breath. You hated seeing him so stressed. “Matt?” you said timidly.

You frowned when your boyfriend didn’t acknowledge you. You watched as he got himself a drink from the fridge before trying to get his attention. “Matt, what’s wrong?” you asked.

“Nothing,” Matt replied, still not looking at you as he went back to searching for whatever it was he couldn’t find in his bag. “Dammit,” he groaned.

“Do you need help finding something?” you asked. “I can help you out.”

“Don’t worry about it,”Matt replied coldly.

“Oh…” you muttered, not knowing how to respond.

You knew something was wrong, but you didn’t know what to say to get Matt to talk. You glanced over at your phone and saw that it was getting close to dinner time. “I was going to make something for all of us to eat. Is there something in particular you wanted?” you asked.

“I don’t care. Just make something,” Matt muttered.

You were quiet for a moment, hurt by Matt’s tone. You couldn’t help but think that you had done something to upset him. While Matt continued to organize the stuff they’d used for filming you decided to start planning dinner. As much as you tried to focus on making dinner, all you wanted was to know if you had done something to upset your boyfriend. Bracing yourself for an argument you turned towards Matt. “Is there a reason you’re snapping at me? Did I do something to piss you off?”

“Oh my God. Just shut the fuck up,” Matt snapped, turning to look at you.

The silence was loud as Matt realized what he’d just said. A look of regret crossed Matt’s face as he saw your eyes fill with tears. He hadn’t meant to snap at you. All the stress from the day had been building up since this morning. “Baby…” he sighed, reaching for your hand.

You pulled away, as you fought back tears. Without another word you made your way into Matt’s bedroom and locked the door.

Almost an hour had passed since Matt had snapped at you. You had heard him leave the house a couple minutes ago, and made your way back to the kitchen to continue making dinner. You heard Nick and Chris yelling from their rooms, still on live playing Fortnite. As you were getting done with dinner, you heard the front door open. “Hey, my love,” Matt said.

You looked up at him, but didn’t reply as he walked towards you. You noticed he had his hands behind his back, and raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry about earlier,” Matt said softly. “It’s been a really rough day, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

You watched as Matt pulled a bouquet of white roses from behind his back and offered them to you. “The last thing I ever want to do is upset you. I love you.”

You accepted the flowers and let Matt pull you into a hug. “So I really didn’t do anything to upset you?” you asked worriedly.

“No, baby,” Matt replied sadly. “We had an argument during filming. It wasn’t anything you did,” he told you, leaving gentle kisses on your lips.

You smiled slightly as you admired the flowers in your hand. "Thanks," you said quietly. "These are beautiful, by the way."

Matt gave you final kiss before pulling away. "I'll be right back to help you with dinner," he told you, leaving the room.

Taglist

@dirtylittleheart333 @sturniolo04 @flouvela @mattyblover07 @sturnioloveniamh @slutforsturniolos @ivysturnss @ksturnz @emely9274 @amelia-sturniolo3

[thekoalapastriesbakery]

BUZZED!

formula one x male!reader

request: Okay okay, here me out, Male!reader gets a buzzcut and the drivers find out via like instagram or something and they get really whiny abt it.

summary: you get a buzz cut without telling your boyfriend

warnings: initial instagram post is just for reference + reader only posts whichever one applies to you most!, swearing, playful arguing

contains: alex albon, lance stroll, + lewis hamilton

youruser has added to their story!

written: time for a change ✂️

alex albon:

"WHAT DID YOU DOOOOOOOO?" alex yelped as soon as he walked through the door of your shared apartment.

you had just been lounging on the sofa, scrolling through social media to pass the time. you jumped slightly at your boyfriend's shouting. "what? what did i do?"

alex rounded the corner into the living room and pointed at your hair with a pout.

"that! what did you?!"

"alex, i just cut my hair." you chuckled, staying slumped on the sofa.

alex whined. "how could you do this to me???"

"you're so dramatic, oh my fucking god." you rolled your eyes lightheartedly. as much as you loved your boyfriend, he sure knew how to be dramatic. "it's not that bad?"

"yes it is!" alex insisted. "what am i supposed to do now when i want your attention?!"

"ask for it like a normal person?"

"it's like you don't even know me." alex huffed, flopping down on the sofa beside you.

you laughed quietly and put your phone away. "it will grow back, y'know?"

your boyfriend tilted his head to look at you with a a pout. "and what am i supposed to do until then?"

"cope?"

he whined again and poked you in the ribs, making you squirm slightly. "you're so mean."

"yeah, well, it's not getting reattached," you argued. alex ran his hand over the shaved hair with a sigh. "better get used to it, baby."

"fine ... but never again, okay?"

"no promises."

lance stroll:

the second you walked into your boyfriend's hotel room, he was right in front of you. lance crossed his arms and pouted at you.

"uh-oh," you murmured.

a sheepish smile crossed your lips. you tentatively stepped forward until you were close enough to pull lance into a hug, which you were very pleased to say he didn't reject. hopefully that meant he wasn't too upset.

"why did you have to get a buzz cut?" lance whined, pushing your shoulder.

you hummed. the truth of it was that the haircut had been an impulsive action rather than a conscious decision, but ... well, it was done now. "it's just hair, baby."

"no, it's not," lance argued with a pout. "it's your hair. which you let me play with and wash and put bows in and stuff."

"yeah, i hope you understand i would literally never let anybody else touch my hair as much as you do," you pointed out. was a part of you hoping to distract lance with a sweet statement? perhaps. but he didn't need to know that.

lance paused for a moment. he seemed torn between being sad and whiny about your hair, and being happy about what you said. sue him. he liked to feel special. "... then why did you cut it?"

"because i wanted to?" you shrugged. your hands dropped to lance's waist and tugged him closer, making him squeak quietly. "it's summer and it's hot and i don't need a fur coat on my head?"

"but what about the bows?" lance pouted at you.

a little grin tugged at your lips. "well, i can put them in your hair?"

your boyfriend seemed to short circuit at the idea of you putting bows in his hair. his lips parted in surprise, before his expression morphed into a goofy grin. "okay."

lewis hamilton:

the first reaction you got from lewis about your haircut was a text. he must've already been close to home, but apparently he felt the need to freak out about you getting a buzz cut as early as possible.

you cut your hair?

... yes?

it hadn't taken you long to reply. a minute at most. evidently, that was long enough for your boyfriend to get to your door. he flung it open, a dramatic frown on his face. "why?"

"hello to you too," you muttered, standing up to greet your boyfriend with a kiss. "because it was getting in my eyes, lew."

"so?" lewis raised an eyebrow at you.

you scoffed playfully, thinking he was just having a joke and not being serious. "so i couldn't see."

"so?" lewis repeated.

not joking, apparently.

"i can see?" he poked at the now-short strands with a wary expression. "i'd lead you places??"

"lewis."

your boyfriend pouted. he let out a dramatic sigh and turned away from you. "fine, i guess you like your vision more than you love me, then."

knowing he was just milking it, you wrapped your arms around lewis from behind and kissed his temple cheekily. "yes! glad you understand."

"... brat."

"love you too, lew."

©thekoalapastriesbakery :: please do not copy or rewrite my work on any platform !!

author's note: anon i am SO hearing you out (can you guys tell i love whiny boys yet)

comments + reblogs appreciated!

taglist: @raizelchrysanderoctavius @crispysoup318 @op-81-lvr-reblogs @ncrsbrg @spoonfulofmilo @justaf1girl @widow-cevans

[causeimcrayzeebee]

have you seen the kamimura lore drop and what are your thoughts?

ohbmy god this could’ve been so embarrassing cause i hadn’t seen it yet and was so confused as to what you meant so I was planning on just yapping about kamimura in general but then I saw it LMAO UM I WAS SO HAPPY CAUSE KAMIMURA CONTENT!!!!! KAMIMURA LORE!!! AND THEN SO FUCKING INCREDIBLY SAD FROM IT LIKE....THAT'S GORE... THAT'S GORE OF MY COMFORT CHARACTER.... um yeah I have work for law to do but I got too into reading the lore drop so lets talk about it! (I will get to my work after trust) spoiler warning for chapters 1-3 and tetro typical trigger warnings!!! take care of yourself!!

I am not going to cover the ableism portion or too much of the diagnosis/hospital parts because I am not personally disabled and would like to let other disabled people talk about it, so i'll leave the rest of the conversation to others in the community!

also i took notes while reading it to organize my thoughts like usual (im so bad at putting words together well). some of these are kinda funny so here are some highlights lmfao

alright, now lets actually be serious.

firstly, I'm so glad that kamimura at least had a good childhood. I think it really shows in the way he interacts with the tetro pink cast that he was a sociable and happy kid! my mom actually teaches preschool so shes taught me a lot about early childhood psychology (shout out to my mother guys!!!!!). one of the biggest takeaways I've had from her is that the first five years of one's life are the most important in development! that's what Montessori programs keep in mind and throughout preschool and early kinder, they take time to establish learning through play; a lot of people have the misconception that letting kids play at school is just letting them mess around, but it's crucial in building their skills! kids learn to socialize with others and to problem solve; that foundation is very important for everything else moving forward in life! I could rant about how preschools need to utilize this more, esp in the American education system, but I digress. my main point goes to something I (and a couple other people I'm not original in this LMAO) have mentioned before about how it makes more sense out of hasegawa and kamimura, that they'd kill off kamimura because he had other people. kamimura, despite having further and further cut himself off from the world right till the end (until the kg at least), still managed to make meaningful connections, like tamba and hayashi, even if they weren't like ideal. the way he approaches tamba is very caring in a way that can seem like it's not, yk? likely it stems from his trust issues, it's scary to put your genuine real feelings out there, so hiding them with some snide remarks is easier. luckily, tamba has a similar approach so hey. shout out tamba n kamimura you will always be special to me.

anyways, its both so amazing and so heartbreaking that his parents were so loving and supportive, but died too soon. I do wonder about the role of attachment in this case; like specifically in babies/toddlers, they get attached to their parents usually because that's the first person they see, the first to take care of them. kamimura was able to get that love and support from his parents, even when it got so much harder and the days in the hospitals got longer. so having it all be taken away when you're NINE? that's obviously gonna destroy you, and that leads to his trust issues and isolation. he was able to thrive still as a young child because he had his parents to support him! so when that's all gone, how else are you supposed to cope?

yeah fuck you family friend, that was brutal. I cant even imagine coming home from school to find your parents absolutely desecrated. the day of his parents death beginning the routine of staying locked in his room.... oh my god like what if I cried (I did). that probably changed the way he thought about his room; his room was an escape from the horrors of the outside world. if he just stayed in the room, he wouldn't have to experience the fucked up world. it became a habit. EUGAHHD I'm in shambles.

after the murder of his parents, it's understandable that it shook kamimura and his aunt to their core. that was a violent murder (by a man who was literally just rejected romantically.... its so fucking upsetting that that is a common crime). his aunt wasn't even ready to have kids so having the responsibility of taking in kamimura must've been a lot. In regards to homesick, despite the very clear distance in their relationship, kamimura really seems to appreciate her being there, even if it was very distanced; she was still an important part of his grieving process and his whole life honestly.

oh boy here we go. isao when I catch you istg..... sorry that's an exaggeration, likely this was from a societal disgust, yk just homophobia from the world, so I cant really blame this kid too much.... but we still have beef. god, this was one of those actually crushing crushes, hm. it's so fucked up; someone who was starting to get kamimura a bit out of the dark space that was his life, giving him something to enjoy and be happy about! and all of that was just thrown away because kamimura was vulnerable and shared his feelings. not having your feelings returned can already be devastating, but this? the spread of rumors, the bullying, the losing his one friend? it's like the world wants to torture him omfg. here the trust issues become worse; those who loved him leave, those who he loved leave. everyone just leaves, so what's the point?

this explains his relationship with hasegawa, and the issue after trial 1. it had to have felt way too familiar; telling someone he was fond of vulnerable information, only for it to be told to a bunch of people he never wanted in his fucking business. however, I think the reason why they made up rather quickly in clean up crew (which btw I watched w my friend earlier today bc I got them into tetro........ god I love that episode) is hasegawa's response. hasegawa, unlike isao, is remorseful, he CARES. hasegawa even shares something personal to him, about his own loss.

I think this also changes the scene of hasegawa coming out a bit. before, he was rejected by isao because he was a homophobic douchebag. but in the student spotlight, hasegawa casually says he's not into girls. while its funny thinking that kamimura was having some gay panic then lmao, I think actually it was probably processing that in a confused comfort, not exactly because his feelings could be reciprocated, but for this; hasegawa was so comfortable with coming out as gay, so comfortable with the concept, unlike isao. if kamimura confessed his feelings to hasegawa, and were (somehow) not reciprocated, he likely still wouldn't have ran away. of course, with kamimura's trust issues, he probably wasn't confident in that assumption, but hasegawa is not the kind of person to drop someone because they confessed to them. he would've kept the person that had become so important to him. and because of that maybe, just maybe, kamimura would've said what he really wanted to say if the interview had happened before woodshop.

once he's on his own and moves out, he no longer has someone reminding him to do things, so with no motivation to simply live, he ends up staying locked in his house like we've seen before. what's the point in anything? when that kind of spiral hits you, and you don't have other people present in your life to keep doing, how would you ever stay motivated?? I know it was a really informal post, so I might be going insane trying to add this to the analysis, but the repetition of 'but life goes on' I think really solidifies the importance of a support system. when things are difficult, the world never just stops, it keeps going despite your struggle. but having people who care about you around you can help make each day easier, they can help 'slow down time' if you will. kamimura has gone through an amount of stress no one should have to face, but people around him could have made it easier on him by being there. that's the tragedy of tetro.

it's especially tragic that at the very end, right before the kg, he was taking his own life.

(plot wise, I need to know what y'all theorists think of this bc I have ideas but i need to finish the staffside logs before I can even actually consider my thoughts lmfao.)

sorry to be captain obvious on a majority of this post lol but gosh wow. I really loved that we got this, it was so much information I am kinda stoked despite basically all of it being depressing as hell. tetro has really become an inspiration for me and writing, I am constantly so impressed by von's writing and it's given me perspective on how to approach writing as a whole. i feel as though this gave me so much perspective on kamimura himself as a character. some of this just confirmed my ideas already, but it strikes me as something so human just learning all of this. when I, or anyone really, first meet people, I only know surface level things, yk cause I don't know them. but then I start talking to them, and I learn about different things that have happened to them, how they feel about certain issues or what they're doing on a day to day basis. you can never know everything of course, but when you discover new parts of someone, it makes them more complex and they don't fit the idea you had of them before because people are complex!! and that's the beauty of writing, capturing humanity! the impact of each character, esp kamimura, has been so beautifully done, I'm just constantly moved as the story progresses.

thank y'all sm for reading my excuse to talk about kamimura, this was A LOT of blabbing I'm so so sorry but I hope you enjoyed haha! :)

[mental-mouthful]

Hickey for the character asks pls? 👉👈

ohohoho! lovey suggestion !! i am always down to talk about a fellow ratt, so yes of course!

First Impression: IS THAT FUCKING HICKEY?? THE FERRET FACED FUCK I HATED WITH MY WHOLE BEING? THAT'S HIM? THEY MADE HIM A FUCKING TWINK???? People better not be fucking woobifying him i swear to god...

Impression Now: ohh noo. oh no my worst fear has come to life... i like hickeyyyy i like him a lotttt. i feel like this is how billy feels just "oh god. oh god is this working for me? son of a bitch it's working" On a real note though, he is sooo fascinating to me. He's a lot more genuine than i think people give him credit for. He's just so paranoid and has been taught to be so self-sufficient that it overrides any actual connection he might make with people. When given the chance to help, he does so, even if it is often tied to making himself look good. He didn't have to help Manson and Hartnell take Hornby's body down. He could've just cut in to undermine Irving and left it at that. He didn't have to grave rob to propose to Billy. He could've left everyone to burn in the carnival. (The fact he gutted McDonald do so and only looked as upset as "you fucking idiot, you stained my knife"... well that's just the other half of his personality showing) But he does all that. bc he does care. in his own twisted, detached way. Adam Nagaitas said something to this tune in an interview and its like. yeah!! he does care!! ...he just cares about getting himself on top (👀) more than any of that.

Favorite Moment: Goddddd what a hard question. Is it bugger victoria? (shout out fitzjamesbulletwound) Is it ratt wedding? (his smile is so sweet) is it his speech at the gallows? ("BUT ABANDONING HIS SHIP!!! SHOULD NOT BE AMONG THEMMM ☝️") i could be predictable and say its him taking his lashing like a fucking champ. his cheeky fucking smile throughout really encapsulates his "fuck you, I'll endure just to spite you" attitude. No it's not any of that. It's his casual smoke after he and billy get caught. it's really indicative of his personality and the unshakable force he'll be in the narrative. "there's worse things than being lashed ;)"

Idea for a Story: would loveeee to do a deep dive into his past. even if leaving it a mystery is more compelling, I'd really like to see what kinda menace he is on the streets of england.

Unpopular Opinion: that he actually doesn't want to eat people. he wasn't going into this with the hope that they'd turn cannibal. the situation had just gotten so dire and his lead poisoning and/or god compex had corroded his brain so bad he probably thought it made him an apex predator.

Favorite Relationship: He's got so many delicious dynamics to choose from but I think I'll go Crozier. He wants to be his friend. He wants to usurp him. He wants to fuck him. He wants to kill and eat him. He doesn't want his men to rough him up. He greatly looks forward to having a chat with him at the end of the world. He chains him to a boat.

Favorite Headcanon: that he plays the piano. and he's not great, but he knows his way around it. and its great fun to play for a crowd of belligerently drunk assholes who dont know the difference.

ANYWAYS THANK U THANK U FOR GIVING ME A REASON TO TALK ABOUT THIS FREAK <3333

[plaidpajamallama]

(You scared me) RHEA RIPLEY X JEY USO

Chapter 24

_________________________________________________

Jey and Jimmy walked out through the curtain of gorilla into the hallway.

You think they would learn by now, uce.

Some people are hardheaded, he said, shrugging his shoulders.

As fuck, he laughed.

As they walked down the hall, he pulled out his phone, texting Rhea, asking her, Where are they at?

He could feel Jimmy looking over his shoulder.

What do you want, Uce?

You talk to him? He said his tone was more serious.

Nope, we’re seeing him in LA.

Really, you aren’t going to talk to him till then, uce?

Yup, if he wants to talk, he’ll call. I’m sure as hell not going to call him.

He shook his head. Alright, y’all are so-

So what? He stopped in his tracks. Were so what

He chuckled to himself before answering him. Nothing, you see, come on, he hit him on the back. Where are the girls at?

Um, he looked back down at his phone. They left us?

What do you mean? He snatched his phone from him. Huh, they really left us?

Yeah, he snatched his phone back. They did, and they want us to pick up some food on our way.

Alright, shit, we better get going then. Uce, he hit his back again walking in front of him.

Keep doing that, Uce, and see what happens.

Ok, I told them. Rhea said while putting her phone back on her lap,

Good I’m starving. Naomi said, lying on her back, I could eat anything!

Me too, my stomach touching my back. Bianca said, taking a sip of her drink,

They were all sitting around on the bed after their match. They decided to go back to the hotel suite to all hang out and have a drink or two.

Oh, you guys want to see what he got me for Christmas?

Yeah, it’s crazy you think you have to ask. Bianca said

I already know, but I want to see it again. Naomi said, rolling over.

Of course you knew you know everything! She said, laughing, sitting her glass on the side table before walking over to her suitcase on the ground, grabbing the picture frame out of it before sitting back down in her spot.

Look how fucking cute this is. She sat it down in between them all.

Oh, that’s adorable he made it? Bianca asked

Yeah! He made it; he drew on the frame and everything!

Y’all is so cute; he loves you, bad girl.

Mmh, you should have seen him in the car drawing on the shit; he was so focused it was cute. Naomi said

She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of him sitting in the backseat doodling on a picture frame thinking about her.

What did you get him?

Ugh! She brought her hands to her face. It was so stupid after this.

It couldn’t be that bad, Mama.

No, it was bad; I got him some fucking headphones!

She could hear the silence; she took her hands off her face. Bianca was looking at Naomi, her eyes peeking over her glass as she took a sip.

Oh god, it’s really bad! She fell back against the pillows.

No! It’s not that bad. Rhea What did he say?

He said that he loves them, but that’s bullshit.

He wouldn’t lie if he said he loves them. He loves them. Naomi tried to reassure her.

Yeah, but it’s so stupid compared to his gift. Uh, I’m not good at giving gifts.

You can’t compare them; if he likes them, then it’s a good gift. Bianca put a hand on her leg.

It just feels dumb. I don’t want him to think I don’t care as much as he does.

Trust me, he knows how much you care for him, plus he’s not really a gift person anyway, Mama.

You promise? She said nervously.

Yes, we promise he knows.

They heard the lock of the door click, and like a bunch of dogs when their owner comes home, they all leaned over the edge of the bed, peeking around the corner of the built-in divider separating the bedroom and the living area.

Jey used his foot to push up the door; both of his hands were full with Waffle House. Jimmy followed behind him, rolling their suitcases in and closing the door with his foot.

Ooo, y’all got us some good food. Bianca said as she stepped off the bed, helping Jey out with the bags of food.

Yeet Jey said, placing the bags on the table, I can’t believe y’all left us uce.

We were done for the night; we didn’t want to just sit around. Naomi said

You could’ve at least told us before Jimmy said kissing the top of her head.

I will next time now get me another drink.

Oh, y’all drink! Jimmy said, taking her glass

Mmh, Rhea said, standing up and walking up behind Jey, looking over his shoulder. What did you get me?

What you like, he handled her a box here.

Thank you, love.

Yo, you out of ice! Jimmy yelled from the kitchenette.

Well, go get some then! Naomi yelled back.

He sucked his teeth. Alright, Rhea, do you want to come with me?

Yeah, sure, she set her box down before slipping on her Vans.

We're back, he announced, as, opening the door, he let her walk out first before shutting it, ice bucket in hand.

So how’s your toe? She asked, looking at him.

Still hurts a bit, but we're good.

Good, she chuckled.

Hey, can I ask you something?

Yeah, of course.

Has he been sleeping? Like through the night and shit?

Um, she thought about it; she figured he was, but maybe not? Why do you think he’s not? She asked with concern in her voice.

I don’t know; I just know how he is and how he gets, especially when it comes to Roman.

What does that mean? You all keep saying that

It means that he can keep all this shit in, pushing it deep down, and start to shut down.

They walked into the little nook where the ice machine was located. He put the bucket on the shelf before pressing the button to dispense the ice.

They both leaned on opposite sides of the wall, staring at each other.

So you know what Roman said? She asked, crossing her arms.

I do, he said, crossing his He didn’t tell you, Uce?

Every time I ask him, he just says it was “bullshit” and then changes the subject.

So you want me to tell you what happened?

I can’t help him if I don’t know what the issue is, Jimmy.

A grin appeared on his face as he nodded his head. He told Roman about you, and he just kind of brushed it off, making it about work, which pissed him off and made it seem like you're just some random fuck of the week. He didn’t like that, so he left.

She just took a minute to process what he had just said, unfolding her arms. Well, that is bullshit, she said with a nervous laugh.

Yeah, he pulled up off the wall, grabbing the bucket now full of ice. I wouldn’t worry, though. Roman’s just being

A dick, she said, pushing off the wall.

He chuckled. I mean, yeah, but that’s not what I meant. Uce, he said, picking up the bucket.

They walked out of the nook back into the hall.

I’ll talk to him to make sure he’s good. She said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I’m just looking out even if he doesn’t want me to.

He does; he’s just—

Hardheaded, he said with a grin.

That’s not what I was going to say, but yes, he is. She laughed as she pulled her keycard out, opening the door.

Jey was standing in front of Naomi, her arms crossed, and Bianca, sitting in a chair, turning her attention to them both with a wide-eyed expression.

What the fuck is going on!? Jimmy said getting their attention

We're back! Jimmy said before shutting the door behind them

Hey sis, Here he said, putting a box out for Naomi.

Thank you, she signed, grabbing it. You want a drink?

Hell yeah, if y’all are drinking, I’m drinking too, shit.

She laughed as she poured him a drink here.

Thanks, he took the last of the boxes out of the bag, sitting them on the table.

It’s been a hot minute since I saw you, uce. How have you been?

I’m good still, champ, and I get this one now, she said, pulling Naomi into a hug. She hugged her back.

Well, you better watch your back street saying it was her, he said, taking a sip of his drink.

They both scoffed dramatically before Naomi hit his arm. I didn’t do it!

Ok, ok, you aren’t going to tell me he put his hands up. I know the truth.

You're so annoying, you know that?

I’m great. I don’t know what you are talking about, uce. He said, taking another sip of his drink,

You got anything new going on, Jey? Bianca asked, sitting down in the chair next to her.

Not much He leaned against the edge of the table. I’m starting the show off tomorrow so I can talk to Drew’s dumbass, so we’ll see how that shit goes.

Well, I wish you luck. Drew’s a piece of work.

You mean a piece of shit, then yeah, also I think we’re supposed to pop up on y’all's show.

Oh really? For what?

Bloodline shit, you know, got to handle it 'cause Roman ain’t here to do it, he said with a laugh, but his frustration showing through his words.

Well, thank you for taking care of them. Naomi said, giving him a side hug.

Oh, Rhea showed us what you got her.

She did? You think it’s good, not too much.

No, not at all; she seems to love it. Bianca said, taking a drink from her glass,

Ok, I asked this one up, but it’s good to hear that of a normal one.

Naomi hit him again in his arm before moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

Bianca laughed. She did seem a little insecure about her gift, though.

Yeah, I know I love my gift, and I told her that, but

Speaking of Rhea, what are you going to do next week?

What do you mean, uce?

I mean, we’re all going to be in LA. What are you going to do about her and Roman? Naomi said.

He hadn’t thought about that. He’d been so busy with Drew and this and trying not to think about Roman that he totally forgot that they would all be together soon.

I don’t know. I haven't thought about it. He shifted his stance, putting his hands in his hoodie pocket.

Well, you should. We’re all going to be there, and they both have matches. You're going to want to be there for both.

I know he just looked briefly at the floor before bringing his gaze back to her. You know how it is.

I know Jey, but he’s going to want you there, and so is she, and you don’t get to choose in this race.

Yeah, but why should he meet her if he doesn’t even give a fuck about her?

Jey, he does. He just already—she caught herself before finishing her sentence.

He gave her a weird look. He already what?

Nothing just-

No, he cut her off. What were you going to say, Uce? He already what!? He said, taking a step forward.

Already what!?

He already knows! She said him just a few steps from her. He already knew about you and Rhea before you told him.

He was confused in shock at what she just said.

They just looked at each other; the sound of Jimmy yelling broke him out of thought.

He took a step back, looking over at them.

What’s going on, uce? Jimmy said, walking into the room, setting the bucket on the kitchenette

You knew? He said, walking towards him You knew he fucking knew!?

Knew what uce? I don’t even know what the hell you are talking about. He looked towards Naomi for an answer to what the hell was going on.

I told him what you told me she said before looking away from him.

He looked back at him. Uce-

Did you know that he knew about us?

Yeah, I did, but only just found out.

I see you every goddamn week; you could have mentioned it!

It wasn’t going to change shit.

He scoffed. You should have told me, Uce.

Yeah, I should have, but it wouldn’t change what happened.

You don’t know that!

Jimmy tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off, taking a step back.

Jey, if you knew he knew, what would you have done?

He shrugged his shoulders. I don’t know.

Because it wouldn’t have changed what happened, he still would have done what he did whether you knew or not.

He ran a hand through his hair, calming down a little. When did you find out?

The same day you told him, I overheard him talking to Paul on the phone about it.

He scoffed, Why would he act like that if he already knew? The way Roman’s mind worked will forever be a mystery to him.

He moved to sit down in the chair behind him, running a hand over his face.

_________________________________________________

Rhea was sitting down on the couch hanging out in her locker room watching the Damian match with the War Raiders vs. the Judgment Day. She had a good laugh at their new entrance.

Before the door swung open Jey walking in without a shirt on, her eyes immediately started following his tattoo up his body; she snapped out of it when she found the frustrated look that was on his face.

You okay? She said, letting her foot hit the ground as she moved to look at him.

He didn’t respond, just let out a deep breath as he white-knuckled the edges of the table in front of him, letting his head hang.

She put the TV on mute before standing up to put a hand on his back, beginning to rub it; his skin was hot. He let out a stuttering breath.

After everything that happened last night, he’s been quiet. He told her he didn’t want to talk about it, but she saw all his thoughts running through his mind last night. She saw what Jimmy was talking about: heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Are you hurt, baby? She said, gently tilting her head to the side to get a better look at his face, She had seen him in the beginning of the show get jumped by Drew.

No, I’m good. I’m just—he sighed. I'm just done with Drew, he said flatly.

Okay, what are you going to do?

I’m going to beat his dumbass next week.

Okay, good. That’s good love. It means you're almost done.

Yeah, but he ran a hand over his face. I have never been able to beat Drew one-on-one. Why would I be able to now?

She could hear the lack of confidence in his voice; she turned him to look at her.

His eyes were low and glossy. His face looked tired; the bags under his eyes seemed to grow overnight.

You're going to win. That may not be the end of it, but you're going to beat him. Her hand rested against his face. You're going to win.

She reached her hand into his hair; he fell into it, the tension in his shoulders falling.

I think what you're feeling isn't about Drew baby? I think it’s about last night.

The tension returned to his body, his eyes going to the ground.

Your hurting love I can see it. Roman hurt you. What Jimmy told you hurt you.

Rhea-

You don’t have to talk to me about it if you don’t want to, but all of this is hurting you, baby; you need to talk to him.

He let out a heavy sigh, his gaze flicking to her then back to the ground, the corner of his lip twitching. What if I don’t want to?

I know you don’t, but you need to, my love.

He grabbed her other hand, standing straight up to look her in her eyes. Rhea Can we talk about this later when we get back to our hotel?

Yeah, of course I told Damian I would find him after his match, but after that we can go

Alright, I’m going to go get my stuff. See you in a bit.

He placed a kiss on her forehead before walking away, closing the door behind him.

She turned around, grabbing the remote off the couch, unmuting the TV, and catching Damian pin Dom to get the win.

Jey was sitting in the driver's seat waiting for Rhea; she texted him to meet her outside.

But when he got out there, she wasn’t there. He figured she was still talking with Damian.

Leaving him alone in his thoughts He kept thinking about what Rhea said, how he needed to talk to Roman.

It’s not that he didn’t want to; he wanted to fix it. There was something inside him telling him to just fix it, that it would all be better if he fixed it.

It was the same thing he felt when Jim and Roman got into it: the need to fix everything.

He wanted to talk to him; he wanted him to meet her as his girl and not as Mami.

But there was a sinking feeling in his gut, a feeling of fear; he was scared of the what-ifs.

He heard the door open. Rhea stood in the doorway saying goodbye to Damian before sitting down. Sorry, baby, you ready?

Yeah, yeah, let’s go.

He rolled his suitcase against the wall before lying down on the bed; his body ached from the beating he took from Drew.

She lay down next to him, laying her head on the pillows. He crawled up her body, laying his head down on her chest.

She wrapped her arm around him, scratching his back through his shirt.

Will you be there?

What baby?

Will you be there when I talk to him? He lifted his head up some to meet her

Of course, my love, if you want me there, I’ll be there.

Okay, thank you.

Is there a reason you want me there, love?

I just need you, baby.

Ok, I’ll be there.

He laid his head back down on her, feeling her soft skin under him. The words rushing through his mind slowed as her warmth became his; the sounds of her heart beating replaced his thoughts. everything just melted away except his feeling of fear in his gut

Rhea

Yes, she let her hand fall on the small of his back.

I think I’m scared.

Of what? Losing to Drew?

Of losing you, as the words left his mouth, he felt a lump in his throat.

What? You're not going to lose me, baby. I’m here.

Rhea I never thought I would lose Jimmy, but I did, and it was the worst thing I ever felt, and fighting him hurt even more. I can’t lose you.

You're not going to lose me, ok? She put both of her hands on his cheeks. I love you.

Jimmy loved me too, and then he took the biggest thing I ever did away from me. Roman hurt me in ways I couldn’t imagine before.

But when I think about losing you, it hurts the most. Rhea, what if, what if

The lump in his throat was hot as a couple of tears fell down his face.

You’re not going to lose me, ok? I promise

You promise? His voice was quiet and broken.

She wiped his tears away, looking him dead in the eyes. I promise you I’m never going to leave.

He nodded his head as she wiped more tears from his face. I love you. I’m here. I got you.

He laid his head back down, slipping his hands under her. She wrapped her hands around him, kissing the top of his head.

I love you too, he said against her chest, his voice still shaky, his hot tears falling on her skin.

She held him close to her, feeling him start to calm down.

_________________________________________________

The way I tried to get this out before 11 but my spell check kept fucking up 🖤

[dirtyoldmanhole]

typing in 'how does a knight take off armor' on youtube with the same energy as a married WASP dude typing in "milf threesome" on redtube

[shima-draws]

Just got back from seeing Sonic 3 and HOOOOOOLY SHIT y’all. Oh my fucking god. OH my god. Ohhhh my g o d

[nyxofdemons]

THE WAY THAT THEY INVENTED ROMANCE WITH THIS SONG???? HELLO?????