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angelsxbelle · 4 years ago

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growing up in love with you.

w/ oikawa, kuroo, and daichi

helloooo my beautiful beans:) i’m here to feed you with some more hurt comfort headcanons/scenarios since we’re all lonely and in love with anime boys :’)))

likes and reblogs are very appreciated!!!

genre: fluff and angst, hurt comfort, slice of life

pairings: oikawa x reader, daichi x reader, kuroo x reader x fem! reader

listen to: line without a hook, ricky montgomery

@moonhere i’m pretty sure this was your request with oikawa i’m so sorry this took so long omg

note: takes place during timeskip so beware of spoilers!!

warnings: mentions of violence, mentions of female anatomy and pronouns

oikawa, TOORU

oikawa tooru appears to have his life together on the outside, but in his mind he still feels like he’ll never be enough

in your relationship, he’s worked impossibly hard to better himself to the point where he’s not insecure which would cause a strain on the both of you, but he still has moments where he lets himself become consumed in his own thoughts

being with you has been possibly the best thing ever to happen to him, but at the same time he’s still terrified of losing you

when his worries start to consume him again, he can’t stop obsessively worrying over the possibility that you’ll find someone better than him, that you deserve someone better than him

oikawa can sometimes hide his insecurities by acting cocky, but you’ve gotten good at reading him so you can easily tell when he’s feeling insecure or unsure of himself

so when it springs up that you’ve been invited to your cousin’s wedding along with a plus one, he’s more than happy to accompany you as he loves fancy events like weddings

you make the preparations together, he helps you pick out a gift for the couple while you go shopping for a new dress to wear

overall, you’re both excited to make the journey back to your hometown to watch your cousin make his marriage official, you both know the ceremony will probably be amazing, as well as the festivities after

when you get there, you’re both immediately swarmed by relatives, exclaiming how excited they are to meet your longtime boyfriend and how happy they are to see everyone together

as the ceremony starts, you’re both on the edges of your seats waiting as you see the bride delicately step past you down the aisle, waiting to secure her vows with your cousin

the formalities went amazing, as all of your relatives sat in tears as the couple at the podium exchanged beautiful vows and the rings were slipped on each others’ fingers

after, everyone moved to the building next door as the wedding was help at a chapel at the edge of a forest, with the after party being a building next to it, walls made of glass so the guests could view the beautiful scenery outside

tooru is more than willing to show off his dancing skills at the beginning, and dinner goes well before your relatives and family get together to do group dances and disperse into separate conversations afterwards

as the lights get dimmer and the atmosphere of the party start to settle, tooru sits at your table as he watches you chatter away with your relatives.

he watches as you speak with such ease, never failing to coax a laugh out of even your stoniest aunts, he can’t help but think to himself how beautiful you are, and how incredibly lucky he is to have you

another man, he recognizes as the best man strolls up to you, striking up a conversation with you.

tooru knows it’s probably nothing, just a conversation, and he also knows you would never do anything to hurt him, so he’s content just watching you talk with someone else.

he watches the scene unfold like a movie, with him as a part of the background, just watching, waiting.

before, tooru would have been filled with a familiar uneasy feeling right about now, his stomach twisting uncomfortably in his body, mind filled with thoughts he wishes weren’t there.

he could only have hoped he was good enough for you.

thinking back through all the years with you, the memories, he remembers all the times you saved him from himself, the world, anything that had ever hurt him.

it was back in high school, the first day of oikawa tooru’s first year of high school, he walked around with his head held high to keep anyone from seeing how low he felt, cocky smirk to hide just how unsure he really was of himself.

it wasn’t love at first, he didn’t particularly remember the first time he saw you, but step by step as you got closer to him he realized that you had one thing his fangirls could never give him, stability, comfort, and home.

he found home in you every time it hurt too much.

the feeling that could only possibly have imprinted itself into oikawa’s conscience was the feeling of being seen for who he truly was, a feeling that he had almost never felt before.

and as you saw him, he saw you the same way in that you could always depend on each other, for every painful moment, every failure, every insecurity.

it was then that he knew he really was in love with you.

even as he cried with his face in your lap in his third year you were still there, running your fingers through his hair and reminding him that he was enough and that you couldn’t be more proud of him.

and as he packed his bags to fly halfway across the world, he watched you cry as he couldn’t believe how much he meant to you.

the final weeks you had leading up to your graduation, you spent as much time with each other as possible, desperately trying to keep hold of the fleeting moments passing between you.

as you stood together in the tokyo national airport looking out at the window over the scenery of the country he had once called home, clutching a letter for him containing everything you had ever felt for him and wanted him to know before he left.

he looked at you with tears in his eyes, like you were the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on, saying goodbye for the last time.

the years you were apart as you finished university while he was overseas felt like a time of awakening, so much had changed in what felt like moments, both without what mattered most.

and he knew while he was gone there were many more people who could’ve found you like he did, and that there was nothing he could do to stop it.

the trust he had in you was all he needed to keep going, that when you came to meet him you would still love him the way you always did.

when you finally, came, and all was said and done, he felt like he never wanted to let go of you as he had you in his arms again, he had almost forgotten what it felt like to have the love of his life so close to him.

sometimes he still wonders why chose him, but it’s enough for him to remember that you did, and that you’ll never let go of him.

the song in the reception hall changes, and tooru snaps out of the flashback that had taken over him for who knows how long.

you walk over to him and you look even more beautiful than he remembered, saying, “tooru! come over here and dance with me!”

he smiles and takes your hand, fingers delicately brushing the diamond on your finger he had carefully picked out all that time ago, that you had both cried tears of joy over when he stood on the top of the mountain to make things forever, thinking he was the happiest man alive.

you were always with him, from when he was an insecure teenager to the words san juan reading on his back.

he can’t even fathom how much it means to him as he holds you close to him, one hand on your shoulders and the other on your middle, round and full with his baby, how he’ll never get tired of love like this.

he kisses your forehead and says, “anytime you want baby”.

kuroo, TETSURO

despite his sarcastic and confident manner as he had grown up, kuroo was shy as a small child

he had a hard time making friends in elementary school at first, but that didn’t stop him from meeting people he would care about for the rest of his life, that he would cherish forever

on his first day of kindergarten, he only knew kenma who was also shy and mostly kept to himself during the day

but there was one other person who was there for him, the little girl who stood next to him when no one would, who asked him what his name was and held his hand on the playground

and so you and kuroo tetsuro became best friends, along with kenma, holding a bond that wouldn’t be separated even when you graduated

it felt like time had gone by in a blur, like the memories slipped through his fingers like water, and now you were all fully grown adults with jobs, with lives, with purposes

and now, it was the tokyo 2021 olympics and kuroo tetsuro was getting ready to watch the competitions with his associates and friends, ready to watch his old friends and acquaintances on japan’s national team

he felt like he could get lost in an ocean of people, but he spots you in the crowd immediately, he could spot your face anytime, anywhere

and so he meets you as you take your places, ready to watch the game begin

as he sees his old friends on the court together, he can’t help but to start remembering his high school days, when you were still young

it doesn’t help either that kuroo becomes painfully aware again of the way that he had been pining for you for all those years, even being one of the smartest people in his grade he still felt like the biggest idiot for just standing back and watching you grow, away from him

sometimes he wishes he could have turned back time, just to go back and tell you how he really felt earlier

but he let the years pass by, watching you drift slowly apart as he harbored his own feeling in order to avoid being rejected

now that you’re both graduated adults with careers and life paths, kuroo’s feelings are still very much present and if anything, he wants to try just one more time to prove he still cares

so he sits next to you, looking over at your gentle face as he takes in your features once again, watching your lips move slightly as you breathe in and out, and he remembers there was once nothing he would do in the world to give up being with you, wishing he had said something sooner

kuroo glances up as he starts to think back on all the times he could have told you how he really felt, all the times he screwed up worse than he could even imagine.

it was your first boyfriend having graduated high school, some douchebag kuroo couldn’t even be bothered to learn the name of.

but what he felt could never be forgotten, as he watched you walk away with another man’s arm around your lower back, pulling you close in a way that he had always dreamed of doing to you but couldn’t.

he was bitter, cold, in a way that he shouldn’t ever have been.

it’s your own dumbass fault, he thought, but that didn’t make him any less hurt or angry at what he had let happen. were you even happy? did someone else other than him make you happy?

he let himself grow apart from you ever so slightly, you saw him just as often and still cared for him just as much, but you could tell there was something he was keeping from you that even he couldn’t admit to himself.

kuroo thought it was over when you said yes to someone else, but here he was holding you in his arms as you cried with a bruised face and shattered heart.

all he could think about was how this would never happened if you picked him, but he was so pathetic he couldn’t even make it happen past his imagination, but no matter how angry or upset he was you still came first.

and he kept that promise as you got older, all he would do was care for you silently as he witnessed your life through the glass that separated you, that he could break but wasn’t strong enough to, no matter how much it hurt.

“are you coming tetsu- chan?”

it was the summer before first grade, he was hiding under the overhang of a bus stop with his hood over his small face, quivering on the ground in a crouched position.

kuroo’s seven year old self looked up at your small face, a hand outstretched as you held your way too big umbrella over your head, waiting for him to say something in return.

he had always hated thunderstorms, he hated the way it felt like the sound and violence swallowed him up, the same way it felt when his parents yelled at each other as he stood in the doorway of his bedroom watching from a distance.

he looked around at the dark gray skies engulfing him, the small threads of lightning painting the skies like blood vessels, wishing it would all go away.

but you still stood there as the rain poured down in your rain coat and small red boots as you waited for him to come out.

he reluctantly started to crawl out slowly, as you inched closer to where he was previously hunched, waiting for him to reach you.

as you stood just past the overhang, he stuck his hand out timidly and you wrapped your fingers around it, giving his hand a small squeeze before you started to walk towards your house together.

he shivered the whole way there, and every time you heard thunder crack in the distance he held your hand a little bit tighter.

when you got home your mother freaked out and called his family so they weren’t worried about him, and then got out warm towels and told the both of you to go take a bath so you wouldn’t catch a cold.

after you were both warm and dry and wrapped up in soft pajamas, which he had borrowed, kuroo felt oddly at home, like he never wanted to leave the safe place he had with you.

even as you had set up a futon for him on the floor, after about 30 minutes of being terrified of the sounds rattling your house he asked to get closer, and you shifted as he crawled into bed with you.

when you woke up in the morning he was fast asleep with your favorite stuffed animal clutched in his arms, a soft expression on his face, and you couldn’t help but think how peaceful he looked.

the truth is, as you made friends with the small boy in your kindergarten class you had already told stories with your dolls and toys saying you were going to marry him one day.

at 13 you had wondered why he never talked about liking any other girls, you had worried he wasn’t interested in anyone at all.

and at 19 you had tried to move on but it was just too hard.

every time you had fallen you were always there for each other, through all the scraped knees, thunderstorms, and broken hearts.

you only wished you could tell each other what your relationship really meant, what you wanted it to be.

and as kuroo sits in the stands of his friends’ volleyball game, he wonders the same thing that you do.

“y/n- chan, will you be my girlfriend?”

sawamura, DAICHI

being in the same class as daichi in your first year of high school had been interesting, he was rather ordinary looking but you couldn’t help but notice how hard working and kind he was, his energy drew others close to him and you could see why he was admired by many

you didn’t pay much attention to it as you were a bit shy about talking to new people and you didn’t want him to think you were trying to hard, so you kept your distance until you were paired together for a project

you were quiet at first as you sat next to him at your desk since he was a bit intimidating, but as soon as he started talking you felt yourself ease up around him, something about the way he spoke was comforting and it felt like you were at home with him even as you sat inside school

you had started to come up with a plan for your project, and you basfully said, “i’m not that good at english, so i hope it won’t be hard for you to deal with me or anything”, not thinking too much about it

“don’t say that, i’m sure you’re great and you should have more confidence in yourself, it will be better for you”, you hear him say firmly but gently from next to you at the desk

your cheeks flush with warmth and you look down, not sure what to say to him next, but he starts talking about your project plans so you turned around to pay attention to what he was saying

things went well with your assignment and you both received a good grade from your teacher, the school day was about to end as it was your last class and you were about to walk through the door when you felt a hand grasp yours and you turned around to face him

“u-uhm, i really had a nice time getting to know you while we were working together and i was wondering if you maybe wanted to be friends”

it was the first time you had ever seen him look flustered or anything of the sort, but you were happy to oblige since you had had just a nice time getting to know him as well

you smiled softly and walked away, feeling excited at the possibility of getting closer to sawamura daichi as he had intrigued you so much in the couple of weeks that you had known him

and so years later after that time you had first met, you were still around each other, he was one of the best things that had ever happened to you

it was a reunion between his old high school volleyball team, you had known how close they were as you were with him during his final year when karasuno had gone to nationals, and how much his old teammates meant to him and the relationship they had

and so you both made your way over to the tanaka residence with a dish you had cooked in your hands, both excited to see your old friends again and witness the ways they had all grown up and changed

as soon as you walked in the door, all the memories you had made in high school came flooding back at the sight of your friends’ faces, although it was strange seeing how much older they looked.

daichi wonders if he looks that old to them too, sometimes he forgets how much time has passed since they graduated.

it felt like it had been only a moment since he had stood in karasuno high school’s gym barking at hinata and kageyama to get themselves together, with sugawara and tanaka laughing in the background and asahi watching with a fearful expression.

and now they were all grown adults, with lives and jobs and homes, some with lovers and some with dreams that came to life.

he couldn’t be more proud of who they all became, the boys he once knew to be scrawny and mischievous would now be standing on the world’s stage and others who had followed their passions found love in what they did.

still, sometimes daichi still can’t help but wonder if you wanted more, when he saw his old teammates and acquaintances from other schools play on national teams and be watched by thousands around the world.

he wonders if you’re still satisfied with just him.

daichi knows he’s not the most flashy guy out there, but you chose him out of everyone else, right?

he remembers all of those times in high school and when you had graduated that people wondered why why you were with him, couldn’t you have found someone a little more interesting, someone special?

daichi isn’t the type to let his emotions get the better of him, but it stung.

it stung bad.

and yet, he knew he couldn’t lose himself just because of some insecurities, things that didn’t really mean anything, but still wormed their way into his head like maggots growing in a corpse.

sometimes he thinks about the boyfriends you had before him, how he wasn’t anything like them, he was unsure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he was the odd one out.

all his life he had felt painfully....average.

he wondered why people would forget his name just after talking to him, or why they would mistake him for other people, was he really that forgettable.

it felt sometimes like he was just another face in the crowd, sometimes he wondered if that was the way you saw him at first too.

what daichi didn’t know is how you had always seen him, someone reliable, special, valuable like no one else had been to you.

that he had always stuck out to you, he didn’t seem like anyone else in the sense that he always stepped up and did what needed to be done, you hadn’t seen a heart like his in anyone else your entire life.

he didn’t realize how in every class you had together, he was the one that you stared at, that you saw as beacon of hope out of everything you had faced in your life up until then.

daichi’s friends and family had always looked up to him, he didn’t always realize it but they saw him as a hero to everyone he helped, whether he did it intentionally or not.

through you, daichi was able to see himself the way that everyone else saw him.

when you said yes when he had asked you to marry him, it was cliche but he could’ve sworn he really was the luckiest man alive.

but the truth was he wasn’t lucky, he was more worthy than anyone else could be, the person who stayed by your side when no one else would and who made it seem like you were capable of anything.

you were living proof of just how special daichi sawamura was.

and on your wedding day, tears streamed down both of your faces as you got ready to read your vows to each other, because neither of you could fathom how much you meant to each other.

he couldn’t help but think how beautiful you looked standing in front of him , how he never wanted to let you go because you were worth more to him than anything else in his life.

in your vow, you told him just how much he meant to you, and how you were so incredibly lucky to have him, and he couldn’t help but let the tears slide down his cheeks because he loved you so damn much.

and as you sat on your living room couch with a pregnancy test in your hands he cried again because you made him happier than he could ever have wished to be.

it hurt him more than anything to see you in so much pain as you delivered your baby, but the amount of joy you’d bring into the world was more than worth it.

as you held your baby girl in your arms for the first time, he realized all he had ever needed in his life was right here, he wouldn’t have to search ever again.

it felt like she was growing bigger and bigger every day just in front of his eyes.

he knew one day she’d leave and grow up and have to let go, but for now she was still his and yours together.

and knew he was more special than anyone else in the world.

“honey, let’s go watch everyone in the living room, okay?”

you smiled, because the world had given you more than you could ever ask for, surrounded with beautiful people every day and given experiences you wouldn’t trade for the world.

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matth1w · 4 years ago

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Always You

Pairing: Roman Sionis/Black Mask x Female Reader

Summary: After years of separation, you finally reunite with Roman.

Warnings: Vague descriptions of sex

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 1,344 words

Note: Inspired by repeat listenings of Crystal Dolphin (I know). I imagined a camera circling around the two as their eyes meet, everything else fading into the background.

Second Note: Again, so stunned and thankful all the love Dancing for Daddy is still getting. 800+ notes!!!

Forever Friends: @captainrogerss / @commander-writergirl / @fics-not-tragedies

Roman Sionis (Open!): @stardancerluv / @redspaceace / @darling-i-read-it / @tales-from-gotham / @vintagemichelle91 / @ladyofhellhounds / @aliasimagines / @justauthoring / @daphne-fandom-writing / @ewanfuckingmcgregor / @troybcker / @ntlmundy / @21stcenturywitchcraft / @theblackmaskclub / @jokersdoll-blog / @ryjo1992 / @highly-unknown / @nighttime2am / @hoefordarknessrecreated / @zodiyack / @obiorbenkenobi / @innuendocrescendo / @obitwo

D O N O T R E P O S T M Y W O R K

You and Roman had always loved each other. Before you knew what love was, back when love was sweet and innocent. The love you shared was simply that of best friends who smiled wider when they held each other’s hands than anyone else.

As you stepped forward, patient and thankful for the line that let you try to simmer the bubbling anxiety within you, you took in a shallow breath.

Your name only barely loud enough for the guard to hear. After a few moments of attention directed at his lists, no doubt, his eyes met yours again, a bit of a frown beginning as he looked back down at his tablet.

“I see.” He gruffed.

Unsure if you were hoping he would turn you away or let you forward, you stayed silent.

After one more long beat of staring at you, he jerked his thumb to the door.

“Inside for weapons check.”

As you crossed the threshold, you heard the signature beep of an old school radio being pushed.

In the club, Victor’s ear buzzed. “Tell the boss she’s here.”

He strides over to Roman who is thankfully in the middle of a very unimportant conversation.

Only a moment after he leans down to relay the message, Roman jumps up from his seat.

Manic excitement lights his eyes that leaves as quickly as it came, replaced by pure nervousness.

He runs his hands through his hair, taking in deep breaths as he shakes his body and removes his sunglasses, and much to everyone’s surprise, his gloves, mindlessly throwing them into Zsasz’s hands.

He turns on Victor with a start, seemingly realizing his friend is more than an accessory rack.

“Do I look good?” He resists the urge to grab onto his shoulders and shake him when his answer isn’t instant.

A nervous, too high pitched laugh bursts out of Roman before Victor can even reply.

“I mean, of course I do.” He flits his head with his typically fake big smile.

Zsasz just nods with an unaffected look, hiding the concern underneath.

“Course.” He says as he places a reassuring hand onto his boss’s shoulder.

Roman had been waiting for this moment his entire adult life. But now that it was here, that you were here, he felt so nervous. So insecure.

Would you like him? The club? His clothes? Was it too much? Not enough?

The cacophony of thoughts continued to race through his head.

‘Everyone out.

… No stay.

No one look at her. She’s mine.

�� But she deserves a sea of people adoring her.

What do I do? What should I do?

Oh it’s too late to do any—’

Time seems to slow as you walk through the curtain leading into the main room. Everything quiets, even the song seeming to slip underwater.

You’re unsure if it’s truly the music or just the effect this man is having on you. The air vibrates with the deep bass, electrifying your skin and moving you forward despite the echoing worry in your mind.

‘What if he doesn’t recognize me?

What if he doesn’t remember me?’

You gather all the courage in your body as you let your eyes scan the room for the only one you could truly see.

Had you not been holding onto something you would have certainly faltered in your step.

The way he looked at you instantly quieted your fears and confirmed you had not once left his mind.

You were expecting his looks. Roman was always fawned over as a child and truth be told, you had always found him attractive. And recently, you searched him online and realized he had aged like fine wine.

You expected the lavish suit. Dressed to the nines in a glamorous, almost campish style that seemed to be perfectly made to shine amongst everyone and everything else.

You had even expected the eyes, though they were more intense than before. Piercing through your skin and soul.

But lord. You did not expect eyeliner.

And Roman himself was stunned. He had kept tabs on you and had even gone to see you once from afar but nothing could compare to how you looked only feet away from him.

He felt like a young child again, the moment he realized he loved you and would make you his one day. The emotions came crashing and he was frozen in his place.

You faintly register the music beginning to rise as the world seems to spin around you two.

You wanted to bottle this moment. Play it over and over again. The music, the lights, the touch of the dress of your skin, the warmth filling you.

But most importantly, the way Roman looked right here.

Right now.

And how this man, your oldest friend, first and truest love, was looking at you.

The music coming back to its full force makes you blink out of the trance and finally move. Your steps matching his cautious, unbelieving steps.

You’re standing in front of each other, just staring, eyes roaming over each other’s bodies, taking in everything that was hidden by distance before. Hands hovering in the air, still in their instinctual yearning for the other’s embrace.

Neither of you dare to break the silence, the fiercest spell that had come over you both.

With one last journey of his face, so close allowing you to appreciate every inch, you realize one of you will have to say something.

“Hi—”

His lips jolt onto yours, closing the electrified distance, breaking the spell and instead creating something stronger - stealing the words from your mouth, breath from your chest, and heart from your very soul.

His lips are strong and firm and desperate in their movement like returning home to a place you had only been to in your dreams.

But you feel them pull away. Too soon.

So you follow him and grab them again, sealing them with smiles as you bring your hands up and around to the back of his neck. Fingers flirting with the ends of his hair.

In a singular moment of clarity, Roman has but one thought tearing his lips from yours.

“They don’t get to see what I’m going to do to you.”

The sound of his rough voice stuns you, so different yet so similar to that which filled your memories. Not even taking in the words, you nod. Your head just barely moving down for a moment, still lost in your state of bliss.

With that, he leans away as if nothing had ever pained him more and takes your hand in his, rushing steps moving you through a parting sea of bodies.

Within moments, the sound and staring eyes disappear and his hands are roaming all over you, overwhelming your body so much that it can only respond in kind.

In the privacy of his darkened bedroom, you make slow, deep love. Staring into each other’s eyes as you give all of yourselves to the other.

Deep kisses capture your moans - breathing them into each other’s mouths when you can hold them no longer.

His touch always on you, never leaving your skin.

Unsure where he ends and you begin. Both shaking, tensing, pulsing, releasing together.

Finally laying together side by side, you’re both unable to stop looking and touching one another. The spell thicker than ever.

You want to say something, anything, other than a cut off greeting and euphoric chanting of his name. But you continue to appreciate the moment in silence.

Roman kept his body closed off from the world. But not you. He wanted to feel everything you had to offer. With yet another thought pushing out to be voiced, he opens his mouth.

“Marry me.”

It was quick, sudden, and for a flicker of a moment, you thought impulsive.

Until you realized this was always where you two were meant to be.

You had no other words than the one he repeated to you as a boy when you asked with innocent giggles if he would marry you.

“Always.”

#roman sionis #roman sionis x reader #black mask #black mask x reader #roman sionis fluff #roman fluff #black mask fluff #roman sionis fic #roman sinois reader insert #black mask fic #black mask reader insert #bop #birds of prey

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5-seconds-of-bucky · 4 years ago

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Glad It’s You (Shawn Mendes Soulmate!au)

A/N: We got all kinds of classic tropes and au’s in here. Coffee shop, friends to lovers, soulmate. Also, let’s appreciate the fact that it’s actually of decent length this time :) My longest fic yet!

Also, I’m aware that the timeline of some events that correspond to real life aren’t perfect but for the sake of my sanity please go with it

Summary: Shawn lives in a world in which he believes he doesn’t have a soulmate until he starts feeling the emotions of someone else. You live in a world where undiagnosed social anxiety prevents you from finding yours. After not seeing each other for three years, the bond you once had is no longer as strong. How does Shawn tell you that he thinks you’re his soulmate when you’re still scared to talk to him like you once did?

Word count: 8.9k+

Warnings: Reader is heavily implied to have social anxiety, swearing, descriptions of an anxiety attack

*Disclaimer: The depiction of social anxiety is based off of my own experience and research and may or may not accurately reflect the experience of other people with SAD*

It was hard to tell if soulmates made life infinitely better or perpetually more difficult.

The discrepancy probably stemmed from the fact that not everyone had the same soulmate indicator. Some had the tattoos of the occupation of their soulmate. Some couldn’t see color until they met theirs. Others could feel the emotions of the other person. There was an endless array of indications. Oftentimes, soulmates had different indicators. It wasn’t rare for someone to have a tattooed name while their soulmate could feel the other’s emotions.

Since the day you were born, the initials S.M. were tattooed on the inside of your wrist. As a child it was a game. You asked every person you met what their name was, your mind consumed with the idea of eternal love that had been ingrained from a young age. There was always a moment of disappointment when they would tell you “Sammy Jones” or “Eric Miller”. With all the adults romanticizing the idea of soulmates, it was hard not to look for yours in every place you could.

For a long time, Shawn thought he didn’t have a soulmate. There were no indicators while he was growing up to show that he could have one. He could see color and there were no special tattoos marking his body. It was a source of shame when his friends would ask, “What about you?” after telling him about theirs. Watching his friends talking about their indicators and finding their soulmates was frustrating. He was a normal kid. What did he do to deserve a life of loneliness that only a soulmate could fill?

Even when his career as a singer launched and he started to understand why it was possible that he might never find love, it was hard to comprehend that he was destined for no one. Was he really that undeserving of love?

He was twenty when he started feeling someone else’s emotions.

It came out of nowhere. He was celebrating the release of his third album and he couldn’t have been happier. He was on cloud nine, meeting everyone at the party with an enthusiastic smile and hug. He felt complete, even. He had stopped dwelling on his lack of soulmate and instead focused on putting everything he had into his songwriting.

It was the best choice he’d ever made. His music blossomed and his mental health was better than ever. All the anxiety of being alone and hoping that something, anything, would pop up to show him that he was meant for someone had started to fade to the background. Maybe he would never truly be over the fact that there was no perfect match for him but he could try to block it out of his mind.

There was a point in his life when he thought that maybe he did have a soulmate. That the system was screwed up and he did have a person. He was 16 and his career was already taking off but he couldn’t help but think that he was falling in love with you, his best friend, while he also fell in love with making music.

You were by his side through it all: random nights when he’d ask you to come over to help him come up with lyrics, days when it started to get a little too much, evenings when he just needed a quick break. You were the best of friends and there was a bond you thought would never be broken.

One day, he realized that he didn’t need some tattoo or the ability to read your thoughts; you were meant for each other. Neither of you could deny the pull you felt when you were together and random people who didn’t know better often mistook you for a couple.

But he realized too late. He went on his first world tour and wasn’t sure how to tell you his feelings when he was constantly so far away. You liked plans and stability; his life didn’t offer that in any capacity.

And then it was too hard to stay connected. He was touring and you were still trying to finish school. There just wasn’t time for you to talk to him at 3:30 in the morning. So you lost touch. There was a text every once and awhile. An empty promise of “we need to meet up” or “wanna talk?”

You both decided in your minds that it wasn’t meant to be. That you had a different soulmate and he had none. It’s been three years now since you were together to have a real conversation. You were beginning to grow frustrated with the search for your soulmate and Shawn had given up all together.

That was, until he felt a surge of anxiety hit him like a truck in the middle of his party. It lasted no more than three seconds but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling after it passed. He had no idea where it came from. One second he felt on top of the world, the next like he couldn’t stoop lower.

It had only been an hour and a half but you were ready to leave the party. It had been an eventful night by your standards. You had talked to two people besides your roommate, which was two more than usual. Your roommate, Alana had been by your side the whole night, a promise she had to make before you agreed to come, but she eventually had to go to the bathroom, leaving you leaning against a wall by yourself. She had only been gone for three minutes, you could feel all the anxiety creeping up on you.

Do they think I look lonely? My friend will be back in a minute, I swear!

If I look at my phone they might think I’m just chilling.

They probably think I’m that weirdo that stands against the wall the whole time and doesn’t talk to people.

Calm down. Nobody cares what you’re doing. They’re all doing their own thing.

. . . They looked at me funny. They think I’m weird.

Oh can we just go home?

As much as you tried to tell yourself that no one cared that you were standing against the wall by yourself, there was that part of you that convinced you that they cared a lot. You were already exhausted purely from being around all the people and loud music. Alana had been gone for three minutes and in those three minutes you had begun to shake and sweat just the slightest bit. You knew that nobody was judging you, it was irrational, but in the back of your mind told you otherwise.

Shawn excused himself from the room, taking a minute to gather his thoughts. While it wasn’t completely abnormal for random bouts of anxiety to hit him, this one felt different. Foreign, as though it wasn’t his own emotions, rather, someone else’s.

He wiped his hands on his pants, confused as to why they were so sweaty all of a sudden. It wasn’t particularly hot yet he felt warm. Maybe he was worrying too much. It was probably nothing. He ran a hand through his hair before going back to the party, putting a smile on his face and the past ten minutes behind him.

��Hey man, you alright?” Brian asked as he approached him.

‘Yeah, just needed to go to the bathroom.”

“You sure? You look a little shaken.” He wasn’t blind to how Shawn’s eyes were darting around and how he appeared a little more closed off than usual.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He turned his head when someone else called his name and nodded to Brian before heading over to them. He spent the rest of the night doing his best to look excited, but those three seconds plagued his mind the whole time.

While Shawn struggled to keep his hopes of a soulmate under wraps, you were more desperate than ever to find yours. It seemed like all of your friends were finding theirs and you were perpetually alone.

With the way you tended to shy away from meeting new people, most people assumed you didn’t want to find your soulmate. That you would rather live a life alone, or that maybe you were never assigned a soulmate to begin with.

You had met a few potential soulmates after losing touch with Shawn. Every time you heard an S.M. name your heart stopped. Maybe you had finally found them. You pushed past the fear of approaching them, rationalizing it with the thought that this could be your only chance to find them. It never worked though. They all had an indicator pointing towards someone else, leaving you upset and embarrassed.

There was always a small part of you that thought Shawn could be your soulmate, even if he didn’t have any indication of one. You were sure he thought the same way but you lost touch before either of you could really say anything about it.

You thought about asking him to meet up when he was in town a few times but something stopped you every time. The thought of what if he doesn’t remember me? or worse, what if he doesn’t want to talk to me? was enough to keep you from sending the text.

It was easy to ignore your loneliness when you could bury yourself in schoolwork, which you had a tendency of doing. It was the easiest excuse to get out of everything. Don’t want to go to a party? Oh, I have to finish editing my essay. Alana tried to set you up on a blind date? I have tests coming up I need to study for.

Alana was determined to help you find your soulmate, even if you didn’t want to cooperate.

“Come on, Y/N. Maybe they’ll be at this party! I promise there won’t be a ton of people there and I know you finished that essay last night cause you told me about it and said that you were looking forward to a work free night,” she said, closing your laptop so you couldn’t “work” on your already finished essay.

“But I want to go over it a few more times to make sure everything is right,” you replied. “Besides, we went to a party last month.”

“Exactly, last month. Let’s go.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You’re never going to meet your soulmate just sitting at your desk and pretending to work on an essay.”

“It’s not entirely impossible.”

“Y/N.”

So that’s how you ended up at the party, looking around for a potential soulmate. You insisted that they wouldn’t be there; they never were, but Alana insisted that a night out would be good for you, no matter the soulmate circumstance, and dragged you along.

Truth be told, it was a good thing she forced you to attend. If you had it your way, you would spend most nights in your room, ignoring the rest of the world and sitting on your phone. You were fine hanging with close friends every once and awhile, but a night in was always more appealing.

According to Alana, however, that wasn’t normal, and you needed to go out in the world and talk to people, unless you wanted to be alone forever.

You would say, “But I do want to be alone forever. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t even like going to the bank, much less a party filled with people I don’t know.”

And she would say, “Please, I know that you want to find your soulmate and the only reason you don’t like going to the bank is because it makes you nervous and you’re worried that the people working there are going to be mad at you for no reason.”

So you would say, “I’ve probably met all the potential soulmates already. What’s the chance that some random person is going to show up to the party and just happen to be that person?”

And she would tell you, “People randomly meet their soulmates all the time. Yours isn’t going to walk through this door without knowing you first. If you don’t at least leave this dorm you’ll never meet them. Think of how lonely they must feel, waiting for you to come out of hiding.”

And, as much as you wished you could, you couldn’t really argue with that. The real problem after that was talking to people. You argued that you’re already there, so there’s no reason that if your soulmate was at the party, they couldn’t come find you. Alana tried to get you to socialize by walking around with you and introducing you to new people, but they were usually more interested in talking with her than you.

That’s how you ended up against the wall, allowing yourself to overthink while Alana went to the bathroom.

Shawn continued to experience those random emotions throughout the tour. Random flashes of feelings that weren’t quite his. He would be lounging around when he would suddenly feel excited and energetic, only for it to pass by within a few seconds. One time, he was feeling particularly miserable when a surge of adrenaline and anger came through him.

He had no idea where the feelings were coming from. He was starting to think that they were somehow connected to his soulmate.

A glimmer of hope after years of desperation and disappointment.

Part of him wanted to dismiss it, thinking that no, I can’t have a soulmate. I’ve worked way too hard to get past this to dwell on it again. The other part wanted to take the idea and run with it.

He tried to argue with himself that it couldn’t be soulmate related.

It’s not like it happening all the time or constantly in the back of my mind.

How would this help me find them anyways?

It’s all in my head.

Still, it did little to block the thought that maybe, just maybe, it was related.

It was a quiet day at the coffee shop. Granted, most days were fairly quiet, as the shop was located in a secluded area, but still. You assumed it was mainly attributed to the fact that exams were coming up and people didn’t have time to drive down to the shop when there was a Starbucks much closer to the dorms. You were in the same predicament, having your books splayed out on the counter to study in between customers.

You and Shawn used to come to the coffee shop every Friday after school. Even after Shawn left to go on tour and live life as a rockstar, you made sure to visit the shop at least once a month. Afterall, you were friends with the owner, Eileen, and you would hate to just stop coming and never see her again.

You eventually landed a job there. It was a little bit of a drive from the dorms but you knew that when Eileen offered you the job, you wouldn’t be able to find one with as good pay and flexible hours anywhere closer. Sometimes being friends with the owner for a long time has its perks.

There was a collage of photos on the wall behind the register that made the place really feel like home. There were tons of random photos ranging from when the shop first opened to when Eileen took a picture of a slice of cake she insisted had a face in it.

You appeared on the wall a few times, but your favorite picture was the one of you and Shawn right before he left for tour the first time. You were both laughing in the picture, Shawn’s arm around your shoulders as you leaned into him. It was the last time you went to the shop together and you remembered just how fun of a time it was. It always left an ache in your heart when you looked at it, remembering all the good times you had together.

You didn’t have many other close friends, so once Shawn left for tour you felt a lot lonelier. Your mom tried to get you to make new friends, but it wasn’t as easy for you as she insisted it was.

“Why can’t you talk to the people across the road? They have a girl your age.”

“But she already has a friend group. We’ve lived across the street from each other for years. It would be weird if I suddenly introduced myself and tried to break into her friend group.”

“You’re never going to make friends if you don’t talk to people.”

“I have friends.”

“But don’t you want to hang out with more than two people?”

“No, I have my friends. That’s all I need.”

More often than not, you did wish you had more than two friends, or that Shawn would come back and eliminate the need to make new ones, but wishing did nothing to help your loneliness. You made a few more friends once you went to college, and you were completely okay with your small group, but it never satisfied the longing to see Shawn again.

“What are we doing here?” Brian asked as Shawn pulled into the parking lot of a worn down but homely looking building. “And what is this place?”

“It’s a coffee shop I used to come to every week. I haven’t seen Eileen in years,” Shawn said with a wistful look as he parked the car.

“Eileen?”

“The owner.”

Brian huffed, realizing that they would be stuck there for a while if Shawn knew the owner. He liked to talk to people. And when he talked, he talked and talked and talked.

“Relax, I’ll buy you a coffee.”

They both got out of the car and walked into the shop, Shawn smiling when he heard the bell above the door ring. He looked around for a second, noting how almost nothing changed since he’d last been there a few years ago. The chairs and tables were still in the same places, same coffee smell, even that stuffed cat that Shawn gave Eileen as a joke was still sitting on the windowsill.

The only big change he noticed was the photo wall. There were a lot more photos than he remembered. He wondered if he would still be able to find that picture of you and him.

He looked to the counter and saw a girl with Y/H/C hair, her head buried in the textbooks that were scattered across the counter.

“Dude, we getting coffee or what?” Brian said with a teasing smile, walking closer to the counter to read the menu posted on the wall behind it.

You were so invested in studying that you didn’t even hear the bell ring when they came in, only looking up when you saw someone approaching the counter out of the corner of your eye.

“Oh, hi, sorry ‘bout that. How can I help you?” you said as you looked up, met with the face of an oddly familiar young man.

“Can I get a-”

“Y/N?” Shawn questioned from behind him, confusion painting his face. He hadn’t seen you in three years but you didn’t look all that different. A little more mature, sure, but he could tell it was still obviously you.

You furrowed your eyebrows at the familiar voice, glancing behind Brian to see Shawn. Your eyes widened at his appearance, no longer a boy but now a man. “Shawn?”

“Hey, Y/N, can you empty the garbage and put it out back?” Eileen asked as she walked out of the small kitchen area that was closed off from the rest of the store. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Shawn, a smile taking over her face as she took in how he’d grown up over the years. “Shawn Mendes, is that you?”

“Indeed, it is,” he said with a shy smile. “How are you Eileen?”

“Pretty good if I do say so myself. How are you? How’s the rockstar life treating you?”

“It’s pretty great.”

Meanwhile, you were still staring at your former best friend, mouth slightly agape as you took him in.

“Well why don’t we get you two some coffees? On the house of course. Y/N, stop staring at the poor boy. It’s not like you’ve never met him before.”

You looked at the ground for a second and blushed, smiling at the sound of Shawn’s giggle.

“Alright, what can I get you guys?”

They gave you their orders and you got to work, denying the ten dollar bill Shawn offered you to pay for them.

“On the house, remember? Or are you Mr. rich guy now?” you asked with a slight surge of confidence. You hadn’t seen him in years, but the urge to tease him every chance you got was still there.

“Ooh, okay. You think I’ve changed that much?”

“A little bit. It’s been a while.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I am the exact same person as I was three years ago.”

“I’m not too sure about that, but okay.”

Shawn rolled his eyes and put the bill in the tip jar. “Alright, coffee girl. I would like my coffee in two minutes flat. No more no less. Brian is on a very tight schedule so we have to get him home in time for his nap.”

So Brian was his name. “Your wish is my command, good sir,” you said, bowing at him before turning around to start the drinks. You could hear Shawn giggle behind you, sending an eruption of butterflies to your stomach.

Shawn felt a slight nervous tinge as well. One that wasn’t quite his. He felt completely natural around you but maybe his soulmate was somewhere else feeling nervous about a presentation or something.

You gave the boys their coffee, sticking your tongue out at Shawn when he commented on how it took three and a half minutes instead of two and demanded his money back. You returned to the counter, trying your best to focus on studying. You kept getting distracted by Shawn’s voice, which carried across the shop, as he talked to Eileen. He was sitting in the same two person table against the wall that you used to sit in during your weekly visits.

“You need to go talk to him.” You jumped slightly when you noticed Eileen next to you.

“I don’t think he wants to talk to me,” you replied tentatively, flipping the page of your book in hopes that it would make it look like you were actually studying. The burst of confidence was gone and you came to the reality that you were both no longer the same person you used to be, therefore, you couldn’t keep that same dynamic.

“What makes you say that?”

“I dunno. Just a feeling.”

“Go talk to him. I know you want to.” She gave you a knowing look and you sighed. “I’ll take over for you for a bit. Go talk to your best friend.”

“But he’s with Brian and I don’t really know Brian and what if they don’t want to talk to me they just wanted to hang out and-”

“Y/N.”

Suddenly, the butterflies grew, and it became more of bird wings than butterflies. You took a deep breath and made you way over there, praying that it would be over quickly and you could go back to studying by yourself.

You quietly pulled up a chair and sat in it, waiting for Shawn to finish whatever story he was telling Brian.

“Y/N, just in time,” he said with enthusiasm. “I was just telling Brian the story about Willy the window cat.”

“Ahh, a classic.” Shawn could sense your unease and quickly introduced you to Brian. He was well aware of your lack of people skills and how uncomfortable you got around new people.

You spent the better part of the rest of the hour catching up with each other, Shawn doing a lot more talking than you, which you were completely fine with. You tried your best to not show how nervous you felt.

Even as you tried your best to hide it, Shawn was picking up on the nervous habits. Your lifestyles might’ve changed but you were still the shy girl who subconsciously picked at the inside of her elbow and bounced her foot excessively when nervous. It didn’t matter if you hadn’t seen each other in years, he still knew you like the back of his hand.

There were days, back when you were really friends, where he would reach over and grab your hand so you would stop picking, or place his hand on your knee to stop the bouncing. He chose to ignore it now, realizing that you had grown apart, and now wasn’t the time to jump back in so intimately. You were always self conscious about the habits and he didn’t want to make you more nervous by pointing them out.

Even though he was more focused on you throughout the conversation, he noticed how Brian was seemingly getting more and more bored hearing him talk. As much as he wanted to stay and talk to you, he knew he should probably get going. This was supposed to be a quick pit stop to drop in and say hello, not an hour long catch up with the girl he used to be sure was his.

“We should get going. I think Brian is going to walk home if I stay here much longer.” Brian’s head perked up at the mention of his name and Shawn chuckled.

“Meet you at the car. Nice meeting you, Y/N.” He was up and out the door in a matter of seconds, causing Shawn to chuckle again.

It didn’t sit all that well with you though.

Oh no, he doesn’t like me.

He thinks I’m some weirdo who doesn’t talk.

I barely know the guy and he already hates me.

“We should meet up, just the two of us, sometime. I’m on a break from tour if you’re free anytime soon,” Shawn said, breaking you out of your thoughts. “And don’t worry about Brian. I think he’s just tired.”

It did little to ease your fears but you smiled like it did anyways. Were you that easy to read? “Uhh, yeah. I have exams next week but we can meet after that.”

“Alright, how does the eighteenth sound?”

“That works.” You stood up and put your chair back at the table it came from, turning around to find Shawn closer than you expected him to be.

“Awesome. Text me your address so I can pick you up and take you somewhere.”

“Okay.” He threw you his signature smile and it made you melt a little.

“It was great seeing you, Y/N. Tell Eileen I said bye.”

“Good seeing you too and you got it.”

He pulled you into a quick side hug and left.

As much as you tried, you couldn’t study for the rest of your shift. Only three more customers came in within the two hours you had left, so you spent a decent amount of time staring at the wall and stressing about meeting up with Shawn. Two weeks gave you plenty of time to stress about it, which led to thinking of ways to get out of it.

Maybe if I don’t text him the address, he’ll forget, you thought as you stared at your phone the next day, messages open to Shawn’s name, your thumb hovering over the keyboard. It could work. That was enough to convince you to turn off your phone and worry about it later. You went back to working on the presentation you were working on, only pausing when you felt the buzz buzz of your phone telling you that you got a text.

From Shawn: Hey, what’s your address? What time do you want me to pick you up?

You panicked slightly, upset that your plan had already fallen apart. You decided to ignore it for the time being. You would worry about it later.

“Hey, Y/N, can I borrow your phone for a second? Mine’s dead,” Alana asked as she came into the dorm.

“Sure,” you said as you handed her the phone, not bothering to look away from your computer.

“Who’s Shawn and why is he asking where you live?”

Your eyes widened as you realized you forgot to clear the message. “He’s just an old friend. We’re uhh meeting up since we haven’t seen each other in a while.”

“Well are you going to text him back or do I have to do it?”

“I will, later.”

“You’re actually going to do it?” she asked with a curious smile. “And you’re actually going to meet up with him?”

“Yeah . . .”

“I’m holding you to this.”

“What, why? I’m capable of handling my own social life.”

“Sure you are. You’re not getting out of this though. I know that look.”

You sighed and glared at her. She knew you too well. “Do you actually need my phone?”

“Yes, I need to call my mom.” She sent you a sweet smile and you shook your head. “Thank you.”

You texted Shawn at 9:12 that night, six hours after he sent the original message. 9:12 specifically so it looked like you just saw it and responded as soon as you did, not like you ignored it and were planning to send it at a specific time, like 9:15.

He responded thirty seconds later with a thumbs up.

The day of the meetup was stressful. You had already been in your head about it for the past two weeks, but you really started worrying when you realized you had no idea what was going to happen.

Shawn refused to tell you where you were going, only telling you to dress comfortably and that you would only be gone for a few hours. Being a person who liked schedules and knowing exactly what was going on, this didn’t make you too happy. It sounded a lot like a date, which only made you more stressed.

“Do you think this will be okay?” you asked Alana. You were wearing jean shorts and a semi-cute top. Not too fancy but not too casual.

“Is this a date or friend meetup?”

“Friend meetup.”

“You look great.” She could sense the hesitation as you looked in the mirror, deciding if you agreed with her or not. “You’re gonna be fine. From what I’ve heard, you were best friends for a long time. You’ll be back to that in no time.”

“I don’t know. It’s been so long and-” You were interrupted by a text from Shawn telling you he was there if you were ready.

“Go have fun. Take a deep breath and stop worrying about it, alright?”

“Okay.” You gave her a smile before putting your phone in your back pocket and leaving. You could see Shawn leaning against his car and looking at his phone once you left the building.

Shawn had been quite excited to hang out with you again. There wasn’t any part of him that was nervous until he went to get drinks for the two of you that morning. It had been slowly building up all day, but it felt more like his soulmate’s than his own.

“Hey, you,” he said with a smile. “Ready to go?”

“You bet,” you smiled back at him, walking to the other side of the car to get in.

“I got you a frappuccino.” He gestured to the cup holder. “I don’t know if what you like has changed but it’s what you used to get so I hope it’s okay.”

“My taste hasn’t changed a bit,” you chuckled. “Thank you. That’s really sweet of you.”

“Of course. What better way to rekindle our friendship than by reliving the old times?”

“True, true.” You discretely wiped your palms on your shorts, unsure if it was from nerves or the heat. “Want to tell me where you’re going?”

“Nope. It’s a surprise.” His eyes had a mischievous glint to them. He knew how much it was bothering you.

“This feels like a first date,” you mumbled, avoiding eye contact. You knew that Shawn was like this by default, but you couldn’t help but feel a little extra awkward anyways.

“Not my intention,” he chuckled. “I just wanted to be nice.”

“I know, I’m just awkward.”

Shawn laughed and shook his head.

You didn’t drive for much longer, arriving at a small park no more than fifteen minutes after you started.

“I figured we could walk and catch up, if you’re good with that.”

“That’s good. Why didn’t you just tell me we were going to the park though?”

“Wanted you to get worked up about it.”

You gasped. “That’s mean.”

“Gotta balance the niceness out somehow.”

You spent two hours walking around and catching up. You felt yourself ease up as you talked. He was still your Shawn and he barely changed from the last time you talked. The evening ended with a hug and promise to hang out again soon.

“See,” Alana told you when you told her how well it went. “Sometimes you need to just give yourself the push.”

The more and more time you spent together, the more and more Shawn became sure that you were the mystery soulmate whose emotions he had been feeling.

He would feel a twinge of extra excitement before you hung out or right before you texted him I got an A on that essay!!!!!

He was never completely sure though and never told you about it. He wanted to test the theory but wasn’t sure how he could do it without you knowing.

Meanwhile, your search for your soulmate slowed. You came to terms that they would come when the time was right and that you needed to enjoy life as it was. Your best friend was on a break from his hectic life for the first time in a long time and you wanted to spend all the time you could with him. You felt a little less anxious when you were around him, which could also be attributed to the lack of school work due to summer break, but you liked to believe he was helping.

The great thing about Shawn was that he knew not to push too hard. Alana didn’t always know when to stop pushing you towards doing things out of your comfort zone. You’ll admit, it was sometimes good for you. Other times, it caused way more anxiety than necessary and you would be out of it for the rest of the day. Shawn, on the other hand, could tell when something really could be too much and would stop.

There was only one time when he knew he was pushing too hard but continued anyways.

“You wanna be my date to the Grammys?” You had discussed his nomination earlier that day, but he never mentioned bringing someone with him before.

“Date?” You had a playful smirk on your face and Shawn just rolled his eyes and nudged your shoulder.

“Do you wanna be my extra person who’s my best friend, not date, cause I don’t have a date, date?

“As amazing as that sounds, I don’t think so. Way too many people.” You hoped he would just drop the subject.

“Come on, it would be fun. Besides, how often do you get an invitation to the Grammys?

“Never . . . because I don’t want to go.”

“Please, Y/N. I don’t have anyone else to take and we would have such a good time.”

“Take Aaliyah.”

“She probably has stuff going on.”

You have tons of other friends. Take one of them.”

“Yeah but you’re my best friend and I want to take you.”

“Shawn I really don’t think I should. There’s gonna be a ton of people there and I don’t have the money to buy a fancy dress-”

“I’ll buy you a dress and stay with you the entire night.”

“I can’t ask you to do that. Besides-”

“Please, Y/N. I will beg you every day until you say yes. Just this one time, then I promise I will never ever make you go to a party or awards show of any kind.”

“Fine,” you sighed. You knew that it was a bad idea but you also knew that Shawn would hold true to the begging.

“Thank youuu.” He reached over and pulled you into a hug

“You owe me.”

The week before the Grammys was more anxiety inducing than anything in your entire life.

You got your dress a month ago but was starting to have second thoughts on it. Was it fancy enough? You had scrolled through endless pictures of past Grammy looks and everything looked so much more elaborate than your midnight blue dress. Tiffany had picked out the dress for you, noting how you wanted something elegant but nothing that would make you stick out.

You had to admit, you loved the dress. It fit you perfectly. You were yet to show Shawn but you knew he would love it. There was just one part of you that thought that everyone would think it was too simple and know that you had no business being there.

Shawn was doing his best to help you through the anxiety.

“Think of the best possible situation,” he told you.

“Nobody notices me and I stay completely under the radar or they note that I’m your friend who’s been seen with you before and leave me alone.”

“Now tell me the worst possible situation.”

“I do something embarrassing and stick out so that everyone notices and realizes that I’m obviously not supposed to be there.”

“See how the worst case scenario is so much more unlikely to happen?”

“Shawn, I know it’s irrational but I can’t help it. No matter what, I’m going to have a worst case scenario.”

“I know you are. Y/N, I do too. But think for a second,” he said. “Everyone else is too caught up in their own affairs to give a flying shit about what you’re doing. Unless you walk the red carpet with me, they probably won’t even notice you.”

You knew Shawn was right. You knew the worst case scenario was irrational, you just couldn’t help but dwell on it; you were so scared of embarrassing yourself. You were once again planning excuses for not being able to go. I’m really sick and throwing up everywhere or There’s a family emergency. I can’t go.

But even as you worried more and more, you knew how much you needed to do it for Shawn. He had done so much for you. You could do this one thing.

“You ready?” Shawn asked with a huge grin. He had been getting more and more excited by the day. The happiness blocked the intensely anxious feelings of his soulmate to the slightest. At this point, he was almost positive you were his soulmate. Of course, anyone could be this anxious for a long period of time and it just coincidental to yours. He wanted more time to think about it though and if it was true, to tell you at a time when you were in a better mental state.

“Not really, but I don’t think I have a choice,” you said through the door. You had to admit, you felt absolutely beautiful. Your thoughts of sticking out because of your dress were fading with every look in the mirror.

“I’m sure you look absolutely fantastic.”

“That’s not the problem but thank you.” You both giggled at that and you wished you could get over yourself and go out there.

“You know I’ll be with you the whole night, right?” His tone changed to a more serious one, and it was comforting to know he cared so much.

“I know, but still.”

“Can I see you now? This is easier when I can see your face.”

“Yeah,” you chuckled, opening the door slightly before taking a deep breath and stepping out. You grasped your hands behind your back and smiled shyly as Shawn stared at you in awe.

“Wow,” he whispered. “You look absolutely stunning.”

Heat rushed to your cheeks and you looked down to your feet.

“Come here.” He pulled you into a hug, his head resting on your head as yours was on his chest. “You’re going to be amazing tonight, okay? So stop worrying so much and enjoy it as it comes.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know you are, I just wanted to remind you.” He squeezed you tighter for a second and drew back, smiling widely before completely letting go.

You both said nothing as you got into the car to go to the show, allowing yourselves to try to relax before the long night ahead of you.

“Good luck,” you grinned as he prepared to get out of the car for the red carpet.

“Thanks, see you soon.” He took your hand and squeezed it, causing the butterflies in your stomach to explode. He stepped out of the car and winked at you, laughing at the finger guns you sent him before he closed the door.

You both agreed that it was best for you not to walk the red carpet. You didn’t want to be bombarded with questions asking if you were in a relationship and Shawn didn’t want to have to deal with the drama it would cause afterwards. You decided to meet inside, which led to you awkwardly standing around and waiting for him to come in.

After what felt like a lifetime and a half of avoiding eye contact and trying to look like you belonged, Shawn appeared at your side.

“How’d it go?”

“Good. Took some really hot pictures I think people will enjoy.”

“How is that possible? You can’t take hot pictures.”

“As if I haven’t caught you ogling over pictures of me before.”

“As if,” you scoffed and Shawn let out a loud laugh, which made you laugh as well.

“Alright, sassy pants, let’s find our seats.”

The show went well and you eventually realized that you got worked up more than you needed to. You didn’t have to interact with many people and you were able to sit in a seat and enjoy the show more than you thought you could.

What you should have been worried about though, was the afterparty.

Shawn said you didn’t have to go but you could see how much he wanted to. You also knew that if you told him you were going to go home but he should go to the party, he would opt to go with you. So, against your better judgement of what you were up for that night, you decided to go under the condition that Shawn would stay with you the whole time.

It was a little too loud and crowded for your liking but you did your best to hide the discomfort. The faster you got out, the better, but you were going to try to enjoy the party the best you could.

Unbeknownst to you, Shawn could definitely sense your discomfort. Something inside himself was telling him he should take you home, but everytime he suggested you leave, you insisted that you wanted him to have fun and that you would stay until he wanted to go. You knew he came with intentions of talking to other people and refused to leave until he did so.

“But I’ll have fun with you.”

“Shawn Mendes, if you do not socialize tonight, you will spend the rest of your life regretting it so I suggest you start mingling.”

“I feel like that’s an overstatement, but fine.” He started walking away but turned around when he noticed you weren’t following. “Come on, wallflower, I’m not allowed to leave you by yourself.”

You rolled your eyes but pushed yourself off the wall and made your way towards him anyways.

He made his way around, talking to friends and a few people he didn’t know, making sure you were close at all times. You were quiet the whole time, only speaking when asked a question. Like with Alana, people tended to be more interested in the person you were with than you yourself.

Shawn caught you picking at the inside of your elbow a few times. Part of him wanted to scold you for doing it, but he knew it was a subconscious habit and that you couldn’t do much about it unless he pointed it out. He would wrap his arm around you, gently placing his hand over the spot so you couldn’t pick at it. You would sigh once you realized you were doing it again and Shawn would squeeze your upper arm lightly, as if to say, it’s alright.

He eventually gave you a water bottle to keep your hands busy and you accepted it graciously, secretly in awe of how he knew you so well. He was about ready to go after that, drained from the long night, when someone called his name. He made his way towards them and you tried to follow but got blocked off by someone walking in between you. In a split second he was gone, and your anxiety only grew as you struggled to find him.

You found yourself standing next to a table, texting Shawn to tell him where to find you once he was ready to go. You hoped it wouldn’t take too long, but the voice who called him sounded like Niall’s, and you knew they would want to talk for a while.

Shawn was too busy talking to Niall to notice the growing anxiety coming from his soulmate. He didn’t even notice that you weren’t next to him.

You tried your best to blend in, something you thought you were doing a good job of, when someone who looked very vaguely familiar tried to talk to you.

“That dress looks quite lovely on you,” he said.

“Thanks,” you said rather quietly. There was an awkward pause for a second and you wondered if he was waiting for you to say something else.

“Enjoying the party?” He stepped slightly forward to let someone pass behind him.

You stepped back to keep the space, forgetting about the table and knocking into it full force. A loud clanging noise could be heard as a few platters flew off and your eyes grew wide at the realization of what you just did.

The man in front of you laughed but his attention was quickly called elsewhere.The people around you looked behind themselves to see what was going on. The looks of confusion and giggles probably lasted no more than a few seconds, but it was enough to send you into a full panic.

The lights were suddenly too bright and all the noises around you jumbled into a muffle. You pressed your back against a wall as you tried to gain your composure, panicking more when you couldn’t. The music was too loud for anyone to hear your rapid breathing but you wanted nothing more than for someone to come help you; for Shawn to come help you.

“Yeah we definitely need to meet up sometime soon,” Niall said to Shawn.

“Totally. I’m-” He was cut off by a paralyzing burst of panic. He didn’t even have to think to know it was you. The urge to protect you came over him and he quickly excused himself from Niall to find you.

It didn’t take long to see you standing against the wall and curling in on yourself. He felt like he couldn’t get there fast enough. There was nothing he wanted more than to take the worry away from you but it felt like there were a million people in between you.

“Breath, Y/N, breath,” he said once he finally made it to you. Your eyes locked with his and he could see the absolute panic in them. “I’m going to take your arm so we can go outside, okay?”

You nodded frantically, allowing Shawn to guide you to outside. The cool air was a relief but did little to calm you down. Shawn gently leaned you against a wall and put one of your hands on his chest.

“Breath with me, sweetheart,” he said, exaggerating his breathing to help you. “You’re okay. Just focus on breathing.”

“I’m sorry,” you muttered once you calmed down and your breathing returned to a normal rate.

“Y/N, no. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But I messed up your night and-”

“It’s not your fault. I know exactly how you feel and I promise you, it’s not your fault.” He could see from the look in your eyes that you didn’t believe him and it broke his heart. “Come here,” he said as he wrapped his arms tightly around you, one around your waist, one pressing your head to his chest.

“I know you think it’s your fault, but you did absolutely nothing wrong,” he said lowly, leaning his head down close to your ear so you could hear him. “If anything, it’s my fault for not realizing you weren’t with me.” He felt you tense up and rubbed his hand up and down your back. “You are amazing and wonderful and so strong, Y/N. We all have our low points. Nobody is blaming you for anything.”

You didn’t say anything and Shawn took that as a sign to stop talking. He held you in his embrace for a few minutes longer, relaxing a little when he felt your arms wrap around him.

“Let’s get you home.”

“You should stay.”

“Y/N.”

You dropped it and let him call an Uber, hugging him again once he finished. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.” He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, and you felt yourself once again wishing he was your soulmate.

After a long talk with Shawn the next morning, you decided to go to the doctor to get an official diagnosis. The social anxiety diagnosis also came with the recommendation of therapy. It was time to take control of your anxiety and your life.

Shawn was there for it all. Helping you through the bad days and celebrating the good ones. You were celebrating a good one today and Shawn could feel your happiness before you even walked through the door.

“You won’t believe what I did!” You exclaimed once you were seated on the couch. “I needed this tomato sauce but I couldn’t find it anywhere in the store but I knew they had it somewhere. So instead of not getting it, I actually asked one of the people working there where it was.”

“Good job!” The smile on his face was huge as he gave you a high-five. “Was it really that scary?”

“Yes, but I did it, which is more important than if it’s scary.”

He was so proud of you. It had taken a few months, but therapy was doing wonders for you. It might have been small progress, but even small progress was big progress.

He had held off on telling you about the soulmate situation, wanting you to be in a better space before he dropped the bombshell. Now felt like a good time to do it.

“Not to take away from you, but I have some good news myself.”

“Tell me!” The eager look on your face made him even more nervous for some reason, but he knew he needed to do it.

“A few months ago, I started feeling these feelings.”

“Oh wow.”

“Shut up,” he giggled. “They were emotions that weren’t mine. Like, they felt like someone else’s.”

You nodded your head, having an idea of what was coming: he finally found his soulmate and it wasn’t you.

“And at first I couldn’t figure out who they belonged to but then I met you again.” He looked up at you but your face was blank. “And then I was starting to feel feelings you were experiencing. Like you would text me about being happy and that background feeling of extra happiness would be there but I wasn’t sure if it was really you.”

“Are you trying to test it out now?” He could see you trying to put the pieces together.

“No, I kinda already did in a way?” You looked even more confused so he kept going. “When we went to the Grammys I could feel how anxious you were. And then we went to the party and I could feel it but it wasn’t anything that was too overwhelming. Then, I went to talk to Niall, which is when you had that panic attack, right?”

You nodded.

“And I was fine but then there was this really really intense second of pure panic and I just knew. Some kind of protective instinct went off in me and I just had to get to you.”

There was a pause as he let you process what was happening.

“Y/N, I think you’re my soulmate.”

There was a deafening silence but Shawn was too scared to look at your face to see your reaction.

“You really think?”

“I know it sounds crazy but-”

“Could we really be soulmates?”

“. . . yes?” He finally looked at you to see a smile creeping its way along your face.

“Holy fucking cow.” You both burst into laughter, leaning into each other as you did.

“I’m glad it’s you,” Shawn said once your laughs turned into tiny giggles. He looked at you with a glimmer in his eyes.

“I’m glad it’s you too.”

357 notes · View notes

roarformeprettylion · 5 years ago

Text

Parts of Iron Man/the MCU that wouldn’t exist if Robert Downey Jr hadn’t been cast

(both gifs by @stcny)

I am Iron Man

This wasn’t even a scene in IM1. RDJ just tried it out one take and Marvel liked it so much that they used it. That ending was iconic and the line was used in many times in subsequent movies, including, of course, Endgame.

(both gifs by @themightyconchords)

Cheesburgers

RDJ said that one of the things that helped him start to get his life on track was eating a truly awful Burger King cheeseburger. He wanted that put in the movie in some way. In Endgame, we get the callback when Morgan asks for a cheeseburger and we all get punched in the heart.

(gif by @limelight001)

(gif by @van-dyne)

I love you 3000

This is one of the most quoted lines from Endgame and it came from the Downey household. Robert and his children say it to each other and he thought it would be a good emotional line to include. He was right, of course.

(both gifs by @whatadaytoexplode)

No trust - Liar

I don’t know about other fans, but I had been waiting for Tony to confront Steve about hm dismantling the Avengers. The scene finally happened in Endgame and it was so cathartic. And apparently all made up by RDJ. The dialogue and acting in that scene was so raw and emotional.

(gif by @proinslascassidy > @jessicajones616)

I don’t want to go

I’m not giving Robert credit for Tom’s amazing acting. That’s all him. However, the directors and Tom have said that Robert helped him with the scene.

“It wasn’t as drawn out as this,” Anthony Russo added, before going on to discuss how Downey Jr. was keen to mine the sequence for all it was worth and coached Holland on where the character was at this point and how hopeless he felt. The result was a show-stopping performance from the young actor.

“At the end of the day, he kept driving: put more and more emotion into it, and just went up to Tom and said, ‘You don’t want to go because you’re a child. And you’re using your strength as Spider-Man to fight this. And then that was the performance that came out. It was a pretty spectacular performance for a 21-year-old actor.”

Tom has also said in another interview that one of his tricks to make himself cry is to repeat a phrase over and over. I’m sure that scene would have been emotional regardless, but the line is so heartbreaking because it shows how young Peter is and it shows that Downey understood the emotional weight of the scene.

He basically improvised most of his lines in IM1 and has continued to throw in lines in every movie. Some of them may not have had the impact of others but they’re still funny and/or

The entire after credit scene in the Hulk

“That man is playing Galaga”

Shwarma

Tony eating food in the lab in Avengers

“its not a hug, Im just grabbing the door for ya” (w/ Holland)

“You seem a little defensive”

“The adults are talking”

ect.

(gif by @karazrel)

Tony’s silence during his death

Lines were written but Robert thought it would be more emotional to have Tony stay silent as he was dying.

(gif by @humanveil)

Trauma in Iron Man 3

Robert didn’t write the script but he did influence a major part of the movie, Tony’s trauma. RDJ specifically asked that they explore Tony’s trauma in IM3.

“I thought rather than pretending that didn’t happen, let’s bring it into the latest installment.”

He has always advocated for the movies to show Tony being affected by the things that happen.

“One of Robert’s big things is he always wants to be damaged by the things that happen to his character and he wants to show the damage done. There should be a grittiness about showing the cost of the life [Tony] is living.”

(gif by @zinfandelli)

Gauntlet Wristwatch

When trying to stop the Winter Soldier, Tony goes up against him with nothing but a single gauntlet made from his watch. That device was thought up by Robert himself. He pitched it to the directors and they let him do it. That fight shows Tony’s willingness to fight without his suit and his clever way to fight the Winter Soldier using his own body weight against him. Its a short scene but its a really cool gadget and an interesting fight.

(gif by @virgintony deactivated)

Tony’s glasses showing vulnerability

Tony uses his glasses to show when he’s vulnerable and when he’s guarded. Let’s be honest, that’s all Robert.

RDJ’s acting talent bringing weight to a superhero role

We love Tony because he’s layered. Because he’s made mistakes. Who else could bring the multidimensional portrayal to the role like Robert has? No one, in my opinion.

How RDJ is as an actor and ‘marvel ambassador’

RDJ talked Chris Evans into taking the role of Captain America and was part of choosing Tom Holland for Spiderman. Everyone says he is a generous acting partner, a great person to have on set, one of the first people to welcome newbies into the Marvel world. These things don’t have specific effects but they matter.

It took so long to find gifs that i kind of lost steam at the end. But my point still stands. Tony Stark is so beloved partly because he is portrayed by the right actor who cares about the role.

#robert downey jr #iron man #tony stark #rdj #marvel #everyone say thank you robert #im sure theres a lot im forgetting #my post

5K notes · View notes

monopsys · 4 years ago

Text

The Curse

Day 3 ingury/ hurt & confort/ vampire!au

Vampire!au

Shizaya

Summary ( Shizuo and Izaya finally discussed the curse that had bound them together for a lifetime.)

On Ao3

Notes: Since the start of this fandom we had created so many names of each persona of Izaya and Shizuo. So I will return this fic to the roots of 2012 where we used to name our Shizaya's personas. An easter egg if you will! I had fun with this fic so I hope you do also!

"Do you think she will know?" Shizuo casually said as he looked down at the road.

At that specific moment, Celty moved past the road they were watching. Izaya smirked at Celty while he held his knife closer to him.

"Perhaps. She must have obtained her head. So I believe sooner or later, she will remember both of us. Celty is not stupid and she knows damn well who is with her and who is not. Another piece of our plan goes as we wanted."

Shizuo threw his cigarette inside his small bag and put it in his jacket. He sighed but nodded. Today was the perfect day for them to give Celty her head back. The moon was full and her powers would return shortly back at her as well as her memories.

"Do you regret it?" Izaya asked finally as he stood up from where he was sitting and turned at Shizuo. Brushing his neck.

Shizuo looked at the moon, avoiding Izaya's gaze at him or rather... the motion and after some time, he shook his head.

"If it was someone else, I wouldn’t. But it was you so... yes."

"Then why you did it?"

"I didn't care then, but now I do."

Izaya turned at the edge of the roof and looked down.

"Is that so? Then why don't you leave me be? Have your ways elsewhere and also me having my ways elsewhere?"

Shizuo looked at his hand for a moment. Then turned at Izaya who had turned his face and watched Shizuo.

"You know damn well that I can't. And also that means you. We can't...part ways."

Izaya looked at him and he smirked looking up. He was looking so hurt and Shizuo wanted to help him. Make him feel better. But he knew that he couldn't. He had chosen this. He had made that mistake and knew what would follow.

But sometimes he wished he could change the past.

Shizuo looked at Izaya who finally smirked normally again and walked closer to Shizuo. Shizuo would back away but he knew what Izaya wanted him to do. And with that, he turned his gaze at Izaya's eyes. They burned when he observed them with emotions. So many and all of them directed to him. Yet some of them were new. Perhaps because they had finally found out a way out of this. A new hope. Yet Shizuo didn't want it but Izaya needed it.

He wanted to scream at him, telling him his feelings but he knew how Izaya would react. He would react like the first time he had done... this to him.

Shizuo sighed. It was so many years ago yet he remembered it that damn well.

-ooo-

He was...a priest. And a popular one too. He had his church, his own house, his people to help, and of course, his own life. Yet some things come to an end. He was assigned with something to destroy. Something unpleasant. A witch.

He had managed to defeat her and had returned without problem. Happiness and cheers were what he remembered last before he woke up again. This time his hands were bloody, he was hurt and the village...was destroyed. And anything was inside it was...dead. He remembered crying and knowing that he wasn't the murderer but also knowing that he was the cause of this disaster.

He remembered going elsewhere in another town. Yet again another massacre with only him alive. Everyone saw him as a monster, the murderer, even if he wasn't. Rather no one could see the true cause. The one that caused this. But it was clear.

Shizuo was cursed.

So, he disappeared and had managed to find the cause of this curse. The witch had cursed him to live for eternity and whichever place he went to would suffer the fate of the witch's demise. It would be destroyed beyond repair.

Shizuo had tried to kill himself but anything he did nothing was killing him. Nothing. He was for the first time in his life...lost. And the church couldn't guide him. It rejected him.

With that Shizuo tried to find a cure, yet nothing was helping him. He was on the verge of hiding, finding a place without anyone before someone approach him. A weird person but full of wisdom. They had told him to find a village and there we would join the vampire hunters. From there, anything else would be clear to Shizuo.

So he did. He went to the village, became their priest, and became a vampire hunter. From there he waited for the sign. And it came.

It was an ordinary day. Raining as always. And there in his church benches, he saw a small figure. Shizuo went closer and he finally understood what he needed to do. That figure turned at him and smiled weakly yet his eyes showed fear. His face was bloody and he had moved up from the bench and looked behind for a moment. Considering leaving.

Shizuo wouldn't let him.

"What can I do for you, my child? Don't be afraid. We are here to help." Shizuo’s voice turned friendlier and lifted his hand.

The man looked between the door and Shizuo, yet as Shizuo knew, he turned at Shizuo.

"I...I am kinda lost, father." He said. He was so innocent, so pure. and Shizuo considered leaving the man.

Yet...he wouldn't.

"Of course my child. I can help you find your way. But let me help you. What is your name?" Shizuo said and moved his hand at the man who looked at it.

The man slowly touched Shizuo’s hand. "I... I am Izetsuki."

With that Shizuo took care of the man, letting him stay at the church. Shizuo learned his history, who he was, and what he did. Izetsuki was a good man, a duke. Yet a disaster had taken everything from him. Shizuo wondered if that was him yet the village and place where the man lived were unknown to him.

Izetsuki was getting beautiful as the days passed or Shizuo thought at first. He started to fall for the man and that would be a sin if he hasn't already fallen deeper. He started to have fun with the man, spending more time with him. Making him regret what he was about to do.

And what he wasn't supposed to do.

Shizuo had thought that if he was the cause of the disaster before the curse took part, he would be free of it. So he started what he thought was his freedom. He was about to kill Izetsuki. Izetsuki just smiled when he saw Shizuo approach him. That smile turned into an agate mouth as Shizuo was starting to choke him to death. Izetsuki's eyes turned empty making Shizuo stop what he did and looked at him. Izetsuki held Shizuo’s hands and more tears started falling from his eyes. And then he said it...

"...w...why...you.. you monster!" And with that Shizuo felt it.

The curse took place and when he woke up he was inside a burnt church. In his arms was Izetsuki's corpse. He had managed to choke him to death, had started the disaster. Yet his curse was intact. He held Izetsuki's body closer to him and cried. What did he do wrong?

Why this time it hurt more?

Was it because of Izetsuki? He hugged Izetsuki as he brushed his hair. Shizuo cried more this time feeling empty for the first time in his life.

"You can save him." Someone said.

Shizuo looked up and saw the weird person that guided him here in this city. He was angry at them and yet he couldn't turn his anger to them.

"If I do, he will be cursed as well. Not just by living an eternity by also from the curse each vampire has. And mine is more painful than life itself."

The person nodded at them.

"That's true. Yet...how long were you with him?"

Shizuo grieved more with this simple sentence, getting angrier. "ARE YOU TEASING ME?" He yelled at them but the person shook their head.

"It was a question, not a mockery."

Shizuo started thinking the question. He was with Izetsuki for a long time. They had spent their time together and after some time they had chosen what Shizuo thought was a sin a long time ago but now was fully accepting it. Living together. Loving each other.

Shizuo’s eyes shined. How long was he with Izetsuki truly? When he had met Izetsuki, he was...a mere teenager. And now he was an adult. He gasped at his thoughts and realized. He was with Izetsuki for so many years and yet he hadn't noticed it.

The person nodded. "Your curse can't be lifted but...it can be stopped."

Shizuo looked at the person and then at Izetsuki's body. He looked so pale and yet it was liked he was sleeping in his hands. Like something, they used to do. Shizuo looked away frustrated.

He was stupid. He hadn't realized what had happened blinded by his curse to see that he had found the solution.

"If I...bring him back....will his curse have the same solution?"

He asked the figure in front of him. It moved slightly but stopped in front of him finally changing its form, making Shizuo realized to whom he was talking.

"It will... with something more added to his."

Shizuo moved back slightly, opening his mouth and showing his teeth, and moved Izetsuki's head so he could have a better angle. With that he was ready.

"And what is that dullahan?" He asked and moved his head biting Izetsuki, bringing him back to life.

Celty looked at the moon and smiled sadly.

"To live forever with a monster you hate."

-ooo-

Shizuo looked away from Izaya finally breaking their eye contact.

"That’s new. You never looked away without saying something." Izaya commented while Shizuo turned completely away from him.

He looked away yet again at the moon, feeling the moonlight shine down at his skin. Making him stronger. He tsked. Only in strength. Not in what he wanted. He made his hand a fist, clearly troubled by his emotions. He should do this. He needed to do this. With that he said it.

"Do you remember the past?" He asked Izaya still not facing him.

"What a weird question. I can't forget it, can I?"

"Do you Izetsuki?" He asked and before he said anything else he felt a strong slash being created at his back.

Shizuo had touched a nerve. He sighed.

"Don't call me that. Don't ever call me that!" Izaya yelled at him with a steady voice. "Only one could say that name and that man is now dead to me!"

"What if..." Shizuo turned and looked at him. "...he is still here?"

Izaya moved back, away from Shizuo. His eyes burned and yet his face was emotionless like the mask he always wore around.

"He...is dead...to me!"

"Is he truly Izaya?" Shizuo asked and Izaya finally tsked.

"What do you think? Do you think I like the life he created for me? To be with him always. With the one who cursed me to live this life? With the one who killed me?"

Shizuo held eye contact with Izaya wanted to prove to him what he felt towards him. After everything had happened Izetsuki wanted to leave but Shizuo had explained everything to him. On what he did, why he did, and what curse Izetsuki would have. It was...a really intense memory. Shizuo had noticed that rather than the vampire curse giving him strength, Izetsuki got a sharper mind. His inhumanly kindhearted, patient and understanding persona changed and he became the exact opposite. His strength was at the words. Winning Shizuo at everything.

So after everything that happened, the fights and the separation that made Izetsuki understand what the curse meant, they had found a way living like this. Both would live apart yet they would meet up when they notice the curse took part. This way both of them were saved from the curse and Shizuo gave space to Izetsuki. Yet this wasn't enough, Shizuo notice. Izetsuki was unhappy and finally, he snapped and fought Shizuo.

It was the best he ever had.

Izetsuki continued fighting him and Shizuo let him do it. That at least made Izetsuki have some control over the curse. And Shizuo wanted him to. With that, they continued.

After some centuries they changed places and names. Izetsuki became Hibiya, Psyche...Izaya. Only one thing didn't change and that was Shizuo’s emotions towards Izaya.

So he needed to express them. He needed to show what he felt.

"He was blinded..."

"Excuses!" Izaya barked back, smirking at him.

Shizuo was in the loss here but he would make it count.

"HE was blinded and didn't see what was important to him. Not then. But now he can see it. He can feel it now."

"Then why he didn't leave the person dead if he knew what would happen."

"Because he didn't understand the consequences."

"That's why he is getting them now! Can you see it?"

Shizuo punched the wall next to him, finally feeling his full power getting back to him. His teeth had appeared. Izaya on the other hand didn't have strength but speed in his arsenal and his vampire feature was his eyes becoming readers well as vampire wings appearing behind him.

"I always saw them. And yet I endure them! But I can anymore deny my feeling for you. Not deny but hide them. I am in love with you Izaya!"

Shizuo yelled at Izaya who looked away. Shizuo stopped dumbfounded. Izaya never avoided eye contact. Only Izetsuki did it when he knew he was wrong somewhere.

Izaya looked back at him. He looked once again broken and yet that damn smirk was on him. Shizuo showed his teeth and finally, he moved near Izaya hugging him. He knew he would be hit, stabbed, or something.

Yet nothing happened.

Izaya let Shizuo hug him. Or rather he hugged him back. Shizuo relaxed at it and smelled finally Izaya's smell. It was the first time after this damn curse they shared that they hugged. They let each other get embraced in silence.

Izaya started shaking finally and Shizuo hugged him closer, feeling protective once again after so damn centuries.

"I hate this..." Izaya whispered and Shizuo felt his heart drop. Izaya's voice was so empty, so different.

"I do also." Shizuo said and whispered at Izaya's neck. "But we can change it. We can find another way."

Izaya laughed as he used to and Shizuo tightened his hold.

"Can we? Truly, Pritzuo?"

Shizuo felt himself fall at this. He felt tears fall down his eyes. Izaya had said his name. His real name. He moved back and looked at Izaya who had also teared up. His eyes were like they used to, that innocent Izetsuki. Shizuo understood what Izaya gave him.

Another chance.

And he would take it, embrace it. Shizuo nodded at Izaya who gave him that smile that he had given him before his death. That easy-going innocent smile.

"Then...my monster, let's us do what we had created to happen here...."

Shizuo held Izaya's hand, finally feeling the burden he held so long being lifted off him. "...Together." He smiled back at Izaya finally free from his curse and this time being the one controlling it.

Izaya tightened the hold and smirked at Shizuo. "Together."

With that they kissed, lifting their curse.

#shizaya #shizayaweek2020 #durarara #izaya orihara #shizuo heiwajima #durarara!!#drrr #drrr!!#monoreadie #hello i am so much late bye

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jonathan-cranes-mistress-of-fear · 5 years ago

Text

Jonathan Crane Angst Alphabet

A- Accident, Would they blame themselves if you died in an accident?

Crane would feel guilty, especially if he had clown close to his partner. If they died of a toxin overdose, or thanks to the Dark Knight’s brute force, he would feel at fault. He may even go on a rampage to quell his anger, trying to fight batman or just spreading fear in some vain hopes that it brings his partner back to him.

B- Break up, How would they deal with one?

It depends on how close he is with said partner. After a week? He wouldn’t feel much sting, but if he had gotten close and exposed himself to them, then it would really hurt. He does not handle rejection well and may even attack his ex-partner with fear toxin.

C-Crying, Are they much of a crier?

Jonathan doesn’t cry very often, but yes he has cried before. He cried when Great Granny locked him in the chapel, he cried when Sherry cruelly tricked him, he cried the day he lost his job at Gotham University. He keeps it in check most of the time, usually burying those feelings until the explode. And when they do? He cries himself to sleep.

D-Death, How do they deal with any death?

He knows death is inevitable, and he’s prepared for it. he doesn’t have a will or any plans for a funeral, he just hope he’ll be buried somewhere where no body will find him. Not that anyone would visit him any way. Death of others is different though, he didn’t care about murdering his family...but he would care of say, someone like Harley died. He’d feel sorrow that day.

E-Emotion, What’s the emotion they tend to push away the most?

Happiness. He doesn’t believe he can be truly happy, and even though he experiences joy within his passions, it’s an ever fleeting emotion that never stays it’s welcome. He’s suffered most of his life, and to him...that’s normal. It’s normal to live life without so much a a smile. And that’s what hurts him.

F-Frustrated, How much would it take to push them off the edge?

It depends on what it is. Making fun of him or attacking his appearance is NOT a good idea. He can’t stand bullies and will attack you with fear toxin if you provoke him. Otherwise, he has quite a lot of patience for tom foolery.

G-Great Pain, What is the most painful thing they have witnessed?

That would be his childhood trauma, being locked in the aviary and forced to deal with hungry crows. No amount of punches from the Dark Knight could ever compare to an innocent child suffering alone and afraid.

H-Humiliation, How could they be humiliated?

By being bullied, even though he has thick skin as an adult, the same could not be said for his teenage years. He despises being made fun of, it hurts him deep down and he can’t control his tears. Even in the comics he’s ran away from bullies with his eyes red and swollen from crying. One time he was pantsed in front of his crush, Sherry Squires. It really embarrassed him, and from that point on he trusted no one. (this didn’t happen in the comics, I just came up with it(

I-Injured, How do they handle themselves when injured?

He hides his pain, and cringes though it all. He does not want to look weak, and being vulnerable during this time makes him feel that way. Even so, he has a very high pain tolerance thanks to aforementioned childhood trauma, so most attacks don’t harm in heavily.

J-Jittery, Which part of their past makes them flinch or even worked up?

Everything about his childhood. He hides it well, but if you dig deep enough he’ll break down and cry. (this is to say, only a few people have cracked him) He hated his great granny, so bringing her up brings out anger and scorn. He wishes he could have killed her a second time.

K-Kill, Would they kill for revenge?

Hell yes, and he actually has in the comics. He’s killed both his great grandmother and grandmother, and he TRIED to kill is father and mother. If batman had not intervened, he would have succeeded.

L- Loss, What was their greatest loss?

His childhood. He laments the fact that he never had a normal childhood. He lost out on so many milestones and had to grow up much quicker than your average kid. He didn’t have a best friend. He never got to swim in the lake. He didn’t get Christmas presents, and every day he suffered.

M- Mistakes, How much do they want to fix the mistakes of their past?

He doesn’t consider many of the choices in his life a mistake. The only exception is when he pulled out a gun in the classroom. Even though he KNEW he was in the right, and he KNEW it was a good experiment, other did not agree and that was his downfall. He really misses teaching. If he could do it over, he would. Anything for a chance to teach again.

N-Need, How would they react if you needed emergency surgery?

He would worry, because for one thing, he does not have the money for that. And besides, who would operate on a criminal? He may just accept his fate and suffer until his last breath. Besides, fate will get him sooner or later.

O-Outrage, What makes them angry?

Betrayal, anytime someone breaks his trust he gets extremely aggravated. Trust is something that he does not hand out lightly, so being back stabbed really hurts him. He can’t stand those who hurt him. He’s been hurt enough as is.

P-Pressure, What stresses them out to the breaking point?

When his toxin isn’t strong enough, he’s constantly honing his craft and yet the secrets of the chemicals elude him. What and when will he create a toxin strong enough to dismantle the bat. He is extremely smart, that’s a fact. yet still there is much more to learn. His is the only man in his field after all. No body but him can create fear toxin. He has nobody to rely on.

Q- Qualify, What part of themselves do they see as dangerous?

His lust for revenge. That’s the dangerous part. He will not give up until his anger is quelled. All who make him suffer must in turn suffer. That is what makes him scary. He never forgives.

R-Rock, What weighs them down?

The past. He can’t let go of it no matter how hard he tries. He buries it deep down and hides his pain from everyone, the friends, the doctors, you name it. He needs help to conquer this pain, but that he will never admit to.

S-Sorrow, Would they feel empty after the death of a loved one?

He would feel empty inside, this is someone he finally, after all those years of solitude, grew close to. He trusted him, and yes, he loved them. He would feel like his heart has been ripped apart, a hole exists now and nothing can fill it. Not toxin, not batman, not anything.

T-Time, What if they had a limited time to live?

He would make the most of it. Crane would likely spend the last of his hours fighting batman and spreading fear as that’s what brings him the most joy. Maybe he’d settle down and read a book for the last hours of his life, but more likely he’ll die fighting.

U-Urge, How badly do they get the urge to see you after separating?

It depends on how long him and his partner have been apart. He is fine with being alone, and may not miss them at the time but given more than a few weeks he would change his tune. If they were sent to Arkham, the there’s no doubt they would be broken out by the Scarecrow

V-Vent, How do they get rid of feelings they find unnecessary?

He doesn’t he rarely vents, most of the time he bottles it up until it explodes. And that is not a pretty sight, he gets really angry and his southern accent comes out in full force. Beware the wrath of the Scarecrow.

W-Wild card, A random angst headcanon.

He does not do well on his birthday. he actually wants to forget the date entirely and treat it as any other day. He was severely punished on his birthday, and those memories have not faded with time. DO not, I repeat, do not celebrate his birthday. He hates that date. (However, this may change depending on his partner and how long they have been together)

X- X-ray, What makes them transparent? How obvious can they get around something they hate?

He’s very good at hiding his true nature, so he doesn’t get angry until necessary. However, he has a bit of a grinchy side and will snear and make faces at what angers him. In that one way, he can be very transparent.

Y-Yearning, Do old memories make them yearn for your touch?

Yes, he still wishes he could’ve kissed sherry, despite the fact that she betrayed him. If that tells you anything, it should tell you that old memories bring up longing feelings. Old memories can hit him heard.

Z- Zoophobia, Is there any animal/bug/creature that scares them?

Bats He’s terrified of bats because they bring forth images of the Dark Knight. He would never admit to having this fear, but bats keep him up at night. He can’t stand these creatures. That’s why he keeps crows around, they keep the bats at bay, in more than one way.

#Jonathan Crane #Scarecrow #The Scarecrow #Angst Alphabet #Mistress' Headcanons #Mistress' Headcannons #Text Posts #I can go more in depth with any of these if you guys would like #I was afraid of writing too much #so I kept responses kinda short

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the-soldicr · 5 years ago

Text

@slowcode sent:

(ง'̀-‘́)ง Hey, calm down, let's get out of here.

SEND (ง'̀-‘́)ง TO CATCH JAMES GETTING INTO BAR FIGHTS || STILL O P E N

{ ooc // WELP, this practically became a short story. I did not expect this meme to awaken the slumbering muse but I had been working on this reply for days at a time with no control over James and how much was written which has caused other replies to be able to roll out! I REALLY wish I had a set length of material to send out but GODS do the Hauleys have minds of their own when it comes to how loud they are and how vocal they become. I’m only partially sorry - this post actually gave me a lot of feelings and insight on James. Hope it’s okay! It’s cut for length because wow did I really run with it. }

Through the warmth of the Jack and Coke he was drowning in, limbs heavy and vision blurred, the young soldier GRINNED drunkenly at his companion in the dimly lit bar, tapping his fourth drink against the other’s.

S o m e d a y s it was easier than others, making flirtatious passes at certain handsome medical professionals over drinks. His breath fogged the glass he was smirking into, looking up through dark lashes with big brown eyes. James was flushed, s l u r r i n g , laughing genuinely at Dan’s antics for what felt like the first time in God knows how long.

And S O M E d a y s ... ? Well, SOME DAYS w e r e n ' t so good.

The mere BOY had found himself beginning to spiral after it all, so LOST, staring to break more and more of his own rigid set of personal rules on morality he used to hold. The near-constant haze of being shitfaced whenever possible took him as far away from the HORRIBLE memories that chased him as it could, but it never worked. He HATED feeling out-of-control, but it was the only way he managed to relax these days. Therapy didn’t seem to be helping...

James carried the weight of the world on his tense shoulders, trying his damnedest to hold his head high. He was just a FUCKING K I D , being asked to do the unthinkable, asked to B E so much for everyone else.

For him to truly let go, just for a MOMENT after his second tour, after everything that had happened, was a b e a u t i f u l l y rare and momentous occasion.

With his best friend of a little sibling an adult now, more than capable of handling themselves for a few nights alone without his direction ( though the idea still made him uneasy ), and with his vigilante father being radio silent for the last few days, no text messages from new burners or cryptic payphone calls telling James what to do or where to go, or what lies to tell, his time was finally his own, even if j u s t for the night.

The service dog at his feet sighed, nestling his head against James’ knee, focused intently on his wasted handler.

James smirks again at Mr. Cain, wrapping his lips around his glass and feeling all kinds of warm & loose as they chattered on, making humorous small talk.

Life had constantly been wearing the soldier down, the fighter holding the torch to the darkness. It's easy to see in his eyes, the way he holds himself with the world constantly at his back. His father's new " career ” had meant there were no rules now left to govern them, his demands for James made with no regard for legality anymore. The WARS the man had served in had also meant blurred lines of their own, fellow soldiers’ breaking of rules buried so far beneath their feet as they waded through the bodies, lost to the brutality of it all. It seemed it didn't matter to a n y o n e what LAWS SAID anymore, PARTICULARLY not for the Hauley family, broken and dysfunctional for no good reason other than the poor choices they had all made.

The things he did over there... Things he'd never let happen in a million years he watched take place with his own two eyes, his silence deafening; heartbreaking words he'd never DARE to say began to leave his lips. The things he would NEVER DO became mere muscle memory, bitter and cold laughter beginning to bubble in the back of his throat.

It’s hard to keep your head out there. War has a way of changing you, and not ONCE for the better. You could go in with the most pure and noble of intentions, and it mattered none to the mortars, to the insurgents and their guns.

It was ALWAYS UGLY.

( And that face in the mirror was looking less and less like his with every passing day... )

As the night rolls on, there’s an overly drunk man behind them that causes James to sigh and shake his head on occasion, belligerent and loud about his passing opinions on just about EVERY topic. Lips purse and shoulders start to hunch, doing his BEST to ignore it, picking absentmindedly at the label on the beer he asks for, but that indescribable anger that followed him was BUILDING AGAIN.

The thing is that James has had ENOUGH of people going on and on about things they would NEVER understand. His sisters had such complicated opinions on Thomas's actions that they’d never feel his pain on, and there were the political arguments on the wars he’d fought in from people who would never fight for another soldier in their lives, on folks regarding others with basic human decency, and on the treatment of their nation's veterans...

His fists are already balled, jaw already set hearing the man as he starts to blabber on about gun laws when he smacks into James’ back, gesturing widely. James dips his head, raises a hand with a stark expression, forgiving and dismissive

Thomas’s voice echos in his mind.

LUKE 23:34 --- And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

But the man just guffaws, snorts drunkenly. “ EXCUSE M E , ” he barks. James frowns. He’s offended that James and his little ‘ friend ’ were just sitting there, not looking back at him, no apologies to be had. The man DESERVED that respect; at least in his drunken mind.

James nods again, sharply, ducking his head and hoping he’d just... go away. He doesn’t want a fight. The last thing he wants is a FIGHT. Kevlar, the service dog at James’ feet, lets out a small woof as his knee starts to bounce and his heart-rate spikes, anxiously running a hand over his scruff, growing more agitated by the minute. Lights flash in his eyes, fingers tap-tap-tapping on glass. He can tell the drunken James is getting upset.

Motioning at the fresh veteran tattoos on his arm ( in memoriam ), the asshole grinned maliciously.

“You know, you’re what’s wrong with our government these days. NO RESPECT FOR ANYONE ELSE. Don’t you have some... fascist boots to be out deepthroating, S I R ?

Some INNOCENT FOREIGNERS to kill?”

And G O D, there it is--- that D A R K N E S S that flashes up in the kid’s eyes, breathing growing more audible by the second. His bark is as sharp as his bite is, soft brown eyes eyes going dark and his face growing pale.

James laughs BITTERLY, his hands shaking as memories of dragging bits and pieces of his brothers’ remains off dusty dirt roads flashed before him, bloodied combats falling off and left behind. Deafening explosions echo in his ears as if he’d NEVER LEFT.

“ Shut... ” He BARKS, standing up quickly and pointing a finger in the man’s face, “You need to shut up. Just--- shut the fuck up,” James snarls, but it’s more out of desperation than anything, glaring down at the asshole with a pained expression, hit teeth grit.

" G O D --- All... all that BULLSHIT we have to deal with over there, and we--- we JUST--- we come home and get this shit thrown back at us by people like YOU.”

The drunk puffs up indignantly, and James’ can hear Dan’s gentle voice tell him that they need to leave--- that it’s okay, that he needs to calm down, that they can just g o , but the man opens his mouth again, and that’s all it takes.

The kid can barely hear the rest of his sharp and drunken slurred insults fall on his ears, feel his service dog pawing at him, his fist FLIES towards the other's nose, gripping his shirt to hold him still.

CRACK, CRACK, CRACK, CRA—

It WOULD have been a small bar fight, a brawl, a mere escalation of brushing shoulders and slurred words, but the c i v i l i a n doesn't stand a chance underneath the sharp and trained hits of THE SOLDIER. It’s the echo of Dan's voice that pulls him through the fog before he truly started to see RED. Dan, the medic. DAN, the innocent he brought there. D A N , the rational drunk at his side telling him he needs to go, that they need to leave before James does something even stupider than what's already been done. The sound of his firm voice pulls James out of his mind, out of his fogged up brain, and with bloodied knuckles he furrows his brows at the more sincere of the two, his chest HEAVING as he looked down at his moaning VICTIM hollering about suing him, about veterans being ticking time bombs, and he nodded numbly, following the doctor out hurriedly, rushing out the door as onlookers muttered to each other.

He pants, s t u m b l i n g through the street, adrenaline pumping through his chest and distant feet barely cooperating enough to guide himself out, hands raking obsessively over short hair.

The boy's eyes were W I D E , shining with adrenaline and emotion.

" Why did I do that? " He gasps out to Dan as if he held the answers, looking to his bloodied knuckles, to the bar and back to him with those huge and g l i s t e n i n g , frightful eyes. Any coldness from him is long-gone, replaced once again with that child-like gaze of a kid who just wanted to be the good-natured change in the world he ached for, before the military turned him into an unforgiving machine. " Why ... why the FUCK did I just DO THAT ? "

The thought makes him SICK, and he has to hold a balled up fist to his mouth to keep from coughing, gagging on the burn in the back of his throat, the taste of bitter alcohol on his tongue. He just punched a civilian. Repeatedly. He could EASILY get picked up and charged for assault and battery, dishonorably discharged. It's so unlike him, he's pale in the face, looking around as if the answers were there for him to find, his dog pushing against his legs and pawing at him.

" I didn't mean to do that I just— He was just— He was talking shit and I— I kept thinking about B E N, man, " He rambled, almost incoherently, t r e m b l i n g in his shoes.

" About his family, and— and his LITTLE GIRLS, and— I'm— I'm sorry. I'm SO sorry, Dan. I— I shouldn't have d r a g g e d you into my BULLSHIT, I just—! " James drags on, pacing with hands in his hair. " F U C K ! "

James bends over, g a s p i n g o u t with broken, raspy breaths. Things had been going just fine. He's a fucking mess and the last thing Daniel Cain needs is to be forced into his chaotic life on top of everything else. " I'm so, SO S O R R Y , I don't — "

He assaulted a man in front of a medical professional and left him there on AMERICAN SOIL. A CIVILIAN. In PUBLIC.

" What the FUCK is wrong with me? " James w e e p s quietly, w i p i n g his nose with a soft sniff, Kevlar jumping up to kiss his tears away.

( WHO EVEN W A S HE ANYMORE? )

meme answer for @slowcode

#asks.#( ok this was sitting for a long time but i worked on it for hours straight at one point )#( and this helped me get into james mind )#tw: war #tw: facism #( I love this so so so so much and THANK YOU FOR SENDING IT IN )#slowcode

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let-it-raines · 6 years ago

Note

Prompt: You know those viral campaigns to get a celeb to come to a party as your date? What if as part of a lost bet, Emma has to make a YouTube video asking Killian Jones to be her date to her work Christmas party? Or any party really.

*breaks out Santa hat and elf shoes* It’s December first! I love Christmas, you guys. Like, seriously. I love Christmas, and I happen to have a folder with some holiday-themed ramblings. This one isn’t necessarily a holiday themed one, but it does happen on December first with some Christmas sprinklings. :D

“I’m not doing it.”

“You have to. You lost the bet.”

“There was no contract. I don’t technically have to do it.”

“No, but you would be a sucky friend if you didn’t. Come on, what have you got to lose?”

“The rest of my dignity that isn’t being stomped on and kicked around.”

“See?” Ruby teases, finishing the curl on Emma’s hair, the blonde strands bouncing against her chest. “You’ve got nothing left to lose then.”

She doesn’t want to do this. She really doesn’t. But she did talk a big game all last week at the bar, and when she lost the bet…well, she lost all of her dignity, too…okay, so maybe she hasn’t lost her dignity quite yet. So who cares if she’s about to embarrass herself in front of the entire world? She does. She cares. But a part of her is nagging at her that she has to keep her word, and if all else fails, this will bring light to her job. Maybe they’re get some donations, and all of the children will be able to have a bit of a merrier Christmas. It’s something she never had when she was a child, and she’s worked her entire life to help save others from her fate, even if it’s something as small as gifting them a doll for Christmas.

It may seem small to most, but it’s not to them. It’s everything.

And if a heart for humanity can’t convince her, well, there’s about a .0000487% chance that she’ll get to meet Killian Jones, A-list Hollywood actor fresh off his Oscar winning role as a mass murderer. The movie was, well, it was disturbed, but not everything he’s in is so dark. He’s most well-known for playing Superman, and if anything, that’s more appropriate when she’s going to ask him to be her date to her company’s Christmas party that doubles as a fundraiser for Together We Rise and building Christmas boxes for foster children.

She’s mostly only nervous because of the whole losing her dignity thing, but a big factor is definitely that she’s hardcore attracted to the man…and all of her friends (mostly Ruby) know it. Hence why it’s him of all people she’s asking to be her date.

She’s going to die of embarrassment. Yep.

“If this is going to haunt me for the rest of my life, I don’t want to look like an actual ghost. So just try to make me look nice. But not club nice, you know?”

“Yep,” Ruby agrees, releasing another curl from the iron, the steam lingering a little too long for Emma’s liking, “got it. But you’ve still got to wear the tacky Christmas sweater. That’s non-negotiable.”

If Ruby wasn’t in possession of an extremely hot curling iron, Emma would try to hit her. It’s a truly horrendous sweater.

But it could be worse.

“Jones,” Robin calls, and Killian simply buries his head further into his pillow. He’s jetlagged, and it can’t be past eight in the morning. Why the bloody hell is Robin even here? In his home. So damn early.

“Go away,” he hisses, and he really shouldn’t be this much of a bastard, but he’s tired.

“I need to show you something.”

“Can it wait until my head isn’t pounding? I just got back in from London four hours ago, and I couldn’t sleep on the plane.”

“I mean, it could, but I think you might find this amusing. A young woman is asking you out on a date.”

What the hell? What is he talking about? Why would Robin know about a woman asking him on a date before he even knows? He hasn’t dated in awhile, but he’s pretty sure that’s not how dating works unless you’re in middle school and you use your friends to see if the girl you like likes you back. He cringes, thinking of the times he actually did that, and embarrassment from things he did as a child tends to linger.

“Through you?”

“Through the internet.”

“W-what? What are you talking about?”

Robin thrusts his phone into Killian’s hands, and his eyes have to adjust to the brightness of the screen before he can watch this, a headache already blooming from his lack of sleep. When they do adjust, he’s taken aback by the young woman who is apparently asking him out on a date. She’s beautiful. Stunning, really. Her blonde hair falls far past her shoulders in soft curls and her long dark eyelashes accentuate her wide green eyes. He’s never seen anyone like her. Sure, he’s seen lots of beautiful women, especially in his line of work, but no one has ever enraptured him like this woman who is apparently asking him out on a date. He hasn’t even pressed play on the video yet.

Maybe it’s the jet lag.

Yeah, the jet lag.

“Hi,” the woman begins, her voice clearly strained. In his years of acting, he’s had to learn when people feel uncomfortable by the tone of their voice or their facial features, and this woman is obviously uncomfortable, the smile on her face very clearly not reaching her eyes. “My name is Emma Swan, and I work for Boston’s Children’s Shelter. And I’d like to ask Killian Jones to be my date to our Christmas gala on December first to raise money for Together We Rise. Come on, Superman. Don’t you want to be a hero in real life, too?”

The video ends with the woman, Emma Swan, still sitting with a forced smile on her face as the camera pans down to the sweater she’s wearing. It’s, well, it’s horrible, the green base of it covered in shining green garland and ornaments, clearly emulating a Christmas tree. It’s the sweater and her forced words that make him realize she’s likely not doing this because she wants to. She’s somehow being forced into it. A lost bet maybe? Or an order from her boss? Maybe she drew the short stick in a company contest at work? Nevertheless, she looks entirely uncomfortable even with everything about her outer appearance seeming cheery.

He knows better than to look at comments of anything online, the comment sections on his Instagram and twitter have taught him enough lessons to know that in some cases ignorance is bliss, but he can’t help from scrolling down on the video which has apparently amassed nearly half a million views in the week it’s been online.

KJ7839: This is cute! You should go, Superman!

LilJlove: I mean, does anyone else think this is ridiculous? This woman is supposed to be a professional, and she’s basically begging a man who has better things to do with his time to go on a date with her and claiming “it’s for the kids.” Pathetic.

JohnSmitherson: Dude, this chick is smoking! I’ll be your date even with that sweater, lady.

SuperJones: Can you say thirsty? Because this girl sure is!

Anonymous: Killian is a good guy! He probably won’t go, but he’ll likely donate to the charity!

The last message gets his head spinning, thinking of how he could just donate to the charity Miss Swan’s mentioned. He does every year anyways, but he could likely make a difference by showing up, spearheading a campaign to get his fans to donate. He’s never really wanted to do anything like that before, always worried that people are going to think that he’s only doing it to promote himself, and while he’s sure that’ll be the case if he does this, he doesn’t care. No one knows that he spent time in the foster system. He’s not ashamed of it. He simply grew tired of the pitying looks he got when people find out, but he’s been discreetly trying to help out as much as he can with what he can from the success he’s somehow garnered.

Maybe it’s time to stop hiding in the shadows.

“So you can likely just make a small video,” Robin begins, taking his phone out of Killian’s hands, “thanking her for her offer but saying you’re busy and then donating money to the charity and asking others to do the same.”

“Am I busy?”

“What?”

“Am I actually busy on that day?”

“Well, no. You’re free, but you can’t go on dates with every woman who asks you out on a date through a video. If you do it this once, it’ll start something.”

“I’m going.”

“Emma, holy shit,” Ruby screeches, running into her office and wow is she glad she didn’t have any kids with her today.

Before she can even ask what Ruby’s yelling about, Ruby’s phone is in her face, and she sees Killian Jones himself on the screen in a Christmas sweater exactly like the one she wore in her video. Holy shit is right. Did he really go through the effort of searching for a matching sweater? Not that it was that difficult. It’s on the first website that pops up when you google ugly Christmas sweaters, but still.

“Is it…is he about to make fun of me in this?”

Ruby laughs, her entire body shaking with the movement, and she has no idea what that is supposed to mean. “No, Ems. Just watch.”

She’s apprehensive, but she presses play, preparing herself for what has already been a week of embarrassment (three people recognized her in Target in fifteen minutes, and one person asked for a selfie) only increasing. She’s tried to block out the fact that her face is all over the internet and that her office gets so many prank calls, but everything just seems to make her unable to forget. She should have known he’d respond in some way, should have prepared herself for it.

But she didn’t.

“Hello, Emma Swan,” he greets, a broad smile on his face that seems much more genuine than the one she had plastered on her face in her video. He reaches up to scratch behind his ear after giving her (or the camera really) a small wave, and her heart flutters a bit. A man who she has a weird, celebrity crush on (She’s an adult. Should she have celebrity crushes?) just said her name, and she’s not sure if she’s excited or mortified. Probably a little bit of both as her cheeks heat and tint in red.

“My name is Killian Jones, though I guess you know that from your video, and I’d just like to say that it turns out I am available on December first. So, Emma Swan, you want to go on a date? I can pick you up at eight, and I promise I won’t be a minute late.” She snorts at his rhyming, and he seems to grimace, his lips curling downward and pursing like he’s eaten something sour. “I most definitely didn’t mean to rhyme there, so I apologize about that, love. I guess I got caught up in myself, but I’m not going to record this video again because I’ll overthink it. Guess my other secret identity is Dr. Suess.” He laughs at himself, and she does the same, her mind completely ignoring Ruby smirking at her from her desk. “So yeah, this is probably my worst attempt at asking a lass on a date, even if you did ask first. See you soon, Swan, and to everyone watching, if you’re able, find a charity you support and donate your time or money to them this holiday season!”

At the end of the message is a little recorded roll of how she can get in contact with him through his agent, and if her office has gotten a lot of calls this week, she cannot imagine how many he’ll get. People will probably claim they’re her, and she’s most definitely already seriously ruing the day she made a bet with Ruby Lucas.

“You’re going to pass out when you see him, aren’t you?”

“No. That’s just weird, you know. Like, he said my name, and it obviously wasn’t a prewritten thing.”

“You realize you’re going to meet him, right? Like, I know we didn’t expect him to say yes, but holy shit he said yes.”

For some reason it’s not until Ruby says the words that she realizes that he said yes. That this stupid bet has somehow resulted in something other than her embarrassment. Though she does think this will only lead to more embarrassment. Yeah, she’s just going to go ahead and dig her own grave.

“He said yes,” she mumbles under her breath, trying to calm herself because this is absolutely ridiculous. Every single part of it.

He’s spoken on the phone with Emma Swan three times, but nothing compares to speaking to her in person. She was obviously nervous when he picked her up at her apartment (he did say that he would, after all), and while he’d like to say that he was going about this as if it was a business deal, he can’t. The moment she opened the door and his eyes spanned down to the black jumpsuit she had on, sleek and modest except for the way that it dipped in between her breasts into a low v, as well as the way her lips were painted red and her hair pulled up into a ponytail, well, he knew that the camera did not do her justice. He also knew that he stared at her far too long than what was appropriate, and he’d probably made himself look like some kind of creep, effectively making her uncomfortable for the rest of their evening.

But she doesn’t seem to be cross with him, nervously talking to him about her job and what exactly they’ll be doing tonight in the car ride over to the museum where the gala is being held. It’s apparently for several charities and not just Boston’s Children Shelter, and that’s why it’s a black tie event with all of the gift wrapping. If it were up to her, they’d actually do something with the kids, but she apparently has to make small talk with all of the wealthy donors in town instead.

Emma also thanks him at least twice every five minutes for coming, and after about the seventeenth time, he took her hand in his and squeezed, feeling the soft skin of her palm underneath the callouses of his, and assured her that he was more than happy to do this.

They make their way through the photographers outside the museum, ones he knows are specifically there for him, and so he waves to them, posing with his hand on Emma’s back until they make it inside. There are Christmas decorations interspersed between the exhibits, silver Christmas trees with blue and green lights, contemporary decorations that are a total mismatch the decorations he has at home. But the place is beautiful, the dim overhead lights making the Christmas lights brighter, tinsel and glitter everywhere he looks with a muted Christmas playlist, all slow, classical songs playing in the background.

He’s suddenly struck with the idea that this is like that episode of The Office where Michael makes everyone get rid of all of their regular decorations and replace them with things like the museum’s decorations because Holly is coming to town. What did he call it? Cool Christmas? No. Was it a classy Christmas? Yeah, that’s what it was. This feels like a classy Christmas where Santa wears red leather and has a six pack instead of being jolly with a belly that jiggles. Something about that just doesn’t seem right to him.

He and Emma wander around the museum a bit, looking at the exhibits and decorations before getting some drinks and settling down at their table, the awkward conversations trending more toward normal the more time he spends with her.

“So I’m just going to apologize,” she begins, taking a sip of her water, and he’s just going to stop her there. She doesn’t need to apologize. He’s glad to be here.

“You need not apologize, love. I want to be here.”

Emma puts her glass down and waves her hands, shaking her head side to side, her hair moving with her. “No, no. Not that, though I do have to tha – okay, yeah, I’m not going to thank you anymore. Got it. I want to apologize for my coworker and friend, Ruby.”

“What is there to apologize for?”

“She’s, uh, well, she doesn’t have a filter.”

“What do you mean she – ”

“Well if it isn’t the smoking hot Killian Jones himself,” a tall brunette in a red dress compliments, and if he were a betting man, he’d bet this was Ruby.

He reaches his hand over to her, taking it in hand as he shakes it and represses his laughter. “Killian Jones. Pleased to meet you…?”

“Ruby Lucas, Emma’s best friend. Has she told you how much of a fan she is? Because she is. Huge, really. She even watched you play that psycho, and she never watches things like that. It’s because she thinks you’re hot.”

“That’s not true, Rubes! I love crime things!”

“So you don’t think I’m hot, lass?” he teases, waggling his eyebrows and watching the blush rise in Emma’s cheeks. He knows that he barely knows the woman, that they’re just acquaintances, but he can’t help but mess with her, Ruby’s laughter encouraging him.

“That’s not what I – I…Ruby, why are you trying to torture me? Wasn’t the online video embarrassing enough?”

“Nope,” Ruby grins, and he can practically feel the awkwardness rolling off of Emma. “I was trying to set you up, and you’ve just ruined it.”

“Rubes,” Emma admonishes, “you’re being ridiculous!” He feels a hand on his arm, warm fingers digging into his. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this whole night is going to be quite the story to tell when you go back to L.A.”

He places his hand over Emma’s on his arm and squeezes, a genuine smile on his face. “I sure hope so, love.”

Throughout the night Emma (and Ruby if he’s honest) gives him little glimpses into her life. She doesn’t share much, and why would she? He’s a stranger to her, and who the hell shares their life story to strangers? But he does learn that she loves Christmas as an adult more than she loved Christmas as a child, a feeling he recognizes almost instantly. He has so much now, more than he could have ever imagined, and while children usually experience the most joy around Christmas, he gets joy out of being able to give to others. Emma works for a children’s shelter, something one does only if they’re passionate about the work, so he knows that she feels the same way.

Christmas can be more than gifts and shiny things if you let it, and he thinks that Emma does.

She prefers Christmas comedies, but she will occasionally sit down and watch the dramas, stuffing her face with chocolate covered popcorn while drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon. He’s learned those last two things are essential, and he stores that away for some reason, like he’ll have use for it in the future.

She and Ruby together are hilarious, the two obviously close, and he’s having a better time than he thought that he would when he agreed to do this, his stomach aching with how much he’s laughing. He was asked out through a video online, and it’s one of the best dates he’s had in awhile…even if it’s not really a date.

But maybe it is, even if there will be no pillaging and plundering.

Killian freaking Jones is dancing with her. Like, her arms are wrapped around his neck while his hands hold onto her waist as they sway back and forth to match the other people dancing. Okay, so it’s swaying not dancing, but she doesn’t think her feet could do anything else. She’d also likely lose the last remaining shred of her dignity (it’s already scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point) because cameras have been on her – Killian – all night long. There’s likely not a single point of her night that’s undocumented by someone.

“So Swan,” he speaks over the music, “can I ask you something?”

“It depends.”

“On what, love?”

“Well, if it’s something like when my birthday is, that’s fine. But if it’s the color of my underwear, I’d say that’s not.”

“Damn. I’ll have to think of something else then.”

She chuckles before moving a bit closer, her hands tightening around his neck. He’s nice and incredibly cheeky, something she always thought was a bit of a show for the cameras, and while he could be putting this all on for this quasi date tonight, she thinks that it’s genuine. She’s always been good at reading people, at being able to tell when they’re lying, and he’s telling the truth with everything he says. He’s a good guy, and that’s what she’s going to tell people when this night is over and she never seems him again.

“What were you really going to ask?” she ponders, and her fingers brush across the hair at the nape of his neck, quickly feeling the soft strands before moving her hand to a more appropriate spot. She definitely doesn’t need to be messing with his hair, and she’s so distracted by it that she misses his question.

“Why me?”

“I’m sorry, what?” she mumbles, her attention finally focused back on him, her eyes looking into his and her mind totally focused.

Okay, so mostly focused.

“Why me?” he chuckles, and the man probably knows that their proximity is distracting her.

“Why you what?”

Why is she such an idiot? He’s going to think she’s incompetent, and she’s not. She’s definitely not. She’s a fully competent adult with a respectable job and friends and…oh God, she’s likely spacing off right now, which totally isn’t helping her case. When she looks forward again, Killian is softly smiling at her, kindness in his eyes, and she’s got to get a grip. After their initial meeting and the car ride, she’s been far less nervous, far less uncomfortable with him being here, and she doesn’t want to revert back to that.

“Why am I here on a date with you tonight? How did that happen?”

She cringes, and he laughs, his eyes crinkling while he flashes his teeth at her. Oh yeah, going on a date with your celebrity crush is a fantastic idea. It doesn’t make her feel like her stomach is turning upside down inside of her at all.

“I lost a bet.”

Killian raises an eyebrow and flashes her that smile again. Her stomach most definitely flips again, and she’s going to lose it by the end of the night if that doesn’t stop. “Can I, uh, ask what the bet was?”

“It was stupid, so, so stupid, but Ruby and I were out at a bar throwing darts. And that may not seem like a big deal, but she and I get super competitive. It’s kind of like a tradition for us, and to be honest, I was one drink away from being drunk, so I started to talk a good game, saying that I could hit a bullseye before Ruby could.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t hit the bullseye.”

“I barely hit the board, while Ruby hit at on her second try. And our deal was that we get to pick the date, no restrictions except for exes, to the person who loses. Little did I know that it’d be, well, you.”

“I ask again. Why me?”

“I may or may not have a huge celebrity crush on you, and my friends are evil.”

“Well, I am devastatingly handsome.”

“And humble too.”

It’s when they finish dancing that Killian whispers in her ear, “I’m glad you didn’t hit that bullseye.”

There’s that stomach flip again, but this time it feels different.

The rest of the evening pretty much involves schmoozing the wealthy and convincing them to donate their money to the shelter. A part of her feels guilty that she knows most of these people will probably donate a bit more to her because of Killian, but she’s not about to refuse their money for all that it can do to help the children she works with. Killian is every bit as charming and convincing as he’s been all night, and every few seconds she’s sure that she’s going to wake up from some kind of really good dream where her celebrity crush has his hand on the small of her back and is buying her drinks from the bar.

This entire night, and the weeks leading up to it really, is surreal, and there’s no other word for it.

By the time that she and Killian load up into the car he drove her here in, it’s far past midnight, her feet aching from her heels and her mind weary from all of the schmoozing and sweet talking she’s been doing all night…not to mention not looking like an idiot to her date. Okay, so she’s long past that. There’s no way he doesn’t think she’s an idiot, though. He’s a celebrity (though sometimes she does forget and thinks he’s simply a normal guy) who is likely has better things to do than go on dates with women who ask him out online, but all night she’s felt like there was something there, some kind of connection. She’s simply not sure what that connection is.

It’s probably her imagination, some kind of weird fantasy that she’s dreamed up about tonight, and she’s just going to stuff that thought down. She likes him, and that’s another thought that she needs to stuff down. She can’t like him. She’s never going to see him again, and there’s no need for her to get caught up in one night.

But she has gotten caught up.

She’s insane, right?

“Can I ask you a question, Killian?” They’re nearing her apartment, and she has to ask. She’s wondered all night, and she knows that she’ll regret never asking. Of course, if she doesn’t like his answer, she’ll likely regret asking.

“Black.”“What?”

“My underwear is black.”

She snorts, a loud throaty thing that she wishes she could take back, but she can’t. instead she covers her mouth with her hand and leans back, her head hitting the soft leather seat as she looks over to see him smiling while his eyes never leave the road.

“So not what I was going to ask.”“What then, love?”

“Why did you come tonight?”“Ah, well, because a pretty lass asked me on a date.”

Heat rises in her face, and it only increases when his eyes stray from the road to look over at her, the smile still on his face when he gives her an exaggerated wink.

“I’m sure a lot of pretty lasses ask you on dates.”

“Aye,” he confirms before reaching his hand over to place it on hers, his skin every bit as warm as it has been all night, “but only one of them asked me on a date to raise money for a charity I love, and only one knows that I love that charity because I spent a few years in the foster system.”

He…what?

“Y-you did?”

“I did. It’s not something I share as it’s deeply personal, but I figured you’d understand.”

“How do you know?”

“Orphans all have the same look in their eyes, and while I’ve always had my brother, I understand.”

“I…thank you for sharing that with me, Killian. I feel honored that you’d share something like that with me, someone you’d just met. Even if you did somehow figure out a secret of mine.”

“You’re a bit of an open book, darling.”

She smiles before resting her neck against the headrest as they continue to drive, the city light up with a mixture of Christmas lights and headlights, every one of them the tiniest bit too bright, but she doesn’t care. He walks her to her door when they get to her apartment, his suit jacket draped over her shoulders, leading her up their staircases and lingering outside on the balcony, the sounds of cars zooming by and intoxicated pedestrians echoing from four floors below. If she listened carefully, she could hear her heart beating within her chest.

“Would you like to come inside?”

When she wakes up the next morning, still clothed in her jumpsuit with Killian in his tux on the couch beside her, her neck is screaming at her while her pores are yelling at her for not removing her makeup. She can’t believe that she slept with him…okay, that she fell asleep on her couch with him. So she slept with him in the very literal sense of the word, and this is by far the craziest thing that’s ever happened to her.

All because she can’t throw darts while drunk.

Her phone chime continues to go off, and she has to move Killian’s head off of her shoulder, letting it fall to the back of the couch, in order to get up and scramble through her clutch from last night to find her phone, the screen filled with texts from Ruby.

She types in her passcode, clicking on the messages, and it only takes her a moment to see what all of the fuss is about.

It’s pictures of she and Killian throughout the night, arriving at the gala, sitting at dinner, dancing, getting drinks from the bar, betting at the silent auction, and then, finally, Killian’s lips slanted over hers outside her apartment before the two of them stepped inside.

Ruby: YOU KISSED HIM

Ruby: AND THEN HE WENT INSIDE YOUR APARTMENTRuby: DID YOU SLEEP WITH HIM

Ruby: EMMA SWAN I NEED DETAILS WHAT’S HAPPENING

Ruby: IF YOU GUYS GET MARRIED AND HAVE BABIES YOU OWE ME BIG TIME

Ruby: I’M THINKING A YACHT.

Ruby: WE’LL CALL IT THE LOVE BOAT

She snorts at all of Ruby’s messages, blush rising in her cheeks at all of her questions as well as thinking about the fact that she did very much kiss Killian last night, something that was totally inappropriate for their arrangement, but something that also felt just right. She’s had a lot of first kisses in her life, some chaste, others awkward, a few far too passionate, but this one made her toes curl in her heels and her body tingle with pleasure. And then when he kissed her again once inside her apartment, the smallest of chaste kisses before they fell asleep watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas, well, that kiss had confirmed that after a few hours, Killian Jones might just be on his way to stealing her heart.

Dignity is overrated when your world has possibly been turned upside down by a stupid bet.

For Christmas next year, Emma gets a ring and Ruby gets a ship ornament inscribed with the words “love boat” along with a Christmas card of Emma and Killian in their matching ugly Christmas sweaters.

She finally hit that bullseye.

#cs prompt #cs fic

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noirbriar · 6 years ago

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MDZS ficlet : Empty Shadows (2)

(Part 1 here)

This fic is just musings of a dork about a character who seem to be a convenient tool for the story. Its strange how everyone had not given MXY extra thought but simply as a vessel and a second chance for WWX IMO.

Also somewhat based off zeldacw’s MXY backstory doujin.

Mostly word vomit but if its your cup of tea ( or bowl of congee ) please take it.

-----

Pieces of papers, fragments of thoughts, glimpses of the memories of a ghost. Some are ideas, others are just opinions of daily sort of routines. However, they seem almost too real, too coherent for a lunatic to have put on paper.

How did I miss all these? Am I blind...?! Wei Wuxian groans.Although now that he thinks about it...He was oblivious to Lan Wangji’s little advances for...Alright forget what he just said.Everything.He doesn’t want to slap his own mouth again.

Although in his defense, most of these were found in the Mo Estate and not the donkey shed.Most likely Mo Xuanyu’s thief of a cousin had taken them.

“Senior Wei, you have been engrossed in those papers for awhile.Are they that interesting?” Lan Sizhui smiles as he peers over his shoulder at the man on his donkey. ( “Either you give him the apple or don’t Senior Wei! Even I pity the animal!” Jingyi remarks watching Wei Wuxian dangle the apple in front of Little Apple. Wei Wuxian ignores the child. )

“Hmm, Sizhui ah,look at this and tell me what you think?” Wei Wuxian passes the young Cultivator a piece of the notes.Lan SIzhui skims the contents. The moon is bright enough even in the dense forest of Dafan Shan that the Lan disciples are able to continue leisurely.

“Are these your old works Senior Wei?”

“Sizhui ah. When we go back, you can ask Hanguang Jun if I had written this neatly back in our school days.”

“...That...Right.” Sizhui’s smile becomes abit more strained. “But if not yours then...?”

By now, all the other kids have gotten curious and started to gather closer around Lan Sizhui to read.Without Lan Wangji, its alot easier to relax and not be bound by the Lan family rules, but then again it might just be Wei Wuxian himself projecting. Not that the disciples are complaining.

“Could it be...Mo Xuanyu?But how did he manage to learn the demonic path?It...looks detailed.” one of the disciples voices out from the back.

“It is.Don’t forget, this is someone who has done a very difficult ritual to bring back a big bad.” (”Ahhh Senior Wei, please.”Sizhui tries to interject.) “Let’s do a little lesson shall we?As you read these notes, I want you guys to think and deduce his character.Now you all tell me, does this man sound like a lunatic?” Trust Wei Wuxian to turn anything into a lesson within a game for the kids. Although he wants to make sure its not himself that feels this way. He needs another perspective, why not ask these fresh young minds?

“No.Not really...No.” “No, he sounds smart though.” “ Who eats raw potatoes?!” (Sizhui twitches at the side at that remark.He implores to have that dark history remain where it is. Buried.)

“What does Senior Wei think?” Jingyi pipes up.

Wei Wuxian doesn’t reply for a long while.What does he think? To be honest, there’s lot he can say that he finds it hard to put into words. How does one even begin understanding a pitiful soul who was more than likely innocent before he got pulled into the grand scheme of things? He was just a boy, wanting to be accepted and recognised by his family. But probably was too naive and became a pawn in Jin Guangyao’s plans when he realised his half brother is gifted in the demonic path. After he has been used and wrung dry, the man cruelly plotted to have him tossed out in the most flashy and heartbreaking manner.

Anyone would snap.Either become vengeful and kill everyone or let the grief, the humiliation and madness consume them. It must have been the latter for Mo Xuanyu. Who would have to return to the Mo family, bringing disgrace and more suffering to his mother who raised him without a father and unmarried at that.

After which, even in his suffering...the idea that Nie Huaisang might have sought Mo Xuanyu out and implicate him in his own plans to foil Jin Guangyao’s. May it be willingly or not, its painful to even think about it.

A life for a life.This cycle of pain is not something that poor soul deserved.It probably might be a blessing that he no longer remained in this world to be used forever as a tool.

“I think, I would have liked to meet him.” Wei Wuxian smiles as he finally tosses the apple for Little Apple to crunch on at long last.

“WOOF!”

Before he promptly falls off the animal.

-----

”Jin Ling!W-Why are you here??” “Aren’t you suppose to be prepare for the Conference?” “ Didn’t you said you were swamped with work??”

”WILL ONE OF YOU GET THE DOG AWAY FIRST!!!??AHHH LAN ZHAN!! WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOUUU?”

”Wei Wuxian!You are pathetic,of all things the Yiling Patriarch fears!?Dogs!Embarrassing!And really, why would I hang around in that mess when Uncle is swinging Zidian around Koi Tower?I still want my legs!” Jin Ling scoffs at Wei Wuxian who is currently high up on the tree.Lan Sizhui simply pats the younger boy on his shoulder, imploring him silently to spare the demonic cultivator. It would do none of the disciples good if Lan Wangji hears of this. Anything regarding his husband, he will hear of it, present or not, and for sanity’s sake and his responsibility as leader of his Brothers...best spare the poor man.

”Sides, I am here on business anyway, you guys know everyone is collecting evidence and any loose ends U-I mean, Jin Guangyao, has done. So I passed by here just to make sure.”

”Sect Leader Jiang allowed you,a newly appointed Clan Leader to come alone? Has Lanling Jin really gone down deep or what?!” Jing Yi chirps incredulously.

Jin Ling shoos Fairy away before he jerks a thumb behind him where a dozen of purple robed cultivators have gathered and maybe a couple of yellow golden robed ones. The Lan disciples had to slowly calm down the tearful adult (ADULT?!) and coax him to come down. They has 21 days of punishment free days and counting so far, they are hoping to keep it that way.

”Nope.And its actually annoying.”

Gusu Lan, YunMeng Jiang and Lanling Jin upon Dafan Shan. Talk about walking down memory lane. Wei Wuxian thinks with a pout. They have gathered before the cave where the Goddess Statue once resided. Now, the cave is partially intact, and all that remains is a pile of rubble and...a shrine?

A tiny one, filled with offerings and red threads decorating it. It looked like one of those you find along the road, similar to those for the earth deity or gods watching over travellers, merchants.On the peak of the mountain, the moonlight cast down a pale glow, sombre and cold.

”Eh? Did the people down the mountain change a god to worship?” Wei Wuxian muses, scrutinising the shrine curiously.There was no malicious intent, no demonic energy, its void of anything to be honest.

”Nope.Its a memorial.” Jin Ling explains.”Remember the soul eating Goddess?”

”Hard to forget now isn’t it?It’s not everyday you see a statue eating people right in front of your face” Jingyi deadpans, his eyes dark and haunted.

”Didn’t ask for your input but yeah.Its for the souls she...er...It?Consumed. Spirits that have gone. Unable to return. The townsfolk thought it be heartless to not do something for the spirits of the victims.God knows how many it had even consumed or lost.Hence they came up with that Shrine.”

Gone. Lost. Forgotten.

Wei Wuxian stands before the wooden shrine, his gaze distant while the sounds of the children fades out behind him as they mingle. Mo Xuanyu’s papers feels almost warm between the folds of his robes.

“I just wish to be loved. Just once. “ Wei Wuxian remembers the meek voice had whispered in his dreams before other thoughts have drowned out that sad echo.

Mo Xuanyu did not deserved all that which had happened, driven to a dead end and forced to sacrifice his soul for a second of respite, and knowledge that his suffering will be dealt with by the Yiling Patriarch. His flaw was his innocence and at the end, without anywhere or anyone to turn to. Wei Wuxian was all too intimately familiar with that. However, soon time will pass, his soul will mould this body into his own, closer to what he once was to shape the vessel in likeness of the spirit. The last vestiges of Mo Xuanyu would be gone then from this world.Unlike the Yiling Patriarch, who was infamous and hated by many in the past and now as the demonic cultivator who had returned from the dead. Qishan Wen also had Wen Ning and Lan Yuan as proof they had lived even if their ashes are mostly gone with the mind, souls doomed to never reincarnate.

Without anyone to remember him by, without anything as proof he was once here in this world, could it be said that Mo Xuanyu had truly existed?

To be forgotten is indeed a far worse fate for any man.

The kids watches the demonic cultivator crouch down, kneeling before the tiny shrine in wonder.The others from Jiang Sect and Jin Sect watches curiously as well at what the infamous man may be up to wearily. Almost as if a veil has been cast over the man and the memorial.Nobody breathes as The Yiling Patriarch pulls out Chengqing and puts his hand in a tiny prayer upon the name of his instrument.A sign of respect. For if not for him, Wei Wuxian himself would not experience the joy of living. A joy that was never granted to Mo Xuanyu.

Fate is cruel.Yet he hopes in another world maybe, Mo Xuanyu could have a better life.

Mo Xuanyu. I shall cherish your memory safely. For what you have bestowed upon me by the weird crossing of Fate...Thank you.

-----

(Final part)

#take this brain fart #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #mo xuanyu #lan sizhui #lan jingyi #jin ling #lan disciples #Fairy #little apple #Empty Shadows #if you have read this all the wow thank you??#I really didnt know where I was going with this #no beta no checking because im trash #ooc warning

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lligkv · 5 years ago

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many are called, few are chosen

Until I picked up The Razor’s Edge on a sale rack at Moe’s Books in Berkeley, W. Somerset Maugham was an author I’d known only as a name. The book sat on my shelf for a few weeks after I bought it, too. I didn’t feel any particular pull to it, and the list of books I have to read always outstrips my capacity. But when I did finally start it, I read Maugham’s comment that “Even so subtle and careful an observer as Henry James, though he lived in England for forty years, never managed to create an Englishman who was through and through English,” and I knew I was in for something good.

The Razor’s Edge centers on a couple, Laurence Darrell and Isabel Bradley, who break their engagement over their entirely different visions of life. Isabel wants a conventionally wealthy one; Larry, a war veteran who watched a good friend die for his sake, aims to leave society to discover what’s truly meaningful. The narrator, also named Maugham, tracks them as they pass in and out of each other’s life trajectories in the years after. He also tracks others in Isabel and Larry’s orbit: Gray Maturin, son of the businessman Henry Maturin, who also loved Isabel and wins her when Isabel and Larry decide to part ways; and Elliott Templeton, Isabel’s uncle, the brother of her mother Louisa, a dilettante and social butterfly who’s also a friend of Maugham’s.

Elliott often comes off ridiculous or outright irritating for his sociality—say, his determination unto his death to be invited to all the gayest parties in Paris, London, and the French Riviera, far past the time others in his social circle are willing to grant him dignity—and the determination with which he cleaves to the mores of that circle, as when he continually steers Isabel toward Gray because Larry continues to refuse to get a job for reasons Elliott can’t discern, “loafing” and losing himself in books instead. Maugham nevertheless regards Elliott with real affection, because he recognizes that under Elliott’s trivial shell lies real kindness. One pleasure of The Razor’s Edge is just how perceptive Maugham as writer-narrator is, always seeing both sides of everything and everyone. Isabel often seeks Maugham’s counsel both before her split with Larry and after, when he returns from his long sojourns in Europe and India. And while Maugham’s ultimate judgment of her—as lacking tenderness—proves too much for her to take, she admits several times that what he thinks of her means a great deal to her.

Indeed, what to think of Isabel? Initially she’s young, loving, yet clear-eyed. She’s patient with Larry, gently pushing past Elliott and Louisa’s concern with the time he’s taking to commit to her, or to a job, or to anything. As it becomes clear that what Larry’s going through isn’t just a phase, and she won’t get the life she’s used to with him, she breaks the engagement. She’s not without ambivalence about it—as she tells Maugham, “I know that I’m not playing the star part in this.” She also knows she’s the one who’d suffer for Larry’s genius. What’s more, as Maugham points out, there’s no guarantee Larry’s desires will amount to anything:

Years ago, when I was young, I knew a man who was a doctor, and not a bad one either, but he didn’t practice. He spent years burrowing away at the library of the British Museum and at long intervals produced a huge pseudo-scientific, pseudo-philosophical book that nobody read and that he had to publish at his own expense. He wrote four or five of them before he died and they were absolutely worthless. He had a son who wanted to go into the army, but there was no money to send him to Sandhurst, so he had to enlist. He was killed in the war. He had a daughter too. She was very pretty and I was rather taken with her. She went on the stage, but she had no talent and she traipsed around the provinces paying small parts in second-rate companies at a miserable salary. His wife, after years of dreary, sordid drudgery, broke down in health and the girl had to come home and nurse her and take on the drudgery her mother no longer had the strength for. Wasted, thwarted lives and all to no purpose. It’s a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, but few are chosen.

That last line haunts me. As a writer, I feel like one of the called. I fear I’m not one of the chosen.

And next to that, wouldn’t it be wiser to be an Isabel. Who does get what she wants when she marries Gray Maturin: the chance to travel, the chance to enjoy herself, children and a stable life. At least until the depression hits and Gray loses everything.

The years pass. In time, the five—Maugham, Isabel, Gray, Larry, and Elliott—reconnect in Paris. Elliott lives there; Isabel and Gray join him for a time to rally their funds and health; Maugham and Larry arrive at their bachelors’ leisure. Once there, the group runs into Sophie Macdonald, a childhood friend of Isabel, Larry, and Gray who, having lost her husband and child, has become utterly dissipated. Larry becomes determined to save Sophie. Isabel feels nothing but contempt for her, and fear Larry will be ruined.

It’s as though as Sophie’s star rises in Larry’s universe, Isabel’s star in the novel falls. She’s become crude. When she originally rejected Larry, it was because she simply wanted a conventional life, not because she felt contempt for those who didn’t lead such lives—in fact, she knew then Larry was one to admire. As an adult, on the other hand, she goes so far as to set a bottle of Polish liquor Elliott’s gifted her out in the drawing room specifically to tempt Sophie into drinking and falling back into her old life, out of Larry’s. Conventional culture coarsens people. It takes away their ability to make their own choices and to let others make theirs. You go so far into the role you play, like high-society wife, that you lose all self-awareness. Indeed, you have to bury any awareness of the nobler life to subsist in your social one. And Isabel’s has been buried so far she can’t see the spiritual valence of Larry’s attachment to Sophie. She’s no longer willing to dignify his desire or his choice. She can see only the social ruin—never mind that Larry doesn’t really have any social capital to speak of at this point; there’s no ruin to defend against. Whatever tenderness was once in her—whatever human feeling and spiritual sensitivity—is gone.

The sensitivity remains in Larry. Who’s something of a saint figure, if less like Christ than the stereotype of the Eastern sage that you could write about in Maugham’s day. As Maugham puts it, he’s possessed of a passion for self-sacrifice that “whirls the victim to destruction in the highest affirmation of his personality.”

He’s also, as you might expect, a figure of doubt. The question that occupies him is “a basic question, but an eternal one: “If an all-good and all-powerful God created the world, why did He create evil?” Why did God allow a war that took his friends’ lives; why did God create humans with spiritual voids that drive them as Larry himself is driven? And if God made humans to be capable of sin, like Sophie with her drinking, why does he fault them for demonstrating that capacity?

After the conclusion of the Sophie Macdonald affair, the drama of Larry and Isabel’s relationship falls away; the question of God becomes the novel’s most pressing. Maugham also tags the chapter in which he and Larry have their deepest conversation about God as nonessential—and indeed the novel could stand fine without it. But it’s Razor’s secret heart. Larry’s ultimate argument in that chapter, as he reveals to Maugham what happened during his five years in India, is:

In the West, the structures of faith are elaborate (e.g., the Catholic church) and faith itself is tortured and ambivalent. In the East—again, speaking broadly—faith is lived; its structures are woven into daily life. Essentially, history’s spiral spins, over and over, into all time; we’re caught up, we live and die, in its churn. We don’t contemplate the churn until something like war brings us face to face with its reality. When you’re confronted by the nature of life in this way, you can either fashion a philosophy in which there is a God in charge of it all and fear of this God and obedience to Him give you a door out of this world and into Heaven. Or you can live your life in such a way that you might be able to renounce earthly life and exit the spiral of reincarnation or repetition for all time.

It’s an age-old opposition, nothing new, and Larry’s foray into Hinduism does feel like an orientalist answer to the question of occidental faith. But I think it’s hard to deny the appeal that non-duality—the idea that the mind and the body, the self and the world that surrounds it, are not separate; that all that is is “awareness”—can have for philosophically dualist societies and belief systems predicated upon Cartesian conceptualizations of the mind and body: the materialist idea of a concrete, distinct self tied to each body, which interacts with a world outside of it, that persists despite it.

Larry’s contention seems to be that in non-dual traditions, questions like “why did God create evil, or make evil possible?” can be answered—the answer being that there is no God who creates this evil or can save you from an original sin that’s intrinsic to your being, and nor is there any such sin. There is simply an Absolute from which the stuff that is your eternal soul is descended, to live out temporal loops of incarnation—as many as it takes to live a life free of misdeeds. And it falls upon you, in your soul’s current manifestation, to live in such a way that you might earn an exit from these loops—a return to the Absolute.

How do I feel about Larry’s argument? I can imagine that the idea that no evil really exists is comforting when you’ve witnessed something that’s otherwise entirely aberrant, senseless, unconscionable, like a person you love being blown to bits in front of you. Even if the other possible answer—that evil exists, and you’ve just witnessed it—seems just as plausible to me.

And while I’m sympathetic to Larry’s desire for truth. I don’t know that non-duality is where I’d find it. Or traditional religion, for that matter. I don’t consider the question of sin in terms of the state of one’s soul pressing. I consider the question of sin in terms of wrongs and harm done to others pressing. And something about the former way of thought feels a little self-absorbed to me—as though you’re interested in spiritual truth because of what it might mean for you, as opposed to what it might help you do, how it might help you minimize the harm to others that you might commit if you didn’t think in terms of right or wrong and about what’s ethical and what’s not.

But I say all this as a product of my particular historical moment. As I read The Razor’s Edge, my own distance from essential questions of goodness and evil felt very clear. I don’t know that I could imagine a Larry Durrell type living in 2019. I came to wonder if living in late-capitalist liberal democracy, post-religion, has robbed me of a capacity for deep moral or spiritual investigation like Maugham’s (or Graham Greene’s, another very moral writer I’ve read quite a bit of lately). After all, I too live in interesting times, times whose questions are full of moral stakes. (E.g., you live in a world that’s capable of separating migrant children from their families, keeping people who are blameless for their own conditions penned in arbitrary borders and denying them the right to live where they please based on the contingent fact of their citizenship. Do you participate in this world? How?) But—and I realize how self-indulgent this sounds; what the times I live in mean for my art is hardly the most relevant question I ought to be asking about them—I don’t seem able to write anything of real depth about the times in which I live. Let alone come up with substantive answers to any of my moral questions.

After I finished this novel, I came to think: maybe religion gives you the terms for a moral understanding of the world. And when you’re shaped by conditions that don’t mandate a faith—when the structures of your world are entirely liberal-democratic, or commercial, and not moral in any way—and you live a pretty safely bourgeois life, and you are not driven through an experience, like the war that Larry Durrell survives, that sends cracks through those conditions and reveals how contingent they are and the depths of human suffering that their prosperity can obscure—you become complacent. No questions like the ones that inform this novel ever occur to you.

Or rather, by the time that the things you’ve gotten used to break down, revealing the questions that you thought the End of History had rendered moot, you’re left with no sense of what the answers to those questions might be, and only the most unfit tools to find them.

#literary #books #novels #w. somerset maugham #the end of history #religion vs. secularity

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transalfiesolomons · 6 years ago

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I’ve had to deal w a lot of transphobia the last few days, you have any trans headcanons to spare? 🌸💀

You’ve come to the right place friend. I hope you’re cool with an unanticipatedly large dump of ‘em (specifically on Alfie and Michael) below the cut

(oh I should mention up front these are all modern au)

(a quick caveat with this. I talk a little bit about the intersection of being trans and being Jewish and while I try to be as culturally sensitive as possible, I am not myself Jewish, so if anyone reading this has something to add or to correct please please do not hesitate to do so)

(there’s also probably some sentence fragments and thoughts that trail off because i’m a fool who can’t proofread)

me: hey just do a few happy ones

also me, 3,000 words later, basically having written two fics: ah,

Alfie –

Alfie Solomons spends a lot of his childhood chasing on the heels of older male cousins, refusing to be cooped up inside with the women of the family. He knows there are things that his cousins will never let their single little girl cousin know or see, condescendingly protecting her from a world that is her birthright just as much as it is theirs.

He grows up hearing about the “family business” without ever seeing it or knowing anything about it, other than sometimes the police came to rough up family members and make arrests and hurl slurs while they did so. But whether this had anything to do with illegality on his family’s part or just people hating Jews, Alfie never really figured out, only that after such raids his cousins are quieter and afraid and those are the times a place for Alfie opens up among them, a desire to hold family close.

When he was younger, growing up around his father’s extended family in Camden Town, Alfie had pretty constantly railed against not being able to do what his male cousins did and also pretty constantly did that stuff anyway, which garnered him both amusement and consternation from his family who only occasionally attempted to stop him.

The men in the family paid him absolutely no attention, which he felt was wrong for some reason but could never find the words to explain why until much alter in his life, until after he stumbles over the word “transsexual” in a medical diary while waiting for a physical exam and until after he first applies the word to himself. Both of which come when he is already an adult. But even before he knows, it complicates a lot of his life, especially when he came to gender roles in worship. Even after he turned 13, he was not allowed to be part of a minyan which felt wrong until someone explained that it was because he’s a girl and only men can be part of a minyan which felt even more wrong but he didn’t push it because there’s a look on his mother’s face when he asked why that told him this was just one of those things (and there were many, admittedly) that just wasn’t up for debate.

II.

Alfie makes the realization that he’s trans when he is 27. Five years into his enlistment in the British Army, sitting on Basra air base in 2004 during the British-to-American turnover, twiddling his thumbs and sweating his ass off watching supplies be loaded and unloaded on the airstrip. Two months from home for good and suddenly skin-crawlingly aware he doesn’t recognize what he sees in the mirror anymore as himself. He remembers that word then, thinks back to not understanding it at the time, thinking it was strange and wrong, and he spends the rest of the day rolling it (and rolling he, him, his) over on his tongue until its stone-heavy and nearly wrung of meaning.

It’s a sudden and stomach-swooping realization, a long-time-coming clarity that still bowls him over with the sheer force of it.

His last month there, he buzzes his hair just to see how it would be, what it would feel like under his hands. When asked why - and he goes from a regulation cut, but just barely regulation to as short as the clippers will allow him without just shaving his head, so he is asked quite a lot - he claims that the heat just finally got to him and he couldn’t take it anymore. His face is too soft then, a roundness in the cheeks he’d never shed from childhood, to allow him to pass with just a buzz but it gives him a modicum of personal comfort to run his hands over his scalp and feel that soft prickle under his fingers.

He comes home and out-processes from the military and almost immediately jumps into figuring out where the fuck to go from here, pouring over what few online resources he can find and feeling more and more adrift from himself every day. He doesn’t fit into the common narrative of “knew all along” and he doesn’t exactly feel “wrong” in his body (frankly, he’s proud of it) so it’s a long time before he’s able to truly accept that he is transgender and not actively losing his mind and that there isn’t something wrong with him.

His place as a trans man and his decision to transition put him not necessarily at odds with but in a weird position with his Jewishness. So much of Judaism is split along gender lines: where you sit in temple, what you wear, how you’re addressed, what prayers you lead, what prayers you say, if you can lead prayers at all. It causes a radical reevaluation of where he stands in relation to his faith and to g-d but in the end it wholly reaffirms both his faith and how he feels about himself.There are actually two (incredibly progressive) rabbis that help him - one who reaffirms his identity as a trans man and as a Jewish man and another who tells him in Halachic terms that he can get gender-affirming surgery if it is something he wishes to pursue.

The cool thing about realizing when he did is that Alfie doesn’t have anyone he has (or wants) to come out to - his mother had died some years before, he was estranged from his only (half) sister, he was only ever rarely in contact with any member of his maternal family (spread out between Russia and Israel), and he’d lost contact with his paternal family after his father died when he was eight and his mother moved them away from Camden Town out of fear. He had no close friends or relationships due to his “inability to relate to others” and “aloofness” (the army’s words) and his being “an utter sociopath” (his XO’s words). The not so cool thing is the not inconsiderable amount of loneliness he feels when transitioning alone, celebrating milestones like his first year on T alone, especially when recuperating alone from surgery with only his dog to keep him company (and the complications he didn’t consider - like having to take the dog on walks when he could barely get off the sofa.) But that’s, uh, that’s what alcohol is there for right?

(Already fit from military training, he dedicates a lot of time during his early transition to weight training and a continuation of the hand-to-hand he learned in basic.)

III.

His father’s family (the little that’s left of it after a brutal turf war between the Jews and the Italians over a decade ago) reaches out to him when he’s 31, after the murder of his uncle by a small Italian gang of upstarts who took old age for infirmity and, in his cousin’s words, “paid dearly” for it. The invitation is for his uncle’s funeral, but he ends up staying in Camden Town afterwards, working for his cousin who has assumed control of the gang after his father’s murder. Alfie very quickly garners a reputation for just vicious brutality against people that cross the gang.

Alfie considers it strange that his cousin invites him back, considering, well – but no one (including his cousin) actually seems to remember him well enough to remember that he was a girl child once. People remember that he is his father’s child but apparently not what gender he was assigned at birth. People remember him roughhousing with the boys, not that he was reprimanded for doing so because he was not “one of the boys.” It begs the question of how his cousin tracked him down but Alfie supposes there may only be so many Solomons in England. And it’s weird but it’s also incredibly welcome. Gifts and horses and mouths.

Alfie’s assumption of control of the Solomons Gang right out from under his cousin (who was never fit for the job anyway) is an incredibly nebulous affair that followed very closely on the heels of his uncle’s death. Like, before shiva is even over close on the heels of (which is an exaggeration, but it makes him out to be all the more ruthless, really). Legitimately no one but Alfie knows how exactly any of it went down other than it has a body count somewhere between 2 and 15 people. He describes it to this way as a coup de grace. What that means, no one is even kind of willing to ask.

IV.

He’s outed twice: once by a man in his own gang (a few years after he gains control) and once not long after by a competitor who thinks it will cost Alfie everything. It doesn’t go the way either of them wanted.

His boy does it internally, digs up his service record and his discharge papers and starts to spread the “truth” in an effort to undermine Alfie and possibly gain control of the gang himself. He doesn’t live long past the first wave of rumors and it’s fairly quickly forgotten, just a power-hungry man trying to start something he couldn’t finish.

The competitor spreads it among his supplies and allies, many many of whom have negative reactions and cut ties with the Solomons gang. This costs him the most, at least in the short term - suppliers, support, respect, a modicum of safety - but he doesn’t let it intimidate him. And because it never destabilizes him or truly threatens his leadership of the gang (who actually stand by him, not because they’re supportive but because he’s already proven to be incredibly volatile and unpredictable but also fair to and protective of those loyal to him), he gains a lot in the long term.

(By the time Tommy comes into the picture when he’s 39, there’s been so much turnover in the ranks of nearly every gang and blackmarket business that barely anyone knows and the ones that do either don’t care or just don’t feel like its worth acting on.)

The second time someone internally tries to use his being trans against him, his boys doesn’t even flinch because, cis or trans, Alfie terrifies them. He’s 5′9, built like a brick shithouse, like an American Bulldog, probably 16 stone of mostly muscle, deadlifts twice that, and he punches like a freight train hauling cinder blocks and he terrifies them.

There’s not a person in this world that can make Alfie Solomons ashamed of who he is.

Michael –

Polly spends so much of her life scouring the country looking for her stolen daughters, devastated beyond the ability of words to convey - after searching for twelve hard, long, lonely, terrified years - to find one daughter dead (buried in a country she has never been to and will never see, she can’t even visit her baby’s grave) and the other seemingly wiped from the system after her (private) adoption, no record or her past six years old.

She hits roadblock after roadblock, denied access to privileged and private information she has no legal right to access anymore. It’s helpless, desperate work and it almost breaks her because how could her eldest daughter just disappear?

It’s Tommy who eventually gets access to the records, who digs and digs (and bribes and threatens, but Polly probably doesn’t need to know about that part but probably does anyway, she knows her nephews too well to expect anything different, especially Thomas) until he hits pay dirt. The gender recognition certificate, the legal name change barely half a year ago, the parental consent forms for treatment of gender dysphoria.

It’s a week after he finds it all that he shows her, having mulled over how to tell her and finally settles on just laying it all out. He slides her the folder over breakfast and drinks his coffee – black, two sugars, a Shelby staple – while she reads what she initially thinks are some financial documents or some other Family Business™ family business.

He watches her face morph from shock to confusion to hope to awe and around to the same kind of fond exasperation she looks at him and his siblings with, the closest to love-comfort-softness that Polly gets.

And somewhere in that mix of emotions he knows there is a tug of grief (and it stings, it will never stop stinging, that grief, but for once it isn’t aimed at him), grief because she has lost both of her daughters, grief that is outweighed by the joy of having gained a son, just like the joy of gaining a nephew that outweighed the grief of losing a niece all those years ago.

“Michael,” she says, awe unmistakable. Traces a hand along the papers with as much tenderness as if they were the face of her lost son, soon soon so soon to be found again and brought home to them.

(Michael, she thinks later, of course he’d somehow pick a family name. It’s only right and it’s perfectly right, she wouldn’t have chosen any different.)

II.

They wait to reach out until after Michael turns 18, until he has been legally emancipated from his adopted parents. And the wait kills Polly but she understands it, given the circumstances. It’s Tommy that reaches out, somewhat awkwardly, a voicemail left on a cellphone. Perfunctory, because how do you explain the weight of a history like their family’s over voicemail, with a rushed callback number just before the cutoff tone.

And Michael, for his part, two years on HRT and attending uni in London and happy as hell and finally free from parents who were tepidly accepting (at least enough to help him medically transition) but suffocating in their palpable discomfort, jumps at the chance to meet Tommy.

It’s validating that his birth family has reached out to him and even more validating that, to have found him at all, they would have had to found out that he was trans. And to have reached out, they would have had to accept that fact or at least grapple with it. To have reached out, they would have had to want to see him and that’s reason enough to want to meet Tommy. That’s even reason enough to forget that his parents haven’t spoken to him since the day he moved out of their home, to forget that they looked relieved when he left.

III.

And two weeks later they’re sitting across from each other at a coffee shop in north London, a hipster hole in the wall place with good pastries - Michael’s suggestion. They both order coffee – black, two sugars. Michael doesn’t understand why that’s funny to Tommy.

Tommy sits across from him, eyes a shade of blue so startling it’s both hard to maintain eye contact and to look away at all, and offers Michael a a chance to rejoin the family he barely remembers he lost and it almost breaks Michael in half, because he didn’t expect any of this to be so easy. Except it’s not easy, of course it’s not, there’s a weight between then the heft of many people, fathers and brothers and sisters and daughters, but Tommy carries that weight somehow better, with a straight-backed pride Michael finds he would like to learn. To carry the weight of his past like a talisman and not an albatross.

“What does my mum think,” Michael asks just before they say goodbye, standing there on the sunniest day London has seen in months, on the corner outside Warren Street station. He’s put off actually asking this question, unwilling to hear the answer. Unwilling to have another parent see him as a disappointment. “Of me? Of… me.”

Tommy doesn’t speak for a long time, pulling drags and exhaling slowly. When he does speak, he doesn’t look at Michael and Michael can’t help the way his stomach drops to his feet in bitter, sickening anticipation of some kind of rebuff, some kind of confirmation that this will be hard. Instead, Tommy smiles, just slightly, the corner of his mouth blink-and-you’ll-miss-it twitching, and says “You’re her son. She loves you.”

Like it’s just that easy. And for the Shelbys, it kind of is. Family is family, all baggage included. (Ride or die, bitch.)

And Michael isn’t really given to strong emotions (another Shelby staple) but he carries that answer with him for days after, holds it in his body like a physical thing, right next to his heart tucked protectively behind his ribcage. Her son, her son, her son.

(He finds out later that Tommy himself is trans but that is not for some time - it’s definitely one of the last pieces of the puzzle for him, that last missing piece of sky that completes a nearly two decades long year search for who he is and where he belongs. But it’s not for a while yet.)

IV.

He meets his birth mother on a stormy day two weeks after he first meets Tommy. He stands on a curb in Small Heath with an address on a scrap of paper, hastily scribbled while on a confirmation call with Tommy (who does not and will not text, the neanderthal) when he arrived in Birmingham.

She’s not at all what he expected (smaller, thinner, stress-worn. but he has her nose he thinks, and her chin, the curls in her hair) but he supposes he isn’t what she suspected either so they’re at least on equal footing.

Her home smells of incense and perfume, the tea she brews is stout-dark but bright-sweet, her hands are soft and warm on his back when she hugs him and with tears threatening to choke him, his forehead on her shoulder, he thinks oh, I remember this.too

#i've been in a similar situation vis a vis transphobia recently so I relate and i'm very honored you came to me #i hope things get better for you friend #and i hope these help in their own small way #and if you ever wanted to talk or vent (anon or not) i'm absolutely here to listen #peaky blinders #trans posts #Anonymous #self made man au #(that's the tag!)

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sweetandsavageautistic · 6 years ago

Text

Hey, I found more. Get ready to lose some more brain cells:

I don't know if this is weird but I find teens and adults with autism are really cute.

Just make autism illegal. Simple. (This isn’t infantilization, but it’s ridiculous).

All the people with autism are so lovely 😊. They see the world around then in a different way. They areinnocent and kind in their heart ❣.

People with autism are so beautiful and adorable. They're parents are heroes

people don't talk about autism as much as they should. people with autism are fucking adorable okay like theye beautifulllllllll i fucking love how theyre so creative and nice and funny and can just light up a room i love them so much stop sleeping on them thanks.

Say hello to Jay. I had the privilege and honor to spend this afternoon with Jay. Jay is a 28-years old young adult with autism. Jay is almost non-verbal and speaks only in short phrases or sentences and is completely and totally dependent on others in his daily living. The look in his eyes and the smile on his face just lights up the whole room. Children and adults with autism display the highest levels of innocence and purity of mankind. They are truly exceptional in every aspect of their lives and they have exceptional parents too. Stay tuned for more news about an upcoming collaboration between Shift to Shine and Autism Sings. How many Hellos would Jay get? Please share, comment and like in order to support Jay and Autism Sings so we can create a better way of living for adults with autism.

Although our son is still a teen and has severe autism, I can imagine that this will be us too. Many children and adult children with disabilities (who I know) are very affectionate and have this innocent love. ❤

That's freaking sad 😔 to do to ANYONE; especially w/ SPECIAL God GIVEN talents and skills grr; also known as Aspergers disorder 😔. They are very sweet, MOSTY INNOCENT 😇 kids and adults which I know some of them 😳 💥 fr!!

It is evident that you have never in your life interacted with a child or person with special needs, and for that I am sad for you- as you will never know the meaning of true innocence.

"LOVE this book! Captures the humor, personality, innocence, and essence of a character with autism, as well as the concerns of a family dealing with their own issues--grief, adult siblings, responsibilities, assumptions, etc.

Thought-provoking topics and awareness presented in novel form that is a fun read for anyone (not just autism parents). Full disclosure: I am a parent of a young man with autism. I have over 25 years of experience--reading fiction/nonfiction books, newsletters, articles, legislation and science reviews, and watching movies and television episodes depicting characters on the autism spectrum. This novel is, by far, my favorite depiction." --Renata Irving

The beauty in Cameron’s disability is that his innocence remains protected.

All the people with autism are so lovely 😊. They see the world around then in a different way. They areinnocent and kind in their heart ❣.

Honestly I believe children and adults with autism are actually normal because they are innocent and don't really know the craziness of the world they are just pure at heart ✌️

(I’ve shared this next one already, but fuck it. We’re gonna look at it again, cuz why the fuck not?)

Dear families I am begging you to listen to me. Over the last few years I have heard heart breaking stories of our young adults getting into trouble with the law in a variety of ways. The individuals with autism are usually innocent, entrapped or unaware of the situation unfolding. Several of these young adults have served time and families have lost huge amounts of money trying to protect their children from the system.

Here are my recommendations based on these families experiences.

Here is my plea: 1. Get guardianship. You can always give it up later. 2. Teach your child to reach out and use you as a resource. Teach them to ask for help even as adults. 3. Being a helicopter parent is important as we release our adults in the world. There will be a huge transition and we should be actively involved in double checking they are handling life okay and not being taken advantage of or bullied in any way. (NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO!) 4. Be brutally honest about your child’s strengths and weaknesses and put measures in place to help them build those weaknesses up. Set goals and really think about what tools they need and create them. Denial is not your child’s friend. 5. Understand all the technology your child uses and double check it. There are people including law enforcement on social media and playing games who may entrap your child without the child knowing they are doing anything wrong. According to Homeland Security Officer I talked to there is no privacy in any of the technology platforms and every thing is recorded. 6. Make sure to put your child thru the Be Safe Program. Be Safe helps our young adults interact safely with law enforcement. One of the issues discussed is understanding their right to remain silent and their right for an attorney. You have to understand this right to get this right and it needs to be explicitly taught.

We want our individuals with autism to be included in society but society does not always accommodate them and that is ESPECIALLY true of the legal system. I have tried for years to do trainings for courts, so far I have trained people who work within the system excluding the real people needing the training like judges and prosecutors and defense attorneys. Our Be Safe Program has made huge changes in our relationships with law enforcement but the legal system is still a train wreck. So we must be very vigilant and protect our kids!

Autistic people are so innocent and cute i just can't

RIP Joe Clyde Daniels; It saddens us when you wake up to hear news like this. People with autism are so loving and we can learn a lot from them. Heaven has a new angel.

I wish more people with disabilities such as autism would be given more employment, always happy and helpful. Too many useless able bodied people with no customer service skills

'Atypical' on Netflix makes me want to cry, group of folk laughing at a guy cause he has autism,people with autism are so precious It's horrible how in this age people say autistic as an insult. People can't help autism and people with autism are precious

happy autism awareness acceptance month! ppl with autism are the most precious people ever and we don't deserve them

Always trying to understand how my brother actually feels,People with autism are just as precious as ones without it

'Atypical' on Netflix makes me want to cry, group of folk laughing at a guy cause he has autism,people with autism are so precious

Happy forever children's day to the people having autism.

(But bitch, I’m not done. There’s more, but I’ll wait a bit)

#autistic people are so innocent uwu #ew #autism #autistic #actuallyautistic #actually autistic #sweet and savage autistic

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553butterfly553 · 6 years ago

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The Adventures of Arcadia and Hendrickson - 10

Death

Before Arcadia could reach Meliodas, he'd already poked holes through Fraudrin, much to the shock of everyone there. Fraudrin then shrunk and then fell to the ground. Arcadia instantly put herself in between Meliodas and Fraudrin. “Enough! I won't let you do this!” Arcadia growled, pointing her sword at Meliodas. He slowly turned around to face her. “Oh? You really think you, of all people, can stop me?” Meliodas threatened as he glared at his child. “What are you going to do? Kill your only daughter?” “Arc... Don't do this...” Fraudrin didn't want the girl to get hurt again, but before anyone could say anything else, Meliodas stabbed Arcadia, right in one of her hearts. She coughed up blood but just smiled at the man. “You think I won't? You got with a demon, one I told you to not get with. You defied me.” “Damn right I did. I guess I take after you, considering how you defied your father.” Meliodas couldn't help but chuckle at that. Even so, he then smacked Arcadia sending her flying to the side. “Arcadia!” Fraudrin choked out as he watched his former lover crash into a wall. The demon then stood up in fury. “Zaratras was kind enough to provide me... an inspiration of sorts. So don't expect me to roll over and die quietly. Nor will I watch you kill Arcadia over me!” “Forcefully drawing out all of this energy at once to self-destruct...” Merlin mused as she watched the demon. Hendrickson and Howzer snapped their heads to her and repeated her last word. “There's no need to fret... It won't be able to penetrate my 'perfect cube'.” “Th...That's not what I'm worried about!” Howzer yelled out, horrified. “Of course, it won't be enough to destroy the captain either. It might kill Arcadia though, I'm not sure.” “How much longer will you be able to keep up that smug smile I wonder. After all, even if you somehow manage to survive this... I'll certainly be able to wipe Liones off the face of the map, and thanks to you, every last human in this pathetic kingdom will perish! Now then... How about you count down together with me... For the grand finale! 10!” “If you wanna kick the bucket, then hurry up and just do it. You're putting me to sleep over here...” “Dreyfus! Griamore! Arcadia!” Hendrickson yelled out, terrified for his friends. “Dreyfus... prepare yourself... I'll be bringing you along with me to the other world... Unfortunately, your son will be joining us as well.” Fraudrin stated, sounding slightly sad about the child. “It's okay Griamore, your father will be right here with you... until the very end!” Griamore was crying now, but he still shoved out of his father's arms. “NO!” “Griamore!” The little boy grabbed a hold of Fraudrin and put up a wall around them in the form of a ball. “What?!” Fraudrin yelled out, horrified at the child's actions. “Don't kill daddy! Don't kill everyone!” Griamore cried out. Arcadia was there in an instant next to Dreyfus. “Griamore put down this wall, now!” The girl yelled out as Dreyfus yelled out as well. “What do you think you're doing?!” Dreyfus began to bang on the wall, trying to break it as Arcadia kept yelling at the boy. “No! I order you to stop! Release your magic this instant, Griamore!” “Let me go! Dispel your magic now, Griamore!” Fraudrin yelled out at the child. The little bot just shook his head as tears flowed from his eyes. “Please, be a good boy!” Griamore just shook his head again. As Dreyfus kept screaming loudly. “So be it. I will not kill your father... or anyone else for that matter.” “Do you... promise?” “Yes... You have my word, so take down this barrier, and return to your father's side.” Griamore wiped his eyes and released his barrier. He then instantly returned to his father and threw himself into Dreyfus's arms. “Apparently, the one caught up in silly sweet dreams... was me... That's the thing... I never wished to understand or comprehend it... Kill me.” “No!” Both Griamore and Arcadia yelled at the same time. She instantly moved between the two demons and put her arms up protectively. “Don't you dare touch Fraudrin!” “Get out of the way, Arcadia,” Meliodas spoke with a smile on his face. He was all too ready to kill Fraudrin. “I won't!” Tears were now streaming down Arcadia's face. “Please father... Don't take him from me...” “Don't be ridiculous, you have Hendrickson now. Would you really risk your life to save this demon?” “If you're going to kill him, kill me first.” “Arc!” Griamore cried out, as tears began to flow from his eyes. “Very well. I will do as you ask.” Meliodas lifted his sword to kill Arcadia, while both Griamore and Hendrickson yelled out her name in fear. Just as his sword was coming down, Fraudrin wrapped his hand around her protectively. “I won't let you take her from this world.” The giant demon spoke as he took the damage Arcadia would have taken. “Here, Dreyfus take the girl.” Fraudrin had picked up Arcadia and literally tossed her to the other man. With Griamore on one side, Dreyfus caught the girl and held her tightly as she struggled against him. “Let me go!” “I cannot.” “Please father! Don't kill him!” “I truly did love you, Arcadia...” With those final words from the large demon, Meliodas punched Fraudrin so hard, half his body was blown away, killing him instantly, much to the horror of everyone. “No!” Arcadia screamed out as tears began to flow from her eyes. Pain shot through her as it felt like a small piece of her, just died along with Fraudrin. “He didn't deserve to die like that Meliodas!” Even Griamore was now crying with the girl. He left his father's arms and snuggled up against the girl, holding onto her as he cried over the demons death. “What is going on?” Dreyfus questioned, a little concerned over the two crying people in his arms. He stood up, allowing Arcadia to stand on her own, but she collapsed to the ground, with Griamore still in her arms. “Arcadia!” Hendrickson was at her side as soon as Merlin released her perfect cube. He hesitantly wrapped his arms around the girl and the little boy, allowing her to lean against him and cling onto him. It took some time, but eventually, Arcadia stopped crying. She just sadly looked up at Hendrickson. “You almost didn't make it back to me this time.” The white-haired man pointed out sadly. “I'm so sorry. I had to try to save him, even if it meant dying. I know I shouldn't have because of what he's done to you and everyone else, but I... I loved him once and I just...” She trailed off as tears began to fill her eyes. “I understand,” Hendrickson spoke softly. It hurt his heart to watch the girl crying like that, especially over another man. “Hendrickson, Dreyfus...” It was the king of Liones, Bartra who'd approached the five of them. “Yes, sire?” Dreyfus responded, a little confused and hesitant. “Come to the funeral we're having tonight.” “Of course, we'll be there.” “You girl, Arcadia, I believe? Come as well.” “...Of course...” Arcadia spoke as she sniffled and fought back more tears. “Griamore, I think there's someone who wants to be with you right now.” “Huh?” The little boy looked up to see one of the princesses approaching them. It was Veronica. “Hi, Griamore. Want to come with me?” She questioned softly as she reached out for the boy. Instantly, the little boy was out of Arcadia's arms and in Veronica's. The two quickly left the adults to themselves. “Are you alright now?” Hendrickson questioned the now calm girl in his arms. “I will be.” Hendrickson then put his forehead against the girl's. “Good... Don't ever do that again... I thought I was about... I thought you were going to die...” Hendrickson had his own tears filling his eyes now. “I'm so sorry, Hendy. I promise I won't do that again!” The girl hugged the man tightly, and he wrapped his arms around her back in return. Dreyfus just smiled over the two and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Come, we shouldn't stay here. It's getting late, the funeral will be at dusk.” Dreyfus spoke, interrupting their moment. “You're right.” Arcadia then detached herself from Hendrickson and stood up. “Oh, I think I owe you an apology...” “Why?” “Well, Fraudrin, he used your body to kiss me. I'm sure you didn't appreciate that.” “It's alright, I was more concerned with you.” “Ha, that's exactly what Hendrickson said you'd say.” Arcadia couldn't help but chuckle at that. Hendrickson was now standing as well by her side. “Let's get cleaned up before we meet with the others.” Suddenly, a shock went through Arcadia. “Oh my god, your shoulder! I forgot! Let me try to heal you!” Arcadia instantly swung around and put her hands over Hendrickson's shoulder. Dreyfus couldn't help but chuckle at the panic the girl showed towards Hendrickson. His chuckle caused both, Hendrickson and Arcadia to look over at him. “What's so funny, Dreyfus?” “She shows much panic over you. She must care about you a lot.” Dreyfus's words caused Arcadia to blush. “Yeah, well... I do care about him a lot.” Arcadia admitted surprisingly. She was still trying to heal the wounded man, but it wasn't working well. “Here, let me help.” Hendrickson put his hand over the girl's hand and began to heal himself with her help. “So... Hendy, do you care about her as well?” Dreyfus was now intensely curious. His friend had never shown true interest in a woman before, so he wanted to know all about it. “We can talk about this further, later,” Hendrickson spoke, putting an end to that conversation. Eventually, with Arcadia's help, Hendrickson's shoulder got to be fully healed. After he was fine, Hendrickson, Dreyfus, and Arcadia all made their way to where the funeral was being held. By now, it was dark and raining. “This is where the souls of the four noble holy knights shall be laid to rest. From the depths of my heart, I offer blessings for these brave men who sacrificed their lives for their kingdom and its people.” The little priest spoke over the graves. “Marmas... You left us far too soon...” Howzer mumbled as others were fully sobbing over their lost friends. “Denzel... Why didn't you say something to us? Why didn't you let us know?!” Deldry cried out as she clings to Deathpierce. “Dogedo... may you find peace with your fellow comrades...” Waillo muttered as he also cried a few tears for his fallen friend. “I don't... I don't understand why my brother had to die...” Jericho mumbled in shock. “Was it... to protect me? How are you going to protect me now that you're dead?! You could've at least given me the chance to say a proper goodbye...We were... just always... at each other's throats...” Jericho then burst out into tears as she clung to Ban. Suddenly, a rock was thrown and hit Hendrickson right above one of his eyes. “Why the fuck are you still alive?! Getting possessed by a demon and letting it run roughshod all over the place sure worked out well for you, huh!” Deldry screamed out after she threw the rock at Hendrickson. Arcadia gasped and just watched, shocked at the scene unfolded around her. “You still get to live and breathe while Denzel and all the others died horrible deaths!” Deldry then grabbed another rock and threw it at Dreyfus. “You con of a bitch!” Howzer instantly then stood in front of the two men. “That's enough! It's not like he asked to be possessed!” Howzer yelled out protectively. “Move it!” “It's fine Howzer,” Dreyfus spoke as a rock hit Howzer in the head. “No, it really isn't... Ow!” Howzer responded in pain. “Everyone, please... if you could somehow find it in your hearts... I, as king... with to see off the brave souls of those who have died with at least a moment of silence.” Bartra spoke gently, trying to soothe the situation. “What I wish for the most, is everyone's assistance in returning the morale and livelihood of this once bustling kingdom that has been ravaged and destroyed by the demons. In order to accomplish this in a timely manner, all of our hearts must be one and we cannot stand divided!” The king's words caused Hendrickson and Dreyfus to look at each other. After the funeral, Dreyfus offered to have the two stay at his home, while Griamore stayed with the princess. The brown-haired man had a lot of questions for his friend and the girl. However, their talk first started with Hendrickson explaining how Griamore ended up a child once again. “I see. Well, tomorrow we should talk to Lady Merlin about how to turn him back to normal.” Dreyfus spoke once Hendrickson was done with his story. “Now, explain this.” He waved his hand between Arcadia and Hendrickson. That caused Arcadia's face to instantly go red. “Well, to start, you know about who and what I am, correct?” Arcadia began hesitantly. “I believe I know more about you than you'd want me to. Fraudrin shared some... information about you while I was possessed by him.” Dreyfus's face had a slight blush, causing the girl to full-on panic and freak out. “What the fuck did he tell or show you from his memories?! Wait don't answer that please...” Arcadia then took a deep breath and regained her composure. “Anyway... in Istar, I met Hendrickson and that's where everything started. Griamore chose him and me to be his temporary parents and we grew closer due to him. Now... I care about Hendy deeply and would do anything to keep him safe.” “And you, how do you feel about her?” “I would give my life to keep her safe.” “So... you two... are in love then, correct?” Dreyfus added everything up and gave it a name. Both of the other adults looked over at each other and instantly blushed. Arcadia had already realized her feelings for him, but Hendrickson hadn't put a name to his for her quite yet. However, the word love seemed to resonate with him. “I've never been in love before... but I always imagined it would feel like this...” Hendrickson finally admitted after a few moments of silent thought. “And you, Arcadia?” “I haven't felt this strongly for someone before, and it's slightly scary, but yes, I'd say it's love...” Arcadia admitted with a smile on her face as she looked over at Hendrickson. “I'm glad for you, Hendrickson,” Dreyfus spoke as he strongly patted the white-haired man on his back. “Thank you, Dreyfus.” “Well, it's about time we go to sleep, right? I'll stay on the couch and Arcadia can take my bed.” Both Arcadia and Hendrickson just looked at each other, not wanting to be the one who explained their sleeping arrangements, but eventually, Arcadia spoke up. “Actually, Hendrickson and I stay together. We sleep better next to each other and it keeps the nightmares away.” Arcadia explained with a slight blush on her face. “Oh... I see.” Dreyfus wasn't sure how to respond to that. He never expected Hendrickson would sleep with a woman so easily. Even if nothing inappropriate went on. “Well, you two take my bed, I'll sleep in Griamore's.” “Alright. Thank you.” With that, the three adults went to different rooms and began to get ready for bed. The men had to take off all their armor and Arcadia just took her cloak off. Once they were all ready, they all climbed into their own beds and Dreyfus slipped off to sleep. The other two remained awake for a few minutes to chat with each other. “So... Hendy?” “Yes?” Hendrickson looked down at the girl in his arms hesitantly. “Are we... a thing now?” “I would say so.” “Good...” Arcadia then surprised the man, be sitting up a bit to kiss him on the side of his face. “Goodnight then.” The then lied back down and snuggled into Hendrickson's arms. She fell asleep almost instantly, while Hendrickson just remained awake in shock. He'd never been kissed by a woman before, even if it was just on the cheek. He wasn't sure how to react, so he remained still, and eventually sleep overtook him and he joined Arcadia in dreamland.

#dreyfus #dreyfus seven deadly sins #hendrickson #hendrickson seven deadly sins #seven deadly sins

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just-another-winchester · 6 years ago

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When In Rome (9)

Chapter 9 - The Last Straw

Pairing: Dean x wife reader

Word Count: 2182

Warnings: Angst, a bit of fluff

Summary: Dean notices changes in Y/N after she’s brought back to life, slowly realizing she isn’t the same woman he fell in love with and that she’s gone bad. Will he be able to save her? Or is she lost to him?

Feedback is amazing and makes me happy.

“Dean!” The eldest Winchester heard his brother call out his name, he opened his eyes to find Y/N missing yet again, had that been a dream as well?

“Dean wake up!” Sam’s voice was closer as Dean sat up in bed just in time to witness Sam run into the room, “Dean we have a problem.” He said,

“You’re telling me.” Dean muttered, “I was just happy and asleep with my wife beside me, and now I’m listening to you screaming.”

“No, Dean you don’t understand. I was just getting home and I ran into Y/N and Jack on their way out.” Sam began

“What’s wrong with that? She’s a responsible adult.” The man muttered

“She bumped into me and this fell out of her pocket,” Sam showed Dean the hex bag,

“A hex bag?” Dean questioned, earning a nod from his brother.

“That’s when Ruby stepped out,”

The expression on Dean’s face almost couldn’t be described, it was somewhere between shock, sleepiness, and pure rage.

“Ruby?” Dean demanded, suddenly very awake as he stood up,

“She took them, both of them. Dean, I hate to say it but… I think Y/n has been helping Ruby.” Sam said cautiously, “I don’t know why, or what for. But it might explain the hex bags, why she went missing, why she’s been different.”

Dean shook his head, “No… she’s different because she died, that’s weird Sam, it never happened to her, but she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t partner up with Ruby, she hates the bitch as much as we do.”

“Ruby never brought us back to life.” Sam reminded, “I was tricked by her Dean, you know that… I can understand how y/n would be.”

“Why?” Dean muttered, more rhetorical. He was confused, and angry, he didn’t want to believe that y/n would team up with Ruby.

“Dean,” Sam placed a hand on his shoulder, “We need to find her. Whatever is going on with y/n, Ruby has both of them.

Dean turned and looked his brother in the eye, nodding carefully.

“I’m gonna go see if I can track her cell.” Sam told his brother, walking away and leaving Dean to the empty room.

Dean stared at the belongings in front of him.

The vanity was littered with makeup and other girly items, his belt laid across it as well, on the back of the chair was his red flannel, a fun could be seen through the crack of a slightly open drawer.

He could feel anger rolling through him like a storm, in one quick motion he swiped everything off the area, yelling before he fell to his knees.

Could it be so? Is it possible that y/n would help Ruby? Put Jack in danger?

His mind went back to the last night he saw her, the memory of Ruby, of waking up in the alley, of the dead kid they found. What had happened?

He didn’t want to believe you would ever team up with the enemy, especially after everything Ruby had done, and he would pray if it meant you didn’t have anything to do with any of this, but something told him that Sam was right, something was hinky about it all.

All he could do was hope that he was wrong.

You paced back and forth, angry with yourself, with Sam, with Ruby, just angry in general.

“Would you sit still?” Ruby said with frustration,

“You ruined it!” You yelled at her, “Ruby they know now, they know what’s going on!”

“Maybe if you’t just put the hex bags under their pillows like you were supposed to we wouldn’t have been discovered so quickly!” Ruby fought back, “It doesn’t matter, we have Jack now we have to get things rolling. Come on, we have work to do.”

Ruby had zapped the three of you to an old hollowed out factory just a ways from the bunker, but in a very awkward spot.

The moment you had arrived she knocked Jack out with a blow to the head and used her magic to ward the closet door shut.

You nodded as you helped Ruby with the spell, it appeared to be older than the hills, you’d never seen a language like this, hell even Rowena might not know it. All you could focus on was the fact that you were a few minutes away from a monster free world, according to Ruby anyway.

You didn’t totally understand what was happening, part of you didn’t believe it, but you had to take this chance, the thought that you could rid the world of all supernatural evil with a few words of an ancient language… it was insane. And having Jack was just pure luck.

You tried not to think too much about the nephilim Ruby had shoved in the closet. Jack truly had been the closest thing you may ever have to a child, he was such a sweetheart, he always had been, truly a baby. A sweet, honest, loyal baby. Which seemed really weird but in all honesty it was amazing, you felt pride as you watched his happy face the moment he learned how to make a pencil float in the air, one of the best things was that he had allowed you to mother him.

But all of that, those memories, that was the past you, the one who hadn’t died, who had plenty left to live for. Dying had changed you, it made you recognize even more than this job of yours did, that life is so very precious.

Maybe destroying all the monsters would be a good change for the world, maybe it wouldn’t. You had no hope left, no tears to cry, no sorrows to feel. You were completely empty inside, all you wanted to do was get this over with so you could move on.

After this, Dean would never forgive you. You knew the man, he had a tendency to take betrayals hard, and for good reason of course, it sucks when someone you love betrays you. It wasn’t your intention to hurt him, but to help him. It ended up just making things worse.

One thing you did know, Dean was on his way, and you could only keep your fingers crossed that Ruby could speed things up and get finished before that happened.

Or you would have to fight the man you love.

“Are you sure?” Dean demanded as he drove the Impala down a dirt road surrounded by fields of corn.

“Yes Dean, it says her phone is down there, maybe there’s an old farmhouse or something, we have to try it.” Sam insisted as he kept reading off his phone, which was telling him where y/ns phone was.

“I don’t know,” The older brother muttered.

Sam remained silent as he looked over at his brother.

Sam had betrayed Dean once because he’d trusted Ruby more, and he knew that had hurt him. Now that the same thing was happening again, but with Dean’s own wife. He knew this had to be hard on his brother, but no… Dean remained stone cold as he drove Baby along the road.

He didn’t totally know what they would encounter. If y/n was working with Ruby what was it that they needed Jack for? Would they both be okay? There was just no way of knowing, and that was what irked him.

He knew y/n, they were the best of friends. When Dean was a demon, he’d been there for her, and she for him, they’d been each other’s strength, and because of that they both came through, and were better prepared to help Dean.

They’d hit rocky parts, when Sam and Dean were arguing, after Gadreel left Sam’s body, y/n refused to even speak with Sam. She’d been so furious for saying that Sam wouldn’t have saved Dean, it hurt her because it hurt Dean, but also because it made her feel alone. The idea that Sam wouldn’t help save him.

The two argue like brother and sister, not just because they were in laws, but because they’d been as close as brother and sister since the beginning.

His mind went to the day that Dean and y/n were married. It was beautiful, even though they didn’t have a wedding, both parties worked hard to make the other happy.

Since y/n didn’t have anyone in the vicinity that could be her maid of honor Cas took place, which had made her laugh so hard, she’d been so happy, and thanked Cas profusely for his sacrifice.

They still wore the tux, and the dress. He could remember the conversation with Dean in the other room.

“So, I look good huh?” The older brother said with a smirk, looking at himself in the mirror, swiping his hair back and forth.

“You’d look better if you would leave your hair alone.” Sam commented,

“I wanna look my best, this is a very important day.”

“Dean, you know by now that y/n wouldn’t care if you were wearing dirty torn up jeans and your old flannel. She said it herself, she’d marry you in a nightgown if she had too.” the young brother smiled.

He was so happy for his brother, and Dean was so proud, chest puffed out as he adjusted his bowtie.

“I don’t think I could get more ready.” He said, shaking his head with a chuckle. “We ready?”

Sam smiled at his brother, “Lemme go check on her first.” He said, leaving the room.

Dean was left by himself for a moment as he looked around the room, he’d been in shock. He couldn’t believe she’d actually said yes, that they were actually about to get married.

Sure it was just a piece of paper, but he knew that to her, it had been so much more. It made her feel proud and important, and he wanted to give y/n anything she may crave.

When Sam returned the two headed out to the judge, Sam waiting beside the groom as they waited for the bride and her angel of honor.

It didn’t take long for the two to walk in, y/n on Cas’s arm, a smile on her face as her fingers gripped his trench coat.

It was obvious how nervous she was. She smiles like crazy anytime she’s nervous, and the smile on her face was so wide that Sam might have thought she was the joker.

She really was as pretty as a picture, her smile wide, eyes bright with joy as she and Dean looked at one another.

You didn’t even need to guess what Dean was thinking, anyone could tell. You were gorgeous, and he really couldn’t believe this was really happening.

He was marrying the love of his life, his partner in crime, his best friend.

You’d done more for him than you ever knew, than you ever could know. Dean had been head over heels since the moment you met, and if someone had told him this was the outcome, he might have laughed, but now, he was completely lost, you were breathtaking, and you were his.

You almost ran into his arms, if you’d not been so on edge, Cas walked you to the man and you took Dean’s arm, looking up at him before promptly hiding your face in his arm, tears of joy escaping your eyes.

As you said your vows, placed the rings on each others finger, and said I do, all you could think was how happy you were.

When finally you were Mrs Winchester you sealed it with a kiss, the taller man leaning down to meet your lips.

You’d kissed him a hundred times or more, your relationship had lasted quite a while. Standing here, in this situation, being kissed by the man you were now married to… the feeling was just, so much… more.

When you parted you looked up at him, a smile on your lips as they parted.

Your life together was beginning again.

Dean shook Sam out of his thoughts, the memory now disappearing from his mind, which was disappointing. He only hoped Dean held onto the memory.

“Is this it?” His brother asked,

Sam looked up and spotted what looked like a large, old building. Possibly a factory of some sort, but according to his phone, that’s where y/n was, or her phone at least.

“Yep,” He sighed, not really wanting to do this. He was actually afraid of what he would find, he was dreading it. He knew neither of them wanted to deal with this, but they had to.

Dean pulled Baby up in the dirt right near the factory, parking her and pulling out the keys.

“We ready?” He asked, opening his door and beginning to climb out.

“No,” Sam said to himself as he got out.

That tiny wedding had been a fond memory for years…

Now it was time to find out what it cost them.

My Tag Lists are Wide Open!!!

Dream Team

@spn67-sister @queen-of-deans-booty@ria132love@winchestergeekfreak@maui137@katymacsupernatural@jayneysimp @emoryhemsworth @just-another-busy-fangirl@bunniesowlsandwhales @jensensjaredsandmishaslover@mogaruke @kristendanwayne@cassieraider@jensensjaredsandmishaslover@hms-fangirl@heyitscam99

Dean Team

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When In Rome

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dragon-ball-meta · 7 years ago

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There comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to do something they dread. For me, that’s typically addressing Dragon Ball articles written by ScreenRant. Bear in mind, this is super stupid. For the most part, I included the complaint’s title in the response, but you may need to click through to read the extent of the stupid. Except for #4, since that was a doozy. So without wasting any more of your dash space, here we go with a Read More and a LONG list of responses to utter stupidity.

Time for yet another long-winded reply to yet another clickbait article you guys crapped out about a series you clearly didn't even watch. 19. "THE TIME HE WAS INEXPLICABLY BEATEN BY KEFLA" I see you're ignoring three major factors. a. That Kefla is a Fusion of two female warriors. b. That Super Saiyan levels do not have inherent power levels, they're merely multipliers. So this scenario is still quite possible. c. That Goku, in this instance, was still half drained and recovering from his fight with Jiren. Hence why he wasn't even going all-out. Good golly, did you like, just not watch the ep and pick this one out of the YouTube Comment Section? Also, idk if you know, but.. he kinda does win this fight. 18. "HIS POWER LEVEL ALWAYS BEING HIGHER THAN VEGETA'S" (Yes. They actually tried to use THIS as a complaint.) Goku's power level was not 90K on Namek. He was holding BACK vs Captain Ginyu and his power level hit 180K. Secondly, Zenaki power boosts go proportionately to exactly how near death you were and how extensive the damage you healed from was. In Goku's case, his body not only suffered from having a foreign spirit in it, but was also once again crushed and mangled to the point of being inoperable. He healed from extensively far more damage than Vegeta did, hence his level being boosted to a higher degree. That's also not even factoring how much fighting Freeza pushed him, let alone the inherent boost that comes with unlocking that new form. But I do also note this website seemingly forgetting Vegeta once supposedly surpassed Goku because he got upset his waifu got smacked. Which actually IS an asspull but w/e. 17. "UNDERUTILIZING HIS SUPER SPEED" Goku uses his speed all the time. It was illustrated even back during the Saiyan Saga that even the human characters were fighting and moving at speeds so fast as to be almost imperceptible even to a trained warrior's eyes. They had to use their eyes in tandem with sensing the fighters to figure out what was happening. It's also why, in later fights, those who are stronger or more adept at sensing energies have to sort of play announcer to those who get lost. 16. "THAT TIME HE PASSED AWAY FROM HEART FAILURE" That... that was an alternate timeline and had nothing at all to do with ending the series. Goku contracted a heart disease in Future Trunks' timeline, Androids came and attacked, nearly wiped out the populace, Trunks came forward to prevent Goku's death in THIS timeline and also to hopefully get help in becoming stronger from him and his father, presumably then being able to save his own timeline as well. You are literally the sole person I have ever seen become confused by this. Again, I don't think you read or even watched this series, man. 15. "UNDERUTILZING HIS SOLAR FLARE" Solar Flare became increasingly less useful as the enemies it was being used ON either had a natural immunity to it or simply had the ability to sense ki and work around it, something not fully overcome until Krillin managed to amp it up so intensely as to dull even that sense. That said, it actually HAS been used, fairly effectively, in many fights, by Goku and others. So I'm not really sure how anything's been "forgotten". 14. "HE REGULARLY FORGETS HIS PHILOSOPHY OF ‘NEVER GIVING UP’" Goku... stood down once. One time. The actual hell are you talking about here? The SOLE time he chose to "give up" was vs Cell as he knew Cell was learning from him AND that he couldn't beat him. Their sole shot was in Gohan finally breaking through that all and ascending beyond a Super Saiayn. No other possible outcome. The only other thing you can accuse him of is holding back vs Buu, but that was both because he was stalling and using energy would reduce the time he could stay, and... well, because he was dead and gone, and felt it behooved him to teach new defenders rather than once again solve it himself and keep the Earth reliant on backup from a dead guy. But even then, Goku was guesstimating that he MIGHT have been able to win there. It's not a 100% guarantee. Also I believe the line you're quoting may be a dub-only line, which... would warrant many more paragraphs. 13. "CHILDHOOD GOKU KEPT GETTING SINGLED OUT FOR HAVING A TAIL" Goku was singled out over his tail because he was clearly a boy, yet also clearly had a monkey tail. Were he an anthro monkey, this would not phase people. That he was seemingly human, yet had this appendage, was odd and stood out. No, it was not an attempt to traumatize him as he thought everyone else was weird for not having one, and it didn't phase him one bit. Nor was the storyline about being a "Saiyan" even a concept at the time. You're way overthinking things to invent problems here. 12. "THE LACK OF PHYSICS REGARDING HIS HAIR" Wow, we're already scraping the barrel. This bodes well. His hair stays up when underwater when he has energy flowing up around him too, fyi. 11. "LEARNING MORE FROM KING KAI THAN ANYONE ELSE, DESPITE BEING THERE FOR THE SHORTEST AMOUNT OF TIME" Different. People. Have. Different. Degrees. Of. Potential. And. Skill. Goku's giftedness at being able to manipulate energy as well as the naturally higher healing factors and durability of the Saiyans.is what made him such a great candidate to learn the Kaio-ken and Spirit Bomb, and Goku's aptitiude at the former was only ever really met or matched by Krillin, who actually learned to form, aim, and throw the Spirit Bomb faster than even Goku did. So there's that. 10. "MASTERING ULTRA INSTINCT AFTER ONLY USING IT 3 TIMES" So again, you didn't watch the series, I see. Goku didn't "master" Ultra Instinct at all. He managed to fully tap into the completed form by being pushed far enough and finally taking Whis' instruction to heart, relying on instinct rather than overthinking, becoming one with his movements. BUT... it also kinda took a massive toll on his body, AND he has no idea how to even begin accessing it at will yet. So while that form may be called "Mastered" Ultra Instinct, Goku himself has not mastered it at all, by his own admission. 9. "THE TIME HE LET FRIEZA POWER BACK TO 100% RATHER THAN TAKING HIM OUT" You mean the time he declared he wanted to face Freeza at 100% of his power on an already-dying planet with no one really left to get hurt at a point when he was in a state of mind more savage than his normal self? How horrible. And no, he didn't kill him, and he explained why. NEITHER of these acts were acts of mercy, as this article claims, but of dominance. Humiliation and cruelty. Goku faced Freeza at the peak of his power, and overcame him so handily that killing him would have been almost pathetic. So he chose to let him live with the knowledge that a Saiyan, a Monkey, a being he viewed as lower than the dirt itself, had faced him at full power and deemed him not even worthy of the honor of a warrior's death. It was a sentence to live in shame. Not mercy. 8. "HIS FARMING SKILLS SERIOUSLY DECREASED AS HE AGED" Goku was literally doing manual labor to plow a field as part of Roshi's training vs actual farming done professionally with intent to sell his crops. You kinda need very straight rows to maximize your harvest. This is one of the dumbest complaints in here. 7. "GOKU HAS THE ABILITY TO DESTROY PLANETS, BUT NOT OPEN DOORS" I take it back, they actually dipped into the Legacy of Goku games for this one. It's called a Quest, my guy. Jeebus. 6. "THE TIME HE TELEPORTED HIMSELF AND AN EXPLODING CELL TO KING KAI'S PLANET" OK. Aside from Instant Transmission/Instantaneous Movement (as Goku knows it at least) requiring you to know where you're going OR have a Ki signal to lock onto (meaning no empty planets or random spots in Space), what "Conflict" did Goku start other than mild annoyance from King Kai and his pets as they were the only ones there? And even King Kai conceded he made the best call he could have given the circumstances. So... what? 5. "IGNORING THE PHYSICS OF SPACE" You are literally citing filler that actually makes logical sense in context with the rest of the series which shows that Saiyans can indeed survive for at least a time in Space, to say nothing of upper atmospheres. Lord. HOO boy, they're really picking #4 to get stupid on so Imma actually paste their entire thing before replying here. 4. "HIS HORRIBLE PARENTING TACTICS" "This is one nonsensical part of Goku that the show occasionally touches on, but not nearly enough. Goku is truly a horrible father to his son, Gohan. Not only is he never there for his wife and kid, but when he is there, it feels like he's always pitting his son against some super-powered adult who wants to punch the kid's teeth in." When? Piccolo's the one who forced the kid to fight the Saiyans. Gohan CHOSE to go to Namek, and Goku tried to keep him OUT of the fighting once he arrived. It was one of the chief reasons he was in such a hurry to get to Namek. When exactly was Goku tossing a small child in front of evil enemies? And again, stated for the hundredth time, Goku was there for his family far, FAR more often than when he was gone, and when he WAS, it was for good reason. "While Goku's reasoning is that he's just trying to train and prepare Gohan, the logic of it doesn't make much sense at all." How is training with your son not training your son? The first time Goku ever actively trained Gohan, or trained with him, was during the wait for the Androids, and it was for the very reason that he knew Gohan was actually dead in that other timeline. Best to have the boy able to defend himself as best he can. It also served as a bonding time between father and son. "At what point does Chi-Chi just leave with Gohan in order to keep their son safe from the dangerous whims of her husband? And at what point does Child Protective Services step in? While Goku isn't personally harming his child himself, he's almost always putting Gohan in mortal danger." Hold the hell up, when did Goku EVER hurt Gohan himself in any way other than training him? When? Piccolo hit that kid far, FAR more than Goku EVER did, yet y'all call him "Green Dad: or "Gohan's REAL Dad". If you're gonna make these dumbass comments, back 'em up. "During the Cell Games, even, Goku pitted his son against Cell, who is arguably stronger than Goku himself, and then gave Cell Senzu Beans to make him stronger. It's almost as if Goku hates being a father so much that he wants to end his son's life at any means necessary." ...Cell's not "arguably" stronger than Goku himself, he was. By a good bit. But so was Gohan. So much so that he knew that even though he was pushing himself, Gohan seemed to think his father was moving slowly and holding back because, as he sensed in the ROSAT (Time Chamber), Gohan had surpassed him and was nearly at the level of ascending beyond Super Saiyan. He just needed to push himself, get anrgy. So to facilitate this, thinking the adrenaline rush of a close fight would do it, and to psych Cell out, yes. He gave him a Senzu. And yes, he realized later he made a mistake... and he was actually willing to break the rules, take a Senzu himself, and go back in to try to save Gohan, to fight alongside him. I love how you all overlook that so much, to say nothing of the love and affection he OPENLY shows his boy throughout. GOD this is so hostile and stupid. 3. "HIS SHIP IS SOMEHOW USABLE, LONG AFTER IT WAS DESTROYED BY A SPECIAL BEAM CANNON" Number one? That's a filler moment. Never happens in the manga. Yes, filler created problems. Been saying it for years. Not a problem with the original story though. Number two? Even then they say Dr. Brief used the PIECES of Goku's pod to build that new ship. Specifically saying "It was in pretty rough shape, but he managed to use what he could salvage as a base". Non-issue. 2. "INEXPLICABLY SURVIVING A SPECIAL BEAM CANNON DRILLING THROUGH HIS CHEST" ... Literally HOW do you get this stupid? Literally how? Serious question, and the ultimate proof that you again neither ever watched nor read the series before making this list. Goku dies from that. Outright. He's wished back to life one year later with the Dragon Balls. This is not something left up to interpretation, or something that's debatable. It's a fact. Yikes, bro. 1. "HE IS GENERALLY WAY TOO OVERPOWERED" Ah yes, the generic "he's too strong and therefore boring" argument. Not sure why that's on this list but uh.. Goku's been in positions where weaker characters could indeed feasibly take him out. nothing nonsensical about it at all. Multiple times during the ToP, he was nearly bested by warriors technically weaker than himself who used tactics, strategy, to get the upper hand. It's not hard to do. Goku's not Silver Age Superman here, he does have limitations and weaknesses. This list was plain embarrassing, man. Seriously, at least Watch/Read Dragon Ball before doing articles on it. Just... seriously. CBR and SR need to find people who’ve actually done research about this instead of crapping it out.

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