#so this is probably getting into like the later part of the year when he's ready to invite people

[jinhyun]

—lost in translation.

pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader

genre: a little angst, fluff, best friend’s little brother au, friends to lovers, pininggggg, miscommunication (gone right?)

word count: 5.2k

summary: hyunjin needed answers and he needed them now. even if it meant showing up at your place late at night with a few drinks in his system, ready for things to go either terribly wrong or incredibly right.

warnings: miscommunication, mentions of alcohol and drinking

author’s note: hellooo, and thank you so much for being so patient<3 this is part 23 of my social media au “heart out”. part 24 will be written as well, so don’t worry if there were a few things left unsaid in this one lol. as always, i hope you guys enjoy! if you do, please don’t forget to leave an ask or a comment telling me your thoughts on it<3

Hyunjin was usually a very chill and spontaneous person. He did things when he felt like it, without really giving it much thought. If he wanted to do something and it felt right, then why would he hold back? He could always deal with the consequences of his own actions later.

When it came to you, however, he was the complete opposite.

Ever since he met you, he had been tiptoeing his way around your heart.

He wanted to do things right when it came to you, and, as a result, his interactions with you throughout the years tended to end up with him overthinking instead of doing.

Starting with him hiding his feelings and keeping his interactions with you to the minimum when he was still a high schooler, to him still hiding his feelings while trying to get closer to you when he entered university, to then still say nothing about them when you started dating Mingyu, up until now, that he finally got another shot at getting close to you, yet he still refused to confess his feelings until you were ready to hear it.

And that was the thing, if it were up to him and acting accordingly to how he felt in the moment, he would’ve confessed a long time ago — probably back in his first year of university, particularly when he found out you and Mingyu were dating and he felt like calling you up and letting it all out. But he wouldn’t, because although it would be a huge weight to get off his shoulders, he wouldn’t want you to deal with the burden of knowing he loved you when you didn’t love him back; not like that, at least.

He wouldn’t confess, because he didn’t want you to feel bad for not being there just yet, if ever.

He didn’t want to ruin what the two of you had because of a whim, and so he decided to deal with his feelings on his own. Until he knew for sure that you were ready to hear a confession from him, he wouldn’t say the words out loud to you.

Of course, that was up until this evening.

After coming to the conclusion that Dahye had followed her word and told you about his feelings for you, and having you distance yourself from him ever since, which could only mean you didn’t feel the same and were preparing to turn him down; and, furthermore, after hearing from Yeji that you wouldn’t mind going out with her twenty three year old coworker once you were ready to date again, there was no room in his head for him to think of the consequences of confessing to you anymore.

If you were turning him down anyway, if you were going out with someone else anyway… if he was losing you anyway, then what did he have to lose by finally letting you know how deeply he felt for you?

Maybe it was the alcohol he’d been consuming with his friends that night, or maybe it was just him simply not giving a fuck anymore — maybe both.

Whatever it was, it was giving him the final push he needed, for he was now standing outside your building, ignoring the freezing breeze of the night —as the black cotton sportswear he was wearing did little to nothing to keep him warm—, while he desperately texted you in hopes of you being awake and letting him come up, so you would finally get to talk and turn him down if that’s what you wanted to do in the end.

If you were turning him down at one point in the next two days, he would rather have you do it now.

He felt like he was going insane; like no matter what the outcome was, whether you turned him down or not, he would collapse if he didn’t get an answer within the next few minutes.

When you wouldn’t answer his texts and there were no signs of you being online, he decided to call you instead. He wasn’t giving up that easily that night, if at all.

It only took one missed call and ten more seconds waiting on the line for you to pick up.

“Hyunie?” Your sleepy yet worried voice was enough to quiet his running thoughts down. “Something happened? Are you alright?”

He stayed silent for a moment, staring up at your window.

“Hyunie?” You repeated. He heard you shift in your bed, and then he saw the light in your room turn on. “Are you there?”

“Can I come up?” He asked quietly.

Silence filled the line for a moment. “What?”

“I texted you… I think you didn’t see it” he explained. “I’m outside your building. Can I please come up? I know it’s late, but I need to talk to you now”.

“Y-Yeah… of course” you failed to hide how taken aback you were. “Help yourself in”.

“Okay…”

Hanging up, his eyes went to the front door to your building, and he suddenly felt the weight of what was about to come on his shoulders. But he was already here, and even if he turned around and went home instead, he knew he would not be able to sleep for the second night in a row as long as he didn’t clear things up with you.

He was already here and you were waiting for him upstairs, so he might as well rushed up to you.

-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-♡

Entering the passcode he knew by heart, he made his way into your place; taking off his shoes and putting on the slippers you kept by the door for your guests, which he knew were pretty much his by now.

As expected, all the lights were out except from the one in your bedroom, where he caught you coming out from.

He would never get tired of seeing you barefaced; and the slightly messy hair you were running your fingers through in a quick attempt to fix, along with the pastel pink silk pyjamas you were wearing, could only make him adore you even more. However, you looked tired, and he couldn’t help but feel bad for waking you up.

“Hey” he mumbled, suddenly feeling the madness inside his head calm down at the mere sight of you.

“Hey…” you softly greeted him back, leaning against your doorframe and resting your head on it. “Did something happen?”

He denied with his head, coming closer to you. “Just couldn’t wait anymore to talk to you, I’m sorry”.

“It’s okay,” you reassured him, slightly frowning when you got a closer look at him. “Have you been drinking?”

A small, surprised pout formed on his lips. What gave it away? His eyes? Was he reeking of alcohol? Or did you know him so well that a simple look at him was enough for you to tell when something was off?

“Just had a few drinks with the boys, it’s nothing” he brushed it off.

“You didn’t drive here, did you?”

“No, of course not” he was the one to frown this time. “I’m fine, though”.

You said nothing, but he caught the hesitation in your eyes.

“I’m fine, Y/N” he reassured you one last time. “I didn’t drink that much anyway”.

Just enough for his inhibitions to shut down; not enough not to realise what he was doing.

“Okay…” you decided to believe him.

With a light tilt of your head, you invited him into your room, where the lightning was better — although the dim light coming from the white lamp on your nightstand could only make him feel sleepier.

You sat down on the edge of your unmade bed, as you’d been sleeping up until he called you, and motioned for him to do the same. Once he did, silence was fast to take over.

“Um… I’m not—I wasn’t really prepared to talk about this now,” you messily tried to come up with the right way to approach the issue. “So I don’t know where to begin, if I’m honest…”

He understood what you were feeling perfectly. In all honesty, although he had come all the way over here to get the answer he so badly needed, he, too, didn’t know where to begin.

There was so much to say, so much to ask, so many ways to word his questions, that his mind went blank.

So, he said the first thing he could think of right then.

“Dahye told you, didn’t she?”

You looked distressed at the mention of her, and that was enough for him to get the answer he was dreading. “Sorry?”

“She talked to you?” He rephrased it.

“Mhm…” you nodded, looking down to your lap. “She did”.

“And is that why you’ve been so distant?” Hyunjin asked carefully.

You nodded again, silently. “I’m sorry, I just needed some time to think” your eyes went back up to lock with his. “How’d you know she talked to me?”

“She kinda threatened me with telling you, so…” he rolled his eyes.

“Oh… that’s…”

Crazy. She was crazy.

Hyunjin nodded, not needing to hear any words coming out of your mouth to understand what you wanted to say. “I know. I should learn not to underestimate her”.

“Yeah, I probably should, too…” you smiled weakly. “Good thing I realised something was off and didn’t believe her in the end”.

“Wait, what?” His eyebrows furrowed.

Something was off? You didn’t believe her?

“I didn’t believe her,” you repeated. “I was a bit shaken up at first, and that’s why I took some distance from you. I just needed to think about it with a cold head, but all along I didn’t want to believe it was true, so ultimately I didn’t. It didn’t sound like you at all”.

Was he tripping? Was he really way more drunk than he thought for your words to make no sense to him?

“You didn’t… want to?” Hyunjin’s heart ached, mostly hung up on those words of yours. “Would it be that bad if it was true?”

“Yes,” you replied in a heartbeat. “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t be able to let myself fall for you if that was the case, Hyunjin”.

I wouldn’t be able to let myself fall for you if Dahye will always be there and I knew you’d go back to her whenever you get tired of me; is what you meant.

It would be bad if it was true that you’re in love with me, because I wouldn’t be able to let myself fall for you and ever love you back; is what he heard.

Just like that, for the fourth time in his life, once again because of you, his heart broke.

Although he’d come here knowing well enough that getting turned down by you was a very high possibility, actually hearing you so tactlessly say those words to him right then, and getting every chance of ever being with you crushed into pieces just like that, had his heart hurting in a way it had never before.

Feeling physically ill and finding it hard to breathe, he stood up, pacing around your room for a few seconds before he looked for support on the wall by leaning his back on it.

This might’ve been his worst heartbreak yet, for unlike the previous times, he’d let himself be led on. This time, he really thought that there was something going on between the two of you. All the reciprocated flirting and touches… had it all been him? Did you really not realise what you’d been doing to him all along?

“Hyunie…” you whispered, feeling your own heart break at the sight of him and going up to him, unable to give into your own sorrow as he seemed to have just confirmed that what Dahye told you was indeed true.

He closed his eyes as he tilted his head up to keep the tears from coming out of them.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

He defeatedly shook his head when you placed your hand on his shoulder, rubbing his hands on his eyes to wipe the oncoming tears before he tried to walk away. “I’m sorry, this wasn’t a good—I can’t, I should leave” he apologised.

“So it’s true then?” You asked, grabbing his wrist for him to stay.

He shook his head no, and for just a moment there you felt relief, before he finally turned around and looked at you with reddened eyes. “Of course it’s true” his bottom lip trembled. “Why wouldn’t it be? Did I really get it all wrong?”

Your eyebrows knitted together, understanding this entire situation less and less by the second. “Get what wrong?”

“This,” he repeatedly pointed his finger from you to him. “Us. Whatever it is that I thought was going on between us”.

“Hyunjin…”

“I knew I was getting my hopes up too fast, but I thought,” he paused for a moment, shaking his head in disbelief over his own delusions. “All this time I thought what kept holding you back was our age gap, but turns out the problem was never my age, but me”.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’d be willing to go out with that one other guy who’s also my age, so it was clearly never the problem”.

“What guy?”

“You know what guy”.

“Felix?” You pinpointed, not really knowing any other guys his age. Not like you particularly knew Felix either anyway. “I’m not going out with him”.

“You said you wouldn’t mind him being twenty three, though”.

“Because I don’t care about age, not because I want to date him” you tried to defend yourself. “Weren’t you the one who told me to consider dating younger guys?”

“Exactly, I told you that. Me. I said it so you would at some point consider me, not so you would start looking at other guys my age” he clarified.

“Hyunjin, I’m not—Why does age suddenly matter so much to you?”

“Because if you’re willing to date a guy who’s three years younger than you, then why can’t it be me?!”

You froze.

During all the years you had known him, you had never seen him lose his temper. He was always calm, rational. Had he ever even raised his voice in your presence other than when he got excited about something?

This was a side of him you’d never seen before, and it broke you.

Seeing him look so hopeless and sound so defeated right then, made you feel like holding him and never let go of him.

Things were moving too fast, though, and when you wanted to reach for his face and wipe the tear that had just rolled down one of his cheeks, he beat you to it; harshly wiping his face with his hands, as he refused to look away from you.

“All this time I’ve done nothing but pour my heart out to you. I’m so… so fucking in love with you it hurts me, Y/N. There are times when it physically pains me to love you this much,” he confessed.

Right now, it was one of those times.

“I’ve done everything in my hands for you to stop seeing me like the teenage boy you met back then, for you to stop seeing me just like Yeji’s little brother, and I know you’re not ready for a relationship yet, but I was willing to wait for as long as you needed me to until you were, because I was delusional enough to believe that I could actually make you fall for me” a breathless, humorless laugh abandoned his lips. “And now it turns out you just won’t ever feel the way I feel for you, and this guy shows up out of nowhere and gets everything I’ve tried to get from you right away without even moving a finger, and I just… I don’t know where to go from here”.

Your heart squeezed inside your chest.

Of all the things you were expecting as the outcome of your talk, a confession wasn’t one of them. Not this kind of confession, at least.

You were speechless. Not only did you not know what to say, but even if you did, you were sure your voice would betray you by not coming out when you opened your mouth.

Hyunjin loved you.

It wasn’t just a crush like you thought. It wasn’t him looking for something casual like you feared. No, he loved you. He was serious about you.

Why did you feel so happy yet so afraid about his feelings for you being so strong?

He took a step towards you, and you felt your heartbeat raise when his face was only a couple of inches away from yours and his breathing began to mix with yours.

“I don’t wanna give up on you, Y/N, I don’t. But I just don’t kn—What do I have to do for you to consider me?” He asked, pulling you closer by your waist. “What does he have that I don’t?”

“I’m not going out with him, Hyunjin” you repeated in a whisper, hoping this time he would believe you.

Whether he believed you or not, he leaned in closer, faintly brushing his nose with yours. “What do I have to do for you to give me a chance then?”

“Hyun…”

“I’ll do anything,” he said, cupping your face and making you lock eyes with him. “Just tell me what and I’ll do it”.

You slowly shook your head no, unable to get any kind of word out of your mouth. Was it not obvious enough already that you did feel something for him? Had the way you talked to him and how you acted around him not been enough for him to get that you liked him as something more than just a friend? As way more than just your best friend’s brother?

You couldn’t find the right words to tell him that. The only thing you could do was to stare into his eyes, and then down into his lips, feeling the tension between the two of you grow by the second.

Hyunjin caught up on that immediately, leaning closer, so he could brush his mouth on yours for a second, before he closed the gap that kept them from touching.

Only you beat him to it.

Had you waited one more second, he would’ve been the one to press his lips on yours.

But you did not.

Instead, you were the one to press your mouth on his.

You were the one to kiss him first.

You were kissing him.

And he froze.

His right hand was still cupping your face, his left one remained on your waist, and his eyes had naturally closed the moment he felt the heavenly pressure of your lips on his. But he froze nevertheless.

For the first few seconds, he was too stunned, too overwhelmed —in the best way possible— to even react. And, unfortunately, a few seconds was all the kiss lasted; for he missed your touch right when he was about to kiss you back.

“I’m sorry” you apologised right as you pulled away and covered your mouth with your hands, as if only then coming to your senses. “Hyunie, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t—”

That was as much as you got to say, for in a second he had already removed your hands from your mouth and replaced them with his lips.

You’d be damned if you thought you could get away with letting him get a taste of your lips only to deprive him of you all over again.

You kissed him back right away, going against your poorly attempted apology, and driving him crazy when you wrapped your arms over his shoulders. His hands that had been previously cupping your face were now on your waist, pulling you closer to his body as he tried to feel you as close to him as he could.

He kissed you like he needed you, like he’d been deprived of you for decades and was only now allowed to get a taste of you; and yet, he managed to be so gentle that you were left craving more by the second, whilst wanting him to kiss you just like that for a little longer.

After all, you didn’t know he had been dreaming of this moment for nearly seven years now.

Just like you, he, too, started wanting more. Pulling your hips harder against his and getting a small gasp of yours to part your lips, he took the chance to delve his tongue in your mouth — unable to keep the corners of his lips from curving slightly up when he felt your tongue massage his right back.

With your breathings becoming heavier, and without even dreaming of letting go of your lips just yet, Hyunjin made you take a couple of steps back, until your legs reached your bed and you instinctively sat down on it, allowing him to lean over you as he followed your mouth.

“You’re drunk…” you managed to whisper, right after you laid back on the mattress and his mouth sucked on your bottom lip once more.

“I’m fine, I’m fin—I’m perfect” he whispered in between kisses.

He was perfect. Being with you like this, with him hovering over you while your fingers gently dug into his hair and your mouths so deliciously sucked on each other, he could not be anything other than perfect.

Kissing you felt like a dream, and a part of him was afraid that it was one.

“No, Hyunjin…” you mumbled, only a couple of seconds later. “We shouldn’t be doing this…”

“Why not?” He asked, pulling slightly away from you — not enough for your lips to stop brushing.

“I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship right now” you confessed what his sister had told him earlier that night and, therefore, what he already knew. “I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have kissed you”.

“No, don’t be sorry for kissing me. Anything but that, Y/N. You have no idea how bad I’ve wanted to kiss you all this time” he tenderly ran his thumb up and down on your cheekbone. “I can wait until you’re ready. Starting tomorrow morning I’ll wait all you need me to, but right now just… let me kiss you for a little longer”.

Having him whisper those words when his mouth was faintly touching yours, could only make you feel yourself give in to his plea.

“Hm?” He asked, tracing your bottom lip with his thumb. “One more and I’ll stop”.

Unable to speak, as it seemed to be the norm that night, you closed your eyes; and that was enough for him to take the hint and replace the thumb on your bottom lip with his mouth, sweetly sucking on it before he softly traced it with his tongue, for you to let him in and meet him midway.

The desperation of your second kiss was no longer there, as he now took his time to engrave in his memory every single second of your mouth sucking on his and your tongue massaging his own. He didn’t know when he would ever get to kiss you again, after all, and he wanted to take in as much as he could of it.

He wanted to take his time now; and kiss you slowly, deeply, lovingly.

When you were both left panting for air, he rested his forehead on yours, cupping your nape with his hand and digging his fingers in your hair before he hid his face in the crook of your neck, as a breathy laugh abandoned his mouth.

“You’re driving me crazy” he confessed.

“I should be the one saying that,” you chuckled rather sadly. “I don’t know what you’re doing to me anymore, Hyunjin…”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re confusing me so much right now. You say you love me and you make me feel so special, but then you go and…” you sighed, feeling him slowly withdraw his face from your neck as he tried to understand your point. “I wish it was that easy, but I can’t let myself fall for you now that I know what Dahye said is true”.

“I swear you’re making me question how much I actually drank, because that doesn’t make any sense and—You can’t do this to me, Y/N” his piercing eyes fixed on yours, and the way his voice sounded so calm now could only make your body tense up under him. “You can’t just kiss me and then tell me that…” he sighed, attempting to collect his thoughts. “If you don’t feel ready for a relationship I get it, and I’ll wait. I’ll wait for as long as you need me to, baby, that’s never been a problem. But you can’t just tell me that you’ll never love me back and then kiss me only to turn m—”

“When did I ever say I’d never love you back?” You questioned.

“When we were talking earlier?” He tilted his head in confusion. “I asked you if it would be so bad if what Dahye told you was true and you said yes”.

“Yes,” you agreed. “Because I can’t put myself through the hell your messy relationship with her would bring me”.

His eyebrows knitted together. “What messy relationship?”

“You know…” you avoided his eyes, only then being hit with how much the thought of him with someone else actually affected you. “This whole ‘fuck buddies’ thing and you going back to her no matter who you are with”.

“That’s ridiculous” he blurted out, almost offended that such an atrocity had just left your mouth. “Where did you even get that from?”

“That’s what Dahye told me” you said.

“That’s what…” the puzzle pieces finally connected in his head. “Is that why you said you wouldn’t be able to fall for me?”

“Yes?” You tilted your head questioningly. “Isn’t that what we were talking about all along?”

He should be mad at Dahye right then. He should want to scream at her for playing with the two of you like this.

Any other time, he would’ve been fuming. Right then, however, with your troubled expression as you didn’t get what was going on, with your pretty lips all swollen from how hard he’d been kissing you up until a minute ago, and having experienced such a wide range of emotions in a matter of minutes, he could only laugh.

Tilting his head back and letting a throaty laugh escape his mouth, he slumped back next to you on your mattress and covered his face with both hands, as he let his laughter take over him.

Nervousness, madness, embarrassment, relief, happiness; it was all mixed up into one loud, painful laughing fit.

He felt like a maniac, feeling you stare at him in worry and obliviousness, but he couldn’t find it in him to stop laughing.

“What’s so funny?” You wondered when he struggled to catch his breath.

“She lied” he explained, finally feeling like his laughter was coming to an end.

“She lied?”

“She lied” he confirmed, removing his hands from his face and wiping a couple of tears off his eyes before he locked them with you. “I don’t like her at all, Y/N. We hardly ever even talk, why would I—” he took in a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling as he felt like he was going crazy. “Can’t believe I cried for nothing”.

You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your mouth, both over his last remark and over how relieved you felt to know it was all a misunderstanding, and that you had been right not to believe her in the first place.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough” you pouted, gently cupping his face when he turned to you.

He shook his head no, letting you know it was okay as he placed his hand on yours. “I didn’t specify either, so I was at fault, too” he smiled softly. “And we probably wouldn’t have ended up kissing if I hadn’t gotten so heated up anyway, so it was totally worth it”.

“You’re an idiot” you laughed once again, smiling when he leaned in and rested his forehead on yours.

“You still kissed me, though” he pointed out, bringing some heat to your cheeks. “Does that mean I actually have a chance now?”

“Was me kissing you not a good enough answer to that?”

“Kisses can mean nothing to some people, so…”

“I’m not one of those people, Hyunie” you let him know.

“Good,” he smiled, pulling you to his chest. “Because kissing you meant everything to me”.

You wrapped an arm around him, nuzzling the fabric of the black sweatshirt he was wearing and taking in his scent you loved so much.

“Shouldn’t we properly talk about what Dahye told us?” You mumbled.

“That, and about where we’re standing now, too” he agreed, sweetly tracing his fingertips up and down your back. “My head hurts now, though. I feel like I’m spiraling, I went through too many emotions in too little time”.

You giggled, looking up at him. “You want to continue this conversation tomorrow? When we’re both a little less overwhelmed?”

“Yeah…” he nodded. “I can sleep peacefully now that I know you feel something for me, too”.

You chuckled, making his bottom lip stick out in confusion when you pulled away from him and sat up on your bed. “It’s late, you can sleep here tonight. I’ll take the couch”.

He grabbed your wrist before you could get up. “Stay with me?”

“Hyun…” you hesitated.

“I won’t try anything, I promise” he was fast to say, well aware of where your hesitation was coming from. “Just need to feel you close tonight”.

If he was honest, any other time, he would’ve offered to take the couch and that would’ve been the end of it, but tonight he really needed your closeness. He needed to know you were there, to feel you next to him. And, thankfully for him, you needed just the same.

Silently motioning for him to get under the covers, you let him know you agreed to his request. He smiled widely, pressing a lingering kiss to your cheek before he did as told — making you laugh wholeheartedly when you got under the sheets as well and he wasted no time to pull you to his chest again and to tuck you in with him.

This entire day had been a mess. Hell, the whole fucking week had been unbearable. But you had been able to talk it out at last. Although messily, you now seemed to be on the same page about everything; from your feelings, to what you were looking for, to where the whole misunderstanding had originated.

This may not have been the conversation the two of you were expecting to have, but it was coming soon enough. Tonight, you could just go to sleep in each other’s arms, knowing what each other’s lips felt and tasted like, and with the certainty that your feelings were reciprocated.

Neither of you would have it any other way.

tag list: @jehhskz @iknowyouknowminho @doohnut @saintcosette @lailac13 @kayleefriedchicken @rikibun @yongbokkiesworld @seungzsmin @beautifulcolorgarden @hyunetopia @velvetmoonlght @automaticpersonabatpaper @httpdwaekki @brinnalaine @wondering-out-loud @feelikecinderella @nujeskz @amarecerasus @liknws @nhyunn @midsoulz @tirena1 @tinyelfperson @thatonexcgirl @iovecb97 @hynier @phenomenalgirl9 @your-favorite-pirate @jin-from-the-block @yearofthetiger25 @quokkacidal @stayconnecteed @kwanisms @yoonguurt @143hyunes @iiriam @cookielixie @hyunlvrs @allyrarara @machaandlofi @mehli-00 @justiceforvillains @minhosprettywife @whats-my-question @armystay89 @jaiuneamesolitaiire @hyeon-yi @skzstannie @onlyhyunjin

[yanderelovebites]

Back with batsis stuff and kinda wanna do the whole isekai thing. Have reader meet their end somehow and wake up in a fanfic that was never finished of a neglected batsis. Have them wake up at the incident that made them get sent over to Bruce.

Have the original girl’s memories and knowing already they didn’t like her, didn’t want her, etc. she decided to just live for herself and future. Girlie went with her father who gave her that initial attention but after that she was taken to her room. She’s six. Have her give that grieving period of two weeks where she just got used to the room and the manor before she started asking for things. It’ll be probably one form of martial arts and later on probably also either music or dance. When she isn’t doing either of those things she sketching in her book and she’s actually really good.

Have her be closest with Alfred but still keep a certain wall up against him just like the others. Have her be a few months older than Damian and Damian isn’t quite in the picture yet. She ignores when the others are in the house despite being a part of said home. She only looks for her father for school needs and while still keeping her distance will set birth cards and Father’s Day cards on his desk in the study. She never hands them to him so she doesn’t know what he does with them nor does she care.

If the character she is reborn as is meant to be neglected, why should she bother trying to reach out?

She eventually had no choice but to meet Jason because he was there… they didn’t know how to explain to her why red hood is there. She simply said “Hello, I would chat but I have Jujitsu in 20 so I have to leave. Nice meeting you.” It was concerning how she brushed it off. Of course she realizes after ‘oh none of them would know I know… nah I’ll just continue on. Who knows, it might bother them!’

By the time Damian gets there, she’s been through karate, jujitsu, and only a year of Taekwondo while also taking dancing/music lessons. She has won art competitions but only Alfred has ever seen or heard. Bruce may have heard but he barely listened to the announcement of it. He knows from a portrait she was forced to sit for with Bruce, Tim, and Dick, she exists. Yet, it takes a week for him to ever see her.

He asks questions like in the original, but what batsis reader doesn’t understand is she changed how Damian sees her since she wasn’t immediately clingy to anyone. Dick TRIES to remember anything and realizes he doesn’t really know her. Tim can’t really tell him anything either other than medical records in case anything happens. Literally all Tim gave Damian was that Damian and batsis have the say blood type. They realize they really don’t know batsis which does unnerve them. All they can say is she stays to herself. That both irritates Damian and intrigued him. He tries Alfred next who is able to at least tell him what she does routinely at least. How she’s been in martial arts after her first two weeks living here, implied she was grieving, and she’s also been in music/dance lessons as well. Also explains she enjoys participating in art contests. He goes on about her being an A+ student and explains she doesn’t interact much with the rest of the family. He even says “To be honest, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one she talks to in any capacity that isn’t out of necessity.”

Jason pretty much only knew about one of the martial arts being jujitsu. He explains she didn’t seem phased that red hood had entered her home and that she didn’t know about the Batman secret.

He doesn’t immediately approach her either. He doesn’t have all the information he needs. All he knows is she’s his half sibling, her usual activities, at least one of the forms of martial arts she knows, and that otherwise she’s a bit of a mystery. Eventually they’re forced to eat at a family dinner together. Since it really bothered Dick that he didn’t know anything he starts asking her about school. No one ever asked her questions, half the time they act like she isn’t there, so she’s confused, but politely says it’s been fine. Talks briefly about her classes, the mention of what classes she’s currently taking makes Tim and Dick shocked. For Tim it’s simply the fact that *she* was taking them and for Dick it’s the fact someone her age was taking such advance classes. Tim coughed and asked her what she did after school on Friday, mostly to hear anything else and she’s like “Oh just another art competition. I placed first with my painting.” She says and continues eating.

Bruce honestly is trying to process what he heard and saw and Damian treats it as a way to analyze her. The way she eats, the way she talks, her posture, and of course the tiny bits the boys were getting out. She then says “I’m sure Alfred has already told you about that, however, right father?” He coughs for a moment and nods as to hide the fact he himself has been caught off guard. For Damian she isn’t like a role model for what he’s grown up with, it’s more she’s a role model for what a Wayne is. She’s perfect in all things you’d expect the public to see a Wayne for. Knows arts, has some martial arts background, and has a certain air of modesty yet wealthy around her.

This attention to her is still brief at this time for Tim, Dick, and Bruce. They ask if she’s met Damian and she says “Not really, at best some glances. I’m always moving after all.” That dinner felt awkward, but Damian decided she wasn’t Particularly a threat…

And by all things holy it annoys the crap out of Tim. He actually tries to speak to her—which she is cautious at first because she knows what he did to the original Batsis. Instead of drawing his sword on her, he asked about her martial arts since that’s really all he can… talk about with her… and the part that annoys Tim on it… is simply he won’t shut up about her-

And he thought when Damian called himself the blood son was annoying! Now it’s ’blood sibling’ this and that if bringing her up in conversation occurs. It’s clear he respects her in such annoying ways.

I just imagine the Yandere Batfam doesn’t all happen at once. It starts with Damian. You don’t see it at first because you blame his upbringing. He’s stuck to your side during banquets as much as he despises them. He mirrors some of your ‘mask’ etiquette in that all the Wayne’s have an image. You kept yours on as rock solid as possible, you are not the same person. He can tell you must have some inspiration from your father as yours is a rather innocent persona. You act like a social butterfly amongst the people and seem so damn sweet. He just doesn’t like how many eyes are on you. You acted like you couldn’t feel it, but it’s hard to ignore Damian. In fact, it accidentally wentinti his persona as people saw him as a clingy little brother to his slightly older sister. That it just made ‘sense’ since you two are so close in age.

Damian would just get worse as time went on. It’s get to the point you realize he isn’t faking or anything he actually just likes you. Then you get kidnapped.

I imagine no one but Alfred and Damian realize something is wrong. He’s the reason they find you and he nearly kills the guy who kidnapped you. Of course it’s not like you just let them take you, there was evidence even before they were brought to an inch of their life. You hadn’t made it easy and they could tell you had injured them beforehand. However they had broken your legs and that’s when I’d get worse for Damian and start in Bruce.

I might add more thoughts later I dunno it’s kind of an idea dump

[chaoticwriting]

GOTHAM'S NEW ROGUE 4

Part 3

Danny looks at the guy skeptically. Last time someone approached him, they were Red Robin, Spoiler and Signal. This time, a dude that looks like an average office worker approaches him.

Trickster: Sure, why not?

???: Thank you.

Trickster: So, what do you want with me?

???: Let me introduce myself first. I am Clark Kent. A journalist from the Daily Planet. I would like to ask, is it true that you know Batman's secret identity?

Trickster: You mean those pictures I stole from his wallet? Yeah sure. Why do you wanna know?

Clark: As you know, I am a journalist. And it is our job to find out about news and share it with the general public. I am just thinking, what would you like to exchange for the real identity of Batman.

Trickster: Hmmm..... What price huh? Let me think for a moment.

Danny then continues to eat his food as he pretends to think about Clark's offer. Honestly, he doesn't give a damn about this Clark guy. He is also a vigilante once, so he knows the importance of their secret identities. While slurping away his last coke, Danny gains a very good idea (He thinks it is a good idea).

Trickster: Well, I don't think I would sell the pictures just yet since the card is still useful and I don't need money. However, I have a very interesting topic you can investigate.

Clark: Oh? What is it?

Trickster: Try searching for something called GIW. It is a government branch and I'm sure it will be a hit piece.

Clark: GIW? What is that?

Trickster: Well that's for you to figure out. Oh well. I'm pretty full now. Gotta go now. See you never.

Danny then disappears right in front of Clark before he can do anything. Clark can't even hear or see the kid anymore with his enhanced sense and x-ray vision further cementing that the kid probably has teleportation power.

Danny meanwhile is laying on his makeshift bed while watching the stars after he uses his power to clear the sky thinking what he just did is very smart. Unfortunately, he doesn't know this decision is as good as the previous time he thinks his idea is good.

-1 month later-

Danny is picking up scraps from the junkyard for his next prank. Collecting some toasters, some blenders and even some radios. Danny has spent a lot of time these past few months, tinkering with machines that he practically knows what component is in which appliances.

Suddenly, he sees a very familiar device among the junk. A sleek silver gun with a few green buttons on it. It doesn't have the usual designs that Danny used to see but Danny knows without a doubt in his mind that it is an ecto gun.

The problem is that, the gun is new. Very new. Like it is just created. And that means one thing. A GIW agent is here. Shit! Danny needs to run. But where? He has checked before this but the only place with enough ectoplasm to hide him is either Gotham or Amity Park. No where else in the world has as much ambience ectoplasm to hide him from the ecto detector.

But now that they are in Gotham, he might as well not hide since at such close proximity, the ambient ectoplasm can only hide him if they are not close. Danny is thinking very hard when his ears pick up something. A group of people is coming his way, and from the way they are all carrying heavy devices, they are probably GIW agents.

Danny against his better judgement turns invisible and flies high enough so that if the agents decide to shoot him, he will have time to dodge them. Danny watches quietly as the ecto detector bips faster and faster the more they go to where he is previously.

???: Damn it. I thought this is where Trickster is. But it's just the gun that you lost.

???: Hey, at least we don't need to file reports of missing weapons right? Also, didn't that thing already get set up by the Fentons to find Trickster?

???: It's probably them messing it up. It's not like them messing shit up is something new anyway.

???: Yeah. Let's just say it is a false alarm. I hear the higher ups are thinking of lowering our budgets next year if we don't produce any results soon.

???: Ugghh, don't remind me of that. Not only do they pressure us like that. I even heard that there is some guy that has been snooping around our base, taking pictures and stuff.

???: I hate those reporters. We are trying to do our job and save them from those savages, and yet here they are messing with us. Calling us genocidal maniacs and the second coming of Nazis.

???: If that is not bad enough, they even say that they feel like we should treat the ghost as if they are people. Ghosts are not people! They are merely beast pretending to be someone we used to know and love.

???: I would love to just punch those reporters to the face if not for the fact that Boss ordered us to stay put.

Suddenly their walky talky start to beep.

Walkie-talkie: Agent P, Agent Q. Return to the base of operation immediately. We are receiving visits from the higher ups.

Both of the agents reply with Roger and hurriedly run towards their van and drive off somewhere. Danny looks at them and decides, he has found what his next prank is going to be.

[thisisntmyrightera]

Park SungHoon Head Cannons x Fem Reader

Pairing: Park SungHoon x Fem Reader

Headcannons about your relationship with SungHoon. Type: Fluff, some Angst Beware: Messages of hate, racism, sexism.

Note: I wanted to do something different and since I couldn't find anything about Park Sunghoon anywhere, I decided to bring something to the lovers of this great actor. It had been on my mind for a long time and I had to express it. I hope you like it.

-SungHoon and you met back in March 2023 when you were both recruited for the cast of Squid Game 2, with you being the foreign addition of the season

-As soon as you met, his kindness and tenderness resonated a lot with you, you were used to only knowing his roles but meeting him in person surprised you, he was a totally different person than usual.

-He, on the other hand, didn't last a single second without getting to know you before he was enchanted by your beauty. You seemed so delicate and different from what he was normally used to that he couldn't get you out of his head. As soon as he had the chance, he approached you and introduced himself, and quickly you both became good friends. Your first friend from the cast.

-A couple of weeks later, he invited you to eat at a place that wasn't fancy. In fact, he surprised you when he asked you to dress comfortably, something not at all formal. You both wore sweatpants, baggy sweatshirts, and caps. The date took place at a local gimbap restaurant, his favorite, which you loved as soon as you tried the first bite.

-The date was unique, like none you had had in years. There were no prejudices or anything false to impress. No one approached to bother you or you felt pressure around you to run away. On the contrary, everything around you was calm and the conversation you both had flowed as naturally as if you had known each other for years.

-Your friends (who you've told absolutely everything to) were initially hesitant about your relationship, he was much older than you, almost 40 and it could be harmful, but when he was with you he seemed like nothing more than a teenage boy in love, giggling and blushing, something about him made you feel like he was the one, but no one made the first move… or so you thought.

-The second date was shortly after, this time at your apartment, you both wore comfortable clothes again, ate instant ramen and fried chicken that he brought from his favorite restaurant, even though they had a movie on Netflix in the background neither of you paid attention, again you spent hours chatting laughing at stories and telling anecdotes.

-It was almost in October when during a walk along the banks of the Han River he took your hand, you didn't even notice, everything was so natural as if both of you were made for each other that his hand simply became part of yours

"I'm cold" you told him trembling with your cheeks blushing a little from the cold autumn wind, he didn't mention anything, he just smiled surrounding you with his arms while both of you leaned on each other looking at the river current

-In November, one of his best friends was getting married and he didn't miss the opportunity to invite you, he didn't spare his feelings either when he entered taking your hand, greeting his acquaintances and introducing you as his girlfriend, it was the moment when someone took a photograph which quickly traveled through the networks divulging your relationship

-Your name and his were everywhere, some portals referring to you as "the girlfriend" not even bothering to publish your name, many fans and followers began to share messages misogynists and racists against you.

''She's probably an easy one, she's a foreigner that's why they come to our country''

''She should have slept with him, aish she looks so fake''

''I don't understand why they keep bringing foreign celebrities to our country, now she'll dirty their legacy''

-Message after message made your heart ache, you spent hours crying and feeling like you weren't enough, to the point of asking him not to contact you anymore so as not to ruin his career, he had enough dramas in his life being hated for his controversial roles and now you would cause him more problems

-This only lasted a couple of weeks, one day he came to your door knocking with a small bouquet of flowers, subtle but with your favorite flowers, it was impossible not to let him in with his kind and warm smile, after talking for hours where he comforted you and apologized for not acting quickly against all the people who hurt you he took out of his pocket a small box, it was white and inside it two rings, one thicker than the other which made you overthink and panic a little making him laugh at your innocence.

''These are promise rings, I'll wear this one and you'll wear this one, we'll always wear these rings, no matter where we go we'll always wear them and when people see them they'll know that you and I have something that they can't break, because we've promised to love each other''

-From that day on, wherever you went, you always wore your ring on your left hand, which fans were quick to compare and realize that you and SungHoon shared the same design and quickly began to demand answers.

-For the fans it was something sick, despite being far past the age of majority, you still looked young and this made you earn roles as a student or teenager in popular kdramas, while he continued to receive the hatred of the public by playing mature villains without scruples, how could a sweet teenager have a relationship with a mature man, it was unforgivable.

-Despite this, there were thousands of people who loved both of you and respected your privacy, who supported you in your work and understood that you were both adults with your own decisions, that made you feel better and motivated you to move forward every day.

-His favorite dates were still at home, either at yours or his, they were always dates to eat fast food or recipes that he prepared to introduce you to Korean cuisine, then they watched movies until both of them fell asleep, almost always you sitting on his lap asleep on his shoulder.

-The next day you woke up in his bed or yours and he slept next to you always taking the necessary distance so as not to bother you or inconvenience you, but that didn't last long, as soon as you woke up you climbed on top of him hugging him to sleep some more time.

-A couple of months later both of you began to have more serious talks, would you sell your apartment or his? or would you both sell and buy a better one?, would you like to get married?, have children?, how would we work when the children were born?, talks that didn't sound uncomfortable at all, on the contrary it was comforting to know that you had a responsible and dedicated man at your side.

-At the beginning of 2024, both decided to sell both apartments and buy a better one, with enough space, which they decorated in neutral colors, which they inaugurated by inviting both their families to dinner, both cultures came together to welcome a new family which announced that their future plans included getting married.

-The families of both could not be happier than ever, your mother loved him like a son and his mother hugged you and squeezed your cheeks whenever she saw you, you were the girl she always wanted to have.

-In June 2024 while you were working on a series where you finally played a more mature girl than your previous characters, you felt a strong pain in your stomach, something like a colic and then you vomited the coffee and breakfast you had eaten before.

-They quickly took you to the hospital, everyone feared that you had suffered some kind of intoxication or poisoning, but everything was fine, your blood was clean in almost all the tests until you got to the bottom of the exam

-"Congratulations, you're pregnant" the doctor told you smiling while you looked at him in shock without knowing what was happening, you clearly knew what had happened, you were both already a formal couple and had thousands of plans for the future, but you had forgotten one thing in particular, to take care of yourselves when having sex.

-That night you told him, both of you sitting on the couch where many other nights you had had dates (and possibly where you had also gotten pregnant) he seemed worried at first, but when he realized he was very happy, he was going to be a father, he was going to have a little being with the woman he loved and it had been created by the love you both felt

-You cried at first, you were scared but as soon as he hugged you and comforted you with his words you knew that everything was going to be okay.

-From that day on, he started making thousands of plans, how they were going to decorate the baby's room, how they would protect the house so that they wouldn't suffer any accidents, that you would wait for them to be born to find out if it was a boy or a girl or they would like to know before, it seemed like he had had an adrenaline rush.

-At night, he liked to lie down next to you and talk to your belly (still flat) while he told the baby how his day had been, he told them how he had met you, how the weather was, insignificant things for everyone but for him, it was important that his baby knew that he was already part of the family.

-As the months went by, as soon as your belly began to show, he loved taking pictures of you in all the landscapes they found, he wanted to save even the smallest detail of your pregnancy.

-One day while you were both drinking cold coffee on a bench in front of the river, Han took your hand and talked about the future. From his pocket he took out a small box, carefully opening it and showing you a ring like the one you had always dreamed of (and the one that your best friend surely helped him choose).

"After our baby is born, I would like us to get married in a beautiful wedding like the one you deserve. It can be big or discreet, you decide that, or it can be just you, me and our child. I will be happy with the simple fact that our family is formed.

-It wasn't long before someone again leaked a photo of you where your belly was noticeable and again your name was all over the gossip tabloids, this time accompanied by rude comments against you and your unborn child.

-By then your last series had already ended and you were at home resting when your agency sent you a statement telling you that SungHoon and his agency wanted to make a joint statement, you gave your approval without thinking.

''I appreciate the support shown by our fans, im so sorry if some feel offended by our private life, I would like to announce that after knowing each other for a long time and realizing that we both felt the same way about each other, Y'N and I decided to formalize our relationship which has flowed healthy and happy, we are currently expecting our first child which we are very excited to welcome in February of next year who will be born in a home full of respect and love. Our relationship is better than ever, having already decided to get engaged to be married after our firstborn comes into the world. We appreciate the love and understanding of those who feel happy with our happiness, we treasure it in our hearts.''

-With that, SungHoon made sure to make everything clear, if that was what they wanted to know, he gave it to them by clearing up all the rumors.

-In December of that same year, Squid Game 2 finally premiered, taking you to the premiere on the arm of your future husband and adorning your dress with your beautiful belly.

-Your co-stars were happy, Ae-Shim (Geum-Ja) who had become a motherly figure for your character in the series kept caressing your belly repeating how beautiful you looked and how bright your face was.

-''It's a little squid, it will be my godson or goddaughter'' Jung-Jae repeated laughing whenever he saw you

-SungHoon never left your side, wherever you went he would accompany you holding your hand or resting it on your back, always making you feel protected

-This time the tabloids mentioned how pretty you looked, how happy you seemed and how adorable you seemed with your round belly, as well as how pretty your engagement ring was and how in love you both looked.

[maenoakasuna]

All For Us Part III Part I - Part II

Hello ! It's me, again ! Not gonna Lie, I don't remember the last time i Finished that much part in less than a Week. I'm probably more picky when it come to my french words since it's my first language. I feel like english is easier to express feelings, but at the same time I don't know how to express it the way I like ? It's weird.

Anyway, A good part for more Reader and Thanos moment. Not the best but definatly cute. Nam-Gyu exist and he's a bithc ( I kinda like him for real and love the Thanos-Nam-gyu Duo, please don't kill me )

Anyway enjoy this part. TW : Mention of drug, cheating, Nam-Gyu exist.

Tag : @private-vampire @rafesbunniebby

You woke up the next morning, or maybe some hours later, you weren't really sure how much time you slept, on the sound of the music you heard when you woke up the first time. This annoying music can give you the worst headache. You still felt tired and hungry. The snack you had yesterday wasn’t that much.

You sat up in your bed, realising your felt sweaty and it gross you out. You didn’t remember but you probably had a bad dream last Night. 

Whipping the sweat of your forehead, you remove the hoodie and tie it up around your hips and go place yourself in line to go take breakfast. The head still in the pillow, you never heard the voice from behind, calling your name, but you felt your heart skip out of fear when you felt two arms wrapping you from behind to give you a back hug. 

«-Still ignoring me, princess ? »

Thanos, of course, you should have known better. Only him could do such a thing. You try to remove his arms from around your body, but he strongly sticks to you.

«-Thanos, please. I’m too tired to deal with your childish shit.-Then, don’t. Let me just hug you in silence.»

You sight and put your hands on his arms, ready to block him if he wants to go close to your belly.

«-I’m all sweaty, you shouldn’t touch me like this and i probably smell gross. -I don’t care, baby.»

You grunt, annoyed. Back in the days it would be things you would have felt for or found adorable, but today, everything is way more different.  The pets name, his demonstration of affection in public, that were things you felt for.

Out of nowhere, you felt tears in your eyes. You were about to cry. Having him so close to you like this after what happened, the stress of him discovering the pregnancy, the lac of sleep. You hated everything, especially the hormones. Without all that you could manage to hide your emotions way better. One tear slid on your cheek and you couldn’t hole a snort.

«-Y/N ? »

You could feel Thano's concern in his voice as he turned you around. You quickly wiped his tears and looked away, not able to face him. 

«-Mind your business, I'm fine, you said before he could ask you a thing.»

You quickly turn around and take your lunch before going back to your bed. You could ear Thanos calling your name and following you, but you ignored him, tears still falling from your eyes. It could be so easy if He could just ignore you and at if you were two perfect strangers. Before you put your feet on the first strai to go back to your bed, you felt it was to much to keep inside and you turned around to face Thanos. At this point you didn’t care if he could see you cry, or if the other contestant could ear everything. You were just a hurricane of emotions.

«-Why do you still following me ?! We spent the last two years in a fake relationship, so why could you not fake a little more ? Why are you still trying to get me attention ? Can you just not let me alone ?! Stay away from me !»

The other around ad stop eating and just looked at you and the purple hair rapper. Thanos didn’t care about them. He’s concern was all on you. You could see his expression, it wasn’t the same he normally show in public. The naturally confident and sassy Thanos was not the one you had in front of you Right now, it was more like a sad one.

«-Y/N…»

He get closer to you and gently takes your hand. His eyes were locked on you as he wipped one of your tears.

«-I know I messed up, more than once, but I swear I never faked anything. -Just like you swear you never cheated on me ? -I didn’t ! -Oh fuck You, I saw You ! I saw you in your private room with this girl. You kissed her with such passion that I taught you would fuck her right on the table. -But I didn’t ! »

You go silent just like the others. No one dares to say something or interrupts your couple-ish fight.

Thanos passed his hands on his face, already tired of this discussion before he continued since you had nothing to answer.

«-I was High as fuck and still mad from our fight in the morning. When I arrived at the bar that day, the girl still waited for me in my room. She worked at the bar and said she was a huge fan.»

He paused and took a deep breath.

«-She looked so much like You. That’s why I let myself go, but I never fucked with her. I stopped before.»

You were speechless, for many reasons. The first was because you were shocked he showed this part of him in front of everyone. He never really showed you his vulnerability before. And the other reason was how dumb that guy was. Even if he didn’t fucked her, he still kissed her and that was cheating, at least for you. 

«-Listen, I don’t want to talk more about this, especially here. You cheated, End of the story. Now, leave and let me alone.»

That was where the conversation ended. You go back to your bed to eat, whipping out your tears. When you opened your plate, it was full of rice, some veggies and an egg. It wasn’t that much, but it was enough to make you smile.

Player 222 came to see you and sat down in front of you, placing in your plate half of the egg she had in her plate. You looked at her confused. She only smiled before saying it was good for pregnant women and this part was offered by player 149. It was the old woman with her son who’s the number 007. 

You were thankful to 222 and 149 for this act of kindness, it warmed your heart after what just happened with Thanos.

«-So, Thanos is the father ? Asked 222, looking in his direction. -Yeah… »

You  also looked in Thanos' direction. He was with other people. They all talked but him, he was silent, something who never happened. He’s more the kind of guy who is gonna lead the conversation. Seeing him like this made you doubt for a second, considering forgiving him, telling him the truth about the baby. You remember how warm it was in his arms when he hugged you lately. It would be a lie to say you didn’t miss it.

«-Did he know about it ? -No and I don’t know if I should tell him.»

What if he doesn't have a positive reaction ? Tonight you will vote to go home after the game, but if the majority decide to stay and Thanos refuses you keep the kid, who knows what could happen to you ? If he was willing to push people during the first game, leading them you death, maybe he was crazy enough to push you to your own death and the kid death by the same occasion.

The time for the second game came and you was escorted in another room and asked to form teams of 5 players. So far you stayed with player 222 but you had to go separate way.

«-Since we are both pregnant It will be easier for us if we found a team with mens or less than just one pregnant woman.»

It was her idea, but you agreed. You know nothing about the next game after all. Looking around you, you tried to find someone or a little group who could need one more people. 

You stopped your research when Number 124, Thanos Friends found you. He looked at you up and down with a smile.

«-Still Looking for a Team ? -Definitely not yours, you answered.» 

He let a small laugh escape his lips as he got closer to you.

«-I think our team will be your best chance if you want to keep yourself and the baby alive. »

You looked at Player 124 shocked,  surprised he knew about your pregnancy. Automatically, you cover your belly by fear he could do something to you. Seeing you doing this make him laugh as he take some step back.

«-Relax, I will not lay a finger on you. I’m not that kind of guy. -Have You told Thanos ? -No, not Yet. But if you refuse to be our last team member, maybe the information could slip out of my mouth,  Who know. -How did you know I’m …»

You didn’t dare finish your sentence by fear everyone will hear you.

«-I overhear your conversation with the other pregnant girl. You should be more quiet about it if you don’t want everyone to know. -And you should keep the information for yourself if you don’t want to die. -Are you threatening me ? -No, I’m warning you.»

You and this asshole will definitely not get along really well, that’s for sure. Your eyes were locked on his as his smuggy smile didn’t disappear. He knew what he put you into and he was pleased by that.You don’t even know the guy but if you could crush his skull on the first wall you gonna cross, you would.

«-So you’re in or not ?-Do I really have a choice.-Technically, yeah. That’s up to you.-Oh shut up and lead the way to the other teammates.» 

You followed number 124 in silence. Once you were with the other, Thanos seemed surprised to see his friend with you. On his side, he was with a girl with her bottom lip pierced and a guy who looked shy. It’s not exactly the type of team you thought you would have, especially coming from your ex, but it was still better than no team at all.

«-Nam-Gi ! You actually convinced Y/N to join us. I’m surprised. What have you told her ? -Actually, it’s Nam-gyu..-Yeah whatever. What have you said ? »

Thanos seemed so happy to have you in his team, but you weren't as much as him. You were confused, even. This guy, number 124, Nam-Gyu, wasn’t supposed to overhear the conversation you had with Player 222 and He used it to his advantage to bring you there cause his ‘’ boss ‘’ asked him ?! You felt so defeated. Now how can he manage to explain that to Thanos without saying a word about your pregnancy.

«-Well, she looked for a team and since the time was almost out, she didn’t had many options. Right ? »

He looked at you with this venomous smile of his.

«-Yeah, exactly. Otherwise believe me I wouldn’t be there, you answered. -Welcome in the Thanos Team, the only one who can lead you to the Win.»

Some good old Thanos rap to put a good Vibe in our wanna be team. You cannot help but smile before you are led to another room with the other contestants. This Time, the game seemed more complex than the Red Light Green light. Every team will have feets tight up to one another and are going to walk to different activities. They need to finish every little game before the end of the Five minutes allowed. One of those games was Ddjaki. You were good at that game back in your childhood and you never lost against the recruiter. Everyone agreed to let you do it.

Once everyone had their positions, we watched the other teams and learned from their mistakes. Seeing some of them behind killed in front of you was something you wish you will forget one day. It gives you more anxiety minute after minutes. You gave a look at Thanos and Nam Gyu who didn’t even seem bothered by that, casually talking and swallowing their pills. What a bunch of Junkies…

When it was your Turn, your hands were shaky and you did your best to concentrate to hit easily the other colored paper. Closing your eyes, you took a deep breath and hit. It turned right away and you could continue. 

The other did well too and you managed to finish inside 5 minutes. The guards removed the locks at your feets and you managed to go back to the main room, still alive. On your way, Nam-gyu walked by your side, hands in his pocket.

«-You will vote to stay Tonight, right ?-Absolutely not. I need to go home. I will not put my life in danger another day»

You were stop by his body who placed itself in front of you.

«-I will make myself more clear then. You will vote to stay Tonight, If you don't want your baby daddy to know about your dirty little secret. -Oh so you are the one who is threatening me, now. -Of course not, I'm warning you. But the choice is yours to make »

And he continue his was to the main room. You looked at him leaving as you swear inside if you have to play another game, this guy will not survive. He play to much on your nerves. 

Back to your bed, waiting for the others to come back, you taught about what Nam-Gyu said. You never was the kind of girl to submit to something threatening like this and if Thanos have to know about the baby, He will probably understand the reason why you wanted to leave. So your choice will not change ; You will vote to leave.

That’s exactly what you did tonight. The loss of today didn’t change that much, you will not leave this place super rich, but you will find a way. It will be better outside than here, risking your life and your baby’s life. Your mind was also on player 222 who was in the same situation as you. 

After you had voted X , you saw the girl smiled at you and Nam-Gyu on the other side who looked pissed, but you didn’t care, you knew you had made the right choice.

Sadly, the majority of votes goes to O so you will have to stay and play another game Tomorrow. People are really insane, that’s so creepy. 

You managed to left the main room to go to the bathroom, where you found an open space to showed at the back of the room. With your stressful day and your sweaty dreams from last night, how could you say no to that. 

After you had removed your clothes, you opened up the water and let the hot water flow. It felt like a release. You didn’t even taught about washing your body, you just needed to relax more than anything else. Eyes shut, face in the direction of the water, you never heard when someone entered the room, or maybe you didn’t care. 

It becomes more serious when the water stops and your body got pressed against the cold wall. When you opened your eyes, surprised and ready to hit, you were surprised to see Thanos, who seemed angry.

«-Is that true Y/N ?! Is that fucking true ?! »

Your heart started to beat way faster. You had a good idea why he was there. Nam-gyu probably told him about your pregnancy. You knew it will happen but you didn't think about how you would react if you had to have this discussion. Trembling, more cause of the fear and anxiety caused by Thanos' anger you weren't able to place a word.

«-I…Don’t… -Don’t you fucking dare to say you don’t know what I am talking about ! »

He hit the wall next to your head before taking some step back to calm himself. You stayed there, trembling, trying your best to not cry again and hiding your naked body as much as you could. he definitely have seen everything by now but it was still embarrassing.

When he felt more calm, Thanos looked back at you, but his eyes were more on your belly than on you directly.

«-Are you pregnant for real ? Is that the real reason why you’re here ? »

[pricegouge]

In Your Web

part two - masterlist

nikolai x f!reader

cw: stalking, mention of alcohol, male masturbation MDNI

By all accounts, you need a return address to ship to Latvia.

Rather, you need a return address to ensure your package doesn't get opened by customs, where agents will laugh at best, or steal your panties at worst. Maybe even steal your DNA? To what end, anyway? No! Worse than that - what if they used their connections to trace the package back even without your address and -?

One is predictably unsympathetic. 

» Then send it with one.

It doesn't surprise you that he thinks you're that dumb. 

You toy with the idea of leaving a random address in the return spot and cringe when you imagine a surly Russian man accosting some random family four states over. It's a mental image you carry with you over the next week, playing it on repeat every time you get cut off in traffic, or you find a coworker has pissed on the toilet seat without cleaning it up. Once, you even catch yourself thinking of it when a particularly annoying regular dominates your feed during a regularly scheduled live performance.

But One is not your knight in shining fiber optic cable. Neither do you actually wish to inflict him on anyone.

So you send it without a return address, watch the shipping updates closely, and feel your stomach slowly boil when it sits for five business days at an importing station. Evidently, One watches it as well.

» You did not do as I asked.

He's uninterested in your offer to refund his money - half now, half later. All you can manage.

» If I wanted my money back I would simply cancel my subscription and request a chargeback from the service.

» I want what I purchased.

Talk of chargebacks makes you flighty. There are only two things you know about One, those being that he is very wealthy, and very rude. The bane of all customer service operators. You don't think it's likely the service would honor a reimbursement for a tip issued over a week ago, but it's not something you want to risk seeing as, unlike your plan to split his reimbursement, OnlyFans would reach into your bank account with the cold unfeeling hand of a multi-million dollar company and steal it back all at once, a prospect you simply can't afford at this time, as embarrassed as you are to admit. Long ago you'd made a promise to yourself that any and all large tips received from this side gig would go immediately toward paying off debts - student loans, ill advised credit cards you'd taken out while still living off said loans. It was a decision that had done you nothing but good up until this very moment, when his money was already spent and you were staring down the barrel of having to pay him back using your own funds.

Or, barring that, he could cancel his subscription and not only get a chargeback for the remainder of his pay period (probably the year, knowing him - you'd have to check) but you'd also stand to lose your best customer. One you're not entirely sure how you managed to land in the first place and one whose income you'd likely never manage to replace. Already, One's singlehandedly paid off an entire card for you, and until now he's showed no signs of stopping.

« i'll fix it

It's a bold promise to make when you have no recourse, but one you don't see your way out of making.

» No, I will.

—

For as much as the line had made you nervous at the time, One does not make any overt moves to follow up on it that you can see. Lapses into an uncharacteristic sort of radio silence for a time. He even skips the next few liveshows, something that strikes you as very unlike him. One does not seem the type of man to let a service he's already paid for go unused. The first night it's kind of nice, seeing as he has an annoying little habit of just paying the target price within the first ten minutes because he 'doesn't have time for this' (funny, how he always has enough time to request a private cam after) but then it's three shows later and you've barely raised anything because, apparently, all your other customers are used to sitting back and reaping the benefits of One's impatience. Something you'll have to address. He stays out of your DMs, too. Offers no tips in exchange for personal requests.

You'd be lying if you said it doesn't light a fire under your ass, gets you chatting with other creators searching for ideas on how you can fix the situation. People much smarter than you say to cut your losses and just refund him. Be done with it. But mostly it just leaves you with a large level of concern. You know these people aren't dumb, but you can't imagine the level of trust they've placed in some of their own favorite customers. Maybe it's because they're lucky enough to have attracted nice people, or at least people with enough social aptitude to know how to pretend to be nice. Something to be said for One, he's never once let you forget he's not the sort of man you should trust with your personal information.

Finally, inspiration strikes in the form of another stupid suggestion, one creator admitting they've put their work address in the return slot. They do not comment on whether or not they used their legal name, but given their stage name contains the word anal, you have to assume.

No desire to let One know where you work, or even the town you're from, you begin to think about other nameless faceless organizations you can use as a fall back instead, finally settling on a random Walmart two states over. You use your stage name and post it, sending One the new tracking number along with a free vid of you getting the replacement pair all messy in hopes that he returns immediately to his normal spending.

Of course, he doesn't so much as thank you. When another two pass with no contact, you begin to grow concerned. You triple check your account to make sure he hasn't unsubbed, but he's still right there at the top - even with no tips given in over a week.

He's disappeared for a few days in the past, but this is different. You think. Or maybe it's not. You wouldn't know seeing as you don't know him. Seeing as he's never given an excuse for his absences. Not that you'd ever asked… It's normal to be worried for someone you talk with nearly every day, right? You don't know him, sure, but you'd be a bit worried if your favorite barista from the shop you frequent just up and left one day. And your income doesn't even depend on her.

Perhaps that's why you break character when he finally resurfaces, the joy on your face when you see his handle pop into chat the next night genuine. Your giddiness is infectious, even. At least one other regular bothering to welcome him back when you stop your stream dead just to say hi. Foam falls around you, slips over your bare skin down to the tarp laid over the floor where already a good foot of it has accumulated like a blanket of snow. It was an idea you'd been quite proud of, always a fan of a simple dance party. The foam machine was a small expense given the high engagement you've received so far, your subscribers happy enough to watch you shake your ass while covered in soap bubbles and glow sticks. The machine had already paid for itself, but now that One was back, you couldn't help the building hope that you'd even meet your goal for the night, which could make for a pleasant weekend full of meeting friends for drinks.

"Glad to see you're alive. Was getting a little worried about you," you grin, settling back into your roll easily. You pinch your tits between your arms as you mime snapping on a pair of gloves. "Got thinking maybe it was time for a visit from your favorite nurse."

But One is not feeling very playful tonight, if he ever is.

» Check your phone.

You huff and kick some foam at the camera obnoxiously, pleased when it falls short and hits the TV it's mounted on top of instead. You don't need to kill the mood even further by stopping to clean your lens. You eye it now, pretend you're staring up at him defiantly when you refuse, tell him you're in the middle of something with one hand snaking down your belly. On the TV below, large enough you can read even from the middle of the floor, you watch the feed as they would see it: yourself on the left while the chat bubbles in excitement on the right, egging you on. You nod at them, a silent promise, check to make sure your position looks good and that you've got a smattering of foam on you, at least enough to keep some mystery for them to unravel as the show continues -

» Now.

Irritation doesn't sell well, but sometimes you can package it as chastisement. "Play nice," you caution, voice whistling through clenched teeth. It's not One's thing specifically, but there are other regulars who you know will eat it up. "Gotta learn to share."

But One goes above and beyond simply not liking being nagged at.

He waits until your fingers are just barely tracing your thatch of curls, movement from your laptop screen catching your eye. You drop pretenses entirely when a new window opens, your private chat with One maximized so you cannot possibly miss it. Carving a path through the accumulated foam, you slink out of the field of view of the mounted camera, show long forgotten as you approach your laptop, mounting fear confirmed as you watch your mouse move across the screen of it's own accord to hit play on the video he'd evidently sent you while you were otherwise occupied.

You know what it will be based on the thumbnail, but it shocks you anyway. The panties he holds look like nothing more than candy floss in his thick fist, wrapped around a fat cock so tightly the lace is stretched. Distorted. It's weird, the things you notice when adrenaline bends time. The camera work isn't great, doesn't let you see his the root of his cock or even his belly. Its focus shifts a few times, undecided if it wants to settle on the display before it or the dark hardwood below. He wears a watch, a simple leather band nestled in a pelt of dark hair. His knuckles are dusted too, hiding the glint of a thick gold band on his pinky. Uncut, thick. He grunts the next time his foreskin pulls back enough to reveal his glistening head and your breath stutters with his when the lace catches, synthetic fibers relaxing back into a recognizable pattern as he eases them off, untangles it from his grasp to flatten against the table, flimsy gusset laughably small framed between the thumb and forefinger of his free hand.

His native tongue spills from him like his seed, molten and thick. Language, even if you can't understand it, is enough to tug at you and you yelp, your brief moment of shock fracturing enough to compel you into movement.

Nik likes the way the suds paint her, the rainbow foam a nice contrast with her skin. It slides down the valleys of her body naturally, highlighting recesses he'd previously been unaware of. Pesky self consciousness, always framing herself so carefully to hide away the bits she think he won't like. They won't like, he supposes.

He's never minded sharing. Nature of the beast, paying for it. But he doesn't see why he should have to suffer the same experience as these others, not when he gives so much more.

It was one of the first issues that had lead him to this little perversion, the impersonal uniformity. The self-editing. He pays to see her body, not the careful curation of videos and stills which she deems tasteful enough. So he settles in behind the wrong camera most nights, his field of view lower. Off center. Only watches the proper stream - the one he actually pays for - when she looks dead at the camera to talk to him, ring light glowing eerily in her irises.

Close enough, for now.

He's logged into a burner account while he works himself up, watching as she bounces around her room to an obnoxious beat. Her audio mixing is off tonight, the club music she plays just a hair too loud. He likes to watch from alternate accounts sometimes, likes to see how well she fights her dismay when these other viewers struggle to collectively pay her bills. She's more likely to grant him special requests the longer he waits to show up, he's learned. Off the menu orders, she calls them. Cute, but not what he's looking for tonight.

Her thong hangs from the corner of his screen. He hates to have already ruined it, but consoles himself with the knowledge she'd been sweet enough to send him another pair. They won't smell as good, he's sure. Another censure she'll have placed on herself. None of the sweat from having been worn all day. But she tried. Wanted to please him. Desperate thing.

It's laughable, thinking Latvian customs would be able to stop him from acquiring what's his, but it's not like she would know that. It's why he prefers small, no-name performers like her. So unsuspecting. Passably genuine, smile growing on her face when he switches to his regular account, the one she has memorized. It makes his cock twitch, excitement growing when she showers him in attention, singles him out in the middle of her show. Forgets to keep dancing, even. As she should. He wonders if he paid for her new toy, the noisy machine currently leaving soap scum on her walls. Wonders if she'll let him pay for it again or if she'll have him summarily blocked within minutes. It won't matter, of course, but he's excited to see how she'll unfold. Another off-menu order. One more bridge too far.

What she gets, taking so much of his money yet never offering more. He just wants to see sides of her no one else has.

It's hard to control himself when she starts to get catty, shows her teeth. He'd imagined stretching this moment out a bit more, thoroughly ruining the mood for all other viewers. But when she looks right at her camera and tells him to behave, his breath goes ragged, and he has to let go of his cock to show the little bitch better - taking over her laptop to bring up the video he'd sent, a low grumble building in his chest like a warning when she slinks closer, as if proximity will give her a better understanding.

Three monitors, one for every angle of his omniscience. On the right, the chat in her official feed grows annoyed as she walks out of frame, a few of them even accusing him of foul play. Hero-types. He's going to enjoy watching them try to comfort her if she doesn't delete her account entirely after tonight - after he mouses over the video displayed on his middle screen, the mirror of her own laptop. On his left, she looms closer, expression open and honest in a way he's not seen it yet. Painted in the blue light of her monitor, it contrasts garishly with the heavy makeup she'd applied for the show, all warm-toned to match her pink neons; catches on the tiny pockets of popped soap bubbles which fleck over her cheek. It's not a good look, one she'd likely touch up before even taking a selfie for her Instagram account, a post-show teaser meant to make potential viewers feel like they'd missed out. And now that he's seen it, he knows how much he's been missing out, fist working over his cock with renewed vigor as he imagines all the ways he wants to see her now, all the ways he can, even if -

He fights the cursor when she tries to take control, but she's clever enough to know some keyboard commands. His right monitor blinks back to her profile when she cuts the feed, the middle one slowly returning to her home screen as she closes out of each window. She pulls away quickly after, palms clamped over her jaw as she breathes through the panic, soft belly caving with each pant. Foam still spews from the machine, dye having run out. It catches in her hair, paints her skin milky. He has half a mind to open a word doc on her computer, tell her she should skip the dye next time, the white more suggestive.

Doesn't get a chance. Cums when she scrambles back to the desk, his left monitor dropping the feed when she smartens up and rips the battery out of her laptop.

Left languid and lazy, he tracks her movements across her socials from his bed, thumbing through his phone. Detached, he watches her accounts blink out one after the other. A small city going dark under the approach of his hele. She deletes some outright, settles for blocking him on others. Even issues an apology to her viewers from a site she doesn't know he even has an account on. It's vague, boring. Doesn't mention him. He gets an email around midnight, her time, telling him to expect a refund for the remaining term of his payment, but is pleased to find her account still in place when he checks from a burner. The save of her live show is taken down shortly after, but he's not worried. Had it saved locally.

Can't rely on strangers from the Internet to behave, after all

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 5: #10-1

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here, part 2 here, part 3 here, and part 4 here. all of my seasonal reviews are on my ko-fi and under my anime reviews tag, mixed in with my occasional musings. thanks!

And we are in the home stretch! I didn't want to split up my top 10 like last year, so it took a couple days to get it all together. Thanks for your patience.

​As you may have noticed, some of these reviews are longer than others. I've reviewed most of these shows before, so I didn't want to be too redundant while talking about shows I've already reviewed. You can, of course, go back and read my initial reviews in my previous seasonal roundups.

Also, I just wanted to quickly shout out a few shows that I haven't watched much or any of, but would likely have placed well in these rankings, namely Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction, YATAGARASU, the Spice and Wolf remake, Orb: On the Movements of Earth, Sound! Euphonium's third season, and the late Akira Toriyama's SAND LAND and Dragon Ball DAIMA. I only have so much time in a day, week, month, and year, but those series have been on my radar and I do intend to pick them up sooner or later.

But for now, let's focus on what I did watch. Off we go:

10. Blue Box

This is a slightly biased placement on my end because I picked up the manga this year and quickly fell in love with it, and I’m just happy that it got a faithful, well-made anime adaptation. If you have an issue with that, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: This whole list is biased. It’s MY list, after all.

After an uneven summer output between My Dear Friend Nokotan and Suicide Squad Isekai, WIT Studio is in full form adapting Kouji Miura’s gorgeous high school sports romance. Rising first-year badminton player Taiki has a huge crush on his basketball star senpai Chinatsu, who practices in the same high school gym he does. He’s happy enough to keep a friendly distance as they improve at their respective sports, but that distance is closed significantly when her parents go abroad for work and she ends up moving in under the same roof as him. The spirit of competition is in the air, and is that a whiff of romance I smell as well?

The reason I felt the need to call out my own bias at the start is because Blue Box’s debut cour is, on balance, probably just “pretty good,” but I was just so overjoyed that this anime even exists that I was willing to overlook the early story’s growing pains. Taiki, of course, is the POV character for most of the first cour, and most of the romantic tension we see so far is entirely from his end as he swoons and huffs and goes into cardiac arrest over any and every gesture Chinatsu throws his way. You know, teenage boy stuff. There have been criticisms that Chinatsu doesn’t get much interiority for a bit and that she’s a bit of an enigma in terms of her role in the central “romance,” such that it is so far, which is a valid criticism of a lot of shonen romance stories. I’m generally of the mind that these things are more potent when the object of the protagonist’s affection is treated as more than a puzzle for him to solve, but I think Blue Box does a fine job of establishing what Chinatsu means to Taiki before we do indeed begin to get a feel for how she operates and what she might think of him. If you found that part a little maddening early on, trust me when I say it’s worth sticking it out.

Regardless, the character writing is what made Blue Box such a hit in Weekly Shonen Jump. Taiki is a flat-out good kid, if a little naive, and his boundless determination to achieve and exceed his goals in both badminton and romance makes him easy to root for. Chinatsu is fairly taciturn, as mentioned, but that’s by design; she’s a notoriously difficult person to read, as even her friends and teammates note that they can rarely decipher what she’s thinking. She’s still an effortlessly charming character, and it’s not hard to figure out why Taiki’s got it so bad for her. The real highlight of the series, though, is Taiki’s classmate and longtime friend, Hina, a rhythmic gymnast and an absolute troll. She is an absolute delight in every scene she’s in, whether she’s knocking Taiki’s knees out from under him, focusing on rehearsing her next routine, or prying into Taiki’s love life and realizing that, oops, she really cares about him too. Hina is wonderful and I just want the best for her.

Characters this likable will need the voices to match, and I am over the moon about this show’s casting. Shouya Chiba is tremendous as Taiki, in a far cry from his Epic Based Stoic Chad role as Ayanokoji in Classroom of the Elite. Every line read for Taiki sounds exactly as gung-ho about sports and devastatingly down bad for his crush as you’d expect of a hormonal 15 year old. Reina Ueda is terrific as the soft-spoken Chinatsu, but I’m looking forward to hearing the always-delightful Xanthe Huynh (Haru in Persona 5, Marianne in Fire Emblem Three Houses) take on the role in the dub just as much. Akari Kitou channels much of the same gremlin energy she did for KamiKatsu to portray Hina’s mischief, and I look forward to hearing her nail Hina’s excellent upcoming character moments. And although it’s a secondary role, the casting I was most excited to hear was Chiaki Kobayashi (Mash in Mashle, Stark in Frieren) as Taiki’s teammate Kyo. Kobayashi’s languid tsukkomi affect was exactly what I had in mind whenever Kyo would put Taiki’s lovelorn antics into stark relief in the manga. It’s like he was born for the part.

This show looks tremendous, perfectly adapting both the soft, doe-eyed character designs from the manga as well as the lower-detail gags. The pastel color palette and gorgeous lighting effects are exactly what I was hoping for while reading the manga.  If I have any complaint, though, it’s mostly that I want to see more of the sports action. The granular details of the badminton matches and basketball games are hardly the focus of the story, but the action panels are usually the best part of Miura’s art in the manga. Shot-for-shot, it certainly does hew close to the manga presentation, but it’s mostly a racquet swing or close-up jump shot followed by an onlooker’s reaction. I’d have liked a bit more follow through. The CGI used for background competitors can get a little distracting after a while, too, but it’s easy to forget about.

Blue Box is continuing into 2025, and I’m waiting for every new episode with bated breath. If you liked the first cour enough but still have doubts, trust me when I say it just keeps getting better. I look forward to coming back to the second half of this season in another year for my victory lap.

9. Girls Band Cry

This is one of the most inventive girls-band anime out there, certainly the most so since that one from 2022 that I swore I wouldn’t bring up by name. Gorgeous 3D-CG animation, stirring original music, and a compelling cast of characters combine to make Girls Band Cry even more than the sum of its parts.

More than anything, I think what makes Girls Band Cry a terrific showbiz series is that it depicts the uncomfortable reality that a lot of artists are just flat-out unpleasant people and often don’t mesh well with one another. Protagonist Nina is messy, stubborn, and angry at the world and her parents and will not hesitate to make it your problem. She butts heads with her friends and bandmates at any provocation, but stubbornness is a major driving factor in the plot: Each of the five members of Togenashi Togeari has something they’re trying to move on from with their music, and while they each have an opinion on how to get there, they do come to realize, after a lot of silly yelling matches, that they want to do so together.

As a vehicle to push Girls Band Cry and Togenashi Togeari as a real-world multimedia experience, this show is a success. It’s a terrific-looking show in ways we rarely see outside of Studio Orange productions (and allegedly Love Live! Sunshine!!, which director Kazuo Sakai also had a hand in); the 3D computer-generated character models and animations are terrifically expressive and lively, and creative visual effects add a compelling sense of synaesthesia to Nina's emotional highs and lows. The voice cast, all pseudonymous contest winners, are also the real-life band members, and they fully nail both elements of their roles. TogeToge’s music in the show is terrific, and as an already-existing Gorillaz-esque virtual band, I’m excited to dig into their back catalog.

Girls Band Cry finally got an official English translation, so there’s no longer any excuse to sleep on this one. It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, and above all else, it fucking rocks. Don’t let this one fade away just because you might’ve missed it when it aired.

8. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, second cour

When I ranked the first cour of Frieren as the best anime of 2023, I wrote:

The debut season of Frieren will continue into 2024, and if the quality remains a constant, it could very well be one of the best anime of next year too. It has remained as MyAnimeList’s top-rated anime ever for its entire run, warding off the legion of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood fans. Frieren deserves it.

A year later, it is still MAL’s top-rated anime, and by a healthy margin. Another 12 episodes aired to kick off 2024, and it was indeed one of the best anime of this year as well. I stand firm in my convictions that not only is it one of the best anime of the decade so far, it’s one of the best anime I’ve ever seen.

I really shot my wad by praising Frieren so profusely midway through its run, to the point where I still don’t really feel the need to add much more here. The second cour mostly focuses on the First Class Mage exam arc, allowing us to learn more about the present state of magic in the modern day and adding some much-needed depth to the cast. It continues to strike a lovely balance between the quieter moments and bonkers action sequences, as well as the more serious moments with laugh-out-loud goofiness. It may be a lesser arc in this story, but it would be a standout in so many others.

If I haven’t been clear enough, I remain over the moon about Frieren. The second cour looks and sounds just as incredible as the first, and this show’s success should serve as a reminder to the industry that investment in quality pays off. Madhouse knows they have a banger on their hands, and if the next season can maintain this level of production value for the major arc that is still to come, Frieren may very well earn GOAT status. Even if another season somehow never materializes, I’ll still be talking about this season in five years when it comes time to talk about the best of the decade. Watch this goddamn show.

7. A Sign of Affection

For all the romance anime and manga I consume, I’ve shamefully been lacking on the shoujo/josei front. I really gotta fix that. If reading more shoujo was what spurred Yukinobu Tatsu to make DanDaDan, then who knows what it might do for me? A Sign of Affection isn’t my first shoujo, strictly speaking, but it does feel like one of the first I’ve seen of the good old-fashioned flowery romance type.

What a gorgeous show. A Sign of Affection looks terrific, sounds terrific, and above all feels terrific. This is just a lovely, fluffy romance with low stakes and easy payoff; just two pretty people getting to know each other and learning to overcome their differences. It’s low on gimmicks and plot contrivances, and for as much as I like romcoms and romance stories with a unique bent, I love a good straightforward romance just as much sometimes. Everyone looks beautiful and likes each other and Jesus Christ look at the lips on these boys. There’s even a double-date to Costco, and what better depiction of marital bliss could there be?

I’m still pleasantly surprised at how this show handles the main character’s disability. Protagonist Yuki’s congenital deafness isn’t a single-note character quirk or a plot device to make her seem helpless; it simply is. It’s a part of her life that serves as the lens through which all of the people in her life see and treat her, and it leads to the only thing that resembles a major conflict in the show. Itsuomi, the main romantic interest, doesn’t baby her or walk all over her; he instead gently tests her boundaries while learning to accommodate her in a way to ensure her comfort. Her childhood friend Oushi, on the other hand, is very jealous of this development because he seems to feel entitled to her just because he did the bare minimum to accommodate her. The circumstances aren’t common, of course, but it’s a good lesson for a shoujo to have: Don’t settle.

My praise for A Sign of Affection mostly boils down to “it’s just really nice,” but it does “just really nice” so goddamn well. It’s fluffy, it’s comfy, it’s cozy, all of those adjectives that would set off my fight-or-flight response if I heard them from someone else, but I was enthralled by this show week in and week out. I can’t believe I neglected to start reading the manga, and I’m gonna have to get on that ASAP because I can’t wait for another season.

6. The Apothecary Diaries, second cour

I found myself more intrigued at The Apothecary Diaries at the end of 2023 than most other shows I’d watched that year. I grew more and more invested in the idiosyncratic Maomao as she investigated mysterious ailments and navigated imperial palace politics, all the while being a lovable little shit. 

Before I’d realized it, though, the 2024 half of its run knew it had its hooks in me and took me for a ride. What looked at first like a series of one-off puzzles quickly began entangling into a much larger mystery, rapidly gaining momentum until exploding into a massive emotional payoff. So many of the small details in what you assume are episodic mystery-of-the-week mini-stories become relevant in unexpected ways and draw you in ever further. I adore this kind of lowkey long-term storytelling, and for it to be part of such an appealing package is basically catnip for me.

For as gorgeous as The Apothecary Diaries can be visually, sonically, and sometimes even emotionally, it’s worth mentioning that this show is also hilarious a lot of the time. Maomao is on permanent goblin mode whenever she isn’t carrying out official business, and any time the palace officials have to rein her in is a delight. The push-and-pull between her and Jinshi is endlessly entertaining to the point where I can wait forever for that payoff if I have to.

I neglected to read the Apothecary Diaries manga after the first season went off the air (though I nearly bought all of it sight unseen), and with the second about to drop, I guess I’m holding off for another six months. Can’t say I mind, though. I’m along for the ride and I want this show to keep surprising me for as long as it can. This is easily one of the best anime of the 2020s so far and I’m gonna be there front row center for every new episode.

5. Bang Brave Bang Bravern

People say “peak fiction” too goddamn often these days. Not that it was a meaningful term to begin with, but it’s been memed to hell and back and is mostly just thrown out ironically to mock garbage writing. To be honest, I’m not above it myself, but I prefer to ascribe it, even jokingly, to stuff that can only truly come from a brilliant and/or deranged mind. Preferably both. Peak fiction, to me, is the intersection where talent meets insanity, no matter the degree of either.

Bang Brave Bang Bravern is peak fiction.

I gushed about this show after the winter season, and I almost don’t want to say anything further about it, mostly for two reasons: Firstly, because I don’t really want to give the game away any more than I already did back in April, and secondly, because I think it may have permanently burrowed into a specific part of my brain and then melted it. All I’m left with is “this show fucking rocks, dudes rock, you need to see it, it’s peak, don't ask questions, just watch it.”

Indeed, Bravern is the Dudes Rock anime of the year, and an essential piece of Dudes Rock media. It’s Top Gun with aliens and a giant talking robot. And the robot wants to fuck his pilot. This show is loud, horny, stupid, and self-aware, combined just so into a cocktail of legitimate brilliance that is, for better or worse, unlike anything I’ve seen before or since. Nearly every single episode had me clawing at my hair and shrieking “WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING,” and that is the highest praise I can give just about anything.

I might be overselling it just a touch, but Bravern is just as earnest as it is utterly wild. It’s an intentionally hilarious show, but it means everything it does and says. It’s a love letter to mecha anime and tokusatsu, and with its top staff sporting Gundam and Macross bona fides, that love oozes into every aspect. The mechs, both manmade and alien, all look tremendous, the music is a throwback to the goofy bombast you’d find in series like this as far back as the Showa era, and the ensemble cast outside of our silly leads are just as gung-ho and serious about Saving The World as you’d find in just about any other mech show. Anything that can be this goofy with a completely straight face is going to hook me in.

All in all, Bang Brave Bang Bravern is hypercompetent lunacy with heart. Call it weaponized genre awareness if you must, but it knows exactly what it’s about, grabs you by the collar, and takes you for a ride, all while doing badass tokusatsu poses and calling out special moves with silly names. This is legitimately what fiction is all about. 

Also, if you don’t like Lulu just because she screeches a lot, you’re a weakling. Gaga-pi, motherfucker.

4. The Dangers in My Heart, season 2

This was a series whose first season was conspicuously absent from my 2023 rankings, but I caught up shortly after finishing that list in order to catch up to the second season. I’d watched a glut of slice-of-life romances in 2023 and figured I could afford to miss this one. I’m overjoyed at how wrong I was.

To paraphrase the second season’s exceptional OP, The Dangers in My Heart is indescribably beautiful. As I said with A Sign of Affection, I love me a straightforward anime romance, and this middle school slice-of-life is just that: Underdeveloped edgelord boy ends up making unlikely friends with, and falling for, the cheery popular girl in his class. This is easy wish-fulfillment on paper, but that’s hiding the trick: Kyotaro isn’t gonna get anything he wants by keeping his quills out for anyone who comes near, and he has some growing up to do if he’s ever gonna get what he wants.

Season 2 picks up right where the first left off, with Kyotaro’s arm still broken from his family trip and Anna feeling guilty because she thinks her distraction was what led to the injury. Right out of the gate, we see the care these two have developed for one another: Anna wants to help while he can’t do his own schoolwork, while Kyo is quick to try to cheer her up when she no longer feels like she’s able to. Already we’re seeing Kyotaro’s character development coming to light: The Dangers in My Heart isn’t a story about a Nice Guy getting the girl just by being there; it’s a story of self-improvement, of trying to become the type of person whom your crush would want to fall in love with. For a story about and ostensibly marketed to early teenagers, that’s a good lesson to have, and I absolutely devour stories like that.

As can be the case with plenty of adolescents, most of the conflict here is internal. Kyotaro spent the early part of his middle school education keeping a safe distance from everyone in order to avoid getting hurt, and as you can imagine, that did a number on his self esteem. Though he’s mostly kicked the chuunibyo mindset, Kyo still prefers to keep his distance, less because he doesn’t want to get hurt, but now because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else. Specifically Anna. So much of this story is about him learning to be okay with letting people in and not just falling in love, but making friends and becoming somebody whom people just want to be around. It’s a chuuni rehabilitation story. You love to see it.

With all due respect to mangaka Norio Sakurai, the biggest surprise that came from reading the manga was how much better the anime looks than its source material. The anime looks tremendous in its own right, but compared to Sakurai’s doodly, occasionally messy style, the love put into the show stands in stark relief. Characters, backgrounds, and lighting are all soft, squishy, and warm, almost like the entire thing was run through the filter through which only a 13-year-old in love can see, even as a little edgelord. Little flourishes in the environment and music highlight the minute but consequential motes of progression in Kyo and Anna’s relationship. The OP ended up shaking out as my favorite of the year, even with 2024 being bookended by Creepy Nuts bangers. It’s that special to me.

And just like that, The Dangers in My Heart went from “eh probably not for me” to “yeah this is one of the best anime of the decade so far.” It’s a simple slice-of-life romance on paper, almost literally so in the manga, but this is a transformative adaptation. There’s much more of the story to tell, and I wouldn’t complain about more, but as it stands after two seasons, The Dangers in My Heart is damn near perfect as it is.

3. Oshi no Ko, season 2

Another year, another season, another top-four finish for one of the best manga adaptations I’ve ever seen. 

The anime adaptation of Aka Akasaka and Mengo Yokoyari’s showbiz-revenge manga made shockwaves last year following its thunderous feature-length premiere, and its source material made even more waves due to some questionable plot developments that fortunately went nowhere. Doga Kobo was undeterred by any negative attention brought to the brand, though, and pressed forward into the next arc with a level of swagger you rarely see brought into an anime’s sequel season.

The 2.5D stage play arc in Oshi no Ko’s manga wasn’t my favorite, but it was one that you could tell just from reading it would translate well to the screen. Even then, I wasn’t prepared for just how hard Doga Kobo would go in adapting it. Character animation is sumptuously fluid, color used to amazing effect, and personal expression bursts forth into impressionistic abstraction to such a degree that it made manga artist Yokoyari cry. Everyone looks and sounds incredible beyond any way I could’ve imagined from reading the manga, which, at the risk of sounding defensive, is still very good as a whole.

This being a story largely about the music industry, the music remains as on-point as ever. It’s too soon to tell if the second season’s OP/ED pairing tops the instantly-iconic “Idol” and “Mephisto” from the first, but these are no slouches. This season’s OP, “Fatale,” is a whiplash-inducing banger by Tatsuya Kitani and idol Kento Nakajima, performing under the collaborative name of GEMN (itself a relevant name to the show; twins without the i/Ai, DO YOU GET IT???) with visuals that might actually top those of Idol. The new ED, “Burning,” is Hitsujibungaku at their fuzzy, 90s-style alt-rock best, and it takes on a brand new meaning by the end of the season. Of course, there’s also the story-relevant music; while the bulk of the season focuses on the stage play, the last few episodes give us a glimpse into the pop music process, with the season capping off with an in-universe music video that, while not sonically my exact cup of tea, features 90 seconds of some of the best-looking dance animation I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s a flex if I’ve ever seen one.

And just like the first season, the second capped off with an announcement that Oshi no Ko will indeed be returning for another season. At this rate, and with the anime’s success, they will adapt the entire work, which will raise some eyebrows. I’m not going to litigate the manga’s later controversial developments nor its widely-panned ending, but if Doga Koba was able to handle everything that came before those things with such aplomb, I have faith that it will at least be done well.

2. DanDaDan

I want to preface this by saying that I agonized over whether this or the final entry is my anime of the year. I’m comfortable with what I chose, but if I’m being realistic, DanDaDan is basically 1b. This is a masterpiece already.

Although the source material was a bit of a cult hit until this year, DanDaDan came with a considerable amount of hype. If you were even peripherally familiar, it wasn’t hard to see why: Yukinobu Tatsu’s art is absurdly detailed in almost every panel, character designs are easily recognizable (one of the leads dressing similarly to a Persona 3 character was fortuitous for the anime to drop in the same year as Reload), and so many bizarre things happen in the plot that relaying them to anybody who wasn’t already familiar would make their brain briefly touch the void. Above all, though, Science SARU was tabbed to animate it, and any project by them is immediately worth your attention.

Sure enough, DanDaDan made an instantaneous splash, its first episode adapting the manga’s bombastic, twisty 63-page opening chapter nearly beat for beat. I’m not gonna “don’t look it up, just go in blind” this one, but almost too much happens for me to properly detail it all without just writing a complete synopsis. It boils down to “lonely nerd boy believes in aliens, angry kogal believes in yokai, it turns out both are real and now they have to deal with it.” It’s silly, it’s wild, it’s action packed, and if you can stomach the sexually-compromising alien abduction of the girl, you’re along for the ride.

I’m not gonna harp too much on that last point. It does stink that the female lead, Momo, is stripped to her underwear for the sake of alien sexual “research,” but said aliens get their comeuppance before anything happens to her. It’s still not great, and it’s not the last time female characters are portrayed in their underwear, but I do promise it’s for story reasons, it takes a backseat to the onscreen action and is pretty clearly not done for the sake of fanservice. I know such things can be beyond the pale for some people, but if you think you can compartmentalize that, I recommend you watch the first episode with that caveat in mind and decide from there. You may be pleasantly surprised.

DanDaDan is effectively two stories at once; on one side, we have Momo and the boy, Okarun (a nickname Momo devised for him to preserve her own sanity), gaining wacky supernatural powers in order to fight back these occult threats and regain what was stolen from Okarun from his first encounter with the unexpected (IYKYK). Because these threats can come out of nowhere, their daily high school lives can completely pop off without warning. On the other side, we have quieter slice-of-life tension as Momo and Okarun get to know (and frequently misunderstand) each other and realize they are completely and hopelessly head-over-heels for one another.

Surprise, motherfucker: DanDaDan is a romcom.

Yukinobu Tatsu, formerly an assistant on the first saga of Chainsaw Man, long struggled to get his own work serialized. At his editor’s urging, he read something like a hundred manga for inspiration, including several shoujo romance series. That research shows through in DanDaDan; although the bonkers action sequences and off-the-wall monster designs are what draw in readers and viewers alike, what’s kept this many people along for the ride is the beating heart just barely under the surface in the form of the romantic tension between Momo and Okarun. It’s easy to write this off as some “lonely nerd gets the cute gyaru just by being a Nice Guy” wish fulfillment, but that’s not really the case here; Okarun was a weird little twerp right from the jump. Similarly to Kyotaro in the aforementioned Dangers in My Heart, Okarun believes early on that he’s nowhere near Momo’s league, completely unaware that she quickly grows to actually like having him around, so he puts in the effort to become a more well-rounded person so that he can be confident enough to be seen next to her. He also just wants Momo to think he’s cool, and she thinks that’s adorable. And she’s right! These two are cute as fuck together.

So you come for the wild action and stay for the tremendous character dynamics. It should go without saying that Science SARU nailed all of the above, but I’m gonna say it anyway. Reading the Manga+ comments on each chapter as I read through the manga, readers were begging a top-flight battle shonen studio like MAPPA or WIT to pick up the series, and I think these fans got more than they bargained for. Masaaki Yuasa hasn’t been in charge of a series at the studio since Eizouken, or anything they’ve put out since Inu-Oh, but his influence is all over their recent works, including last year’s fellow top-three series, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off. It’s beyond impressive how, much like Scott Pilgrim, this series manages to maintain the source material’s art style while still looking very much like a Science SARU anime. Everyone is bouncy and malleable as their moods dictate, line weights are wildly varied, and action animation is kinetic and unpredictable. Each fight with an alien or cryptid is awash in eye-searing color or eerie greyscale. The music is a boatload of fun as well; even putting aside the Creepy Nuts OP (banger after banger after banger from those dudes) and Zutomayo ED, regular proceedings are punctuated by a wildly varied score, from funk to folk to an insane chase scene set to an electronic mashup of the “William Tell Overture” and the can-can. Everything about DanDaDan keeps you guessing.

I was looking forward to DanDaDan enough that I went to the theatrical premiere of the first three episodes and was sufficiently blown away. If you’ve seen the show, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that it looks and sounds incredible in a cinema setting. I left the theater positively buzzing, telling anyone who’d listen that they had no idea what was coming, but even knowing the entire story, I wasn’t prepared for more of what was to come. The literal next episode after what I’d already seen in the theater had one of the most bonkers action setpieces I’ve seen since Gurren Lagann, and just four episodes later an unbelievable emotional gut punch, prior knowledge of the manga be damned. Every single aspect of DanDaDan as an anime was given the same level of love and care that Tatsu put into his own work. It’s one thing for an anime adaptation to be faithful to its source material, and another entirely for it to elevate and transform it. DanDaDan is somehow both.

If there’s anything that held this back from being the anime of the year, it’s that this season kind of just… ends. With the 12-episode runtime that was given to the debut season, DanDaDan ends its first run right after the beginning of the manga’s next arc, which feels bizarre. There’s no resolution, but there’s no real cliffhanger here either. Which I kind of get, the story is driven by a constant forward momentum, but a little warning that the season was ending would’ve been nice. It’s only a six month break until the show comes back, but judged on its own, the way this season ended left me feeling a bit cold and the season itself feeling incomplete. Even shows that have year-long breaks between cours rather than seasons tend to put some kind of cap on each individual run, but DanDaDan just kinda left the toilet unflushed, and next to it a Post-It note promising to come back later. For something this lovingly crafted, that seems like a bizarre oversight.

That was hardly enough to temper my enjoyment though. Anything this well-made is deserving of the attention and success it’s attained, but to have this story, with these characters and this level of bonkers action made this well, is just an embarrassment of riches. And God help me, I’m shamelessly greedy. July can’t come fast enough. I need all of it.

1. Delicious in Dungeon

At the end of its run midway through the year, I declared Dungeon Meshi the best anime of the year up to that point and that I’d be impressed if anything would manage to overtake it. Though the other two entries in my top three made extremely strong cases, nothing else quite hit the spot and nourished the soul quite like Dungeon Meshi.

Barely a year removed from one of 2022’s best anime, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, Studio Trigger kicked off 2024 with another Netflix original, this time with its first proper manga adaptation since the studio split from Gainax a decade prior. It seemed an odd fit at first to have a studio known for wacky, hyperkinetic action productions like Kill la Kill and Promare to adapt this quirky fantasy dungeon manga, but hey, they also did Little Witch Academia. It turned out to be an odd fit, but in the best way: Dungeon Meshi is pretty offbeat as it is, so for it to get picked up by one of the more oddball prestige studios ended up making a tasty stew.

I struggled to elaborate on what makes this show so good after each of its cours, and six months later I remain a little lost for words. It’s an exceptional story adapted exceptionally well. Between the characters, the story, the setting, the emotional stakes, the comedy, the highs and lows, they nailed it all. Trigger just gets it. Even when characters go off-model for the sake of an intentional animation quirk, it still has that inimitable Trigger charm to it. It sounds just as good as it looks, too: The orchestral score highlights the quieter, sillier moments just as well as the tenser action setpieces, the foley work behind the dungeon’s bizarre and varied flora and fauna is immaculate, and the cast is perfect in both Japanese and English (I rarely ever say so but seriously, shout out to the dub).

I’m just as sick of saying “this show speaks for itself” when I have trouble finding the words as you probably are of reading it, but I have little else to add here. I’ve written plenty already. Just go watch it. This is already one of my favorite manga ever, and by the time the series wraps up at the end of its second season, it will easily end up as one of my favorite anime ever.

[secretlysamcro]

Part 1

Female Reader x Jax Teller threatening & explicit language, drug use, possible spoilers. If you're under the age of 18, haven't finished the show, easily offended or dislike any of said topics, please read no further.

Request: Hey! I loved your recent Jax fic. I would love to see one with a reader he has loved since they were kids but nothing had ever happened between them, until she comes to him knowing he will protect her when she needs him. Thank you 😊

Back story: y/n and Jax had a special bond that went back to childhood. Growing up together, you were practically inseparable, forming a tight trio with Jax and Opie. The three of you were like three pieces of the same puzzle, As time passed, things began to change. You had a few relationships during your teenage years - and so did Jax, but none of them too serious enough to last, Until Wendy came along. There had always been a push and pull between you and Jax. An unspoken tension between the both of you that had never been acted upon. All three of you now are grown up and getting on with your own lives dealing with your own shit.

Jax has had an on and off relationship with Abel’s mother, Wendy since their teenage years. The divorce has just been finalized and Wendy who is once again hooked on drugs has been forbidden from seeing Abel. Jax has made it clear that he won’t be allowing Wendy to see their son until she is completely clean.

Time has passed since your last conversation with either boys, and you can’t help but notice how disconnected things have become. It’s as if distance has grown between you, leaving only brief exchanges of casual interactions and small talk. The close bond no longer existing.

Y/N: Hey Jax, haven’t heard from you for a while, thought I’d message but I know it ain’t easy being king and ur probs just wrapped up in the club but I hope everything’s ok. Hows Abel and Wendy? He must be getting so big now, nearly four right?

Jax feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. When he takes it out, he’s sees nothing but your name on the screen. A small but genuine smile creeps on his face.

Despite the distance, he’s always appreciated the thoughtfulness of you, sending messages on special occasions. Birthdays, memorials, Christmas etc and also checking in from time to time. He tries his best to do the same, but club responsibilities and being a father often get in the way, leaving him with little time.

Jax knows that your mention of Wendy is more of a polite gesture than actual well wishes. The two of you never saw eye to eye in your youth, she always noticed how Jax paid close attention to you, even if you weren’t always aware of it.

A few years ago, you had the unwanted privilege of escorting Wendy to hospital, alongside Jax, as you had found her OD’d on heroin, whilst heavily pregnant with Abel. This was a main factor as to why you and Jax had become so distant, he never wanted to hear you say ‘I told you so’ when it came to Wendy, so he took a step back from you, finding it hard dealing with married life, when the person he really wanted to be with, was you.

[flashback to the night Wendy OD’d]

“Any updates?” You ask Jax, as you step back into the hospital waiting room, getting off the phone from informing Gemma of the situation. “Your Moms on the way, she’s just leaving Luanns”.

“She’s stable, but said they need to keep an eye on her-” Jax’s sentence is cut short as you immediately chime in.

“I don’t give a shit about her, what about your unborn child?” You hiss at him, knowing he knows full well you couldn’t give a fuck about Wendy.

“Drop it y/n don’t be like that, not right now” Jax says in a firm warning tone. You’ve heard this side of Jax a million times, just never towards yourself.

You roll your eyes at him, knowing now probably isn’t the time to tell him you were right about Wendy all along. You both sit down in the waiting area; as you wait for any sort of news.

About 15 minutes later, the corridoor door opens and in walks another doctor. Pretty and tall, her hair clipped up to keep it out of her face. Jax would recognise her from a mile away, and so did you.

“When did she come back?” You ask, slightly scoffing whilst looking at Jax as you both stand up, ready to hear what she has to say. His facial expression displaying the exact same question.

“Tara?” Jax says, as she gets closer, she ignores the fact that you are standing alongside Jax. Another one of Jax’s love interests you never got along with.

“Her hands and feet were full of tracks, toxicology reports aren’t back yet, but it’s most likely crank” Dr Knowles tells Jax, as you stand comforting him. Holding his hand gently with your own.

“The baby?” Jax says frantically, grabbing back at your hand now, eager to hear what Tara has to say.

Tara takes a deep breath before letting Jax know the news. “We had to do an emergency C-section. He’s ten weeks premature”

“Holy shit” Jax says, looking towards you in disbelief.

“Is he gonna be okay?” You ask Tara, as she finally makes eye contact with you.

You hear the faint sound of footsteps coming from behind as Tara continues to talk.

“He’s got a congenital heart defect and gastroschisis… a tear in his abdomen. The gastro and early birth are from the drugs but the CHD is-”

“The family flaw” Gemma says, as she stands behind you, overhearing what Tara has to say.

Stepping back, you give Jax and Gemma their privacy to continue the discussion with the Dr.

You wait anxiously fidgeting as the minutes pass by. From the corner of your eye, you notice Tara assisting another patient. A few moments later Clay walks in, heading straight in the direction of Jax and Gemma.

As soon as Tara is out of sight, you hurry down to the ICU. You join Gemma and Clay, quietly watching as Jax holds his tiny new born for the first time. A small smile on his face as you lip read the words he whispers to his baby boy. “I’m your old man”.

Gemma turns as she senses your presence. “Hey sweetie” she says softly, rubbing your shoulder gently. “Thank you for getting them here so quickly, I can’t thank you enough. I don’t even want to imagine how things could have ended if you hadn’t rushed that junkie whore over here in time”

You place your hand over Gemma’s, a silent agreement with her words. “You’ll let Jax know I’m thinking of him?” You ask Gemma, Clay nodding at you beside her. “And congratulations… Grandma…” you look over at Clay smiling “…Grandpa” you turn around, taking one last look at Jax and his son, before leaving the hospital and Charming once again.

[end of flashback]

You never knew this, and nobody else did apart from Jax and Opie, but the only reason he ever got with Wendy was to distract himself from not being able to have you. Not being brave enough to admit the feelings he’s had for you since you were kids. Wendy seemed like the easiest option. In hindsight though; he wishes he had never even met her, but then he wouldn’t have Abel, and he’s the best thing to ever happen to him.

You were equally at fault though; you never expressed your true feelings to Jax in fear of rejection. Instead, you observed from a distance as he got involved with Tara, witnessed his heartbreak when she left for Chicago, and saw him meet Wendy; which eventually ended in pregnancy and marriage. All of this led you into a pressured relationship, pulling you away from your hometown, your friends and family, and from Jax.

Jax thinks it’s best not to mention anything about his divorce, or Wendy's current situation as he knows you’ll have something to say about it, so he keeps the text short and brief. Almost as if he hardly knew you.

Jax: Hey y/n. All good here. Keeping the club in line ain’t easy. Abel’s nearly 4 ur right, hope you’re doing well.

Your expression changes to a frown as you read Jax's text message, noticing how sharp and cold his tone is, far different from the Jax you remember. You make a decision to reach out to Opie, thinking he might have some insight into what’s going on with Jax.

Y/N: Hey Ope, hope you and the family are doing well. Just messaged Jax and he seems a bit off? Is everything okay? Was thinking about you all today I might come down soon for a few days. If you’re both around. Let me know!

Opie reads your text and laughs, having a good idea that jax hasn’t filled you in on the details of his recent divorce. He glances over at Jax who’s already in a shitty mood and remarks, “You still haven’t told y/n?” He says, as he brings his cigarette back up to his mouth.

Jax looks puzzled when Opie accurately guesses that he hasn't shared any recent news with you. Opie tosses him the phone, and Jax scans through your text message, as he realises that you're completely in the dark about his recent life developments. “She ain’t around any more so what does it matter? She left to be with that asshole and hasn’t looked back since” Jax says as he chucks the phone back to Opie.

“Did you expect her to wait around for you?” Opie says, shaking his head in Jax’s direction.

“What do you mean wait around for me?” Jax stares out Opie.

“Nothing” Opie hushes, knowing that silence is his best option. He had always been the mediator of the trio - since you were kids, Jax would relay information about you to Ope, whilst you would share your thoughts about Jax with him too, leaving him in the middle of the unspoken love between the two of you. He knew how hard it was for Jax to see you strutting round with other guys who weren’t him, and he knew how hard it was for you when you found out Wendy was pregnant and soon to be married to Jax.

Opie can feel the burn from Jax’s side eye, quickly thinking of something to say, Jax knows that Opie is aware of his feelings towards you and the reasons behind his defensive attitude when it comes to you. Opie uses this opportunity to remind him that it’s not your fault for being oblivious to his emotions. How are you suppose to act upon his unspoken feelings?

Opie bluntly tells Jax, "Maybe if you had the guts to tell her how you felt about her, she'd still be here, and you wouldn’t be stuck with a drug lovin’ ex-wife".

You were always considered like the little sister Opie never had, and that protective instinct had carried on into adulthood. Even if you weren’t as close as you once were. Which is why he still felt the need to defend you in your absence.

“I’m just saying…didn’t think she’d care to know” Jax says, banging his box of cigarettes on the table, knowing he has nothing to say in his defence as Opie is 100% right. He still doesn’t quite understand what Ope meant by you waiting for him though.

"Her coming back to see us only means one thing anyway…” Opie continues, “…she’s probably finished with that douche so she’s finally allowed to come back and see us” He begins replying to your text.

“Well it can’t be that bad… she packed up her whole life for him…” the jealousy in Jax’s tone shining through. Opie smirks and shakes his head towards the jealousy presented by Jax, as he sends his reply to you.

Opie: All good here thank u y/n. Cnt speak for Jax he’s in a world of his own. Lmk if ur planning on stopping by… you bringing your old man? would be nice to see u. It’s been a while. Lylas heard all about u and wants to meet u. - Ope

You roll your eyes at Opies question about your ‘old man’. Hiding your own love life, you don’t respond to the text at all, but internally making the decision that you were in fact going to visit.

It's only been a few days since your breakup, and your ex is currently crashing at his friend's place. However, you don't want to be there when he returns, knowing that it could lead to another confrontation. You grab your laptop, eager to find a place to stay just outside of Charming. You know that anyone from home would have let you stay with them whilst you’re in town, but you decide to do this bit on your own. So you don’t waste any time reading reviews. The first place you see is only about 10 minutes from the clubhouse and, best of all, it’s cheap. Decision made. You’ll be back in Charming sooner than you thought.

[The next morning]

You collect all of your essential belongings, packing them in a hurry and carefully loading them into your car. You don't even bother with any unnecessary or replaceable items, knowing deep down that your departure is final.

You miss everyone back home and crave the familiar faces, even if things have gotten a bit…awkward lately. Leaving well early in the morning, the drive back to Charming took about an hour. Giving you the perfect chance to clear your head. Thoughts of the future swirl through your mind, uncertainty and questions. You wonder where you’ll go, what you’ll say if someone asks about your situation and how you’ll handle the inevitable “we told you so’s” from the ones who saw through your ex’s charming nature before you left to start a new life with him.

He was a narcissist, completely consumed by his own reflection and oblivious to anyone else's feelings or needs. Everything revolved around him, and only him, Of course when you first got together he was the complete opposite. The ideal man for you, the one who convinced you to leave Charming and your familiarity behind. Part of you knows, deep down, that he was also a big reason you stopped keeping in touch with the boys as much as you should have.

He knew about the bond you shared with Jax and Opie, Jax especially and he hated it, hated the way they had your back in ways he never could. On the rare occasion when you were all present in the same room, he saw how protective Jax was of you, how he looked at you and how you looked back at him, in the exact same way.

Jax watches as Opie takes off his helmet and dismounts his motorcycle, Jax swiftly doing the same thing.

“Yo… Ope…” Jax calls out to Opie, as he moves towards the clubhouse. “y/n text you back?” He shouts out.

“Nah, heard nothing back from her… maybe try calling” Opie says, with a tinge of cockiness, knowing Jax would feel a way about calling you and also not wanting to be the middle man any longer.

Before Jax can even argue the idea, Opie walks briskly back into the club house, leaving Jax to ponder his options. Jax sighs as he mutters to himself, “I guess I'll do it,” scrolling through his phone's contact list to find your name. His hands tremble ever so slightly as he holds the phone to his ear, waiting anxiously to see whether you answer or not.

you take a deep sigh as you settle down onto the bed, after carrying the last of your belongings into the motel room. As you glance around, you take in fragments of your life scattered about. Little items that you had brought with you from the place you used to share with your ex. You have no idea what the hell you're going to do from here, but at least here is home, in Charming.

Your phone starts ringing, and you're certain of who it is. You take your phone out of your pocket and roll your eyes at the sight of your ex's name lighting up the screen. It can only mean one thing, he has finally realised that you've moved on and won't be coming back. You ignore the call placing your phone back on the bed. As the call ends, it rings again. You pick up the phone getting ready to block his number, but this time a different name is displayed across the screen.

“y/n?” Jax says in a low tone, Jesus Christ how you missed his rough voice.

“Hey” Is all you manage to get out. Actually hearing him speak after so long has made you feel somewhat… nervous.

Jax can’t help but smile at the other end of the phone. He can sense that you were caught off guard by his call.

“Uh… Ope mentioned that you might be coming home soon… I was just calling to check when… you know, if you are” he says, fumbling over his words.

“Yeah I…-I’m actually already here… well sort of…” you laugh lightly.

“Oh shit… when did you get- wait what do you mean sort of?” He questions, confused by what you mean.

“I’m like 10 minutes out, staying at the Rockstaff motel”

“A motel? You staying there with what’s his face?” Jax can’t even bring himself to use your exs name, it humours you slightly.

“No.. I- it’s just me…” you refrain from going into detail.

“So why are you staying at a motel? You should have called me when you got here. You know you can always come here…or to any of us”

“I know, I know, I just wanted to surprise you guys, like old times… you know?” You rush to explain, not wanting Jax to discover that you’re actually planning on living out of said motel whilst you get everything in order.

“Hmm, always full of surprises you are” Jax’s laughs, walking towards the clubhouse now.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You retaliate, slightly defensive.

“Nothing” he snaps back with an awkward laugh. “How long you plannin’ on staying for this time anyway?”

You can hear the attitude in his tone, the way he states ‘this time’ because the last time you saw him was that night Abel was born, and you left without personally saying goodbye.

“Ahhh so that’s why you’ve been so cold with me the past few years, because I never said bye?” You question, wanting to clear the air of all awkwardness.

“Something like that” he says, clearing his throat as he scratches the back of his neck “You gonna swing by today at some point or-”

“Yeah… if not today then tomorrow” you let Jax know, unsure if you’re willing to brave the awkwardness today or not.

“Okay… cool. You’ll let me know yeah?” His protectiveness still peeking through. “You sure you’ll be ok at that motel?”

“I’m a big girl Jax, I’m good” your words come out through a slight smile. You hear him laugh faintly as he disconnects the call.

As you sit with all your feelings and emotions rolling through your mind, you think it’s best to meet up with Jax first and hash out this weirdness going on between you both, you don’t want it to be over your heads whilst around anyone else. Just as you’re writing out a text, one comes through.

EX: what the fuck all ur stuff is gone wtf are u playing at y/n answer the fucking phone.

And another.

EX: where the fuck are you y/n

And another.

EX: do u think u can leave me! U stupid bitch

And another.

EX: u think im stupid dnt u? Wait till I fucking catch you stupid biker whore

‘Biker whore’ you repeat out loud, you have no idea where that had even come from, you hadn’t associated with them for the past 3/4 years, so why he’d mention that, you were clueless. Threats from your ex weren’t out of the ordinary so you weren’t really phased by the texts he had just sent - he doesn’t know where you are, so you’re safe…right?

You continue looking for Jax in your recent contacts, and begin to message him.

Y/N: Hey, just wondering are u still at ur old place? and are u free right now? I’ll come and see you but if not will just catch up tomorrow with everyone else. Lmk

His reply was quick.

JAX: yeah same place. I’ll be home in about 20 minutes if u wanna come by now.

As you pull up to the once familiar address, you see him waiting for you outside, sitting cockily on his bike, foot balancing on the exhaust and a cigarette In hand. a smile slapped across his face, almost as if he’s as excited to see you as you are him.

Part 2 will be on the way! Apologies for being gone for so long, I’m back & writing again, so bare with lol.

GIFs, photos & music do not belong to me.

Jax Teller masterlist

xoxo secretly samcro

[daveth-isnt-dead]

Coalescence part 3/3

Part Two

Summary:

She’s so nervous that her breath catches in her lungs and doesn’t come back out, from her side she can hear Viktor’s foot tapping a frantic rhythm against the tiles. Without even thinking it through, her hand finds his and grabs it tight. He doesn’t pull back, if anything he holds hers even tighter. The question rises once again, unbidden. What are we? AKA: She works with Viktor for seven years, she is in love with him for five of them.

Contains: she/her pronouns, teenie tiny bit of blood kink, explicit sexual content, bittersweet ending.

Word Count: 9166

Read on AO3

“I have someone who might be able to help us,” Viktor says a few weeks later, tangled together with her in his bed. He is tucked in under her arm and she gently runs her fingers through his hair as they slowly wake up for the morning. 

Viktor’s work on the Hexcore progressed quickly, but still without a lick of real, tangible success. She sat anxiously near him the first time he discovered that the core had begun to respond to organic matter and attempted to revive one of the very deceased plants from his bedroom. It still haunts her, the way its leaves began to unfurl, the brown quickly wicking away to be replaced by a virile green. She had clutched Viktor’s hand, grinning in anticipation of an answer , before the plant withered and turned to dust. 

It continued that way, day after day. Jayce was absent for most of it. Though she and Viktor had what they both deemed more important work to do, Jayce was busy handling the situation with the Zaunites and only stopped by for a few hours every couple of days. Even then he seemed restless, always pacing back and forth and only stopping to see if either of them had succeeded in utilising the Hexcore, creating a cure . However, Viktor never wanted to admit his motives were at all selfish. 

She wishes he was selfish. Laying in bed with him, the warm yellow light of sunrise dancing across his pale skin, “That’s good news, isn’t it?” Viktor sighs, “I hope so.” he buries his face in her shirt, “He’s an old mentor, I wouldn’t call him a friend , but-” “Do you trust him?” She asks quickly, tangling her fingers into the hair curled behind his ears. 

“Regarding this matter? Yes, I do.” 

She readjusts herself, sliding down so she can look him in the eye, holding his cheek in her palm, “Then so do I.” she presses her forehead to his, breathing deeply and closing her eyes, “Whatever you need to do, I trust you and I’ll be here, should you need me.”

It’s true, her faith in him is inexorable. Even after days of watching plants grow as tall as the ceiling only to collapse into dust, even after Professor Heimerdinger stopped by the lab and begged them to destroy the core immediately, her trust in Viktor never wavered. Heimerdinger had been upset. though it was many years ago that he assigned her to be his eyes and ears on the burgeoning production of Hextech, part of him obviously still expected her to defer to him in this matter, for her to agree with him without question. She didn’t, her rejection had been clipped, but polite, though she had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from asking why he was so desperate to see Viktor die for his work, instead of helping him to find any other option. 

She isn’t like that. She can’t possibly be like that. She will do whatever he asks of her, she will follow him to his bed every single night just for another chance to hold him. She will keep all burning notions of what are we? buried deep in her chest because now is not the time and the time will probably never come. In all ways, she will be what he needs her to be. Slowly, Viktor’s hand slides up behind her head, holding her against him, “You can’t come with me.” he breathes. At first, she wants to ask why, to accuse him of not trusting her enough, but none of that matters, not really. So instead she replies, “Then I’ll be here when you get back.” she manages a crooked little smile, “Can I ask where you’re going?” “The undercity.” He admits, “I can’t tell you anything more.” She nods, “Okay. Just be safe, promise me that much.” “I promise.” He whispers, leaning up to press a kiss to her temple. 

He leaves that evening, and she is anxious. With Jayce away on council business as he is pretty much all the time now and Sky at the botany lab down the hall, there is nothing she can do but worry. As the tensions between Piltover and Zaun reach a fever pitch, the only interest the council has in Hextech is for weaponry and the three of them have refused to even draft a single blueprint related to the matter. So there isn’t even a half-finished project for her to tinker with. 

As she paces back and forth, she notices that the Hexcore seems to be following her movements again. Slowly rotating in her direction as she crosses the room, and then back when she returns to her starting point. Despite it being the only lead they have in ever achieving biological augmentation, she doesn’t like looking at it. Whenever she does it spins in a slow, mocking arc and fluctuates its pitch the same way it did the night Viktor almost died, laughing at her. Through the gaps in the runes, the Hextech gemstone is like a winking eye, flashes of it appear as the plates spin and spin. Her brows draw tight and she walks slowly towards it, there are still dust particles floating around in the air from the last plant they experimented on and the light of the moon catches on them. As she steps closer, the Hexcore’s spin slows, daring her, and as if her finger is being pulled by a string she reaches out to touch it. 

Nothing. Her finger hits metal and the world doesn’t change. 

She curses and kicks the stool at the workbench, knocking it to the ground with a loud clank . The Hexcore’s pitch begins to fluctuate again and she nearly starts a screaming match with the inanimate object when she hears a ruckus outside her window. Stepping over to it, her heart drops like a rock at the sight of a blockade being set up on the Piltover side of the bridge that connects to the Undercity. Unable to think about anything but Viktor stuck on the other side of it, she abandons any thought of getting work done and runs as quickly as she can to Jayce’s room. 

***

“I didn’t have a choice .” Jayce says, sitting in an embroidered armchair with his head in his hands, “There wasn’t another option, people from the Undercity are dangerous.” She scoffs, leaning against the wall on the other side of the room, “Dangerous? Look, I may be from topside but I'm not exactly Piltover elite. You’ve been to my childhood home, Jayce, I grew up in the fringes, half my friends growing up were Zaunites, and my parents did most of their shopping there because it was all they could afford.” She crosses her arms, jaw tight as she tries not to blow up at him, “You’ve pushed them too far, push anyone too far and there’s no telling what they’ll do.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do then, huh?” Jayce spits, bouncing his knee at an ever-increasing speed, “Do you want to be on the council? Give it a go? See how you do?” He laughs bitterly, “We have an open spot if you’re interested.”

“An open-” she exhales a disbelieving breath, “Wait. Heimerdinger?” 

He doesn’t respond. 

“Fuck, Jayce, Heimerdinger? ” Jayce snorts, “It’s not like the two of you were exchanging pleasantries the last time you talked.” 

“Oh sure, I’ll bite.” She snaps, “Whatever personal or even scientific issues I may have with Heimerdinger would not get in the way of me using my brain and realising that the rest of the council only wanted him removed for their own interests.” 

“It’s more complicated than that-” “Viktor is on the other side of the bridge.” She hisses, “That’s why I came here. To ask my friend if there was something we could do, I didn’t realise you were the one who set this whole fucking thing up.”

“He’s what? ” Jayce exclaims, leaping up from his chair, “Why didn’t he tell me?” “Well, he shouldn’t have to, Jayce! It’s not like he knew that you were going to lock down the city.” She argues, trying hard to ignore the tears of frustration beading in the corner of her eyes, “I was already worried enough without the concern that someone’s insane idea would get him stuck on the other side of the bridge.”

Jayce lets out a shaky breath and runs a trembling hand through his hair, “I-I can let the enforcers know to keep an eye out for him, they can contact me when he arrives.”

“Then you’ll contact me, right?” He turns to her, all anger disappearing as his posture sinks with rapid exhaustion, “Then I’ll contact you.”

She sniffles, her burst of fury slowly melting and leaving her with nothing but that aching anxiety that plagued her all evening. She knows that Viktor will be okay, he’s far more familiar with the Undercity than she is and certainly knows exactly where he is going. Though she hasn't been apart from him this long since the night she found him unconscious on the floor, it makes her feel uneasy, her hands shake. 

“Do you want to sleep here?” Jayce asks, sounding defeated, “I probably won’t be sleeping anyway and that way I can update you through the capsule system.”

“Yeah.” She replies weakly, unsettled at the feeling of returning to Viktor’s empty bed, “That would be nice, thank you.” 

He sighs and starts heading for the door out to his sitting room, “No problem” “Jayce?” She calls out, stopping him at the doorway, “I meant everything I said, but I'm sorry for yelling at you.” “Yeah.” He says, voice high and tight in his throat, “I’m sorry too.”

***

She receives a capsule from Jayce in the early morning, letting her know that Viktor made his way back safely, but when she goes to meet him in the lab, Jayce is already on his way out. He gives her an uncomfortable look that she completely ignores as she rushes into the lab to find Viktor sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. 

He peers up when he hears her coming, expression changing from anger to something more like aching melancholy, his breath rattles in his chest when he sighs, “I hear you and Jayce had an argument, also.” “Yeah, we did, last night.” She replies, “What happened between the two of you?”

He turns back to the desk, working to pull apart what looks like a makeshift grenade, “Councillor Medarda is trying to convince him to build Hextech weaponry” he peers at her over his shoulder, “It’s working.”

She crosses the room and leans up against his desk, hanging her head, “I don’t know what to do, Viktor. I thought I might have made some headway with him last night but-” she shrugs, “I guess I was wrong.”

Viktor rolls his chair forward and rests his forehead against the dip of her waist, “We’ll find another way, without him.” He lets out a shaky exhale, “At least, until he comes back around.” “I'm sure he will.” Her hand finds the top of his head and her fingers tangle in his hair, “How did things go last night? Did you find what you needed?” “I-” he sucks a breath in through his teeth, leaning backward to look up at her face, “I did, yes.” Relief rushes through her, she feels her shoulders relax for the first time in hours, “At least something good came out of this, then.” “The solution is, inelegant and dangerous.” Viktor murmurs, taking her hand in his own, “I understand if-” “No.” She interrupts, lifting their joined hands to her lips and kissing the back of his knuckles, “Tell me what you need me to do.”

___

What are we? She muses, her head resting on Viktor’s bare thigh, peering up at his pained expression above her. She shifts her head a little, for a better view, and blood smears across her cheek. He looks especially beautiful in the dim light of the lab, with only the blue glow of the Hexcore for illumination, even as he bites his lower lip in pain. 

“Is that all of them?” She asks, trying to ignore how desperately the words try to stick in her throat.

He heaves a breath and the sound rattles around behind his ribs, he taps a finger to the inside of his thigh, “One more.” “Okay.” She breathes, curling her legs out from under herself and rising to her knees. Careful to steady herself using his good leg despite it being harder to reach. At the correct height, she swallows dryly, lifting the hand that still clutches the scalpel. Her hand shakes as it draws towards him, but he grabs her wrist before she can continue. 

His breathing is staccato now, “You don’t have to.” the words clatter from his lips with no precision, all choppy and desperate, “I can do it, this time.” She shakes her head, removing her other hand from his thigh and pressing it over his heart, feeling its desperate pattering behind the birdcage clutch of his ribs, “Let me, please.”

Viktor’s hand slides from her wrist, up the length of her arm, over her bare shoulder and into her hair, fingers digging in tightly to the tangle at the side of her head. She can’t resist leaning into his fingers, lifting the scalpel again and waiting for his nod before she lowers it to his skin. There’s only one rune left that hasn't been carved, she had them all catalogued and knows just which one remains, so her hand is confident even as the blade pierces flesh. A hiss escapes Viktor’s teeth, and his clutch on her hair grows so tight it’s almost painful. She presses on. It aches to see the ruination, the unsightly red carvings on his alabaster skin, but it must be done and if it truly must, she would rather it be by her hand than his. Viktor’s next breath is an even more frightening rattle, she can see his chest heaving, teeth clenched. 

“Almost done, I promise,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to his leg. 

He nods, eyes squeezed shut and then she brings the blade down for the final cut. Too deep, blood pools around the blade and drips down her wrist, she doesn’t stop until the lines meet and complete the perverse, bloody imitation of a rune. Without thinking, she catches the blood on her wrist with her tongue before it continues its slow descent down her forearm. It's only when the metallic tang hits that she realises she's done it. 

She swallows, averting her eyes. The taste of blood refuses to leave her mouth, “Well, that part is done, at least.” 

“Yes,” Viktor replies, his voice breathless and wavering, “You…You already have the injector?” It’s on the floor beside her, right by her knee. Her hand shakes so much when she picks it up that she almost drops it. She was already at the academy when shimmer flooded the Undercity, so despite living so close during her childhood she never actually got to see the effects of it first-hand. Viktor showing her the vial was perhaps the only moment of hesitation she felt about this plan of his, if only because the little she knew indicated that it would hurt and it would hurt a lot . Viktor knew this, gripped both her hands and told her that he still wanted to do it, had to do it. He tried to convince her to let him do it alone, knowing that being an active participant in his suffering would only make her upset. Though the idea of him suffering without her there only made her feel worse, so her mind couldn’t be changed. 

She rises back up on her knees and rests her free hand on his upper arm. Viktor’s expression softens just a little, and he covers her hand with his own. She takes several sharp breaths in through her nose, exhaling shakily as she lines the injector up with the section of bare thigh left exposed by his brace. 

Viktor lets out a breath that almost sounds like a whimper, “You will need to be away from me, when I use the Hexcore.” he pants desperately between his words, struggling to swallow enough air, “Without the shimmer in your system I don't-” he grits his teeth, “I don’t know what it will do to you.”

“Okay.” She breathes, surprised at how calm she sounds, because her hands won’t stop shaking, “Tell me when to go, and I’ll go.” He nods loosely, huffing desperate breaths in through his teeth. 

She lets out one final breath, “Now?” “Now.”

He starts to convulse before her finger even gets a chance to leave the trigger. Sickly purple tendrils spread out from the injection site, the whole way down his leg and up to the right side of his face. Viktor tosses his head back in a scream and she leaps up to wrap her arms around his shoulders, holding him as tight as she can with all his thrashing. Words are leaving her mouth, desperate and panicked and so instinctual that she doesn't even hear them, Viktor’s hands leap up underneath her shirt and cling to her bare skin like he’ll lose himself if he isn’t clutching to her. 

His nails dig into her upper back and he howls in agony as he drags them down the entire length of her bare skin to the waistband of her skirt. She can feel her skin being pulled up under his nails and can imagine the long red scrapes left behind. She just bites down on a scream and buries her face further into his shoulder, refusing to let him go even as he involuntarily tears into her flesh. He slumps against her, his screams turning to something more like sobs as the shimmer finally settles into his veins and It’s only a few more seconds before he regains enough lucidity to whisper, “Go. Now.”

She does as asked, dropping back to the floor and scurrying backward until she hits a wall. Viktor lets out a pained hiss as he slices open the palm of his hand and she pulls her knees up to her chest, faced with the unbearable fact that for now, all she can do is watch. There isn’t much she can see from behind him, only the anxious curl of his spine and the lopsided arch of his shoulders. She sees him hesitate, retract his hand as he reaches out to the Hexcore, but then it’s like it grabs him and yanks him towards it, his hand coming in contact with a sound akin to a thunderclap and a scream louder than any she’s heard leaves his mouth as the Hexcore begins the unfamiliar process. 

There is only so much she can tolerate. From her perspective all she can see is his shoulders jumping up in agony and the flash of purple light. After a few seconds, she can’t bear it any longer and buries her head in her knees, gritting her teeth and trying her best to ignore the sounds. Tears are beading in her eyes and she feels the same way she did the night he almost died when all she could do was sit by and wait . It takes what feels like hours, the sound of his pained yowling and the whining spin of the Hexcore filling the room, but it does eventually come to an end. His screams slow to gasping breaths and the Hexcore slowly returns to its usual ambient G4 hum, then there’s what sounds like a clunk and when her head shoots up she realises it was the sound of him falling to the ground.

She calls his name in a panic, scrambling towards him on all fours and nearly starts to cry with relief when he manages to pull himself up in a seated position and gives her a weak smile. Her hand finds his cheek, luckily the purple glow from the shimmer seems to have receded and she is overjoyed to see that his eyes have returned to their usual gold.

“Sorry.” She says, sniffling and quickly pulling her hand back, “Are you okay? Did it work?” He laughs, but he sounds exhausted. “Let’s find out together.” He moves to start standing, and she rushes to help him. As she reaches out, Viktor rests a hand on her own and wheezes, “Let me do it on my own, please.”

Sitting back on her knees, she lets her hand fall and watches Viktor slowly pull himself to his feet. Her mouth drops open at the sight of his leg, emitting an adamantine glow, with a sheen that would make it seem solidly metal if not for the way it moved, imitations of tendons crisscrossing up the length of it in a brilliant deep purple. With a haggard breath escaping his already exhausted lungs, he finally stands.

It feels oddly right, somehow, to sit on the ground at his feet. To watch his posture uncurl in a way it hasn't in years. His legs are completely straight, anchoring him to the ground, but his upper half still slopes down to the right, akimbo atop his solid foundation. The problems are spinal too, of course, the leg doesn't fix everything, but she still feels awash in vibrancy when he looks down at her from so high above. 

He lets out another wheezing breath, that only slightly shatters the sensation of kneeling before divinity and says, “Can you take this off me?” gesturing to his brace.

“Yes! Of course!” She sputters, scrambling forward and rising up on her knees. Her hands are very familiar with the buckles and clasps by now and after only a few seconds the brace falls to the ground with a thud . Still on her knees, she leans forward tentatively and gently pushes up the leg of his underwear so she can press her lips to the seam where flesh ends and the metal begins. 

“It hurt a lot, didn’t it?” She asks, breath ghosting over his bare skin. 

One of his hands rests on her shoulder, the other tangles in the hair on the back of her head, “Yes, it did.”

“ Does it hurt?”

He swallows, eyebrows pinching like he ain't sure how to respond, after a moment he settles on, “No.”

Satisfied, she presses her cheek against the soft skin of his stomach, breathing slowly in and out. 

They stay like that for some time, long enough that her knees start to ache from the hard tiles underneath. And then, when she finally leans back to stare up at him, and his hand comes down to press against her cheek, the question she has been asking herself for years finally decides to manifest itself as a desperate vocalisation, “Viktor…what are-”

His lips collide with hers in a frantic clacking of teeth before she can finish the question and she is all too glad to receive his answer. Her heart does something desperate in her chest, and one of her hands jumps up to tangle in the hair on the back of his head. Viktor wraps an arm around her back and with a surprising amount of strength (residual adrenaline, she assumes) tugs her up to her feet so she can slot her body fully against his. An animalistic sound grinds out from the back of his throat when her mouth opens beneath his and she instinctually hikes one of her legs up over his hip in a desperate bid to be closer forever and ever closer . His hips automatically roll in response to her bumping against him and the sound she lets out is so exhilarated that it almost sounds like a pathetic sob. 

His arm tucks under her leg, and the two of them stumble backward until he is leaning up against a desk, she rests her knee on the edge of it and drinks down the sounds of his moans when she grinds her hips against him. Viktor’s mouth feels perfect against hers, his lips well bitten and chapped, his teeth crooked under her tongue. He’s so wonderfully flawed, so delectably human, she wishes that every thought she’s ever had of him could be felt through her touch. That he could just know how long and how painfully she has needed him just through the frantic yank of her hand in his hair. His hands slip up under her shirt, grabbing her bare waist as his tongue meets hers in a desperate and salacious writhe. She hisses when his palms press against the angry scrapes his nails left earlier, but the pain does little to deter her. The exhilaration fizzes and pops in her veins like an electrical discharge, and her heart swells and unfurls, leaving her lost in an addictive warmth that she feels like might wither and die without. One of Viktor’s hands begins a tentative journey up her torso, hesitating at the seam of her brassiere. 

Desperate to feel him, she leans back just a little so she can start tearing her own clothes off, and it’s only then that Viktor seems to regain something like lucidity. Letting out a rattling breath against the side of her neck, “We shouldn’t do this here.” he whispers, and his breath against her skin sends shivers down her spine.

She doesn't want to stop, but he’s right, “Your dorm, then?” She breathes, whining when he licks a stripe up the side of her throat. 

“Yours.” He corrects and she feels him smile against her skin, “It’s always been closer.” ***

The time that passes as they move from the lab to her dorm feels utterly inconsequential. Viktor breaks into a fit of laughter as he struggles to get his trousers back on, and again when she is so busy kissing his shoulders that he can barely get her out of the way long enough to get his arms in his shirt. His hand never leaves hers as they stumble down the halls and the few minutes it takes pass in a blur, like a skip in time, like two of them leapt completely over the space between two moments, ignoring the connective tissue in between. She arrives at her door, giddy, drunk on the taste of his mouth and the feeling of his hands. It’s hard to get the key in the lock with his arms around her waist and his nose pressed against the side of her throat, but her shaky hands somehow manage the task. 

It’s only when they step past the threshold of her dorm that the raging and boiling intensity simmers down to something softer, syrupy and thick in her veins. The door closes behind them and Viktor looms over her, his breathing heavy and slow, eyes the ever-beautiful gold that she has seen in her dreams for the last five years. His brow creases and his breath shakes as he brings his palm to her cheek. 

The next kiss is different, there is no clacking of teeth, no desperate groping. His lips press against hers softly, achingly, his other arm wraps around her waist and pulls her close to him. She nearly feels like crying, both her hands slipping up under his untucked shirt and clinging tightly to his shoulder blades. He tilts his head to the side, his thumb rubbing gently across her cheekbone and she feels herself melt into him, all the sharp edges of him dig into her skin and the sensation is exquisite. They separate with a heaving of breath and Viktor’s hand slides from her cheek to the back of her head and he leans down to press his forehead to hers. 

“Do you have any idea how long I have wanted to do that?” He whispers.

Her face breaks into a wide smile, warmth dancing from her heart out to the tips of her fingers, “Enlighten me.”

“Years.” He replies, and even with her eyes closed she can hear the smile on his lips. 

She laughs quietly, “Then we’re even.”

Viktor pulls back and when she looks up at him she sees his beautiful eyes are like molten gold, wide open and vulnerable. He reaches out to brush some of her hair out of her face, and then ducks down and leaves an almost possessive kiss beneath her ear that sends shivers straight through her. 

“Wasn’t there something you planned to do to me, now that we’re behind closed doors?” He whispers. 

“Many things.” She responds eagerly, “Why? Was there something you planned to do to me?”

He chuckles against her throat, “Many things.” he repeats. 

Viktor follows enthusiastically when she grabs him by the hand and leads him back to her bedroom, more enthusiastically when she encourages him to sit on the edge of her bed and she swings a leg over both of his. His lips return to hers in a fervour, arms wrapping around her impossibly tight. She moans aloud when his tongue meets hers, and again when his hips buck up underneath her. Her hands leap up to the collar of his shirt, shakily undoing the buttons, “I’m glad you put your clothes back on.” She breathes, kissing along the length of his prominent collarbone when the fabric drops away, “I’ve always wanted to take them off you.”

Viktor’s head lolls back in a whine when she sucks a pretty purple mark at the join between his shoulder and neck. It’s the most significant sound she’s ever heard, she catalogues it, makes a mental note to remember the exact pitch for later. She hasn’t touched music composition in years now, too entangled in Hextech and in Viktor , but she’d like to write something with that note in it, to immortalise him, to hear him forever. The shirt slides down his shoulders and she’s delighted to find that the flush on his cheeks also runs down to his chest and up to his ears. 

“Now what are you doing?” He asks, teasing, as she drops to her knees between his legs 

She rests her head on his thigh, the way she always does, but this time her hands reach up to undo the fastenings on his trousers, “Helping.” She responds coyly, grabbing the waistband of his pants and undergarments in one go, “Lift up for me?” He blinks for a moment, “Oh, ah, yes. Of course.” 

Her eyes are drawn back to his augmented leg the moment it is revealed again. The glow of it, the elegant replication of musculature, golden rings encircling it in all the spots she remembers his brace once being. When she peers up, she notices Viktor intently looking at her, head tilted to the side. 

“Does it…bother you?” He asks, stilted, nervous. 

She smiles and shakes her head, “It’s you, how could it?” she kisses the criss-cross of metal at his knee, “Do you feel that?” His brow creases, “Not precisely .” he says, “It’s ehh more pressure, than sensation.” “Okay, then.” She brings her hand up underneath his thigh, rubbing firmly from behind his knee all the way up to the crease where his thigh meets his pelvis, “Do you feel that? ” A strangled moan escapes him and his head lolls forward in a nod, “Yes, acutely .”

That knowledge cemented, she rises up on her knees, rubbing firm circles on the inside of his metal thigh. Enamoured with the odd, synthetic warmth it emanates, the ambient hum she can feel under her palm. Her other hand slides up his flesh thigh, over the prominent bump of his hipbone and to the smooth plain of his stomach. She feels his muscles tense under her hand. They tense some more when she offers a tentative lick to the head of his cock. His breath quickens above her, one of his hands coming to rest on the back of her head and he chokes when she actually takes him into her mouth, his fingers digging tight into her hair. She bobs her head and his hips buck once, shallow and without thought. One of those foreign expletives she’s gotten used to hearing escapes his mouth and she notices that his other hand is fisted in the sheets. 

He’s so pretty. Chest heaving with panting breaths, throat bobbing as he tries not to moan. It feels a little bit like desecration, unravelling him like this. She moans around him, breathing in deep through her nose as the head of his cock meets the back of her throat. He’s babbling, she likes that. 

“ Milackú ” He breathes, and then translates, “ Darling .”

She’s overwhelmed, the feeling of him warm in her mouth, the incessant electrical hum of his leg, the way he whispers and hisses sweet things through his teeth for her all for her. The hand she has on his stomach slides off to the side grabbing his where it is fisted in the sheets, interlocking their fingers as she starts moving her head at a more consistent rhythm. Viktor is panting desperately above her, hips twitching and writhing and she can hardly believe that she is the one doing it to him. Tears bead in her eyes when he slips down the back of her throat and the tip of her nose presses against his pelvis. His hand grips hers so tightly that her fingers start going numb and when she slides her mouth back up, fully intending to go all the way back down again, Viktor holds her head still urging her to stop

“As much as I am enjoying myself.” He slurs, voice thick and unfathomably rich, “There’s more I would like to do with you.” While she would have been content languishing with the warmth of him inside her throat for at least another hour. She does as asked, releasing his cock from her mouth with a lurid pop and wiping the saliva from her chin with the back of her hand. Viktor quickly encourages her to get back on top of him and she lets out a breathless little giggle when he falls backwards onto the mattress and pulls her down with him. Their lips meet again, though the kiss is more languid, explorative. He likes when she sucks on his lower lip and she likes when his tongue traces her upper row of teeth. There is still a lot to learn, to research . He is by far her favourite area of study, truly the only methodology able to hold her attention. She could spend years like this, his thighs trapped between both of hers, his warm and perfect mouth slotted against her own. Kissing and kissing and kissing . 

Suddenly he grips her by the shoulders and pushes off the bed with his augmented leg to flip them both over, her breath escapes her lungs in a gasp when her back hits the mattress, and again when Viktor slots his lips against the side of her throat. He alternates between kissing and sucking on her skin, all the way from behind her ear and down to her shoulder and a wash of pleasure zaps down between her thighs when she imagines what a lovely shade of purple her neck must be now. 

His hand reaches for the hem of her shirt, and he removes his mouth from her skin just long enough for him to ask, “May I?” “You can do anything you’d like to me.” She breathes, breath catching when his teeth nip at her neck, “You don’t have to ask.”

Viktor hums thoughtfully, lifting his head to meet her eyes, “That’s an awful lot of permission you’re giving me.”

“It’s mine to give, isn’t it?” She replies, craning her head up to press a soft kiss to his lips, “I trust you to use it wisely.”

He lets out something a little bit like a moan, resting his weight back on his knees so that he can use both hands to slowly push the fabric of her shirt up. His hands press to her sides as they move, lingering against her bare waist, holding her tightly, before continuing up and over her chest. She arches up instinctually, whimpering at the feeling of his large hands holding her ribs between them. Viktor’s pupils are blown wide, leaving only a sliver of beautiful gold around the circumference of them like the sun eclipsed by the moon. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and his brow pulls tight for a second. 

“You don’t need to ask, Viktor.” She teases, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

He chuckles a little, “Why have you always been so good at reading my mind?”

The wanton arch of her spine gives him enough room to easily get around to the back of her brassiere and undo the clasps. It’s tossed to the floor a second later, replaced by Viktor’s mouth on one side and his hand on the other. The moan that escapes her comes from somewhere deep in her throat, it’s almost a howl . Viktor responds to her moan with one of his own, and she can feel the vibration of the sound around her sensitive nipple, it makes her back arch, desperate to get further into his mouth. Literally and figuratively, she wants him to consume her. If she really could read his mind, she would have begged him to take his fill of her so long ago. His fingers pinch her other nipple hard enough to make her yelp, but the sound quickly devolves into a moan once the surprise subsides. 

His mouth moves, then, his fingers continue plucking at and circling her nipple as he begins slowly kissing his way down her sternum, stopping just above the waistband of her skirt. Her breath is coming quickly now. Viktor doesn’t feel the need to ask as he slides the fabric up and over her hips, nor does he feel the need to before he sucks a purple mark to the inside of her thigh. Her resounding moan is loud enough that she has to clap a palm over her mouth to quiet the sound. 

Viktor peers up at her from between her thighs, she can’t see the lower half of his face, but his eyes are crinkled in a smile, “That won't do.” He says mischievously, “You are about to make a lot of noises.” he kisses her thigh, “And I would like to hear them all.”

She feels a pang of arousal in her gut and suddenly finds it difficult to swallow, “Confident, are we?” she says, though her shaky voice makes it sound a whole less teasing than she’d hoped. 

“In this area?” Viktor replies, “Absolutely.”

He doesn't need to ask for her to raise her hips, the moment she feels him grabbing for the waistband of her undergarments she already has them in the air. He lets out a shaky breath as the fabric slides down her legs and then chuckles as she struggles to shake it off her left ankle. For the first time, it’s him resting his head on her thigh, the hand on her breast sliding down to cup around the base of her ribs, thumb tracing the bone where it rests beneath her skin, “have you imagined this?”

“I-” she swallows, certain that he can feel the race of her heart beneath his hand, “I have, many times.” Viktor hums, his other hand moving between her thighs, rubbing just one knuckle over her sex, so gently that it makes her shiver, “So have I.” he replies, a single finger now pressing between her folds and moving in one swipe up from her entrance to her clit, “Sometimes like this, sometimes with you on top of me.” His voice stays remarkably steady, but she does catch a shake in his next exhale. She watches with something bordering on reverence as he lowers himself to rest on his forearms, his next breath ghosting across the wetness of her sex. 

“Let me give you everything I’ve ever wanted to give you.” He breathes, and then descends. 

Even the first languid swipe of his tongue is enough to have her tangling a hand into his hair, her legs hiking up, heels digging into the mattress. Viktor hums against her, one hand still holding tightly by her ribs, the other now rubbing soft circles around her entrance with his pointer finger. It’s just enough that she can feel it, enough that it’s frustrating he isn't giving her more. She whimpers when he gives her clit a firm lick, her hips stuttering up towards his mouth and then nearly sobbing when he returns to softly lapping at her instead of keeping his tongue where she craves it. 

Then his finger finally penetrates her, only to the first knuckle, but with how sensitive and wet she already is, it’s enough to have her tugging hard on his hair. Viktor grunts against her, so she loosens her grip in a panic. He laughs, “No need to be gentle on my account.” she gasps when he pushes the finger in the rest of the way, “In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t.” 

That thought sends a bolt of arousal coursing through her, she licks her dry lips and releases a shaky breath, “Then I won’t.” She pants, curling his hair around her fingers and using the grip to yank his face further into her cunt. Viktor lets out an utterly salacious moan and rewards her by pressing a second finger inside. His fingers are long and dextrous, thin enough that she feels the ridge of each knuckle when he slowly begins sliding them in and out of her at an utterly tortuous pace. She can’t stay still, one hand fisted into her bedsheets and the other with a white knuckle grip in his hair. Her body feels like a coiled spring, unbearable tension locks all her joints, tendons and muscles, unsure whether the feeling is too much or somehow not enough at the same time. 

A third finger joins the first two without complaint, it slides in so completely and all at once that she barely notices the intrusion at first. It’s only when Viktor moans against her and mutters, “You take my fingers so easily…” that she becomes aware of the additional stretch. He had been right about her making lots of sounds, there is a ceaseless babble of moans and whimpers and half-formed words escaping her lips at every confident thrust of his fingers. Her hips move of their own volition, her throat is starting to hurt from her own panting breath. The coil in her belly grows tighter and tighter, warmth blooming out from her centre all the way out to her toes and fingers, the slick sounds of his fingers sliding inside her, curling up in just the right way to make her sob, his moans vibrating against her overly sensitive clit. It’s so much, it’s nearly too much. She doesn't even think she wants to finish, she wants to stay hovering suspended in this moment forever, the feeling of his hair between her fingers, the sound of his voice, he could keep her trapped here for all eternity and she wouldn't even have the sense to complain. 

Viktor has other ideas, pressing his fingers firmly inside her, lips encircling her clit and the hand on her torso sliding up to circle her nipple. The climax hits all at once, her spine curling up off the bed in a trembling arch. The euphoria is so exact, so precise that it almost hurts and her head tosses back in an utterly sinful moan. Viktor continues his ministrations between her legs, slower, helping her come back down gently instead of with an abrupt shock. When he notices the tension leave her limbs, he presses a slow kiss to the inside of her thigh and rises back up on his knees, wiping the lower half of his face with the back of his hand. She gets that feeling again, that she is lying in prostration before the face of divinity. Viktor certainly looks the part, the dim lighting in her dorm catches on his high cheekbones, his collarbones and his leg emits a purple light that casts a gentle wash across his pale skin. She likes looking up at him, likes him looking down at her. It’s as though it is destined, a tapestry woven between the two of them, that he will stand tall and she will be honoured to kneel at his feet. The feeling only breaks when his breath starts to wheeze. 

It startles her back to reality and she scrambles up to her knees, resting her hand on his upper arm as her eyes dart over him in a panic, “Viktor…I’m sorry, are you- are you alright?”

He coughs into his elbow and that only makes her more worried. There’s no blood this time, thankfully, “I’m fine.” He replies tersely. 

The leg doesn't fix everything, she remembers. His lungs are still fighting against him and his spine is unused to so much strain without the support of his brace. He doesn’t want her pity though, that’s never what he wants and she knows that. So she gives him a coy smile instead, leaning in towards his ear and whispering, “You said something about imagining me on top of you, didn’t you?” He laughs, it’s more of a rasp than she would like, but she still loves hearing it, “I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing anything right now, that’s exactly the problem.” She replies, leaving a trail of kisses down the side of his neck, “Care to change that?” Viktor concedes, kissing her temple before moving to the other end of the bed, leaning himself up against the pile of pillows at the headboard. He looks very pretty with his pink cheeks and kiss swollen lips, even though she can still see and hear his breath rasping behind his ribs, “I will not be convinced so easily next time.” He says slowly as she climbs on top of him, tilting his head up to press his lips to the underside of her jaw, “ Next time , I will give you everything you deserve.” Her heart thrums, beating to the rhythm of next time, next time, next time . There’s a significance to that phrase, that they will find a way to cure him and that once they do he will have her, in every way he has ever wanted. A giddy little smile toys at the corner of her lips as she reaches between her legs to help angle herself over him, “Only if you let me return the favour.” A gasp punches out from his lungs when she takes the first inch of him and he pants, “It sounds like it will be an incredibly long endeavour, then.” “I hope it will.” She replies, letting out a long moan as he slips the rest of the way inside her, “A few days at least.” Viktor has his eyes squeezed shut, but still manages to laugh, “How ever will we get time away from the lab for this proverbial gauntlet?” She loops her arms over his shoulders, breath catching as she moves her hips, “We could always do some of it in the lab.” Viktor sputters and she swears that she feels him pulse inside of her, “That would be unsanitary.” She rocks her hips again, fully this time, relishing in the blissed-out whine that escapes his mouth, “Oh? And I thought the idea might have appealed to you.” she leans in close, pressing a single kiss to his open mouth, “Viktor…” she whispers, “Have you been imagining it?”

His hips stutter upwards into her and she lets out a shocked whine at the feeling of his cock suddenly pressing deeper . Viktor’s throat bobs and he replies, “ Constantly .” his next breath sounds more like a moan, and when his eyes meet hers they are hooded and lecherous , “Though it would still be unsanitary.”

“We can figure something out, I’m sure.” She tilts her head down breath ghosting over his lips as she whispers, “Later, though.” and then presses their lips together in an addictive, luxurious, open-mouthed kiss. Both of Viktor’s hands jump to her waist as her tongue explores his mouth, gasping loudly when she finally starts moving her hips in earnest. It’s barely even a kiss, just a thoughtless press of tongues and lips as she struggles to maintain a consistent rhythm. He feels utterly divine inside of her, the stretch has her moaning and whimpering with every roll of her hips, desperate to feel him deeper, faster . 

She whines when Viktor pulls his lips from hers, and then again but louder when he moves his mouth to her breast instead, sucking, biting and swirling his tongue in equal measure as she rides him. It hasn’t been long since her orgasm, so everything is so desperately sensitive and wet, even the sounds are deliciously perverse. She can hear Viktor’s breath huffing against her chest, his hands are clutching to her so tightly that she thinks- no, she hopes that she will have bruises come morning. The idea of that, the possibility of a permanent mark left by his fingertips, five perfect prints spread out across her skin. It’s enough to make her moan all on its own. 

Then, with one of those foreign curses jumping out from between his clenched teeth, Viktor digs the heel of his adamantine leg into the mattress and uses the force to thrust up into her hard and deep. He hits exactly where she needs him to, her head tossing backwards in a blissed-out moan as he fills her so completely. Viktor is a quick study. Once he realises he is now capable of doing that , he keeps doing it, languishing in slow and torturously deep thrusts that leave her a writhing mess on top of him. He grunts, tilting his head up and wrapping a hand around the back of her head to press their foreheads together, “How does that feel?” 

“It’s - ahh!” He cuts her off with another thrust, “It’s perfect, you’re perfect. Ahh! Viktor, please, I-” This time she is cut off by his other hand sliding around to the front of her, his thumb rubbing small quick circles over her already sensitive clit, “I love you.” she blurts, devoid of any of the sense that might have stopped the words from escaping. She’s held them for years now, somewhere in the depth of what are we, clamped tightly behind her teeth but always on the tip of her tongue and now that they’re out it's like an onslaught, she can’t stop them, “I love you!” she exclaims, hips stuttering forward into his hand, grinding down onto his cock. Tears are beading in her eyes, from pleasure, from emotion, “I love you, I love you!” both her hands reach up to cradle Viktor’s cheeks and his expression is soft, his brows lifted and his mouth hanging open in awe as if he can’t believe she is even there. He clutches her tighter, his forehead dropping to rest on her shoulder, the two of them now pressed together from collarbone down to waist. His thumb doesn’t cease its ministrations, his hips still pump up into hers, but the pace has changed, it’s languid, adoring. 

“ Milackú” he nearly sobs into her shoulder, “I love you too.”

His echo of her own confession is what does her in. She clutches to him tightly, arms wrapped around his shoulders as the rolling of her hips grows loose and rhythmless. She’s burning up, she's turning to stardust and returning to the cosmos. Her voice catches in her throat on a broken sob of his name, the slick rub of his thumb never ceasing, she buries herself in him as best she can, crying out as the pressure releases with a burst, holding him so tight she can’t tell where he ends and she begins. In the midst of that, her tightness, her all around him, Viktor finds his own end. Tumbling over the edge with a cry of her name, arms wrapping fully around her middle. 

Time seems to slow again. There is nothing more than their intermingling breaths, the smell of sweat and of sex, and the sound of their rapid heartbeats. Sometime later, they separate, though time feels liminal and strange, so it’s hard for her to remember exactly when. She goes to the bathroom, she cleans up, and at some point, Viktor does the same. He returns to her bed, though, and that’s the important part. He smiles as he climbs in under the sheets, scoots over to her and presses a soft kiss to her temple. She tucks some of his hair behind his ear and relishes in the fact that she is allowed to see him so close, close enough that she can count his eyelashes, and see his crooked teeth when he smiles again. 

“What now?” She asks, stroking her thumb over his cheekbone. 

He turns his head to the side, pressing a kiss to her palm, “We work on the Hexcore, we talk some sense into Jayce and then we make the world a better place.” She laughs, “Lofty expectations as always.” “Eh, what can I say? I’m a scientist.”

Her lips meet his in a gentle kiss, “Just sleep for now, we’ll work everything out in the morning.”

Viktor laughs quietly, his arm resting gently over the dip of her waist and his eyes fall closed. She doesn't even try falling asleep yet, instead she just watches, enamoured with him, in love with him. She traces her fingers over the bare skin of his arm, watching his face as he finally settles into a deep sleep. It’s been a long time since she last saw him sleep without his brows pinching tight, without him grinding his teeth, but for once, he seems completely at peace. She smiles. He looks perfect in her sheets, brown hair tousled over her pillowcase and the light of the moon painting him completely luminescent. 

They would figure out the next step together, the Hexcore would solve all of their problems and they would have each other forever. She leans forward and presses a kiss to his temple, she wants to worship him, to subjugate herself for him, to let him use her to climb wherever he needs to reach. What they are is inexorable, two souls, spirits and bodies that cannot be untangled, an evangelical coalescence the way she always dreamed. Where he goes she will follow, unthinking, subservient. Her hand shakes with the significance of what they have become, what they will be, as she gently holds his perfect face in her palm. 

What aren’t we? She wonders as she slowly falls asleep. 

[kesadoll]

♡ RACE ON !

♡ CWS. MDNI fem!reader, black!coded reader & yuji, reader x geto, size kink, unprotected, c♡nnilingus, "he can't find out," praise kink, slight degredation, starts off gentle but he can't help himself, fingering, squirting, oral fixation (?), drool, spanking, d♡ggystyle, missi♡nary, slight ch♡king, geto gets called daddy once or thrice wc! 3.8k

♡ sum. yuji is your older brother and you two share some street racing friends. your night is going pretty normal until geto has to take you home...

kesa's note ♡ late night & straight off the dome...its my first time writing like this in years tips are welcome (needed) ! lots exposition but gets right to it TRUST ~ there will be a part two :) enjoy !!! :D

“y/n, you coming?” yuji called out to you from downstairs. he was your older brother by a couple of years, but you two remained close and he brought you almost everywhere with him. yuji was a street racer with your mutual college friends: geto suguru, choso kamo, nobara kugisaki, and gojo satoru. though you didn’t race yourself, you found it fun to watch, especially when geto won. as much as your brother’s best friend would tease everyone after winning, he’d buy dinner for everyone.

“yeah, give me a sec!” you hurriedly grabbed your phone, making sure your hair looked okay before going downstairs. you walked past yuji and to his car, texting nobara who eagerly asked if you would finally race today. being the only girl she wanted you to give it a try, especially since she wanted the two of you to have matching cars. 

you hadn’t given it much thought as to why you haven’t started yourself. probably because you know yuji, though with good intent, would be up your ass about being safe when he’s far from that himself. you’d also have a lot to work towards, being surrounded by experienced racers it’d be embarrassing to fuck up. as the two of you got closer to the start of the “track” you saw groups of people walking, big lights ahead lighting up the start. there were already 4 cars there, yuji pulling into the 2nd spot on the left. to his left was geto, his car in such a deep navy it looked black. he sat with the windows rolled down, his one hand on the steering wheel, the lights above him lighting up the tattoos he had going up starting from his left hand. you couldn’t really tell but it looked like they connected to the tattoo he had on the right his neck…

“yo y/n, where we goin’ for dinner after i beat jiji?” his voice cut through your oogling at him like the finest of blades, the sound of his voice alone making your stomach flutter. he thought he was slick with the smile on his face, though he was a car away it felt like he was right there with you.

“oh- uh..” you weren’t prepared for a question like that, especially not like that. usually, you’d have time to prepare for geto’s fine ass to say anything to you. before you could say anything, yuji butt in followed by a loud giggle from nobara who was in a light blue and white car on your right.

“aye, you ain’t winnin’ shit, dinner’s on me.” yuji pointed a finger and geto as he spoke, and while he did so you slipped out the car seeing the race was due to start soon.

“well..while you two get that figured out, me and nobara will choose later, yeah?” you cooed at the boys, then turned towards nobara who gave you her usual smile.

“i’ll make sure they won’t kill each other. but i'm thinkin’ barbecue this time? if they’re paying we might as well make it worth itt~” she said only loud enough for you to hear, which of course you agreed. 

seeing nanami, another friend of yours except he worked at the body shop everyone went to rather than him being a racer himself, walking to the start with the bright green flag tucked in his pocket was your signal to hurry up and get out of the way. as you went to your usual spot against a temporary railing you noticed a car pulling up beside nobara..it belonged to sukuna.

without skipping a beat you could see your brother and geto look over and then back at each other, yuji’s chest rising and falling faster than before. yuji turned back forward, glancing towards you and the best you could do was offer him a comforting smile. 

sukuna was akin to your brother’s worst enemy..to say the least. you never really got the full story, but it was something along the lines of some drama with a girl that led to yuji finding out that sukuna has done more than a handful of unsavory and illegal things that everyone seems adamant about leaving you out of.  

regardless, you knew this race would be very serious for everyone. nanami lifted the flag, and instantly, a splash of colors zoomed past him. his eyes closed slightly, this race meant just as much to him as it did to others.  ever since he had that injury that ended his career while he played baseball, he busied himself working on everyone’s cars whether it was a true hobby or it was just something to distract him from the loss of a sport he had done since he was a kid. 

realizing you were staring at the poor man you turned your attention to one of the tvs with drone footage of the race. It wasn’t surprising at all that the boys, including sukuna this time, were in the front. nobara wasn’t far behind but you knew that it was on purpose especially with the look on their faces..they weren’t playing around. As if it was some kind of twisted fate right when you went to look towards the finish line knowing they were close, loud “ooooh!”s  and “oh shit!”s could be heard. your eyes immediately jumped to the screen. sukuna intentionally veered into yuji’s lane, causing yuji’s car to hit the side of geto’s car while he slammed on his brakes and spun out of control. 

you hadn’t noticed the scream you let out before your hand covered your mouth, everyone else’s shock turned into cheers as sukuna’s car rolled into view, coming to a stop a little bit past the finish line. he had won. 

after a couple minutes everyone else came into view, the reactions from the crowd being mixed, but that’s not what mattered to you. once they came to a stop you couldn’t help but run up to yuji and geto, nobara following suit. nanami was already amongst them expecting the damage, telling geto to ride with someone since the windshield and passenger side of the car were completely shattered.

“that son of a bitch. i’m so fuckin’ sorry ‘eto.” yuji’s voice was shaken as was the rest of him, the adrenaline from potentially almost killing his friend combined with sukuna’s presence alone was starting to hit him like a train.

geto gave yuji a smile despite the discomfort his own body was in, putting a hand on yuji’s shoulder, “hey, i’m alive aight? calm your ass down before you pass out on us.” yuji nodded and said something under a shaky breath. you rubbed his arm gently, leading him over to the curb to sit while someone else brought over some waters. you did your best to comfort him for some time, giving him some space you went back over to nobara and geto who were talking off to the side. as you got closer you could hear nobara chewing him out.

“i told your ass, the both of you at that, to stay a little bit further behind him until the last stretch. the both of you could’ve passed him AND you wouldn’t be out of a fucking car,” her arms were crossed, and despite geto having the longer end of the stick when it came to height, he seemed like a little kid being reprimanded by his mother. when she realized you standing there her voice immediately softened, a simile growing on her face, “heyyy y/n! you coming with us to choso’s? i know we all feel a little piss-poor right now, but he and gojo are having a party!” you couldn’t help but laugh, “damn girl! i was actually coming over here to ask if one of you could take me home. i have a morning class tomorrow or else i really would go. apparently my prof is a bitch about attendance.”

“i’ll take her in yuji’s car. i live down the street i want to go home and change clothes anyway.” geto finally spoke up, looking at you the same way he did before the race had even started.

oh god..

~~~~

you were home now. upstairs in your bathroom you found yourself in a situation. right outside your bathroom sitting at the foot of your bed was geto, waiting for you to come out with the bandages you promised to give him.

while in the car you noticed the amount of scrapes and bruises he had, though some of them looked only but a couple days old you didn’t ask too many questions. he already had a makeshift ice pack you gave him, but the thought of him being so close, it was a lot. 

something about the way he had let his hair down when he sat on your bed, the messy dark locks framing his handsome face. the way that his shirt hugged his chest and biceps, his tattoos peeking from underneath and decorating his left arm and even the right side of his neck. you always knew how incredibly attractive he was, but he was sitting on your bed now, waiting for you, his head resting in his large hands. you needed to focus, this was your brother's best friend after all.

you took a deep breath before you stepped out of the bathroom, but that didn’t really suppress the fireworks of your inner panic. sitting down beside him your heartbeat rang through your ears. you gently picked up his arm, and him immediately resting it in your lap. 

“y’know what you’re doin’?” he teased, prompting an eye roll from you.

“yes, boy, shut up,” you said back to him teasingly, wiping whatever was bleeding with a teeny cotton pad + peroxide. 

geto hissed a little at the sting, only relaxing once you blew on it, the cool air soothing him. being this close the size difference was insane. yes, he was taller than you that was quite obvious. but his forearm alone was almost the size of your thigh. your thigh.

you laughed at yourself, putting a couple of bandaids on his arm, him humming in amusement at your giggles. 

“what’s funny?” he asked, you leaning over him to grab the icepack that was more water than ice at this point.

“nothing, don’t worry ab-” you stopped mid-sentence, even freezing in place. you and geto locked eyes and your stomach lit up once more. 

there were so many unspoken words in that moment, the only sound filling the room being the quickened, but still slightly labored, breaths from the both of you. you’d had a moment like this before when you both ended up alone cleaning up after a party. ‘we can’t..' you thought to yourself, knowing that if yuji found out he would have a meltdown.

his eyes glanced toward your lips, your body betraying your thoughts as your lips slightly parted, wanting to kiss the man in front of you with every fiber of your being. you blinked away your feelings, clearing your throat. you knew better and better was to get this man out of your house.

“i’m…uh i’m gonna go throw this away.” you spoke in a whisper, geto nodding in response, the look on his face telling you not to move but you did anyway. you picked up the icepack and stood, throwing it away in the trash you had in front of your room. with your back turned to him you could feel his eyes burning holes into the back of your head.

before you could even turn around you felt his presence which was followed by a hand making its way around your waist, the other, placed gently beneath your chin, turning your head to face him. you couldn’t help but melt into his touch, the scent of his fading cologne and natural scent almost sending you into overdrive. 

“g-geto..” you couldn’t hide the neediness in your voice. it almost embarasses that you even sound like that off just his touch alone.

“i know y/n..” he said against your lips before pulling you into a deep kiss. you let his tongue explore your mouth, tangling it with yours, wanting more of his taste.

the hand beneath your chin traveled down your body and slipped beneath your shirt, cupping one of your breasts, beginning to prod at the sensitive bud that was hardening with every moment, beckoning for his touch. you couldn’t help but to moan against his lips and push your ass back against his growing bulge. 

a grunt resonated from within his lungs and in a swift motion he had you in his arms, carrying you over to the bed and laying you down. he crawled between your legs, your lips parted for just a moment longer while he took his shirt off, your lips meeting once more. your hands traveled up the deep muscles of his back and up to his hair, tangling your fingers in it. 

“you’re so fuckin’ pretty baby.” geto said with a new husk in his voice as he kissed down your neck, taking in your scent before stripping you down naked in front of him. 

when he sat up, you couldn’t help but feel a heat flush in your cheeks, knowing full well he could now see the slick that had been brewing between your legs since he had stepped foot into your bedroom. He noticed it too and god did he fucking love it. he wasted no time running a hand down your belly, watching how your back arched up into his hand as he reached your clit and down to your entrance, toying with the wet folds that were screaming his name. 

“and look how fuckin’ wet y’are..you wanted this didn’t you?” he cooed at you, and oh it made you sick. sick because you knew he was right and there was no denying how worked up you were, especially since your hips involuntarily began to rock into his hand. seeing him in front of you like this you were able to see how his tattoos were connected by a big chest piece, and the muscles that were once barely hidden making it all the better.

your little, shaky breaths weren’t enough of an answer for him. he began to rub slow, little circles around your aching clit. a moan you didn’t even know you could make escaped your puffy lips, warranting a smile plastered across geto’s face.

“yeah? it feels that good?” he leaned over you, your lips so close to his you can feel his warmth, “tell me how good it feels, baby.” 

letting out a whorish moan once you feel his middle and ring finger hit the inner walls of your needy cunt, you could only manage to get out a small “eto~..” in response to his words full of greed. the pads of his thick fingers poked and prodded at your puffy inner walls, his rough palm bouncing off your clit with every thrust he made. 

you already were pretty much completely undone. your thick thighs beginning to tremble, each moan you let out coming from the pit of your stomach. geto loved you like this. his hand had a firm grip on your curls, tilting your head slightly away as he left hungry kisses and bites along your neck and collarbone, making sure to give attention to your nipples, rewarding him with your beautiful moans.

geto’s hand sped up, his thumb now rubbing quick and deep circles on your clit. the sound of your sopping wet pussy filling the air along with your precious mewls. a rising heat began to build in the pit og your stomach, your pussy clenching around geto’s fingers. 

“e-eto i’m gonn- ahhh~”

cut off by your own moan, your body jolts and shudders as a flood erupts from in between your legs, soaking the bed beneath you and geto’s fingers. you could feel a grin against your neck as he sat up, moving his hand slower while you rode out your orgasm, your hips bucking into his hand slower and slower. 

“goooood girl,” he praised you, puffing out his bottom lip to tease you in the process. you watched him, whining when he removed his fingers from inside you. seeing him lift his fingers to his mouth to taste you on them, only made you hornier, that aching sensation rising from deep inside you. 

he moaned at the taste of you, rubbing his cock that was begging to be freed. you were drawn to it like a magnet, catching geto off guard when he felt his pants unzip, you looking up at him on all fours with your watery eager eyes.

“you gonna take all of it angel?” he groaned while you pulled down his jeans and his underwear, mewling when you see just how big his cock was. his muscles tensed at your touch, each vein acting as big shining arrows begging for more.

not only was it long, but it was wide and you couldn’t even begin to fathom how it would fit inside you. you rubbed your thumb over a pulsating vein, geto’s hand pushing your hair out of your face. you bite your lip before taking his tip between your swollen lips, geto letting out a deep sigh as his head lolls back. 

his hips bucked into your mouth, and you gagged once his tip hit the back of your throat. he wrapped his other hand around your neck and tightened the grip on your hair, you poking your ass out for him to see.

“fuck- i want you to relax for me, yeah? m’gonna fuck your pretty throat it feels too good.”

his words were addicting, only making you squeeze your thighs together. without hesitation he had begun to thrust into your mouth, letting out his own strings of groans and curses, praising you all in the process.

you gagged and sputtered, little moans escaping as he continued on. tasting and smelling his warmth your eyes rolled to the back of your head, giving geto a pornographic view of your slutty and drooly face. 

“such a pretty fuckin’ girl hmm? takin’ daddy’s dick down your fuckin’ throat so fuckin’ good? ngh-” a guttural moan escaped his lips and went straight to your aching clit, your hand following suit. 

before you had got your fill, he pulled out your mouth with a plop, your drool coating his cock and dripping from your chin. you whined at the lack of your mouth being filled, trying to get it back in before you were turned around with ease. you felt a little shy with your ass up in the air towards him so you pushed your hips down, but your ass was left with a smack and your hips lifted back up how they were before. 

“nah keep your ass just like that for me,” he leaned over you, sliding his hand up to the underside of your neck. he made sure his mouth was right next to your ear, watching your expression as he rubbed his warm tip up and down your slit, your hips pushing back in responsne.

“p-please i w-wan’ it~” you sobbed incoherently, repeating yourself a couple of times. 

your pleas were met with a single thrust, your eyes shooting to the back of your head as both you and geto let out a slutty moan. he breathed against your cheek, slipping the fingers he once had inside you into your mouth. you could faintly taste yourself as you suckled on the large digits, the want for something in your mouth being satiated.

geto started off with slow, deep strokes. the noises you made making it harder for him not to pummel into you right then and there, but he knew that type of onslaught on your pussy so soon would be too much for you. with every motion your cunt sucked him in deeper and deeper, wanting more.

“you’re doing so good for me. so. fuckin.’ good.” he grunted, each word coordinating with a thrust. you moaned around his fingers, his thrusts starting to speed up. you couldn’t help yourself squeezing around him, your mind not filled with many thoughts besides the cock burrowing itself inside your yearning cunt. 

you were completely blissed out and though you couldn’t see geto’s face you knew he was feeling just as good as you were. once he heard your moans get breathier and longer he pulled out and flipped you over, tossing your legs over his shoulders, resuming this thrust but leaning over you again, and his hands on either side of your head. 

you almost choked on your own moans, this angle making it easier for him to not only hit the entrance of your womb but that sweet spot that drives you absolutely crazy. your legs trembled, you barely able to reach your arms up to wrap around his neck, you were absolutely weak. so close to finishing and geto knew this. “cum for me so i can paint your pretty face,” he leaned closer so that your noses were almost touching, “fucking do it for daddy.” he spoke through gritted teeth, trying to stop his own self from filling you up right then and there. 

you did exactly as he said, your whole body tensing up. squeezing down around him your cunt gushed once more. you let out a breath, that really sounded like a moan, that you hadn’t realized you’d been holding, panting as your body began its trembling.

geto wasn’t that far behind you, your squeezing barely allowing him to get any words out as he let out a gutteral moan, quickly pulling out and releasing your legs, jerking himself off while his white ribbons shot all over your face and chest. you compliantly stuck out your tongue, swallowing whatever hit it when he was done.

your lips were met with his, his humming filling your cheeks while he tasted himself in your mouth. he rolled off you and laid beside you, the room filled with the sound of both of your pants combined. you laid your head on his chest and geto moved your curls out of your face, his voice gentle when he spoke. “you okay y/n? i’m sorry if i got carried away, you’re just so pretty i couldn’t help it.”

you nod your head and giggle, turning over to face him, “it’s okay, i-i actually liked it! but you should probably hurry and go, that party started well over an hour ago and i don’t want anyone to get suspicious.”

geto grumbled and sighed, reluctantly standing up before grabbing his things, “you’re right..text me yeah? if you need me i’ll come back.”

“yeah,” you nodded once more and waved, geto coming back over and kissing you on the forehead before leaving.

~~~~

you were fresh out the shower and you couldn’t help but smile, falling onto your back, almost tempted to kick your feet. ‘i really hope it wasn’t just a one time thing..’

[scoops-aboy86]

wc: 647 | Rating: T | CW: mentions of infidelity, technically hurt no comfort because I haven’t written the part where they make up | Additional Tags: future fic, famous Eddie Munson, past Steddie

Okay, look. The tv was on in the background, and Ross and Rachel were breaking up, and this happened in my head. I’m posting it for Fuck It Friday because fuck it. The only thing getting me through life right now is cough drops.

part 2

Hell of a Time at the Wake

“Yeah, haven’t had a drink or touched any drugs in five years, as of last month.”

“Oh wow, so that’s from before Corroded Coffin made it big.” The interviewer chuckles. “Usually it’s the fame and rehab that come first.”

“I prefer to think of myself more as regionally notorious, but sure. Never did the rehab thing, though.”

“Well, what’s the story there?”

Behind their frontman, the rest of the band shares a look. “Oh, we don't need to—” 

“Nah, Jeff, it’s okay man.” Eddie waves them off, then turns back to the interviewer. “Back before we hit the road to make a name for ourselves, I was seeing someone back home. I mean, the someone. The one. But we kept having this same… not really a fight, just this thing: I wanted to leave town, they didn’t. And then finally we had this huge blowout about it that started as something else and somehow turned into that again, which turned into both of us storming off. They went home, and I went out and got completely shitfaced, and in the morning I woke up with someone whose name I didn’t even know in bed with me.”

The interviewer winces. 

“Yeah. And when you do something shitty like that, it’s going to come out sooner or later. Or pretty much immediately, in this case, which.” Eddie grimaces and shrugs. “Well, it gave us something else to fight about, that’s for sure. I knew I’d fucked up bad, but it took hours of back and forth before I realized that we were done done. Trust completely obliterated, no way to come back or move on from that, just… over.”

There’s a pause where he stares off into space for a moment, stuck on a memory. Then he shakes himself and refocuses. 

“Anyway, at some point during my doomed attempt to salvage things, I swore I’d never have another drink ever again. Which, the being drunk of it all wasn’t really the problem, so saying that didn’t buy me anything, but… even after it ended, I didn’t. I’d been so fucked up that night, and it wasn’t the booze so much as the fear of it being over that made me a one man self-fulfilling prophecy—but I hurt someone I loved more than anything, and I never wanted let myself get that fucking stupid again, so. I haven’t. And honestly, I sleep better knowing that.”

“Wow.” The interviewer is staring at him, stunned. Probably doesn’t get a lot of this sort of thing, not just because of all the wild rockstars and other celebrities that come on the show with stories about trashed hotel rooms and wild parties, but because Eddie is being honest. 

It’s not something he talks about… ever, really. Not even with the guys. But, after five years, it doesn’t hurt the same. It’s not even for St—

It’s not for his ex anymore, if it ever was. 

“Why would it be weird?” Gareth is saying. “We have a built in DD, that’s always great. And Eddie doesn’t give us shit for anything, he’s just honest when we ask if anything was too out of hand. It’s a good reality check.”

“And like,” Doug adds, “he’ll still come out with us to clubs and shit to hang out. But if he says he doesn’t want to drive us to a bar it’s not some passive aggressive or superiority thing because we drink and he doesn’t; he’d really just rather fuck off and do something else.”

“Gee, thanks,” Eddie says dryly, but he’s smirking. 

Doug flashes him finger guns, the fucking dork. “You’re welcome, asshole.”

And the interview moves on. These guys have been Eddie’s friends even longer than they’ve been his bandmates, and the four of them are solid. If the gossip vultures out there want something to pick at, they’ll have to find a different target. 

part 2

Permanent tag list (ask to be added/removed):

@hotluncheddie @hiei-harringtonmunson @sofadofax @hickeysgodcomplex @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr @yesdangerpls @theseaofdespair

And then someone shows Steve the interview and he asks Robin for Eddie’s number, and they talk for the first time in years and end up falling back in love, but that’s the hard to write part so this is what you get. Xoxo

[spacecowboyy0]

New Year’s Eve

~1.5k words

reader with the 141 celebrating New Years Eve! reader lives with simon and is close with john as well

this is coming out later than I wanted but I still like it so whatever! bear with me as I still figure out how I want to format my fics :)

~

“Six eights.” You slam your final cards, four of them being eights, onto the ground and giggle, proud of your ridiculous move that could win you the game. Soap, who’s only options were to let you win or pick one of your cards for the chance of it not being an eight, looked a little bewildered. 

“Johnny you can’t seriously let them win, choose one of their cards!” Kyle whines, he's losing miserably but is determined to make a comeback even with half the deck in his hand. Johnny spreads out your six cards, staring at them before sliding one towards himself. He dramatically flips it: an eight. 

Simon watches as you cheer and laugh that even with your terrible poker face and ridiculous plays, you won the game.

The team was over at John’s for New Years Eve and you, Johnny, Kyle and Simon sat on the floor playing cheat, while Price was in the kitchen finishing up dinner. With the stress of the holidays and seeing your family, Simon was sure that you’d regress within the safety of their group. You're warm, tired, and surrounded by your favorite people. Judging by how bubbly you are, falling over at Soap’s stupid jokes, and giggling to yourself, he can see that you're already getting there. After a warm meal he's sure you’d be fully down. 

“Alright, dinner's ready!” Price calls from the kitchen, and you hurry to collect the other’s cards and shove them back into the small box. Simon smiles at your eagerness. The team had been talking about a nice meal together for a while now, dreaming of a mix of delicious foods eaten together. Everyone had brought food, something that reminded them of home. 

~

After dinner was eaten, the boys stayed at the table playing a card game that you probably knew, but it seemed too complicated to keep up with. Your brain felt slow and mushy, and your clothes were starting to feel tight and uncomfortable. You had chosen a nice outfit for this occasion but failed to remember that you’d be wearing them all night. You became hyper aware of the cuffs of your shirt around your wrists, and the tight waistband of your pants. You shift in your seat. 

Magically Simon seemed to sense your discomfort. He knows that despite your wishful (forgetful) thinking, you’d want to be comfy while you waited for midnight, especially if you were small. He glances up from his cards and leans over to you. “Love I’ve got your pyjamas in the bottom of the green tote bag by the door.”

“Pyjamas?” 

“Yeah and how about you get one of Price’s hoodies from upstairs?” You look up excitedly at Simon and then look just past him to John for permission. He gives you a reassuring smile and nods. 

“Go ahead, dove.”

You find your pjs in the bag and run up the stairs into Price’s room. You quickly find a clean hoodie that smells like him and go to the bathroom to change. In your cozy flannel pyjamas, you sigh, finally comfortable. You shove your clothes into your bag and return to the table where the boys are still playing and talking. You catch John’s eye when you are pulling the hood over your head and you smile, then tuck your head into your arms. You take a deep breath, soaking in the smell of John’s sweater, Kyle and Johnny’s bantering, and Simon’s hand that is rubbing your back. 

You lift your head, and see Kyle drop his cards on the table. “Finally! I needed that win!” You giggle, and he looks over to you and winks. Absentmindedly you bring your thumb up to your bottom lip to rub your smooth nail across your skin, it's a stim you often do when you need some extra comfort. You don’t like sucking on your thumb, too aware of germs, but when you don’t have something that is meant to be chewed on, you opt for other parts of your (or Simon’s) hands. 

Simon is watching all of this, and the others see it too. All of you are trained to notice details so of course they see the spacey look in your eyes, the way you look at their mouths to lip read when they talk (because listening is harder when you are smaller), and the way you soak up their attention. 

“Alright kiddo how about you set up that game you wanted to play, we’ll clean up here and meet’cha over there.” Price stands up from his chair and gestures to the TV. You had brought your Nintendo Switch just to play Overcooked with your boys. When you had told Johnny and Kyle your plans they were on board immediately. The three of you play tons of games together but little you can’t handle the intensity of Resident Evil games or the like, so it wasn’t often that you were gaming while small. After one incident when you convinced Soap that you were big enough to play Res. 7 and had distressing nightmares the next few nights, Simon and Price had instituted a blanket ban on video games while regressed, up until now. You weren’t previously interested in games while small so it didn’t mean much to you. 

Simon had gifted you the game and you had waited painfully to play it with the others. You had forgotten about it until now and ran to get it from your bag. From behind you hear a “hey no running!” and then a softer “that kid’s gonna smack their head on the floor if they keep running with those socks.” You safely retrieve the console and game and go begrudgingly slower to the TV to set it up. 

You get the Switch hooked up to the TV, the game loaded, and four controllers connected (Price wanted to watch). The boys finally come over and sit around with drinks in hand. You pass out the controllers, keeping the one decorated with stickers for yourself. You scoot over to where Simon sits on the couch, placing yourself on the floor with your back between his legs. While everyone chooses their characters, he scratches your head in a way that makes your brain melt. Unfortunately, you are player one. 

“Bunny, start the game.” You huff, looking back to the screen and start the game. 

It quickly devolves.

“Someone get the soup before it burns!”

“Give that to me!”

“Don’t serve that, are you stupid? It needs fish!”

“SOMEONE GET THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER! No, don't ignore the fire!”

“Do your job! You’re messing up our system!” 

The gaming ends with one round, where almost every surface of the in-game counters on the fire, the pots and pans too. You sigh and laugh a little at the hilarity. It was supposed to be fun, which it was, but not the most relaxing. You lean back onto Simon’s legs. Admittedly it was only nine and you were tired.

“Alright I think we’re done. Love, do you want to watch something?” You know Simon is trying to include you, but with your headspace right now, you won't be interested in anything the guys want to watch or do. You're happy just to be around them while you do something relaxing on your own. And soak up the extra attention they give you when you're smaller. 

“No ‘m ok, wanna colour ‘n you guys can play more cards.” 

So the boys head to the kitchen table while you get your colouring book and markers and then join them as well. 

The rest of the evening went by in a warm haze for you, enjoying the loud comments from Johnny and Kyle, and the quiet peace from Simon and John. You had been worried that when you all took time off it would mean that you wouldn’t see each other for a while. Then John moved into an apartment one floor below you and Simon, and Kyle and Soap made plans to visit. 

Spending so much time in the military means you don’t have any close friends outside of the 141, and the family members you are closest to are spread across the world. You are thankful for these guys. Your celebrations together aren't the most traditional, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

~

“Happy New Year!”

The five of you sit in the living room as you watch the clock turn twelve, you in Simon’s lap, leaning against his chest. Everyone clinks their drinks and then goes around saying their hopes for the new year. When it gets to you, you pause to think about your answer. “Mmm, I dunno, but ‘m really thankful for you guys!” 

“Awww bonnie!” Soap pats your head from where he sits beside you on the couch. You laugh and Simon squeezes you with the arm he has around you. You are glad you stayed up, but now it was time for bed. 

~

Overcooked destroys families fr! it's a great game though

I had fun with this one! cg!frank castle focused fic coming up next? then logan I promise!

[alienpossession]

Project Eden Part 1

Read the prologue here

The voice initially came to him in a static that sounded a bit different from the usual noise the machine captured.

The longer he listened to the static in the loneliest part of the night in the lab, the more it created this distinctive noises he never heard before. It turned into a full-blown concerto for the 47 years old scientist as the voice filled his head to the brim with ideas of invasion. As he moaned even louder due to the pressure that caused him to bust his load, his mind reached its brink as he eventually dropped unconscious to the floor, the wisdom of the differing dimension stored inside his head and ready to take control of his body to let the other started their transference too

When Dr. Pereira woke up, his eyes twinkled a different purplish light before returned to normal. Something new is in control by that time. The possessed scientiest noticed a random scribble of the real Dr. Pereira, something called "Extra Dimensional Entity" or as he created its abbreviation directly under it, EDEN. The fused mind of Dr. Pereira and the entity caused the entity to instantly connecting this human concept of afterlife and how the good people ended up in paradise, or Eden. Well, sounds like a fitting name, thought the entity, as Dr. Pereira is probably in Eden now after being so kind to let it took control of his body. It also self-reflected and cherished the fact that because of their intention to have presence on Earth, they are basically responsible in accelerating people's entrance to Eden, so this is such a noble and beneficial cause for the betterment of human's lives anyway. Because why human bothered spending times on Earth and lamented their fate day after day when they could live carefree and happy on Eden, right?

It was still 5 AM so he decided to quickly work his way through the audio, cutting the part only to when the voice started to be heard. It sounded fantastic, as if he just entered the Garden of Eden. The voice has no effect anymore to him as he's been emptied and replaced by the advance creature that could transform its form and transferred itself through soundwaves in the speed of light, but to the new listener, it would be an irresistible invasion. As he carefully scanned through the extensive contact list of the associate professor, he selected a handful that he believed could effectively furthered the invasion quickly and pressed the "Send" button. Then, he cleared his desk and started to make his escape from the laboratory before the morning shift started, his ear plugged with the concerto in his ear because it soothes his nerves. If everything went according to his plan, by the time he arrived at the military base 400 km up north later in the afternoon, he will receive a very warm welcome from the legions of human soldier there

----

He received the file early in the morning just when he just woke up. It's from one of the guys he trained, named Dr. Pereira. He usually sent Dom some kind of informative video about things Dom rarely cared about but he thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Pereira's recommendation. So, he clicked on the link sent to him only to suddenly found himself unable to move. He tried to scream to no avail as he felt some sort of assault from multiple front, this forceful sensation that hit his nostrils, ear, mouth and even found its way through his ass crack. Is this a stroke was his last thought before everything went black

Yet an hour later, Dom is already opening his gym and set his playlist for the day. He set it to be lowkey for starter, just sounded like a background noise that people could just ignore, but when the crowd started to pour in and get going, he'll set the volume up and that's when they all will experience the sensation of listening to a heavenly, orgasmic-inducing voice

---

Gustavo's uncle usually called him in the very early morning to wake him up and also informed him that he would be home around 20-30 minutes after his night shift at Ames. This morning there's no surprise whatsoever because obviously his uncle, Dr. Anthony Pereira, send a message to wake his already wide-awake nephew up. But Gustavo quickly found out that it's not the usual message and fell for the trick within seconds as his curiosity got the best of him

Later that morning, Gustavo stared at his mates skateboarding, mingling by the side of the court or shooting to the hoops on the public park while waiting for more people to gather to start the whole play. Seems like a nice place to hook them up to some sick tunee that will liberate their soul, thought the possessed Gustavo with no guilt whatsoever to the rest of the people as he started his way to lure in more vessels

---

"We have set it so it's now live, Mr. Nichols. We also already set the algorithm so everyone gets the tunes or any content with the tunes recommended on the top,"

"Brilliant, but, you haven't heard the tunes, am I right?"

"Yeah, sorry sir. Just tried to work on the deadline,"

"Well, let me play it for you so you can be an obedient useful husk for my kind,"

"Wh---"

Mr. Nichols just smirked as he watched one of the director working under him convulsed on the floor with his mouth foaming and eyes rolled to the back. Damn......dude is an intense fighter, he did not give up that easy. Bu it's still a one-way traffic anyway as the possession has been too irresistible for anyone exposed to the sound. Moments later, the director is on his knees sucking the social media company CEO, both men lost in the ocean of lust

---

Sergeant Gunner is in the middle of his morning workout when one of his friends contacted him. He of course checked it without giving much thought to it, but when he found himself froze to the spot as soon as he opened the message, he knows something is wrong.

He tried to ask for help from other Marines, yet no sound came out of his mouth. Instead, his body moved on autopilot and simply abandoned his workout mid-rep and dashed out from the gym to head back to his living quarter.

When he arrived at his room, he was surprised beyond belief when his body just so casually stripped his uniform until he worn nothing. His body sniffed and then even licked his own armpit, grinning from ear to ear without him even controlling a single inch of his body. The whole tease caused his 6.5 incher girthy monster swell and blossomed out of his foreskin to reveal a ridiculously big mushroom head. He cooed at his own realization on the "assault weapon" he carried around, but yet again, it was not really him cooing with excitement. His wildest, most outlandish dream turned into reality when his own body started to jack himself off while looking at the full-length mirror with the most sinister grin ever. He was never pumping himself that quick and hard, but whatever entity that is in control of him clearly wanted to really do something beyond just jacking off. As he realized this sinking feeling of being pulled somewhere as he battled to remain on the core of his body, that's when everything clicked. This is not just mere erotic pleasure for the entity, this entity is trying to push him out of his own body, not even letting him as a passenger any longer

When Sergeant Gunner finished his shower, his eyes twinkled with a hint of purple before returned to its usual jet-black color. He liberally took several selfies of himself on his first day as Drill Sergeant and decided to send the best one to his wife.

Then, he sent the audio he received to the other Drill Sergeant he will work with for the day, with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. When the 4 Drill Sergeant gathered, they already shared a collective mindset of influencing the new recruits with not just the mentality and work-ethic of a US Marine, but also with something that is far greater than what human brains could comprehend, just like the 4 of them

[ladylaratybur]

AoT Analysis: Why I like the Tyburs as characters

A question I get a lot is why I like the Tyburs so much, especially when Willy was "evil" and Lara had so little screen time. I made a thread on Twitter about why I like them, but not everyone who asked me this has it, so I thought I'd post here too : )

DISCLAIMER 1: Please forgive any weirdness; since this is copied from Twitter there might be errors or wacky formatting. Later I'll probably go over it and polish it up.

DISCLAIMER 2: This is my opinion. If you don't like the characters, you have every right. Just don't hate on folks who don't share your opinions ^_^

Aside from being really well written and interesting to analyze (so many people misinterpret Willy as being evil but he's actually a foil to Eren), I find their vibe and aura extremely powerful and interesting for not being there for very long. I think Willy's dilemma is fascinating to analyze; he's there for only a couple episodes yet is extremely important, and so morally grey that his position and decision is interesting to ponder. Willy is extremely well fleshed out for such a short appearance.

As for Lara, she's my prime example of how amazing a character creator Isayama is. She was there for 3 episodes and had 2 lines, yet her aura and presence were super powerful. Her expressions say so much, and was memorable as a character despite very minimal attention. There is also a lot to her if you read between the lines. Presumably she was raised as a noble child, yet probably fairly sheltered due to her family, and likely at a young age had to give up everything to be the Warhammer heir. She was entirely devoted to her mission, accepting her duty though it meant devoting herself to a life of service and secrecy. She had to endure everything alone, from the change in her life to all the memories and secrets of the Warhammer. Through it all she remained loyal and devoted, with probably only her brother to help her. She is silently strong and silently suffering all for what she thinks of as the highest good. Like her brother she was willing to sacrifice her life for this good (though we don't know how much she knew).

Something else I love about the Tyburs is how devoted to family they are; Willy with his kids, Lara smiling and giving her nieces and nephews treats, and how Lara was clearly grieving (yet strong!) when her brother got chomped.

Part of what's so fascinating about Lara is how mysterious she is and getting to read between the lines. We can clean information about her through his Eren changed after eating her as well as through Willy's character and motivations, but we don't ACTUALLY know anything. She could have been secretly in control of ALL of Marley, or she could have been a timid, manipulated, brainwashed child like the warriors. We don't know but there's reason for both. All we know is Eren seemed darker, silent, resentful after inheriting her titan. She also seemed like she could've been a support for Willy too, based on her reassuring him even after his death, even though she was younger. I choose to think she urged him to take action after the Tybur family's long years as idle rich who let their own race suffer endlessly.

True she could ask be extremely evil and conniving ... And some people who misinterpret the Tyburs believe they're like H17ler or worse some antisemit1c stereotype ... But that's, in my opinion, far from the truth. (Also Willy seems heavily NORSE inspired)

I also think people dislike Willy and Lara because there WAS some mishandling in their writing. While the mystery IS part of what's alluring about them, Eren won in a way he shouldn't have. It felt like plot armor. Lara made a big impression and then died. It felt sloppy.

Aside from that I love Willy and Lara because I really do like their character designs x) I think both of them are beautiful (though again, that's far from the only reason I like them) ... Also Lara is fun AF to cosplay and if I was a man I would cosplay Willy for sure. I also like the very WW1 vibe of the Tyburs and their aesthetic (I need to write an essay someday on why AoT is primarily inspired by ww1 and English history rather than ww2).

Thank y'all for reading and I hope you enjoyed!! <3

(also for a literature class on classical rhetoric, I did a deep dive into Willy's speech and motivations as an essay for my final. I'm still waiting to get it back. I would like to possibly transcribe it into a post since I didn't really address Willy's motives much here. It's very similar to this one except it's about Willy more than Lara.)

[alice--pallas]

Alice couldn't help but let out another chuckle when her brother proclaimed that she ought to be a bitch more often. Smiling, she said "You know, I think you might be right... Maybe I'd be more productive that way, get more shit done." Then again, maybe being a bitch is what would encourage someone to finish the job they'd started. She couldn't know for sure. She raised her eyebrows a bit when he mentioned Alec being an energy vampire--she couldn't necessarily disagree with that notion, though she was surprised that Cyrek was mentioning him. After all, it was the second time in less than a month that he'd brought up her ex-husband after having not spoke about him in years. She found it peculiar--she didn't mind it, of course. It wasn't like back when the wound was still fresh and hearing Alec's name felt like the equivalent of being stabbed in the chest over and over again. Really, it was more just the fact that Alice didn't think about Alec much these days. With a curious smirk, she said "Why do you keep bringing him up all of a sudden? Has my ex-husband been on your mind lately?" She chuckled and clarified, "I don't mind, of course. I'm just curious, you don't usually mention him." Giving a shrug, she said "But maybe... I don't know, I'm not as angry as I used to be, you know? So I suppose I'm less of a bitch--usually. But maybe Bitchy Alice will begin to make an appearance more often."

Of course, she didn't blame Cyrek for feeling such vitriol for her ex-husband. After all, Alec's departure had pretty much torn the journalist apart and unfortunately, her twin brother was left to pick up the pieces after the fact. Honestly, if someone had done to him what Alec had done to her, she'd most definitely hate them forever as well so it was only fair.

Alice nodded in agreement, thinking back to her own childbirth that ultimately resulted in an emergency C-section near the end. "Yeah, that is fair... Even with my C-section, those contractions were a fucking bitch. I liked being pregnant but I didn't like that," she chuckled. What's that say about us? We like pain? Masochism? Sure looks like you're one to me, layin' here with a bullet in your gut. She rolled her eyes and laughed at his suggestion, appreciating the flash of his smile, even if it was fleeting. "Oh, yeah, this is definitely what I was going for--a gunshot wound and nothing more than heavy strength Tylenol. It's a dream come true." Shaking her head, she said "I don't know... For some reason, the needles never bothered me... I guess we really are just gluttons for punishment." Perhaps it was the punishment that they both felt they deserved, though she didn't say that part out loud--she didn't really need to, considering it hung in the air right above their heads. Still, she could always depend on Cy to be someone who just understood her past with addiction. There was no need to explain or justify her thinking. He already got it. Holding out her hand for the Aleve, she said "Thank you so much." Then, with a chuckle, she add "And please, you think I'm gonna' rat on you to Susie? For you doing her job better than she can? No fuckin' way."

When he came back with her juice, she downed the Aleve and hoped that it would start to work sooner than later. "Thanks again." She took deep breath as her brother tried to calm her worries about her daughter. She knew he was probably right when he said that this would barely be a blip on Rhea's radar--that's how it should be. Still, she hated the idea that she was missing any part of her daughter's life while she was locked up in this cheerless hospital. She missed her little laugh and smile. She missed reading to her at night. But she was eternally grateful for Cyrek and Stella taking Rhea in for the meantime. "Thank you so much for taking care of her. I know you guys have a lot going on, but... I really appreciate it. I know she's in good hands--and hell, she's probably having a blast since she basically gets to have a sleepover with her cousins every night," she chuckled. She forced a small smile when he called her by her birth name--he usually only did that when he was trying to comfort her and she was being stubborn and not listening. We can't hide our kids from reality. Giving a small nod, she said "You're right about that... I hate that you're right so often." Finally looking at him and agreeing to the notion of Rhea visiting her in the hospital, she said "Okay. The next time you visit, if you're able to bring her, I would love to see her. I miss her so much."

That rich guy from the council? She couldn't be sure if he was referring to Abraxis or Kaz--both of them had visited her, Abra more than once of course. If ever there were a time to come clean, it was now. What the fuck are you up to? What'd you dig up? There was also that. "Look, I don't... I can't prove it yet but I think that...somehow, some way, someone on the council may be connected to the body snatchings..." The both of them knew damn well that Kurt Adler was one of the corpses that had been robbed from his grave--she hadn't been on scene for that one in particular but she'd looked at the pictures after the fact with her boss. Her heart ached for her twin brother and his loss. "And I want to get closer to it, but... It feels...really unsafe now. But at the same time, am I not on the right track? Why else would I be gunned down like that?"

When he suggested that she pull back from the council, she said "Well, that's going to be a bit difficult." Taking a deep breath, she looked up at her brother and said "Heads up, you're not gonna' like this, but... I've been seeing Abraxis Webb for a few months now. We've been keeping it quiet, obviously--and I can imagine what you're going to say, but... I don't know, I met them at the Ivy and we were flirting and I thought that I could get an in on the council--I thought that if I got close, if I had a connection, I could investigate more. And I've been able to do that, but... It's not just about reconnaissance anymore. We've gotten pretty serious. That's why they're hanging around the hospital. They're here to see me. And I believe that I can trust them but I'm very aware that I could be wrong. I don't think I am, but... I also don't have the greatest track record, so...it's a possibility, I suppose. I could be wrong. And that's what I'm trying to figure out."

Dark humor was practically all he had to offer in the face of tribulations that didn't preclude certain death. ( Grief was an adversary he had no business wrangling with; the guilt that he was still chained to his ankles wasn't dragging him in the dark waters of the Atlantic ocean without anchor anymore, but washing ashore was no better than where his identical twin had landed facedown. He'd been twiddling his thumbs about suggesting a grief group for a while now with Stella, that perhaps they could both benefit, and connecting with other people was bountifully more productive to him than sitting across from a lone therapist ever was. If it were something anonymous, maybe they'd do alright. Was it worth a shot? Starting this... new chapter with her at some point, a family, he didn't want them to get too caught up in these trivial mind games that Kurt's disturbed headstone had wrought. Deep down, he knew that it was to get in his head. If it was him they wanted, then he needed to stop giving them the ammunition. ) "I'd say laughter's the best medicine or whatever the phrase is, but I'm thinkin' that's shite right now. But I think you should be a bitch more often. I was startin' to think livin' in the Big Apple sucked it right out of you, y'know, some energy vampire shit Alec was feedin' off of."

His opinion of the guy wasn't very high, unaided by what few interactions they'd had outside the wedding revolving around the coupling's pending separations. Alice might wish him well, but he sure as fuck didn't. Someone had to hold a grudge around here.

"Mm. I worry 'bout that with the whole childbirth thing. It's real hard without epidural. I thnik Stella's gonna make a ritual sacrifice out of an OBGYN if she don't have it." Before they'd started dating, he would've been no dice on that being on the table too. "Think painkillers would be more my shit, though. She wasn't much for the needles. What's that say about us? We like pain? Masochism? Sure looks like you're one t' me, layin' here with a bullet in your gut," he ribbed lightly, the corners of his mouth quirking as he gave her a barely-there smirk. If they couldn't joke about their ironic eclipse of a vice, then what fun was it? Plus, it was one of those times Alice seemed cagey and agitated that it was causing her problems in the forefront; after a while, it could be almost... forgotten, until something pulled the reminder back into the room like an old friend you didn't want to have an intervention for. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the bottle and unscrewed the lid, saying as he shook two into her hand, "I'll go steal a juice from the cart. Don't rat me out, bitch."

It didn't take him more than a couple minutes to come back, a juicebox in hand, poking the hole out and turning it over in a plastic cup, filling it up and handing it to her. Taking a seat, he let out a snort. "Please. Four year olds can barely like, use their pea brains to remember shit at this age. Stell baked her some fresh cookies and she forgot all 'bout it until the next time she was askin' for mummy. Don't worry. She's more scared of the pair of used socks my crackhead of a cat likes to throw up and down the hall at midnight." After a pause, perched in the hardbacked chair rather than the edge of the bed as the scent of sterile cleaning products and hospital perfume were bound to spark anxieties for him later if he sat at the bed's edge, he reached out to lay his hand over Alice's. "Aliki, she's fine. If you wanna see her, s'not gonna hurt nothin' really. She's gonna keep askin' for you. And... it's garbage advice, but we can't hide our kids from reality."

Lifting his hands in mock surrender, they fell away from her own, though the silence he settled into was slightly unnerved, and he quirked the corner of his mouth. "That rich guy from the council? Yeah, I've seen a couple council people around your room. Like vultures. What the fuck are you up to? What'd you dig up?" The word usage was probably an irony to his own personal hell he'd been wading through since the beginning of the year, but now wasn't the time to get into that. At least, not right this second, while Alice had other fears on her mind. Silent as he listened, he picked at a broken thumbnail, solemnity overshadowing the overexuberant persona that he knew how to don like the back of his hand, receding to his normal, sullen self. "I dunno. You're up the council's arse, somehow. Enemies don't really kill enemies if they know they're enemies. S' the snakes you should watch out for. You get me? Just remember t' be careful with trust. Whatever you're doin' with the council, if you wanna keep up this thing, you better fall back." Cyrek fucked with people who had money with their easily replaceable shit. If he was stealing their operations and plans, well, he wasn't that fucking daft. Licking his lips, a breath left his lungs. Maybe they were both putting everyone around them in danger. Like brother, like sister. "Whatever danger I got comin', I did it to me." Self-deprecating? And true.

[shidoukanae]

Hello to the Buddyfight fandom it's been a hot minute but god do i miss this show and have been making fanart for it in the background so i thought i'd post to tumblr too ^^

I swear every year I end up coming back to this show and wishing that it kept going, that it got rebooted, that i could just erase my memories of this show and just watch it all over again from the beginning to enjoy everything once again from Tasuku's own sense of justice twisting against him to Gao's suffering of PTSD and how heartfelt it was handled.

There's something very special about this show that I haven't been able to find replicated elsewhere. It has the most perfect world to exist (so much so that i'd love to be isekai'd into it if i could!!!) and while i have my own gripes with it (hi S3+) i honestly sometimes wish i could go back to my high school years of watching this show just to relive it all again :'D

Anyways!!! I hope there's still people out there who enjoy this show even ten years later who'll like seeing new funny artwork for it!

I wanna add too that i'm hoping to create a rewrite of FCBF (ft. seasons 1-3 + Ace) or at least create more artwork for my interpretation of it and its world!

Because, sincerely, this show is one of the few that, for all its flaws, hasn't disappointed me in the years that've followed unlike many other things i've seen and i wanna try to keep the spirit of it alive while I can thanks to that. And if there are any fans still in existence who love it, i wanna provide some food while its once again in my orbit because damn do i adore this show <3 <3 <#