#sometimes you just say something vulnerable

[keithyp00]

︵‿︵‿୨♡ Pretty Little Baby ♡୧‿︵‿︵

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x f!reader

Warnings/Tags: slow burn, hurt/comfort, romance, emotional vulnerability, mentions of PTSD, minor language, soft!Bucky, pining and tension, kissing, implied intimacy, fluff, 1950s music, scars, body image

Song Inspiration: Pretty Little Baby by Connie Francis

Word Count: 2.4K

Author Note: Hello! Sorry this one is out so late... This is another Connie Francis fic (because her songs work for him so well <3) that I'm pretty proud of. This note is to tell you guys that I don't think I bombed my AP exam this morning so that's good! AND that my post for tomorrow will be delayed to Friday night because of my PROM! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this one!

Please do not copy or translate any of my works. Thank you!

Pretty little baby / you say that maybe you'll be thinkin' of me / and try to love me / Pretty little baby / I'm hoping that you do~

~~~~~

Bucky Barnes wasn't supposed to fall in love. Not again. Not here.

The sunlight pooled through the tiny cafe window just enough to trace gold over the soft curve of your cheek. You sat tucked in the small booth located behind the counter- specifically for workers- like a secret waiting to be discovered, the vintage radio located next to you crooning out a low, crackling tune- something old. Something he vaguely remembered the melody of.

"Pretty little baby, I'm so in love with you~"

Your fingers tapped along the rim of your coffee cup, mimicking the tempo. You didn't see him at first. You never did. Not really. Not in the way others did- with their reverence, their suspicion, their fear. No, you had this gentle way of looking at him like he wasn't a ghost. Like he wasn't a man made of nightmares. You saw through the steel and the silence.

You saw him.

He'd been coming here for three months now. Tuesdays and Fridays. You always worked the morning shift, tucked in your apron and a smile so warm it melted his resolve. Bucky told himself the coffee was the reason he kept returning. Told himself the old songs reminded him of simpler times. Told himself it wasn't you.

But it was always you.

Today, you looked different. A little sad. Your smile not quite reaching your eyes.

"Hey, soldier," you greeted softly when he finally stepped forward to the counter, voice like a balm.

"Hey, doll," he murmured, almost under his breath. The nickname slipped out sometimes, like his body remembered the rhythm of a past life even when he didn't mean to.

Your lips twitched a little higher. You always liked when he called you that.

"Coffee?" You asked, already reaching for his usual.

"Yeah." He hesitated. "And... maybe a slice of that apple pie?"

You blinked. "Trying something new?"

Bucky shrugged, pretending it didn't take everything in him to break routine. "Thought I'd live a little."'

You gave him a playful salute. "That's the spirit."

As you turned to plate the dessert, Bucky glanced toward the radio. The song still played.

"Pretty little baby / You said maybe..."

It tugged at something in his chest. A memory, maybe. A fragment. He remembered holding someone close on a night like this. A whisper of perfume, the hem of a dress, the way music softened all the edges. But that wasn't this life. That wasn't now.

This was now. And you were here.

"Something wrong?" He asked when you set down his plate with slightly trembling fingers.

You smiled- small, too practiced. "Just... tired."

"Liar," he replied gently.

Your eyes flicked up to meet his. Startled. Then they softened.

"My roommate's moving out," you confessed. "And I can't afford the place on my own. I guess I'm worried I'll have to leave the neighborhood. Find a new job. Start over."

HIs fork paused halfway to his mouth.

"You thinking about leaving?" He asked carefully.

You nodded. "Unless something changes."

Bucky set his fork down.

Something about the idea of you being gone made his heart lurch in his chest. He didn't want to admit how often he built his week around these visits. How often he remembered the sound of your laugh hours after hearing it. How he had memorized the smell of this cafe because it smelled like you.

"You shouldn't have to start over," he stated.

Your smile faltered. "Sometimes, you don't get a choice."

He knew that better than anyone.

There was a beat of silence. Just the soft voice of Connie Francis filling in the cracks between you.

Bucky cleared his throat. "You like this kind of music?"

Your eyes seemed to light up- really light up- and for a second, the weight on your shoulders vanished.

"I love it," you smiled. "My grandmother used to play these old records. Connie, Doris, Patsy. She used to say romance was simpler back then."

He smiled, something wistful curing in his chest. "Yeah, I remember."

You blinked. "You remember?"

He hesitated, caught. And then slowly, he let the words fall. "I was born in 1917."

The world stilled. You stared. Then stared a little longer. His coffee cooling beside the both of you.

You didn't ask. Not about the arm. Not about the Winter Soldier. Not even about Steve.

Instead, you reached across the table and placed your hand over his flesh one.

"That must be a lot to carry," you said.

And somehow- somehow- that was worse than pity. It was kindness. It made something in his chest ache.

~~~~~

Weeks passed.

You didn't leave. Somehow, a friend of a friend needed a roommate- really just someone to help pay half the rent for a place they rarely ever stayed in. You moved three blocks away instead of thirty minutes. You still worked at the cafe. Bucky still came by.

Sometimes he came just to sit with you during your break. Sometimes you played cards behind the counter. Sometimes he helped you change the records on slow afternoons, humming low and quiet.

Once, he brought you a tiny potted plant with a tag that just said "for the sunshine behind the counter."

You nearly cried.

You started listening to more old songs. Started humming them around him. Started smiling wider every time he walked in. You didn't know when you fell in love with him. You just knew that one day, Bucky Barnes was no longer a customer. He was a presence. A comfort.

A heartbeat. And you were his. But neither of you said it. Not until the night it all came undone.

~~~~~

It was raining.

Bucky didn't show up for his usual Tuesday coffee. Then Friday. Then the next Tuesday.

You didn't have his number. You didn't know where he lived. You were just a girl behind a counter who somehow memorized the man behind all the pain.

When he showed up again, he looked wrecked.

Eyes bloodshot. Jaw tight. Hair damp from the storm outside. He didn't say hello. Didn't order coffee.

Just stared at you like he didn't believe you were real.

"I'm sorry," he said.

You frowned. "Where were you?"

"I... I couldn't come," he whispered. "I couldn't see you. I couldn't look at you and pretend I'm not broken."

Your chest tightened.

"You don't have to pretend," you said quietly.

He stepped closer. "I dreamt I hurt you," he confessed, voice breaking. "My mind... sometimes I can't control what I see. What I feel. I thought if I stayed away, I could protect you. But it just- hurt more."

You were shaking now. "Bucky..."

"I'm not what you think I am," he said. "I'm not a good man. I've done things that haunt me. I'm not fixed. I'm not even whole. I didn't want to let you close because I knew- I knew I'd start to hope. And hope is dangerous."

Tears welled in your eyes.

"Don't you get it?" You whispered. "I don't need perfect. I need you."

Silence.

Then his voice- ragged.

"You deserve someone better."

"Maybe," you replied. "But I want you."

That cracked something in him. Broke him open.

And suddenly, he was holding you like a lifeline, forehead pressed to yours, rain in his hair, in his lashes, on his lips. He was trembling- an earthquake in a man's body. And then he kissed you.

Soft. Desperate. Real.

Like he's been waiting a hundred years just to find someone who didn't flinch.

~~~~~

"Meet me at the car hop or at the pop shop / meet me in the moonlight or in the daylight / pretty little baby, I'm so in love with you~"

The record played again a week later.

You danced in your kitchen barefoot while Bucky cooked behind you. He was clumsy with a spatula but careful with your heart. His metal arm wrapped around your waist as you spun into him, laughter spilling between you.

"I like this one," he murmured into your hair.

"I know," you smiled, eyes twinkling. "You always hum it."

Bucky kissed your temple.

"Pretty little baby," he whispered, echoing the lyrics. And this time, when you looked at him... You didn't see the Winter Soldier.

You saw James Buchanan Barnes.

And he was yours.

~~~~~

The first time you saw him shirtless, it wasn't intentional.

You'd only meant to bring him coffee.

It was barely past nine on a Sunday morning- quiet, sleepy light pouring through your bedroom window, another morning where your roommate was in a city thousands of miles away for work- and you padded down the hallway with two mugs in hand and nothing but one of Bucky's old Henley's falling past your thighs. You hadn't expected him to be out of bed already. You hadn't expected to find him standing in your bathroom, door ajar, wiping steam off the mirror as sunlight caught every scar on his back.

The coffee nearly slipped from your fingers.

He turned at the sound of your breath catching, eyes wide, chest bare, metal arm glinting sliver-blue in the light. He looked like a statue- carved from war and grief, tall and scarred and too beautiful to be real.

"Sorry," he muttered, reaching for a towel.

You swallowed. "Don't- don't cover up-"

HIs hand paused. Towel clenched at his side. His shoulders tensed as if waiting for you to flinch. For you to turn away. For you to look at him and see a monster.

But you didn't.

You just stepped closer. Set the mugs on the counter. Reached up with trembling fingers to touch the edge of one older scar that curled itself across his ribs.

"Does it still hurt?" You asked.

His throat bobbed. "Not always."

You leaned in. Pressing a kiss just beside it.

Then another.

And another.

You traced the map of his wounds like a poem written specifically for you. He stood still, breathing shallowly, as your lips moved over the place where flesh met metal, where skin had broken and grown over again. His eyes fluttered shut. His hand trembled when it came to rest on your waist.

"Pretty little baby," you whispered, half a breath, the song still echoing somewhere in your heart. "I want all of you."

And he kissed you- raw and real and aching.

Like he couldn't believe he was allowed.

~~~~~

Later, when your head lay on his chest, your fingers drawing idle shapes over his sternum, he spoke.

"I used to think I wasn't allowed to want anything," he murmured. "After everything I did... I thought wanting happiness was selfish. I thought being touched would always feel like control. But with you-"

His voice broke.

"With you, I feel human again."

Tears pricked your eyes. You turned your face into his skin and breathed him in.

"Then stay human with me," you whispered.

He did.

He stayed.

~~~~~

Time passed in quiet, golden pieces.

You slowly moved out of your apartment and into his. You left a toothbrush beside his. He left a dog-eared version of The Hobbit on your nightstand and insisted it was better than the movie.

You started watching black-and-white films together on an old projector screen you borrowed from a friend. He fell asleep on your lap during Roman Holiday. You took a picture- his face soft, peaceful, your fingers tangled in his hair- and set it as your lock screen. He pretended to grumble about it.

But he smiled every time he saw it.

You learned that he liked lemon in his tea. That he still had nightmares, but fewer of them now. That he hummed Connie Francis songs without realizing it, especially when he cooked. That he never quite believed he was lovable- but was trying, every day, to let you show him otherwise.

~~~~~

Then came the letter.

It was from the VA. A mandatory psych review. Another round of red tape. Another cold reminder that no matter how far he came, the world still saw him as dangerous first and human second.

You found him sitting on the edge of your bed, jaw clenched, paper crumpled in one fist.

"Hey," you said gently.

He didn't look at you.

"I don't want to go," he said. "I don't want to sit in some room and explain why I flinch at loud noises or why I check the door five times before sleeping. I don't want to be studied."

Your heart ached.

You sat beside him. Laced your fingers through his.

"You don't owe anyone an explanation for surviving," you stated. "But if you go... do it for you. Not them."

He exhaled slowly. Then nodded.

"I want to be better," he said. "For you."

You cupped his face, made him look at you.

"You're already enough," you whispered.

~~~~~

Spring came slowly.

The cafe bloomed with lavender outside the windows. You reopened the patio seating. He brought you flowers on your lunch break- daisies, once. Then violets. Then roses.

"You're spoiling me," you teased, cradling the bouquet.

He smirked. "You deserve it."

You kissed him on your break. In front of the window. In front of half the neighborhood.

He didn't care who saw.

For the first time in nearly a century, James Buchanan Barnes didn't hide.

~~~~~

But healing wasn't linear.

Some nights, he still woke up gasping.

Some days, he paced the apartment for hours before he could settle.

Once, he got quiet for a week after seeing his reflection in a store window and not recognizing himself. You didn't push. You just stayed close. Made tea. Held him when he let you.

"I don't know why you stay," he said one night, voice rough.

You pressed your forehead to his.

"Because I love you."

He didn't speak. But his arms wrapped around you tighter than ever.

And you knew.

He loved you, too.

~~~~~

One summer night, as fireflies blinked outside the open balcony and the radio hummed in the background, he pulled you into a dance in the living room. Bare feet on cool wood. Fingers on his collar. Chin tucked into his neck.

You swayed. Slowly. Softly.

He kissed your temple. Then your cheek. Then the corner of your lips.

You tilted your head back to look at him.

"What are you thinking?" You whispered.

HIs blue eyes shimmered.

"That I want this," he said. "I want you. Forever, if you'll have me."

You laughed. A breathless, tearful sound.

"I've been yours since you walked into my cafe three months late and asked for a coffee with way too much sugar."

He groaned. "I said I was trying something new!"

You laughed and kissed him again.

"I love you," you smiled.

He closed his eyes.

"I love you more than I ever thought I could," he breathed. "And that terrifies me."

You kissed the corner of his mouth.

"Then let's be scared together."

[dior-luxury]

Can we get some headcanons for Deuce when he gets a girlfriend for the first time?

New Boyfriend Deuce HC'S

( ✧ ) ────── boyfriend stories . fluff - she/her .

- [𝐜𝐡.] deuce spade

- [𝐩:𝐬] deuce being the best boyfriend ever. Fluff-heavy romance . Mild secondhand embarrassment . Emotional vulnerability .

Note: Guys... I got a LITTLE too carried away with these headcanons (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) Anyways these headcanons are so cute like- ahahsiken. Let me know if you guys would want more characters!

Deuce never thought he’d have a girlfriend in Night Raven College — he was too busy trying to be an honor student, avoid trouble, and stay on Crowley's good side. But when he meets you, something shifts. You're kind, but not a pushover. You encourage him to study but also tease him when he gets too serious. You’re not loud, but somehow, when you're in a room, he feels it. His heart jumps a little whenever you laugh. At first, he writes it off as admiration. Just friends. That’s all. But then he finds himself lingering in the hallway, hoping to catch a glimpse of you between classes. He starts sitting in spots where you’ll pass by. His cheeks flush whenever you smile at him for no reason. He realizes it when Ace smirks one day and goes, “You’re seriously down bad for her, huh?”

Confessing is a nightmare and a half. He doesn’t want to mess it up. Deuce goes full-on prep mode like he’s cramming for a Spelldrive match and a pop quiz at the same time. He practices what to say in front of the mirror, muttering lines like: "Would you maybe want to—uh—do the thing—no, wait, not like that—"

He’s red as a tomato by the end of it.

He writes you a letter. Handwritten. Old-fashioned. Filled with crossed-out words and nervous little doodles in the margins. It ends with: “I think you’re amazing and I want to be someone you can count on. If you want… would you go out with me?” When he hands it to you, he bolts. Just. Takes off. Won’t even look you in the eye until the next day.

When you say yes, he’s stunned into silence. Then his face lights up like fireworks and he gives you the most genuine, pure smile you’ve ever seen. "R-Really?! I mean, I’m really happy. I’ll do my best—I mean, I’ll be the best boyfriend I can!”

Deuce is so earnest it hurts. He Googles “how to be a good boyfriend” and takes notes. He shows up to your hangouts with little things you mentioned once in passing. If you said your favorite color was lilac? Expect him to wear a tie in that color next week. You mentioned you liked strawberry tarts once? He’ll try to bake them (and ends up covered in flour, calling his mom mid-way for help).

He’s not very smooth, and it shows. One time, he tried to do the whole "cool guy leaning against the locker" thing and misjudged the angle, falling sideways into the wall. He laughed it off awkwardly, ears pink. “Nailed it,” he said. You giggled, and he practically melted.

He tries to play it cool around others, but Ace teases the hell out of him. “There’s your girlfriend, Deuce! Go get her a flower or something!” “I-I was going to anyway! Shut up, Ace!”

He loves walking you back to your dorm. It becomes a quiet, meaningful routine. He listens intently when you talk about your day, and he’ll offer to carry your books even if you insist he doesn’t have to. He’s not touchy at first — not because he doesn’t want to be, but because he’s terrified of doing something you’re uncomfortable with. The first time you held his hand, he short-circuited. Just blinked down at your interlocked fingers and looked like he was trying not to pass out from happiness.

Being with you pushes him to grow. He starts reflecting on how he communicates, how he reacts when he’s upset, how he can show love without overwhelming you. You catch glimpses of the rougher Deuce sometimes — the one who’s a little hot-headed, a little impulsive. But he’s learning. With you, he wants to be the version of himself that he's proud of.

One time, he got into an argument with another student who disrespected you, and he was this close to throwing a punch. But then he remembered what you’d say. He breathed. He walked away. Later, he apologized to you, looking like a kicked puppy. “I just… I don’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

You tell him you’re proud of how far he’s come. His voice catches when he answers. “That means a lot. I… I used to think I had to fight to prove myself. But now, I want to grow for real. Not just for me. For us.”

He takes you on a “date” to the botanical gardens on campus, and it’s surprisingly lovely. He’s not great at planning fancy things, but he puts in so much heart. He brings a picnic lunch he made (not bad, actually!) and sets it all up under a tree blooming with pastel flowers. “I wanted you to have something peaceful. You always make me feel calm, you know?” he admits.

On your birthday, Deuce panics about what gift to get you. In the end, he hand-crafts a small charm — something simple, with your initials and a lucky star bead from his hometown. “It’s not perfect, but I wanted you to have something that’d protect you.”

Rainy days are his favorite because you’ll let him lend you his jacket — which is oversized, warm, and smells like the citrus soap he uses. You wear it and tease him: “Boyfriend privileges.” He blushes but beams. “I’ll give you all the privileges you want.”

Deuce might act tough sometimes, but he’s soft when it comes to you. He’s the type to text you “Did you eat today?” or bring you your favorite snack after a long class. If you’re ever sad, he listens. Doesn’t always know what to say, but he sits beside you, lets you vent, and quietly offers his hand to hold.

He’s so gentle when he’s with you. Tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. Smiling nervously before pressing a kiss to your forehead. His affection is shy but real.

One night, you two stayed up late talking — about dreams, the future, things that scare you, things you hope for. Deuce looked at you and whispered: “I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have someone like you. I don’t wanna take it for granted.”

[agere-fics]

Being A Little With The Thunderbolts

characters: bob, alexei, yelena, ava, john, and bucky

thunderbolts/new avengers x little!gn!reader

dni if under the age of 17 or if your blog has dd*g kink!

♡

Alexei:

he's literally the best uncle!cg/babysitter you could ever ask for

literally gets you hopped up on sugar and leaves your energizer bunny hyperness for bucky to deal with

bored? literally no worries cause alexi is taking you everywhere you wanna go. the aquarium? the park? with a big ol' grin on his face, he's ushering you to the car

speaking of the car, you get shotgun always and alexi almost always forgets that you need to wear you seatbelt

he uses his super strength to throw you around and rough house with you but 90% of the time you don't get hurt (don't worry about that other 10%. he buys you chocolates and toys if you promise not to tattle on him)

gives the bestest bear hugs you could ever ask for

Bob:

he usually regresses with you honestly, but he ranges between being a big brother or being on the younger side

will literally play monster trucks and dolls with you

you cuddle all the time and take naps together like the cute babies you are

you like to wear his clothes and sometimes he'll wear yours even if they don't fit properly

you always need to be in his line of sight cause you're literally his emotional support person. if he's in big brother mode, he'll frantically search for you and if he's in little baby mode he just starts crying until yelena helps him find you

you share a big plate of dino nuggies together!! and then fall asleep in a cuddle pile in the living room akdhs

Yelena:

she's your mama. shares cg custody with bucky.

very much a helicopter mom, overbearing and overprotective but usually you don't mind it if you're feeling really, really little. if you're feeling a bit older, you often throw tantrums that you're a "big kid" and yelena has to get alexei over to calm you.

she has rules for you but is not very stern. she definitely gentle parents you.

how natasha was for her is how she is for you and bob

will play dress up with you and bake with you

when you're baking, flour is thrown everywhere. both of you just covered in it. and obviously alexei joins in cause he loves his family. John just stands there in corner like: 🧍🙄

Ava:

biggest wine aunt that ever wine aunt'ed

literally let's you do whatever you want and gives you whatever you want but you're NOT spoiled that's not a nice word according to Ava

you guys play chase and hide and seek a lot

she does your hair and makeup all the time

she's actually really good at face painting

will fight and kill anyone for you on sight

someone have something to say about your age regression? game over. she's gonna get them and they'll never bother you about anything ever again.

John:

John honestly did not rock with the regression at first cause he was all like: "🙄🧍 what are you doing??"

but then you looked at him like this: "🥺" and he went all: "😖" and now he's your babysitter sjfhs

loves to carry you on his shoulders, or dead man carry you like a fireman. either way it's a very funny sight.

let's you use his shield to slide down the stairs

freaks out when you get hurt and start crying cause he has no idea what to do

so clueless but also so sweet

he teases you but he doesn't know how to show love otherwise

Bucky:

THERE'S SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT BUCKY

HE'S YOUR DADDY/DADA!!! AND THE BEST ONE EVER

at first, he didn't want to be vulnerable with you cause he was so scared. everyone he's been vulnerable with has left him. but slowly for surely you broke down his walls, convinced he was worth caring for too.

and having you as his little gave him so much purpose in life

he could actually wake up in the morning with meaning and satisfaction knowing you were there to hold his hand

you tug at his leg pants when you want something ajfhs

he's pretty strict honestly with lots of rules but you don't mind following them. he just wants you safe!

he let you cut his hair once. Once. never again lol

you guys do arts and crafts together!!

he ordered you your own super suit so you'd feel like a part of the team

[wildemaven]

chasing stillness | jack abbot

pairing - jack abbot x ofc!alix miller, rn word count - 2587 content warning - 18+ blog; lots of self reflection, use of ‘you’, Alix :39, lighter skin tone, has an a good amount of tattoos covering her body, has short hair that’s long enough to be pulled back, an avid runner:, established friendship, lots of feelings— but neither of them seem to be brave enough to share with the classroom, sarcasm and friendly banter, mention of divorce, mention of blood but nothing too serious, no y/n, please let me know if I failed to list something. a/n - I originally had something completely different I was going to post for these two first and then I started writing this and things went in a different direction. So you’re getting this first and then other thing will come later. I feel rusty with my writing but it was fun to dive back into it. Anyways, gonna go hide now! Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

The notebook sat open on the kitchen counter—the one filled with countless grocery lists, to-do tasks and other personal details worth noting—next to your keys, ball-point pen and the bland energy bar you still needed to scarf down. 

Outside the sky was beginning its transition from late afternoon to early evening— clouds backlit in a soft gold as the sun slowly inched toward the city’s skyline. 

You stood in a pocket of fading light that filtered through the kitchen window, one foot on the bottom rung of a stool as you finished lacing up your well-worn running shoes. With both feet now firmly planted on the hardwood floor, your eyes drift to the blank page. You grab the pen, clicking once, twice writing a single line: 

Goals, Guts & Zero Guilt— Just Fucking Do It

You stared at the words for a while. The way they loop, cross and connect with purpose. 

It’s not the first time you’ve attempted this list. You start it every week, chickening out and turning the page allowing other lists to become your priority in the following days— you were a pro at hindering your own growth. There were times you’d flip back to the page, reading the words over before leaving on your run to work then flipping to the first blank page pushing it off for another day. 

But today felt different. And so you add:

run because it feels good, not because I’m outrunning anything

I’m not a failure because my marriage failed 

Starting over is a new beginning, not a punishment 

Stop hiding from the idea that someone might care

You pause. Pen hovering as you internally debate the last point, then adding: 

“Because You Matter” - Ask Jack, someday. Maybe

Because you matter. Those three words had been tormenting you since he’d said them to you the night of PittFest. There was a softness in the way he had spoken to you in that moment, dialing back his grit and satirical tone. This wasn’t an Attending giving his post-mass-casualty speech. It felt vulnerable and raw— like there was more he wanted to say than he allowed himself to. 

Because you matter to the hospital? Because you matter to us? Because you matter to him? 

Your fingers trace over the edge of that last line. Not crossing it out or underlining it or avoiding like you had been for the last year. Just acknowledging it— a possibility, at some point. 

The vibration from your watch pulls you from your thoughts. It’s an hour before your shift starts. You grab your keys, bag—tossing in the forgotten energy bar you’ll now contemplate eating mid-shift—and zip your hoodie halfway. 

Running to work wasn’t efficient. It didn’t make sense, especially before a 12 hour shift in the emergency room where you were on your feet for hours on end. But it made you feel something. The closest to being in control you’d felt in a long time. 

It gives you time to carve out space in your head— clear the static. Respite from your psyche and the stress of work you sometimes carry longer than you should. The hum of the city and the rhythm of your feet pounding against the pavement always made the perfect soundtrack as you descended the steps of your apartment building and head toward Pittsburgh Medical Trauma Center. 

*

The sky had deepened to a darker shade, streaked with ash-blue clouds. The first stars were just beginning to emerge—faint little beacons welcoming you to the night shift. 

As the hospital comes into view, you slowed to a jog. Breathing steady. Legs warm and heavy with a pleasant fatigue. You wipe the sweat from your forehead with the sleeve of your hoodie. 

A single bus sits in the ambulance bay— vacant and waiting for the next urgent departure. 

You're five minutes past your normal arrival time, but take a moment to fully collect yourself. Eyes closed, you draw in a long breath, then exhale deeply. And again. 

The whirring of the mechanical door sliding open cuts through the air, the bustle of ED spilling out and echoing across the concrete that surrounds you. Your pulse is a deafening thud in your ears— not from exertion, but the flicker of movement in front of you. 

Jack. 

He stands just beyond the entrance doors. A cup of coffee in one hand, badge clipped to its usual spot on his pants pocket and his gaze fixed on the watch strapped to his left wrist—an old relic from his service days, still faithfully ticking. 

“Five minutes slower than the other day.” Jack says, finally looking up at you. Surprise flickers in his eyes, quickly replaced by a smirk. “Should I be worried you’re losing stamina… or just trying to give me a head start?”

“Is this where I start regretting sharing my location with you?” You ask, entirely teasing. Cold air nips at your bare skin as you peel off your damp hoodie. The ink on your arms rises beneath a trail of goosebumps as a breeze sweeps through the emergency bay. 

You’d been working together for the better part of five years, riding the unpredictable waves of ED nights that swung between full-blown chaos and ghostly quiet. Him, Jack Abbot— the cool-headed Senior Emergency Medicine Physician that everyone turned to when things fell apart. You, Alix Miller—  the well respected R.N. and anchor who always knew where everything was, anticipated what needed doing and had the kind of deadpan wit that made Jack look forward to shift change.

Somewhere along the way, between split-second triage calls and vending machine raids at 1 a.m., you’d carved out a rhythm— easy, constant. The kind of friendship built on trust, sharp banter and just enough stolen glances and lingering silences to keep you both pretending it was still just that.

Jack chuckles, shaking his head, slipping his free hand into his pocket. “If you didn’t want me keeping tabs, you shouldn’t have accepted the request.” His eyes skim your ink, but he keeps his tone light. “Didn’t want to crush your spirit two runs in a row.”

He pauses, his smirk softening just a touch. “Miller— you good, though? You look like you ran more than just miles today.”

Because you matter. 

“Yeah— yeah I’m fine. Got a late start. Slept like shit and probably should have stretched out more. Nothing I can’t handle.” You say with your best convincing tone, hoping it’s enough that he buys into it.  

“You sure?” Jack’s head tilts slightly, offering you an opening— a quiet invitation to lay it all out. You’re not surprised he doesn’t buy it. He knows you too well. All you can offer is a reassuring smile and a nod.

“I need you in there.”

“You’ve got me, Abbot.” You say, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze as you pass him and step through the doorway.

*

It was 3:45 am when you found a moment to sit, most patients waiting on lab results or family to be released to. You sank into the chair, muscles heavy, mind foggy with the weight of too many hours and not enough rest. At least it was Friday— the end of a long, punishing week finally within reach. You held onto that thought like a lifeline.

Jack was taking advantage of the brief lulled atmosphere leaning against the counter of the nurses station with a half-drained cup of sludge, watching as you scribbled down notes onto your beloved fluorescent pink square sticky notepad with the same energy as a dying flashlight— your use of them was prevalent, adorning all surfaces around the hub of the Emergency Department. 

“Is it your pen giving out or is that your soul?” Jack asked dryly before gulping down the last bit of his black coffee and tossing the paper cup into the overflowing trash can. 

You didn’t look up as you peeled another square from the pad, crumpling it in your hand and tossing in the same direction. “Both, unfortunately.”

“You’re ridiculous.” He shook his head and grinned at your quick response, huffing out a snort just barely audible over the patient monitors and hushed murmuring among the other nurses and residents. 

“Go home, Miller. That’s the third time you’ve written ‘Abbot’ with two T’s.” He says, eyeing you with mock seriousness. “Pretty sure there’s a 23-gauge needle around here somewhere. I could drain whatever ink is left in that pen, take you behind Curtain 4, and make it permanent.” He unfolds his left arm, pointing to a spot on yours. “Right there, just above that little leaf thing on your forearm. You’ll never forget it.”

“That would be a bird wing, and I’m just seeing if you’re awake enough to catch it. As thrilling as that infection sounds— I’ll pass. Besides, it’s Friday—  I leave when you do.”

Jack’s house was a charming Craftsman bungalow located exactly two miles from the hospital. With two bedrooms and a small tiled bathroom, it was furnished in a way that perfectly reflected his laid-back personality, subtly underscored by the crisp precision of his military background. Every detail, every piece of his life arranged throughout the space, felt intentional—quietly ordered, effortlessly him.

Your house was on the opposite side of town— ten miles from Jack's and twelve from the hospital. 

It had become a normal occurrence since PittFest. 

Just crash at my place, Miller. It’s closer. You shouldn’t be running home like this.

You hadn’t argued. Too tired. Too wrung out. And maybe—though you hadn’t let yourself think it at the time—too grateful for the way he’d said it like it wasn’t a question.

He’d drive. You’d ride in silence. The blackout curtains made it easier to fall asleep fast and hard the second you laid on the couch. You’d sleep a few hours, pull together some sort of meal for the two of you from whatever he had in his fridge, then call a rideshare, or sometimes—on the rare days he wasn’t back on shift—he’d take you home himself.

He told you it was for convenience. That it wasn’t safe to run home after a twelve-hour shift, not with the streets as empty and strange as they were before dawn.

But the truth was quieter, heavier.

He just wanted to make sure you were safe.

Little did you know it eased something inside him— like he’d tucked you into a space where the world couldn’t get to you, at least not for a few hours.

Now, over a year later, it was just a normal routine between you two. 

“Fair. But I’ll have you know, it wouldn’t be my first.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I was pretty popular in the barracks for my stick-and-pokes. Practically a professional.” he murmured, eyes drifting back to the monitor above the nurses’ station, reading and rereading the stats, analyzing each one to see where his presence was needed most, mapping out his next move. 

“Oh, I’m sure you were,” you said with a teasing smile, eyes lingering on him as you rolled them just enough to let him know you weren’t entirely unimpressed. “Alright. Go do your thing and work your doctor magic, Abbot.” Peeling another square, wadding it into a ball before tossing it to where Jack was still leaning with his arms crossed over his chest, hitting his bicep and falling to the floor. 

“That’s what I do best. And I look damn good doing it.” Propelling himself forward and smacking the top of the desk with a grin before heading around the counter toward the patient in room twelve.

*

Some people dreaded night shifts, but you had grown accustomed to them—thrived on them. The darkness brought fewer questions, fewer forced smiles. While the world slept, you became an expert at stitching things back together— arteries, skin, and the real-life stories unraveling at 2 a.m. in multiple trauma bays. A nightly rhythm of chaos that gives you purpose.

When morning arrives, as it always does, you trade the steady hum of machines, overhead pages, the metallic tang of blood, and the sharp sting of antiseptic mingled with burnt coffee for the quiet calm of the city as you step outside.

Jack walks ahead, as he always does, his canvas bag slung high over his shoulder. The morning light casting long shadows across the walkway leading to the hospital’s parking garage. He scans the path without thinking, eyes sweeping over every corner, every parked car— familiar or not. It’s the soldier in him. Those instincts etched deep in his bones, even in peacetime. There’s no threat here, not really, but he still walks like there might be. One step ahead. Always ready to shield, to take the hit before it ever reaches you.

Because you matter.

The flick of Jack’s unlock button sets off a rapid series of beeps as you near the black truck. He’s already at the passenger door holding it open, leaning casually against the frame. He doesn’t say anything as you approach— just observes you quietly. Your dark grey scrub top is rumpled and half-tucked and the loose waves of your hair are barely contained in your favorite clip— clear signs of a long shift.

Somehow, he always looks like he’s stepped out of a GQ centerfold— every curl perfectly in place. The greying five o’clock shadow doesn’t take away from his looks— if anything, it makes them worse in the best way. Like he needs the added charm on top of everything else he’s already got going for him.

There’s a flicker of nervousness in him that catches your eye just before you climb into the truck. His head is angled down toward his boots, his weight shifting from one foot to the other, only lifting his gaze once you’re standing right in front of him. And when he looks at you—really looks—it’s as if time stalls just for a moment. His head tilts in that signature way of his and he gives you a little nod that seems to say, I’ve got you now.

You toss your bag on the floor and slide into the seat. Your legs feel unsteady, almost jelly-like..

The sun glares harshly through the windshield as Jack pulls out of the garage and merges onto the busy street, making you wince. You groaned, quickly flipping the visor down, trying to block what you could. Jack chuckled quietly to himself, turning the dial on the radio up just enough for a country ballad to fill the truck cab— something about a neon moon. 

You slump back in the seat with a quiet sigh, searching for some semblance of comfort to get through the last stretch of the short drive. Your thoughts start to dissolve into that familiar haze that always follows the slow burn-off of post-shift adrenaline. And like clockwork, your eyes are already drifting shut by the time he turns onto his street.

Jack glances over once, careful not to wake you, then pulls into his driveway. He let the engine idle for a second longer than necessary, just watching you breathe— steadily now, not like earlier when you were leaning over a coding patient with shaking hands and blood coating your gloves.

He didn’t wake you until he absolutely had to.

You stirred with a soft sound, slightly dazed as if you’d just woken from a year long slumber, blinking slowly at the front door.

“You’re home,” he said.

You smile sleepily at the the sentiment, but don’t bother to correct him.

[fwaist]

idk how you manage to make porn sound beautiful your writing is sooo good,, could i request D from the nsfw alphabet for carmy??🙏🙏🌸 please and thank you

😭😭 thank you so much, this is seriously such high praise! i’ve definitely spent a lot of time honing my craft, so i’m happy that it’s paying off! now, enjoy getting let in on carmy’s dirty little secret…

d is for dirty secret | carmen berzatto

warnings: explicit sex, degradation (consensual), emotional vulnerability, power dynamics, aftercare, past trauma mention (work-related stress), crying, dom/sub elements

tags: @destinedtobegigi, @pittsick, @bambiangels, @talsorchard, @angeldoll1e, @itachisank, @tennisprincess, @lexiiscorect, @esotericgirlwannabe, @lovefaist, @won-every-lottery, @zionna

It doesn’t come out easily. Nothing ever does with Carmy—not the good things, not the soft things, and definitely not this. He’s too guarded, too clenched behind the ribcage he built out of guilt and grief and sharp-edged expectations. Sex, for him, was always something that existed in theory. He’d had it, sure. Here and there, quick and forgettable. Mostly desperate. Never deep. Never slow. Never safe. And never like this—with someone patient enough to wait for the real him to come out, for the parts he doesn’t understand, the ones he’s afraid to want.

It starts one night with him restless beneath you, half-sweaty, half-high from the way your mouth had ruined him earlier, his chest rising sharp and fast like it always does when his brain’s spinning. You’re curled over him, sticky from his come, his hands still trembling a little on your waist. And you whisper it again—what you’ve been asking for days now, soft and coaxing at the seam of his ear.

“Tell me what you want.”

He’d brushed it off every time. With a shrug. A scoff. A smile so fake it could’ve been carved out of soap. But now, with his body unraveled under you and his walls cracked just wide enough to bleed, he gives you something real.

It’s barely a whisper.

The kind of truth that feels like it might fall apart if he says it any louder.

“I want you to… talk down to me,” he breathes, like he hates himself for saying it. Like the words are burning their way up his throat.

You don’t react at first. You don’t laugh, or blink, or flinch—and that’s what keeps him from shutting down. Just you, breathing steady, still wrapped around him like warmth itself. Your hand rests flat over his ribs, right where his heart stutters like a wounded animal. You feel it when he says the next part, even softer.

“Like, really mean. Tell me I’m fucking lucky. That I don’t deserve it.” He closes his eyes, shame flickering behind his lashes. “Tell me I’m not good at it. That my dick’s big but I don’t know how to use it. Just—fuck with me. I want that. I think.”

There’s silence between you for a beat. A long one. Weighted like a decision.

You kiss the underside of his jaw, gentle, slow. Your voice stays low, careful, reverent in a way that makes him shiver.

“Okay,” you murmur. “Why?”

He turns his head, eyes still shut. His breath catches. Like he’s scared you’ll ask, and even more scared you won’t.

“I used to get screamed at every day,” he says. “New York kitchens. Every service. Every fucking hour. About things I couldn’t fix. About things that weren’t my fault. I’d throw up before shifts sometimes. Wake up with my heart pounding so hard I couldn’t breathe. And no one gave a shit. You just kept your head down. You took it. Or you left.”

He swallows.

“But when you do it—when you say those things—I’m not alone in it. I’m not scared. You still want me. You’re still inside me, on me, with me… whatever. I can take it. It makes it feel like… power, I guess. Like I get to choose it, this time.”

The words bleed into the dark between you, soft and aching. He’s not looking at you, not even now. He’s never looked so open and so closed at once—shoulders tense, jaw sharp, but his chest… wide open. Exposed. Like a wound that stopped bleeding and never learned to scar.

You take your time before responding. You run your thumb over the ridge of his hip, feel the tremor in his leg as your palm drags down the muscle of his thigh. He’s still half-hard. The confession didn’t scare his body like it scared his voice.

“Okay,” you say again, slow and deliberate. “I’ll say whatever you want. I’ll be so fucking mean.”

He groans at that, almost involuntarily. His cock twitches between you, already starting to swell.

“But I want you to listen, too,” you add, leaning in, brushing your mouth over the corner of his. “When it’s over. When I say the other stuff. The real stuff. You gonna be able to do that, Carmen?”

His eyes open finally. Wide. Blue. Fragile.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I want that, too.”

So you rise to your knees over him, slow and deliberate, watching the way his gaze trails up the length of your body like it’s a prayer he doesn’t know the words to. He’s beautiful in this light—hair a mess of curls, collarbones sharp and flushed, chest still marked where you bit him earlier. He doesn’t look away when you reach down and wrap your hand around him again.

He’s thick in your palm. Heavy, flushed pink with arousal, veins standing out with the blood rushing under his skin. His head tips back again as you stroke him, your thumb grazing the slit—wet, slick, leaking already like the need never really left him.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Please.”

“You are lucky,” you say, your voice sharpening just a little, steel under silk. “You don’t even know how fucking lucky you are, do you?”

His eyes flutter. He pants.

“You get to fuck me, Berzatto. And you don’t even know what you’re doing. All this dick and no clue how to use it.”

He moans. Loud. Desperate. You climb over him again, press the thick head of him against your entrance and watch him come undone.

“God, look at you,” you murmur as you sink down onto him—inch by inch, slow and merciless. “Already losing it. Haven’t even started.”

And he hasn’t. His hands clutch your hips like you’re a lifeline, his chest arched up into yours, breath wild and broken as you bottom out.

You see it in his face—this release of something deeper than lust. Like shame being peeled off layer by layer. Like trauma being rewired by pleasure so sharp it makes him cry out. You ride him slow at first, but the way he bucks up into you, the helpless noises—he’s not going to last. He’s not meant to.

You lean in, fingers gripping his jaw. Your mouth close to his ear.

“Bet they made you feel small, didn’t they?” you hiss. “Made you feel like you weren’t worth shit.” He nods, choked, undone.

“Well now I’m making you feel like that. And you’re fucking hard for it.”

He shouts, hips jerking helplessly under you, his whole body convulsing with the force of it.

“That’s it, baby. Fucking take it.”

And he does. With everything he’s got.

You don’t slow down. You don’t stop—not when he’s this far gone. Not when his eyes are rolling back, not when his jaw’s gone slack and his hands are pawing blindly at your hips like he’s afraid you’ll disappear. His cock is twitching deep inside you, thick and swollen, pulsing like it’s too much for him to hold in. Like he’s going to break apart and you’re the only thing keeping him from floating off the bed entirely.

“You feel that?” you whisper, dragging your hips up and slamming back down—hard enough to knock a sharp gasp out of him. “That’s me doing the work. Not you. You just get to lie there like a good little fucktoy and take it.”

His breath shudders. You can see the way the words hit him—low and deep and hot, turning something in his chest inside out.

His mouth opens, tries to form a sound, but nothing comes out. Just a gasp, a moan, something wrecked. You lean down, mouth against the sweat-damp skin of his neck.

“I could get off on this cock without you even doing a single thing,” you murmur, voice sharp as teeth and sweet as poison. “All that talk about how good you are with your hands, how precise you are in the kitchen—but in bed? You’re fucking useless.”

He groans—full-bodied and helpless. His hands clench on your thighs like he’s in pain, like the pleasure is boiling over and he’s barely holding it in. His face is flushed to his ears, hair stuck to his forehead in damp curls, jaw clenched so tight you can see the muscle twitching.

You grin—slow, dangerous, almost fond.

“Pathetic,” you hiss. “You’re so goddamn pathetic like this, Carmen. You like that, huh? Being used like this? Being told what a worthless little thing you are?”

His whole body jerks. His back arches off the mattress. “Yes—fuck, yes—don’t stop, please don’t—”

You don’t. You fuck him harder. Faster. The wet sounds of your bodies colliding fill the room, slick and obscene. His cock slips so deep inside you it punches little cries out of your throat, but you don’t stop—not when he’s so close, not when you feel his stomach start to tighten and his legs begin to tremble under you.

You bring your hand to his throat—gentle at first, just resting there, just enough pressure to feel his pulse hammering. His eyes flutter open, dazed and desperate. You don’t squeeze—you don’t have to. The look in your eyes alone has him panting like he’s about to die from it.

“You’re gonna come for me again,” you say, low and firm and mean. “You’re gonna come like a desperate little bitch because I said so. Because you’re mine. You hear me?”

“Yes,” he gasps. “Please, I—fuck, I’m—”

You slam down on him one more time, and that’s it. His mouth falls open around a silent cry and he comes—hard. Harder than before. Harder than he’s ever come in his life. His whole body seizes beneath you, thighs clenching, spine bowing, his cock kicking deep inside you as he fills you with it—hot and pulsing and endless.

He doesn’t make a sound at first. Just trembles. Just holds on like he’ll die if he lets go. His eyes are glassy, unfocused, wet at the corners like he’s short-circuited, like whatever he just felt was too much to process in real time.

When it finally passes—when the shock stops rolling through his nerves and his body goes soft beneath you—he blinks up at you like he forgot how to speak.

You pull off him slowly, carefully, your thighs trembling as you settle next to him. He’s a mess—chest heaving, sweat gleaming on his skin, hair ruined, come smeared across both your thighs. You reach for a towel and gently wipe him clean, pressing kisses to his jaw, his temple, the corners of his mouth.

He swallows hard. Blinks. Still not quite there yet. You drag your fingers through his curls and wait.

“You okay?” you whisper, soft again. Stripped of cruelty. Honest.

He nods, dazed. “Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, I just—” He lets out a long breath, like something that’s been stuck in him for years finally dislodged. “That was… insane. I didn’t even know I could feel that much.”

You stroke a thumb under his eye, wipe away the tear you hadn’t pointed out.

“I meant what I said earlier,” you whisper. “You’re not useless. Not even close. You’re so fucking good, Carmen. And I love you.”

His eyes cut to yours then, sharp and clear, and he smiles—small and warm and real.

“I know,” he murmurs. “You’re sweet.” He leans in, kisses you lazy and slow, tongue dragging against yours like a man drunk on want. Then he laughs, rough and low. “But goddamn, you look so hot when you’re mean.”

You grin against his mouth.

“Lucky for you,” you whisper, “I love being mean to you.”

And from the look in his eyes—hungry, wide, reverent—he knows you mean it.

[strawb3rry-hon3y]

Not Today

Pairing: Yeon Si-eun x Fem!Reader Requested: Yes / N/A

Summary: After a fight sparked by Yeon Si-eun's emotional distance, the reader storms off and ends up lost in a dangerous neighborhood only to be cornered by threatening strangers.

Length: 800 Words Genre: Angst, Hurt-Comfort, Fluff.

Warnings: Light injury, verbal argument, sketchy situation, mention of harassment, emotional vulnerability. Status: Complete!

It had been a long week. Exams were closing in, and I could feel the tension boiling beneath my skin like it was waiting to spill. Normally, I could keep it together. Normally, I could adjust to his moods, his quiet days, the way he shut everyone out. Si-eun wasn't like other boys. He didn’t sugarcoat things, didn’t waste words on meaningless apologies or gestures. And I liked that about him. I did. But sometimes, just sometimes, it made me feel like I was alone in this.

It started small. A skipped lunch together, A message left on read. A short reply when I tried to ask how his study group went: “Fine.” That would’ve been okay if it wasn’t already the third time this week. By Friday, I’d had enough. I was tired of feeling like I was orbiting his world without ever landing.

We were sitting under the usual tree behind the library, books open but neither of us really reading. The tension was thick, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

“You know,” I said, not looking at him. “I’m not asking for much. Just… a little more effort.”

He didn’t respond. Just turned a page like I hadn’t spoken. “Si-eun.” He looked up, finally. “What?”

That tone: flat, distant, like I was annoying him. It stung more than I wanted to admit.

“Do you even care about this? About me?” I asked, folding my arms. He frowned, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. “Of course I care. Why are you asking that?”

“Because you don’t act like it!” I snapped. “You barely talk to me unless I start the conversation. You don’t check in, you don’t ask how I’m doing, you don’t even notice when I’m upset—”

“I notice,” he cut in, voice low. “I just don’t always know what to say.”

“Well, maybe you could try saying something. Anything. It’s like talking to a wall sometimes.” He blinked at me. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to argue. Then he just closed his book and stood up.

“Maybe you should find someone who talks more.” I stared at him, blinking in surprise. “Are you serious right now?”

He didn’t answer. He just turned and walked away. I sat there, stunned, heart hammering in my chest. I hadn’t expected him to just leave. A part of me wanted to go after him: scream at him, tell him he was being ridiculous, but my pride wouldn’t let me.

So I walked. Not home, not to a friend’s place. I just walked. Through the neighborhood, ignoring the ache in my feet and the lump in my throat. It was dark by the time I realized I’d wandered somewhere unfamiliar. The houses were more run-down here, the streetlights flickering or dead. I turned around to retrace my steps and froze.

Three guys were leaning against a wall nearby, their eyes on me like they’d been waiting.

“Hey there,” one of them called, stepping forward. “You look upset. Want some company?” I backed away, heart pounding. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? You look like you could use some cheering up,” another said, grinning. They moved in closer. One of them reached for my bag. “C’mon, don’t be like that. Let us help.”

“Don’t touch me!” I yanked the bag back, stumbling. They laughed, but it didn’t feel funny. It felt dangerous. Then a voice cut through the air like a blade. “She said don’t touch her.”

I turned just in time to see Si-eun step out, his face dark with anger. He didn’t hesitate. One swift movement, and he had the guy who grabbed me shoved back against the wall.

“Walk away,” he said coldly. The guys cursed under their breath, but they backed off, muttering as they disappeared into the alley.

I was shaking, adrenaline making my knees weak. Si-eun looked at me, his expression softening instantly. “Are you okay?” I sighed, looking away like from him “I— yeah. I think so. Don’t think i'm going to forgive you just for showing up like prince charming…”

“I shouldn’t have left like that,” he said quietly. “I was angry. At myself, not you. I just… I don’t always know how to deal with things.” I bit my lip, trying not to cry. “I thought you didn’t care.”

He stepped closer, gently grabbing my hand with a sad look. “I care. Too much, maybe. I just don’t always know how to show it.” And for once, I believed him.

Taglist: N/A Header Creator’s: @saradika-graphics

[wolfbluebird]

Woven in Shadows

(Natasha x Fem!Reader)

Word count: 7.4k

Warnings: Fluff, angst.

Summary: You and Natasha face one of the most challenging problems you’ve ever faced.

(Men and minors dni)

There was something unbearably soft about the mornings. Not the ones Natasha spent alone—those were brittle, mechanical things, shaped by years of training and habit, stitched together from silence, cold air, and muscle memory. But the mornings with you—those were entirely different. When the light crept through the curtains in slow, golden ribbons and the outside world seemed to hold its breath, just for a little while longer. When she woke up to the warmth of you beside her, your body pressed sleep-heavy against hers, your fingers still loosely twined with hers beneath the sheets like you’d found her in your dreams and refused to let go. Those mornings made her feel like someone else. Not a spy. Not a weapon. Not the Black Widow. Just a woman in love. And even though the thought should’ve terrified her, it never did. Not when you were here. Not when you rolled closer in your sleep and she got to bury her face in the nape of your neck, breathing you in like you were the only thing tethering her to the earth.

She still didn’t know how she’d let this happen—this, being completely, irreversibly undone by you. There wasn’t a classified file for this kind of vulnerability. No protocol for the way her chest felt too small every time she looked at you, like her ribs couldn’t possibly contain everything you made her feel. She had been trained to resist pain, to live through anything. But this tenderness, this ache of being so in love with you she forgot how to move some mornings—this disarmed her. And God, did it silence her. Natasha didn’t talk much in moments like these, didn’t need to. She said everything in the way her hand traced absent, reverent lines over your skin. The slow drag of her fingers from your hip to your shoulder. The way her lips hovered at the back of your neck like they were always on the edge of a kiss. Like she was afraid if she pressed too hard, you might vanish. She didn’t know how to stop touching you. Didn’t want to.

She used to wake up alone, heart already on guard, the weight of survival pressed into her spine. But now? Now she woke up and found you. You, warm and safe, your body curved unconsciously into hers like you trusted her, like you knew she’d never let anything happen to you—and that wrecked her. Natasha Romanoff, feared and forged in red rooms and bloodshed, brought to her knees by the sound of your breath, the rise and fall of your chest. And she was so careful with you. With how she held you. With how she whispered things into your hair that she could never say when the sun was fully up. “I’ve got you,” she murmured, soft and certain, or “You don’t have to get up yet.” And sometimes, on the mornings where her guard had worn all the way down, when her heart felt too full and her voice too raw, she’d say the one thing that scared her most: “I don’t know who I’d be without you.”

No one else saw this version of her. She didn’t let them. Not Clint. Not Steve. Not anyone. The Black Widow persona was untouchable, crafted from silence and skill and every kind of armour imaginable. But that version of her couldn’t survive in this bed. Not when you made a quiet, contented noise and instinctively reached for her in your sleep. Not when she let you find her hand and hold it, even in dreams. You made her human. You made her soft. And somehow that softness never felt like weakness. It felt like freedom. Like truth. She didn’t always know how to explain what you meant to her—not in words. But in how she stayed, how she curled into you, how she didn’t flinch away from the light anymore. That was how you’d know. You had to know.

✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

It still amazed her, sometimes, that someone like you had chosen someone like her. You, with your heart that didn’t seem to understand limits. You could walk into a room and feel what people needed—not in a manipulative way, not in a tactical way, but with an instinct born of genuine care. It was your power, yes—your hands could draw pain out of a body like pulling darkness from water, glowing faintly as you did it, warm light bleeding from your skin like it came straight from your soul. But it was more than that. Your gift wasn’t just what you could do. It was who you were. Kind, open, stubborn in the way that only people who believe in goodness can be. You had an Avenger’s badge and the kind of battlefield composure that came from training, but underneath all of it, you were still the person who stopped mid-mission to help an injured civilian limp to safety. Still the one who knelt beside dying strangers and stayed with them, whispering to ease the fear from their eyes, even when you couldn’t save them. You always tried. Always cared. Natasha had never seen anything like it.

She didn’t know how you carried all that empathy and still stood tall. It exhausted her just watching. The way you walked through a world so broken and chose to meet it with tenderness. You let people lean on you, cry into your shoulder, call you in the middle of the night when the nightmares came back. You showed up every time. You didn’t know how not to. And Natasha… she could only marvel at it. She had learned to keep the world at arm’s length. To compartmentalise. You didn’t. You let it all in. You felt for people. Fought for them. Loved them, even when they didn’t deserve it. She knew that your powers took something from you each time—when you used too much of yourself, you went quiet, your hands shook, your skin paled like you were fading out. And still, you kept giving. Still, you kept healing. It made her ache in ways she didn’t have language for. Because she wanted to protect you from everything. From pain. From the weight of your own compassion. From the world, even when you kept throwing yourself at it with open arms.

Natasha loved you because you were good. Not in the naive, fairytale way. You weren’t innocent. You’d seen horror. Fought your way through fire and loss like the rest of them. But you’d come out the other side still soft. Still kind. You reminded her what they were fighting for. Who she wanted to be. You didn’t demand her vulnerability, you just made space for it. She found herself telling you things she’d buried years ago, not because you asked, but because you listened. Because you looked at her like she was worth knowing. Worth saving. She didn’t know how to live like you did, so open and endlessly willing, but she was learning. Watching you, she was learning. And God, it made her fall harder every single day.

Some days, when you came home from a mission, eyes tired and knuckles scraped, you’d smile at her like she was the only thing you needed. And Natasha would feel this wild, unsteady rush of love—because even when the world had taken the best of you, you still had more to give. You’d let her help you wash the blood from your hands. Let her sit behind you, arms around your waist, forehead pressed between your shoulder blades as you rested. She never told you that sometimes, when you weren’t looking, she’d stare at your hands like they were holy. How could something so small hold so much power? So much goodness? You didn’t even see it, half the time. You just did what you did because it felt right. But Natasha saw. Every time. And she loved you all the more for it.

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The compound was already humming with motion when you stepped into the prep bay—voices on comms, boots against metal, the low thrum of the Quinjet coming online through the wall. Stark’s voice was floating in from the main hangar, barking half-joking orders to Steve, while Sam checked loadouts and Wanda flicked her fingers through a tablet in that absent way she had when her mind was already on the battlefield. And in the middle of it all, like a constant, steady presence—you found her. Natasha. Already half-geared up, black suit zipped halfway, her hair pulled back in that braid she did when she didn’t want to be fussed with. You spotted her from across the room and something in you loosened, even now. Even with the heaviness of what you were about to walk into hanging thick in the air. Even with the weight of your role clawing its way up your spine.

She saw you at the same time, and her mouth pulled into that slight, private smile that only ever seemed to exist for you. Not the smirk she wore on missions, not the wry edge she gave the team when they were pissing her off—just something small and soft and real. She reached for you without words, and you came. You always did. You took up the space beside her like it had always been yours. Without asking, your hands moved to help her secure the fastenings on her belt, checking the placement of her weapons, adjusting the straps of her harness. The gesture was almost ceremonial now—neither of you needed help. But you liked the ritual of it. The closeness. She let you fuss over her with a patience she didn’t have for anyone else, arms lifting, body shifting easily under your touch. You slid a spare clip into one of her thigh holsters and murmured, “You’re light on reloads.” She huffed. “You always say that.” But she let you add one more anyway.

When she turned to do the same for you, her hands were slower. Not out of uncertainty—she knew your gear as well as her own by now—but out of that same quiet reverence she always had when she touched you. Like this might be the last time. Her fingers brushed over the clasps on your chest plate, checking for alignment, then lingered just a second too long on your ribs. She didn’t say anything, but you felt it in the way her hand stayed there, steady and warm. Like she was grounding herself. You leaned into it briefly, just enough for your shoulders to touch, and she finally exhaled. “You okay?” you asked quietly, not pushing, just checking. She didn’t look at you at first. Just nodded once. “Yeah. Just… don’t like going in separate teams.” You gave her a wry smile. “I’m a big girl, Nat. I’ll be fine.” But her eyes flicked to yours and something sharp lived there, something she hadn’t named yet. “I know. Doesn’t mean I like it.”

She helped you with your arm guards next, fingers sliding under the straps to check for movement. “Too tight?” she asked. You shook your head, and she sealed the Velcro down, knuckles brushing your wrist. Then, with a glance around to make sure no one was paying attention, she dipped her head and pressed a kiss to the corner of your jaw. Not quite on your mouth, not quite chaste. Just there. Like a touchstone. You let your eyes flutter shut for a heartbeat, memorising it. The shape of her lips. The way the scent of her clung faintly to her suit. The weight of being loved in a place built for war. “I love you.” she whispered. You caught her hand before she pulled away. “I love you too” And for a second, the whole room faded. Just her and you and this fragile, fleeting moment of peace before the storm.

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The Quinjet vibrated steadily beneath your boots, its engines thrumming like a distant heartbeat as it cut through the clouds, high above whatever chaos waited down below. You sat shoulder to shoulder on the bench lining the left side of the cabin, suited up, armed, ready—but folded into each other like none of that mattered right now. The others were scattered around the jet, all of them locked in their own versions of pre-mission focus: Steve reviewing blueprints, Sam checking over drone feeds, Wanda with her eyes closed and headphones in, already half in her own head. But you and Natasha? You were wrapped in your own little world.

Your head rested against her shoulder, heavy with that special kind of tired that only came from battle-readiness—the coiled tension that came from waiting, listening, knowing something was coming but not yet knowing what. Natasha didn’t speak. She rarely did on these rides. But she leaned into you like it was second nature, like her body had been carved to fit yours. One of her hands was loose in yours, fingers curled together in a familiar, easy knot. The other rested on your thigh, thumb stroking in slow, absent circles through the fabric of your tactical trousers. Her touch wasn’t firm, wasn’t possessive—it was grounding. Casual. Loving. Like she didn’t even think about it anymore. Just needed you there, needed that point of contact. And God, you loved her for it.

You turned her hand over in your lap, your fingers tracing the knuckles, the grooves of her scars, the curve of her palm. You ran your thumb over the rings she wore—thin, simple bands of silver and black, nothing flashy, but each one chosen, each one meaningful in its own quiet way. She didn’t wear them for decoration. She wore them like armour. Like memory. Like truth. You twisted one gently around her finger and she glanced down, the edge of a smile tugging at her mouth. “You always do this before a mission,” she murmured, voice low, not quite teasing. “I like your hands,” you said simply, still tracing the ridges of one of the bands. “You never used to wear jewellery, you know.” “I didn’t have anyone to show off for,” she replied, just as quietly. And then: “You ruined me.”

You huffed a soft laugh and bumped your head a little more snugly against her shoulder. She turned slightly to press her cheek to your hair. Just for a moment. Just enough to let you feel the weight of her affection settle in your chest like a second heartbeat. She smelled like leather and metal and something warmer—something distinctly her. “You nervous?” she asked eventually, her thumb pausing mid-stroke on your thigh. You shook your head. “Not when I’m with you.” And you meant it. Not because you were invincible together—God knew that wasn’t true—but because when she was close, the fear didn’t get to take the lead. You could breathe. You could be.

The Quinjet hit a pocket of turbulence, just enough to jostle you both slightly, and without thinking, Natasha tightened her grip on your thigh. Not hard. Just protective. You glanced up at her and found her already looking down at you. Her green eyes, usually so sharp and unreadable, were soft now, filled with something you didn’t have to name. “After this mission,” she said quietly, “we’re taking three days off. No comms. No training. Just you and me.” You smiled, letting your fingers slide between hers again. “Deal.” Then you kissed the edge of her shoulder plate and tucked yourself in a little closer, not caring who saw. This was yours. She was yours. And for now—for this moment—you were safe in each other’s hands

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The Quinjet doors split open to a city swallowed by smoke and fire.

The sky was already red when you touched down—thick clouds of dust rising where Hydra planes strafed across rooftops, shattering glass and chewing through concrete like it was paper. You could barely hear yourself think through the sheer noise of it. Sirens wailed through the chaos. Civilians screamed as they fled down fractured roads, dodging gunfire and falling debris, clutching children, ducking into alleyways, praying for shelter that no longer existed. The city felt alive, but in that sick, devouring way—like it was breaking apart beneath your boots, and if you stood still too long, it might swallow you whole.

Natasha was at your back the second you stepped off the ramp, the rest of the team peeling away into smaller units. Steve was already barking orders through comms—split the grid, cover more ground, keep civilian casualties to a minimum. Stark’s repulsors screamed overhead as he launched toward a collapsing tower, and Wanda vanished in a blur of red as she took off down a side street with Sam, her voice steady as she counted threats aloud. You stayed with Natasha. That wasn’t even a decision. That was instinct. The two of you moved as one, weapons drawn, feet finding rhythm through the cracked asphalt and shattered glass.

“North side’s overrun,” came Sam’s voice in your ear, static-laced but clear. “Three Hydra dropships just touched down outside the stadium. I count at least twenty armed on the ground.”

“I’ve got civilians pinned in the metro station,” Wanda followed, her tone tight. “Sending coordinates. Need backup.”

“We’ve got east,” Natasha said immediately, already vaulting a low wall beside a flaming SUV, her gun raised, eyes scanning. You followed, weaving between rubble and smoke, your body moving before thought could catch up. The heat from the fires made your skin feel slick inside your suit, sweat already trickling beneath your collar. The air was thick—ash, gunpowder, the acrid tang of scorched metal—and somewhere in the distance, something boomed, a building toppling in on itself like a dying animal.

Hydra soldiers swarmed the streets in organised packs, tactical and relentless. Their weapons weren’t standard-issue anymore—tech-enhanced, Stark-like, buzzing with stolen energy. One of them rounded a corner and Natasha dropped him with a clean double-tap to the chest. Another came at her from the left and you threw up a burst of your power—a shockwave of light and kinetic force that sent him flying backwards into a parked car, the metal crumpling like tin under his body. She didn’t flinch. Just nodded once and kept moving. You kept pace beside her, your breathing sharp, adrenaline lacing your limbs with that cold, vibrating edge.

“We’ve got movement by the old post office,” you said into comms, spotting a cluster of black-clad operatives using an overturned bus for cover. “Looks like a command team.”

“Take them down,” Steve ordered. “Clear a path. Every inch we push forward is one they lose.”

Copy. Easy. You and Natasha exchanged a glance, no words needed, and split like a pincer—her circling wide, drawing fire, you going high through the wreckage of a half-demolished café. You moved like a shadow, quick and quiet, your boots barely making a sound as you reached the upper floor and targeted the enemy cluster below. Natasha’s voice came sharp through your ear: “Three on the left. One’s got a launcher. He’s mine.” You dropped down behind the others just as she said it, landing hard, sending a surge of power into the ground that knocked two of them off balance. Natasha swept in from the other side, lethal and silent, her widow’s bites crackling as she struck.

It took less than forty seconds. Four down. Breathing heavy. No injuries. You exhaled shakily and reached out without thinking. She caught your wrist before you even finished the motion, steadying you, anchoring you. Her eyes swept your face quickly, checking. You nodded once. Still good. Still together.

Then the comms sparked again—Steve, urgent. “Heads up. They’re not just here for chaos. Hydra’s after something. Possibly someone. Stay alert. Watch each other’s backs.” Natasha gave your hand a final squeeze. “Let’s go find out what they want.” And with that, you ran.

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You were headed toward the next comm drop—half a mile east, near what used to be a bank tower—when you saw them. A surge of people breaking away from the chaos, not toward safety, but downward. Into the subway station. Dozens of them. Men, women, kids clutched in trembling arms. Faces smeared with soot, tear tracks cutting through the grime. People moving on fear and adrenaline alone. You spotted the old iron staircase before Natasha did, half-buried behind the remains of a toppled delivery van, the station sign scorched black, barely readable. But there it was. The underground entrance gaping like a throat.

You grabbed her arm without thinking, the instinct too fast to question. “There,” you said. She followed your gaze instantly, eyes narrowing. And then she saw them too—silhouettes flooding down the stairs, some stumbling, others carrying the injured. No guards. No order. Just raw, unfiltered panic. “Shit,” Natasha breathed. “If they’re hiding down there…” She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to. You both knew exactly what could go wrong.

There was no time to clear it with the others. No time to ask for backup. You both moved. You broke off from the street without hesitation, her hand brushing your back as she followed you through the wreckage, ducking low under a collapsed awning and hopping the railing to the stairwell. The air grew heavier with every step down. Cooler, but laced with the metallic sting of stress-sweat and electrical burn. Somewhere below, the flicker of backup generators cast uneven shadows across the cracked tile walls. The fluorescent lights lining the platform ceiling were failing in bursts—flickering, buzzing, casting everything in an unsteady white-blue glow.

You hit the bottom of the stairs and heard the murmurs immediately. Shuffling feet. The low, anxious voices of those trying not to cry, not to panic. Dozens of civilians gathered near the far edge of the platform—some pressed back against the walls, some huddled by broken benches, others frozen in place near the train tunnel entrance. The emergency lights strobed against their faces. Their eyes widened when they saw you and Natasha. One kid stepped behind his mother. Another tugged at someone’s sleeve and pointed. You didn’t look like rescuers—you looked like more trouble. But then you holstered your weapon. Natasha did the same. And slowly, the fear in their eyes turned into something else. Hope. Or maybe just the dim shape of it.

You and Natasha moved like you were wired together, no words needed, just motion and breath and instinct honed by too many missions where hesitation cost lives. She stayed close—shoulder to shoulder with you as you stepped onto the platform, scanning the crowd like she could catalogue fear by the way it clung to people’s skin. You saw the way her eyes shifted over every face, not searching for threats this time, but for injuries. For weakness. For someone about to collapse under the weight of it all. You watched her soften in real time, the Black Widow melting away piece by piece, until only Natasha remained—quiet, fierce, steady.

You crouched beside an elderly man slumped against a pillar, his lips pale, fingers trembling. “Sir, can you hear me?” you asked gently, already checking for blood, pulse, coherence. Natasha was at your back, her hand pressed lightly against your spine for a breath—grounding you, letting you know she was there—before she peeled away to kneel beside a woman holding a baby wrapped in a soot-streaked jacket. “How long have you been down here?” she asked softly, almost tenderly, her voice a careful thing. The woman didn’t answer, just clutched the child tighter and nodded toward the far tunnel. More down there. Others. Her eyes said what her mouth couldn’t.

The air was thicker down here—stagnant, warm, laced with fear and oil and whatever was burning in the electrical room two levels above. The lights overhead crackled every few seconds, casting everything in stuttering shadows. Every time it went dark, the crowd held their breath. Every time the light returned, someone sobbed in relief. You reached out and steadied a teenager trying to haul her injured brother up from where he’d collapsed. “We’re going to get you out,” you told her. It wasn’t a promise. It was a decision.

Natasha’s hand brushed yours as she passed you a med pack from her belt. You took it without looking, already pressing gauze to a bleeding shoulder, your knees soaked in someone else’s blood. “We’ve got to organise this,” she murmured close to your ear, voice low, clipped. “Triage first. Get the kids into one group. Anyone walking goes with them. We keep the others here until we know it’s clear above.”

You nodded, your free hand already motioning to the small, trembling clusters around you. “They’ll listen to you better than me,” you said, and it was true. Natasha’s voice carried. Not because it was loud, but because it was anchored. She could still a room with a glance. She could make the end of the world sound manageable. She stood tall, shoulders squared, her braid falling loose over her shoulder. “Everyone who can walk,” she called out, loud enough to cut through the murmur of fear, “start gathering by the west stairs. Parents, hold your kids. We’re going to move, but not yet. You’re not alone. You’re safe with us.”

A pause. Then, slowly, people began to move.

It wasn’t a wave. It wasn’t sudden. But they trusted her. Trusted you. And sometimes that was enough to start.

You and Natasha stayed in motion, side by side, touching shoulders, exchanging glances that spoke volumes. You could feel the weight settling in the base of your throat—the sheer number of lives pressing in around you, fragile and scared and clinging to whatever threads of hope they could find. Natasha didn’t flinch. Didn’t waver. But when her hand caught yours in a quick, silent squeeze between moving bodies, you felt the tremor in it.

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It happened fast.

One moment, people were starting to calm—fragile and frayed but clinging to the safety you and Natasha offered like a life raft. Parents gathered their children. The injured were laid out in a loose triage area near the back wall. Natasha had even gotten a small group seated and breathing together, grounding them with that quiet authority of hers, voice low and steady like she was narrating calm into their bones. You had just finished checking the pulse of a boy in his twenties—dislocated shoulder, bleeding from the head, but still alert—when the scream came.

Then another.

And another.

The crowd twisted, rising in a panic all at once like a wave crashing backward. Eyes wide. Feet scrambling. People shoved past each other, frantic, clawing to get away from the stairwell they’d just been told led to safety. A mother tripped, nearly crushed beneath a swarm of bodies before you lunged to haul her back up, pressing her behind you. “What is it?” you called, voice lost in the rising chaos.

Then you heard it.

The metallic clatter of boots on concrete. Not just one pair—dozens. Heavy, synchronised, tactical. And voices—barking orders in harsh, clipped tones through filtered masks.

Hydra. They were forcing them back down.

Natasha was already moving, already raising her gun, her jaw clenched so tight it looked carved in stone. “They’re driving them in like cattle,” she snapped, stepping into position at your side as civilians poured around you, stumbling, shrieking, desperate to get away from whatever was above. “They know we’re here. They want hostages. Or a trap.”

The subway platform filled with noise—panic, echoing off the tiles, ricocheting in every direction. Someone screamed that they saw guns. Someone else yelled about smoke. You reached out to grab a child nearly crushed between fleeing legs, pulling her tight against your side as her father came skidding in after her, shouting her name.

The air felt tighter now. Compressed. Like something wrong was crawling down your throat. The flickering lights above strobed faster, casting Natasha’s silhouette in bursts—her stance sharp, her shoulders squared, one foot already braced forward. Her expression had changed. No softness now. Only fire. Only fury.

“They’re close,” you said, eyes locked on the stairwell where shadows started spilling in—a flicker of black uniforms, the glint of weaponry. “We don’t have much time.”

Natasha turned her head slightly, just enough for you to see the barest crack in her mask—not fear, but something worse. Calculation. She was already counting bodies. Counting civilians. Counting how many bullets she had left and how much time you’d need to get them out.

“We hold the line,” she said. You nodded. And then the shadows started to move.

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The first wave of Hydra soldiers hit hard—but they weren’t prepared for you and Natasha at your full fury. You moved like a mirrored pair, a machine of muscle and instinct and precision born of too many missions side by side. Natasha ducked beneath a wild swing, drove her knee into a man’s gut, then spun and shot another square between the eyes without even blinking. You launched yourself at the group surging toward the civilians, slamming one into the tiled wall hard enough to crack it. His helmet clattered to the floor. You didn’t let him breathe again.

Gunfire cracked like thunder in the narrow space, echoing off tile and metal. Sparks flew. Someone screamed. Natasha covered a mother shielding her children, her body between them and the fight as she snapped off two perfect headshots and then dropped to a crouch to reload. You slammed your palm into the underside of a soldier’s chin, following it with a knee to the groin and a vicious elbow to the throat. He went down like a sack of bones. Another took his place almost instantly. It didn’t matter. You were faster.

The bodies started to pile. But it wasn’t enough. The ground began to tremble.

At first, you thought it was just the chaos—the pounding boots, the concussive blasts. But then it became unmistakable. The air shifted. The lights flickered. A low, mechanical rumble crawled up the tracks like a storm coming alive.

The rails were vibrating.

The unmanned subway carriage was coming.

You didn’t know if Hydra had triggered it as a failsafe or if it was some malfunction spiralling into hell, but you felt it—through your boots, up your spine, in your skull. And you weren’t done yet. You couldn’t be.

Only one soldier left now. The others were dead, bleeding into the concrete, twitching where they fell. Natasha had pulled back toward the crowd, ordering people into lines, shouting for them to move fast but stay low. Her eyes found you once, sharp and burning, but she didn’t call out. She trusted you. Trusted you to end it.

You squared off with the last man.

He was taller, heavier. Stronger than the others. Smarter, maybe—he hadn’t rushed you like they did. He was tactical. And relentless. He struck with full-body weight, trying to overwhelm, trying to drive you back. Blow after blow, your arms jarred from blocking, your ribs aching from a glancing hit. But you didn’t stop. You didn’t yield.

The tunnel roared louder. Your fight dragged toward the platform edge.

You could feel it—every inch of ground behind your heels disappearing. Every step he took forcing you closer to the drop. The empty tunnel gaped behind you, a black void shuddering with oncoming force. You could hear it now—screeching metal wheels, the high-pitched scream of a speeding train screaming down the tracks with no brake, no driver, no goddamn mercy.

Natasha shouted your name—but you couldn’t look. You were too close to the edge. And he knew it. He grinned behind the mask. You didn’t flinch.

The kick landed with the force of a battering ram—steel-toed boot slamming into your stomach so hard you saw stars in the tunnel lights. Your breath exploded out of you in one ragged gasp, your vision narrowing to a pinprick of white pain. Every nerve in your body lit up with fire, but you gritted your teeth and refused to let go. Fingers clamped around the soldier’s leg, digging in through fabric and muscle, anchoring you both to the edge of the tracks.

He struggled—big, brutal, certain that the fight was his—but your desperation lent you strength you didn’t know you had. You heaved with every ounce of will, dragging his weight forward. The rails groaned beneath his boots as he teetered, arms windmilling for balance. Your own boots scraped against the edge of the platform, toes curling over the lip as you fought the pull of gravity and the promise of oblivion below.

Behind you, the tunnel yawned wide and pure black, broken only by the harsh white slash of the oncoming carriage lights. They grew brighter with terrifying speed, reflecting off your sweat-slicked skin and the soldier’s gleaming helmet. In that moment, sound dropped away—no train screams, no crushing echoes—only the single, hammering beat of your own heart. You tightened your grip, muscles tearing, and launched your final surge.

And then there was only light. The carriage tore through the spot where you’d stood, its metal side a blur of bone-shaking speed. You and the soldier vanished into that unstoppable force, leaving nothing but a whisper of displaced air and a spine-tingling silence that rolled up the tunnel walls like a wave.

Natasha’s world shattered in a heartbeat. The seconds stretched unbearably long as she stood frozen at the platform’s edge, the echo of that unrelenting metal thunder fading into a hollow silence that screamed louder than any gunshot. Her breath caught, tight and ragged, like it had been crushed beneath an invisible weight. Her chest heaved violently, trembling with the sudden onslaught of panic and despair.

Her knees nearly buckled, but she forced herself upright, gripping the cold railing as if it could anchor her shattered soul. The gun in her hand slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor, the sound a cruel punctuation to the chaos swirling inside her. Her eyes were wide, wild—dilated with shock and disbelief, searching the darkness as if somehow willing you back from the void.

Then it broke through—the raw, guttural scream tearing from deep inside her throat, a sound so desperate and broken it wasn’t human. It was a sobbed wail, a furious cry against the cruel, unbearable truth that you were gone. She dropped her head forward, hair tumbling like a dark curtain to hide the tear tracks streaking her face. Her hands trembled uncontrollably, fists clenching and unclenching as though trying to squeeze the pain back inside.

Memories flooded her mind in jagged shards—your laugh, the softness of your touch, the way you’d looked at her just moments ago with that fierce, unwavering kindness. Each memory stabbed sharper than the last, twisting inside her like a knife. The silence around her was suffocating, filled only with the sound of her ragged breaths and the distant chaos of the battle still raging.

She staggered back from the edge, collapsing onto the cold tile floor, curling into herself as if to hold in the agony threatening to swallow her whole. Tears spilled freely now, hot and relentless, as if mourning the loss not just of you—but of every future they’d dared to imagine.

Natasha Romanoff—the Black Widow, the woman who had faced death more times than she could count—was utterly broken. And in that moment, all that fierce strength turned inward, burning like a wildfire of grief and rage that promised this loss would haunt her forever.

Steve’s boots pounded urgently down the stairs, Wanda right behind him, their faces taut with alarm as they burst into the subway station. The chaos around them seemed to dim, the noise of panic and battle fading into a sharp, focused silence the moment they spotted Natasha. She was slumped near the platform’s edge, eyes wide and haunted, trembling like a ghost trapped in a nightmare.

Wanda reached out first, her voice gentle but firm. “Natasha, come with us. We need to get you out of here.” But Natasha shook her head violently, every movement sharp with desperation. Her voice cracked, raw and frantic. “No. No, she’s still there. I know it. If I track the carriage, I’ll find her. She has to be okay.”

Steve stepped closer, his hand on Natasha’s shoulder, steadying her as she swayed. “Nat, you’re not thinking straight. We don’t know what happened down there.” But she pulled away, eyes wild, refusing to be consoled. The determination in her gaze was fierce—terrifying.

Wanda’s hand glowed softly, a gentle light reaching out to calm the storm inside Natasha, but Natasha flinched, stubborn and broken. “I’m not leaving,” she whispered fiercely, her voice cracking under the weight of the impossible hope she clung to. “She’s alive. She has to be.”

They exchanged a look—Steve’s calm, grounded; Wanda’s filled with quiet sorrow—before gently, carefully, they began to pull Natasha away from the platform’s edge, away from the darkness where you’d vanished. But even as they moved her, Natasha’s eyes stayed fixed on the tunnel’s depths, searching for a sign, a miracle, anything to hold onto.

Steve and Wanda moved with quiet urgency, guiding Natasha away from the platform’s edge and back toward the stairwell. Her legs were unsteady beneath her, each step a battle against the weight pressing down on her chest—a crushing grief she refused to let go of. The fire and chaos of the city had begun to dim as the last Hydra forces were driven back, their ruthless storm finally broken.

Outside, the city was scarred but still breathing. Streets littered with debris, smoke curling upward into a heavy sky streaked with fading orange light. Civilians—shaken, some with tears still wet on their faces—huddled in small groups, guarded now by Avengers moving methodically to restore order and safety. The roar of battle had faded into a tense silence, broken only by distant sirens and the occasional crackle of radio chatter.

Natasha stood apart from it all, eyes vacant, the firelight catching on the tears she refused to wipe away. The victory felt hollow—like a hollow shell where joy should be. The weight of what she’d lost settled deep inside her like an unhealing wound. Part of her soul was shattered, scattered somewhere in that dark tunnel beneath the city, lost to the unstoppable carriage and the cruel mercilessness of fate.

She moved slowly, mechanically, as if she were a ghost drifting through the ruin of a world she no longer recognized. The smiles, the relieved embraces around her—all felt distant, unreachable. Wanda approached carefully, her voice soft, almost a whisper. “Natasha…”

But Natasha only shook her head, eyes locked on the smouldering horizon. “No,” she murmured, voice raw and brittle, “No part of me is okay.”

And in that silence, heavy and unyielding, it was clear: something vital had been ripped from her forever. The Black Widow, the woman who had fought so fiercely against the darkness, was broken in a way no mission, no fight, could ever fix.

✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

The quinjet hummed steadily as it soared away from the ruined city, slicing through thick clouds stained orange by distant fires. Inside, the hum was almost deafening in its normalcy, a cruel contrast to the chaos left behind. Natasha sat rigidly, her eyes fixed on the dark window, watching the blur of clouds and fading light, but her mind was miles away—tangled in the empty space beside her.

Her hand moved almost instinctively, reaching out for the familiar warmth that had been there just hours before. Her fingers brushed against cold, empty leather—the seat you had occupied on this flight. The sharp absence of your presence hit her like a physical blow. She curled her hand into a fist, struggling to hold back the sudden, raw ache inside her chest.

She missed the way your head had rested lightly on her shoulder, the soft weight grounding her in a world that often felt too sharp, too dangerous. She missed the gentle pressure of your hand in hers, your fingers weaving between hers, mindlessly playing with the many rings that adorned her fingers—tiny distractions that somehow made everything seem okay.

Now, her rings felt heavier, colder, stripped of the subtle warmth your touch had always brought. The silence between her and the empty seat was a cruel reminder of everything lost—every soft glance, every whispered word, every quiet moment of comfort she had taken for granted.

Natasha’s jaw tightened, a bitter knot settling deep in her throat. The mission was over, the threat vanquished—but the battle inside her raged on. And in the stillness of that quinjet cabin, with only the steady drone of engines to fill the void, she was left facing the vast, aching emptiness that your absence had carved into her world.

✯¸.•´*¨`*•✿ ✿•*`¨*`•.¸✯

The funeral was held in a quiet chapel nestled near the Avengers Tower, its stone walls heavy with centuries of solemn prayers and whispered farewells. Outside, the world moved on unaware, but inside, time itself seemed to slow, caught in the suffocating grip of grief. Soft, muted voices mingled with the occasional stifled sob, the air thick with the scent of lilies and worn leather hymnals. The gathered Avengers stood like shadows, their faces grave, each bearing the weight of a loss too profound for words.

At the front, beneath the altar, stood the casket—immaculate, polished to a high sheen, yet heartbreakingly empty. The lid was closed as if to honour a presence that had never been returned. It was a painful symbol, a cruel gesture to contain a void that no wood or metal could ever fill. The absence of a body made the grief all the more intangible, a ghostly wound that refused to heal.

Natasha stood close, her posture rigid but trembling beneath the surface. Her eyes were glassy, swollen from nights spent crying herself awake, red-rimmed and raw as if the pain had scraped away the moisture altogether. Every breath was shallow, uneven, a ragged attempt to hold herself together. Her hands clenched the front of her coat, knuckles white, as though grasping for something to keep her tethered to this cruel reality.

She thought of you—the light in her life that now flickered out too soon. In the endless corridors of her mind, she pictured a different future, one where the two of you stood together in front of friends and family. She’d imagined delicate white dresses flowing softly around you both, the warmth of your hands entwined tightly as you declared your love before the world. That vision had been her sanctuary, a place where hope still bloomed despite the darkness.

But now, that sanctuary was shattered. The altar was empty, and so was the space beside her heart. The echo of that absence reverberated in every corner of the chapel, a haunting silence that swallowed the whispered prayers and the gentle hymns. Natasha’s breath hitched, breaking through the stillness with a raw, ragged sob that tore from deep inside her chest—a sound so broken it seemed to fracture the very air.

Around her, the Avengers formed a protective circle, their presence both a balm and a reminder of the family they still had. Wanda’s hands found hers, warm and steady, fingers lacing tightly with a desperate tenderness that spoke of shared sorrow. Steve stood silently nearby, one hand resting lightly but firmly on Natasha’s back, offering strength without words, a steadfast anchor amid the storm of her grief. Bruce’s usually reserved demeanor softened, his eyes shadowed with empathy as he gave her the space to unravel without judgment.

No one dared speak of the body lost to the dark, the relentless subway tunnel that had swallowed you whole. The unanswered questions, the what-ifs and might-have-beens, lingered like ghosts around the room, pressing down on every heart. The empty casket was both a tribute and a torment, a physical reminder of the absence that could never be filled.

Natasha’s sobs grew louder, jagged and desperate, tearing through the chapel like a storm breaking loose. The Black Widow, the woman known for her unbreakable will and icy composure, was stripped bare—left vulnerable and shattered by a loss too vast to comprehend. Her soul felt torn, a piece forever missing, leaving a hollow ache that no victory, no mission, no promise could ever mend.

As the ceremony drew on, the faces of her friends blurred through her tears, their quiet support a fragile lifeline. But beneath it all, Natasha knew the truth she dared not say aloud: a part of her had been lost that day in the tunnel, taken with you in a way that would haunt her forever. The future she once dreamed of had been extinguished, leaving only the cold, painful present—and the unbearable weight of an empty altar.

❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖✿❁ ≖≖ ❁

A/N: Haven’t been posting for a few days because I’ve been writing this beauty, hope you all like it… and I’m sorry 😔. But I hoped you enjoyed reading it xx

Ps. I’m not paying for anyone’s therapy after this xx

[Masterlist]

[t00-many-eyes]

“I want to kiss you,” Arthur says, as John is in the middle of describing to him how the evening sun is bathing the motel room in its golden light. His voice is low and soothing, and he sounds so- human, telling him how the paddles of sunlight spread on the wooden floor like spilled honey, that it just becomes too much, and the words slip from his tongue. John falls silent.

“Arthur,” he says softly, and Arthur would die a thousand times, would go through all they have already gone – again, just to hear his name being said like this once more.

“I know it's stupid,” he responds quietly. “I know it's... Impossible, John. But I just wanted you to know.”

Impossible for now, he yearns to say, but he's too afraid to think so far into the future, not with the life they have. And truth be told, he isn't sure he really wants John to leave his head. It's egoistic, but sometimes Arthur is glad John's with him, within him, safe and close, oh-so-close. Arthur is glad no one can hurt John, no one can take him from him. And then – then he wants to kiss him, to hold him, to feel him, and it only becomes more and more unbearable each day they spend so close to each other.

“Sorry,” Arthur mutters, suddenly ashamed.

“No, it's- It's fine, Arthur,” John says, the vibrations of his voice familiar and quiet. “Thank you for letting me know.”

Arthur's left hand – the one he can't feel anymore – finds his right one. Their fingers intertwine. It feels weird for Arthur – it is his hand and yet it isn't, he can feel John, his warmth, the way he's carefully caressing the back of his hand with his thumb.

“If it matters... I'd like to kiss you, too.”

Arthur exhales lightly, and maybe he needs so say something, but all he can do is bring his- John's hand to his lips and kiss his knuckles, his fingertips, the centre of his palm. John gasps softly in surprise.

“Arthur,” he whispers, vulnerable and trembling, and the name is no longer a name but a prayer, a pleading, a begging. And Arthur is not God not to answer it.

“John,” he whispers back. John traces his half-opened lips with his fingertips carefully, and Arthur's heart skips a bit. He wants more, he wants- John, he wants the shadows to take him, to consume him whole, he wants to taste the shadows, to touch them- him. He wants John.

However, all he can do for now is kiss the fingertips caressing his lips. It is a promise – one Arthur will keep. He'll make sure of it.

[free-luigi-mangione]

I just saw Luigi’s reply to Jules in full, and I have so many feels.

The way he describes his back problem - “broken spine,” “your physical being split in two” - I always knew it was serious, but I think this is the first time it’s hitting me how viscerally painful it must have been to endure something so horrible in your 20s. How depressing it must have been to face the possibility of being permanently disabled at an age when your peers are at their sprightliest, full lives ahead of them.

I sincerely hope the past tense he uses means his back is okay now. I read up on his condition when I found out who he was, and it seems like there’s a chance he might need maintenance surgery at some point in his life. I hope to God he walks free because I do not trust anyone in the prison healthcare system to treat him the way he deserves. He talked about how terrified he was before his surgery under a professional he presumably researched and paid big bucks for. Imagine how terrifying it would be to be operated upon by someone holding you captive, with absolutely no penalty for maiming you permanently. To undergo major surgery with no support, no loved ones at your side. Still being treated like a monster at your weakest, most vulnerable.

I’m also thinking about him saying that nothing external can phase him. It’s kind of sad that he’s been through so much trauma that the barbaric shit they’ve been doing to him doesn’t bother him. I feel like we’ve all seen so many happy smiling photos of him, only accounts by loved ones praising him for being supportive, always trying to cheer people up, that it’s not immediately obvious how much horrible stuff he has gone through at only 27.

I also feel so bad for his mother. In that French article they say the FBI called her before they found him. Imagine being a mother with a son missing for months and then you receive a call saying, “hello ma’am, this is the FBI.” Her heart must’ve dropped, assumed the worst. Then they just questioned her further, she must have been relieved. Only for her world to fall apart completely days later. Her youngest lost to her forever in a completely different way.

I am praying that he’s eventually compensated for the horrors he’s had to face so far. This bright soul rotting away behinds bars till his life ends is something I refuse to accept. Sometimes it really seems like there is not an ounce of justice in the world.

(Sorry for my English, it’s not my first language)

anon, you've said this so beautifully 🥺

[redongray]

(Strictly fantasy, mind you, and not a real-life endorsement of such customs in the least)

Despite their very different national backgrounds, he thought the marriage was going beautifully. But slowly she seemed to withdraw as their first year together drew to a close.

It wasn’t anything he could place. He would catch her beautiful flashing eyes looking at him reproachfully, as if he’d let her down. Or she would be unaccountably impatient and critical in a way that ill-suited her. One evening he found her sitting on the side of the bed in a slip, a wan expression on her face, her beautiful hair limp and unwashed as if she couldn’t even bother to care for herself any longer, or as if how she looked no longer mattered.

'What is it, my love?' he asked, deep concern in his voice.

She didn’t meet his eyes but instead looked down at her hands folded in her lap. His heart swelled with tenderness at her vulnerability. He felt not for the first time that he would do anything for her.

'You are a kind man, and I know what you are always saying about how happy you are with me,' she said at last. ‘I know you honor and respect me, and would never do something unkind to me. For these reasons, I have not wanted to speak of certain matters. But we are from very different worlds. So now I will tell you this, and you must not be upset. I feel that I must speak of it, though I blush to do so. You must not think poorly of me for telling you this. You must not think less of me."

“You know you can tell me anything,” he said. “I like to see you blush.”

“Yes. Maybe so. I hope so. We will see. This is what I want to speak about. But maybe I will regret it, if it makes you love me less. I am not so very sophisticated as you sometimes think. My heart is simple. Try to understand me. I do not say that something is right or wrong. I just know that I feel now that it’s time to speak of it."

“Are you ever going to tell me?"

“Yes. Now I will tell you. In our country, it is well known that the husband who never whips his wife’s bottom is the husband who doesn’t love his wife. There, I said it. I do not tell you what this means for you. I only tell you this. Please do not judge."

[aventurineswife]

hi !! first of all, i love your writing so much… its so edible /pos 💗

could you write blade, jing yuan, dan heng, and sunday with a vampire reader? basically just how they’d deal with a vampire lover? ^_^

Immortal Bonds

Tags: Blade x Reader, Sunday x Reader, Dan Heng x Reader, Jing Yuan x Reader, Established Relationship, Vampire!Reader, Slow Burn, Emotional Depth, Romance, Angst, Comfort, Protective Behavior, Tender Moments, Fluff, Sadness/Reflection.

Warnings: Mature Themes (due to the themes of immortality, death, and emotional baggage), Trauma/Emotional Conflict (exploration of past struggles, guilt, and past trauma for both the characters and the reader), Vampirism, Violence, Self-Harm/Destructive Tendencies (For Blade's part), Mild Gore (with Blade’s immortality and healing factor, there could be some mention of injuries), Existential Themes.

A/N: AHHHH TYYY!! 🥹💖 I'm glad to hear it's edible hehe 🤭

Blade had never been one to show his vulnerability—yet, with you, he couldn’t help but soften, just a little. The way your cool touch brushed against his skin sent a shiver down his spine, the slight sensation of your fangs grazing his neck a reminder of how intimately connected you both were.

He’d always preferred solitude, and the chaos of the Stellaron Hunters never truly felt like home. But with you beside him, the weight of eternity seemed a little more bearable. Your immortality matched his, and while it could be a curse, it also forged a bond between you that nothing could tear apart.

Despite his tendency to keep his emotions locked away, Blade found himself indulging in moments of closeness with you—quiet moments, where he would sit next to you in the stillness of night, his sword resting beside him, as you traced the lines of his hand with your cold fingers.

“You know, your immortality’s starting to get to me,” Blade would say, the smallest smirk curling on his lips, but there was a hint of something deeper in his voice. He was teasing, yes, but the affection in his words was genuine. “It’s almost like you understand how much of a nightmare this life can be.”

With you, he didn’t need to run from the pain anymore. It was a dangerous thing, but Blade had always thrived in chaos—what better chaos than with you, a creature of the night who shared his broken soul?

Jing Yuan was the Arbiter General for a reason—his strategic mind was as sharp as ever, but when it came to you, he allowed himself to lean into the calm. His long hair would sometimes cascade over your shoulder as you sat beside him, sipping on a drink while he casually held court with his officers. The quiet presence of a vampire beside him was something he grew to cherish.

As the General, Jing Yuan was used to pressure. Yet, your existence brought a gentle stillness to the often chaotic world around him. He found peace in your silence, the occasional glimmer of your eyes meeting his from across the room. His smile, though usually laid-back, would carry a deeper warmth when your gaze met his.

"I've fought battles that tested the very limits of my mind," he would say lazily, his eyes studying you with an air of amusement. "But, in the end, I’m certain that a vampire like you will always win the war for my heart.”

Your fangs were a gentle reminder of the timelessness you both shared, and Jing Yuan reveled in the thought. His life, ruled by war and peace, had rarely had room for much else—but in you, he found a soft refuge. Despite his outward demeanor, he wasn’t immune to your allure. His touch would linger just a little longer when he held your hand, a small, unspoken promise that you could share in the quiet serenity he had built around himself.

Dan Heng was not a man who easily allowed others into his world. His past haunted him enough without letting someone else become another burden. But, you—your presence was something he had never expected.

When you first met, it was in the quiet stillness of the Astral Express. He had barely noticed you at first, your pale skin and sharp, glowing eyes blending into the shadows. But over time, as you shared quiet moments, a connection blossomed between you both that Dan Heng never expected—and it terrified him. You were a vampire, a creature of the night, but you were also gentle, understanding, in a way that no one else had ever been to him. You didn’t ask questions about his past, and for once, Dan Heng found someone who didn’t expect him to reveal everything.

One evening, he found you staring at the stars through the window of the Express. The light from the passing worlds painted your face in a soft glow. He could see the coolness of your skin, the faintest outline of your fangs as you smiled at him.

“You know,” he started, a rare smile tugging at his lips, “I’ve always been alone. But it’s... different with you.”

You gave him a knowing look, your eyes reflecting the same isolation, but your presence was a comfort. You didn’t force him to talk about the things he wished to forget. Instead, you simply held him close in the quiet, content in the understanding that sometimes silence was all that was needed.

Sunday’s existence had always been a study in contradictions—ideals and guilt, love and detachment. But when you entered his life, a vampire with a heart of gold, it changed him in ways that even he couldn’t fully understand.

Your immortality fascinated him—how could someone with such a long, complex life continue to walk the line between compassion and detachment, just as he did? He often found himself watching you, lost in thought as you moved gracefully through the world, a being of both elegance and danger. Your eyes, full of ancient knowledge, would often meet his, and in those moments, Sunday felt the familiar weight of his own burdens lifting, if only a little.

“Vampires are born from the night, yet you shine with such light,” Sunday would say softly, his voice tinged with both awe and melancholy. “It is strange—how the darkness and the light dance together, even in you.”

The contrast between your eternal youth and his weary soul was something that haunted him at times, but you were a balm to his troubled heart. He found himself more open, more vulnerable with you than with anyone else, despite his usual guarded nature.

He would often stand next to you, his eyes scanning the stars, yet his thoughts were elsewhere. “Perhaps I could take solace in your dream of immortality,” Sunday would muse, “but I fear it is the dream of another person—a dream that is too distant for me to reach.”

Your cool fingers would gently clasp his, a silent understanding passing between you both. Even if Sunday’s doubts about his ideals remained, you gave him something he hadn’t known he needed—a moment of peace, a fleeting dream that reminded him of the possibility of light amidst the shadows.

[jessiso]

"Conflict of Interest"

A Criminal Minds fanfic | Spencer Reid x Fem! Reader | Part II

You, a sharp-tongued defense attorney clash with Spencer Reid over a high-profile case—but the real conflict starts when tension turns personal.

cw: moral ambiguity, power dynamic, romantic and professional conflict, implied romantic tension

w/c 2,578

(CLICK HERE FOR PART I)

...

The bell over the café door chimed softly as you stepped inside, escaping the mid-morning chaos of the courthouse.

You barely noticed the warmth of the place or the hum of quiet conversation—your mind was still tangled in legal strategy and cross-examination notes.

You just needed caffeine. A moment to breathe.

The line was short, mercifully.

As you waited, you reached into your briefcase, fishing out a worn legal pad—your shorthand scribbles still damp from the drizzle outside.

“You always order a flat white with an extra shot?”

You didn’t need to look up.

That voice had a cadence you could already recognize in a crowd.

Precise.

Thoughtful.

Just slightly amused.

You glanced up anyway.

Spencer Reid stood a few feet away, coffee in hand, curls slightly damp from the rain, a dark gray scarf looped messily around his neck.

He wasn’t in his usual suit jacket—just a button-down rolled at the sleeves and a tie that looked like it had lost a battle with a coat rack.

You lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t know the FBI kept tabs on coffee orders.”

“I don’t,” he said, taking a sip from his cup.

“But I’ve seen you order the same thing three days in a row. And I notice patterns.”

“Of course you do,” you murmured, not bothering to hide your smirk.

There was a beat of silence as the barista called out the next name.

You stepped forward, paid, and moved to the side, expecting him to leave.

He didn’t.

Instead, he shifted a little closer, eyes flicking to your notepad.

“Cross-examining a witness?”

You turned the pad slightly away from view. “Something like that.”

“I always wondered how defense attorneys build their strategy. You have to poke holes in airtight cases, right?”

“Not always,” you said, accepting your coffee from the counter.

“Sometimes we just have to show that the case isn’t airtight. Reasonable doubt, Dr. Reid. That’s the name of the game.”

He gave a thoughtful nod. “And is there reasonable doubt in this one?”

You tilted your head. “Are you asking as a profiler or as someone who keeps showing up where I am?”

Reid didn’t flinch, but his mouth quirked like he was trying not to smile.

“Coincidence. I swear.”

You gave him a dry look. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who believes in coincidences.”

“I don’t,” he said, and then added, softer, “But I’m not complaining either.”

That earned a pause. A real one.

Because beneath his quiet tone was something else—something warm, unspoken, maybe even a little vulnerable.

And you weren’t sure if it was the long hours or the emotional toll of the trial, but for a moment, you didn’t want to fight.

You motioned subtly to the corner table near the window. “You sitting?”

He blinked in surprise. “Are you inviting me?”

“I’m saying if you’re going to interrogate me every time I get coffee, you might as well buy me a scone.”

That made him laugh. Really laugh. The kind that crinkled his eyes and softened his whole face.

He followed you to the table.

You slid into the chair with practiced ease, placing your briefcase beside you.

Spencer sat across from you, notebook already half out of his coat pocket, though he tucked it away again—clearly debating whether this counted as business or not.

You sipped your coffee. “So. Is this the part where you ask me what my childhood trauma is? Try to unpack why I chose to defend accused criminals instead of prosecute them?”

He shook his head. “I’m not profiling you.”

“Liar,” you said, not unkindly.

“I’m curious,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”

“And what about you, Dr. Reid?” you asked, chin resting lightly on your hand. “Why the FBI? Why profiling? Did you wake up one day and decide you wanted to stare into the void for a living?”

He tapped the side of his cup. “I wanted to understand why people hurt each other. And maybe help stop it from happening.”

For a moment, his tone was distant—like he was looking through the window but seeing something much farther away than the courthouse across the street.

You studied him. “That’s a heavy burden to carry.”

“It’s lighter when someone believes they can make a difference.”

You leaned back in your seat, more affected than you wanted to admit. The intellectual banter was one thing—but this? This honesty? That was dangerous.

So you pivoted. “Is that your way of telling me you think I’m defending the wrong man?”

Spencer hesitated. “I think you’re doing your job. And I think you’re very good at it.”

You watched him carefully. “But?”

“But I don’t think your client’s being honest with you. And I think you already know that.”

There it was.

The tightrope.

You exhaled slowly, fingers wrapped around your paper cup. “I don’t need you to protect me from bad decisions.”

“I’m not trying to,” he said quietly. “I just think you deserve the whole truth.”

For a long second, you said nothing.

Then, softly: “Truth is a luxury in court. We work with facts. Evidence. Holes in stories. But truth?” You shook your head. “Truth gets buried under motive and headlines and crossfire.”

Spencer nodded. “So you keep your armor up.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

He smiled faintly. “I think I already do.”

You looked at him, really looked. And maybe it was the soft lighting of the café or the way the world felt a little quieter here, but suddenly, the space between you didn’t feel so adversarial.

It just felt close.

Too close.

You stood, gathering your things.

“This doesn’t happen again,” you said, not quite meeting his eyes. “Coffee. Conversations like this. It muddies the water.”

He rose, too. “I don’t think the water was ever clear.”

You stared at him, surprised by the quiet gravity in his voice.

Then, softer: “It’s not personal, Spencer. It can’t be.”

He nodded once. “I know.”

But as you turned to leave, you felt it again—that tension pulling between you like static before a storm.

And deep down, you knew neither of you was walking away clean.

Not from this case.

Not from each other.

The door swung open with a low creak as you stepped back into the rain-glossed sidewalk, caffeine in hand and conscience smoldering.

You didn’t make it two steps before a sharp voice cut through the fog of your thoughts.

“Well, well. Look who’s fraternizing with the Bureau.”

You turned, shoulders stiffening instinctively at the sound of her voice.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Valerie Knox stood at the edge of the café entrance, trench coat cinched tight, her gaze cool and calculating beneath the rim of her umbrella.

A wry smile ghosted her lips, the kind that never quite reached her eyes.

You matched her expression with one of your own—neutral, polite, with just the right amount of professional distance. “Morning, Valerie.”

“Morning,” she echoed, too pleasantly. Her eyes flicked past you just in time to catch Spencer Reid pushing through the door behind you, scarf still slightly askew, his expression unreadable.

Valerie's brow arched. “Interesting place for a sidebar.”

You didn’t look at Spencer. You didn’t have to. You could feel the heat of the moment still clinging to your skin like a second coat. Instead, you straightened your shoulders and met Valerie’s stare head-on.

“I wasn’t aware the prosecution had jurisdiction over my caffeine intake.”

“You’re right,” she said, voice cool. “But I am curious why my expert witness is grabbing coffee with opposing counsel. Mid-trial. During recess.”

Spencer, to his credit, didn’t flinch. But he also didn’t speak. Smart man.

You offered a smooth shrug, sipping from your cup. “The café was public last time I checked. I don’t interrogate everyone I share a line with.”

“Really?” Valerie tilted her head. “Because from where I stood, that looked a lot like a private conversation.”

You stepped a little closer, your voice dropping just enough to signal warning. “Careful, Counselor. You start accusing people of impropriety without evidence, and you’ll end up violating your own ethics code.”

Valerie smiled tightly. “I’m just pointing out the optics.”

“And I’m pointing out that optics aren’t facts,” you replied, calm and lethal. “You want to file a motion about my coffee break, be my guest. But I’d suggest spending that time shoring up your case instead. Because right now? You’ve got a handful of inconsistent witness statements, and a whole lot of circumstantial narrative. You don’t need to be worrying about who I’m talking to. You need to be worrying about what your star witness forgot to tell you.”

That landed. A flicker of doubt moved behind her eyes.

But she covered it well.

“I hope you’re not pressuring him,” she said quietly. “Or trying to get around discovery rules.”

You gave her a look that bordered on insulted. “Spencer Reid isn’t exactly the type to be pressured, Valerie. And I don’t break the law. Even when I bend it.”

You turned, stepping off the curb toward the crosswalk as the light changed, not bothering to look back. But you heard Spencer’s footsteps behind you, steady as ever. And you knew she was watching.

When you reached the corner, you paused just enough to let the tension settle between you both like mist.

“You didn’t have to follow me out,” you murmured, still not meeting his eyes.

“I know,” he said. “But I didn’t like the way she was looking at you.”

That stopped you. Just for a breath.

Then you shook your head, jaw tight. “That’s not your job.”

“No,” he said gently. “But maybe I wish it was.”

Your throat tightened, and for once, you had no clever reply.

Only the whisper of traffic and the echo of things you shouldn’t want.

The crosswalk light blinked to red. The moment passed.

“I’ll see you in court, Dr. Reid.”

You didn’t wait for his response.

But as you walked away, you could feel Valerie’s eyes on your back and Spencer’s gaze lingering far longer than it should.

Whatever you’d just stepped into—it wasn’t just coffee anymore.

It was a collision course. And the fallout was coming.

The courthouse loomed ahead, all glass and gray stone, rising like a monument to rules that didn’t care about nuance.

You tossed the last of your coffee into a nearby trash bin, the heat still lingering in your palm long after the cup was gone.

Inside, the air was colder. Sterile. The kind of chill that seeped into your bones no matter how many times you passed through the security checkpoint.

You flashed your bar card at the officer without breaking stride, heels echoing on the polished floor as you moved toward Courtroom 5B.

Behind you, you could hear the faint shuffle of Spencer’s shoes, slower, less certain.

When you reached the door, you paused—hand on the heavy brass handle—and took a slow breath.

Focus.

You could not afford to be thinking about warm café lighting or the softness in Spencer Reid’s voice. Not when a man’s future—possibly his life—was hanging in the balance.

You stepped inside.

The courtroom buzzed with the low murmur of post-recess repositioning. Jurors filed back into their box, jackets rustling and papers shifting.

The judge’s clerk was already in place, typing something at a clipped pace. Your co-counsel nodded at you from the defense table, a question in his eyes you didn’t acknowledge.

You slid into your chair and pulled your legal pad onto your lap. The scribbled notes from earlier stared up at you like a dare.

Across the aisle, Valerie Knox took her position at the prosecution’s table. She looked cool and composed—but the way her gaze flicked to Spencer as he entered behind you didn’t go unnoticed.

He didn’t look at her. Or at you.

He took his place on the witness bench, hands folded neatly in his lap, profile sharp against the paneled backdrop of the stand.

His posture was the kind of still that wasn’t just calm—it was controlled. Deliberate.

The judge entered moments later, robes sweeping, gavel tapping once for order.

“Let’s proceed,” came the clipped instruction. “Dr. Reid, you’re still under oath.”

Valerie rose smoothly, the picture of prosecutorial poise. “Dr. Reid, before the recess we were discussing your behavioral analysis of the defendant. You mentioned his body language during the interrogation was inconsistent with signs of genuine remorse. Can you elaborate?”

Spencer nodded once. “Yes. In the recorded interview, the defendant used distancing language when discussing the victim—‘that woman’ instead of her name—and avoided direct eye contact when referencing the night in question. These are behavioral markers that, while not definitive, often align with deceptive behavior.”

You didn’t shift in your seat. But you watched him.

He wasn’t looking at you. But you knew he knew you were watching.

“And what about the timeline?” Valerie continued. “Does the behavioral profile you constructed align with the prosecution’s proposed sequence of events?”

“It does,” he said carefully. “There are consistencies in the pattern of escalation observed in similar cases. The emotional trigger point matches the timing of the alleged confrontation.”

Valerie stepped back. “No further questions.”

The judge looked to you. “Defense? Your witness.”

You stood slowly, the fabric of your suit whispering as you approached the stand.

Spencer’s eyes finally met yours.

The courtroom fell away for half a second. Just long enough for your heart to remember what it was doing an hour ago.

You stepped into position.

“Dr. Reid,” you began, voice steady, “you stated that the defendant’s language in the interview suggested deception. Would you agree that such language can also result from trauma or fear?”

He blinked. “Yes. Context matters.”

“Would you also agree that your profile was built primarily from post-arrest materials?"

He nodded again. “Correct.”

“Which means your conclusions are built on observation and general profiling models, not personal interaction.”

“Yes.”

“And in those models, would you say there is room for error?”

He paused. “There is always room for error.”

That hung in the air for a beat too long.

You let it.

You paced slowly. “Is it possible, then, that what you perceived as deception could also be confusion? Stress? Panic?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s possible.”

You turned back to face him fully, voice low. “Would you say, Dr. Reid, that the truth can sometimes be obscured by what we expect to see?”

Spencer didn’t answer right away.

When he did, his voice was quieter.

“Yes.”

No one moved. Not the jury. Not Valerie.

Not even the court reporter.

You held his gaze for a fraction longer, then returned to your table.

“No further questions, Your Honor.”

The judge nodded, scribbling something on a notepad. “You may step down, Dr. Reid.”

Spencer left the stand with that same deliberate calm—but this time, you saw something different in the set of his jaw.

Not guilt.

Regret.

He returned to the gallery, slipping into a seat near the back, just as the judge launched into instructions for the next witness.

But you didn’t hear much of it.

Because Spencer Reid had just admitted something on that stand. Not just about the case—but about you. About the way expectations could cloud truth. About how neither of you were walking into this clean anymore.

And sitting at the defense table, heart pounding quietly beneath your pressed suit, you realized something unsettling.

He hadn’t just given you a way in.

He’d given you a warning.

And maybe… a choice.

[glowettee]

Hey girly~~

I'm a writer and blogger recently navigating Tumblr. Sometimes I worry that no one will really care what I have to say, or care about my ideas. What's the best thing to focus on when I feel this way? I think I'm just looking for a little encouragement💗. I hope this makes sense!

hey sweetheart, so sorry i've been extremely inactive. finals have been draining, exhausting, and overwhelming!! i'm almost done, but i wanted to answer your question because it made me sooo freaking happy!!!

this question literally touched my heart because i've been exactly where you are!! that feeling when you pour your thoughts and creativity into your writing, hit post, and then wonder if anyone out there is actually connecting with your words? i completely understand that vulnerable feeling, bestie! 

first of all, i want to say how brave it is to create and share your writing in the first place! putting your thoughts out into the world takes so much courage, and the fact that you're doing it already shows how much passion you have. that's something to be proud of regardless of the notes or reblogs!

when those doubts creep in (and trust me, they visit all of us, even people with thousands of followers!), here are some gentle reminders and perspectives that have helped me create my blog:

1. remember why you started writing

   ✧ was it to process your own thoughts?

   ✧ to connect with others who feel the same way?

   ✧ to create something beautiful?

   ✧ to document your journey?

   returning to your original purpose can be so grounding when the external validation feels uncertain. i keep this in mind whenever i'm planning ideas, writing my posts or even when i feel unmotivated to write a bunch of words onto the tumblr word processor. this generally just helps you focus on the purpose for your blog/writing.

2. focus on quality over quantity

   ✧ one genuine connection with a reader who truly resonates with your words is worth more than hundreds of passive scrollers

   ✧ some of my favorite writers and bloggers have smaller but incredibly devoted followers

   ✧ meaningful engagement > follower count (always!!)

3. celebrate the uniqueness of your voice

   ✧ no one else has your exact perspective, experiences, or way of expressing things

   ✧ the internet doesn't need more people trying to sound like everyone else

   ✧ your specific voice is exactly what someone out there is looking for

   ✧ authenticity always shines through and attracts the right people

4. remember that growth takes time

   ✧ most "overnight successes" actually took years of consistent posting

   ✧ tumblr especially works on connections and community building

   ✧ your words might be quietly collecting in someone's bookmarks even if they haven't engaged yet

   ✧ some of my posts that got almost no notes when first published suddenly found their audience months later!

5. create for yourself first

   ✧ write what brings you joy, healing, or clarity

   ✧ if you're excited about your content, that energy will naturally attract others

   ✧ when you love what you create, external validation becomes a bonus rather than a necessity

   ✧ the posts i'm most proud of aren't always my most popular ones!

   ✧ make sure to utilize aesthetics in your post, ones you enjoy are always a bonus, and it's so fun to design your post according to whatever aesthetic/vibe

6. engage with other writers/bloggers and creators

   ✧ leave thoughtful comments on posts you love

   ✧ reblog with your own additions

   ✧ join writing challenges or community events (example: tag games)

   ✧ respond to asks and messages

   ✧ community building is a two-way street! this is my favorrrrittee part of being a girlblogger.

7. trust the timing of your journey

   ✧ some days will be quiet, others will surprise you with connection

   ✧ consistency matters more than immediate results

   ✧ your words might be exactly what someone needs to read tomorrow, or next month, or next year

i also want to remind you that even the most popular writers and bloggers have moments of doubt! it's part of the creative process to sometimes wonder if what you're making matters. but just know your perspective is inherently valuable. your experiences are worth documenting. your creative expression deserves space in this world.

when i first started my blog, i would sometimes post things that got almost no interaction. but then i'd get a single message from someone saying "this was exactly what i needed to read today" and it would remind me why i started in the first place.

keep nurturing your writer's heart, keep showing up for your creativity, and keep sharing your unique voice with the world. the right readers will find you, i promise. and in the meantime, take pride in the courage it takes to create and share in the first place!

sending you all the creative inspiration and confidence vibes!! hope this helps <3

xoxo, mindy 🤍

> submit to the hotline so we can trauma bond: https://bit.ly/glowetteehotline

[abbotjack]

hey syd, how do you find the motivation to write?

you’ve blessed up with so many back to back hits and i can’t even finish my own drafts 😅

Ahhh, thank you so much for this message—it genuinely means a lot. I wish I could say the process is romantic or graceful, like “I light a candle and the words arrive fully formed,” but the truth is messier. So here’s a long, detailed, probably-too-honest breakdown of what actually keeps me writing!

1. Music as Architecture: Scoring the Scene Before It Exists

I don’t begin with plot. I begin with sound.

Music is the first language of my writing process. Before dialogue, before imagery, even before character voices settle into clarity, I reach for music—not as inspiration, but as foundation. The emotional resonance of a piece doesn’t come from what’s written first. It comes from what’s felt—and for me, that feeling is almost always coaxed into being by sound.

I build playlists with intention. They’re not background noise; they are, in effect, blueprints. Emotional schematics. Each playlist becomes a kind of private score to the story I’m trying to tell. Some are curated around character dynamics—slow-burn tension, fractured intimacy, long-restrained grief—while others are arranged around the arc of a chapter, a specific moment of revelation, or the rhythm of a confrontation that’s been building for pages.

One I return to frequently is my playlist titled romance coded songs for daydreaming. This collection isn’t simply romantic. It’s devotional. Every track pulses with ache, ambiguity, restraint, or surrender. Some are quiet, constructed in whispers and unresolved chords. Others swell—full-bodied and orchestral, like they were made to echo under dialogue. When I select a track for a scene, I’m not choosing something that sounds good—I’m choosing something that understands what the characters aren’t saying.

For example, while drafting a scene in which two characters finally acknowledge the emotional undercurrent they’ve spent chapters avoiding, I played “Youth” by Daughter on loop. The song's structure—soft beginnings, the build of vulnerability, the percussive collapse—mirrored the emotional terrain I needed the scene to follow. I structured paragraphs according to tempo. I paid attention to the way a sentence would feel if it mirrored the minor-key drop in the second verse. There was no outline for that moment—just the music, and the emotional proximity it allowed.

This is also how I build character tone. Jack Abbot, for instance, exists in a soundscape of restraint. His musical profile is sparse but deliberate. If a song has too many layers, it doesn’t fit him. He’s percussion and silence. He’s a baritone voice that almost breaks but never quite does. His playlist includes Nick Cave, Rhye, Radiohead, and Wye Oak. All of it low-register. All of it waiting.

Contrast that with someone like Robby, whose emotional landscape is much more open. His playlist includes acoustic guitar, brighter chords, vocal warmth. Writing him requires a different tempo entirely. The music doesn’t just help me define them—it helps me understand how they would inhabit the same silence differently. How Jack holds a pause versus how Robby lets one go.

Music is also what allows me to keep emotional continuity across chapters, especially when writing nonlinear drafts. If I leave a scene mid-emotion, I don’t always re-read it to find my way back in. I re-listen. Because tone can’t always be rebuilt from language alone. It needs something more primal—more bodily. The right song can take me back to the exact moment where I left a heartbeat hanging.

In many ways, music becomes a form of narrative foreshadowing. I will sometimes build a playlist that reflects where the story is going emotionally before I know the plot itself. This keeps the work honest. If the writing starts to deviate from the emotional logic of the music, I know I’ve veered too far. I follow the sound back to the truth of the characters.

Music also helps me write with silence. It teaches me how to use negative space, how to withhold, how to let a moment breathe. It’s the difference between telling the reader what happens, and letting them feel it arrive.

Writing without music, for me, would be like shooting a film without sound design. You could still see the action—but you’d lose the atmosphere, the friction, the undertow.

So I don’t start with plot. I start by listening. Because long before I can write a scene that feels right, I have to hear it.

2. Pinterest as Visual Architecture: Designing Mood, Movement, and Authority Before the First Line Is Written

I don’t use Pinterest as a wishful archive or a vague 'vibe check'—I use it as a method of composition. Visual curation, for me, is not decorative. It is foundational. Each board is a map of the world I’m building—not just aesthetically, but narratively. I approach Pinterest the way a director would approach a set designer or a cinematographer: what does this space communicate before the character even speaks? What are the silent cues? What does the light do in this corner? Where does the weight live?

When I began writing Irregularities, I knew immediately that the physical world needed to feel sharp. Unforgiving. As precise as the main character’s walk, and as deliberate as the silence she carries. So I built a Pinterest board that wasn’t just about hospitals—it was about posture, texture, and implied dominance. I titled the sub-board “Administrative Quiet"

Let’s walk through how that board became the scene.

The excerpt begins:

Hospitals don’t go quiet. Not really...

This sentence was written after pinning a photo of a long, fluorescent-lit hallway—no patients in sight, just two glass doors and a printer humming in the corner. The stillness wasn’t peaceful. It was artificial. Held. You could feel the machinery beneath it. I pinned images of empty waiting rooms at 7:00 AM, beige walls and clipped blinds, ceiling panels lit with a blue-cast flicker. These weren’t emotionally neutral images—they were controlled. Sanitized. And that control shaped the language. That’s why I wrote, “the rhythm of a city-sized machine trying to look composed.” That image didn’t come from thin air—it came from a visual impression of effortful order, translated into prose.

Now the wardrobe:

Navy slacks, pressed. Ivory blouse, tucked. The black wool coat draped over your arm has been folded just so...

These lines are not just about clothing—they are about a constructed silhouette. I collected visual references of professional women in muted palettes—navy, ivory, charcoal—clothes that didn’t distract, but restrained. I noted how the lapel of a wool coat holds shape, how it creases with shoulder pressure on public transit. One image I pinned showed a woman in a government building, coat folded over her arm, face out of frame. What struck me wasn’t her expression—it was the control of her body language. No movement wasted. Everything designed to convey competency, not comfort.

This is what Pinterest offers: the vocabulary of nonverbal narrative. The reader doesn’t need to be told that this character has command. They can see it—in the lanyard clipped at the sternum, in the pen nested into the coil of the ledger notebook. These are visual indicators of someone whose presence is already telling the story.

The bag she carries? Not a briefcase. Not a tote. A leather bag, weighed down. I found images of field auditors and corporate compliance officers. What they carried was always functional. Heavy. Slung across the body like they were going into quiet battle. One particularly striking image was a government agent seated with their bag propped beside them, the weight pulling it slightly off-balance.

That image informed the line:

“...weighed down with printed ledgers and a half-dozen highlighters—color-coded in a way no one but you understands.”

Because that’s what her role demands: control not only of space, but of systems. Pinterest allowed me to see that system before writing it.

Even the typography in the line—

“Your name, printed clean in black sans serif.”

—was sourced. I pinned dozens of ID badge photos: hospital badges, federal agency badges, corporate visitor tags. Nearly all of them used a specific visual code: sans serif fonts, barcode beneath, matte finish. No frills. No decoration. Just clarity. That clarity carried over into the tone. The badge doesn’t say anything emotional, but it communicates status. The reader understands who she is by the way the badge is described, not because the badge tells them.

The final image that tied the board together—and became the spine of the entire scene—was one of a woman standing alone at a reception desk, her hand resting lightly on the counter, eyes not visible. The posture said everything: I don’t need to announce myself. You already know why I’m here. That photograph became the emotional thesis of the audit character. It became the justification for this line:

“You’re the audit. The walk, the clothes, the quiet. It’s all part of the package.”

That sentence came from studying how power moves silently. Pinterest didn’t just provide aesthetics. It gave me an understanding of what not to write. She doesn’t have to be cruel. She doesn’t have to be loud. She’s effective because she doesn’t overperform.

This is how Pinterest operates in my process: as visual dramaturgy. It gives me the syntax of a room before a character steps into it. It teaches me how to build authority without exposition. It reveals the emotional texture of materials and shows me how those textures affect posture, sound, breath.

By the time I sat down to write the passage, I already knew what kind of pen she’d use. I knew where the weight of her coat would shift on her arm as she walked. I knew what the receptionist would feel, even if he said nothing. Because I had already seen it all—in images, arranged not by color, but by function.

Writing begins long before the first sentence. For me, it begins in images. And Pinterest gives me the scaffolding I need to make the emotional structure of a scene visibly inevitable.

3. Women’s & Gender Studies as Emotional Infrastructure: Writing Through the Lens of Power, Silence, and Embodiment

My Women’s & Gender Studies minor is not a separate thread from my writing—it is the framework that holds the emotional weight of my stories. The way I write intimacy, the way I construct silence between characters, the way I describe bodies without flattening them into objects of narrative convenience—all of that stems from the work I’ve done studying gender, sexuality, emotional labor, and power dynamics across disciplines.

In many ways, WGS gave me the vocabulary to write what I already felt. It gave shape to my instincts. It gave structure to the things I knew were meaningful but didn’t yet know how to articulate—especially in scenes where meaning isn’t built through plot, but through closeness, discomfort, observation, and restraint. It taught me that you don’t always need to narrate the explosion. You can write the tension in the room before the match is lit—and that can be just as devastating.

One of the most formative experiences I’ve had in this program came through a seminar on Love and LGBTQ+ Literature, where we read Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body. That novel changed the way I think about character voice, emotional intimacy, and the unspoken power of desire.

The narrator of Written on the Body is never gendered. You don’t know who they are in terms of identity markers—only that they are grieving, longing, remembering. What Winterson does is strip away everything the reader might use as shorthand. You can’t rely on gender to code meaning. You can’t default to assumptions about power. Instead, you have to engage with the emotional architecture itself: how the narrator touches, how they hesitate, what they remember and what they can’t forgive.

There’s a moment in the book where the narrator writes:

“Why is the measure of love loss?”

That line, more than almost any I’ve ever read, defines what I try to capture in my work. Not just love as presence, but love as aftermath. As damage. As absence. It’s the question that haunts every emotionally repressed character I write. Jack Abbot doesn’t confess easily. He doesn’t live in declarations. He lives in restraint, in the tremble under control. And when I write him, I’m thinking not about what he says—but what he avoids. What he notices and doesn’t act on. What he would rather bury than admit. Those choices are not arbitrary. They are gendered. They are socialized. And they are shaped by a framework of masculinity that I’ve spent years studying critically.

WGS taught me that emotion is never neutral. That every expression of feeling—especially in professional, clinical, or institutional settings—is shaped by larger systems of power. When a woman hesitates before raising her voice in a hospital hallway, that’s not just personal—it’s systemic. When a man over-explains something he’s already decided, that’s not just characterization—it’s training. My education in WGS allows me to embed these dynamics into my writing without ever needing to spell them out. I let them live in the dialogue. In the blocking. In the interruptions.

It also taught me how to write the body—not as spectacle, but as memory. As site. As language. In trauma-informed narratives, I think constantly about the concept of embodiment: how a character holds their own history, how they experience space, how they control or surrender their physical presence depending on who is watching. A scar isn’t just a scar. A hand held too long isn’t just affection—it’s permission, or protest, or confession. These small gestures carry the weight of entire emotional arcs.

In scenes like the trauma bay in Irregularities, where the power dynamic is unstable but unspoken, I write through the lens of perception and structural tension. Jack doesn’t order her to follow him—he invites her in a tone sharp enough to double as a challenge. And she accepts, not because she’s obedient, but because she understands that to hold power in a space like his, she has to first observe it on its own terms. That’s the heart of feminist narrative structure: the refusal to flatten power into domination, and the insistence on showing how it moves—quietly, relationally, through invitation and resistance.

She’s not trained for trauma. Her authority isn’t built for blood. But she enters the space with something equally dangerous: institutional clarity. Audit folder to chest. Posture rigid but controlled. She doesn’t flinch—not when the man flatlines, not when Jack cracks the chest open, not when the room shudders beneath its own adrenaline. This is not the traditional arc of a woman proving she’s strong enough to be “one of the boys.” It’s not about toughness. It’s about refusing to be displaced. Staying. Watching. Speaking when it matters.

And when she does speak, it’s surgical: “If you’re going to override a standard OR protocol in front of a compliance officer, you might want to narrate it for the notes.” That’s not sarcasm. That’s labor. That’s a woman doing the intellectual work of keeping systems accountable even when the system is breaking in real time. It’s not framed as a dramatic triumph. It’s woven into the room’s rhythm. That is what my WGS education gave me: the ability to stage systemic critique as lived experience, not speechmaking.

The tension between them is not romance—not yet. It’s structural. Gendered. Bureaucratic. He saves lives. She tracks what it costs. He performs heroism beneath policy; she protects the institution by demanding transparency. But the beauty of that scene isn’t in their conflict—it’s in the recognition. The moment he stops seeing her as an enemy and starts seeing her as a witness. A woman who does not flinch when power becomes visceral. A woman who wants the truth not to punish him, but to understand the logic beneath the violation.

That’s WGS on the page. Not a lecture. Not a slogan. But a moment of shared exhaustion between a man with blood on his sleeves and a woman with ink-stained hands—both fighting to keep a system alive in different ways. And neither of them willing to back down.

WGS also gives me access to the emotional language of refusal. Not every love story is a yes. Some are a near-miss. A repetition. A delay. Some characters don’t change, not because they are underdeveloped, but because they were never taught how. Writing that kind of character—especially a man—is often seen as a risk. But in WGS spaces, I learned to see that as realism. As tragedy. As the cost of structural silence.

And then there’s this: WGS trained me to read literature with historical precision and emotional context. I don’t read romance without thinking about labor. I don’t write desire without considering who’s allowed to want out loud and who isn’t. When I craft a scene between two people who are falling apart in slow motion, it’s not just about heartbreak. It’s about who is allowed to grieve and how. That framing changes everything.

So yes—my WGS minor is academic. But it’s also intimate. It’s present in the cadence of a hospital hallway scene. It’s in the way a woman adjusts her sleeve before speaking. It’s in how Jack Abbot lingers outside the door, hand resting on the frame, saying nothing. And it’s in the way a reader feels something tighten in their chest when that silence is finally broken.

4. How to Read Literature Like a Professor as Narrative Blueprint: Grief, Space, and the Unsaid in The House She Left You

Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor is not just a guide for decoding fiction—it’s a manual for building resonance. When I write, especially something as emotionally dense and grief-stricken as The House She Left You, I’m not just writing characters or scenes. I’m constructing a layered system of symbols, silences, spaces, and ruptures that mean more than they say. Foster’s framework reminds me that meaning is never linear. It’s recursive. It echoes in what’s withheld.

In this story, I’m writing about two people who survived the same woman in different ways—one as a sister, one as a lover—and now find themselves circling each other inside the shell she left behind. Every scene is built with symbolic architecture, and much of that draws directly from the interpretive tools Foster provides.

Let’s begin with the house.

Foster’s chapter “Geography Matters” teaches us that setting is never neutral. A house isn’t just a house—it’s a body, a history, a character. The house in The House She Left You is not shelter. It’s aftermath. It’s her, even in death. The hallway still smells like her. The bedroom is sealed like a wound. The silence in the walls is heavy with memory, with guilt, with rot. This isn’t just description—it’s narrative geography. The house itself is a haunted organ, and Pope, when he slips through the door without knocking, becomes not an intruder but a ghost. He’s not entering a space. He’s re-entering a story.

That brings me to Foster’s chapter “Every Trip is a Quest.” Movement in fiction—whether across a state or down a hallway—always means more than logistics. When the narrator walks the length of the hall at 2:37 a.m., barefoot, every step is a spiritual return to what she’s refused to touch. The house knows it. She knows it. She approaches her sister’s old bedroom the way you approach a grave you’ve tried not to visit. She knows Pope is inside before she sees him—not because it’s predictable, but because the logic of grief demands it. Her movement is the quest: not for Pope, not even for closure—but for language, for some way to name what was never said while her sister was alive.

That silence is its own language. Foster’s “Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion” reminds us that shared rituals—eating, drinking, sitting together in the dark—are not neutral acts. They’re symbolic ones. In this story, Pope offers her a glass of water in a kitchen where everything is decaying. He asks her if she wants him to stay in a house that smells like her sister’s ghost. These aren’t practical questions. They’re ritualized tests of trust. Communion, in this context, doesn’t mean food. It means presence. Will you let me stay? Will you let me see the parts of you your sister never let anyone touch?

Foster’s “Marked for Greatness” also lingers in my mind. In that chapter, he discusses how physical scars, limps, and bodily damage often symbolize internal wounds. In my story, those marks aren’t visible—but they live in language. In the sister’s needle track marks. In the narrator’s clenched jaw, her white-knuckled grip on a sink, her inability to look Pope in the eyes. These are not merely emotional reactions—they are traumatic inscriptions. The body remembers. The house remembers. The hallway remembers. She sleeps in sweat and silence because grief is not just loss—it’s infestation.

And then, perhaps most importantly, Foster’s “It’s All About Sex…” and “…Except Sex” chapters remind us that eroticism in literature is never just about pleasure. It’s about power, memory, transference, guilt. In The House She Left You, the sex is not tender. It’s not clean. It’s not a reward. It’s something far more difficult: inheritance. What happens when the man your sister destroyed is the same man who knows what she did to you? What happens when the body you’ve always wanted is tied, irrevocably, to the person you’ve always hated most?

The physicality in that final scene is ritualized grief. Pope is not just taking her apart—he’s answering a need that has never been allowed to speak. It’s confession. It’s transference. It’s everything the sister stole. Foster’s frameworks let me write that scene with full awareness that this is not about seduction. This is about grief. About legacy. About what happens when the thing you’ve always wanted finally wants you back—but not in time to save anything.

So much of what I learned from Foster is that meaning can live in the quiet. In the spacing between lines. In who speaks, and who doesn’t. Pope’s silence is an act of control. The narrator’s refusal to cry is an act of survival. When she finally says “I wanted you anyway,” it lands not as scandal but as resurrection—the first truth spoken without her sister watching.

This is how I use Foster: not to write symbols for their own sake, but to embed emotional weight in every image. A door left open. A bed made. A woman on her knees, not in submission, but in reclamation.

5. Hyperfixation as Creative Engine: When the Scene Flatlines and You Keep Writing Through It

When I wrote the trauma bay flatline scene in Built for Battle, Never for Me, I didn’t stop to outline. I didn’t think about structure. I didn’t care how long it would take or how much it would wreck me.

I just kept writing. Because the scene had already begun bleeding in my hands—and the only thing I knew how to do was keep going.

That’s what hyperfixation is for me. It’s not a creative process. It’s a response to emotional triage. It’s how I write scenes where someone’s chest caves under compressions, where a man who once said “I’ll stay” walks back into the story with a wedding ring he didn’t have when he left.

I couldn’t write that scene from a distance. I had to be inside it. Inside the monitor scream. Inside the gloves. Inside the moment he realizes the woman coding on the gurney is the same one he stopped texting back.

The pacing in that scene—seconds tracked like breaths, dialogue stripped down to bone—isn’t calculated. It’s instinct. I knew the time stamps before I knew the resolution. I knew the flatline would come. I knew Jack wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t yell—he would just press harder. Because that’s the only thing he knows how to do. When love fails, he reverts to protocol. To trauma code. To hands.

Every line in that sequence is written like the body remembers—short, clipped, then suddenly flooding. That’s how grief moves. That’s how adrenaline hides pain. And when you’re hyperfixated, you don’t step away from the scene to ask what it means. You stay. You fold his gloves into your own hands. You sit in the corner of the CT hallway with blood on your sleeves and try to make the sentence “I’ll wait this time” sound like penance and not delusion.

I didn’t write that scene over a week. I wrote it in one breathless session—because the story wouldn’t let me out. Because I couldn’t sleep knowing Jack Abbot had felt her pulse disappear beneath his hands. And I couldn’t stop until I got her back.

Hyperfixation lets me hold tension for 10,000 words without blinking. It lets me write time like it’s elastic. One second becomes three pages. One gesture—his hand brushing her temple—becomes an entire act of repentance. This isn’t indulgent. It’s necessary. That’s how you earn the moment when she wakes up. That’s how you make the ring visible. That’s how you write heartbreak that feels like a new kind of CPR—violent, slow, necessary.

I couldn’t have written that moment—“You didn’t change your emergency contact?”—if I wasn’t submerged. If I hadn’t been tracing Jack’s guilt like it was a second spine. That line doesn’t come from plot. It comes from the hours spent wondering what does it mean to be someone’s backup when they’ve stopped showing up?

Hyperfixation doesn’t just keep me writing—it keeps the emotional stakes coherent across collapse. I don’t have to look back to remember what Jack said the last time they saw each other. I feel it in the rhythm of his silence now. I don’t need to check whether she moved on. I know she didn’t—because the way she reacts to that ring is the climax, not the aftermath.

And Jack?

He doesn’t fall apart when he sees her blood. He falls apart when she asks, “You’re married?” and he says, “Not yet.”

That’s what hyperfixation allows me to write: not the tragedy of death, but the tragedy of timing. Of the people we almost had. The lives we could’ve lived if we’d just stayed one more day. One more night. One more breath.

So no—I don’t write this way because it’s healthy. I write this way because it’s the only way that moment ever gets told.

Because love didn’t save her.

Because Jack couldn’t.

Because I had to.

And that’s really what it comes down to—I write how I feel, and I feel everything all the way down. Whether it starts with a song, a picture, a classroom conversation, or a scene that won’t stop clawing at me until I type it—everything I create is layered. Lived-in. Edited like a film and written like a wound. These aren’t just stories—they’re places I’ve had to survive to get out of. And I think that’s the point. I don’t believe in waiting for inspiration. I believe in building it from the ground up: sound first, image next, theory underneath, obsession layered in, and then finally—emotion made clean enough to bleed on the page. That’s how I write. That’s why I write. And if it hurts a little to read? Good. It means it found your pulse.

Please hear me when I say this: your unfinished drafts are not failures. They’re blueprints. Grief maps. Training grounds. Some scenes are meant to be sketches. Some characters live in fragments for a while before they’re ready to speak. But that doesn’t mean your voice is missing—it means it’s gathering. You don’t need to write fast. You don’t need to finish everything you start. You just need to stay close enough to the stories that matter to you that, when they’re ready—you’re the one who gets to bring them to life. And you will.

[imagineakatsuki]

Do you have any soft Kakuhida headcanons?

These two rarely ever have soft moments. Although most people won’t understand it, they actually like that their relationship is fiery, violent, and fraught with bantering and arguments. It fits their personalities (Hidan’s a masochist while Kakuzu is just a gruff and tough guy).

Because these moments are so rare, when they do happen, it usually ends up feeling like a grand gesture (or a moment filled with meaning).

Hidan doesn’t really know how to be vulnerable, while Kakuzu just hates the very idea of it. When these two show vulnerability, it’s because it’s forced out of them (though not necessarily in a bad way - sometimes, it just happens accidentally).

They can be pretty vicious with each other, but once they realize there’s actually something wrong, they stop (at first, hesitantly, but then it turns into full-blown worry).

Kakuzu shows his care in the way he carefully stitches Hidan back together. If they’re not currently in battle, he takes his time, making sure that every stitch is well-placed, well-done, and just the right amount of tightness. Only Sasori would be able to do better.

In comparison, Hidan is louder with his care. He’s very touchy and will just ask Kakuzu outright if he’s ok and if he needs anything from him (it doesn’t seem like a big deal to him, but most people would say differently - especially when he gets that worried tone to his voice).

Kakuzu doesn’t like being cared for or showing that he cares in front of other people (and least of all, the other Akatsuki members), but in private, he’ll allow it. On bad days, it doesn’t take much convincing at all. Hidan takes advantage of those times to get some much-needed cuddles before Kakuzu goes back to being a surly prick.

Hidan’s 50/50 when it comes to affection and wanting to be taken care of. He’s like a cat - some days, he absolutely loathes it, but on other days, he’ll ask for it (and there’s no discernible pattern either).

Even though they seem like they don’t get along, they are one of the best duos because they just have an innate connection/understanding of each other. They cover for each other (Kakuzu more so than Hidan, as we probably all know) and know what to do without being asked. This extends to even mundane tasks not related to killing people (for example, if Kakuzu is cooking something, Hidan will just know what to hand him and when on instinct).

They try to act cool and like they don’t care, but everyone knows they are pretty protective of the other. Not overprotective, per se, because they both know the other is strong and can handle themselves. More like: if an enemy somehow threatens their life, you can bet they'll have the other half of the duo on their ass.

Admin S

[noirelyx]

—WATCH YOUR BACK

V: I'M SORRY PART 2

pairing|BadBoys!Ateez x Broken!Reader

wc|10.7k

synopsis| You hide behind quiet walls, haunted by fears no one sees. Yuji's steady presence is your only light in the dark. Alone, you carry secrets that weight heavier each day, torn between disappearing and wanting to be found.

warnings!| Bullying, Self-hate, Self-ridicule, Dark thoughts, Emotional vulnerability, Profanity, Verbal aggression, Disordered eating, Emotional manipulation, Obsession (lmk if I forgot anything)

disclaimer!|This series is not a representation of the idols as individuals and is to not be taken seriously. If you’re uncomfortable with the content in the series or on my page, then feel free to click off at any moment.

———————————————————————————————

The drive to your house feels slower than usual, the hum of the engine almost comforting against the silence that stretches between you and Yuji. It's not an awkward silence, not exactly, but there's an unspoken heaviness in the air. Yuji glances at you every so often, her eyes full of concern, but she doesn't push you. She never does. She just lets you be.

The streetlights pass in blurs, casting fleeting shadows on the quiet road. The muffled sound of the tires on pavement fills the space as you focus on the road ahead, trying to ignore the way your chest tightens. You can feel the weight of everything—the school day, the words, the stares—still sitting heavily on your shoulders. The last thing you want to do is let Yuji see how much it's affecting you, though.

"Y/N," Yuji says softly, breaking the silence.

You don't respond right away, your hands gripping the seatbelt in front of you like it could anchor you to something solid.

"Do you ever just... feel like disappearing?" The words leave your mouth before you can stop them, your voice barely above a whisper.

Yuji's eyes widen for a split second, her gaze darting toward you. There's a moment of stunned silence before she speaks, her voice quieter than usual.

"Y/N..." she starts, a slight shake in her tone. "You know that's not true, right?"

You shrug, turning your head to stare out the window. "I don't know. Sometimes it just feels like it would be easier."

You hear the seatbelt click as Yuji shifts in her seat. She's processing your words, maybe trying to think of the right thing to say, but you don't need her to say anything. You just need the silence, the comfort of her presence, without the pressure of anything more.

"I'm fine," you say quickly, your voice flat. The words feel like a reflex, a shield you throw up because it's easier than dealing with the truth. You don't look at her when you say it, knowing she can see right through you.

Yuji doesn't say anything for a few moments, but you feel her eyes on you, the concern still there, even if she's holding back.

"I get it," she says, her voice soft, "but I'm here, okay? I'm not going anywhere."

Her words sit with you, like a light in the dark, though you still feel the pull of the shadows.

The car rolls up to your house, the lights in the windows glowing softly in the night. You don't move right away, just sit there for a moment, trying to figure out what to do with the knot in your chest.

Finally, you unbuckle your seatbelt, pulling open the door and stepping out. Yuji follows, matching your slow pace as you make your way to the front door.

Inside, your mom is already there, sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open. She looks up as you both enter, a faint smile crossing her face, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

"Hi girls, how was school? ," she says, her tone casual, but you can tell she's been working for a while, her eyes a little tired.

"Fine," you mumble, not really feeling up to small talk. "Yuji's just hanging out."

Your mom nods, returning her attention to the screen. "Well, make yourselves comfortable."

Yuji looks over at you, a silent offer to just let you lead. You nod, walking upstairs toward the your bedroom, but it feels like everything is still a little too heavy.

You don't feel like talking, not really, but you know that just being here—being with someone who doesn't expect anything from you—makes it a little easier to breathe.

Once inside, you feel strangely exposed. You didn't really expect to show her anything, and yet here you are, letting her into the space where you've poured every single bit of yourself into. There are sketches scattered on the floor, art supplies piled on your desk, and a few half-finished drawings pinned up on the walls. Your gaze shifts to them, your self-consciousness gnawing at you. You've never really been proud of them, not the way others might think.

Yuji glances around the room, her eyes landing on your art supplies. "Your room is amazing, Y/N," she says, her voice genuine. "You've got so much talent."

You let out a small breath, hoping she doesn't notice the way your cheeks flush slightly. "It's nothing," you mumble, brushing the comment off. "I just like to draw."

Yuji picks up one of your sketchbooks and flips it open. You watch as she runs her fingers over the pages, her expression flickering between curiosity and awe. You've seen people look at your art before, but it's never felt like this. You're not sure what it is, but there's something different in the way Yuji sees it. It's almost like she doesn't just see the drawings—they're a piece of you, too.

"Y/N, these are incredible," she whispers, her voice laced with disbelief. "I didn't know you were this good."

You give a half-smile, shrugging. "It's just what I do when I'm bored, I guess."

Yuji flips to another page, and you can see her getting lost in the details, fascinated by how much of your world you've captured in these pages. You catch a glimpse of one of your darker drawings—a self-portrait that feels too raw for anyone to see. Your eyes are hollow, a reflection of the emptiness that clings to you like a shadow. The figure doesn't look like you at all—it looks like a stranger, a broken version of yourself that's been stripped of all feeling.

Then she flips the page again. You panic. You don't want her to see what's next. Without thinking, you snatch the sketchbook from her hands and clutch it tightly to your chest.

Yuji looks at you, startled, her voice softer now. "Y/N? What's wrong?"

Before you can respond, the door creaks open, and your mom steps inside. She's a little surprised to see Yuji, but her smile is warm as she enters the room. "Everything okay, you two?" she asks, her tone light and casual, but there's an edge to it, like she can feel the tension in the air.

"Yeah," you mumble, trying to keep everything normal, even though it feels anything but. You quickly hide the sketchbook, but your mom isn't fooled. She catches sight of it, and her eyes soften as she looks over your art supplies.

"Oh wow, Y/N, these are amazing," your mom says with genuine admiration, picking up a random sketchbook and flipping it open. "You're so talented, honey."

You can feel your cheeks heat up with embarrassment. "It's nothing, Mom. Really," you say, trying to downplay it.

Your mom doesn't seem convinced, though. She stops at one of your self-portraits—the one you hate most—and her expression falters slightly. You can tell she's focusing on the emptiness in your eyes, the hollow look that stares back at her from the page.

"You know," your mom says, her voice gentle, but filled with concern, "this one... Why do you look so sad in this one? Why does it feel like you're not really here?"

You feel the weight of her question, like an anchor pulling you down. You swallow hard, trying to brush it off. "It's just a portrait, Mom. Doesn't mean anything."

Yuji doesn't say anything, but you feel her watching you, her eyes filled with an emotion you can't quite read. You turn away quickly, trying to block out the heaviness in the room. You want to tell them it's nothing, that you're fine, but you know they don't believe you.

Your mom glances at Yuji, a quiet understanding passing between them. There's worry in both their eyes, but they don't push you. Not yet. But you know they won't let this go.

And you don't know if you want them to. _______

The car engine hums as it fades down the street, and you stand at the door, watching the headlights of Yuji's car until they're swallowed up by the night. It feels strange to see her go. For a few hours, there was a bit of light in the house, a kind of warmth that you didn't expect. But now, that light is gone, and you're left with the usual silence.

You step back into the house, the air heavy in the way only a quiet house can be. Your mom is still in the living room, probably waiting for some sign that things went well. You don't look at her as you head toward the hallway, but you can feel her eyes on your back.

"You okay, honey?" Your mom's voice is soft but carries that underlying concern that always seems to follow her when it comes to you.

You stop in the middle of the hallway, standing still for a second. You don't want to talk about it. You don't want to talk about how it felt to have Yuji here, how comfortable it was, and how the moment she left, it all came crashing down. But you know your mom won't just drop it. She's persistent, like always.

"I'm fine," you say quickly, not even turning to face her. It's the go-to response, the easiest one.

You hear her sigh quietly from the living room. There's a pause before she speaks again, like she's deciding how to approach you. "Y/N, I know you're not fine. You don't have to pretend for me. You don't have to keep shutting me out."

You don't know why she thinks you're shutting her out. All you're doing is trying to stay quiet. You can't explain what's in your head, can't put into words the things you feel. You don't want to burden her. So, you settle for what you always do. The words you always say.

"I said I'm fine," you snap, a little harsher than you intend. It's the frustration you've been holding back, bubbling up with nowhere else to go.

She doesn't flinch, but you can hear the disappointment in her voice. "Y/N..."

"I'm fine, Mom. I just want to be alone," you say, your tone shutting down the conversation. You don't want her to keep trying. You don't want to feel like she's looking for something from you that you can't give her.

There's another long silence, and you can feel the tension between you both. But before you can escape further into your own mind, she speaks again, softer now.

"I just want you to know that I'm here for you, sweetheart. Whenever you're ready to talk," she says, though you can hear the sadness creeping in.

You don't answer her, not because you don't care, but because you don't know what to say. Instead, you walk down the hallway, your footsteps echoing too loudly in the quiet house.

You close your bedroom door behind you with a soft click, the sound oddly final. The weight of everything that's been left unsaid hangs heavy in the air. You stand there for a moment, trying to shake off the feeling of being too much... or too little. The tension between you and your mom is always like this—constant, unspoken, as if there's something neither of you knows how to fix.

You let out a breath, the familiar emptiness creeping back in. And all you can think about is how it would be easier if you didn't have to face any of it at all. _______

The moment you step onto school grounds, you can feel the shift in the air. It's like everything goes quiet for just a second before the stares start, the whispers rippling through the crowd. You've gotten used to it, but today it feels heavier. It's as if the weight of all their eyes is pressing down on you from every direction.

You want to disappear, just slip through the cracks and never be seen again. But you can't. You never can.

You keep your head down as you make your way to your locker, your footsteps sounding louder than usual in the silence of the hallway. The locker area is packed with students—some gathered in groups, chatting quietly, others standing alone, but all of them are looking at you. You can't shake the feeling that everyone is watching your every move, just waiting for you to mess up.

You reach your locker, your fingers trembling slightly as you twist the combination. That's when you see her. Yuji. Standing right next to you, her eyes immediately finding yours.

"Hey," Yuji says with a small smile, her voice a little too loud in the quiet hall. It's the kind of smile that's meant to chase away the tension, the kind of smile that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, things won't feel so heavy today.

But even her presence doesn't seem to ease the weight in your chest. You force a smile back, though it doesn't quite reach your eyes. "Hey."

Yuji doesn't miss the way you hesitate, the way you're still looking down, trying to avoid the eyes that you know are following your every move. She's not oblivious.

"You alright?" she asks softly, a little quieter now. She leans closer, as if to shield you from the prying gazes around you. It's a small gesture, but it means a lot.

You nod quickly, even though you know it's not true. "Yeah. I'm fine," you say, the words coming out a little too quickly, too flat.

Yuji gives you a look, the kind that says she knows you're lying, but she doesn't push it. Instead, she glances around at the other students who are clearly trying to act casual but are failing miserably. Some are still staring, others whispering. But Yuji's attention is back on you almost immediately.

"I brought you coffee," she says, holding out a cup. You notice the faint blush on her cheeks. "I thought you might need it. Or... I could just be trying to be your caffeine dealer."

You take the cup, and for a moment, just holding it feels like a small comfort. You don't drink it yet, just cradle it in your hands like it might be the only thing grounding you to the present.

"Thanks," you say quietly, looking up at her for a split second, enough to see the kindness in her eyes. But then you glance away, unable to hold her gaze for too long.

"Don't let them get to you," Yuji says, almost as if she's trying to convince herself just as much as she's trying to convince you. "They're just idiots."

You chuckle, though it's bitter. You want to believe her, but you don't think it's that simple. "Yeah, maybe."

A brief silence falls between you, but it's not uncomfortable. Yuji seems to understand that you need a moment. You stare at the coffee cup, your thoughts racing. You wish you could ignore it all, pretend it wasn't happening, but the whispers are still there, the stares still following you. You don't want Yuji to see how much it's affecting you, so you just swallow it down and let it settle somewhere deep inside you, where you can bury it for later.

Yuji shifts slightly, looking at the students who are still staring. "Do you want to go get some breakfast? Maybe avoid the hallway chaos for a bit?"

You hesitate. The idea of avoiding the constant pressure of the hallway feels like a good one, but you're not sure if it's just putting off the inevitable. You're already dreading the rest of the day, but for now, you don't want to be alone with your thoughts.

"Yeah," you say softly, your voice barely above a whisper, but it's a quiet relief to hear the words leave your mouth. You look at Yuji, the smallest smile playing at the corner of your lips. "That sounds good."

Yuji grins, her eyes lighting up just a little. "Alright, let's get out of here."

As the two of you start to walk away, you can feel the eyes on you again, but this time, they don't seem quite as suffocating. With Yuji by your side, it feels a little easier to breathe.

For now, that's enough.

The hum of the cafeteria surrounds you, but it feels distant, like you're floating in your own little bubble. You sit across from Yuji, sipping on your coffee, not really tasting it. You've had it black for as long as you can remember—no sugar, no cream. It's not about liking it. It's just what you've been doing lately.

Yuji nudges you gently, looking at your tray, or rather, the lack of one. "Y/N," she says, her voice light but carrying an edge of concern, "you really not gonna eat anything?"

You shrug, trying to avoid her gaze. "I'm not hungry," you mumble, focusing on the steam rising from your cup. You've said it a million times, so much that the words have become almost automatic.

Yuji doesn't buy it. She studies you for a moment, her eyes tracing the way you keep fiddling with your coffee cup. She's worried. You can feel it. But you don't want to talk about it right now.

Instead, you glance up, just in time to notice Ateez walking into the cafeteria. The buzz of their presence ripples through the room. Some people look at them with admiration, some with envy, but you know the drill—everyone's eyes are always on them. Especially today, when they seem to be more confident than ever.

You can feel the shift in the air as the members pass by your table. Hongjoong is leading the group, his sharp eyes scanning the room, and as his gaze lands on you, it lingers for a fraction of a second longer than it should. You quickly look away, focusing back on your coffee, but not before you catch the way the others glance at you too.

Seonghwa, ever observant, shoots you a small look of curiosity, and Yunho tilts his head ever so slightly as they walk past. Mingi and Wooyoung share a quiet exchange, their gazes flicking between you and the others. San, with his usual cheer, glances your way too, but quickly turns to the conversation with his friends.

It's brief. But you can feel them noticing. You don't want to draw attention, but somehow, the attention is always there.

They make their way past, settling a few tables over, and you can hear snippets of their conversation—laughter, teasing, and the occasional word exchanged between them. And yet, even as they settle into their space, you know they're still watching you. There's something about the way they all looked, almost like they were sizing you up without saying a word.

You try to ignore it, but it's hard to, especially when you feel Yuji's gaze on you again, waiting for you to say something.

"Y/N, you really okay?" she asks quietly, leaning in slightly, her tone still light but serious enough that you know she means it.

You shake your head a little, offering her a half-hearted smile that doesn't quite meet your eyes. "I'm fine," you murmur, but it feels like a lie, even to you. You just don't want to talk about it anymore. Not here, not now.

The table falls into a quiet lull as you both sit there, and you try to focus on anything but the gnawing emptiness in your stomach. You're not hungry. But the words are empty, just like you feel.

Ateez's presence lingers in the background as their laughter fills the air. You catch fleeting glances from across the cafeteria—nothing obvious, just them looking at each other and exchanging words you can't quite make out. They're curious. Or maybe they just want to know who you are, the quiet girl who everyone seems to talk about but no one truly understands.

You sigh quietly, closing your eyes for a second, wishing for the day to just speed up so you can retreat to your own space. _______

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday feels like a breath of fresh air. The usual buzz of school is muted today, as everyone scatters to catch up on assignments or just relax. The library is almost empty, save for a few students scattered in corners, their heads buried in books or their phones.

You and Yuji have found your usual corner—a cozy, quiet spot tucked away in the back, where no one bothers you. It's like your little refuge, away from the whispers and the stares. Yuji's flipping through her notebook, jotting down something, while you're just sprawled out on the chair, headphones in, but not really listening to anything. It's a rare moment of peace.

You glance at her, watching the way her pen moves effortlessly across the paper. It's easy to forget the world around you when you're with her. She's the only person who can make you feel like you're not invisible—like you're actually worth something. But even so, there's still this gnawing emptiness inside of you.

The sound of footsteps suddenly breaks the calm, and a group of girls enters the library. You don't know them well—just a few familiar faces from the hallways and lunch periods. They make their way past the shelves, their voices sharp and clear, talking about the party they're planning for Friday.

Yuji doesn't notice them at first, but you do. You catch snippets of their conversation, and you feel a pang in your chest. A party. Something you'll never be invited to. You try to push the feeling away.

One of the girls, a blonde with a mischievous smile, turns to Yuji, her voice a little too loud. "Hey, Yuji! There's a party at Rachel's house on Friday. You should totally come! It's gonna be amazing."

Yuji grins, nodding in excitement. "Sounds fun! I'll think about it."

As the group of girls starts to leave, they glance at you. It's brief, just a fleeting look, but it's enough to make you feel it—their eyes on you. Their quiet judgment.

Then, they exchange a glance between themselves, their lips curving into smirks before they laugh. "Yeah, maybe she can come, too," one of them says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "If she even gets invited."

You feel your cheeks flush, the heat of embarrassment crawling up your neck. You don't say anything, trying to shrink back into the chair, hoping the floor might just swallow you whole. Yuji doesn't seem to notice the way you tense up, but you can feel her staring at you, the quiet concern in her gaze.

When the girls leave, she turns to you, her brow furrowed. "Are you okay?" she asks quietly, her voice gentle. She knows you well enough to see when something's off, even if you don't want to show it.

You nod quickly, a tight smile pulling at the corners of your lips. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just... tired, you know?"

Yuji doesn't seem convinced. She leans forward, placing her notebook down on the table. "Hey," she says, voice soft but firm. "There's going to be a party on Friday. I want you to come with me."

You blink at her, taken aback. "What? Why?"

Yuji shrugs, her gaze sincere. "Because you deserve to have fun, too. You're my friend, Y/N. I want you there."

You feel a lump form in your throat, the weight of her words settling over you like a heavy blanket. Her wanting you to be included, to be part of something, is enough to make you feel something you haven't felt in a long time: hope.

But you can't bring yourself to say yes—not yet. There's something about the idea of being in a crowd, of having all those eyes on you, that makes you want to run.

"Maybe," you say, your voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know if I can. I'm not really good at parties."

Yuji smiles gently, her eyes kind. "You don't have to be. Just come with me, alright? We can stick together."

You nod slowly, unsure of what to say next. You want to say yes, to be with her, but there's that familiar fear. The fear of being judged, of standing out in all the wrong ways.

But for the first time in a long time, you feel a tiny flicker of hope. Maybe—just maybe—this could be something worth trying.

Yuji leans back in her chair, content with your answer. "It'll be fun. I promise."

You don't say anything, but a part of you feels lighter. For now, that's enough.

You sit quietly in the library, your sketchbook open in front of you, pencil in hand as you try to focus on the lines you're drawing. Your mind feels foggy, but the rhythm of your hand moving across the page is comforting, even if the drawing is just an abstract mess of sharp shapes. It's something to distract you from the chaos of your thoughts.

Yuji, sitting beside you, taps away at her phone, lost in her own world. You glance at her, and she notices your gaze. "I'm gonna head to the bathroom," she says, giving you a small, reassuring smile. "I'll be right back."

You give her a slight nod, still focused on the page in front of you. It's easier to be alone, even if only for a little while. You continue sketching, trying to ignore the dull ache in your chest. The quiet of the library wraps around you, but the feeling of being watched starts to creep up your spine.

Before you can shake it off, the door to the library opens, and a few familiar voices cut through the stillness. Ateez.

You tense up instinctively. The last time you saw them, they barely acknowledged you. But now... now they're walking toward you, casual but purposeful, like they know exactly what they're doing.

San, with his usual smirk, is the first to approach, plopping down into the seat across from you. His eyes scan you, lingering just a little too long. "Well, look who's sitting all alone again," he says, voice teasing.

Mingi follows him, taking the seat beside you. He leans back in his chair with a wide grin, watching you intently. "You know, you've got this quiet vibe going on," he says, as if this is the most intriguing thing he's ever discovered. "It's pretty interesting."

Yunho slides into the seat next to Mingi, chuckling. "I think we've all been wondering about you," he says, glancing at the others as if they're all in on some unspoken joke. "You keep to yourself a lot. Why's that?"

You swallow, unease creeping up your throat. Why are they talking to you like this? Why are they acting like they're interested now when just a week ago they couldn't be bothered to even look your way?

Wooyoung, always the one to push boundaries, sits next to you with a sly smile. "I think we could get to know each other better," he says, his voice lowering, almost like a whisper meant only for you. His fingers brush your wrist as he leans closer, making you flinch slightly.

You don't know how to respond. You feel frozen, unsure of what to make of this attention. They're flirting with you—touching you in ways that are unfamiliar, and you can't figure out why. The confusion makes your head spin, and you can't help but feel a little sick.

You glance around, searching for an escape, but there's no sign of Yuji. She's still not back. You want to leave, but something keeps you rooted to the spot, your hand trembling slightly around your pencil.

San, who's been watching you carefully, leans forward with a teasing grin. "Come on, Y/N," he says, voice light and playful, "you don't have to be so shy. We're just trying to get to know you."

Mingi chuckles and lightly nudges you, his fingers brushing against your shoulder. "Yeah, just relax a little. You might actually enjoy hanging out with us."

Yunho adds, his tone casual, almost as if this is the most normal thing in the world, "You're not so bad once you open up, you know?"

Wooyoung flicks his gaze from you to the others, amused by your discomfort. He leans in even closer, his face just a little too near for comfort. "Or maybe you're just playing hard to get." His hand rests lightly on the edge of your chair, brushing your arm once more.

You feel a chill run down your spine. What's going on? Why are they acting like this? You want to ask, but the words don't come. Instead, you keep your eyes on your sketchbook, focusing on the page in front of you to try to ground yourself.

You can feel Hongjoong and Seonghwa watching from a distance, their eyes never leaving you. Their smiles are quiet, knowing, like they're watching a game unfold and you're the centerpiece of it.

Jongho and Yeosang, always the more reserved of the group, are observing, but they don't join in. They don't have to. You can feel their eyes on you, sharp and calculating.

You don't know what to say. You don't even know if you want to say anything. All of this is too much. Why are they suddenly interested in you? Why are they treating you like this when they've been so cold before?

San chuckles as he watches your confused expression. "I'm just messing with you, Y/N. Don't take it too seriously."

You try to give him a small smile, but it feels empty, like a mask you're putting on to hide the way your chest is tightening, the way your thoughts are racing.

Mingi, never one to leave well enough alone, leans even closer. "But seriously," he says, lowering his voice just a touch, "you're pretty cute when you're flustered. It's like we've been waiting for you to come out of your shell."

You want to shout at them to stop, but you don't. You don't have the energy. You don't know how to fight back against this strange attention. You just want them to leave you alone, to stop acting like they've suddenly discovered something interesting about you. But they're here now, and they're not going anywhere.

You feel trapped in your own body, stuck between the walls of this library, surrounded by their constant attention. You can't breathe.

Just then, you hear the door creak open, and you look up to see Yuji walking back into the library. Her gaze immediately falls on the group, and she walks toward you with a frown.

She doesn't say anything at first, just stands there for a moment, observing the situation. Finally, she clears her throat and addresses them. "Are you guys bothering Y/N?" she asks, her voice soft but firm. There's a hint of concern in her eyes as she turns to look at you.

You're grateful for her presence, but you're also embarrassed. You don't want her to have to step in for you. You don't want anyone to see how uncomfortable this is making you.

Ateez exchanges a few looks, clearly amused by Yuji's interruption. San shrugs with a playful grin. "We're just getting to know her better," he says, leaning back in his chair as if nothing's wrong.

Yuji doesn't seem convinced, her gaze flickering between you and the group. "Well, I think that's enough for now," she says, a slight edge in her voice.

They all laugh lightly, but there's something about the way they're looking at you now—something unsettling. You can feel their eyes on you even after Yuji's come to your defense.

And as Yuji sits down beside you again, you realize something. It's not just the flirting that's confusing. It's the fact that, in some twisted way, you feel like you're the one being toyed with.

And it's only just begun.

You're still sitting at the table when Yuji returns, wiping her hands on her jeans and glancing around suspiciously.

"They were here, weren't they?" she asks, sliding back into the seat across from you.

You don't say anything right away. Your pencil is still in your hand, frozen in place above your sketchbook, but your eyes are unfocused, distant.

"Y/N."

Your name pulls you out of your daze. You glance up at her. She's watching you closely now—concern knitting her brows together.

"They were just... being weird again," you mutter, voice low.

Yuji frowns. "Weird how?"

You hesitate. Your mind replays San's smirk, the way Mingi kept leaning closer than necessary, how Wooyoung's fingers brushed your wrist like it meant something—and those stupid, mocking smiles from Hongjoong and Seonghwa. Like they knew exactly what they were doing to you.

"I don't know," you lie. "They were just... bothering me. Like always."

Yuji crosses her arms, her tone softer than before. "Y/N, they weren't bothering you. They were flirting."

You let out a bitter laugh, though there's no humor in it. "Don't joke."

"I'm not," she says. "You didn't notice the way they were all over you? The touches, the smiles? It's like they were trying to get a reaction out of you."

You shake your head. "They hate me. Just last week, they were calling me names with everyone else."

"Well, something changed," Yuji says. "And I don't like it."

You finally meet her gaze. "Why are you so worried?"

Yuji doesn't answer right away. She leans forward, her voice lower now, more intimate. "Because it's like you don't even realize what they're doing. And I don't want them messing with you—not when you're already dealing with so much."

That hits harder than you expect. You feel your chest tighten, your throat sting.

"I'm fine," you say automatically.

But Yuji's expression doesn't budge.

"No, you're not."

You look down, your fingers curling tightly around the edge of your sketchbook.

For a long moment, neither of you says anything. The library buzzes softly in the background—pages turning, quiet whispers, the occasional creak of a chair—but between you and Yuji, it's just silence.

Then, softly, she adds, "You can tell me if it's getting worse, you know."

You nod, though you don't lift your head. "I know."

She doesn't push you after that. She just sits there with you, quiet, steady. And somehow, even with the weight in your chest, that small silence feels like a kind of safety. _______

The rest of the day passes in a blur of silence and stillness. With no classes to rush to, most students scatter across the school—some lounging in the commons, others holed up in empty classrooms, music rooms, or the gym. You and Yuji eventually part ways when she gets pulled into a study session with one of her club friends, promising to meet up again before heading home.

You find yourself alone again.

There's a quiet corner on the second floor near the old art room—abandoned, dusty, and perfect for disappearing. You curl up on the floor with your sketchbook, letting your pencil move on instinct, not thinking, just drawing. It's one of those self-portraits again. The kind you don't want anyone to see. This one feels even darker than the last.

Time slips by unnoticed.

Eventually, you get up and head down toward the front entrance. You figure you'll leave early—no one will notice anyway.

But as you round the corner near the lockers, you stop.

Yeosang is there, leaning against the wall like he's been waiting. Alone.

His eyes find yours instantly.

"Skipping out early?" he asks, voice quiet but clear in the empty hallway.

You blink, caught off guard. "...It's an asynchronous day. There's nothing to skip."

He gives a small smirk, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Fair enough."

You shift your weight, unsure whether to walk past or wait for him to say something else. You hate how nervous he makes you—calm, unreadable, like he sees things you don't want anyone to see.

Yeosang's gaze drops for a moment—to your sketchbook, clutched against your chest.

"You draw a lot," he says, almost thoughtfully.

You grip the sketchbook tighter. "Yeah. So?"

He shrugs. "Just noticing."

A silence hangs between you. You start to walk past him, but just as you do, he says, "You looked different today."

You stop.

"What do you mean?"

He doesn't elaborate—doesn't even look at you when he says, "You just did."

Then he turns and walks away, leaving you standing there in the dim hallway, heart pounding and mind spinning.

The bus ride home feels longer than usual.

You sit by the window, sketchbook pressed tightly to your chest, the smudged pencil lines of your latest self-portrait bleeding through the page. You can still hear Yeosang's voice in your head. You looked different today. You don't know what he meant, but it unsettles you.

Maybe he saw it—that emptiness you keep trying to cover up. Maybe he really was just noticing.

You get off two stops early. You don't want to go home yet.

The walk helps. The air is cool, sharp against your skin, and the silence is just loud enough to keep your thoughts from spiraling completely. But by the time you finally unlock the front door and step inside, everything rushes back in at once.

Your mom's voice calls out from her office. "Hey, sweetheart! You home?"

You don't respond at first. Just kick off your shoes and shuffle to your room. You close the door gently behind you—not slamming it, just enough to say not now.

Your room is your only sanctuary.

You toss your bag down and sink into your desk chair. The sketchbook lands on your desk with a dull thud, flipping open to the self-portrait from earlier. The eyes stare back at you—hollow, sunken, vacant.

You look away.

But then, almost without thinking, you reach for the small leather journal buried in your drawer. You flip it open to a blank page, the pen already in your hand before you realize what you're doing.

I don't feel real today.

You pause.

Or maybe I do, and I just hate the way it feels. I thought maybe I was okay for a second. Yuji helps. But...

You don't finish the sentence. You slam the journal shut before you can write something you'll regret.

There's a knock.

Your mom's voice follows. "Can I come in for a second?"

You hesitate. "It's open."

She steps in, holding a mug of tea in one hand. She sets it down beside you like she used to when you were younger—when you'd get too overwhelmed with homework or when life felt just a little too heavy.

"I thought you might want something warm," she says gently. "Long day?"

You nod once, eyes still glued to the desk.

She lingers for a moment, her gaze drifting to your sketchbook.

"That's a new one," she says, pointing to the portrait. "It's really good... but why do you look so sad in it?"

You feel your throat tighten. You don't want to talk about this. You don't want to feel this.

"It's just a sketch," you mutter. "Doesn't mean anything."

Your mom doesn't press. But her silence is loud. When you finally glance up, you catch the look she gives you—worry, confusion, maybe even fear. She shares a glance with the mug, then you again.

"I'll let you rest," she says softly. "Dinner's in an hour."

She leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

You stare down at the self-portrait again.

Maybe it's not the drawing that's sad. Maybe it's the reflection. _______

It's quiet again.

Dinner was brief, mostly silent. Your mom kept giving you those sidelong glances, like she wanted to say something but didn't know how to start. You kept your eyes on your plate the entire time.

Now you're curled up on your bed, the dim glow of your lamp casting long shadows across your room. The TV is on, but muted. Background noise. You're not really watching.

Your phone buzzes once beside you.

Yuji [8:52 PM]: hey, that party's this friday btw. you're still coming w me right?

You stare at the message for a second, thumb hovering.

A part of you wants to say no. Crowds, music, laughter—it all feels too loud, too heavy. But there's another part... the smaller one, the one that remembers Yuji's hand brushing yours in the cafeteria, the way she looked at you when you said yes the first time. Like you mattered.

You start typing.

You [8:54 PM]: yeah. i'll come.

There's no reply right away, but you can picture her smile anyway.

You set the phone down and glance at your sketchbook across the room. The self-portrait still sits on your desk. You flip over onto your side, away from it. You don't want to see those eyes again—not tonight. _______ THURSDAY

The usual whispers follow you through the hallway as you walk to your locker. The familiar weight of judgment and curiosity from the other students presses on your shoulders. Today, however, it feels different. There's something in the air, an unfamiliar tension as you approach your locker.

Yuji is already there, her eyes flicking up from her phone when she sees you approach. A small smile forms on her lips, but the usual warm greeting is overshadowed by the thick atmosphere surrounding you both. She notices it, too, but doesn't comment on it as you both prepare for the day ahead.

You quickly grab your books, avoiding eye contact with the other students nearby. The whispers grow louder as you finish up. It's as if everyone's waiting for something—waiting for you to slip, to mess up, to give them something to laugh at.

Yuji stands a little taller beside you, her presence grounding, but there's an unspoken understanding between you two. She knows, but she doesn't push. She lets you be, even though the concern is written clearly in her gaze. _______

In the library...again. Yuji went to the bathroom, leaving you alone once more.

You look around and notice something... a familiar book.

You get up and walk up to shelf the book is located on.

You trace your fingers along the faded edges of a book you almost forgot you had. The cover is torn, the colors muted from age, but the title still glimmers faintly beneath the dust. "The Sun That Couldn't Shine." You blink, and the world seems to shift.

Suddenly, you're small again—legs dangling off your bed, knees pressed together in pajama pants too long for your frame. Your mom's voice echoes gently as she reads the last line of the book, her hand smoothing over your hair. "Even the quietest suns still burn."

You remember clutching a crayon, scribbling something in the back cover the moment she left the room. Your spelling wasn't perfect back then, but the words were full of something you don't feel anymore.

"One day, I'll be okay. I just need to be seen."

Back in the present, you stare at that messy, hopeful scrawl. It hits like a punch. That little version of you—small hands, big dreams—really believed in something. In being okay. In being seen.

Now? You don't even remember what it felt like to believe in anything at all.

"Hey... you okay?"

Her voice is gentle, but it cuts through the silence like a bell. You flinch slightly, closing the book quicker than you mean to. Yuji stands behind you, holding a small cup of water, her brows pinched with concern.

You nod, too fast. "Yeah. I'm fine."

She doesn't believe you—of course she doesn't—but she doesn't push either. She walks in and sits beside you on the floor, glancing at the old book in your lap.

"What's that?"

You hesitate before answering, fingers brushing the edge of the cover. "Just a book from when I was a kid. My mom used to read it to me."

Yuji hums softly and leans her head back against the wall. "I used to love stuff like that. You kind of forget how safe it felt to be read to, y'know?"

You don't answer right away. The air feels heavier now. You stare down at your hands, still resting on the book, and something inside your chest twists.

Yuji turns her head to look at you. "You sure you're okay?"

"I said I'm fine."

It comes out sharper than intended, and instantly, you regret it. Yuji flinches, just slightly, her expression falling.

You swallow hard, curling your fingers into your palms. "Sorry. I just... It's been a weird day."

She nods slowly, watching you. Then, she says softly, "You don't have to pretend with me, you know."

You look away. You wish you could believe that.

But for now, you just murmur, "Thanks," and rest your head back against the wall beside her, eyes closing as the quiet hum of the house settles around you both.

You sit there in silence, the tension between you and your mom still lingering in the air, even after she left. Yuji's presence beside you is steady, quiet, like a tether keeping you grounded while the storm inside you simmers low.

"You ever think about what it would be like if none of this ever happened?" she asks after a while, her voice gentle.

You glance at her, brows furrowing. "What do you mean?"

She shrugs, fingers picking at the frayed seam of her jeans. "If school wasn't hell. If people weren't so cruel. If... if you didn't feel like disappearing all the time."

That word again—disappearing.

You let out a soft exhale, staring at the floor. "I used to think about that all the time. Like... if I just vanished. No goodbye. Just gone. Would anyone even care?"

Yuji turns to face you fully, her expression tightening. "Y/N..."

"I'm not saying I'm gonna do anything," you add quickly, your voice quieter now. "It's just... sometimes it feels like I'm already gone, you know? Like I'm just floating through everything. Like I'm hollow."

The silence that follows is thick with unspoken worry.

"You matter," she says suddenly, her voice stronger than before. "Even if they made you feel like you don't. You do. I see you."

You blink, caught off guard by the certainty in her words.

You can't bring yourself to say anything, not really. So instead, you reach into your bag and pull out your sketchbook—worn, smudged, the corners soft from being touched too much. You flip past old drawings, hesitant, until you find a blank page.

You glance at her, then down at the paper, and start to draw.

Yuji doesn't say anything as she watches your hand move, the pencil gliding over the page. Slowly, a figure begins to form—a girl, alone in a room. Surrounded by darkness, faceless shadows, their eyes all fixed on her. But in her hand, there's something small. A faint flicker of light. A flower. Maybe a flame. You're not sure yet.

"That's... beautiful," Yuji whispers. "But sad."

You shrug, not looking up. "It's just how I feel sometimes."

She's quiet for a moment, then leans in closer. "Is the light hope?"

You pause, your pencil hovering above the paper. "I don't know. Maybe it's someone."

Your eyes flick up to meet hers, just for a second.

Yuji doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to. Her gaze says enough.

"I hope she holds on to it," she murmurs, almost like she's talking to the girl on the page. Or maybe... to you.

You don't respond—not out loud. Instead, you keep drawing.

And for now, that's enough. _______

The courtyard feels like the calmest part of the school, a place to breathe, away from the chatter and the stares. Yuji and you have found a quiet spot under a large tree, just the two of you. The sunlight filters through the leaves, casting gentle shadows on the ground as you sit on the bench.

Yuji's eating her lunch with enthusiasm, a lighthearted energy in contrast to your stillness. You've barely touched your food.

"Are you going to eat that?" Yuji asks, her voice casual, but there's an undertone of concern as she looks at your untouched sandwich.

You shrug, poking at the sandwich with your fingers. "I'm not really hungry," you say, your voice flat. It's easier to say that than admit you're just not in the mood for anything, not when everything feels so heavy.

Yuji leans forward, her brow furrowing slightly. "You always say that," she points out, her tone a mix of teasing and worry. "Come on, just take a bite. For me?" She grins, trying to lighten the mood, but there's something more serious behind her eyes.

You sigh, feeling the weight of her gaze on you. You don't want to argue. You don't want to make her worry more than she already does. So, with a reluctant breath, you pick up the sandwich and take a small bite, just enough to satisfy her.

Yuji watches you closely, and when she sees you chew, her face lights up, proud of her small victory. "See? That wasn't so bad, right?"

You swallow the bite, almost mechanically. "Yeah, fine," you mumble, not really feeling the taste of it, but trying to make Yuji happy.

Yuji's smile softens, her eyes glancing at you in a way that makes you feel like she can see through your calm exterior. She leans back against the tree, crossing her arms, but her eyes never leave you. "You're not fooling me, you know. I know you don't just eat to make me happy. You always try to downplay things like this. It's okay to just let it be for once."

You shift uncomfortably, your gaze dropping to the half-eaten sandwich in your hands. It's hard for you to talk about things like this. Eating, or the lack of it, is one of those silent battles you've always fought alone. But Yuji's here, and she's waiting for you to say something more.

"I don't know," you whisper, feeling the words slip out before you can stop them. "It just doesn't feel worth it sometimes, you know? Like nothing feels right."

Yuji's expression softens even more, and she sits a little closer, the space between you growing smaller. "I get it," she says quietly, her voice gentle. "But you don't have to do this alone. You don't have to feel like it's not worth it. I'm here. And maybe... maybe we can make it worth it together."

The sincerity in her voice catches you off guard, and for a moment, you just stare at her, unsure of how to respond. It's not that you don't want to believe her—it's just hard. Hard to trust that anything will change. Hard to trust that the weight you carry will actually lift.

But Yuji's here, and you don't want to push her away.

You take another small bite of your sandwich, this time with less resistance. Yuji watches, a soft smile tugging at the corners of her lips. It's a small moment, but it feels like progress, like maybe you're not as alone in this as you always believed.

For the first time today, you let yourself relax, just a little.

The bathroom is cold. Quiet. The only sound is the hum of fluorescent lights and your soft footsteps as you approach the mirror. You stare at the reflection for a second too long — already uncomfortable with how your face looks today. Your hair. Your arms. Everything.

You're not hungry. You haven't been. But Yuji looked so hopeful when you bit into that sandwich earlier... you couldn't let her down.

Your stomach churns.

Then the door creaks open.

Laughter follows.

Three girls strut in, and the moment they spot you, their voices drop to that sharp, cruel whisper that's meant to be heard.

"She's seriously still here? Like a stray dog."

"Yuji's probably just using her for sympathy points."

"Imagine looking like that and thinking you belong."

Their eyes flick to your body before they giggle and walk out, leaving a bitter silence behind them.

You breathe in slowly.

Then the flashbacks begin.

Flashback – Old School, 7th Grade PE Class

"Come on, Y/N, hustle! The other girls aren't waiting on you!" Your old gym teacher, frustrated as usual, barked across the field.

A group of girls nearby snickered.

"Why does she run like that? She looks weird."

"She's not even big, but her legs still jiggle. Gross."

Flashback – Freshman Year, Hallway

"If I looked like her, I'd never take my jacket off."

A voice behind you. You didn't even know who said it. But you heard it. You always did.

"She tries way too hard. It's kind of sad."

"You have such a pretty face... if only you were a little slimmer."

You were never overweight. Never even close. But it didn't matter. Because they made you feel like you were.

They said it enough times, in enough ways, until the mirror stopped telling you the truth.

Back in the present, your throat tightens.

You push into a stall and lock it behind you, heart racing.

You drop to your knees.

And for a moment, you're numb — then full of guilt, then nothing again. Your fingers tremble as they press against your lips.

You just want the food out. Like it doesn't belong.

Like you don't belong.

It happens quickly. A quiet purge, like muscle memory.

When it's over, you stay on the floor for a while. Arms wrapped around your middle. Breathing shallow. Eyes closed.

No one sees this version of you.

Not Yuji.

Not your mom.

No one.

You sit there, curled up in the bathroom stall. The world feels distant, muted. It's like you're watching yourself from the outside, as if someone else is living in your body, making the choices.

After a while, you stand up, shaky legs supporting your weight. You force yourself to wash your hands, then splash cold water on your face. It stings, and the coldness sharpens your mind.

You don't have much time. You can't stay here forever.

You stare at your reflection again, looking for any trace of what you were before. Any hint of normalcy.

But it's gone. And you wonder if it was ever really there in the first place.

You dry your face with a paper towel, wipe away any remaining trace of the earlier moment, and step out of the stall. The bathroom's still empty, but the air feels heavier now.

The lunch bell rings, and you linger by the bathroom for a while, trying to pull yourself together. You don't want to face anyone yet. Not after what just happened. The cold, harsh reflection of yourself still lingers in your mind, making your chest tighten.

You know you can't avoid it forever, though.

You slowly make your way out of the bathroom and back into the crowded hallway, your steps heavy, like you're wading through molasses. But when you reach the courtyard, you spot Yuji sitting on the steps by the garden, looking down at her phone. She notices you right away, her face lighting up with that easy smile you've grown to love.

"Hey, Y/N," she calls out, waving you over, her voice warm and welcoming.

You feel your stomach drop. You don't want to do this — pretend everything's fine when it's clearly not. But what else can you do?

You take a deep breath, steeling yourself. You force your feet to move toward her.

"Hey," you reply, trying to sound as casual as possible as you sit down next to her. Your body feels stiff, like you're wearing someone else's skin.

Yuji gives you a quick glance, her smile slipping slightly as she notices the way you're acting. But she doesn't say anything about it. Instead, she shifts so that she's facing you more directly.

"Everything okay?" she asks, her tone gentle, like she's treading carefully. "You were gone for a bit."

You hesitate for a moment before answering, not sure if you want to say anything at all. You glance at her and then quickly look away, trying to find something to focus on other than her gaze.

"I'm fine," you mutter, the words automatic. You don't know why you say it, but you can't help it. It's easier than explaining how you feel, how much everything is falling apart.

Yuji looks at you with concern, clearly not convinced. "You've been saying that a lot lately," she observes softly, a hint of worry creeping into her voice. "I'm really starting to think it's not true."

You feel your chest tighten again, like a vice is slowly squeezing the air out of you. You want to tell her, you really do. But it feels like the words are lodged in your throat, stuck behind a wall you can't tear down.

"I'm just... not hungry today," you say, as if that's enough of an explanation. It's a lie, but it's the easiest one to give.

Yuji tilts her head, watching you carefully. She reaches out, placing her hand gently on your arm. "Y/N, I'm serious. I'm worried about you."

For a moment, you freeze, the weight of her concern hitting you harder than you expected. The gentle pressure of her hand on your arm feels grounding, but it also makes your insides twist uncomfortably. You don't want her to worry. You don't want her to see how broken you are.

"I'm fine," you repeat, your voice quieter this time, barely above a whisper.

Yuji doesn't let go of your arm, though. She keeps her hand there, and you can feel her warmth seeping into you. You glance at her face, and for a split second, you see something in her eyes — a mix of concern and frustration, but mostly care. She's not buying your words, but she doesn't push you either.

She sighs softly. "Okay, but don't think I'm not here for you, alright? You can talk to me anytime. I just... I don't want you to feel alone in this."

The sincerity in her voice makes your throat tighten again, and you have to blink quickly to push away the sudden lump of emotion threatening to rise up. You don't know how to respond, so you just nod.

"I know," you say, your voice barely audible. "Thanks, Yuji."

She gives you a small, understanding smile, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. There's still a hint of worry in her expression, but she doesn't say anything more. You're not sure if you're relieved or more anxious.

The two of you sit there for a while, the silence wrapping around you like a heavy blanket. The world moves around you, people chatting, walking, and laughing, but you feel detached from it all. You don't belong here. You don't belong anywhere.

You glance at Yuji again, noticing how she's looking at you like she's waiting for you to say something more. But you can't bring yourself to speak.

Eventually, Yuji looks down at her phone and starts scrolling through it absently, but you can tell her mind isn't really on it. Her attention keeps drifting back to you, checking in silently as if she's waiting for something you haven't yet said.

You know she's not going to let this go. You know she won't stop worrying. But for now, all you can do is sit here with her, pretending everything is fine — even though you both know it's not. _______ The school bell rings, signaling the end of the day. Students trickle out of the classrooms, laughter echoing in the halls. You, however, barely hear any of it. The noise of the world outside seems distant, muffled, like you're underwater.

Yuji walks beside you as you make your way to the school gates, her upbeat chatter something you can barely process. You try to focus on her, on her words, but everything feels like it's swirling too fast around you.

You just need to get home. You need to escape this place, to get away from the stares and the whispers and the weight of it all.

"Hey, are you alright?" Yuji asks, looking at you with those wide, concerned eyes again. She's noticed the way you've been shutting down lately.

"Yeah, I'm fine," you say, the words coming out too quickly. It's your default response, the one you're so used to, but something in the back of your mind nags at you. The lie feels too thin now, like it can't hold up under the weight of everything.

Yuji doesn't press, though. She just gives you a small smile and pats your arm lightly. "You sure? If you need to talk later, you know where to find me."

You nod, too exhausted to say anything else. You want to tell her everything, but every time you try, the words feel like they're stuck in your throat. It's easier to let her believe the lie.

———————————————————————————————

The walk home is quiet, the evening air cool against your skin. You try to focus on the little things — the rustling of leaves in the breeze, the distant sound of cars passing — but your mind is a tangled mess of thoughts, none of which seem to make sense.

You arrive home, the door creaking open as you step inside. The house feels too big, too silent. You drop your bag by the door and make your way to your room, your legs heavy with the weight of the day.

You sit down at your desk, the familiar sight of your sketchbook and journal greeting you. But for some reason, you can't bring yourself to pick them up.

Instead, you sit there, staring blankly at the wall, feeling the emptiness spread through your chest like a slow ache. You can hear your mom moving around downstairs, but you don't have the energy to interact with her right now.

A soft knock on your door breaks the silence.

"Y/N?" your mom calls, her voice tentative. "Dinner's ready. You should come eat."

You don't respond immediately, staring at the door as if you could will her away. You don't feel like eating. You don't feel like doing anything. But eventually, you stand up, your legs shaky as you move toward the door.

You open it slowly, seeing your mom standing there, a faint smile on her face. "You okay?"

You want to say something. You want to tell her how you feel, how everything feels too much, but the words don't come. Instead, you give her a small, tight smile and shake your head. "I'm fine."

Her smile falters, and for a moment, she looks like she wants to say something more. But she just sighs and nods, her expression softening. "Alright. Just... remember, I'm here if you need me."

You nod absently, stepping past her and heading down the stairs to the kitchen. The silence between you both feels heavier now, like you're worlds apart.

As you sit down at the table, your eyes glance briefly at the food in front of you, but the thought of eating makes your stomach twist. Instead, you push the food around with your fork, pretending to eat.

The conversation at the table is distant, like it's happening far away, beyond your reach. You can't focus on what they're saying, can't bring yourself to care. Everything feels out of place, like you're watching from behind a glass.

When dinner is finally over, you retreat back to your room, closing the door behind you with a soft click. You stand in the middle of your room, looking at your sketchbook again, the journal still sitting untouched on your desk.

You reach for it, running your fingers over the worn cover. For a moment, you wonder if it's worth it. But you know you can't keep hiding forever.

With a deep breath, you open the journal and begin to write.

☆𝑻𝑨𝑮𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻☆|@anonymip @miyadollie @yuyuslay @hannahstacos @beljakovina @rinabluess

do not steal, copy, or claim my work as your own. ALL RIGHTS RESERVES FOR noirelyx