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cuubism · 1 year ago

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I’m BEGGING for more “retired!Dream opens up a weird magic fey bookshop” au. Its so intriguing!

you are in luck. i wrote more

"So," Hob says, leaning in the doorway of Dream's study-of-sorts, "much as I love the recommendations, do you mind if I browse?"

He's taken, recently, to meeting Dream on the upper floor of the shop, bringing coffee and watching Dream label and sort his new books in incomprehensible categories. He usually gets some interesting book facts out of it, too, or strange little stories -- "this book washed up on the Sardinian shore some years ago", "this was signed by a long-dead author, I've been curious to see how long it will take for a collector to find it," "an old man bestowed this upon me on the eve of his death, it's the only copy in existence" and so on -- not to mention the pleasure of Dream's company. He is so odd, and so engaging.

Dream looks up at him now with a tiny smile that crinkles the corner of his eyes. "Of course. Find whatever you wish."

Hob has been wondering if Dream's serendipitous knack with books will extend to browsing, to random finds. Only one way to know.

He leaves Dream to his labeling and goes to wander the shop.

This time, he does get swallowed in Oneiromancy, where he finds Sleeping Worlds, a book about dream travel. Then he wanders deeper into the shop, passes categories like, "Cat Training," CLOCKS, "Mathematics: Easy -> Impossible", and, "♾". Of course he goes into Infinity, and picks up The Birth of Numbers, a book whose text starts in the center of the page and spirals outwards, font growing larger as the book goes on, and in another section called "Romance: DIFFICULT LEVEL" -- whatever the hell difficult means -- he picks up a tiny book that's just one line, one syllable on each page.

want

you

see.

God, Dream's shop is weird.

Dream finds him there some time later, deep in Sleeping Worlds. "I see you've had a productive day."

"Yeah, sorry, lost track of time."

Dream keeps looking at him with a little smirk.

Worry darts through Hob's stomach. "Wait, what time is it?"

"Midnight," says Dream, with satisfaction. "I've absorbed you."

Yeah, no kidding. Hob scrambles to his feet. "Jesus, Dream, sorry. I'll get out of your hair."

"No matter. This is what The Library is for."

Hob goes to hand him the books, and he waves a hand. "Keep them, I will get them back eventually."

Ominous. Great.

"Gonna break into my house and retrieve them?" Hob asks. He probably wouldn't even mind, to be honest.

"Nothing so alarming." He gestures Hob forward, and Hob follows, lets Dream walk him out.

It is, indeed, pitch dark outside on their shared street. Hob's supposed to open the cafe at 6. Whoops.

"Thanks for the books, Dream," he says. "And for. Ten hours of distraction, apparently."

Dream leans in the narrow doorway of his shop. "Of course. Come browse... anytime."

And he melts back into the shadows as Hob steps down onto the street.

Hob wonders if he's an idiot for wanting to ask Dream out. Dream is clearly some kind of other thing, and hanging around him did kind of get Hob cursed. But the way he bites his lip when he's making notes in books is so cute. His unerring ability to make perfect book selections is both strange and endearing -- even the books Hob had picked up on his own had been exactly what he hadn't known he was looking for. Hob's heart picks up every time he steps into the cafe.

But if he's to ask out Dream, his own personal weird bookshop creature, he has to do it right.

And he knows how.

The next time Dream comes in for coffee, Hob sits down across from him and hands him a book. Dream looks at it in surprise, and Hob has the sudden thought that as the all-powerful selector of tomes, he probably isn't gifted books himself.

The book is called, Broken Hands. Hob had pulled it off his own shelf. Dream doesn't ask him what it is, instead he flips open the cover and reads, as Hob had hoped he would.

The first page of Broken Hands has the following paragraph:

Kissing her hand, he came to know himself. Kissing her mouth, he came to know them both. When they went onward, for now only in his mind, he kissed more of her, and more, and more, and then, he knew her. He wanted to know her.

Dream reads it, and looks back up at him. Offers a tiny smile. Yes, Hob knew he would get it.

"You have something you would like to ask me, Hob Gadling?" he says softly.

"You have something you want to answer?"

Dream takes a long sip of his coffee, but looks at Hob over the rim of the mug, a smile in his eyes. Then he swipes away the milk foam from his upper lip with his tongue and says, "I'd say that you are very foolish, to still wish to associate with someone who did, in a sense, get you cursed. But that I find myself grateful for this foolishness. People do often come back to the library, once they find it-- but they don't often come back for me."

It makes Hob sad to imagine--Dream the perennial custodian of The Library, shepherd of its patrons, gifting small touches of coincidence and magic, but always in the background, a bridge and not a destination. Meanwhile, Hob likes the strange books, but it's Dream he keeps wanting to hover around, to lure back into his own space.

He dares to take Dream's hand and squeezes. "...So?"

"I'd say that I'd like to get coffee with you, if you know a place."

Cheeky thing. "Yeah, there's a Starbucks a couple blocks down," Hob says, gesturing, and Dream chuckles. Hob's still holding his hand, and brings it to his lips for a light kiss, and gets to watch as Dream's cheeks tint pink. His heart lifts in his chest. So easy and light.

"You're gorgeous," he says, and that blush deepens. "I'd suffer even Starbucks for you."

"You would suffer much, then," says Dream.

"We'll get our Starbucks and wander around WHSmith and have a fabulous date," Hob says, and Dream's face goes through the most exquisite journey of horror.

"You demand too much," he says, faint. "You enjoy my suffering."

"Little bit, yeah." Hob's certainly enjoying the reaction.

Then Dream looks at him in challenge. "Very well," he declares. "You've set the date. Now you must follow through."

Hob can't even spare a thought to the distasteful activities he's now gotten himself into--he has a date with Dream. "So that's a yes?"

Dream smiles again, a tiny, pleased thing. "It is a yes, Hob Gadling."

They do go to Starbucks. Hob is treated to the glorious sight of Dream sipping a pink drink out of a long straw, which is so worth dealing with the coffee. Then he indeed drags Dream to WHSmith, where Dream stands in the middle of the brightly-lit store, spins in a circle staring at carefully lined book displays with wide eyes, says, "Hell would be more merciful," and bolts away. Hob follows him, laughing.

Outside, he finds Dream leaning in the shade of a tree, looking vaguely shell-shocked. Hob really shouldn't keep laughing at him, but he can't help it. "Were you traumatized permanently by the big chain store?"

"Yes," says Dream, but, despite the perilous adventure, smiles. "You are a cruel man, Hob Gadling."

"Nah. Just harnessed the fluorescent lighting to chase you back into the safety of my arms."

"Oh?" Dream pushes off the tree and steps closer, until he's standing just before Hob, close enough to touch. "Was that the goal?"

Hob takes the leap that's offered and touches Dream's cheek with a light hand. "Did it work?"

This close, in the midday light, Dream's eyes are almost grey. The shade of the tree dapples his skin. It's still odd to see him out of the contained space of his bookshop, of Hob's cafe, but it does make this feel more real. A part of the world beyond the spun-sugar story of their orbiting binary stars.

Dream rests a feather light hand on Hob's chest. Studies Hob from under his eyelashes. And instead of answering, he leans up and, with that same light touch, presses his lips to Hob's.

Hob revels in the mere touch of him for a moment, but doesn't let it stand at light for long. He takes Dream's face between his hands and deepens the kiss, sweeping his tongue into Dream's mouth, swallowing Dream's hum of pleasure. If only he could put into the kiss what he had felt when Dream had handed him Nightingales. A sudden finding of something long lost that was always meant to be rooted in his heart.

When they part, he makes good on a promise and does pull Dream into his arms. It feels like a great indulgence. It also feels right.

"Make me a solemn promise, Hob Gadling," Dream says against Hob's cheek, arms wrapped around his back.

"Anything."

"Never take me here ever again."

Hob laughs into his hair, squeezing him tight. "What could one possibly want from here when The Library exists?"

This seems to greatly gratify Dream, who preens in Hob's arms. Hob kisses the shell of his ear, then his cheek, then they part again, and he takes Dream's hand. "I'm glad you expanded your horizons with me for a day."

"And now I will shrink them again," says Dream. "Except for one." To which he runs his thumb along Hob's lower lip, a touch Hob sways forward to follow almost drunkenly as Dream smirks. "Come."

He starts leading Hob back in the direction of their quiet street, and far far away from any fluorescent lighting, and Hob follows, touching his lips fondly. And lets himself be cautiously, tentatively hopeful that this will continue spiraling up into something real, because he wants it so bad. Curses and all.

#hob brilliantly asking dream out by giving him a book that basically said 'i wish to know you carnally' but hey it worked!!#and i'm sure he will know dream carnally soon #3 likes and next time they get to explore each others bodies #bookstore cryptid dream #my writing #dreamling #dream of the endless #hob gadling #dreamling fic #thank u louise for the extra special british accuracy in this one XD it is essential that my silly drabble stories channel the TRUE #and ACCURATE experience of the united kingdom. i'll die otherwise

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anarmel · 1 year ago

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hiya! just wanted to say i ADORE your dnd au for stranger things it is so captivating to see each art piece you've created (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

can i ask if there's any little headcanons or plotlines you'd be willing to share about it? I'd love to hear more but totally understand if not (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠) either way i appreciate the work you do!!!

Thank you for your kind words!(i read ALL tags) And sorry it took me so long I’m bad at writing hope you’re still interested)

I have entirely too much in my head for this AU and it��s ever evolving but I’m dog at writing stuff down because my brain gets like scrambled so I always forget what I want or write down and english is not my native language so my writing is blunt and sometimes i don’t have the right words for concepts i want to communicate and I overall suck at communicating but I do want to share something about this AU with someone who appreciates it so I will try)

This is my continent map and planar map for this AU because every official planar map in DnD is too unnecessary complex for my type of worldbuild:

This table is my basic ideas and info on characters (i change it all the time because I’m inconsistent and have new ideas every week) and I fucking love multiclassing it’s more storytelly

And i have a Pinterest board for this AU with visual clues and inspiration for the characters if you want to get a feel for that take a look: Link

Worldbuilding and character ideas(completely too long wall of text but I attached some old sketches for paragraph breaks):

Worldbuilding portion

I usually don’t like to put racism in my fantasy scenarios but The Empire is based on America with all the colonization and racism and all that so its there (reason: ST has too much themes that are purely American and if you take them out it’s kinda unrecognizable and some characters lose some experiences that effect their characteristic and choices they make. And the world needs to feel violently bigoted and secretive with governments that lie and do terrible things) but don’t look for direct correlation to real events. it’s like heavily inspired by America. i don’t want to erase racism and white supremacy and how it effects most if not all characters.

This Empire is under one of god pantheon(most of the faerunian pantheon with some exceptions). As one if the main worshiped gods that effect the story I chose Torm(the god of duty, loyalty, righteousness, obedience and law) and Bahamut(the dragon god of justice and a subservient deity to Torm). Empires are so greatly represented by dragons: massive gold hoarding uncontrollable and unstoppable and really hard to defeat. And because I want Tiamat dragon cults in the story. The list of allowed worship is limited some gods are outlawed some are just weird to worship and looked down upon. Most gods that are law and order based are great to worship

The Empire came as an expansion of an already existing Empire that represents one pantheon of gods that were at war with the Fey pantheon of gods and mortal rulers are continuing this expansion on mortal plane(even if mortal plane is abandoned and neglected by the gods). During war most Gates that connected Feywild with the Mortal plane were destroyed and in their place “Divine” Gates were built. The War of Establishment ended 200 years ago

The way my gods/worshiper interaction works is not as direct as I’ve seen in other campaigns. Paladins/Clerics get their power through tapping into residual celestial power that is left on mortal plane after calamity battles many ages ago and more advanced Paladins/Clerics can tap into celestial plane directly and it’s very rare for a god to communicate with their worshipers.

Empire general attitude towards different races(fantasy racism part… it’s worldbuilding okay):

Aasimar is the most respected race imbued with the divine blood most of the royals are Aasimar. Highest standing in society

Goliath are historically the giants that are the protectors of the divine. They are given opportunities other races are not. High standing in society

Humans are the basics as always. They have their hand in every pot.Mixed standing in society

Halflings were always a part of the empire. Infantilised in larger society. Mixed standing in society

Anything Fey is perceived as weird and inhuman and often fey magic and creatures are blamed for all manner of mischief and ills, ranging from petty vandalism and theft to outright murder and kidnapping.

But there’s a distinct difference between every elf group

High-elven culture is the one of the biggest ones that was crushed by the empire. Empire is built on elven ruins. Elves that didn’t escape to Feywild earned their keep in the empire by being great merchants because they knew to local surroundings and had established goods production and even with inter planar fey gates destroyed some elves had trade connections in Feywild. Being there from the beginning of the empire given some High Elves really high standing in society and more opportunities to build up their capital but at the cost of abandoning or suppressing their culture. Material plane High elves have purple/pink blood and similar skin under tones medium pointy ears(from living in the material plane for a while) Mostly culturally integrated. Mixed standing in society

Wood Elves mostly come from Beast Lands plane that lays between material plane and the Feywild and when empire conquest reached Feywild they stopped their war expansion on woods and wanted to build more of business relationship with the faerie court and the faerie court doesn’t care about the rogue elf tribes of Beast Lands that are being misplaced because they see the benefits of empire as a reluctant alliance instead of an enemy even if fey believe they could win the war if it comes to that . The Empire use the kidnapped elves as the laborers to build new empire cities across the continent. Wood elves have a distinct green skin undertones, green blood and large pointy leaf-like ears that make a Great War trophy and bringing a few souvenirs a soldier can show of is not that looked down upon. And high elves on large don’t associate with wood elves they are both seen as fey but different in “usefulness” in society. So wood elves have a low standing in the society but it’s slowly starting to change in some parts of the empire

Eladrin native to the Feywild and mostly are not present on the material plane and seen as distant trade partners.

Other elves(astral, aquatic, drow)exist but are not seen inside the empire

Gnomes is the other race that was native to the land the Empire took over they are integrated as the high elves and seen for their innovations and trade. But also they’re infantilised in society of larger races and sometimes are not seen as a full person but as cute creatures who are mostly helpful to bigger races. Mixed standing in society

Dwarfs mostly live underground in stone cities. I like Dragon Age lore for dwarfs so I’m incorporating it. True Dwarfs are not permitted to see the sky and those who do are considered sky walkers and still can serve as merchants of dwarven goods to the surface or can just go live as they want on the surface but they will never be considered true dwarfs and are not permitted in places of under mount worship of the Morndinsamman. They are not a part of the empire even if the mountains are on empire territory. Mostly seen as trade partners

Most of genasi populating empire are mixed. Air and earth genasi are the more accepted. Fire and water are not as much. Mixed status

Different Main Genasi tribes set up close to their respective elemental planar gates but those tribes all really different.

Air genasi mainly have a cloud city surrounding their gate populated by other avians but also have travel tribes that travel on cloud settlements.

Fire genasi are mainly nomadic with some preferring to live in a settlement near their gate it is considered their home base and if a fire genasi was outside it’s tradition to make their way to the gate at least once in their life

Earth genasi mainly have a permanent home under the mountain near their gate the city is populated by some dwarfs and rock gnomes

Water genasi live near their gate that is surrounded by mostly underwater country (enter a fantasy name for Soviet Union here)(?TSAR?) populated by aquatic elves, tortles, merfolk, tritons, simic hybrids and vedalken

Firbolgs are mostly nomadic small tribes and lived close to the fey gates so a lot of them were massacred during the war and there’s not much of them left. Perceived as fey and mostly forgotten because they live outside of cities.

Any half breed is looked down upon. A little anti-miscegenation in the mix to this horrible prejudiced bigoted world(just like the real one)

There’s also magic and class(DnD) discrimination

Any Divine and Radiant magic is praised so most of paladins clerics and monks are thought highly of in society

Any nature magic is looked down upon ether it be too fey of holistic and barbaric in the eyes of the divine

Barbarians if not zealots for the right gods or have right ancestors are barbaric and looked down upon

Sorcerers are usually put through governmental evaluations to find out their levels of danger those who deemed too dangerous go into maximum security prisons or are simply executed,those deemed controllable go into an educational program(less strict prison). Any sorcerer magic can only be used under strict control of a sorcerer’s keeper appointed by government.

Wizards studies and education mostly are behind walls of magistrates that operate separately from other government controlled magic institutes but for the greatness of the Empire. Arcane magic is controlled but not as strictly as sorcery

For Wizards to deepen their studies of magic there’s one option walls of magistrate a separate arm of the government specialized in arcane magics. Arcane magic is controlled but not as strictly as sorcery because it’s considered an intellectual and intelligent magic

Artificers are the inventors and move the world forward. Government gives grants to institutions of artificers for development of weapons and transportation for people without magic and such

Necrotic and blood magic is prohibited and outlawed

Character stuff(most of it is just like a starting position in the story that will never be)

Byers family. I wanted to make Joyce a merchant but then I came up with the idea of them being a grave keeper family for an old eleven graveyard, being just poor in fantasy settings is not enough for stigma they get (the monarchy class system is just too different everyone’s poor but the selected few…well not different at all but I wanted something different and more fantastical).

Joyce after escaping her abusive husband stared working for an old elven lady that owned the graveyard and not having any family of her own she let Joyce and her boys live on the property and when she left the mortal plane she left the graveyard to the Byers family. So in this world there’s a lot of stigma around anything fey but high elves are more integrated into society and Byers family looking over a spooky scary creepy and ancient fey graveyard filled with old dying magical remains can make the family ostracized and it brings a somber tone and a death theme to back up Wills story. Because usually grave keepers task is to make sure the dead stay dead and don’t turn undead. And Will is kind of undead after his stint in the upside down and that is his one more secret from his family and friends (I want a more magical and powers related secret for will to struggle with).

And Jonathan’s first iteration was a Chronurgy Wizard because I wanted to play with the theme of him capturing moments in time (like photos) but more I thought about him he is such a rogue and there’s Phantom Rogue that has an interesting trinkets system that you get by capturing souls of your defeated foes still has the same idea of moments being captured in a still object but Assassin suits too so idk. Maybe I should have made Byers Shadar-Kai instead of High elves. Maybe they as a family need a rewrite???

Hopper’s story is similar to canon grew up in Hawkins moved to a big city (W.D.C) for opportunity. Low standing Goliath have an opportunity to earn status through Arena (gladiator fights). Got married. And after losing his child and divorce he transferred back to his old town with status that earned him a position of chief.

El and Henry are both kalashtar (a compound race created from the union of humanity and renegade spirits from the plane of dreams(limbo)– spirits called quori) with the appearance of astral elves to play into the themes of alienness (E.T. glowing fingers and long glowing ears). A big meteor struck near Fort Hawkins and The Empire researchers stumbled upon a lost child named Henry (astral drifter who only looks young) that possessed powers that they wanted to research and use as potential weapons (like they use ordinary sorcerers). After some years of research Henry showed scientists where they can find more power. A research group with a military support was sent into the Astral plane they returned with several adult war prisoners and the experiments jumped a few levels in cruelty. Most “Main Experiment” children were bred and grown in a lab. Events that happen at the lab resemble what happens in the show. Some sketches of El and Henry I didn’t land yet on design that is set in stone (I don’t like how I draw their quori too literal):

Steve’s family is royalty. His dad is a king of the smallest province named Indwarim with the sit of power being in Fort Hawkins which is still not the biggest town it’s small and underdeveloped and was mostly built to separate the gate to Beast Lands from the Capital it doesn’t even have a “Divine” Gate (gate system that connects main cities of The Empire). The King of Indwarim is not known for spending time in his seat of power leaving it in the hands of his council and expects his son to take over his small province while he gets close to the emperor and climbs the social ladder closer to real seat power (Whitheirion Divine Court).

Steve is fond of all attention and admiration his royal blood and divine blessing brings but all his life he felt inadequate, people respect him for the things that were given to him by birth right and nothing he did or deserve. But who is he to complain about the easy life he lives so he enjoys all the positive attention that he can get and lets people bask in his light even if deep down he knows all they want is a crumb of prestige and power befriending a royal can give, Steve has never met a genuine person in his circles so he assumes that all people are like that everyone plays their part of court theater. Steve has his own masks so he understands them. He always had people around him that tailored him to their expectations and that keep him in check. In social circles he paints a picture of a royal you can find at all the parties that are worth attending with new arm candy every time, all masked in charm and light conversation, all surface no depth, not an intellectual but at least he’s martially gifted. He’s not fit for the system but plays it enough for it to benefit him, he’s not going to stand up to it. He doesn’t know who he is without others making him.

And I want Steve to have some kind of insecurity where he thinks he’s useless without his legendary weapon which is a stolen fey artifact that was claimed by empire and now one of Harrington’s family heirlooms (which Steve doesn’t know for a while) and later in the story he will return it where it belongs because it’s a right thing to do even if it strips him of his additional powers. (Some inspiration characters for D&D!Steve are King Arthur, Stella(Winx), Fjord(CR))

Robin is a miracle child to her older parents. They loved their little girl and given her all that they could while running a small but successful tailoring shop. I did make Robins parents fantasy hippies while well-meaning they appropriate the culture of fey creatures but don’t struggle with the stigma around it since they themselves are not fey and even benefit from it in their business because their designs perceived as exotic and “new”.

At 12 Robin come to realization that something is off about her and there’s things that happen to her that don’t happen to people around her and the desire to find out what’s wrong with her took her to the library and there she stayed studying anything that took her scattered interest. Meanwhile her parents put her into a music studies and Robin even gets to play at royal court a few times.

At 14 she come to the conclusion that she is a changeling a myth a child swap of the fey and since then she felt like she truly doesn’t belong in her family and believes that if her parents found out they would stop loving her and disown her. She keeps up her mask around her parents and doesn’t inform them about her discovery but unknowingly she keeps distancing herself from her parents.

At 17 she requests to go into a new Starcourt research center to start studying magic more seriously and spends most of her time as a scribe and even going on expeditions into the sea and forgetting her musical studies. At the Starcourt she meets prince Steve not for the first time who was sent to the magistrate to “learn humility and to appreciate his divine gifts properly and maybe it will make you more intelligent, Steve” and then it kind of follows the shows events. Some Robin sketches and a design of her parents that I’m not sure about they need to look older I think:

Eddie is a child of a warlock pirate and an elven druid. He’s a tiefling because of his father’s infernal contract that affect him physically.

In his early years he mainly lived with his mother on land with his father’s rare visits but one day his mom just didn’t return home (I want it to be ambiguous did she get into a situation and died or got murdered or raising a tiefling child alone without support in a judgment filled town got to her and she decided to run away from it? who knows? not Eddie that’s for sure and sometimes not knowing is worse especially when you have overactive imagination) Eddie is at home alone for several weeks afraid to leave and sleeps for most of the time to repress hunger. That is the state his father finds him in and has to nurse him back to health and they live on land for a month but living a stable life was never in the cards for Eddie’s dad so he decides that Eddie is mature enough to follow him in his adventures and learn what it means to be a true son of a pirate. His father has an ego and sees Eddie as a continuation of himself and his power but he does love him but never more than himself his freedom or his pursuits. Every time Eddie is trying to bring up his mother his father shuts him down like he doesn’t want to think about whatever happen to her, like she’s not here let’s move on kind of attitude. so no closure there.

When Eddie is around 10 his father goes to visit his brother with Eddie in tow for the first time. The relationship is strenuous but a favor his father asks of Wayne is just to look after Eddie when he’s gone on a big job that will change their lives. His father never returns. Eddie lives with Wayne and he feels like a burden to this man who didn’t even knew he existed several weeks ago. Wayne is a matter of fact battle hardened tough guy that was trying to find his stability after years of service (he was in an expedition to the astral sea among other things he did in the military) Wayne after his years as a sailor was recruited into a government sponsored mercenary group and he mainly joined to lift himself and his brother out of poverty while his brother chose a different path to that same goal. While in service his needs were accommodated but after the system has abandoned him with trauma and not as much money as he was promised. But with that money he got himself a small house in the least developed province of Indwarim on the outskirts of Fort Hawkins in an area named Forest Hills and got himself a job as miner the only job available to him. His settled life gets interrupted by his brother and his grand plans for a better life but this time he doesn’t try to bring him into it all he asks is to take care of his child for a while and that Wayne can do. Even if that while turns to years he’s not that bothered the child is endearing and if both of his parents are not there for him his uncle will step in as a parental figure to the best of his ability.

Oh and for his shaved off horn he has thousands of stories about that and he will NEVER admit that it was him at 13 childishly coming to a conclusion that his horns one of the main reasons he is different and rejected by society he wanted them off he wanted to look more like his uncle he wanted to fit in he wants the snide comments and dirty looks toward their family to stop. But not only was it painful as soon as he saw himself in a mirror he knew he made an awful impulsive mistake. He wants to hide it from Wayne for as long as he can so naturally as soon as Wayne gets home from his night shift he finds out. He sits Eddie down and struggles how to fully communicate to his kid that we are dealt a certain hand in life and we got to play it to its fullest potential and that his uniqueness only makes him that unique and people who don't see it through their prejudices they are the ones that are missing out. Uncle of the year. But Eddie being a kid takes it a little differently and just changes up his tactic of shielding himself. He cranks up his "uniqueness" to a 1000% and to be bigger scarier more attention garbing more repulsive than he is so no one would even try to go after him and his out of fear of consequences. He finds other street kids like him and they form a group power in numbers as they say. Hell Fire is formed.

When Eddie is around 14 years of age and alone at home old associate of his father Reefer Rick appears on their doorstep to inquire about money that his father owns to him and how will he get it when that fucker got himself imprisoned which is the first time Eddie hears the reason for his father’s absence. As Rick is mostly a smuggler and not a distributor he recruits Eddie for his plan to get his money without unnecessary harassment of his uncle and for Eddie to make some gold of his own all and all Rick know the kid and he's scrappy. All Eddie needs to do at first is leave some packages in particular places but if he wants to make more he has to get proactive and get new clients. And Eddie does want more in as he thinks the more gold he can make the more he will help to alleviate Wayne’s burden and Wayne doesn’t even need to know (Wayne will know really soon). And to make the most of his new gig he takes his bard troupe Corroded Coffin to the court as jesters and while entertaining the stuck up upper classes he makes a few sales.

Wheeler family is quite a wealthy family with their father working in some governmental transportation bureau and their mother being a stay at home mom.

Nancy became a small time volunteer agent to The Harpers the faction that she believes is good for the world at 14 as soon as she, by the power of her father's station, was allowed at court to find a husband and just live that court gossip live. Even that young she has her believes in order but she’s still a young girl who wants to live out her girlhood and build a good life for herself but that dream crushes when her best friend disappears under some suspicious circumstances and is presumed dead. Nancy's pursuit for truth takes over her life and she starts uncovering something bigger than court gossip something that she cannot take on alone even if she wishes she could. Armed with a gun that Barbara made for her and her strong principles she falls into a world of governments secretive experiments and what they lead to.

Mike…oh Mike he’s such a hard character for me to nail down. I saw a lot of people making him a paladin and I get that he plays a character that’s a paladin in the show but if I were to give Mike as a character D&D stats charisma is will not be his highest but it’s my opinion. He and Will are still childhood friends they met at the graveyard when Mikes curiosity won over and he’s gone exploring we’re adults said not to and fell into a grave where Will found and rescued him and then they became besties. Mike is situated by his father to work for a house that will help him get into a higher society and he gets to be an errand boy some days. He meets Dustin and Lucas when one of those errands goes sour and after their little adventure he introduces his new friends to Will and they form their little adventuring party

Sinclair's are a family of wood elves which is already hard under rule of the Empire but they make do and father of the family even earned himself a respected position in his hunting guild so they have it better than some but still surrounded by a lot of stigma.

Lucas has gone on some scouting expeditions with his father and likes to explore the forest by himself developing his tracking and hunting skills. One time exploring on his own he noticed smoke and what is smoke without a forest fire and went to investigate. He saw a small dwarf and a big mechanical cat on fire. After Lucas helped to extinguish the Steel Defender he met the dwarf properly he found out his name is Dustin and that the fire was caused by a failed experiment he for some reason ran in the forest. They became fast friends both fascinated by each other’s experiences and lacking any other friendships they gravitated towards each other’s weirdness. When he’s older l would expand on his relationship with Patric who is the most integrated into empire society wood elf Lucas ever met and Patric is kind of his mentor and that’s how his cleric powers find him and Lucas joins the greater divine order. He enjoys his new station and it makes him feel more accepted so he doesn’t understand why his friends have to shut his new side down and make him the bad guy for exploring himself and finding his place in this horrible world. Divine power doesn’t make you a bad person but it’s powerful and most bad people seek power and it’s unfair that Lucas’s new found power diminished by his friends by putting him in the “other” box. His people were one of the most oppressed by divine powers that be and by joining the order he wants some of that power back he didn’t create this situation he’s only trying to survive in society as best as he can and find a better life for himself and everyone he loves. It’s not the power that’s bad it’s the application.

Erica is another one of the characters that is hard to nail down for me. At first I wanted for her to be a druid that pretends to be a cleric and maybe it’s an idea that is still alive but making her rogue/ranger/monk makes more sense to me but it has less narrative I think. Because she as a character has this unearned respect for the empire (based on the quote “You can’t spell America without Erica”) She too seeks acceptance but goes around that really differently to her brother. She’s larger than life boisterous bold and even if she is unwanted she will power through it and insert herself in a place that she thinks she does belong. Fake it till you make it as they say. She’s really protective of her family and will not listen for your negative opinion of her but she will hear it and will try really hard not to internalize it. She’s still a child yet doesn’t show weakness as she supposed to through her hard exterior shell. She’s charismatic and smart beyond her years and has a clever jab for every situation. And it’s no surprise that she has a side gig as a mysterious bounty hunter information gatherer she will get you all information you need on your target and you will never know that job was done by a child (imagine puss in boots in Shrek 2 situation) she has a little bit of a reputation for being efficient and anonymous.

Dustin is half mountain dwarf on his mother’s side half rock gnome on his father’s side. His parents met when his father who works for a wealthy jeweler was send with an expedition to discover precious minerals and gemstones for a supply chain but instead of finding new deposits they stumble upon an undrermount dwarven settlement where they established a business relationship with a local gem carver and Dustin’s father established a relationship with a daughter and an apprentice of said carver. They fell in love and Claudia decided follow her love and live her life on the surface leaving the undermount behind. She is really overwhelmed by the sun and the openness of the space but with support of her husband she has a beautiful time living in Fort Hawkins. Her husband recommends her to his employer as she has unique dwarven expertise and style of making jewelry and working with gems. They make decent money and decide to expand their little family. When their boy is three years of age the father of the family passes away in an unfortunate work incident while visiting a work site a rock slide happens and takes the lives of several workers. Claudia is inconsolable but she puts herself together for well-being of her child. But every year that passes it’s tougher for her to leave the house and she slowly becomes agoraphobic the surface becomes too much without support of her husband she already worked from home and her employer doesn’t care if she is the one making the trek to deliver her product to and request raw material be delivered with the same boy she send. She has unique product and it sells.(I don’t know fully why I made her agoraphobic but the idea of juxtaposition of Dustin’s mom always being at home and available but in an unhealthy and kind of smothering way but always loving and supportive to her child despite their struggles and Steve’s parents that are never home and absent in his life is interesting to me story-wise) Dustin himself is a little engineering genius creating his first fully realized Steel Defender at age 11 despite his intelligence he’s not taken seriously in small artificer circles of Hawkins even by children his own age because not only he’s an uncommon half-breed which grants him a weird standing in society by birth but also he’s of a “small” race and that infantilizes him further so he always striving to prove himself by being the smartest person in every room he’s in which sometimes makes him insufferable and more isolated. That’s until he meets Lucas who is interesting to talk to and who is not afraid to give him shit when he steps out of line.

Mayfield's and Hargrove's. Niel Hargrove is a human noble of province Calafia his family secured most of their power through a secret chromatic dragon worshiping society (a cult) and even there he managed to stand out as Tiamat cults are usually matriarchal and Niel is not that fond of women in power. Even his first wife who is of northern aasimar clan is kind of his prisoner. After her death he took in a second wife, widow of his fallen friend Sam Mayfield, because they all together started an experiment with dragon blood and a child that Susan bore and he needs to see that thru.

Billy is half aasimar which already makes him insecure from birth like he's incomplete and unfinished but still he is superior to so many so why do the unworthy get any power at all when they don't know how to use it and some powers should not exist at all. To enhance his martial prowess his father makes him get dragon blood tattoos and to activate them and enhance his rage he needs to consume more dragon blood and he is hooked on high of that power when it streams through his veins he feels on top of the world. He feels like a King. He deserves to be one.

Max is born and its already a train wreck. Some of dragon blood in her gives her a partially scaly skin but apart from that she still looks human. Her step father tells her about her greater purpose and she goes thru brutal training she is told its to make her stronger but it only making her exhausted bleeding and afraid and from a young age she learns not to share her fears or insecurities as they will be used against her. At 13 her power gets out of control when she unexpectedly got injured in a public space and the whole family is forced to move to not get discovered as blood magic users they lose a lot of material possessions but their noble status is intact but they need to start from scratch in Fort Hawkins. After that incident Max is strictly guarded by her step brother a situation that they are both not happy with. Even before losing control like that she struggled with her powers what they mean for her and how dangerous they are if she does purse them so she pivots into developing a more controlled way to channel them which does not make her family that happy.

Basic Story

It all leads to a battle against The Far Realm (a plane of madness situated very far from the planes of the standard cosmology. This maddening realm was feared for its power to twist unfortunate visitors into gruesome monsters, and it was from here that aberrations came). A plane that Henry discovered through his talent as an Astral Drifter (someone that has traveled the Astral Sea for so long that they have lost track of the amount of time they have spent there. Aging stops in Wildspace, and it is not hard for adventurers to get lost in time during their travels. Astral Drifters have traveled to the far-flung corners of Wildspace to satiate their wanderlust. Along the way, they have crossed paths with everything from petrified gods to unspeakable monsters) So Henry got warped and combined with his quori spirit and declared himself an Aberrant God and as a being of Far Realm he seeks to consume it all and be the only power in the multiverse and he will go about it in a way that will make it final. The Celestial plane is the hardest to penetrate so at first he tried to go thru outskirts planes but it didn't lead anywhere so he found a stable connection to a mortal plane the plane that is the most interconnected with others. Limbo is his weapon. Through the plane of dreams he can influence most beings on mortal plane. He is the voice in the dark. He is the premonition. He is inspiration that comes suddenly out of nowhere. He is the Dream of greatness. He is The Voice Of God.

But mostly it's just the events of the show through a very heavy D&D lens but like with more character exploration and preferably with a more cohesive story but that's just in my head its been my night time story to myself for a while now.

Hope you enjoyed reading thru this shitstorm and I hope it makes some sense)

#ask box #long post #stranger things d&d #stranger things dnd #stranger things #can you believe me when I say I never watched ST #it’s a show that is not for me personally #the shows main theme is nostalgia for the 80’#and it gets stuck in 80s tropes and doesn’t subvert them #it has decent beginnings of characters but they do nothing with most of them with very selective development and exploration #and Henry is such a boring villain #*oooo* I’m a nihilist and I want to get rid of the world because nothing matters i don't understand his motivation #Henry is just tentacles on elm street #so...boring #and i really dislike the pure evil child who is bad for birth trope #but one day I’ve got to tumbring saw some art of steddie and now I’m in hole the walls are smooth and slippery and I can’t get out #my art

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crybaby-bkg · 7 months ago

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hi!! i have an extremely specific question kind of based (not really) around "our love is god”. kinda like if things went a bit differently… I would like your input :)

hypothetically, reader has her birthday while broken up with satoru. and its an important one! reader and he had broken up somewhat amicably and its been almost four months. satoru and reader have not interacted more than twice (a petty argument and a whole 'I miss you' mess) in the two months directly after break up that tore reader up! anyways, reader needed TIME and SPACE. not a full breakup for all of eternity. reader and satoru were friends before so they both just wanted that feeling of home back. so reader has her birthday and she has been waiting for two months to finally be ready to go back to him. and she's decided that she was going to wait for him to reach out first to gauge where they’re at. if he reaches out, he still cares, maybe even still loves her and wants to be with her. Its been two months since he reached out with a dragged out version of “I love you and miss you and will always care for you but I am okay with whatever you decide to do (even if that is to never speak to me again) and I will leave everything moving forward between us in your hands”. But if he doesn’t, reader figures that maybe he doesn’t care or love her at all, maybe he’s moved on and has a new girl, a bunch of negatives basically. So her birthday comes and she hears nothing from him and decides to fully remove any and everything of him from her life and give her all into moving on fully.��

Would OLIG Satoru leave her high and dry on her special day post break up to respect her space or would he go out of his way to tell her hbd? < Even if it’s the simplest “Happy Bday” text. How would he go about the situation and what do you personally think he should do?

So sorry if this is an uncomfortable, weird ask. Pls feel no obligation to respond. I loved the fic and will commenting on AO3 once I get my bearings together lol. Much love to you <333

𝐿

omg please don’t apologize!!!! OLIG is one of my fav fics and this is like the first legit question I’ve gotten for it so this made my day 😭😭😭

but this was such a good question!!!!! in all honesty, I don’t think he would text reader. he used to be the one who would send the first text at midnight with a prepared paragraph he’s been writing days in advance. but you wanted space, didn’t you? didn’t want to be bombarded and overwhelmed with his love, right?

so he doesn’t say anything for most of the day, even though reader is just anticipating it lowkey since the clock struck midnight. but there are three different routes I’m stuck between:

1. he doesn’t text you. at all. doesn’t call, doesn’t DM you, nothing. he doesn’t even acknowledge it until days later when he ‘runs’ into you by coincidence, throwing in a “oh and happy birthday” halfway into small talk when you can’t escape him. it feels flippant, like he doesn’t care to remember anymore, but that hurts too much to think about.

2. he, again, doesn’t text you but he DOES ‘just so happen’ to show up at the place you’re celebrating your birthday at. eases his way into the little restaurant he’s taken you to too many times to count before. he seems to meet your eye as soon as he walks in, like he knows you’ll always take the corner booth in the back that he fingered you at. and you look shy when he comes up to you, grinning, him and suguru both singing happy birthday to you a little too loud just to embarrass you. and although he goes to his own table, your eyes never leave his the whole night. and maybe he convinces you to forgive him. just for tonight.

3. he DOES text you in the middle of the day. not too long, a pretty standard happy birthday message with one too many heart emojis. he sends you a picture of you from your last birthday, his too big hands squishing your cheeks as you grin at the camera. your heart aches, and maybe it’s a bad idea, but asking him to take you out for drinks on your birthday wouldn’t be the absolute worst idea?

you asked for one answer and I gave you three ALSJSKDJD I hope this was satisfactory though!!!! it really had my mind going (quite possibly for another part to the story 👁️)

#thank u again!!!#my mind is now rolling 👁️#—another happy customer! 🍭#gojo treats! 🍬#—new treat in the streets! 🍫

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ianschip · 11 months ago

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chip.conversation>memory>appeal.levels.exe

Okay chip, you wanted to know my current situation with my sexuality. And my relationship with my appeal levels. Ready yourself for the worst text you’ll receive in your infinite life.

I am witnessing never before seen levels of attraction. Actually impressed. It’s beyond anything I could have planned.

The guy that I stopped talking to because he was in an open relationship sent me a 5 paragraphs long text this week, explaining me why am I so special, telling me he has dreamed non-stop about me. He feels sorry for not breaking up, but if I’m being honest, I would never even be with someone that has the capacity to be inside an open relationship. The line I will not cross. Here’s an extract of what he told me:

My first ex-boyfriend texted me saying enough time has passed and that he wants to meet. He had a golden heart, and that’s what matters the most, so I think I will reply when the time is right.

The guy who was my friend in university, the sweet dude who had a girlfriend back then, had a date with me in my house, it wasn’t only perfect, it was fun, it was really fun, we laughed non-stop and we ended in my bedroom’s floor whispering to each other. I noticed my masculine energy being more dominant inside of me too.

The guy I met when I was possessed by the dancing spirits, found me again and texted me wanting to meet. I won’t. But it was nice to read.

Even strangers, even close friends like Sebastian, even people I barely know, and even people that I dislike like Franklin; it’s a lot to take in.

In one of the many occasions where Karen and I escape my house at 3AM to go dancing with Franklin, he was telling me something that I couldn’t understand so I told him to write it down in my phone. This is what he wrote down:

And I won’t even bring up the forbidden encounters with people I shouldn’t have met in the first place. But it all has led me to conclude that I no longer need to put any effort in being a version of myself to be attractive, the character I’ve built based on reading, writing, exercising, meditating, giving unconditional love and freedom of expression has finally seen the light.

Even my interactions to make business and talk with important men has shifted, I am more confident, I can sustain eye contact with a firm voice to carry my message, leading sometimes to find what I want.

Another weird fact is that multiple people have told me they’ve dreamed of me.

Being humble is not my forte, HAHAHAHAHA so I can proudly say that my soul is polished enough that I can have that effect, I will try to no let it get into my head, but as someone who never acknowledges his charisma, it’s nice to write this text to show appreciation towards myself. I think I’ve earned it, specially after the hospitalization.

•••

Look, here’s the thing, I’m not perfect by any means. In fact, I am incredibly flawed. So here are some things I have been learning along the way: loving strangers, forgiving and admiring.

And my toxic habits… oh, the toxic habits… well they are decreasing. I no longer have a tobacco addiction. But then there’s other types of toxicity, right? Yeah, I checked my ex’s twitter like 2 weeks ago. It was fine because I realized he liked a tweet bashing certain zodiac sign. it said something like “it’s okay if ur a scorpio just dont do it in front of me”, which I thought it was extremely pathetic. The stupid algorithm showed me his art account, I peaked, found a comment by a woman saying she wants her own portrait; foolish to think you’d take place in an account with exclusively male thirst traps; not a single woman, not a single anything else. It reminded me of another tweet I read, “la misma gata rebrandeada”. I really settled when I was at my most suicidal and vulnerable time and when I got better and asked for more it was denied.

And then I blocked the account to never see it again, and I stopped; I didn’t see anything else again. It served me well for the last impression I’ll have of him. One last look at that thing I never want to be.

And I need a schedule, it will fix some other toxic habits. Everything else is going well, economically, romantically and mentally. My psychologist gave me the thumps up to end the therapy process. You know, if your healing journey lasts forever, you’re doing it wrong. But I did it right. Thank God, thank you, universe.

That’s it for now. Happy new year, chip.

Happy 2024! Ian Serratos.

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glilboy · 3 years ago

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Ateez reactions to finding you reading smut about them: Hyung line

ive had this idea for awhile and even requested it a few times from other writers but..i felt it was time to write it lol

tws under the cut

warning, this piece of fiction contains mentions of somnophilia, slight dom and sub dynamics, and general explicit topics.

Hongjoong:

You had attempted to stay up waiting for Hongjoong, deciding to reread one of your favorite stories in the mean time. Unfortunately that wasnt enough to keep you awake, you ultimately passing out and your phone tumbling onto the floor.

Hongjoong had a feeling you'd passed out since you didnt message him any "i miss you :(" texts after 11pm so seeing you knocked out on the couch was no surprise. He slowly padded over to you smiling softly, then noticing your phone on the floor and went to pick it up for you. He was never the kind to go through your phone but your smart self had no shut down timer which left the fan fiction on display for him.

He couldnt help but be curious seeing paragraphs of text and decided a little reading would do no harm. As he began to read though he felt his gut sweep, in a good way. He was honestly a little upset until he saw his name but when he read his name it was like all of exhaustion disappeared. Luckily he didn't have work the next day he thought to himself.

Sitting down on the couch with a plan he slowly nudged you awake. "Hi dear," he spoked softly with a smirk.

You rubbed at your bleary eyes and looked up at him, "Oh hi Joongie. Sorry I didn't mean to fall asleep." He smiled even bigger at you.

"Thats fine, it helped me find out something fun," he tucked your hair behind your ear. Still waking up you made a small "huh?" before seeing the phone in his hand.

"Oh..." you mumbled, starting to be awake enough to get it. You finally looked at him straight on and saw his signature devilish grin.

He moved his hand to slowly move up your thigh, giving it a small squeeze which elicted a sigh out of you. "Didn't think you'd read stuff like that Y/N, but I guess you're just full of surprises huh doll," the pet name made you shiver, Hongjoong never having used that one before.

"I'm sorry Joongie," you mumbled into your arm, face now red. His hand moving up to cup your core and grind his hand into it making you whimper softly.

"Oh dont be sorry dolly, just shows me that you really miss me."

Seonghwa:

Saying Seonghwa was caring was an understatement in a way. Despite his busy schedule he made it a point to showed he cared in different ways. One thing he always did was if you left your phone out at all he would put it on the charger for you. Small things!

Today though he had come home earlier than usual while you were taking a quick shower. Seeing your phone on the counter he waltzed over setting his stuff down to throw it on the charger even if it wasn't that low. He noticed you left it on, open to a book he assumed enough.Him being the lovely man he is he wanted to read a bit to see what you liked and possibly buy you a physical copy. Written porn with his name in it though was not what he was expecting.

Seonghwa gulped, setting down your phone with his hands shaking and his face now flushed pink. He took a deep breath and set down his bag, running his fingers through his hair now being surprisingly worked up. A part of him felt embarrassed for being turned on by the writing but at the same time he knew you didn't read it for no reason.

"Hwa! You're home early hello!" You ran up to him giggling, now clean and dressed in some sweats.

"Hey babe, yeah we got let out early cause we learned the new choreography fast enough. They asked us if we wanted to do more vocal practice but none of us did," He laughed, trying to shift his legs to hide his slight erection.

"None of you stay late ever," you giggled sarcastically up at him. "Well, I was gonna take a nap. Do you want to? I'm sure you're tired."

He nodded softly and took your hand walking to your guys bedroom talking about your day. He changed himself into more comfortable clothing then joined you in bed, you curling into him quickly. Once you settled Seonghwa felt he could actually breathe, feeling like a middle schooler just for getting more worked up from having you close. He heard your breath settle which is when he shifted away a bit from you.

"Fuck..." He mumbled, having the space now laying on his back to palm himself over his erection. Looking over at your sleeping face made it worse, the piece you had opened having involved somnophilia. One thing he never had the guts to suggest to you despite having such an open relationship.

He didn't notice your eyes flutter open at the movement. You only just fell asleep so you were in no means in too deep. You decided to play it though, closing your eyes and throwing a leg over his waist as if you were just adjusting in your sleep.

He inhaled a sharp breath and bit his lip now mildly frustrated at the whole situation. Mumbling a fake sleepy "Hwa" you moved to straddle the man hearing a childish sigh escape his lips.

"If you keep moving, I swear to god," He mumbled out loud thinking youre still asleep since you had always been a chaotic sleeper.

"And what will you do about it horny kid," you giggled against his neck. You could feel his body tense.

"Go back to sleep and I'll fuck you like your sick little fantasy, how about that hm?"

yunho:

Rain was beating against the window as you cuddled up on the couch with your phone in hand. Yunho was on the other side of his personal office playing video games. It was a chill day but something in the air was setting you slightly off the edge.

Besides the sweet glances and cheesy smiles thrown at each other, your screen was very much the opposite of innocent pure love. Getting indulged in the story you started to zone in, missing some of his looks making Yunho curious as to what your interest was delved into currently.

"Be right back guys," he said into the mic mischievously. Quickly making his way over he slipped the phone out of your hand, this behavior wouldve typically been fine but because of the contents on your screen you gasped and reached out for your phone. "You doing something naughty or do you just like acting suspicious?" he grinned before looking at your phone.

His face feel reading the paragraph of a particularly nsfw scene. You were now sitting up staring at him wide eyed, "yuyu please oh god its not what you think, i think." Silence filled the room, the only noises being the sound of his running pc and the dull chatter of the other boys.

"Do you read this often?" he said out of hesitation and pure curiosity, almost feeling that he violated your private space. He kind of got the gist of it all right away, thankfully for your sake.

"Not all the time but i mean, you are busy yunho," you tried to softly explain knowing this was odd territory.

"Do you...ever want to try it," he says, getting to the end of the page and looking at you.

"I can't say that..none of them aren't, nice," the air was filled with an awkward energy that could suffocate another person if they came in at such a weird time.

The two of you stood there for a second, until he moved towards you and took your hand. He placed it on his bulge and you sucked a breathe in.

"Take off my pants," he ordered, a strange harsh tone to his voice. For you guys there was never set roles, not any dom or sub dynamic but it wasnt vanilla per say so him speaking like this was new. Besides that, you did as he said and pushed your thumbs under the waistband of his sweats, pulling them down his legs.

Silently he took your hand then sat down on his gaming chair, pulling out his large cock. He slipped on his headphones before looking up at you with a shit eating grin.

"Sit down, i can tell youve been dying too babe."

yeosang:

You were waiting for yeosang to come home after a shorter than usual practice, deciding to pass the time by indulging in your secret world. In the midst of browsing your favorite blogs you didn't hear the door open, this event made you learn not to have headphones in when participating in such activities.

Walking in, Yeosang looked around for you and spotted your figure on the couch. He slowly moved near with a secret motive of scaring you when he glanced at your phone seeing a photo of him paired with a lot of writing. Tilting his head curiously he squinted to read the text, reading along with you until his face flushed.

Sucking in a breath slightly he moved back to the door, playing off him just entering. You noticed his figure walking towards you and sneakily turned off your phone and got up to greet him.

"Hey babe, it's nice to see you in the sunlight," you giggled and wrapped your hands around his waist. You noticed him hesitantly wrapping his arms around you, causing you to pull away.

"Hey, whats up? you seem a bit off?" you pouted and brushed the hair out of his eyes, not catching the little blush.

"Yeah yeah babe, I'm fine. promise," he cleared his throat and pulled away, making your heart sink a bit. He practically completely ignored what you actually said.

"No Yeo, I- did I do something wrong? Or just a long day?" you pried knowing something was up.

Shifting awkwardly on his feet he looked up at you, his hair back in his face. "I um, saw what you were reading."

The color drained from your face, mouth slightly hanging not knowing what to say. You thought he was pissed, was going to leave and break up with you but right when you were about to talk he spoke again.

"C-can we do that?"

A moment of silence passed and you looked up at him, your boyfriend who was typically very soft and gentle in bed. Knowing what you were reading was likely pretty heavy in his book, you became worried. "Yeo, I just read it. It means nothing I don't want to make you uncomforta-"

His lips cut yours off and one hand entangled in your hair, his other guiding you to the wall by your hip. Back flush against the way you pulled away after a moment to see his eyes wide and sweat already beading down his temple.

"I've wanted to do that, just didn't want to scare you dear."

#ateez smut #ateez reactions #ateez scenarios #kim honjoong smut #park seonghwa smut #jeong yunho smut #kang yeosang smut #hongjoong smut #seonghwa smut #yunho smut #yeosang smut #kpop smut

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remcycl333 · 3 years ago

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you don’t need to be happy to be manifest!! but...

who doesn’t want to be happy?

(long post alert, sorry in advance lol. but please read it all the way through, i really think it’ll be worth it<3)

ok, to preface this, you don’t need to be happy to manifest. i’ve manifested great, positive things while i was in depressive episodes. i manifested wonderful things with tears streaming down my face. BUT, i think something a lot of people overlook is that it’s really beneficial to feel positively about your desires.

this is something i realized a few months ago, saw great results from, and then forgot all about and, well, stopped seeing the progress i wanted. but i’m back on track now, don’t you worry.

(i’m going to be using the example of my sp, bc that’s what i have the most experience with, but this applies to literally anything u r manifesting)

i’ve made a few other posts saying pretty much what i’m about to say in this next paragraph, so if you’ve already read those, i’m sorry for repeating myself. just bear with me lol.

so i came to a realization a few months ago--and i don’t exactly remember how i came to this realization--that i kind of...hated my sp? like i fucking resented him. and i was like, wait a minute, that’s not right. i love my sp. that’s why i’m trying to manifest him! so why do i feel like this?

i used to focus on manifesting in steps, so naturally the first step was contact. so i’d be affirming all day every day “my sp is texting me right fucking now😡“ (and other variations) and then when he didn’t text me, it’d just make me angry at him. but technically, he didn’t even do anything wrong?? sure he didn’t text me, but he had no clue he was supposed to? idk it was all complicated and weird. and then when i wasn’t mad that he didn’t text me, i was having arguments with him in my head, preparing for some weird fight that my brain just assumed was going to happen whenever we did get into contact. which is weird, bc my sp and i never fight. like, this is my ex. yet i literally cannot tell you a single fight that we have ever had. we literally get along perfectly. we have never fought (or even argued) once in all the time that we’ve known each other. yet my brain was always fighting him. and it was just, exhausting?

and so one day, when i was troubleshooting, i realized: rem, if you were in a relationship right now with your sp, would u hate him? would u be constantly fighting with him? god i fucking hope not!

now, what would i be thinking? i’d be laying in bed at night, hugging my pillow, thinking about how much i love him. reflecting on how happy he makes me, how perfect he is, how good he makes me feel. i’d be thinking about how he is the most perfect boyfriend i could ever have asked for. i’d be content after spending a long day with him, excited to spend the next day with him as well.

and during the day i wouldn’t be wondering why he wasn’t texting me. if anything, i’d be wondering why he was texting me considering we were literally hanging out, together, at that very moment!

i would trust him. i’d be walking on cloud nine. i’d be content. i’d be...happy.

now, in no way am i saying that you need to be happy 24/7, or dancing on air, or feeling intense butterflies in your stomach. you’re allowed to have other emotions. you’re allowed to feel anger, you’re allowed to break down and cry! you’re allowed to have bad days. but if you’re feeling these negative emotions about your desire, i want you to try your hardest to release them. i don’t think any of us want to have breakdowns over our manifestations and cry about them, but if it happens, it happens. just pick yourself up afterwards--or stop it before it even really begins, trust me, it gets easier to do this--and maybe do a few deep breaths to calm yourself down, and remind yourself why you’re on this journey in the first place. once again using the sp example, it’s because you love your sp. because they are perfect for you! they make you happy. you love their smile, their laugh, the witty conversations you have with each other. you love being in their arms. you love when they’re in your arms! they did something that made you fall in love with them, or want to be in a relationship with them. what was it? focus on that.

enough with the sammy ingram (i could go on a whole rant about her) style affirmations. with the “he’s going to fucking text me, he has no choice, he’s my fucking boyfriend and he does what i say.” like....ew?? i used to say shit like this, and it was really what started making me resent my sp. i was ordering him around in my head, creating this weird dynamic between us (which, he wasn’t even aware was there), and getting mad when he wasn’t doing what i was ordering him to do. looking back, it was borderline psychotic. it was just turning it into me against him, and that’s not what i wanted at all. i want to be in a relationship with him, with mutual love. i don’t want to be his boss, or his mom, or his fucking military sergeant!! (i don’t even know if that was the proper term bc fuck the military, but u guys know what i mean lmfaooo)

(disclaimer if u use these types of affirmations and they work for you, go for it. but i used them for a while and they just weren’t it for me. carry on)

i guess what i’m trying to say is, those affirmations weren’t making me feel good. they weren’t making me feel like a “boss ass bitch”. they were making me feel...like a bitch. and strangely, powerless. i’d say these affirmations, or just bland ones where i wasn’t necessarily demanding my sp to throw himself at my feet and kiss my shoes and tell me he is nothing without me, and ultimately, if i wasn’t feeling resentment, i was feeling...nothing.

once again, i want to make this so so so clear, you don’t need to be happy to manifest. but my belief? if your affirmations aren’t making you feel joy, or excitement, or contentment, then what’s the fucking point? if you think of your desire, and don’t feel positive feelings about it, then you might have lost your way a little.

don’t worry!! it’s an easy fix. easy, and even...fun? rewarding? comforting? i just want you to take some time--laying in bed at night is the perfect time to do this in my experience--to think about why you want your desire so badly. do you want money? think of how great life is going to be once you have it. of all the stuff you’re going to buy, for yourself, and maybe even for others. don’t focus on the problems you want to fix with it right now. think of that clothing item you’ve had your eye on, or that book you’ve been wanting to read but haven’t felt like “wasting” money on. think of how excited you are to buy those things, because you’re going to! think of the good. not the bad.

remember: you create more of what you focus on. focus on the good, get the good. focus more on the bad...get more of the bad.

your manifestation is done. it is created. it is on it’s way to you. it is here! all there’s left to do is feel excited. it’ll be here any moment now, how fucking exciting is that! it’s safe for you to be happy. it’s safe for you to focus on the feelings you would have if you had it, rather than focus on affirming specifically to bring it to you. it is safe to be happy.

i used to affirm solely for contact, all day every day, and sometimes i’d get it. but it’d be short lived, my sp would be distant, etc. but then once i started focusing on truly living in the end and basking in my love for my sp, thinking about how perfect and amazing he is, i not only got contact (without having to specifically affirm for it), but he was actively engaged in our conversations, making up new topics to keep the conversation going, asking me about and expressing interest in my hobbies and interests, bringing up and reminiscing on old memories of our previous relationship, complimenting me, flirting with me, asking me to hang out, etc. shit i was not getting when i was “he is so fucking in love with me and he’s texting me right fucking now”-ing all day long. i started focusing on how amazing and perfect and good to me he was, and that’s exactly what i got in my reality. who would’ve thunk?

and you know what? yeah, he fucking loves me. he misses me and he wants to be with me. but that’s a given. but that doesn’t fucking matter. i am the only person who matters in my reality!! sure he loves me, but do i love him??? that’s what the universe wants to know. that’s what truly fucking matters. the universe brings me my desires. so i’m gonna fucking desire it!

guys, please trust me on this. just try it out, with whatever you’re manifesting. this could be what you’re missing. this could bring your manifestation to you. i promise, if you’re like i was and feel resententment or anger or hatred towards your desire, this is going to make you feel so fucking good. just stick with this for a week or two. i promise, you’ll see movement.

and remember, there is no one to change but self. don’t change them (or it), change your perception of them (or it).

let’s make manifesting fun again!!! it’s the perfect tool to bring happiness into your life. so fucking let it!!!!

so no, you don’t need to be happy in order to manifest. but....maybe, just maybe, prioritizing your happiness isn’t such a bad thing. i mean, who doesn’t want to be happy?

#law of assumption #manifestation #manifesting

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sande5098 · 3 years ago

Text

“Don’t play dumb with me, where the hell is she?”

Connor Rhodes x Ava Bekker

Summary: In which Connor is overly concerned for Ava when she doesn't show up for work.

Warnings: Kidnapping, some swearing

Word count: 1.6k

A/n - if you have any requests for this couple or a ‘x reader’ please just message me. I’d be happy to do them.

(Sorry about the paragraph spacing I just can’t get it to work)

————

"Hey Maggie, Have you seen Ava today?" Connor called out to the ED head nurse, as he arrived. He had went to her place to give her a lift since her car had broken down a couple of days ago and it was still in the shop. Maggie turned her attention from the pager in her hand, "no actually, I haven't she was meant to clock in half an hour ago, I thought she was getting a lift with you?" Maggie wondered, Connor could feel the bile of worry rise in his throat, “so did I,” he mumbled to himself, "she must’ve got the bus, might be some traffic.” He reassured her as he walked off to go check up on his patients from yesterday.

Connor couldn't help the sinking feeling in his stomach, it wasn't like Ava not to answer her phone or even text to say that she was getting the bus in or if Natalie was giving her a lift. He also knew that Ava just despised being late and for her to be over an three hour late now just added to his worry. He would call the police but it had only been three hours since he was meant to pick her up. He would talk with Natalie and see if she had given her a lift in, if now then he would have Will call Jay. But until then he forced the stress and worry down deep in his stomach, he didn't want to think about her.

It took another hour before Connor bumped into Natalie just as she was about to go for her break. "Hey Natalie, did Ava get a lift with you this morning?" Natalie turned to face Connor, "no, why do you ask? Is she okay?" Connor but his lip and sighed, "she must be sick, I'll call by her apartment during my lunch." Natalie turned her full attention to Connor, who just tried to smile reassuringly, "don't worry I'm sure she just isn't feeling well, I’m sure she’ll be at her apartment whining about her stuffy nose when you go to check on her," Connor smiled at Nat as she placed a hand on his forearm, the small act of reassurance did absolutely nothing to comfort him as he grew antsy with the instinct to check in on her constantly gnawing at him.

Connor's lunch couldn't come any sooner and thankfully the ED wasn't as busy as usual so that left him plenty of time to go see if Ava was home. He raced to his car which he parked quite close to the entrance, making he way to Ava's apartment merely ten minutes away from the hospital, Ava's car parking space was still empty so her car must've still been at the shop, he took her space, knowing she wouldn't care all too much.

He made his way up to her apartment, the perks of being her boyfriend was that you got your own key to the place, or rather, he knew where she left the spare key. He reached into the letter box and pulled the tape from the back of it, pulling out the key along with it.

Connor never struggled to open a door as much as he did this one, only making him more anxious. When it finally opened he took a step inside and looked around the room; it was completely trashed. Glass and ceramic plates smashed on the ground, magazines and the daily newspaper crumpled, some of the cupboards lay wide open. He could feel the tears welling in the corners of his eyes as he held onto the countertop, trying to steady himself from falling.

The shards of glass sparkled against the sunlight coming through the window, making the place seem almost perfect. Then he noticed the gold, it sparkled brighter than the glass; drawing the hard stare of Connor’s sea blue eyes. As he walked over towards the weird peace of material, he couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his stomach, which confirmed his rising suspicions about who had taken Ava.

The first thing that Connor done was phone Jay, he could trust that man with his life and right now, Ava’s.

He’d had it with his father, trying to ruin his life and bringing his girlfriend into it was a low that he had passed before, however, kidnapping was a new low, just to get what he wanted; attention from his son. Well, he just got it. And not the right way.

God, what about Ava he couldn’t imagine how she was feeling. Maybe she wouldn’t want to be with him anymore? Or maybe, she would move away and never contact him again. The list was endless and he couldn’t bare to live with himself if that was true. He needed to get her back.

Connor paced the trashed and eerily silent apartment with his racing thoughts until Jay arrived with the rest of intelligence in tow. “Dude, we’ll find her, but you need to stop pacing you’ll put a hole in the carpet.” Connor nodded and ran a hand through his hair, pulling at it. “I know who took her,” Connor watched Jay’s eyebrows raise, “my father.” He answered the silent question, pointing over to the gold card on the floor that read his fathers personal contact details. Jay put a pair of gloves on and picked it up. A piece of paper below it that read,

Connor, if your looking for your girlfriend, come alone and you’ll get her back. She’s in safe hands.

No outside parties

C.R.

————

Connor stood at his fathers door, an ear piece hidden in his ear with intelligence listening in on the conversation to come. It was the maid that answered the door, telling him that his father was expecting him up in his office. Connor sighed as he took the stairs up, walking through these corridors held so many memories, yet they were all tainted now. He couldn’t imagine just how many people his father had kidnapped and held here while he lived under this roof.

He just shivered at the thought.

Jay’s voice spoke into his ear, breaking his thought process, “make sure you don’t look too put together, he knows that you care about her make it seem like your desperate to get her back, that you’d do anything, but we need to get a confession out of him. Get that first.” Connor didn’t say anything, just kept walking, the closer he got to the door the more nervous he felt. He just wanted Ava back.

So when he knocked on that door he knew he would do anything. There was no answer at first, his temper was through the roof as he barged in, intent of getting him to agree that he had taken her. Cornelius was sitting, whiskey glass in hand, grinning at him. “Where is she?”

Cornelius’ eyebrows shot up in a questioning look, a ghost of a smirk on his lips, “where is who, Connor? You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, where the hell is she?! I know for a fact this is your fucking handwriting.” Connor was practically foaming at the mouth as he pulled the letter out of his inside pocket and pushed it along the desk. Cornelius took the letter in his hand and smirked, “she’s perfect for you Connor.” As he nodded to his personal guard to bring her in. Connor was in shock, a quiet hoarse “what?” fell from his mouth. “You fucking kidnapped her to get to me, you’re a bloody psychopath.”

Connor turned the minute that he heard the door open and the man that had left to get Ava was back with her. She was struggling, trying to get out of the restraints that were holding her hands behind her back against her will. He rushed to her, assessing her face, she had black eye and the small cuts on her hands and face. He mumbled his apologies to her over and over again while hugging her as the guard released her from her bounds. Connor’s blue eyes were alight with burning anger, “stay the fuck away from her and our life.” Jay was talking in his ear after hearing the hole thing. Telling him to get himself and Ava out, “you disgust me.” He turned away, and escorted the love of his life out with him. “Shush, it’s okay sweetheart, it’s over and he’s going to pay. Are you okay? I’m so so sorry. Let’s get out of here, I’m taking you to med in a little.” Ava nodded, tears in her eyes as they hurriedly got out of the building and Jay and the rest of intelligence stormed his childhood home.

“Connor, I’m so glad to see you. I love you so much.” Ava cried into his shoulder as she hugged him so tight, like he was going to disappear if she let go. “I’m so sorry baby, he’s never done this before. I swear, I’ll protect you from him and anyone else on the planet.” Connor promised as he hugged her back just as tight. Though he didn’t miss his father being brought out in handcuffs with his personal bodyguards. He couldn’t help but finally feel a little safe for both himself and his girlfriend.

He had just ruined his father’s reputation. He should’ve done something about this years ago when it was harassment phone calls.

He could finally breathe again.

#chicago med #chicago med fanfiction #ava bekker #connor rhodes #Connor Rhodes x Ava Bekker #jay halstead #rhekker

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parkers-gal · 4 years ago

Note

could you do something where the reader struggles with depression and it gets worse during lock down and tom tries his best to help her? lock down definitely hasn't helped with mine and i find it really hard to find motivation for things

requests are temporarily closed (they’ll be open when i finish a few of these requests)

hope this is what u wanted (sorry it took so long). <3

—

Seventeen times. You’d been through this seventeen times today and it was barely two o’clock. When the government had called for an immediate lockdown again, you knew you should’ve been mentally prepared for something like that to happen, you knew you were walking on eggshells. But alas, you weren’t ready.

Your therapist knows it’s difficult, and while the two of you are trying to work towards your goals, it’s still harder than it should be.

Especially now that you’re stuck at home with four boys. Harrison was planning to move out, but with the pandemic postponing his plans, he’d had no choice but to rain check his original ideas.

You’re alright, though. You have Tom, and for the first few weeks, that was good enough. Not that he isn’t ever enough, but sometimes you feel like you’re too much.

Apparently that’s not normal, and you’re supposed to tell someone when things get bad, but you feel awkward enough when Tom drops you off for your weekly therapy session, so you don’t mention anything.

Not that you usually do. You usually have your own back; usually, you can handle yourself, you can take care of anything and everything before it gets too bad. But now — now you’ve dug yourself into a hole, one of depression and melancholy and self heartbreak.

It’s merciless, but you don’t bother mentioning it — it’s not your place.

But maybe it is, or at least, maybe it should be. But you don’t want to bother checking for the answer to that question, either, so you don’t. You try not to think about it, or mention it or speak of it.

Seventeen times today, you’ve attempted to put into words how you’re feeling, but nothing seems to be working except for the constant thoughts that roll into one ear, through your brain, and out the other ear.

When you’re carelessly texting your therapist, you don’t really bother checking on who’s around you — and if they’re watching you.

You’re texting paragraphs upon paragraphs about yourself, and though it makes you feel awful, you know she doesn’t mind — it’s her job, after all.

“Love?” Tom sits across from you at the round table, sipping on his freshly made tea. “Who ’re texting?”

His question is innocent and purely generated from curiosity, but it makes you paranoid enough to shut off your phone. You’re not fast enough, though, because he still manages to sneak a peek at your messages. And though he knows it’s wrong, he wants to question you on it — he wants to make sure you’re alright.

“Nobody.” You sip some water, taking a small nibble out of your bacon.

“Y’alright?” He’s speaking behind his mug, right hand firmly grasping the ceramic handle of his favorite red cup.

You hum, nodding silently in response. He’s not one to pester you about your life outside of him, so he drops the conversation, eating breakfast in comfortable silence.

It’s been exactly four hours since then. You’re alone in bed while Tom is working out downstairs somewhere It’s been a good forty minutes, and while normally you preoccupy yourself until Tom comes back, this time you’re reaching a breaking point.

You’re numb, a lot of times, but on the off chance that you do react this way, it’s downhill and speedy. You skipped therapy this week — you convinced Tom you didn’t need it this week. But the harsh reality was that you were too drained to get up for a shower, too drained to even think about showering, too lazy to think about taking care of your physical health when you were too caught up in taking care of your mental health.

As you let another tear slip, you don’t take into account that somebody opening the door would let light in, seeing as you haven’t managed to get up and open the curtains. As Tom mindlessly comes into the bedroom, your groans alert him that something is obviously wrong.

“Hey, hey,” He coos, kneeling beside the bed where you lay, a hand over your eyes from the brightness of the hallway. “What’s happening, love?”

You grumble something incoherent, and suddenly he’s sliding into bed beside you, wary of crossing any borders and the fact that he probably smells heavily of sweat. With some coaxing, he manages to sit you upright against the headboard

“Can you talk to me?” He’s whispering hesitantly, eyebrows furrowed and fingers fiddling in his lap. “I’m… worried, to say the least.”

You hum, eyes not looking up. “I’m… having a hard time.” You admit quietly, attempting to underreact so he won’t overreact.

“I knew it was weird when you cancelled therapy last Tuesday.”

You make eye contact with him and he knows it’s more than your weekly sessions. “What’s… are-” he’s not sure how to form his next questions, confused on where he’s allowed to go and how far. “Do you just wanna… take a bath with me?” Suddenly, you’re hyper aware of the fact that his curls are matted against his forehead with sweat, and that he stinks of a little boy who's been running around.

“Yeah,” A small, grateful smile forms on your face, and Tom mirrors it, standing first and leading you to the bathroom.

As he sets everything up, he’s last to get undressed and join you in the ceramic tub. He’s dimmed the lights — thankfully — and now he’s rubbing your shoulders, kissing your neck. You’re humming into the quiet air of the bathroom, thankful that you’re stuck with Tom, of all people in the world.

#tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland angst #tom holland fluff #tom holland comfort #tom holland concept #tom holland imagine #tom holland blurb #tom holland oneshot #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfic #tom holland

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imgonnapanic · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! I was hoping you could do Asahi, Ushijima, and Bokuto with a trans s/o?

I go by Lunar with he/they pronouns!

Haikyuu with a Trans s/o!

I’ve never written Asahi x reader before…uh so this should be interesting. Also, pls tell me if I stepped out of line here. I am cis and will listen to any criticism on this from the trans community. Cw: mentions of being misgendered.

Azumane Asahi

I feel like Asahi would be a really anxious over-thinker as a boyfriend.

Like not to the point where it’s weird or irritating, through. It’s actually kind of endearing.

Of course, you’re always making efforts to calm him down.

One day you guys were texting late at night and you accidentally passed tf out with your phone in your hand.

And he basically freaked out and sent you exactly *two* apology paragraphs.

(Because he was really sorry for whatever he did but he also didn’t want to spam your phone because that’s what all the crazy boyfriends do-)

After you woke up the next morning you immediately FaceTimed him, apologizing profusely yourself.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have fallen asleep that was really rude-“

“No, IM sorry!”

“WHY?”

Anyways, if someone misuses ur pronouns it’s on sight.

He’s constantly reminding people that you don’t just use “he/him.”

And ofc he always checks on u after because he knows that shit must be frustrating as hell.

You pretty much explain to him that you’re used to it and then his heart breaks because people can’t find it in their brains to use “they/them.”

So he turns into his scary ass thirty-year-old looking self and talks to his team.

And now you have twelve people that will squish anyone like a bug if someone purposefully misgendered you or says some weird bs about “they/them” prns.

Ushijima Wakatoshi

He gives you a lot of things. Very materialistic but still shows you affection?? He just thinks that buying you stuff is a good way to show you he cares.

Which…ur not complaining-

This man has money so every holiday he buys you a binder and ur like

👁👁❤️ thanks?!??!?

But he also makes sure that you’re wearing it responsibly and not hurting yourself.

He’s the type of boyfriend that would give you a lot of volleyball stuff as well because it’s all he knows 😭

You’re always walking around in your “Shiratorizawa Athletics” shirt and wondering how you got with such a sports geek.

Well…reserved sports geek.

He doesn’t get pissed off very easily, so you take that opportunity to make fun of him because he’s left-handed.

“So when’s the secret cult meeting?”

*sigh* “The one for left-handed people? It’s nonexistent.”

“That’s exactly what someone going to a secret cult meeting for left handed people would say.”

However, he DOES get pissed off when people disrespect your gender identity and his sexuality.

He’s done explaining to people why he’s bi and you’re trans. It’s too fucking redundant.

So, his way of telling people to fuck off is giving them the most bone-chilling, tooth-rattling, mind-fucking glare anyone has ever seen from a person as nonchalant as him.

“Don’t pay them any attention.”

“That’s the most words you have said all day.”

“😐”

“My bad-“

Bokuto Kotarou

You would think that Bokuto would be more verbally affectionate, but he’s an action type of guy.

“Did you see when I got that point in the fourth set and made it 21-14??? Wasn’t it great???”

Loves you with all his heart and his soul and would take a fucking bullet for you and he’s not even kidding 💖

Your favorite way of passing time is playing volleyball, even though he’s a lot stronger than you.

What? You’ve only been clobbered in the head like twice.

You’ll just be casually peppering and then all of a sudden.

*BAM*

“OW, BITCH.”

“SORRY AHHH”

He hung up a trans flag in his room, and he had it in there since you two started dating.

And when you first see it, you internally combust.

“Ko, why do you have this?”

He’s dead serious when he goes “It’s to show my support for the trans community and you.”

And then he just asks what kind of potato chips you want-

From then on, you felt a ton safer with him than you did already.

He also told Akaashi to not set anyone on the team who didn’t respect your pronouns or name.

Which seems kind of stupid, but when Akaashi filled you in on the fact that if he didn’t set Bokuto, he would go insane, you feel a little rush of pride.

#haikyuu #anime #anime art #haikyuu headcannons #sports anime #bokuroo #kuroo headcanons #akaashi headcanons #tsukishima x reader #bokuto x reader #asahi x reader #ushijima x reader #bokuto headcannons #asahi headcanons #ushijima headcanons

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wastelandcth · 3 years ago

Text

I Hope You Think of Me

day four of #5sosweek21: ex-lovers || favorite song

summary: The picture that you paint of me looks better in your mind.

author’s notes: Michael!!! This is the first time I’ve written for him no one attack me

warnings: angst, mentions of smoking

masterlist || request

Michael’s phone switched off, the black screen reflecting his tired expression back onto him. His headphones, which had been playing a demo of a song that he and Luke had been working on for the past week, covered his ears and kept out the quiet chatter from the plane. His eyes burned and if he was being honest with himself, the red-eye flight wasn’t going to be granting him any sleep. His mind had been awake since early in the morning when the same phone he’d just turned off had lit up in the darkness of his room. His vision blurry and unfocused as he tried to read whatever text message you’d sent him in the early morning hours.

“I know it’s been a while but I still miss the memories of the mornings we were high.”

It had been a couple of months since the breakup. Since Michael had walked out of that club where he'd been left hurt and broken. It had been months since you’d watched him walk out and since you’d sat back and did nothing about it. It had been a mistake; one you’d realized the second the door to your apartment closed and you were left alone, listening to the sound of your friend’s laughter on the other side. It had all happened so quickly you weren’t even sure when you realized just what had happened, not even when Michael’s tear-stained face was standing in front of you as you defended them. “You’re always taking their side,” he sighed quietly, his head shaking as his sleeve soaked up his tears, “You know all they’re trying to do is break us up, they’ve always been a bunch of fake friends to you!” “Oh because your friend group is just the best, isn’t it? They’re friends with you because they want to be and not because you’re in some giant band? Fuck off Michael, maybe my friends are right. Maybe I am better off without you.” you muttered. “You know what? Maybe I am better without you too,” he sighed, standing up and running his hands through his hair, “I hope you and your great group of friends have a great time talking shit about your new ex.” And with that he was gone, slamming the door before the sound of his car starting and driving off was the last memory of Michael that you had. You’d prided yourself on believing your friends, for taking their word that they knew what was best for you and letting Michael go. It was what was best for you, sticking with the group of friends who’d never let you down and dropping the man who you were in love with. If they didn’t like him, there must’ve been a reason you weren’t seeing, too blinded by Michael to see what they saw him. But when your so-called friend group did indeed start talking badly about Michael a few days after the breakup, you realized that Michael was right. “He was just…weird,” one of them scoffed, “He was so needy and always wanting your attention!” “Yeah, and then he would just leave for weeks on end! Like why would you even think dating him was a good idea?” another one joined in as you threw back another mimosa. “I’m glad you’re single again, we can finally have our fun girl trips away without worrying about you having to keep him updated.” Brunch had gone on, with you silently sipping away and the mixture of juice and bubbles while your friend group trash-talked the man you had been in love with. You knew that they were wrong, that Michael had made you happy, and that you had thought it was insane that he’d ever want to be with you. He was sweet and caring and all those text message conversations you’d spent the past couple of days reading back had made your heart race. But no matter how wrong they were about Michael, you couldn’t bring yourself to shut them down, because what would happen if they left you too then you really would have no one. It went on for months, the constant complaints about how horrible of a person Michael allegedly was drilled into you until eventually you snapped and cut yourself off from the people around you. It had been two months since you’d told your so-called friends off, your harsh words towards them having been pent up and finally spewed out. Two months since you’d left the girl’s night with shaky hands and tears in your eyes while you tried to think of ways to apologize to Michael. It had been a month since you’d tried to call him, your heart thumping in your chest as you listened to the monotone ringing. “Hey! This is Michael, sorry I couldn’t get your call but maybe I’ll get back to you soon!” It had been three weeks since you’d seen him driving past the coffee shop you’d recently found yourself going to more often than usual. He’d gotten a new car, the one he’d taken you to see a few days before the breakup, and he looked happy as he drove away from you until a turn made him disappear from view. You’d grabbed your coffee and gone home, memories of car rides with Michael playing in your brain as you yearned for those memories to come back. It had been two weeks since you’d sat in your living room, the plush carpet under you a comfort as the room spun and your hand trailed over to find your phone. Michael’s contact picture had popped up before you could stop yourself, your fingers typing out a message that you hopes made sense despite the smoke that had filled your lungs and the fog that covered your brain. But before you could hit send, the incoming call flashed across your screen and you hesitated before picking up. “Hello?” you asked quietly. “Hey. I...you called.” Michael’s voice rang out, his voice like honey that made you want to melt. “Hi, yeah I just…” you mumbled, really wishing you weren’t high for the first time that you got to talk with him again, “I wanted to talk to you...apologize.” “Are you...are you high?” Michael asked and the frown in his voice was evident as he sighed. “Yeah, I just…it’s been a hard couple of weeks, and I…” “Maybe we should talk when you’re not high. Just...I’ll text you, okay?” his voice laced with sadness and a hint of something your brain couldn’t quite place. “Okay, I’m sorry.” It had been two days since you’d finally gotten the courage to read the message he’d sent back after your own that night, the notification sitting heavy in your pocket until once again you found yourself on the floor of your living room. Your fingers shook as they floated over the screen, finally finding the courage to click the message and letting your eyes scan through the paragraph. You’d barely finished reading the text before you were calling Michael up again and hoping that he’d answer. “Hello?” his tired voice answered, a yawn covered up as his phone moved away from his ear. “I know I’ll never meet your expectations,” you started, “And I know that I’m an idiot for listening to them and letting them say those things about you. I was just...stupid and I thought that I’d be no one without them but I miss you. I miss you so much that sometimes all I can do is think about is those mornings when we would stay in bed until we were both too hungry to keep quiet. And I know that maybe you’ll never even forgive me but I just need you to know how sorry I am.”

“I...I’ve had a lot of time to think about us, about what happened between us,” Michael mumbled after a pause, “And I think that maybe it’s better that we let things end, that maybe it’s better if all the memories we have together just stayed as memories.”

“Michael,” you whispered sadly.

“I just need to stop letting me down,” he sighed, “And we both know that whatever we had, it wasn’t meant to last more than a night.”

“I-”

“I hope you still think of me high.”

And those were the words you heard a few weeks later, playing out on the radio for everyone to hear and experience just like you did.

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#5sosweek21 #michael clifford x reader #michael clifford x you #michael clifford blurbs #michael clifford imagines #michael clifford fanfic #michael clifford fics #michael clifford #5sos x you #5sos x reader #5sos blurbs #5sos imagines #5sos fanfic #5sos fics #5sos #5 seconds of summer #gemma writes

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aeonghaseyo · 3 years ago

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Your Trace, My Treasure

Summary: Marc and Nathaniel write and draw, respectively, on each others' notebooks because it's DEFINITELY a couple thing to do.

Word Count: 2105 AO3 link

Relationship/s: Nathaniel Kurtzberg/Marc Anciel Category: M/M Characters: Nathaniel Kurtzberg, Marc Anciel, Alix Kubdel (mentioned), Marinette Dupain-Cheng (mentioned), Juleka Couffaine (mentioned), Rose Lavillant (mentioned), Alya Cesaire (mentioned) Language used: English Author's Note: The creators of MLB really need to give the side characters screen time. The love square isn't the only romantic set of ships in the show and there are much more cute ships to write about. And so in my first time of writing a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic, it's about a ship that's entirely not part of the love square. This is my final workshop output from a creative writing class I enrolled in during the summer to get units in advance. Special thanks to my professor and two of my classmates for their feedback; I couldn't have made this work even more wonderful without their help. For the non-love-square ship and this being a successful workshop output thus far, I think I'm gonna give myself a pat on the back and more fanfic ideas to write. :)

Compared to the courtyard at Françoise Dupont High School where the lively chattering of students can be heard and the scrambling of footsteps were a staple, the art room was its own entire world of silence.

It was supposed to be a calming silence in that same art room where Marc and Nathaniel were to work on art-related endeavors of their own, but the former found this unwelcoming and rather deafening. It weighed down on his being that the atmosphere was unbearably awkward, much like he was most of the time even before he met Nathaniel and became his partner in creating comic books about Ladybug, Chat Noir, and their akumatized alter-egos who turned good and served as part of the superhero duo’s akuma-fighting team. Despite a remarkable development from being acquaintances, to newfound partners, and now to a bloomed romantic couple, Marc Anciel, as awkward as ever and still testing the waters on this newfound relationship, couldn’t shake this nagging feeling of inadequacy as someone’s significant other.

It just goes to show him that even though his romantic feelings for Nathaniel had been reciprocated at Day 0, it does not remove the remaining unease that Marc currently feels at Day 1. It was his first time in a relationship, and it was with the boy whose drawings he admired so much from the school paper. Simply put, it was too good to be true.

Unfortunately, the awkwardness Marc felt wasn’t masked enough, and Nathaniel immediately noticed from his place by the table beside his raven-haired beau. How could he not? It was very obvious, from the way Marc’s hand shakily distorted his usually refined, elegant script while writing the next chapter of their comic to the way his expression was contorted as if he was constipated. Nathaniel thought to himself that it was still an adorable sight, but clearly, something was up, and it wouldn’t do well to just ignore whatever troubled his beloved partner. Attempting to break the ice, the redhead cleared his throat, then spoke to call Marc’s attention.

“Marc.”

The novelist jolted in surprise at the utterance of his name. “Y-yes, Nathaniel?”

Leaning in for a better view of the page Marc was writing on, Nathaniel replied, “Your handwriting’s different.”

“W-wait, really?” blurted out Marc, quickly covering the page with his gloved hand. “I d-didn’t know you were p-particular with handwriting.”

Nathaniel placed a gentle, caring hand on his boyfriend’s with a smile aimed directly at him as he clarified himself, “It’s not that, Marc. I’ve seen it and it’s great. Right now, it just looks… wobbly. You’re nervous, aren’t you?”

Even if Nathaniel was a recluse in his own class, he could very well read into the emotions of people, but he doesn’t show it that often. As endearing as it was as a show of concern towards shy Marc, it was also overwhelming for the raven-haired novelist to have been the subject of such deep perception, even from the boy his heart palpitates for.

It was then that Marc’s fight or flight response reminded him in a split-second that he needed some sort of diversion for Nathaniel not to remind him of his own awkwardness.

“Isn’t it weird that our art teacher didn’t come here?” Marc rapidly questioned as he struggled not to look at the red-haired boy beside him. Despite this attempt to keep Nathaniel’s focus off of his disposition, glancing towards the door and not at Nathaniel did not help stop the blood from rushing to the novelist’s fair cheeks. His partner might be tired of this, of him, already, but that light chuckle of pure amusement coming from Nathaniel disproved that thought.

“Hey, hey, settle down Marc,” chided Nathaniel, “he might be running late. It’s okay for us to use the art room so long as it’s reserved around this time. Good thing that he reserved it at an earlier time than usual.”

With innocent green eyes, the raven-haired boy looked his boyfriend in the eye and asked, “H-he can do that?”

“Of course, he can. Let’s just wait for him, okay?” reassured Nathaniel, his left hand making its way on Marc’s right shoulder discreetly. “I’m sure my other classmates will arrive here shortly too.”

A shy smile emerged from Marc’s face as he replied, “Okay, Nath.”

Suddenly, a ringtone from the phone which was in Nathaniel’s pocket sounded audibly enough to catch both the boys’ attention. The redhead immediately fished out the device from his pocket and unlocked it, revealing three unread text messages from his close friend Alix.

Hey Nath! Something came up and I couldn’t swing by the art room. Love troubles again with Marinette. Juleka and Rose are also helping out with me so they can’t come.

I can’t believe that Marinette got invited personally by Adrien to his photoshoot but she can’t even give him her handmade gift or ask him out. Because she’s such a wuss, I got dragged here in the park by Rose because Mari needs all of her girl friends to push her towards Golden Boy Agreste YET AGAIN.

And apparently Alya alone couldn’t do it. Sorry! You’ll have Marc to keep you company anyway. Have fun! ;)

So much for those girls coming over to the art room. Nathaniel let out a sigh as he muttered, just enough for Marc to hear, “I stand corrected. The others aren’t coming.”

Catching on his partner’s crest-fallen demeanor and gazing at his face with sympathetic green orbs, Marc replied, “Guess it’s just the two of us for now.”

The next minutes were spent in silence again, with Marc continuing to finish a paragraph while Nathaniel sketched a bird’s eye view of the Eiffel tower as the background in one panel of the comic storyboard in his notebook. After several minutes elapsed, however, curiosity got the best of Marc, and so, with the tip of his pen lingering on the period of his last sentence, he kept on glancing at Nathaniel and the storyboarding he was working on. Besides the sheer focus that was evident in Nathaniel’s turquoise orbs, the shy novelist couldn’t help but notice the fine, steady strokes his beau’s hand were making with his fine-pointed mechanical pencil. So neat, so pristine. It’s amazing how he didn’t need an eraser to erase certain portions of his drawings over and over.

Marc had seen artist sketches himself of both people and objects, mostly done by his friend Marinette. As someone aspiring to become a fashion designer, she would be engrossed in sketching designs day by day, passion ignited by the sparks of inspiration she draws from around her. However, since Marinette’s sketches had obvious hints of disorder, as it normally is with crude artist sketches, it clearly contrasted with the otherwise structured sketches Nathaniel makes for his comic books. Marc, fully in awe, couldn’t help but take a break from his writing and stare at the red-haired illustrator’s creative process right next to him.

Meanwhile, Nathaniel, thanks to the strong, overbearing feeling of being watched, was getting overly conscious of his work. Keeping his composure to the best of his ability, he quickly turned to Marc and asked, “Do you need something Marc?”

Snapped out of his trance wide-eyed, Marc inwardly panicked. ‘Oh no, I must be staring at him too long! I hope I didn’t spook him too much.’

Scrambling for a sensible response, the novelist stuttered out, “I-i want to write something in your notebook.”

Setting down his pencil while his turquoise eyes were still on Marc, Nathaniel blinked inquisitively. “Oh, why would you want to do that?”

“B-because,” the shy writer reasoned, “I want to write something to remind you of me. T-that is, if y-you don’t mind.”

The red-haired teen averted his gaze from his partner as he remarked, “You know I don’t let anyone write on my notebook, Marc.”

This response triggered the disappointment that Marc had anticipated from the moment that they started continuing to develop the rest of the comic book they were working on together. It was even more daunting for the timid writer that their art teacher and the rest of Nathaniel’s classmates who were usually in the art room with them did not show up at that moment, or even at all. Marinette would tell Nathaniel that it’s a great idea for his newfound love to leave special traces on his personal notebook while Rose, somehow finding this romantic, would gush at this gesture with Juleka mumbling to herself in response. But what would have been the cherry on top for Marc at the moment is that if Alix was there to egg on Nathaniel, pressuring him to give in and let his boyfriend write something in his notebook. At least the comic relief from Alix’s teasing would help alleviate the collective awkwardness the couple felt at that moment. God, if only it wasn’t just the two of them in the art room at that moment.

But alas, he was alone, helpless and daunted, and he was facing the dragon which was Nathaniel, or whatever Nathaniel thought of him at that moment.

However, all of the fears and doubts that plagued Marc left him when Nathaniel continued with a small, endearing smile on his face, “But for you, I’ll make an exception.”

The novelist beamed at his boyfriend, green eyes sparkling with delight. “R-really?”

“In one condition.”

Marc took and held in a quick breath. “Anything, Nath.”

The illustrator picked up his pencil once again and uttered, with an outstretched hand right by Marc’s notebook, “Let me draw in your notebook.”

It was at that moment when Marc could feel his heart flutter, accompanied by the butterflies in his stomach as he opened his own notebook to the very last page and laid it out right by his beau’s workspace.

“It would be my pleasure.”

In a span of 2 minutes while Nathaniel was drawing on the last page of his boyfriend’s notebook, Marc, fidgeting and tapping his pen softly on his chin, racked his brain for a simple yet memorable piece to write on the first page of the illustrator’s notebook, which was left empty out of personal preference by its owner. Hoping to obtain bit by bit of inspiration, he glanced at Nathaniel, then at the empty page, then at Nathaniel, and so on and so forth. This went on, albeit unnoticed by the redhead, until mere seconds after, he scribbled away on the page once he had gotten attuned with his creative writing flow.

After both of them finished leaving their traces on each other’s notebook pages, Nathaniel and Marc gave each other back their notebooks and instantly opened them to where they each left their special mark. Struck with awe, the novelist softly traced the outline of the drawing and his emerald eyes were drawn to Nathaniel’s signature which he left underneath the recently drawn portrait. A tinge of pink formed on Marc’s cheeks as he admired every stroke that constituted this drawing of him done by none other than the boy he once looked up to, now loved, and who loved him back.

“No one’s written me a poem before,” Nathaniel uttered as he perused every line written by Marc on that now extra special page in his notebook, eyes taking in every word written in that distinct elegant script that served as an epitome of beauty that the redhead beheld. One particular line at the end of the writing, however, caught him by surprise: the words ‘Je t’aime’ accompanied by Marc’s signature in that same fancy handwriting the illustrator adored dearly.

Having regained his composure, Marc turned to Nathaniel and asked, “Do you like the poem? I-i thought of it on the spot so it might not exactly be to your liking, but-”

“I love it,” interrupted the red-haired teen breathlessly, wrapping an arm around his significant other and squeezing his shoulder. “Really Marc, you make the most wonderful written pieces.”

An expression as bright as day graced Marc’s features as he replied, albeit with a bit of shyness in his voice, “Y-you really think so?”

Nathaniel threw any single hint of hesitation in his being out the window as he placed a tender, loving kiss on Marc’s forehead. “I do. We’re meant to be partnered together, after all.”

And just like that, the uncomfortable awkwardness that haunted Marc was instantly warded off, and in a flash, he enveloped Nathaniel in a tight, warm, loving embrace and leaned into him in newfound solace. The silence in the art room has never been this comforting as the couple relished in this seemingly endless embrace together.

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculous fanfiction #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #mlb fanfiction #nathaniel x marc #nathaniel kurtzberg #marc anciel #marcnath #mlb fanfic

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izzabeean · 3 years ago

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Chapter 12 : Uncertainty

SUMMARY

A new situation presents itself that causes you to rethink a couple of things.

pairing : ushjima x f!reader / oikawa x f!reader / iwaizumi x f!reader

genre : angst + fluff

word count : 3,299

content : profanity, slightly suggestive nsfw

tags : alternate universe - college/university, post-break up, friends to lovers, pining, slow burn

a/n : another late chapter because it's been a bit difficult to sit myself down and write this one, it's a bit of a long one. I know no one is meant to address weaknesses but the dialogue is so hard for me to write! but anyway please enjoy xx

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Alone, at last.

The serene silence of the apartment fills you with relief as Oikawa left you by yourself to go out for a jog. Seeing as you haven’t had much time to yourself since moving in with him, you weren't extremely grateful to be able to sit back, relax and watch your favorite show for what seems like the zillionth time.

But this surge of anxiety rumbles from within while your mind seems to spiral wondering where Iwaizumi could be. He still hasn’t come back from his outing, hasn’t even updated when he will be back. And your attempt to distract yourself isn’t remotely engaging as you continue to check your phone for messages.

Maybe there’s a personal reason why he is taking so long.

Yes, he’s with friends, yet the word ‘friend’ could be defined so inconsistently on your tongue. For instance, a friend could be the beginning of a possible more-than-friends scenario or the description of a secret relationship. Perhaps a girl he didn’t want to tell anyone about or perhaps even a promised fuck-buddy agreement for when he visits.

You grind your teeth wishing you could stop the worry festering. And because you’ve started to rummage in what if delusions, you decide that the only cure is to light a smoke.

Oikawa hasn’t been out for long and told you he’d be gone for an hour or so. So, you take the chance to keep your secret still a secret, by looking for the cartridge stashed in your jacket.

Weird, you think sifting through the pocket to which you find nothing. Even when searching the rest of your things, other pockets, and bags, you can’t seem to locate the pack. It’s been a while since your last smoke and try to trace your tracks to where it could possibly have gone to. Obviously, it wouldn’t get up and leave...

Usually, it wouldn’t aggravate you this much to find something, often you were used to misplacing things and having them show up eventually. However, this down-right pissed you off. You eye up your jacket persuading yourself you have enough time to go out to the corner store and grab a pack. The nearest shop is a couple of blocks away and you can have it out there instead of at the apartment where Oikawa can definitely catch you.

But in your head, the plan seems too risky trying to play it out. And instead, you let out a yawn grabbing a textbook off your desk remembering that you should probably be a good student instead of pursuing bad habits.

Walking into the living room, you lower the television volume to create some background noise so the place isn’t totally quiet making you vulnerable to the slightest floor creek. The apartment sounds aren’t what you’re used to and you most definitely predict your paranoia will obliterate your concentration.

That’s not all that does though.

The warm cozy lighting in the room starts to relax your mind a bit more while you start to take notes. It could be the fact you’re reading a piece of text from one of your most boring classes or due to another long day, but you find yourself reading the same paragraph over again, and over again, and over again trying to absorb the content on the pages. You pinch yourself to stay awake whilst your vision starts to blur and slowly your eyes slowly close…

------

You’re in your apartment bathroom.

It’s not quite the same sleek compact room you’re used to-- the walls are covered in water damage, with the paint slowly peeling off some parts and the floor is torn up exposing the old floorboards.

The new decor doesn't phase you though as you lean in towards the mirror touching up your lashes with a thin coat of mascara. Once you back up to take a look at your reflection checking for any flaws, you notice a sense of familiarity in this inspection. Like you've lived this all before. A part of you chuckles thinking you're just paranoid, but an unexpected knock echoes the room causing you to jump.

You freeze, listening closely as you try to quiet your breathing wondering if you were just hearing things. You must be.

Analyzing your reflection more, you notice you're dressed up in the same clothes you were going to wear that night you and Ushijima were supposed to celebrate your final year at university together. The same night he broke up with you.

Curiosity mixed with fear causes your eyes to glaze over not wanting to relive that moment again.

Another knock sounds.

Before you could persuade yourself to stop, you walk out into the hallway to answer the door. The anguish in your chest grows stronger and stronger while the suspense heightens upon getting closer and closer. All you ever wanted was to be happy with someone who accepts you for who you are. Someone that would be there for you through thick and thin. And here you are once again reliving the thing that haunts you the most. You don’t know if you can take the rejection again, but your body can't stop. It wants to see Ushijima.

Reaching for the cold knob you turn the handle slowly opening the door that emanates Ushijima's daunting aura. Horror that once filled your eyes almost instantly vanishes though because instead, you face Iwaizumi.

“What are you doing here?” you breathe. “I’m supposed to--”

You're cut off by an aggressive push from Iwaizumi into your apartment. You don't flinch as your entire body freezes in shock from him pressing you up against a wall. It’s dangerous how close he is, you can see his pupils dilate as he pulls in closer, bending down to nuzzle his face into your neck. You feel a rush of electricity that tingles from the top of your head to your toes.

“You’ve been wanting this for a while now,” Iwaizumi hums. “Haven’t you?”

His teeth graze against your neck as he forces his knee between your legs and slides it upward. You let your body melt into it with a soft gasp as your nerves excite.

He pulls back and you’re dying to see the look he has on his face, but notice you are no longer looking at Iwaizumi… No, now you’re looking at Oikawa.

Your eyes widen as his face dips down towards you, but you dodge and push him in an attempt to free yourself. He doesn’t budge leaning in closer tilting your chin up with his hands so he can look you in the eyes. His touch is gentle, not threatening but his eyes are drunk with lust.

“I thought it was me you wanted,” he purrs, eyes searching in yours for an answer.

But your throat squeezes shut restricting you from forming the words you wish to and his face inches closer closing in the space between you. You thought you’d be more reluctant for this to stop, but the thrill igniting inside you pushes you further as you slowly slide your hand into Oikawa’s hair. Closing your eyes waiting to be entangled in each other, but the kiss doesn’t connect.

When you open your eyes, you’re in your room sitting on your bed next to Ushijima. Everything feels lighter contrasting to the enticing atmosphere from before.

He pushes the hair out of your face, tucking it behind your ear. You can’t look away seeing as this is the closest you’ve been to him since you were together.

It feels like home. It feels right.

He runs his thumb over your lips as he leans in sealing his lips over yours.

No, we shouldn’t, your brain screams, but you let yourself indulge in his warm soft kiss as he holds you close.

------

The act instantly jolts you awake.

You blink still feeling the essence of Ushijima’s kiss linger on your lips and the traces of his hands holding you close. But it looks like you’re not alone as you find yourself facing Iwaizumi who’s holding up a blanket.

“D--did I wake you?” he asks, straightening himself up, startled by your sudden rouse.

“No, no,” you say, before sitting up. Your heart almost skips a beat as you immediately envision Iwaizumi pressing up against you. And, as if on cue, your ears start to burn up unable to actually look at him before rubbing your eyes hoping to hide from the sheer embarrassment plastered all over your face.

“How did it go… With your friends?” you express, in an attempt to change the subject to leave behind your suggestive dream.

“It was good,” he sighs, taking a seat beside you on the couch. “Had a lot to catch up on. You should meet them actually, I feel like you’d all get along.”

“That’d be cool,” you smile.

Then it occurs to you this is the first time you’ve been alone together since the kiss. Your options could be to completely avoid the topic as if it never happened, but a little voice inside keeps reminding you to say something. But how can you when even speaking about your actions is deeply embarrassing? Why didn’t you just think before you act? Then perhaps, this awkward conversation you’re about to have wouldn’t have to happen.

“But maybe warn them, if you plan to kiss them,” he teases.

“Um…” you feel your face grow hot at his words wondering if Iwaizumi can read your thoughts. “About that…”

“Hm?” Iwaizumi blinks.

“I’m sorry if it came out of nowhere, there was just a lot going on in such a and I just -- It was uncalled for… I didn’t mean--”

Iwaizumi lets out a laugh causing you to pause.

“What?” You suddenly feel stupid for bringing this up, thinking you’ve missed the reason as to what’s so funny.

“Sorry,” he shrugs. “You were just trying to make your ex jealous, right?”

Yes, you were, but there was more to it than that.

“Mm,” you reply, unsure of what else to say.

“Don’t you think Oikawa would have been a better contender to piss Ushijima off?”

“I mean… I think it was more than that,” you begin, but lose your courage to confess anymore as Iwaizumi gazes at you with an unreadable expression. “Cause you know, you’re new and he’s never seen you before and so it’s more… Mysterious?”

It sounded more like a question as if you were trying to convince yourself too, but Iwaizumi doesn’t ask further.

“Of course,” he replies so a matter of factly, you feel stupid. Like you’re self-sabotaging yourself.

“I guess it did sort of work seeing as he punched Oikawa,” he adds.

Your face softens at Iwaizumi’s remark in an attempt to lighten the mood.

“I mean, if it really worked he would’ve punched you,” you joke. “Oikawa persuaded Ushijima all on his own.”

You both laugh and you know, now, that it wasn’t such a bad idea to talk about it.

“Well if you ever need to get Ushijima off your back, I can pretend to be your boyfriend.”

Huh?

You weren’t quite sure if you heard that correctly, seeing how nonchalant he is. And when you don’t reply and continue to gaze at Iwaizumi wide-eyed, he’s quick to reply.

“I mean, if you need one,” he continues.

You laugh nervously. At this point, you’re definitely not sure what he’s thinking about, but the fact he so blatantly offered such an outlandish task, makes you wonder if he’s on the same page as you. Is it so obvious to him, that you think he’s hot, that you enjoy spending time with him?

“I’ll hold you to that,” you say, as calmly as you can, trying to suppress the excitement bursting inside. “When’s your last day?”

“Next week.”

“That sucks,” you spit out. “I mean! It’s cool you get to go to school in California, but just sucks you’re going to be leaving”

“We can still keep in touch,” he replies softly.

“You better,” you tease. “I’m jealous you have it all figured out.”

“You will too.”

“Doubtful,” you groan. “But I’m trying to stay optimistic.”

“You’ve got lots of time,” he sighs.

Silence encompasses the space between the two of your time limit with Iwaizumi worries you more. You’re happy he gets to pursue his dream, but you wonder if there's more to why you got to see him again. It feels wrong for wishing him to not leave, the essence of selfishness rolls through you as your conscience nags for you to stop.

"I hope so."

------

It’s the beginning of a new week and you’ve finished your morning class.

But it's very hard to forget the conversation you had with Iwaizumi about the kiss, about him leaving. As much as you’d like him not to leave, to see where things could go, you know it isn’t your best interest to start dating someone new so. You’re not like Ushijima. You’d much rather die than ever admit that you are the same as him. Luckily, you are not. You have morals and you’re a much, much better person than him.

Your name rings down the hall as you stroll towards the exit and turn to see Sara trying to catch up to you. You haven’t seen her since the evening Oikawa swung at Ushijima and honestly had been avoiding her since. Though you did know, you’d have to face her eventually, you preferred it being during class where you can gently brush her off.

“How are you, I haven’t seen you since the other night,” she breathes, trying to catch her breath from basically booking it down the hall.

“I’m fine,” you grunt, unapologetic to how cold it sounds, yet Sara pays no mind to it as she continues to beam with excitement.

“I just wanted to apologize.”

“For?”

“For inviting Ushijima,” she replies, her voice unwavering. “I didn’t find out until later that he’s your ex.”

“Did he tell you?”

“Well, he did that night,” she chuckles, then clears her throat when you raise your eyebrows at her in displeasure. “I was mortified that he didn’t even tell me. I told him who would be there and he didn’t say anything.”

You're quiet, trying to make sense of Sara's explanation. Why is she even telling you this? Is it because you're in a group together? She could have just pretended nothing ever happened and keep things strictly school-related. If this were you, you'd be: 1) pissed your significant other didn't tell you about an ex and 2) would avoid the ex like a plague. Yet here she is, standing in front of you, apologizing. Nothing seemed to add up.

“And you didn’t get mad?” you ask, unable to comprehend Sara's reasons for confronting you.

“Oh my god no, why would I be mad?” she laughs again.

“I thought you were close?”

“Close? I guess, but he’s just been showing me around.”

"Huh?" you blink.

“He’s part of a program here, to help new students.”

You blink again.

“Y/N? You there?”

“Yeah… I just-- you were-- I thought… What’s the program?”

“Um, he's assigned to a new student to help settle in for the first week on campus...”

Your mind flashes back to the other day when Ushijima showed up at your apartment wanting to tell you something, then to the time he tried to chat with you at the restaurant. Was that it? That it's just been a misconception all this time.

"... One time he showed me around the city, but that's about it," she continues, forcing you out of your thoughts. The keyword showed me around the city rings setting an alarm to when you first saw them together. That day, it felt like your heart got ripped out and thrown on the ground with your entire body submerged in an unfathomable sense of agony. You were destroyed.

“So... you normally just hang out with him at school?”

“Yeah. He's the only person I know on campus,” she snorts. "That's why I invited him, as thanks. Regardless I feel like a complete idiot. I’m so sorry I invited him, I totally didn’t mean to put you in an awkward situation.”

You feel perplexed and look away, trying to figure out how to take the information.

Nothing and everything makes sense at once. As if you had stepped into a dream world and your body is separately itself from reality as you trying to mull the information you've just absorbed.

“Forget it," you say, forcing a smile. "I-- I have to get to class.”

“Oh, of course. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah,” you smile, walking in the opposite direction. "I'll see you around."

You sigh realizing you misjudged Ushijima entirely. No wonder he wanted to speak to you and all you've been doing is giving him a cold shoulder. Maybe, guilt can describe the feelings swimming in the pit of your stomach, completely blinded by wrath. You had to tell Oikawa--

Buzz!

Scooping out your phone from your pocket you check down to see a text from said guy. It says: just finished class. you on campus?

You quickly send a reply then your eyes flicker up to a familiar figure walking towards you.

Iwaizumi.

“What are you doing here?” you say.

“Came to drop off Shittykawa’s books," he replies. "He forgot them for his next class.”

“I can take it to him, I was just headed to meet up with him,” you smile.

“Thanks,” he grumbles, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I was kind of hoping to run into you….”

------

I’ll be in the courtyard.

Oikawa reads a text from you and gives a small smile walking in the direction of the destination. Your company is always something he admires especially to kill time between classes. But it was never killing time with you. Instead, it seemed to always go by too fast, like he never had enough of you. His heart starts to race as he nears the courtyard and he doesn’t know why but he’s feeling extra giddy today. Perhaps he woke up in a good mood or perhaps it feels like for once he’s getting somewhere with you by the fact you’ve opened up to him and have been a lot friendlier than usual.

Then he sees you. You’re easy to spot. And he starts to talk a tad quicker, but as you become more in view, he sees you talking to Iwaizumi. His entire body freezes.

------

“I was hoping to spend my last day… With you,” Iwaizumi mumbles. “Oikawa has class during the day and I wanted to see if I could snag you.”

Oh.

Your eyes widen with surprise and excitement as the words echo in your head.

“If you’re available that is,” Iwaizumi quickly adds.

You grin at him. “Yeah, of course. I’d like that!”

“Awesome, I look forward to it,” he says casually before turning around to leave.

“Iwaizumi…”

He stops and turns back to you.

“The books?”

“Oh right, I totally--”

He rushes back over to hand them over, yet the books gently graze your finger and fall to the ground. Both of you react by swooping down to pick them up and from your eagerness accidentally bumps your forehead into Iwaizumi, making loud bonk.

“Oh my god are you ok?” you ask while holding your forehead from the surprise collision.

“Yes, are you ok?” he chuckles while rendering a small smile.

“Yeah,” you giggle. “Sorry I got excited.”

Your face feels hot from how close he is and his contagious laugh. It’s nice and feels... exhilarating. Unlike anything, you’ve felt before from someone.

Suddenly your moment is interrupted by the sound of your phone going off.

It’s your mom.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff #haikyu x reader #Iwaizumi Hajime #iwaizumi x reader #oikawa tooru #oikawa x reader #oikawa x y/n #ushijima x reader #ushijima x y/n

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marimo-o · 3 years ago

Text

ok so im making a long ass post about Abzu (the game) within the context of mesopotamian mythology because I'm insane. It's gonna be a doozy and likely incomprehensible so <3 below the cut it goes! There's gonna be TONS of spoilers for the game, and, like, I guess for the mesopotamian creation epic, so. Play Abzu if you haven't and if you wanna read the Enuma Elish that's also cool. Good for u

(a note from afterwards: it's long. like, REALLY fucking long, holy shit. if you actually want to read the whole thing, be. prepared or something idk take breaks! the last two paragraphs (i know they're walls of text pls bear with me) contain most of the important information. like, the final hurrah of my brain after working on this for multiple hours! So if u wanna save time and avoid some of the redundancy, just skip to those last two <3)

So "Abzu" referred to two things; the fresh water people got from underground aquifers (also as the void-sea which was underneath the Sumerian underworld, Kur), and the deity; he only appeared in the creation story, Enuma Elish, because a big part of that whole thing was that oh no! He dies! And that's also a thing I'm gonna touch on (sorry about the lack of accent marks in advance, it's not available on my current keyboard^ ^;)

I'm gonna start off with a brief tale of what happened with Abzu the deity, and then move onto how both the deity and the concept relate to the game!

So like I mentioned, Abzu the deity only really appears in the creation myth. The story goes that the Primordial Soup divided into two beings, with Abzu representing the freshwater and Tiamat being the saltwater. They were married, and together birthed some of the first formative gods! Some of these gods, jealous of Abzu's power convinced Tiamat to kill him (or, I thought it was started by Tiamat growing resentful of the younger gods, one of those). Either way, Abzu was killed, and Tiamat ended up lashing out, creating the first "dragons", or perhaps becoming one herself; with "poison instead of blood". She is killed by Marduk, the god of storms and the child of Enki (one of the first gods created by Abzu and Tiamat), and from her body the heavens and the earth are formed. Imagine getting killed by ur grandson lol cringe /j

Now! The waters itself! This also brings Enki into the equation, who kinda took over as god of the waters in place of his dead father. He's also the god of creation, intelligence, crafts, mischief, and more! Very important guy.

Abzu refers to both the groundwater reservoirs that people depended on for both accessible clean water and for some agricultural work, and also to the void-sea beneath the underworld, where it is said that Enki rests. He had a temple at Eridu, a now-ruined city, and I remember hearing somewhere that he lived in a temple in an underground aquifer? But I can't find wherever I read that anymore so don't take my word for it. Anyway, the basics of Enki as a deity is: child of Tiamat and Abzu, widely worshipped in his time, god of the waters, generally a cool and important dude.

And now. Finally. We move onto the game. My head hurts.

So, for a quick (post-writing: lol it's not quick) overview of the game; you play as a funny little diver, who woke up in the middle of the ocean and, as the player, are given no clues as to who or what you are. You explore through the ocean levels peacefully at first, and with the guidance of a scarred shark (painted as a bit of an antagonist at first with the audio cues) you make your way to wells at the bottom-center of each level that revitalize the space around them; as they progress, many levels start out as barren, empty landscapes that give you a foreboding, nervous feeling going in, before using an energy from yourself to rekindle the life. Huge coral growths, seaweed, and a myriad of ocean animals spring to life. The player character can also ride on the sides of the bigger ones! The game also puts a big stress on unity between yourself and the environment; there's not a whole lot you can physically interact with, but you can play with the animals there and, like I said before, ride on some of the larger animals. There are also "meditation spots", statues where you can sit and explore the wildlife from more of their point of view, able to follow them seamlessly and see what the different kinds of fish and such are called. It's a calming experience, and really the most interaction you get with some of the more timid animals, letting you still see them up close even if you can't get there as the player character.

The story of the game is told via writings on the walls, which you can light up and access by solving small puzzles regarding connecting reservoirs of glowing waters, similar to that of the almost cosmic area you go to between levels; one thing I read described it as a kind of "rebirth area", which I can definitely see hehe!

At the end of the game, you've held the shark in its dying moments, you've discovered a strange factory that builds the weird triangular prisms that deliver anything that touches them a shock, the little flashlight dudes that you've found over the levels, and little divers that uncannily resemble yourself, and you've seen yourself disassembled to your funny little mechanical skeleton, weak and slow as you try to walk on land, before you are rebirthed from the void-cosmic-water area once again, fully yourself. There's a wonderful ending sequence where you swim through all these rivers, bringing life with you as you go, with the shark once again by your side. The whole game, you saw no land when you poked your head above water, just miles and miles of water, but you've travelled far enough to reach a reservoir. You cut the chains to a central triangular prism, and it grows over with moss. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it, really, it feels like such a... grand gesture as you play through it. It feels personal.

Okay. Theory time. Finally, we're getting into the meat of it. Fucking hell.

So, imagine that you are this being. You're wandering an oceanic wonderland, observing and caring for what you need to, doing as any good little diver should. After a bit of poking around, you discover the start of the engravings on the walls; they tell the story of the people that were here before you, who built these temples and halls and used, or at least stored, the strange blue glowing "water" that you connect and move. It's a water of life, of sorts, one that they truly valued. You come to an impasse between areas, and this massive, scarred-up shark cuts in front of you. You're gonna stay hidden, that thing is terrifying! You try not to move. It doesn't spot you, or at least doesn't move to attack you. However, once it's safely out of view, you do follow it, and it leads you to a dark, desolate, empty chamber. This is wrong, you think to yourself. This isn't how it should be. There's a well, towards the bottom, and you approach it, taking... a fragment of light, from your chest, and imbuing that spark of life into the well. And, lo and behold, that intuition proved helpful, because the world around you springs back to life. Congratulations! You did it! And you continue to, as you work past puzzles and challenges and the appearance of these strange triangular mechanisms, that shock you when you get too close. These people worshipped a shark, as well, likely the same as the one you saw; the guide, now old and scarred, that brings you to where that spark is needed. Even later in the game, you see depictions of the triangular mechanisms, at first heralded as a positive, before these things are found to be the reason for this society's collapse. As if that wasn't perplexing enough, you see a depiction of a being that appears suspiciously similar to yourself, once again treated with reverence from the past civilization. In their hand is a ball of light, similar to the one shown when you revitalize the oceanic chambers. Well, that's certainly odd, you think to yourself. Perhaps this was a being that postponed the death of the civilization, or first allowed for those small chambers of life to exist in captivity instead of the open, natural landscapes you explored at the start. Regardless, it's now a relic of something long gone; but it still gives you something to think about. Later on, that strange coincidence of your similarities to that person are explained; you find a manufacturing plant, full of the vicious triangular mechanisms in each tight hallway, and right at the center of it all... multiple iterations of yourself, running down an assembly line, a spark not unlike what you saw before imbued into each of them. My, look at that; you've been responsible for part of this destruction all along, haven't you? Borne from that same ill that has been forcibly removing that spark from each of the places you've gone to. A bit inconsiderate of you, no? And yet... look at all the good you've done. You've rebirthed, revitalized, purified these ocean fragments, is that not enough? You are the keeper of these waters, regardless of the evil you had come from, despite the terrifying empty things may have reverted to. You, who trusted and followed the shark that seemed so scary at first. You, who followed it as it tried to attack a source of the evil, of the thing that was draining the oceans of their life. You, who held and comforted that shark as it lay dying, despite any fear you may have had. You, who attempted to traverse a minefield of those triangular machines, shocked over and over again and at the final moment, unable to make it to the finish line. You, who was rebirthed in full regardless by the oceans you'd cared for, by the void-sea you always returned to, to rest. You, who traversed a now-ruined citadel, temple, all of which had been flooded and had been dedicated to you. You, who brought life with you.

I hope you see what I'm getting at here. You're serving as a figure not unlike Enki, god and guardian of the waters. In the wake of Abzu, the avatar of the fresh waters, now confined to irrigation canals so as not to kill the younger gods, Tiamat lashes out. Her husband is dead, as far as she is concerned, and she goes to those younger gods to seek her revenge. The dragon, that which sucked the life from the seas and poisoned the waters. That which Marduk killed, to carve new life from. I would say that the shark is Marduk, even; given how the shark is the only one who is openly on the offense to those mechanisms, and who comes in at the endgame to finish them off, bringing new life with it. Even in how it all shapes up with the civilization before, in connection to the constructs; Tiamat was the mother of all in existence at that time. She was surely loved; but she turned hostile and violent. She could no longer be safely loved. And Abzu, both the glowing water we use to open doors and the light that we hold and the deep void-sea we enter between levels and father to all in existence, he was confined to small canals and reservoirs and put in a deep sleep so that he would not kill his own children. And by you, no less. Enki put him there. That is why you can use that water from the start; you lived in the Abzu, you came from it, and each time, that is where you return. That temple, now submerged and decrepit, is Eridu; the place where Enki was most worshipped. The other diver clones are the other gods, or perhaps the "dragons", now, that Tiamat had mothered. The smaller prisms definitely count in that "dragon" category; purely harmful beings that seek to destroy life. And in the end, indeed, you restore life; you and your son, upon killing Tiamat, return life to the world from her body. Perhaps you could not save those who once worshipped you, perhaps those structures will forever be in ruin. But there is no more danger, now; there is space to build and replenish. There is space to grow.

Fuck ok that was long as hell. Hi if u made it this far i love u. god fucking damn im never writing anything again after this. it took about as long as a full playthrough of the game, coincidentally!!

#my writing #abzû #abzu #giant squid studios #ancient history #the moss mumbles #im not joking this is horrible. like it's all just word vomit about sumerian legend -> the game -> the game again (but in second person)#and THEN we get to The Point. god christ

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peaceoutofthepieces · 4 years ago

Text

Tracing Time

This discusses the hate crime in s3 (and the homophobia plotline in sos).

Thursday, 02:26

Song: IAMX - Insomnia; Crywolf ft. EDEN - Stomach It

He’s going to break that clock.

It’s usually not something that bothers him. Sometimes he even finds it soothing, counts the ticks to help him sleep. Now it’s too loud, occupies too much space, and taunts him with how late it is and how much he’s going to regret this tomorrow. Even though it’s out of his control.

He stuffs his face further into his pillow and makes himself take a deep breath. When that doesn’t work, he takes another. Then one more. And another.

He gets up, climbs so that he’s standing on top of his bed, and takes the clock off the wall. He pulls out the batteries from the back, careful not to let them drop and roll away, and there. Peaceful, beautiful, blissful silence. This time his deep breath works, sending a wave of relaxation all the way through him before he climbs down again.

When he crawls back into bed, he’s got his phone in one hand and his key to Robbe’s in the other.

He doesn’t really do anything with either, just sets his phone next to him and lets his hand rest on it and rubs his thumb over the key in the habit he’s picked up. It’s most soothing, even as he feels apprehension and doubt swirl in his chest. Robbe had gone to sleep before Sander even went to bed, messaging him while Sander was still working on his assignment, trying to finish off just that one paragraph. He’d told himself that was enough to be satisfied with, that it would be more beneficial to sleep when he still has two days to work on it. He’d had to take his pills, anyway, and he’d hoped they’d pretty much knock him out, but he hardly even feels as sleepy as he usually does.

Now he just feels like he’s wasting his time. He’s not working or sleeping, and his brain has nowhere to go so it spins in circles.

He's thinking about his assignment, still. Worrying. He’s pretty sure he’ll get it done, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a load of crap. He’s also thinking about Agathe, telling him he’s doing well. He’s thinking about the woman with the death stare from the cafe. He’s thinking about that talk with Jens, and moving on and doing better.

He rubs over the key too quickly and lets out a hiss as he scratches his thumb. Instead of putting it down, however, he holds it tight in his hand and picks up his phone.

He navigates to Robbe’s contact, first. He looks at their messages from earlier, the usual banter, the sweet goodnight, and he settles a little, allows it to warm him. He could text Robbe, but chances are that the boy is definitely asleep and Sander will wake him up. Robbe’s insomnia had returned with a weak sort of vengeance after the holidays as he stressed about his final ever semester, but he seems to have gotten it under control now. Sander will not disturb him.

He could go through and look at videos or photos or listen to voice notes, bring the remnants of Robbe close enough to feel his comfort. Or it might just strengthen the twinge in his heart.

He finds himself opening Instagram instead, maybe to bore him to sleep, and finds Lucas’s story waiting for him. He’s only shared a song, nothing unusual, but it was also only posted two minutes ago.

Sander’s calling him without even taking time to think about it, but Lucas picks up on the first ring.

“Hi,” he says, voice low and sleepy but curious, the concern thinly veiled. “Can’t sleep either?”

“No,” Sander whispers. “Hi.”

Lucas is silent for a moment, probably waiting for Sander to speak. Eventually, he gives up. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Sander pauses. “No? I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Lucas says. “I’ll wait.”

Well.

It’s not Robbe, but it’s the next best thing, maybe. It’s the perfect thing to say, to do. Because Lucas won’t push, but he won’t leave. He’ll breathe in Sander’s ear and wait. Sander takes the time, because he knows, is sure, that it really is allowed, and without the incessant ticking it doesn’t feel as long, anyway. Even when he’s silent for what must be a few minutes, Lucas stays silent, too. Keeps waiting.

“Are you scared of Jens’s house?” Sander finally asks.

The silence on the other end becomes total, and Sander checks to make sure Lucas hasn’t hung up. But no; it’s just his breaths that have stopped. Sander worries for a brief moment before a sigh emits. “I know you spoke to him.”

Sander takes it for the non-answer it is and points it out as one. “That wasn’t my question.”

“I know.” Their breaths pass to each other silently again. Then Lucas just says, “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid. Even now. It doesn’t matter that I know it’s stupid. It doesn’t matter when he’s not there.” He takes a louder breath. “I think I’m just always a little afraid, anyway, though.”

Sander absorbs this. After a while, he just says, softly, “Yeah.”

It’s not that he hadn’t been, even before. Merely meeting Robbe was scary for a multitude of reasons, and kissing him for the first time had his heart pounding, but it was worth it, so worth it. Then he’d had Robbe turn him down, had seen Robbe so hurt and upset by what he’d done, and he’d felt the fear and the horror and the disgust at himself before he realised it was all the same things that had made Robbe so harsh in the first place. It hadn’t mattered, when Robbe came back to him, because Sander had him then and that was all he wanted and he had always understood. Even if he had never struggled with himself quite the way Robbe had, it was still part of his understanding. He’d never really needed Robbe to explain himself to him.

Then Sander had taken Robbe on what he thought would be a perfect first date, and his understanding grew to a whole new level.

And with it comes the fear.

Even though he knows, he knows, that Robbe has only been strengthened, has only grown braver, because of their relationship. Even though he never wishes or feels the need to hide Robbe, never, no matter where and when they might be. It’s still there.

It’s a valid fear, and that understanding fills Sander with such a burning fury that of course he has to fight back against it.

He’s already spent too much of his life fearing too much about himself. He will not fear this, not when it is what allows him his biggest source of happiness.

“Is this about the bar?” Lucas asks quietly. “I know you talked to Jens.”

Sander huffs.

“I’m sorry, if you didn’t want him to pass anything on to me, but he needed to tell me you were the one knocking sense into him. I’ve been meaning to say thanks.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he mumbles.

Lucas hums. “You did. You understood.”

“So I was right?”

“Of course you were,” Lucas laughs, derisively. “You knew you were. I mean, you’re also shockingly wrong, but that’s a whole different point.”

Sander frowns, furrowing his brows, even though Lucas can’t see him. “What does that mean?”

There’s silence for a moment, and then Lucas sighs. “You know it’s not the same. With you guys...it’s not just about Robbe.” He pauses for a moment. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours either,” Sander says forcefully.

“That’s not what I meant. I know it’s not. I know enough about the guy to know he’s just a dick, and no matter what I did, that wouldn’t be any different. I don’t think you do.”

Sander has a denial ready, but it dies in his throat. He doesn’t have the energy to protest and argue, not with his medication finally feeling like it’s kicking in, and not when Lucas will just see right through him. “I know,” is all he manages to say, hoarsely.

“Do you?”

“I do. But don’t you also think...I don’t know. Maybe if I was thinking more clearly, I would have gotten us out of there sooner, or I could have fought them off—“

“But Robbe couldn’t?”

Sander swallows. This is precisely why he didn’t want to argue, because he knew Lucas would go for all his sense and logic and pick Sander’s points apart at the seams. Sander doesn’t have any retorts prepared.

“Sander, I get how you feel, but you know he wants to protect you too, right?” Lucas asks softly. He gets even quieter as he continues. “You know you were hurt, too.”

“This woman gave me a weird look today, when I was at the cafe with Robbe,” Sander tells him. “And I was just so relieved she didn’t actually say anything and he didn’t see.”

Lucas lets out another breath, and there’s a rustling of sheets. “I wouldn’t tell him, either.”

Sander lowers his voice to a whisper. “Why doesn’t it matter how long it’s been? Robbe and I go back to the bar all the time now, and it’s fine, it doesn’t bother us.”

“But you don’t have to be there to think about it, so it bothers you anyway, at the most random times.”

Sander closes his eyes.

“It’s okay, Sander,” Lucas murmurs.

“I told Robbe not to go to the police. That they’d never catch the guys, that shit just happens. Like it was nothing, like we just have to get over it.”

“I’m sure he knows that isn’t what you meant.”

“No, but he doesn’t know what I did mean. He doesn’t know that I didn’t want my dad to be taking our statement and know about another way that I fucked up. I didn’t want to have made another mistake, I didn’t want it to be my fault for finding trouble, I—“

“Sander, stop,” Lucas says sternly. “I can hear your voice cracking. You need to breathe, okay? Take a minute. It’s fine.”

Sander struggles to obey, abandoning his rant to take another deep breath, like he’d always been taught. Lucas doesn’t say anything, but his own breaths seem to get louder. The steady rhythm filters into Sander’s ears and eases its way towards his lungs. He closes his eyes, but his mind is still conjuring too many unpleasant images, so he opens them again and looks for something to focus on in the dim, moonlit room. He settles on the photographs framed on his nightstand. One from when he was a child, both his parents next to him, and the other much more recent. That first afternoon he’d spent in Robbe’s room, the two of them locked away in their bubble, talking about universes and films and thoughts. Well over a year ago, now, and he still remembers it so clearly. Robbe’s arms draped around his shoulders, kissing the top of Sander’s head while Sander pulls a stupid face. Robbe so caring, so indulgent, even then.

“That’s better,” Lucas speaks up again.

Sander lets out a shaky sigh. “Sorry.”

“You never talk to anyone about how much it affected you, do you? Aside from the first time you told me about it, you don’t let yourself be upset.”

“It’s Robbe,” Sander says, somewhat hopelessly, unsure that he’s making any sense at this point. “How could I not love him? What’s so bad about it?”

“Nothing,” Lucas says, sure and steady. “Nothing at all, Sander.”

A tear Sander hadn’t even noticed was building slips down his cheek, and he lets it, waits until it seeps into the pillow before wiping the dampness from his skin. They both stay quiet, but the simple presence of his friend is enough to be calming. He’s somewhat glad he hadn’t called Robbe, though he longs for nothing more than to go to him, and the key still tucked in his fist is enough permission. But he doesn’t want to talk to Robbe about this, not anymore, not again. Not when it could do harm rather than good, could bring sadness without any relief.

It’s a relief, to tell Lucas, who understands but won’t be hurt by it in the same way. Who knows Sander almost as well and has been in a similar position and who won’t cry just because he does.

“You never told your parents about it, did you?” Lucas asks. It’s not judgmental, but it’s clear he knows the answer already.

“Would you have, if you didn’t have to for Jens?”

He hears Lucas’s soft huff. “Probably not. But that doesn’t mean I’m not glad that they know.”

“It’s not the same, though. You didn’t lie to them about why you came home beat up. You didn’t have to.”

“No. I was lucky, I know that. But that could just mean I’m a lot more to blame for what happened to us than you are for such a random, hateful attack. I lied to my dad, too. He didn’t know Jens and I were together, and if I hadn’t been at his house, his dad would never have found out. Or at least, it might not have been as shockingly bad.”

“No,” Sander argues, again, but it’s difficult with Lucas using his own logic against him.

Lucas sighs; Sander can picture him shaking his head. “Maybe if I’d told dad earlier, Jens wouldn’t have had to run off, and I wouldn’t have felt so shitty. But I know even if I’d never brought it up, it would still feel like a relief to tell him today.”

Sander purses his lips, and doesn’t say anything.

“You can be upset, or angry, or hurt, or whatever you want. And you can talk about it. That’s how you move on, Sander.”

“Robbe and I have already talked about it so many times,” Sander sighs. Then he admits, “But never like this.”

Lucas hums. “He’ll understand, better than me. And he can handle it just as well. You know that. But thank you, for telling me. You always can.”

“I know,” Sander mumbles. Somewhere in the past couple of minutes, his eyelids have started drooping. “Thank you.”

“Did it help? At all?”

Sander presses into his pillow and lets out a breath. “Yeah. I actually think it did.” It hasn’t really changed anything, he knows, and it’ll come up again eventually no matter how much he tells himself it’s in the past and he’s moved on. The weight of the memory isn’t gone, but it feels lighter, somehow. Like admitting it’s not okay is starting to make it so.

“Good.” He can hear the smile in Lucas’s voice. “Are you falling asleep now?”

Sander can’t do much more than hum.

Lucas laughs quietly. “Okay. Get some rest, dumbass.”

“Are you okay?” Sander thinks to ask. “You were up, that’s why I called.”

“I’m going to sleep now, too,” Lucas promises. “I think you helped me as well.”

“Okay,” Sander sighs. “Night, Luc.”

“Bye, Sander.”

Sander waits a moment even after he hears the call run out, then lets his hand slip away from his ear slowly. He sets the phone aside, stretching his arm out to the nightstand, but keeps a hold of the key. He brings it closer to his chest and sucks a breath in, then lets it out, and finally relaxes. He doesn’t have to go to Robbe, he convinces himself. But he can—he really can, any time he wants to, and that’s more than enough.

He’s asleep in seconds.

~^~

previous/next

#wtfock #sobbe #sander driesen #lucas van der heijden #sander season #tracing time #idk if i like this clip so it’s being posted in the middle of the night 🤪

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