#sorry if this sounds all over the place I just wanted to speak Intuit he void

[demonictumble]

More thoughts on Batman and what I want to be explored more (copied and pasted from notes bc drafts is still being a dick, and not of the vigilante variety)

Keep in mind that this is coming from someone whose only read wfa, a bunch of fics, and a couple of panels on tumblr. So please do take this all with a grain of salt and not as facts please.

* Bruce Wayne and Batman. I’m curious as to how Bruce views crimes. I think it has been stated that he didn’t go to crime alley much before jason? But anyways, I’m curious as to how raised as a billionaire views the severity of crimes. Like after Jason’s death he is said to be beating people to an inch of their lives for smaller crimes done more out of necessity (I feel like that could be akin to police brutality but that’s a topic for another day and one I’m not sure I’m the best person to talk about it). How about pre-Jason? Like how badly was he beating up people (not to the extent to the icu), did the severity of the crimes match the punishments he inflicted?

* There’s a lot of societal issues in Gotham and how people solve it in varying ways and I want to see more fics about that. About Bruce Wayne grappling with his privilege and using it for good. About Batman being more empathetic to criminals (obviously I’m not endorsing crimes but sometimes it’s not all black and white, it’s the shades of gray in between we need to sift through). I wanna see more of that instead of the constant ideological struggle between the Red Hood and Batman (killing vs no killing).

[abarbaricyalp]

Hi! Not sure how it works, but for the Whumptober event: #15 for SamBucky?

Oh it is so embarrassing to be answering this so late. I have literally been working on it (off and on) since October. It never strayed from the top of my WIP pile. I just...gestures vaguely Thank you so much for sending in a prompt and I'm so sorry to have taken so long. I do love a good "Leave me alone, I'm fine" whump. I went with "Makeshift bandages" but I'm sure you can find "suppressed suffering" and "I'm fine" if you squint.

Putting Bandages Where Stitches Should Be

CW: Injury, violence, blood, etc

Read on AO3

Steve was right again. Sam hated it when Steve was right. It was making an indisputably bad day even worse.

"Don't go out today," Steve had said, all puppy-dogged eyes that morning. "I've got a bad feeling."

Him and his bad feelings. He called it a soldier's intuition and Sam called it a soldier's paranoia. But, dammit, he was usually right. That couldn’t be a byproduct of the serum, could it?

But it was a beautiful fall day and they needed groceries something fierce, so Sam had rolled his eyes and called him paranoid and headed out.

It had been fine for several hours, Sam wanted it noted. Just a normal day of errands. Hell, no one had even recognized him. He even tried a new coffee drink.

With a hysterical kind of laugh, Sam realized he hadn’t even made it to the grocery store yet. Probably a good thing since the car was now languishing in a parking lot somewhere and it was only going to get warmer as the day went on. What time was it, he wondered. Had Steve realized something was wrong yet? That paranoid intuition would be real handy right about then.

Sam leaned back against the dingy wall and tried not to think about how badly he was sweating against it. It was going to start mildewing. He still couldn’t figure out where these guys came from. The parking lot had been almost completely empty. There’d been no one else near him. One second, he was loading up a bag of new blankets into the back of the car, and the next someone was hitting him upside the head and dragging him away.

He knew they had to be trained at least a little. They were quiet and fierce. Nothing that Sam couldn’t normally hand, but there had been no fighting through the early wound to his head. Actually, it was still pulsing, each heartbeat a new throb of bruise-ache against his skull. The longer he sat here, the further the ache traveled, reaching for his temples, his ears, his eyes.

He closed his eyes, as if that would stave off anything at all, and listened to the ambient noise of whatever not-so-safe house he was being held in. He’d seen neither hide nor hair of his attackers since they’d thrown him into the small room. He assumed it was an apartment and this was some bedroom or office. It was clean, the carpet was almost soft. There were worse places, he thought. And with it being carpet, maybe they weren’t looking to make him bleed. That’d be nice.

He knew other people were around. He could hear them pacing around the other side of the door. His head hurt too much to concentrate on what they were saying. They were speaking German, which he didn’t speak, but it gave him a good feel that this was probably Hydra. It made the apartment even more confusing. What would Hydra want with Sam that involved just keeping him thrown in an empty office?

There was a cacophony outside then, snarling and the sounds of blows landing on bodies, bodies falling to the floor.

“Ich habe es dir gesagt!” he heard someone shout. “Er ist der Winter Soldier!”

Someone was shitting Sam. Instantly, all of the minor irritation of the day flooded over the actual concern of having been kidnapped by neo-Nazi assholes. If he’d said ‘this day can’t get worse’ this is the exact outcome that would have made it worse. He’d take bleeding over this.

There was more fighting and then the door was wrenched open and a very bloodied and bruised Winter Soldier was kicked into the room, landing hard on his face and wrist beside Sam.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Sam said, just to get it out there.

Barnes turned over onto his back, keeping his hurt wrist against his chest. He looked up at Sam, scowled through the blood on his face, managed to glare while both eyes were almost swelled shut. “I ain’t thrilled to see you neither, birdbrain,” he coughed. He turned back onto his side to spit out a glob of blood that landed on the knee of Sam’s jeans.

“Asshole,” Sam snapped and tried to clean it off, even though it was already a lost battle. “I take it you fought back,” Sam guessed.

“I take it you did not,” Bucky shot back and it felt more like an insult than an actual insult would have.

Sam scowled at him. It had been months since they’d seen each other. Sam couldn’t even say what city or even country it was that he’d caught up to Barnes in. It hadn’t been a long meeting. More or less just enough time for them to grapple and exchange a few threats before Barnes shook Sam’s tail again. At first, Sam took it as a personal failing that he kept losing Barnes. He was too ashamed to admit to Steve that he’d caught up with the reanimated best friend but let him slip away. Then, as time went on and Sam caught him more often, he placed all of the blame fully on Barnes. There were times, he knew, when Barnes let him catch up. These happened only often enough to keep Sam in the cat-and-mouse game. There were times, he also knew, when Barnes fully didn’t expect Sam to have found him. Two months ago was one of those times. Barnes had seemed healthy and adjusted. He had his own place and there was fresh bread on the table. Small miracles.

That did not explain why Barnes was in New York or anywhere near it in order to get the shit beat out of him by Hydra goons and dragged into whatever this was.

Barnes shoved himself up by the elbows and spit more blood out. So much for keeping the carpet clean. “So what the fuck did you do to land us here?”

“This is not an ‘us’ situation,” Sam objected with a snort. “What did you do to land you  here?”

“Fuck all,” Barnes answered. He leaned against the wall next to Sam, tilted his head back to avoid gushing more blood from his nose. Sam had seen him hurt before, but he’d never been around for the fall out like this. He was like some stray dog, sleeping off the worst of it and trying to lick clean all of the rest. “You told me it was an emergency.”

Sam looked away from a smear of blood on Bucky’s neck to frown at him directly. “I did not reach out to you. And what kind of emergency could possibly make you come all the way back to America?”

Bucky’s head lolled over to him. A muscle worked in his jaw and down his neck as those obnoxious eyes scanned over Sam’s face. “You said Steve was hurt. Bad.”

“I didn’t. He’s not. That’s all it would’ve taken to get you back here?” he asked, just a little offended that he’d been traipsing around the world and digging huge chunks into his sleep deficit when there was a magic code to bring Bucky back on his own. And all it would take was Steve landing himself in a hospital again.

Bucky half waved him off, turned his head away again. “Someone must’ve really wanted me here.”

“I cannot fathom why.”

They sat in stony silence for too long. Sam much preferred being alone, he decided. At least then silence was just silence and not this crackling energy between them. Barnes broke the silence by coughing wetly again and spitting out more blood and tissue.

“Christ alive,” Sam sighed. “What’s going on with you?” He reached out without any fanfare to hold Bucky’s face and examine the injuries there. There’d been no time for any of them to heal, not that Sam would’ve been able to tell through the blood. “Hold still,” he ordered and reached for the hidden knife in Bucky’s bootheel that he knew was there.

“How?” Bucky asked. Sam was surprised to only find curiosity in his voice and not anger.

“I’ve seen you take it out before. Just had to hope it wasn’t something Hydra taught you and knew to look for.”

“Nah, that one’s all Brooklyn,” he said with a tired sigh. “Well, kind of. I adapted it.”

Sam rolled his eyes. The old-timey Brooklyn posturing was the same whether it was Steve or Barnes, evidently. He cut the sleeve off of his shirt and used it to begin cleaning away some of the blood on Bucky’s face. It was slow going without water, but Barnes was remarkably quiet during the entire thing. He let Sam work without fussing. His eyes remained focused and sharp, bright even in the dim room. He was more enjoyable when his eyes looked like this, instead of the dead shark stare he got in the middle of a fight.

Not that Sam was going to admit Barnes was ever enjoyable to be around.

“What do you think this is about?” Sam asked to distract Bucky from the fact that he was about to set his nose back.

“Clearly they wanted the both of us–Fuck you, Wilson!” Bucky shouted and shoved Sam hard enough that Sam actually rocked back and lost his balance, sprawled across the floor. Sam subtly rolled out his shoulder–it was definitely going to bruise–before he sat up again and glared.

“I didn’t think you wanted the rugged crooked nose look,” he defended without any real belief in the words. He was actually kind of worried about what the serum would do to a persistently crooked nose.

Bucky rubbed from the bridge of his nose into the soft, squishy bruises around his eyes. Already, impossibly, the color was draining from the outer edges of the bruises. Sam hated him for it.

“Clearly they wanted both of us,” Sam agreed and rolled his shoulder again. “But…they don’t seem keen on cutting off fingers.”

“Not yet,” Bucky grunted.

“They gotta know we won’t talk. You won’t talk. Don’t you think it’s kind of playing with fire to bring you here? I mean, you’re not even drugged.”

As if his words were a reminder, Bucky eyed the door. Sam knew he could take it out of the wall if he wanted too. He also knew that whoever these assholes were, they had enough manpower to bring Bucky in bloodied and rough. He figured Bucky was doing similar calculations in his mind.

“Why us?” Sam prompted again.

“Steve,” Bucky grunted. He leaned back against the wall and drew his knees up to his chest. “They wouldn’t bother to hunt me down, wouldn’t take that risk, for anything else. They probably think if they have both of us, they have twice as much leverage.”

“Maybe they couldn’t decide which one he was more likely to come for,” Sam suggested, only a little sarcastically.

“That man would rend the Earth apart for you,” Bucky said as simply as he would talk about the weather.

Sam tried not to blow over again. Bucky believed that. He wasn’t just saying it to be a shit. “Have you been watching us?” he asked, instead of asking for a thesis on why Bucky thought that so assuredly.

Bucky cut him a look. It was dampened by the bruises. “I had to keep making sure neither of you had gotten yourselves killed yet.”

“Yeah, you’re a real shining example of how to do it right. Show back up on American soil for two minutes and instantly get captured,” Sam snarked back. He needed to put some distance between his current situation and the fact that Barnes thought Steve would ‘rend the Earth apart’ for him. “Come here and let me look at that wrist.”

“Is this how you were with the pararescue?”

“Good at my job? Yes.”

“So damn pushy,” Barnes corrected. But he shifted how he was sitting so they were almost knee to knee and then held out his arm. “It’ll heal on its own,” he said. “I’ve had worse.”

“Or I can just wrap it and you don’t have to worry about rebreaking it later. Do you know how many carpal bones there are? You keep fucking them up, or the tendons attached to them, and you’re gonna be in a world of hurt for longer than you need to be.”

“There are eight,” Barnes said, just to be difficult. “Should I name them all for you too?”

Sam took half a second to glare at him before returning his attention to Bucky’s wrist. Barnes was long fingered, which was something Sam knew logically. He’d seen him handle weaponry. Seen him fight. Still, it was different when those fingers were laid out across his forearm, a little swollen, a little curled in, but still so damn pretty. Sam had never met someone with pretty hands before. He’d expected Bucky’s hands to be gnarled and scarred from a lifetime of fighting and training and abuse, but they just weren’t. The serum helped, he assumed. He wondered what they had looked like on the man from all of Steve’s stories. Had they looked like this, even working on the docks all day and boxing his way through the nights?

Everyone Sam knew who’d ever worked around boats had hands that were rope-burned and muscled and suntanned. He’d half expected Bucky’s to be similar. Instead, his hands were…not soft, exactly. But clean and smooth.

He pushed his thumbs into Bucky’s wrist, dragging them down his metacarpals. Barnes hissed in a breath and his eyes darted away from Sam’s ministrations. Sam returned his thumbs to Bucky’s wrist and then pushed down into his ulna and radius. He didn’t react as strongly to that, so Sam focused on the carpals that were up high in his wrist. (Down low? He could never remember how to orient the body)

“Where does it hurt?” he asked, probing for the misaligned bone but coming up empty.

“Everywhere,” Barnes ground out. “It fucking hurts everywhere.” But he didn’t yank his hand away, so Sam kept at it. Finally, finally, something snapped as Sam pushed his thumbs down into Bucky’s wrist for an umpteenth time. Bucky swore colorfully and snatched his hand back at that, rubbing his own fingers over his wrist while new curses came out.

“Let me wrap it a little,” Sam offered, holding his hand out again.

Bucky looked at him like he bit. Sam had read all the notes about the Winter Soldier. How medical treatment was administered. When the Soldier cooperated and when he didn’t. The Soldier could handle inordinate amounts of pain. Bucky Barnes, it seemed, did not feel like keeping the habit alive.

“It’ll be fine without a sling,” he insisted. “It already feels better.” And then, from between his teeth, he added, “Thank you.”

He was still bloodied, hair matted all to hell. He looked like some kind of wild man. Actually, he kind of looked how Sam expected to find him at the beginning of the Great Barnes Search and Rescue Mission. He came forward again, beginning to wipe at Bucky’s face one more time.

“You’re disgusting to look at,” he defended when Bucky tacked a lazy glare on him.

“Just admit you wanna touch my face, Wilson,” Bucky shot back.

Sam accidentally reopened a wound, so he tore off a piece from his demolished sleeve and stuck it to the gash like toilet paper on a shaving knick. 

“You’re so dumb,” Bucky sighed as his eyes closed. Then he pitched right into Sam, almost completely boneless.

“Barnes?” Sam barked as he fought to get his hands under Bucky’s body enough to lift him again. “Do not fucking pass out,” he ordered, possibly irrelevantly. “Barnes,” he snapped again, and gently smacked the better, less bruised side of his face. “You didn’t say you were concussed. You didn’t say you had more injuries.” He yanked up Bucky’s shirt, prodding his belly and ribs for any signs of internal bleeding, but came up short. Just a bunch of outside bruises, maybe a crack in his ribs. He wrenched open Bucky’s mouth to check for signs he’d been coughing blood, but didn’t find any of that either. He was just about to shove his fingers down Bucky’s throat to look for a blood clot when his eyes fluttered open again.

He took a few seconds to recognize his surroundings–distressingly still and relaxed about waking up in a room he didn’t know–and then he reached up for Sam’s wrist and pulled his hand away. “Why were your fingers in my mouth?”

Sam rolled his eyes while he waited for his heart to stop thundering in his chest. Just his luck. Find the prodigal best friend and watch him die before Sam could drop him at Steve’s feet. “You basically begged for me to,” he scoffed. “Sam, please, you’ve just got such good fingers. I need them in my mouth.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, then grimaced. So it probably was some kind of concussion. At least Sam didn’t have to worry about blood clots. “What’s happened? How long was I out?”

“Nothing. A few seconds,” Sam answered. “Don’t do that again.”

Bucky saluted from halfway up his chest. “Whatever, man. I’m just tired.”

“I don’t care what you are. Keep your eyes open.”

The door opened then and a tall man, dressed like a movie villain with tall dark boots and a long dark coat, walked into the room. He had Sam’s phone in his hand and it was trilling with a waiting phone call.

“You don’t keep a passcode on your phone?” Bucky asked drily.

“Of course I fucking do,” Sam snapped back.

“Gentlemen, please,” the man said with a stifled German accent.

Steve picked up just before it would’ve gone to voicemail. “Sam, hey, I was about to send out a rescue party.”

Bucky looked at Sam pointedly, which Sam ignored. It was just a joke. He hadn’t been gone that long. Probably.

“Mr. Rogers,” the man in the coat greeted. Sam could practically feel Steve go still on the other side of the call. “I seem to have acquired not only your friend’s cell phone, but him as a whole person. And he came along with another friend.”

He snapped a photo of Sam and Bucky. Bucky barely flinched at the flash, but a few seconds later, he was still blinking and shaking his head, like the light was still in his eyes. The bad guy du jour tapped around on Sam’s phone and Sam heard it buzz in on Steve’s end.

Steve was quiet, contemplative for a few seconds. Then he said, “You have Sam and Bucky?”

“Yeeesss,” the man agreed with a lilting exaggeration. “I didn’t know they came as a pair.”

“They don’t, usually. But now that you do have both, good luck.”

And then the little shit hung up the phone. Even the asshole German guy stared at the screen in disbelief. Another man appeared in the hallway. He cast a nervous glance towards Bucky, whose eyes were shut again, before redirecting his attention to his boss.

“What’d he say?” the man asked. He was fully American. Jersey, maybe.

“Bad connection,” the other man ground out before stalking down the hallway. The second man hurried to keep up. The door remained open.

Sam nudged Bucky’s ribs. “Stop it,” Bucky grumbled without opening his eyes.

“If you pass out again, I’m not waking you up this time,” Sam lied. “What did Steve mean?”

“I think he meant we can handle ourselves. I just need to…” He grimaced. “I just need to rest my eyes for a little while. Then I’ll be good to go.”

“The door is open now,” Sam pointed out under his breath. “Come on, you don’t have some kind of super hearing where you can fight with your eyes closed?”

Bucky raised one eyebrow in consideration. It stressed a gash across his brow. “I can fight in the dark,” he agreed.

“I’ll keep anyone from hitting you in the face again,” Sam promised. “But we have to go now.”

Bucky squeezed his eyes open and leveled a calculating glare on Sam before he nodded. “Alright,” he agreed, which felt like a miracle in and of itself. He pushed himself to his feet and then leaned back against the wall as he pressed the heels of his hands over his browbones.

Sam stood as well and put a hand to Bucky’s elbow. In all their brief encounters, they didn’t get much time to touch each other, unless they were brawling over nothing but ego. Bucky was actually…kind of soft beneath Sam’s fingers. And warm. He was certainly not the sharp edged, battle ready soldier Sam kept finding. He felt real and alive. And he was still trying to blink his eyes open.

Sam curled his fingers tighter around Bucky’s elbow and pulled him out into the hallway. He scanned the unit for any sunlight that he could use to orient himself. Without speaking, Bucky pulled him to the stairs. They made it most of the way down before the wall of the stairs gave way to an open railing and they were spotted by more assholes in black.

“Y’all coordinate these outfits beforehand or y’all keep changes of clothes here?” Sam asked before he threw Bucky into the crowd of assholes.

He tried to keep his promise about keeping punches away from Bucky’s face. They landed damn near everywhere else. Sam had underestimated how many people there were–numbers growing from three to five to nine until he lost count. Bucky was holding his own, putting men down two-to-one to Sam, climbing to three-to-one. Sam tried to catch glimpses of the rest of the house. There was a wall of windows, covered in curtains and pasted over with film or paper. The rest of the room looked like a dining room or something. Behind them was nothing but more room and dark walls.

“Find the front door,” Bucky snapped when Sam’s eyes went to the window again. He smashed someone’s head down on the banister with enough force to crack either bone or wood. “I’m not jumping through glass.”

Sam rolled his eyes and then ducked away from a Goddamn hammer. He wrestled it away from the man wielding it, then threw it at the window to shatter it open. “There you go. No need to jump,” he said breathlessly. He turned just in time to catch someone around the waist and throw them into the wall before they could get the drop on Bucky, who was, if Sam had to guess, wrenching someone’s arm out of socket. 

Bucky got a gun from somewhere and made fast work of everyone else in the room, but not before the guy who Sam had thrown into the wall smashed Sam’s head into it in retaliation. On the opposite side from the open wound Sam was already contending with, of course. Why shouldn’t the bruises match?

“You’re bleeding,” Bucky said, cutting through the ringing, violent silence that had fallen over the house. He wiped away the blood that was pouring over his own eye, completely oblivious to the irony. “Jesus, you’re bleeding a lot. What happened?”

Sam stared at him a little dumbfounded. “Are you serious right now?”

Bucky tsked away his bitching, yanking Sam over to examine his forehead like a collector looking at diamonds. “Gross,” he decided and then ripped the collar of his shirt off like it was nothing, along with a chunk of the bottom of it. “Don’t move,” he ordered as he folded the fabric over on itself a few times and then pressed it tightly over the wound on Sam’s head. He used the collar of his shirt to tie the fabric down.

His fingers were absurdly gentle as he worked. The warmth that had radiated off of his body was gone now, fingers cool against the bruise-hot burn of Sam’s skin. Sam didn’t realize his eyes had fallen shut until Bucky gently touched his other cheek and tilted his face down just a little. “Don’t die,” he said.

Sam didn’t have the energy to glare at him. “Pot, kettle,” he managed to say. He pulled Bucky’s hand away from his face and looked around the room. “You know this wasn’t everyone.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got the rest handled,” he promised and held up a grenade.

“What the fuck?” Sam asked, staring at it like he’d never seen one before. “Why did someone just have that on them?”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s not even a good one,” he said disappointedly. “There probably isn’t anyone else here, but at least no one will be able to come back,” he offered. He crossed to the window and removed the remaining glass with his metal arm, still looking at it like it was personally offending him.

They helped each other through the window with the unspoken agreement not to mention it again after this. Both of them had enough blood dripping in their eyes and rattled brains to warrant it just this once.

“You handled yourself pretty well without your wings,” Bucky offered as they walked away from the house. “How big do you suppose that window is?”

“I was trained before I had the wings,” Sam pointed out sharply. He glanced over his shoulder to reassess the broken window. “Four by six, you think?”

“Sure, the whole thing, but what about the cleared part?”

“Two by three? Four?”

Bucky regarded the grenade in his hand and the distance between them and the house. “I can do that,” he decided.

They walked a few meters more before he turned fully, pulled the pin of the grenade, and then threw it with an accuracy that would have more Cy Young winners seething with jealousy. Not to mention the distance and force of it too.

A few seconds later, the house exploded. Bucky was right. It wasn’t a very good grenade.

Sam looked around the wooded area they were in, a marginal field around them before the trees started up again, which was probably best because of the fire now. “So, where the fuck are we?” he asked.

“And how the fuck do we get home?” Bucky finished with a ridiculous perturbed set to his lips.

“Ah, shit, that asshole still had my phone,” Sam groaned when the patting of his pants came up empty. He knew Steve’s number by heart, but he didn’t imagine Bucky had his phone on him either.

“We could go see where he went,” Bucky suggested. “That explosion was not cool enough to take out any of the cars.”

“Neither one of us is in any condition to go track someone down.”

“Could be fun.”

Bucky was already looking at him when Sam glanced over to see if he was being serious. “You wanna try to live out the last third of an action movie?”

“Second third at best,” Bucky scoffed with a wave. “Lots more adventures ahead of us. The Winter Soldier and the Falcon has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“It would absolutely be The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Captain Good-Looking and  The Grouchy Soldier. Angel and Asshole.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky interrupted, reaching for Sam’s hand. For just a second, Sam’s heart may have stuttered in his chest. But all Bucky was doing was unwinding the bandage Sam had put around his wrist earlier so that he could patch up the sluggishly bleeding gashes on Sam’s knuckles now. “Come on, Pilot Hyperbole. We’re losing daylight.”

“The Falcon and the Hound Dog,” Sam added, following Bucky as they skirted the smoldering building to find a car.

They drove away into an easing sunset.

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[puer-aurea]

Part 1

Scott and Grian have fallen asleep against each other, trying to conserve heat. It's not as bad as when the place first chilled, but it is still cold. The faint sound of water flowing wakes Grian up, and Grian's movement wakes Scott up. On the wall with the entryway, on the opposite side of Pearl, there's a small bit of water that seems to flow under the wall and resembles the shore. The walls have changed from the cobblestone into something that resembles the seaside. The air is still cold and the sun is still high, but it's obvious this means there's a new winner.

Martyn walks in, covered in coral and seaweed and tossing an empty hourglass up in the air before catching it. He has a triumphant smile on his face that only gets wider when he sees Scott.

"Sorry for killin' ya, Scott! Y'know how it is." Martyn sits next to him and throws his arm over Scott's shoulders.

He doesn't process that it's not his Scott until he sees the confusion on his face. His smile falters and he immediately takes his arm off.

"Sorry! Forgot, yer not my Scott." Martyn brushes it off with a laugh.

Pearl perks up, looking like a lightbulb just went off in her head.

"Oh... I should've realized that when you looked happy to see me."

"Huh?" Martyn's the first to question it.

"I didn't realize he wasn't... y'know, my Scott." She looks a little guilty.

"Oh, yeah, no, this isn't that guy. Yer Last Life Scott, aren't ya?" Martyn nudges Scott with his shoulder.

"Yeah, we were friends, Pearl."

"Not in Double Life." Martyn comments offhandedly before holding his hand out to Pearl.

"Come sit over here with us Pearl! No need to be a loner anymore."

"Loner?" Scott questions.

Grian watches the whole interaction quietly. He doesn't speak when Pearl talks about Double Life, or Martyn about Limited Life. They didn't seem to have the same intuition as Scott because Pearl mentions how Grian was paired with Scar and he was the reason they died, and Martyn mentions how Grian joined the Bad Boys and couldn't save Jimmy from dying first for the fourth time. They're not really sat in order anymore. Grian's still huddled in the corner with his wings wrapped around himself. Scott's next to him, holding the Pizza banner tight around himself. Martyn's next to Scott with his arms draped on the back of the connected seats like the cold has no affect on him. Pearl is sat on the other side of Martyn, still not feeling comfortable enough to sit next to Scott despite it not being her Scott. The Last Life wither skeleton skull is on the floor between Grian and Scott, the Limited Life hourglass is sat in Martyn's lap, and the Double Life bucket is resting against the seats on the floor.

Grian and Scott are huddled together again, though not asleep this time. Martyn certainly is asleep though and Pearl seems to be halfway asleep, holding her cloak up next to her. A shadow is casted over Martyn's face and the change in light makes him wake up. Somehow, presumably using the magic of whatever force is keeping the Life Games going, a sunflower has grown in the sand. Multiple sunflowers have, actually. The sun is still in the sky and it seems the only other change to the scenery is the wallpaper, which now resembles a sunflower valley.

Finally, the person Grian wanted to see the least walks in. In his arms is what looks like a black blob, and it takes them all a minute to realize it's a dragon egg. Everyone is confused how Scar got a dragon egg (and, frankly, he is too. All he knows is he woke up in a dark room with a dragon egg in his arms and he saw a hallway that led to another room so he walked to it). They can't tell if it's more surprising that Scar's holding a dragon egg, or that he looks so confused. He looks like he doesn't believe he's there. The confusion turns to a smile when his eyes land on Pearl.

"Pearl! Oh, I am so glad to see you. You were- like my only friend in the end!" Scar smiles big as he goes to sit down next to her.

"I'm not your Pearl, Scar." She informs him but his smile doesn't fade.

"That's okay! A version of you was still my only friend, so every version of you is my friend!" He rests the dragon egg in his lap as he relaxes. "It sure is kind of chilly in here. But it's cozy in a way too!"

Grian can't bring himself to say anything. He's surprised Scar isn't upset with him, and he has the dragon egg, and he apparently had no friends except Pearl.

"Can we acknowledge the elephant in the room? Scar is sitting with the dragon egg like it's nothing." Scott is the one to finally point it out.

"Oh! Yeah, we had the end this time! Lizzie died in it, so Jimmy wasn't the first to die. He was second though, he died to the warden. And, funny enough, Mumbo died right after him again! Just like Last Life." Scar laughs.

"So, how was the new season, then?" Martyn asks.

"It was... different! Kind of fun, actually. I had to play the villain, though. I dug up Lizzie's spine and sold it to Joel, so that was something." Scar speaks fondly, like his win wasn't all that hard on him.

"What do you mean 'had to'?" Scott presses him.

Grian manages to keep himself hidden, still too scared to talk to Scar. He listens intently as Scar talks about Secret Life, though. How Scar killed both of Grian's teammates (he's torn between relief that he wasn't the reason they died and sadness that Scar killed them both), played a hand in all of the Heart Foundation's deaths, was the direct cause of all of Etho's deaths, ran from the Wither and barely took damage, and was forced to be alone when all he tried to do was make friends.

Pearl seemed so happy to hear about the Mounders and the trapdoor party. Scott thought it was ironic that he was essentially part of a band and Martyn did his best dog impression to mimic the version of him Secret Life Scar told him about.

Grian still couldn't bring himself to talk to Scar. Maybe, when the next winner comes, he'd have the courage, But, for now, he'll hide in his wings and watch.

[billysgirllol]

“didn't think what? you don't gotta hide nothin' from me, billy. i can tell you that– that i'm sure i'll understand, i got a pretty good way of doin' that.” the lord didn't give her very much physical strength, but she don't take it for granted that he did bless her intelligence and intuition. “course i'll help you. what's wrong with that?” there he goes confusing her again, but eyes observe the redness across his skin and that clearly has nothing to do with his sunburn. “well, there's ways of doing it without– invadin' your privacy, we'll figure it out. i promise i won't be lookin' nowhere goin' south or where the sun don't shine.” she should be shying up by now too, but it just made her laugh instead.

“yes, the preacher. that's what he dedicates all his time to. he's my father but i call him that most of the time, cause he's less of a daddy to me and more like a stranger. and i'll tell you again, in case you didn't hear me earlier– we gotta be real quiet. he can't know you're here, i wouldn't put it past him to hurt you or somethin'. he don't want no boys around, even if you're sick– he's just hardheaded and a little thoughtless like that. that's why... if you hear him comin' you go quiet as a mouse and get into that closet there.” she points to it, thinking now's a good time to remind him now that he's alert and can take heed of this. “must be. you've came all the way from new york, to new mexico and now here? you definitely have been all over the place and back. that's how my family used to be durin' growing up... just covey in the wind. til we finally settled here and been here ever since. but it's odd, i heard so much about how new york was once the place to be and now it's a horrible place to be. all about the west now. what do you think? is bein' west a lot better for you?” she wonders, curious where he likes it best since he does all this traveling. “i think that's real interesting, where from?” it definitely was to her about him. then he tells her about it being natives, which reminded her of the bracelets she loved making, the bracelets she was teaching him about now that the idea ironically came from their culture. “i understand what they mean... that they're angry and need someone to blame. but that still ain't right takin' it out on you and leavin' you helpless, it wasn't you who treated them unfairly. i think that's what's so wrong with the world.” hate continues to breed hate. but he's real fortunate to be here now, he's lucky they didn't do worse even if essentially they did by leaving him stranded. “i got plenty of time if you have the energy.”

“no color i don't like the least, except maybe grey. only cause it's not a happy color.” despite her name having gray in it. "it is true, but it's alright. there's plenty seed out there for him to pick on." the brunette reassures, sugary smile being redirected from the window onto the boy talking birds with her. going quiet for a second, the reminder of her absence felt like an open wound that would never heal. she couldn't think about it for long, or the tears would start stirring. softly, she began to speak, “don't be sorry, darlin'. she's in a better off place than we are, i know she's happy and with me everywhere i go.” then it hurt worse, because it sounded like his mother was gone too and of course she squeezed his hand back if that was true. saying it for both of them. “i'll tie it in a little knot now and it's all yours.” she announces after slipping the last bead on, taking the string on his side from him now while connecting her side, looping it under and over before it makes a perfect knot and it's now tied around his wrist. the last touch is snipping those extra pieces off the ends, which carefully she does and then happily smiles he seems to like it which she also didn't expect from a boy. lucy gray drops the scissors back in and slips a few of her new ones she made onto her own wrist.

“nothing,  lucy  gray.  i  didn’t  think  this  through,  clearly,”  he  says  dismissively,  hoping  to  deter  the  curly-haired  girl  from  asking  more  questions.  he  doesn’t  feel  like  starting  their  friendship  off  by  telling  her  about  his  former  lover.  “help  me?”  his  eyes  only  continue  to  grow,  a  look  of  sheer  amusement  spreading  over  his  flushed  features.  he  intends  to  ask  her  how  she  plans  on  doing  that  when  he  seems  to  be  a  foot  taller  and  at  least  three  times  her  size,  but  then  remembers  that  she  did,  in  fact,  drag  him  through  her  property.  she  doesn’t  look  like  someone  who’s  easily  deterred.  but  as  he’s  dwelling  on  this,  she  utters  a  word  that  sparks  his  interest  as  he  vaguely  recalls  her  saying  it  before.  “the  preacher?”  he  quietly  echoes,  brows  lifted.  god,  he  sounds  like  an  imbecile,  repeating  after  her,  he  scolds  himself  and  adds,  “what  preacher?  i’m  sorry,  i’m  sure  you’ve  told  me  before  but  my  mind  must  have  been  miles  away.”  a  preacher?  what  would  a  preacher  be  doing  here?  this  place  doesn’t  necessary  resemble  a  church,  but  then  again,  he’s  only  seen  this  one  room.  “mhm,  new  mexico,  pretty  far,  huh?  i’m  starting  to  feel  traveling  from  place  to  place  is  in  my  blood.  my  parents  were  immigrants.  they  came  to  america  because  they’d  wanted  a  better  life  for  themselves  and  their  children.  we  lived  in  new  york  for  a  while,  then  went  west.”  pale  blue  eyes  meeting  lucy  gray’s  bambi  hues,  but  only  briefly.  as  billy  quickly  finds  out,  he  feels  almost  intimidated  by  her  looks.  she  seems  to  be  seeing  right  through  him,  looking  straight  into  his  soul  with  these  captivating  eyes  of  hers.  

“thank  you.  they  called  it  a  fair  trade,  for  having  had  all  their  lands  stolen.”  he’s  been  thinking  about  these  words  ever  since  as  they’re  rather  difficult  to  quibble  with,  and  at  least  the  natives  did  spare  him.  “it’s  a  long  story,  are  you  sure  you  have  the  time?”  he  inquires  with  a  small  chuckle,  avoiding  her  eyes  as  he  attempts  to  buy  himself  some  time  to  think.  he  has  to  make  a  choice,  either  he’ll  be  truthful  and  tell  her  everything  or  try  to  omit  a  few  important  details.  he  doesn’t  want  to  lie  to  the  woman  who’s  saved  his  life,  but  she’ll  sleep  better  if  he  offers  her  a  white  lie,  he  thinks.  but  it  still  makes  his  stomach  churn  and  he  sets  what’s  left  of  that  fourth  roll  on  the  plate.  “hi,  little  friend.  is  it  true  what  lucy  gray  says,  are  you  looking  for  dinner?”  he’d  happily  share  his  meal  with  the  little  birdie,  but  by  the  time  he’d  make  it  to  the  window,  the  sparrow  would  be  long  gone.  he  discreetly  looks  at  curly-haired  girl,  marveling  at  her  profile  as  she  watches  the  bird.  he  finds  himself  smiling  involuntarily  because  she’s  so  beautiful,  her  kind  nature  shining  right  through  her  eyes.  and  he’s  supposed  to  tell  her  he  killed  a  man,  escaped  jail  twice  and  is  wanted  in  two  counties,  that’s  why  he  was  on  the  road  all  alone?  he  doesn’t  have  the  heart  or  the  courage.  “if  you  say  so.  is  there  one  you  like  the  least?”  darlin’.  sugar.  sweetheart.  he’s  already  grown  used  to  her  sweet  way  of  addressing  him,  and  knows  he’ll  miss  it  once  he’s  gone.

“i’m  very  sorry  to  hear  about  your  mom,  lucy  gray,”  he  says  softly,  carefully  reaching  a  hand  out  as  if  to  test  the  waters.  he  wouldn’t  want  to  frighten  her,  which  is  why  instead  of  a  hug,  which  would  be  also  highly  inappropriate,  he  takes  her  free  hand  into  his  and  gives  it  a  gentle  squeeze.  his  calloused  thumb  caressing  her  knuckles  before  letting  go.  a  sad  smile  of  his  own  blooming  on  handsome  face,  his  heart  going  out  to  her.  “it’s  the  worst  thing  imaginable,  losing  a  mother.”  he  doesn’t  ask  what  happened,  figuring  if  she  wants  to  tell  him,  she  will.  he’s  always  hated  answering  this  question  himself,  having  to  recall  and  retell  the  worst  day  of  his  life.  he  figures  she  might  feel  the  same.  “i’m  sure  she  made  this  quilt  with  nothing  but  love.  i’m  happy  you  have  this  to  remember  her  by  and  connect  with  her  now,  but…  i’m  so  terribly  sorry,  lucy  gray.”  sympathizing  with  others  comes  naturally  to  billy,  always  has,  but  with  this  girl…  it  almost  feels  as  though  her  emotions  were  his  own,  he  feels  them  on  a  different  level  and  wishes  he  could  do  more  to  comfort  her.  his  arm  itching  to  coil  around  her  shoulders,  but  he  refrains.  “this  is  the  most  beautiful  bracelet  i’ve  ever  seen,”  he  muses,  gracing  the  other  with  a  sweeter  smile  this  time.  his  eyes  flickering  to  the  dainty  fingers,  piling  beads  on  the  string.  “you  get  it  from  your  mom,  i  reckon?  this  talent.”

[justblades]

Hi!! Can I request for #1 shu? Thank you!

♡ MAKE LOVE WITH ME ! ➠ 100 EVENT

#1 SHU YAMINO ; ❝ do i look like i'm messing around? do i look like i won’t punish you? ❞ gender neutral! reader

WARNINGS ; nsfw, mdni ! real sorcerer shu in a modern world setting, dom! shu, bondage, marking. WC: 918

AN ; i hope you like it <3

"i'm sorry i failed to acquire this potion that you speak of, master." you return to his space after expediting for nearly a week to lay your hands upon the mysterious asset shu told you about, empty handed. your heart thumps loud against your ribcage, you see the male turn around you from his swivel chair with one swift movement, a somber yet sedate expression painted across his features.

he clasps his hands together, elbows propped up on both sides of the chair. his amethyst glazed irises then lock gazes with your wary ones, the weight of the worry and perturbation in your mind grow rapidly. "i gave you a week to do so, how come you did not find it?"

"apparently it was all too late; it got shipped into another country—" an abrupt sound of glass vials crashing on the marble floors from your back cuts you mid-sentence. as you look down at your feet, shards of glasses glint from the littlest light illuminating the whole room, you see puzzles of your reflection scattered all over the surface.

you forcibly close your eyes shut to ease the old habit of yours brooding over unaccomplished missions. you've known the sorcerer for 5 years already, you're well aware of the fact that when he does those as an attempt to shake you to the core, he's unsatisfied from the results you gave him. "i'm really sorry."

quietude resonates inside the whole room, the four corners slowly creeping into your body each second passing by. until then, the radio silence engulfing the place stops as you hear the slightest movements from the male.

shu rises from the cushioned seat and takes small steps towards you, his bizarre clothing sways along with each movement. "it can't be helped." he lifts his hand up and aims it at your direction while you look up at him, perplexed at what he's doing in the present time.

when all of a sudden, you were being lifted by an unknown force, the absence of gravity makes your body afloat. you were then being pulled to a particular direction, assuming it was shu's doing and braced yourself from the upcoming impact. you shut your eyes in hopes that things will flow smoothly somehow until a loud thud reverberates in the entire vicinity. laying flat on the desk table he uses for his experiments— arms pinned above your head and legs cuffed with magical bindings on the tabletop's edges. you grit your teeth as you try to break free when suddenly shu hovers over your helpless body, raven strands of hair brushing past your skin.

he inches forward to your body and whispers on your left ear, "i don't want an 'i'm sorry i failed to acquire this and that' i want the object i asked you to get." his hot breath ghosts a caress on the shell of your ear, raking shivers up and down your spine. as shu withdraws from your figure to look at you again, his fingers slowly trace the goosebumps breaking out on your skin.

"why are you reacting this way? are the things i'm doing to you tantalizing in your perspective?"

just as you were about to verbalize your thoughts in present, your voice seems to be absent. you couldn't speak the words you wanted to say out loud in exchange. you're there, mouthing inaudible musings while shu laughs at your pathetic actions.

"i cast a temporary spell on you that would prohibit you from saying anything for now. for some reason, my intuition is telling me you're taking this way too lightly."

befuddled at his choice of wordings, you lose track in the thoughts clouding your mind. "do i look like i’m messing around? do i look like i won’t punish you?" you aggressively shake your head in response as a firm 'no' to his question.

with one swipe he does on the air, he ceases all of your clothing in an instant. the shivering, chilly temperature from the dead of the night creeps to each of the nook and cranny of your body. "you understand why i'm doing this, no? this is a consequence of your failure to abide by my favors."

you nod, fully acknowledging the repercussion of not being able to accomplish what he asked you to do so. he starts off by flicking his tongue on your cheek, making his way all the down to your neck, sucking harshly on your sensitive skin. he does all of this while keeping his watchful eyes on you, pupils dilating from the pleasuring expressions you're showing to him.

shu's hands start to explore your body, roaming around your erogenous zones ranging from the neck, your perked up nipples and lower abdomen. he purposely casts a spell that allows him to manipulate an icy element from his fingertips— drawing lines and shapes on your naked skin.

the temperature leaves a bitter, glacial cold feeling on your body to the point that the parts he traced on went numb. you squirm as the feeling stays even when a short minute had passed already.

"do you know what i just wrote?"

not having the ability to speak irked you a ton, and so you shake your head for the nth time tonight in exchange.

"it's my name. i'm marking you to officially say i own you. come to think of it, we've been together for five years already.

and for some reason, you're blindly loyal to me, you just won't leave me."

[darkdevasofdestruction]

An Angel and A Demon ~ Pyramid Head x Reader

Update 2: My laptop restarted when I was in the middle of writing this, and trust me when I say it, I am positively pissed off, and I want to end my days, that's how bad of a day this was.

And I didn't leave the house.

That says a lot about today...

Update 1: But, without further ado, I was half-way writing this story, and I received this ask, and let me tell you...

helloooo, i absolutely adored the fanfics you wrote about kazan and danny🥺 could i request one where pyramid head is just really whipped for and in love with the survivor! reader but he doesnt know how to announce it to them so he brings her random ,,gifts" in and outside the trials and protecting her bc well, im pretty sure he cant speak so he doesnt really have any other options on how to express his feelings??

I live for it.

Bless you for sending me this, it's the reason I'm still sane right now.

I love you, baby-cakes.

Update 3: I want to kill myself so bad. Just smash my head on a wall until it explodes or sth. I was so happy with how this imagine turned out, only fuck fucking tumblr to just fucking delete EVERYTHING just as I was about to put the last gif and hit POST NOW.

--------

For the 5th time writing this :

FUCKMEDADDY - but this time - FUCKMYBRAINSOUTPLEASEIWANNADIE

Thanks.

-------

Hell - What was that place, anyway?

Some would describe it as an infinite ocean of flames and lava, where it's eternally melting-hot, and a bunch of hooved, horned, tailed red demons torture you with acid, with their red pitch forks, or boil you alive in their cauldron for soup. Or maybe you just get tortured by Stalin, who knows?

But never would have anyone thought that 'Hell' could look so...Normal. Well, normal in a very demolished, desolate, ravished way, but still...Normal, by human standards. Albeit, the never-ending loop of madness, anguish, agony and desperation of getting killed in different gruesome ways or fleeing for their lives and feeling a myriad of emotions pumping adrenaline through their veins so badly that their anxiety-meter skyrocketed to abnormal levels.

All this darkness, this hatred, this...Everything...It changed all the survivors. They became selfish, stubborn, rude, some even went as far as to sacrifice their fellow survivors in trials, just so they could survive. It was a complete mayhem that defied all kinds of reason, normality, morality or even ethics. Everyone became devoid of any laws that used to bind them to their humane sides, and now, you weren't sure if the killers were saner than the survivors or not.

But even in this abyss where you couldn't even see your hand in front of your very eyes, there was a little star - A beautiful angel radiating brightness and warmth, someone who was somehow able to guide everyone's straying souls with her benevolence.

In reality, she was merely a survivor, not the little lantern from an angler fish's head, but she treated everyone with such an untainted kindness...It was beautiful, and yet, unrequited for most parts. Everyone was still putting their own lives above all - And who could condemn them? - Perhaps their cowardice, for the girl preferred to save her fellow survivors as much as possible, even if that oftentimes assured her place on the hook, to be a sacrificial lamb for the Entity.

On the other hand, she rarely ended up on the hook - Most killers prefer to kill her themselves, instead of letting her become pray for the horrible Entity who tortured so many of them for refusing to cooperate - The Trapper, Evan MacMillan - He knew the best, with those hooks digging into his flesh, impossible to extract. He was the first to protect this girl. It wasn't much, but if he had to, he'd rather give her a swift, painless death, than seeing her without that serene, angelic smile on her face, as the Entity feeds on the last bits of her soul's beauty, the last parts of her humanity.

The other Killers were confused at the Trapper's actions, but little by little, they began to understand why this girl was so precious and special - And this domino effect hit Rin Yamaoka next, with Y/N stopping in the middle of a chase and taking off her jacket, just as Rin was about to butcher her with her katana, and she smiled, extending it to her. 'You must be cold' she said, realising that the Spirit was merely wearing a few bandages, not even her school uniform, or her kimono.

The ghost girl was shaken up by this, and told the others at the killer camp, but they just shrugged it off - Rin was a little girl who faced close to no kindness, they weren't surprised she was so taken aback by such a feat. That is, until Adiris, in a particularly terrible day, when everyone at the camp was staying away from her, as her profane censer wasn't able to cover the stench of rotting flesh - Y/N came over, taking out a small yet elegant glass bottle with pink liquid on it, spraying some on her - And now, The Plague smelled of roses and vanilla - 'You can come to me for perfume whenever you want, I always carry some with me!' she grinned at the Babylonian High Priestess, before leaving back to the survivor's camp site, leaving the ancient God symbol to stare with her mouth agape at the girl.

These words began to spread, and it was no surprise when the killers saw Susie clinging and begging her Legion friends to spare Y/N, for she was there to hug away her worries more than once, to tell her sweet words, to play with her hair and play the guitar whatever songs she wanted to hear, to get reminded of her home - She was so home sick that she freaked out, but now she was better, thanks to Y/N - 'I know you miss home, but sometimes, home is where your best friends are, and all three of them are here!' she tried to encourage the cute pink-haired girl who could only squeal and hug her new friend.

Even Ghostface wasn't exempt from falling to her charms, and they would often take silly selfies and mess around, making fun of the old horror movie tropes and doing lots of puns and pranks - So much that she even got his trust to be told about the Danny/Jed thing, and how he began his killer profession - 'You're a very talented photographer, Danny! You deserved all that recognition you got, both as a journalist, and as a killer!'

And very soon, Y/N found herself in the crushing arms of an overprotective Anna, humming her mother's lullaby together with walking through the forest, Y/N making flower crows for all the female killers at the camp site, and little by little, she somehow managed to worm her way under everyone's skins.

Y/N was the survivor with the highest survivability percentage, and maybe the Entity sometimes got pissed off, but at least she still got killed sometimes, so who cares? Well, that was soon to change as soon as a new Killer was added to this sick game - Pyramid Head, the terror of Silent Hill, as Cheryl, the new Survivor, called him - or The Executioner, as he was known now. He was ruthless, merciless, grotesque - He had his own criteria of killing, his own moral compass, ethics, conscience and understanding of the concept of life and death. Nothing that could compare to the visions of humans, clearly - Everything was gravitating around Divine Retribution and Justice, but the from the outside, he was nothing but a killing machine.

He would kill everyone and anyone that crosses his path, without fail.

Y/N felt like her fortune ended completely the second she found herself in the new, overly cramped map, with Pyramid Head as the killer - She couldn't help but run around like a spazzic meerkat, trying to find and fix as many generators as possible, without having to get face to face with the walking hazard...

Only to run past a stuck Pyramid Head.

Slowly backtracing her steps, she saw the mountain of a man with his metal pyramid stuck in the frames a low window which he tried to walk over. He was trashing like a raged bull trying to attack a matador, but it was clear he was getting nowhere with this.

"H-Hey, u-uhm...Need some help?" she asked in a soft, careful voice, almost like a meek cat trying to test the waters, but in return, he started groaning even louder from the wrath he wanted to unleash upon the whole world. "Okay, uhm...I think I saw a can of vaseline in one of the chests around. I'll go fetch it and I'll come back for you. Don't move." she said, only to then realise how horrible that sounded, considering the situation, and it only seemed to anger the killer. "...I'm sorry, ignore me, I'm an idiot." she slapped herself pretty harshly before bolting out of there trying to find the chest.

However, Y/N cursed herself for not having perfectly memorised the whole map by heart already, since she found the vaseline can after the 3rd chest, and then, it took quite a while to find the bloody window that got the killer stuck - And by the time she got there, she was dead tired. "Okay, I'm here, I found the vaseline! Let's try to get you out of here." Y/N muttered as she put her feet on the low window pane to get to his level. "If it's not too much trouble, could you please hold onto me? I can't balance myself with both hands occupied, and I'd rather not fall." she explained as she opened the vaseline can, only to shiver as she felt two big, strong hands getting a firm grip on her hips. It was almost...Endearing, were she not too busy trying to get the killer unstuck. She kept massaging the metal edge, trying to push and pull, also praying to whatever deity that existed in her human world that she had her tetanus shot done on time - Until finally, she was able to get hear a loud screech, like a pop, and the killer got unstuck, and in the process, he stumbled backwards, while Y/N fell down on her butt.

"Ouchie..." she muttered, rubbing her back and sides to take away the pain surging through her body. "Are you okay?" she asked, almost intuitively, without realising it at first, until she heart a low grunt that brought her back to reality. "O-Oh...! You have glass shards stuck in your side! And you're bleeding too! Hold up, let me help." she hurried to his side, while the killer merely stiffened, feeling her delicate, slender fingers tracing his body, while he heaved and slouched his shoulders from the repressed wrath. "It may sting a bit, and I'm really sorry, but I promise it will be better soon." her voice was so motherly and warm, which also resonated in her actions, as she gingerly took a water bottle and imbued some tissues with it, to wipe away the blood smearing down his skin as she extracted the glass shards, and then..."This is grandma's marigold ointment. It's really good, and it smells nice." she explained as she carefully smeared a thick layer of the yellow ointment on the biggest wounds, while the little ones were covered by smiley-flower patterned plasters. They were cute, and colourful, and they never failed to make her smile. "Okay, there we go, all better! I hope you'll feel better very soon!" her voice got a tiny bit more cheerful and upbeat.

It made the Killer think about a trillion things, as he stepped in front of her, towering over her like the Empire states building next to a smiling pomeranian. What was with this girl? Why did she help a killer? And why did he feel so...Warm inside? He could sense a foreign kind of luminosity, a naivite and innocence that he only witnessed in children and animals. This woman in front of him was untainted by the darkness and evil of the world.

It didn't matter how many hardships she's been through, or how much sadness she had to endure - Her soul remained as pure as any snowdrop, as the first snow of winter, as the fleece of a baby lamb who let out its first 'meeeeh' to its mamma sheep.

He couldn't allow this human to be maimed in any way - Not by the world, not by the Entity, and certainly not by him. - Screw the Entity, Pyramind Head kills by his own rules, and now, he was blessed to be faced with a human who bore no real hatred for her peers, or for the world, despite the horrible situation she was thrown into.

He didn't understand, obviously, especially as he remembered the myriad of abominations that lurked through Silent Hill, all of them created by the torment of humans - The very torment that distorted their own reality, which resulted in him needing to solve the purpose as The Executioner - Eradicating the world of all evil.

"Th-This sword is so heavy...H-How can you carry this around like that...?! Your muscles must be so strained and sore...Y-You really need a massage, I'm sure." she stuttered as she tried to lift the much taller and heavier sword from the ground, only for the brute to simply bend and pick it up with extreme ease, putting the girl to shame with her complete lack of strength. "Hehe...You're really strong. I'm embarrassed now." she chuckled softly, scratching the back of her neck.

Before she could leave or do anything else, Pyramid Head picked her up by the throat, careful not to hurt her or restrict her air intake - I mean, how else was he supposed to carry her so he wouldn't hurt her with his metal head or sword? - and it was pretty clear she didn't feel any malevolence from him, as she clinged on his forearm, trying to keep herself up, only to be dumped on top of the hatch, as the killer pointed towards it, so she would leave.

"O-Oh...! Thank you so much! You're really kind! I really appreciate this...I-I know it probably doesn't matter much to you, since you'll be doing this over and over again with all the survivors...But I really appreciate you for your kind gesture, and I appreciate you for being so nice with me. Thank you. Take care!" her dazzling smile lit the whole place up, but he couldn't talk, nor could he tell her how he should be the one thanking her for showing him that, despite the hundreds and thousands of years he had to roam the 'Earth' and execute the injust, miracles still existed.

As soon as she reached the survivor's camp, everyone cheered for her, asking how in the world could she have escaped the wrath of the butcher. "Oh, but he wasn't that bad. In fact, he's much more humane than I anticipated! I think he has a beautiful, blooming heart!" okay, she's lost it - the other survivors thought - but even so, she's always been a bit...Out of it, so who cares?

It took quite a while for the other three survivors to reach the camp, all bloody, in fact, like the new killer, who dragged himself with the same menace to the Killers' camp. "How the hell did you manage to survive?!" they yelled at her in utter shock, seeing that she got out of there unscratched. "Oh, you see...I found the hatch." she shrugged simply, not wanting to give away that the person who massacred those three was a soft one and he basically threw her down the hatch to her safety.

As she took a twig to roast a marshmallows, she noticed how Pyramid Head was standing much farther away from the rest of the killers - She knew that silent killers were bound to stay away from the more obnoxious one, remembering how Michael Myers almost killed Ghostface and The Legion at least a dozen times - But this time...He seemed kinda...Lonely? So Y/N took the matters into her own hands, roasted another marshmallow in another twig, and when it was done, she went to the killer's camp, calling out the lonely one's name - She has no idea why, but he actually followed her, pushing her further deep into the forest, until he was sure nobody was going to hear, see or interrupt them...

"Hey. You seemed pretty lonely out there...I thought you could use a friend. Thank you again for what you did at the trial...Here, this is a marshmallow. I don't think you've had many before...Cheryl told me of that horrible place you had to live in...So I hope this will make your day a bit better!" Y/N extended one of her hands towards him, so he could take the marshmallow - And a long, black tongue erupted from underneath the pyramid, snatching away the fluffy marshmallow and gulping it in one go.

What the hell was he turning into?

A towering man built of pure muscle, wrath and divine justice, with a pyramid representing the evil of humanity burdening his body, and a sword taller and heavier than the average human being constantly dragged in one of his hand...He now was a slave to a cute, innocent girl who was putting flower plasters on his minuscule wounds that would heal in a heartbeat regardless - He saved this girl who was now offering his these soft, squishy things that tasted overly sugarly, just like her upbeat and cheerful personality - If he could eat her, he was sure she would taste even sweeter than this - A sickish kind of sweet, that is.

She was indeed a beautiful angel in this tragic hell. But he didn't wait to snatch the second marshmallow either.

"Ah...! You liked it, didn't you? Well...Next time, I promise I'll give you more!" she grinned at him the same way a princess would to her chivalrous knight who saved her. The since he couldn't talk, silence took over them - It wasn't an uncomfortable one, per se, but it made it feel as if the conversation was over. "W-Well...I'll guess I'll see you around! Take care and I hope to see you again soon!" she waved cutely, trying to turn around back to her camp, only to feel a rough hand on her shoulder, turning her around and urging her to stop and wait for him and he went deep into the forest, leaving her alone and undefended by the potential malevolent forces of the forest.

When he returned, however, he stepped right in front of her, creating the perfect shade as he towered over her - Then he kneeled in front of her, so he would reach her eye sight, then he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and put a beautiful pink flower - As pink as the blush that started creeping on her face - He wanted to see her luminous face better, to highlight her dazzling smile and her glimmering eyes as the warm, silver light of the mother moon caressed her face.

Y/N felt her heart picking up the pace - It was beating so much faster than ever before - But this time, it wasn't out of fear or anything negative...It was something good. Something she never felt in her life, especially with her human acquaintances from back home. None was as chivalrous and gentle with her as this butcher of tormented souls - The bringer of justice, the merciless Executioner who was supposed to end the life of every living being that would cross his path.

It was insane how every Yin finds its Yang, even if that comes in the form of a little lamb of a small, frail girl, and a huge abomination of a brute man who knows nothing but death, bloodshed and carnage. It was truly crazy how opposites attract, and here she was, holding the killers large hands and gingerly putting them on her face, leaning into his touch - She felt safer now than ever in her life - Now, in the arms of an ancient killer.

An Angel and A Demon brought together in a perfect union.

As she leaned down, she touched the metal of the pyramid where she anticipated his forehead would be with her own forehead, and closing her eyes, she finally felt herself calming down. There was no need for words, actions spoke louder than anything, and she appreciated it...She appreciated him.

"Thank you." she whispered to him, knowing that yes, even though nobody else would hear it anyway, it was much more intimate than anything she ever experienced.

She was hooked.

Hope you liked my completely shameless pun, I couldn't stop it, especially after the pain I went through trying to write this...3 freaking times.

Yay.

[crimsonmonsoon]

Sorry if it feels like I'm spam posting... ANYWAYS we have three more kwamis for the third and outer ring of the Miracle Box.

Fluff, Longg, and Sass are another three kwamis that belong to the outer/third ring of the Chinese Miracle Box. For more information on this ring, visit my other post here.

First is Fluff: Fluff is the kwami of time and presents female. She wears an outfit inspired by the Sui dynasty. She only grants one power to her wielder, which is the ability to open portals through time. This is the "burrow" which leads to a multitude of realities and times that only Fluff and the wielder of the rabbit miraculous can safely navigate. Fluff has these powers, and she considers herself omnipresent because of her abilities. Fluff is very chaotic in the show so I really enhanced that for her. She's a spaz, constantly all over the place and speaks so fast that often it is hard to understand her. She's constantly talking, either to herself, or blabbing herr mouth off to anyone in earshot. She also has a bad habit of talking over people/not letting people speak. She's very superstitious, so topics like that are her favorite to talk about, even when they're ridiculous. She has... very big eyes so she always appears to be surprised or in awe with everything around her.

Fun fact: When she picks a wielder, they're always from any timeline but the present.

Next we have Longg: Longg is the kwami of perfection and presents androgynously. (They use he/she/they pronouns). His attire comes from the Qing dynasty, and yes, it's a feminine outfit. However, her voice is very masculine. They only grant one power to their wielder, which technically sounds like three when described. The wielder can turn into three types of dragons, air, water, and lightning. The dragon varies from dragon designs across many eastern/asian cultures, but dominantly Chinese inspired. Longg has these powers himself, but much more powerfully and can even switch to dragons of other elements such as fire or ice. Longg kinda has a noble dude vibe in the show and I completely obliterated that. Though she does have a very high esteem of her culture, particularly more ancient practices, she's much less noble and more of a trouble maker. Yes, despite being the kwami of perfection, they're often mischievous or punky. Like Tikki, Longg has very strict rules for picking the wielder of the dragon miraculous, though he tends to be biased about it and would rather pick a trans person over a cisgender person, for no other reason than he just wants someone with the same vibe as him. (She's not cisphobic... if that's a thing).

Fun fact: Longg can switch their body type ever so slightly to range from a more masc appearance to a more fem look whenever they please.

Lastly, my beautiful boy Sass: Sass is the kwami of intuition and presents as male. He wears a hanfu from the Tang dynasty. He only grants one power to his wielder, Second Chance, which is the ability to go back to a "check point" in time within certain limits. This is good for fixing errors that may have occurred during a fight, but also may trap the wielder of the snake miraculous in a time loop if they keep having to use it. Sass has this ability of course, though he rarely ever uses it. I kept his personality similar to what's canon in the show. He's very leaderly and big on maintaining order. He likes to have control over things, and he despises chaos. He has a resting bitch face, which makes him look incredibly irritable all the time. Though he's basically the leader of all the other kwamis, he doesn't speak that much and chooses his words carefully when he does.

Fun fact: He loves music and can play a wide variety of instruments.

[eternally-writing]

helping hands | jjk

genre: fluff and angst

rating: G (no swearing or sexual content)

pairing: Jungkook x reader

theme: parent!au, idol!au, husband!au, one-shot

word count: 3k

warnings: none

synopsis: Parenting in general? Hard. Parenting while your husband Jungkook is away on tour? Extra hard.

special thank you to @justasparkwritings for beta reading this and @moccahobi for helping me with the title!

banner by me!

--♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡--

It had been 2 weeks since Jungkook had left on tour. You would think that after being in the industry for 10 years he would have a little more leniency with his schedule, but even after the birth of your little girl, Jungkook couldn’t seem to get out of a 3 week tour around Japan and Korea.

It seemed like the Earth was weeping with you today as the rain battered against your window while you made what seemed like your 15th cup of coffee for the day. Your daughter Gidae was for once not crying - and you were eternally grateful since it gave you time to change out of your puke-covered shirt and close your eyes for 5 seconds... as if that was any replacement for the lack of sleep you’ve encountered.

All your friends whose husbands were busy idols or businessmen gave you the advice that “everything falls into place over time when you’re parenting on your own”. That it just magically happened. You’re not sure what memo you missed, or if there’s some book you forgot to read, or if worst of all, you lacked some parental intuition that everyone else possessed. Jungkook had left 13 days ago, and nothing had fallen into place.

Between Gidae being up all night every night, the pile of puke covered laundry sitting in a pile in the corner of your room, the dirty dishes in the sink that had accumulated to the point that you were eating your microwave meals with plastic cutlery, you definitely felt like a failure.

And probably the worst part of it all was that Jungkook wasn’t here to help you. This wasn’t the first time Jungkook left on tour while you two have been together, but it was the first time he had left you since Gidae had been born. The first time he had left you, a first time mother, alone with your child for an extended period of time. The first time you needed help and couldn’t ask him for it.

As if on command, while you were bracing yourself on the counter in exhaustion, your phone began to ring.

Incoming call: hubby kook ♡

As you pressed “accept call”, you could immediately heard the hustle and bustle of the backstage crowd. Too tired to be the first to say hello, you waited to see how long it would take for him to realize you were on the other line.

“Hey Y/N, just checking in before the show! How are things?” cheered Jungkook.

You could imagine what Jungkook looked like as he talked to you: already dressed in his first stage outfit, a makeup artist blotting away at the nervous sweat on his forehead, him grinning ear to ear with his hyungs and bursting with excitement for performing.

On a normal day, if you had maybe actually gotten some sleep or eaten at least one meal that didn’t come out of your freezer in the past week, you probably could have mustered a convincing “good! How’s the show going?” But you were on your last straw, and it was already giving way.

“Bad Jungkook. It’s bad. I haven’t slept at all for as long as I can remember. I have no clean clothes or clean dishes, I haven’t showered since you left so I smell like a pungent mixture of puke, sweat, and god knows what else, and Gidae misses you and won’t stop crying.So yes, it’s horrible without you here.”

You knew that wasn’t what Jungkook expected to hear,the sharp intake of breath on his side serving as a telltale sign you had caught him off guard.

“Baby I-, I’m sorry, I had no idea.”

You couldn’t stop your voice from cracking as you continued. Your chest was tightening, feelings bubbling over.

“It’s -“ you paused to take a breath. “It’s really hard without you Jungkook. Really really hard.”

Jungkook tried his best to piece together the words over the phone, but you could already hear the speakers in the background calling for Jungkook to head to his position for the start of the show.

“Y/N I-“

“You have to go Jungkook, I know. Bye.”

You didn’t give him a second to recuperate as you ended the call.

No parenting book ever provided you with advice on this. The loneliness, helplessness, and frustration you were feeling right now. Crumpling down to the kitchen floor, you felt like the world was collapsing around you as you sobbed.

As if on cue, Gidae’s cries joined yours from the other room.

--♡--

You woke up slouched in a rocking chair in the nursery, with your hand reaching down to touch your daughter’s in her crib. She seemed to show you some leniency by sleeping more than 2 hours at a time, but unsure of how much free time she’d give you, you figured you might as well get a head start of the day since you felt like you were miserably falling behind already.

While mixing some formula in your kitchen, you heard a knock on your front door. The only people who ever came over were the boys and a couple of your friends, and you definitely weren’t expecting any visitors at 8am.

Frying pan clutched in your hand (safety first, right?), you creaked open your door to see a small woman standing in front of you.

With a cheery smile painting her face, the lady began to speak.

“Mrs. Jeon, I’m Seokjin-ssi’s nanny. I’ve been sent here today to take care of Gidae. Here’s a note from Mr. Jeon.”

You couldn’t help the smile that decorated your face after reading it. After so many years together, Jungkook still managed to surprise you. Taking in that there was now a woman in your house who was basically Supernanny here to help you, you couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

When Jungkook said that you were going to be pampered today, he sure meant it. By a “car” being outside, he actually meant a glorious Porsche with a driver and all your favorite snacks tucked in the backseat. He had booked an entire spa day just for you to get whatever treatments you needed without having to deal with the hustle and bustle of anyone else being around. Simply being in an environment that didn’t always sound like crying and children’s TV shows felt like heaven. A schedule had been waiting when you arrived, including a built in “nap” (multiple hours is just sleep, right?) in one of their private suits and lunch with none other than your best friend. It was the best surprise, and the girl talk you shared was exactly what you needed. Of course the mom guilt crept in, but whenever it did you reminded yourself of Jungkook’s words - you needed this, and only once you take care of yourself will you really be able to take care of your daughter.

You weren’t sure if it was because of the hydrating face mask or the 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep that you were able to get, but you walked into your house with a new pep in your step thanks to the relaxing day that Jungkook planned for you.

Welcomed by Ms. Yeong wearing an apron and bustling around your kitchen, you smelled freshly baked cookies (chocolate chip, your favorite too) and were thrilled at the sight of a clean house in front of you.

Wiping her hands on her apron, she began to speak with that signature smile.

“I’ve cooked dinner for you tonight and also have meals for the next 3 days in the fridge. The dishes are all done and your laundry should all be folded in your drawers. Gidae just had some milk and is now watching some Cocomelon.She woke up from her nap around 3 hours ago.”

In your excitement you couldn’t help giving her the biggest hug, squeezing her tightly. Slowly, Ms.Yeong began to pat your back, unclear about whether this hug was really for you or for her.

“I’m just doing my job Mrs. Jeon.”

You pulled away to look sincerely into her eyes.

“You are seriously a lifesaver Ms.Yeong, I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

After patting your back again, it was her turn to be sincere.

“You’re a good mother, Mrs. Jeon. I know it may not feel like it sometimes, but you really are. Gidae is lucky to have you as a mom.”

Tears began to prick at your eyes, but unlike yesterday, these were happy tears. With all the failures that you had felt in the past two weeks, it meant everything to hear those words from someone, to get some confirmation that you weren’t completely messing things up.

Unable to make any words come out of your mouth, all you could do was nod in appreciation at what she was able to do for you today. Your eyes glimmering with unshed tears said all the words that Ms.Yeong needed to hear.

As she walked out the door, you made a mental note to message Seokjin and thank him for finding the angel on Earth who saved you today.

--♡--

Picking up your daughter from her crib, you cooed and brought her to you. Settling into your rocking chair, you cradled her gently in her arms.

“Mommy missed you today, babygirl, and I know you miss daddy.”

At the mention of the word “daddy” you could see your daughter perk up, looking around and trying to find said male.

All you could do is kiss her forehead. “I miss your daddy too. He’s really amazing, yknow.”

“Amazing, really? I may have said handsome, or sexy, or...”

Your head whipped around to the source of the sound.

And there he was, in the flesh. Jeon Jungkook, the man you had been waiting to see for days on end, was standing right at the door.

“Hi my love,” he said with his silly grin.

Your heart felt like it was bursting as you saw him there, and you couldn’t help but start sobbing your heart out (and I mean ugly sobbing). You felt a waterfall of emotions seeing Jungkook so close.

“Hey hey hey, what’s with this crying? I came home because I didn’t want you to be crying anymore baby.”

Walking over to you, he crouched in front of your chair and started to wipe your tears. Cupping your face in his hands, he pressed his forehead against you.

“I missed you Y/N. I missed you so much.”

You were still reeling from Jungkook’s presence.

“You have no idea how much I’ve dreamed about this Kook. I feel like I’m dreaming.”

Jungkook pressed a short kiss on your lips.

“Well believe it, I’m here for real babe,” he said sentimentally as he peppered your face with kisses.

Picking your daughter out of your grasp, Jungkook lifted Gidae into his hold, lifting her slightly into the air first to make her giggle. Putting on his best stern dad voice, he began his lecture.

“And you little miss, what is this I hear about you causing trouble for your mom?” Questioned Jungkook.

You smiled through your tears as you watched Jungkook go into “dad mode”.

“Before I left you promised you’d be a good girl, but I think good girls don’t cry all through the night and they definitely don’t make a mess with their toys or throw up all over their mommy.”

As Jungkook raised an eyebrow, your daughter looked at him, slightly apologetic, eyes shifting down to the floor, as if she could understand a word of what he said.

“But most of all Gidae, I missed you a whole lot. Your daddy missed you a whole lot.”

You felt like your heart could burst at the way Jungkook looked at your daughter. Even though he might be miles away when he works, you know that he doesn’t love you or your daughter any less.

“I’ll let you put her back to bed, daddy. It is my day off after all, right?” You joked with a chuckle.

Picking up your hand and kissing your palm, Jungkook grinned in agreement.

“Of course my love, go wash up and I’ll see you in bed.”

--♡--

After reading A Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Princess & the Pea, and Rainbow Fish, Gidae was beginning to yawn in Jungkook’s arms. It seemed that it wasn’t just Jungkook who was reluctant to let their father-daughter time come to an end, as Gidae was still fighting to keep her eyes open, and always kept one tiny fist clutched onto the middle of Jungkook’s shirt, as if she was worried he could disappear at any moment.

Wondering what was taking them so long, you peeked your head back in the doorway to watch Jungkook look at your daughter like she was the one who put the stars in the sky. Not wanting to interrupt, you stayed as silent as possible as you watched them together.

“Now I’m gonna say something very important Gidae, and you need to listen very very carefully to me.”

Bringing her up to eye level, Jungkook looked at your daughter sincerely as he continued.

“Sometimes daddy isn’t here and it’s just you and mommy, but I want you to know that daddy loves you and mommy so much, and you’re always gonna be daddy’s little girl, even if I’m not here with you. And I miss you always, so so much. Daddy loves you.”

You could see the tears start to stream down Jungkook’s face, and as much as you wanted to run to him and wipe his tears, just as he did hours earlier, you knew that this moment wasn’t for you. This was for Jungkook and Gidae, and you were sure that he was going to remember this forever.

“You know what would make me so happy Gidae? If you could say the word daddy. Come on - “da” “da”. You can do it!”

He started to bounce her on his lap, exaggerating his mouth movements so much that you were worried that he would accidentally pop his jaw out. His ministrations continued on fruitlessly, with Gidae still staring at him with big doe eyes (a trait she inherited from Jungkook, of course).

Unable to hide your presence any longer, you had to help Jungkook out. “You were only gone for 2 weeks, Kook. She’s still only 6 months old, it’s going to be a little while before she says any words.”

Jungkook shook his head in disbelief. It seemed that Gidae had finally succumbed to sleep in his arms, and he stared down at her again.

“Look at how big she is Y/N, she’s grown so much just in the little while I’ve been gone.”

He looked at you with tears shimmering in his doe eyes yet again.

“Seriously, next time I leave on a tour and come back she’s going to be walking and talking or something.” joked Jungkook as he lightly wiped his tears.

You hugged Jungkook from behind, pressing a kiss to his shoulder before resting your head on it.

“Wherever you are though babe, I’m gonna take photos and videos of all of it so you won’t miss a second of it.”

Jungkook stayed silent as he simply enjoyed having his small family together again.

“You were right earlier you know, on the phone.”

“Hmm?” You hummed in response, unsure of what he was getting at.

“This isn’t working - me leaving isn’t working. I’m not 15 years old anymore, when I could just drop everything and travel the world; I have the two most precious girls in the world with me now, and I need to take care of them.”

Putting his hand in yours, you sincerely looked him in the eye.

“We’re always going to be proud of you Koo, and you know I love watching you do what you love. This may be the hard part, once she gets a little older we could start travelling with you or you could fly back too. Whatever comes our way, we’ll handle it together.”

Jungkook kissed you passionately, hoping his lips could convey what he couldn’t seem to put into words. He repeated your words back to you.

“Whatever comes our way, we’ll handle it together.”

As if Mother Nature was on your side, the rain stopped, leaving the smell of new beginnings wafting in through your window.

--♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡--

If you liked what you read please interact/follow! Thank you for reading♡ - Emily

[neonlights92]

RUN: Chapter III

Jeon Jungkook hops from bed to bed, sleeping with as many beautiful, rich women as he can possibly find time for.  He’s young and attractive, with a silver tongue that gets him practically anything he wants.  So when his friend and boss, Kim Taehyung, tells him it’s time to settle down, Jungkook takes it pretty badly.  And when he finds out that the woman he’s destined to marry is, in fact, his little sister’s best friend, he is less than impressed.

You have spent your entire life trying to forget the way you feel about Jeon Jungkook.   So when you find out that Jungkook is to be your husband - and that he is anything but pleased about it - your world is thrown into chaos.  How can you survive a loveless marriage with the man you are hopelessly in love with?

WARNINGS: Language, some violence and smut.

A/N:ENJOY!!!!

Jungkook shone.  He really, really did. 

You watched him from across the room - the way he drew people in like a magnet.  He was stunning.

You knew he could tell you were watching him.  The way his eyes flickered to yours, and the side of his mouth pulled up slightly. 

Perhaps he enjoyed the power he had over you.  After all, you were his wife.  It was only normal that he wanted you to be attracted to him… Wasn’t it?

You couldn’t ponder on that thought.  Couldn’t let yourself think about Jungkook wanting you to love him.  It was too much - too overwhelming.

You turned from him quickly, grabbing a flute of champagne and downing it in almost one gulp.  You cringed at the unfamiliar taste - and the burn at back of your throat - but you needed a distraction.  From your husband, of all people.

Your life really was ridiculous. 

“Y/N?” 

You turned quickly, snapped out of your reverie by the sound of your name. 

Kim Namjoon stared back at you, a small smile on his face.

“Namjoon,” You relaxed a little, lips splitting into a smile of your own, “Hi.  How are you?”

“I’m fine,” He gestured at the champagne flute in your hands, “You’re going to snap that.”

You looked down noticing your grip was like a vice and gasped. 

“Shit.”  You loosened your fingers and blushed, “That would’ve been embarrassing.”

He gave you a sympathetic look, “Tough week?”

You groaned, setting the glass to one side and shaking your head, “Tough month.” 

Namjoon and you were fairly close.  The two of you had grown up together - along with Nayeon and Jungkook - and you felt you could genuinely trust him.  He was the only member of the Special Seven - apart from Jungkook of course - that you felt you had a real friendship with.

Namjoon was different to other made men.

He was intelligent and grounded.  He didn’t act on impulse or throw himself into situations he couldn’t handle. 

Namjoon was like the centre of gravity that Bangtan desperately needed.  

You liked that about him.

“It’s not your doting husband, is it?” He asked, raising a sarcastic brow.

You assumed he knew the truth about your marriage - even down to the fact Jungkook had no romantic feelings towards you.  The two of them were close - brothers, really - and you imagined they shared everything with one another. 

“It’s not his fault,” You answered, though you weren’t sure you totally believed it, “We were both… Forced into this.”

“But you love him.”  The words weren’t questioning - they were a statement.  Namjoon always was so intuitive.

“How did you - I  mean… What are you talking about?” He scoffed and rolled his eyes, “Anybody with eyes can tell you love him Y/N - that you have loved him for years.” 

Something inside you twinged.

It wasn’t that you cared that other people knew.  You didn’t.  Love wasn’t something to be ashamed of.

It was just…. Well Jungkook knowing that other people knew.

Would he care?

And at this point… Did it even really matter?

“It’s not his fault he doesn’t feel the same way,” You said eventually, deciding it wasn’t even worth it to deny Namjoon’s accusations, “That’s just life.” “Jungkook is an idiot,” Namjoon wrinkled his nose, “He wouldn’t know love or commitment if it whacked him in the fucking face.  He’s spent his entire life dropping women’s panties and not sticking around to get to know them.  He thinks he’s incapable of anything more.”

You raised a brow, “I think he just doesn’t want anything more.”

“Bullshit,” Namjoon shook his head, “He doesn’t know what he wants.”

“And you do?” You replied, smiling a little at the way Namjoon’s brow furrowed into a frown. 

He seemed genuinely annoyed at your husband’s behaviour.

“I know he’s too much of a pussy to even open himself up to the idea of being with you for real,” He shrugged, hands reaching for his pockets, “Even told him so myself.” “Really?  And what did he say?  I’m sure that went down a treat…”

“Told me to fuck off of course.  But what else did I expect from the ever eloquent Jeon Jungkook?”  You laughed at that and so did Namjoon, shaking his head at his younger friend’s apparent stupidity, “Honestly.  I know Jungkook.  And I know that deep down inside, all he really wants is to be loved, Y/N.  And I think you could help him realise that.”

His words warmed you down to the tips of your toes.

“You think so?”

When he nodded, you felt something in your chest expand and lighten.

For the first time since you’d found out about your engagement, you felt a little better about things.

If Namjoon thought Jungkook had the capability to come around.. Then maybe things weren’t so bleak.

You placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled warmly, “Thank you.  For speaking to me.  It really has helped.” “Just being honest,” He shrugged, “Thought you deserved to know my opinion, I guess.” 

“You always have been the smartest Bangtan boy.”

A throat cleared from somewhere to your life and you both turned to look, lips lifting unconsciously into a smile at the sight of your husband.  But Jungkook wasn’t smiling.  In fact, his mouth was pulled taut into a firm line.

And he was… Glaring at Namjoon.

“What are you two talking about?” Jungkook asked, hard eyes turning on you.

You felt a little intimidated by the way his gaze seemed to sear straight through you. 

“Just catching up, Jungkookie.”  You watched your husband cringe at the nickname that rolled off Namjoon's tongue, “Don’t keep her locked away for so long again.”

“I’ll try not to Joonie.”  His eyes were still pitch black, “You ready to go, Y/N?  I’m getting tired.”

You arched a brow at his odd behaviour. 

If you didn’t know any better you would think he was jealous.

But there was absolutely no way Jungkook would feel jealous or possessive over you… Was there?   

“Okay.”  You nodded swiftly and turned to Namjoon, “It was nice speaking to you Joon.  I hope we can catch up again soon.” His eyes were soft and he smiled, “You can count on that.”

You didn’t even realise Jungkook’s hand had slipped into yours until he was pulling you away from the crowd almost roughly.  Namjoon gave you a little wave and a knowing wink, and you shook your head, confused by your husband’s sudden shift in behaviour.

There was no way he was actually jealous, was there?

Not after knowing the way you felt about him.

Not after pushing you away himself and making it clear he wasn’t interested in a real marriage.

No.  You shook your head.

He must just be tired, like he’d said.

When the two of you made your way outside, you finally tugged your husband’s hand and forced him to look at you.

“What?” The word was sharp and angry.

You flinched, “Are you… Okay?”

“Just peachy.  Enjoyed your little chat with Namjoon?”

You followed him down the marble staircase, towards the garage.

“Wait.  Is that why you’re acting like this?”  You were speaking to Jungkook’s back - why was he walking so damn fast? - as you struggled to keep up, “Because I was talking to Namjoon?”

Your husband decided not to answer as he grabbed the keys wordlessly from the valet and continued making his way towards the car.  You trailed after him, feeling dejected and hurt by his sudden sourly attitude. 

What right did he have to be angry at you when all you had been doing was talking to a friend?

“Jungkook!” 

His name flew out of you angrily, just as the two of you reached the car.

He froze for a moment, and then turned, eyes hard like two glass balls of obsidian black.

You finally caught up with him, confused and hurt at the way he was treating you.  It made absolutely no sense.  

“Why are you mad at me?” “I’m not mad.” You rolled your eyes, “Obviously you are.  I’m not stupid.  So why are you mad?” “I’m not mad,” He answered unlocking the car and - despite his apparent fury - opening the passenger door for you, “I just find it sweet that you and Namjoon seem to get on so well.”

He slammed his own car door shut and your fingers twitched as you clicked in your seatbelt.

“You’re being stupid.” He turned to you again, his eyes wide, “Sorry what?  This coming from the woman that basically pissed on me in front of Jihyo to mark her territory?” Ok.  Now you were mad.

“How the fuck can you even compare the two?”  You couldn’t believe how irrational he was being, “She was literally all over you.” “So was Namjoon!”

“Oh my god.”  You tugged a hand through your hair, “You’re an idiot.” “I’m an idiot am I?  For finding it uncomfortable that my wife and my best friend spent the evening flirting right in front of me?” “Why do you even care?”  Your eyes were watering with angry tears but you bit them back, “You made it very clear that you aren’t interested in making this marriage work the way I want it to.  So what does it matter if I flirt with Namjoon?” You knew maybe your words weren’t the wisest.  Perhaps you should’ve assured him that the reality was all you’d spoken to Namjoon about was how much you loved your oblivious husband.

But he’d hurt you.  You sort of wanted to hurt him back.

“Right,” He seethed, “So it’s not alright for me to have an affair, but totally fine for you to?”

Your heart clenched.

“Oh my god.  Oh MY GOD.  Jungkook what the fuck?  We were talking about you for god’s sake.  Okay?!”  You pinched the bridge of your nose and felt the tears catch on the edge of your fingers, “What the hell?  Why would I ever cheat on you?  Not only am I completely in love with you but Namjoon is your best friend!  Jesus.”

The words were like lava spilling from your mouth, hardening everything they touched.

You couldn’t take it back.  It was all out there in the open.

Completely in love with you, you’d said.

Shit.

You squeezed your eyes shut, counting to ten.  Waiting for something.  Anything.

After a moment, your husband cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry.”

Your pulse jumped.

“What?” You opened your eyes and when you looked at Jungkook, he was already regarding you with something… Different.  It wasn’t the same affection he usually regarded you with.  It was… Deeper.  You didn’t know what it was.

But it sort of scared you.  In a good way.

“I said I’m sorry.  You’re right.  I don’t… I don’t know what came over me.”  He shook his head and tugged a hand through his hair, “I was...Jealous.”

The word fell like a stone between the two of you.

“What?”  Your voice was like the wind, almost, “Why would you be jealous?” He smiled - small and gently - and shrugged, “You’re my wife.  That means something, doesn’t it?  So I don’t - I wasn’t thinking straight.  I reacted badly.  Forgive me.”

Your heart felt like it was going to fall out of your chest. 

“So it was a possessive thing,” You answered, licking your bottom lip.  Your husband’s eyes flickered to your mouth, “You wanted to stake your claim on me.”

He shook his head, “No.  It was more than that.”  He clicked his tongue, “I was jealous that you weren’t with me.  He made you laugh.  I hated that.”

Now you were sure you must be dreaming. 

There was no way your husband was saying these things.

You tucked your lip between your teeth, “What does that mean?” He shook his head, eyes searching your face before they fell on your mouth again.

“I don’t know.”

He leaned in slightly and you held your breath.

“Are you going to kiss me?”  You whispered - nerves wracking through your body hotly.  

It felt like the world stood still for a moment.  And then Jungkook’s eyes softened like butter. “Yeah.  I am.  If that’s okay?”

You nodded stiffly. And then he kissed you.

Your body hummed to life at the contact eyes falling closed immediately as you allowed your husband to bundle you up in his arms.  It was uncomfortable of course - cramped in the front seat of the car - but Junkook picked you up and pulled you towards him, anyway.

You giggled as your dress caught on the gear shift, and your husband laughed, pressing his forward to yours, settling you into his lap.

“You look beautiful,” He told you honestly, eyes earnest, “Did I tell you that already?” You shook your head - breathless and hot all over.

Jungkook - your Jungkook - was kissing you.

He was kissing you.  And he seemed to be really enjoying himself.

“Well you do,” He said decidedly, pressing his lips to your collarbone as he pushed the strap of your dress further down your arm, “You look beautiful.” Your heart caught in your chest, and it felt almost like you were on fire.

Everything Jungkook’s lips touched tingled, and even though you knew this was actually happening, it still felt like some kind of vivid dream.

“Thank you,” You whispered breathlessly, not knowing what else to say.

Jungkook smiled softly at your words, his mouth moving towards your collarbone and pressing kisses against the skin there. 

“I love these freckles,” He groaned, tracing the dots with the tip of his nose, “So cute.” Your heart flipped and you sighed, “Thank you.” 

He pulled away a little and pressed his forward to yours, chuckling softly.

“That’s all you have to say?”

You felt dazed as you stared back at him, “Huh?”

“Thank you,” He whispered, pressing a kiss to your brow, “It’s all you have to say, it seems.”

“I’m a little…” You cleared your throat and felt a shiver crawl up your spine as Jungkook tucked some hair behind your ear, “Lost for words.”

Your husband smiled - self-satisfied and a little proud, “C’mere.”

He leaned towards you and once again you were swept up by his kisses.  It felt as though you were spinning out of axis - but it was so good.  Nothing had ever come close to this and you told yourself that if this was it - if this was the only time Jungkook was going to kiss you - then you were going to make it count.

You brought your shaky hands up to his chest, intending to push his jacket off his shoulders, but losing your nerve along the way.  Instead you tightened your grip on the material of his blazer.  You felt him smirk against your lips.

“Want me to take it off?” He asked, after a moment, pulling away so he could search your face for an answer.

You expected him to be cocky - smug - but instead his gaze was just questioning.  Your heart twisted. 

“Yeah,” You nodded furiously, “Please.”

He smiled again, and did as you’d told him to, removing the jacket and throwing it somewhere to your left.  You continued kissing him with fervor - making up for your lack of experience with enthusiasm - and after a while you felt his lips venture towards your throat… 

And then lower to the valley of your breasts.

And - for some reason unbeknownst to you - you froze.

Jungkook took that as a cue to stop and pulled away, a dark brow arched.

“Sorry.”  His hair was all out of place, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to-”

“No, I liked it.”  You assured him, feeling your heartbeat pulling out of your chest, “I just… This is my first time doing anything like…. This.”

“Right.”  He still seemed unconvinced.

“But I’m enjoying myself.  I was enjoying myself.  All of it.” 

Jungkook’s eyes were warmer than you’d ever seen them.  He pushed your hair out of your face and bit his bottom lip.

“We should probably stop anyway.”  

Your heart fell. 

“Oh.”

“We’re in the front seat of a car - anybody could walk by,” He added on, eyes following your expression carefully, “Not exactly a good idea.”

“Okay,” You nodded, suddenly realising the position you were in.

Jungkook had pushed the straps of your dress down your arm - exposing more of your cleavage than you probably were comfortable showing in public - your hair was a mess, your lips were puffy and your make up was probably all smudged.

You made to climb off your husband’s lap, before Jungkook grabbed the back of your head gently.  He forced you to look at him.

“I was enjoying myself, too.  For the record.”

And then he kissed you again, once, soundly - on the mouth.

God. 

You really did love him.

//

The days after your tryst in the car were filled with uncertainty.

Jungkook had driven the both of you home in almost complete silence - save for the murmuring of the radio - and when you climbed into bed that night, the only thing he offered you was an arm to cuddle into.

You’d taken it of course - gladly - and every night since then the two of you moved towards one another as soon as the bedside lamp clicked off.

But it wasn’t enough for you.

And apart from night time snuggling - nothing much had changed about your relationship.

But after having felt Jungkook’s lips on your own - felt the way his kisses seared straight through you - you wanted that feeling again.  And despite what he’d said about enjoying himself… You wondered if maybe that was just to spare your feelings.

Perhaps he’d realised all at once how little he was attracted to you.

Maybe that’s why he hadn’t made a move since.

The thought caused your throat to clog up, and your heart to clench, so you pushed it all back down, trying not to think about it.

Instead you found another pet project - this one a pair of dark blue jeans that Jungkook had ripped a hole through.  You’d heard him complaining to his butler, Minhyuk, about how they were his favourite pair, and you wanted to fix them for him.

You sat in the same armchair you always did - tucked into the corner of the master bedroom - and listened to the radio mumbling gently in the background.  It was some stupid cheesy love song, but still the lyrics caused the same feelings you tried so very hard to push back down, to bubble up.

A figure in the doorway paused your actions and you looked up.

It was your husband.  His eyes were unreadable.

“Jungkook,” You smiled softly, “Hi.”

You couldn’t hide your content at seeing him - could never hide how happy he made you - and you resigned yourself to stop trying.

He didn’t say a word.  Instead he walked over to you carefully and fingered the material of the jeans.

“Oh.”  You laughed gently, “I just heard you talking about them the other day.  Thought I could pull my weight around here.”

Your movements had stopped, but Jungkook’s big hand came to rest over your own.

He bent down so that his face was level with yours.

“You didn’t have to do that.”  His eyes were like two balls of fire now, melting you from the inside out.

You felt your bottom lip tremble, “I know.”

And then his mouth was on yours.  He took the jeans out of your hand and set them to one side, grabbing you by the waist and hoisting you up as if you weighed nothing at all.

You giggled a little, and when Jungkook pulled away to watch you laugh, he couldn’t help the chuckle that slipped out.

“You’re so…”  He didn’t finish the sentence, instead leading you over to the bed and laying you down.

His eyes were questioning as he played with the hem of your t-shirt, and without a second thought you lifted your arms, letting him pull it over your head.  It was embarrassing of course.

The first time Jungkook would see you in underwear and you were wearing the most unflattering beige bra.  But he didn’t seem to mind.

He helped you unhook the bra, and when your hands came to cover your breasts, he stopped you.

“Let me see them.  Please.”  His eyes were hot and you felt like you were suffocating almost.

You nodded wordlessly and pulled your arms down, watching as Jungkook took in your naked torso.  

“Fuck.  So beautiful.”  He whispered, leaning down and pressing his mouth against your breasts. 

You arched against him, feeling as though you were going to explode just from that one touch, and Jungkook smiled, “So sensitive, too.”

His lips moved to your nipple, and he sucked gently, watching you attentively.  His body was completely taut - waiting for your reactions - and when you moaned wantonly he smirked.

“Fuck,” You whispered and your husband clicked his tongue teasingly.

“Such profanity.”  He smirked and tugged your trousers down slowly, “Guess we’ll have to clean your mouth out with soap, Angel.” The nickname was like a surge of warmth, straight to your core.  He’d barely touched you and already you were panting like you could no longer take it.

“Please Jungkook,” You begged, not even knowing what you were begging for, “Please.” “Alright, shhh, shhh.  I’ll give you what you want baby,” His lips played with the hem of your panties, and after a moment he pulled those down too, “C’mere.” And then his mouth was on you and it felt like time itself had stood still.  You arched your back almost completely off the bed - and if it wasn’t for Jungkook’s steadying hands on your thighs you might have melted to the ground right then.

He licked at you diligently, and you found yourself winding tighter and tighter like a coil about to break from the pressure.

“Oh god… Oh god…”

His eyes bore straight through yours, and you felt like you might pass out from the intensity.  

“That’s it,” He whispered, removing his mouth and using his hands instead, “Cum for me Angel.”

And finally, a wave of indescribable pleasure washed over you.  It was so strong you thought you might shatter into a thousand pieces.

Jungkook coaxed you through your climax, and when you finally came down from your high - your bones like jelly - he climbed up your body and pressed a kiss to your lips.

“A thank you,” He smiled boyishly, “For the jeans.”

Your eyes were round and wide as you stared up at him, “But don’t you want-” 

“Nope.  Don’t need it.”

Jungkook pulled you under the covers, wrapping an arm around your waist and bringing you towards his chest. 

“But  Jungkook-”

“Sleep Angel.”  A soft kiss was pressed to your forehead, “We’ve got plenty of time for everything else.”

And in that heart-wrenching moment you realised that Jeon Jungkook not only owned your heart - he owned your body, mind and soul too.

“Okay,” You whispered, pressing a kiss against the firm plane of his chest, “Goodnight.” 

That night, you slept like a baby.

//

[kindness-ricochets]

I’ve been seeing a lot of thoughts and hc of autistic wylan lately and you seem to also be a fan of the concept. May I ask why? Exactly? I could definitely kinda see it but wanna hear you thoughts you’re always so eloquent

Hey there anon! Sorry for the delay—I’m guessing you already found an answer to this elsewhere while I was off Tumblr for a bit, but just in case, here are my thoughts. This will be heavily personal, but… well, you can’t very well ask an autistic person about autism and expect neutrality!

Autism is different for everyone and can be difficult to pin down, so while Wylan is arguably autistic, he misses several beats that for me would have made him definitively and undeniably autistic. For example, when the bells start to ring, triggering black protocol—I work in a place with a lot of bells and am frequently caught too close to one and normally press my hands over my ears until it’s over because that sound is like shrapnel raking across my insides. All of them. Not just the ear and brain parts. Wylan doesn’t have that sort of visceral reaction, but that may just mean he doesn’t have the same sensitivities that I do, or to the same level. He also never, that I recall, eats meat—as weird as that might sound, eating meat is incredibly complicated with heightened sensitivities to taste and texture. I’m not sure how old I was when I realized it was strange to get up from the table to spit out my food because it viscerally repulsed me. So it might be that Wylan is autistic and has different experiences than I do. Those are things I would include in a story as major indicators of a character being autistic. This might also mean that his father’s way of raising him taught him to hide unusual reactions and stimming behaviors. It’s not that much of a reach to assume a man who tried to abuse the dyslexia out of his son would take the same approach to autism. (More on autism and abuse later.)

So while I’m going to lay out why I read Wylan as autistic, that’s why I think it’s valid to read him as not being autistic as well. Both are valid.

A final caveat, I am well overdue for a reread of the books, so I likely left something out or could have found better examples. Take this as a few of my reasons for a personal headcanon. Anyone who feels differently, that's fine! We can each read things our own way :)

1 - Hyperfixation: The way Wylan loves music

Most of the Crows’ backgrounds color how they see the world: Kaz’s shrewdness, Matthias’s tactical thinking and superstition, Inej’s faith and Suli wisdom, etc. That’s a sign of good character writing. But very little of Wylan’s upbringing seems to have influenced how he sees the world. It comes closest when he thinks about how his father would scorn his new friends, but we never see that scorn from Wylan.

The way a hyperfixation feels, it’s like you’ve always lived in a close parallel world, never fully been a part of the other one where it seems like everyone else lives, but suddenly there’s this bright shining piece of your soul laced through the other world. It lets you connect, it lets you exist in their realm, and you can’t help but filter everything new through that lens because it’s the brightest, most wonderful thing. (I had been between hyperfixations for a while when I started a new job; six months into that work, I read Crooked Kingdom. One of my coworkers thought I had fallen in love, it was that marked a difference.)

So, combining these: Wylan never really acts like he was part of his father’s world, and indeed is in some ways separate from the other Crows, but he parses everything through music, his hyperfixation. He sets words to music to remember them, like he does with the contract. Even his own anxiety is made sense of through music, when in his first narrated chapter, he sets it to music: what am I doing here what am I doing here…. When he’s overwhelmed, his thoughts are “a jangle of misplayed chords”. The Crows have backgrounds that influence how they react to the world, but Wylan’s hyperfixation is his means of experiencing and understanding the world.

2 - Literal thinking: Wylan responds to exact words

In this post, I went into detail on the line where Wylan suggested waking up men to kill them. Wylan is generally unsupportive of killing people—Oomen, Smeet’s clerk, his father… he advocates not-murder in each of these situations. Accepting his aversion to murder, his suggestion to wake men up and kill them seems like a genuine reaction to Jesper saying he doesn’t want to kill unconscious men. Wylan takes things literally.

This happens the most with Jesper, probably because Jesper talks to Wylan the most. Nina and Matthias don’t really register him past how he might be useful, Inej is usually quite direct, and Kaz is very deliberate when he speaks with Wylan. This really interests me because Kaz tends to vary his speech more than the others do, he adapts more to being around other people. He jokes a little with Jesper, spars with Nina, speaks more openly and more sharply with Inej, and he’s precise with Wylan. Kaz may not know what autism is, but he recognizes what’s effective with Wylan.

Another example is when Wylan is sketching the Ice Court plans and Jesper says it looks like a cake. There are plenty of valid responses here: pointing out that concentric circles look like lots of things, that it’s just a sketch, telling Jesper to stop looking over his shoulder. Instead, Wylan says that the Ice Court is sort of like a cake. That… doesn’t sound like something Wylan would normally say. He’s not addressing the whole situation, he’s addressing the specific words Jesper said.

One of the most heartbreaking examples of this (to me, anyway) is with Marya. Wylan does the same thing with his mother, when she asks if he’s there for her money and says she hasn’t got any, and his response is, “I don’t either.” We understand as readers that what Marya is communicating here is that she is so accustomed to being utterly ignored unless she is being used, and if she told Wylan that no one visited but to take advantage and she assumed he was here for the same reason, he would say it wasn’t the case. But he just responds to the immediate statement.

There are a lot of examples of this.

3 — 0% perception, 100% creativity

Wylan can identify things that don’t make sense or that he doesn’t understand, but at the beginning of the series he can’t make leaps, only ask questions. On the Ferolind, he wonders about the source of water at the Ice Court; though Kaz doesn’t say as much, he was clearly wondering, too, because he eventually figured out the underground river. There’s an interesting parallel here where, in the beginning of Crooked Kingdom, Wylan asks a question about how they’ll break into Smeet’s and Kaz tells him to use his eyes instead of running his mouth—at which point Wylan is able to figure it out. I don’t think this is because he never tried before, though, but because no one ever bothered to teach him. Kaz can be harsh but he gives harsh corrections rather than harsh rejections and Wylan learns from him.

It’s hard to understand the world for people with autism. The world is designed and run by and for people whose minds are fundamentally different from ours, whose thoughts and experiences are unlike ours. Imagine trying to learn English or Spanish or Mandarin or any other spoken language if your first language was olfactory. That’s sort of what it’s like for someone with autism to just get dropped into the world and expected to figure this out.

This can be attributed to Wylan’s upbringing, but I disagree with that because none of the others were brought up in the Barrel, either, and Wylan doesn’t understand trade or politics with any special skill. Kaz wasn’t born in the Barrel, but he managed to go from “stealing is wrong” to “wrong isn’t my concern” real quick; Colm Fahey didn’t raise his son on gambling and firefights; the Ghafas never expected their daughter to be away from the family. Only Nina has relevant training—and even that’s precious little, she left school way too early. The others figured it out; Wylan needed a bit more help. He also seems surprised by the way his father conducts business. Wylan takes things on face value—like the time he’s surprised someone would do something, simply because it’s unlawful. This is something he expresses to a group of gangsters. He’s never been taught the way of any world and these things are not intuitive to him.

But Wylan isn’t stupid.

He doesn’t know how to understand the world, but he does understand how things go together. Given a pointy diamond, a handle, and a screw, he cut through Grisha glass. He carries flashbangs and magic napalm, he recreates military hardware—Wylan understands how to make things interact for a specific result. But to me the most telling thing isn’t just that he puts together chemical pieces, it’s that he figured out Jesper controlled bullets. He saw the pieces and put them together.

Wylan can understand when things don’t make sense, but he can’t make sense of them—yet when he understands things at their basic level, he understands them without preconception, for what they are. This is a very autistic way of thinking about things, it goes back to the literalism. He can’t make the leaps of logic other people can, but he also doesn’t make the assumptions they do—“I’ve never heard of a bullet Grisha, so that’s not a thing” vs “Well Jesper’s an almost impossibly good shot and he controls metal and bullets are metal, so why not?”

4 - Broken brain/body connection

Wylan’s great at chemistry and drawing and playing flute or piano—but he’s something of a disaster other times. This is in particular contrast to the other characters, all of whom are physically adept. Meanwhile it’s a challenge for Wylan to climb a rope ladder and he spends a full paragraph trying to figure out what to do with his hands. It’s easy to say, well, he’s used to a sedentary lifestyle, but at this point he’s not. He’s worked in the tannery for months. He’s just physically awkward.

I have less to say on this point only because it’s about something I don’t fully understand myself. I don’t really understand what it would be like to have a body that just… does things? Like normal stuff? Without tics and stims. No idea. Only that Wylan’s discomfort in and seeming lack of mastery of his own body feels very relatable to me.

5 - Abuse

One of the most familiar things about Wylan is how he has been so thoroughly abused and broken down that he’s afraid to do or say much of anything. Again, this is a place his background can be an obscuring factor. Of course Wylan didn’t think to blow up the walls when the first met the parem-juiced jurda and got trapped, he’s a spoiled rich kid! Except, he also startled when Jesper said his name later. Wylan didn’t hesitate because he was spoiled, he hesitated because he had no confidence.

He also thinks Kaz would laugh at him for playing music at his mother’s grave. Now, personally, I can’t see Kaz laughing at Wylan—being indifferent, thinking it’s pointless sentimentality, shaking his head, maybe commenting sharply that they need to go if they don’t have the time. But not laughing. Kaz is a snarky, sharp-edged jerk sometimes, but he doesn’t go out of his way to criticize, he just lets people know when they inconvenience him.

Wylan has been trained to identify attention as negative by an overbearing abusive father who literally saw him as less favorable than a demon. Now, that may have been hyperbole, but Jan criticized everything he could about Wylan—art, music, emotion—and made clear that he was worthless and competent to nothing. (Jan Van Eck can suck a rotten donkey dick but that’s neither here nor there.)

A lot of people with autism experience levels of bullying that have similar impacts. Or as the kids these days are calling it: we go to school. We go to school where we are weird. Where we look weird and move weird and talk about weird things and there’s a whole little bevy of asswipes to makes sure we know it. I got teased more for playing Pokemon and sitting alone reading than the kid who pissed himself onstage at assembly. (This was before Pokemon was cool. I’m old.) And that is not unusual for autistic kids. It’s also not unusual for this to be compounded by relatives or even parents who may be trying to help but don’t understand and can make things even harder.

So we can’t read social cues and we’re taught at a vicious age that everything that comes naturally to us is wrong. Imagine trying to interact in society with that background. There is no guide and most advice from neurotypical people isn’t actually what they mean. It breaks you down.

Wylan’s anxiety isn’t definitive of autism, but isn’t something that was incredibly familiar as someone whose neurodivergent experiences created a strong level of anxiety.

6 — High Compassion, Low Social Competence

Wylan isn’t very good at making friends. In fact, none of the Crows likes him much in the beginning, and only some of them soften toward him by the end. (Matthias and Nina come to respect his skills as a chemist but neither seems to particularly like him.) But you can see throughout the books that Wylan wants to connect with them and be one of them, he just… isn’t. He’s off-beat. He’s weird. He asks questions and mimics behaviors (trying to be cool and tough like Jesper, saying “mission” like Matthias does, imitating Kaz’s scheming face) but he doesn’t quite get how to adapt.

But he still cares about people. Not just them. Everyone. He cares about the people they leave in the ditch outside the prison wagon, he cares about Hanna Smeet, he cares about Alys. He cares about the people who’ll take a hit from Kaz’s sugar caper.

Wylan’s awkward social skills have undeniable big autism energy. I posit his compassion does as well. This is simply who Wylan is, and that means being someone who cares about everyone. I have nothing to back up that this is related to autism. I can say that it’s like me. (Not to brag.) I can’t turn off the part of my brain that says everyone matters. Individuals can opt out of that compassion, but they have it by default. There’s a certain agony in feeling a pull toward and love for just about everyone and yet an inability to develop meaningful connections with them, and that keen loneliness… it just burns.

Again, it’s not definitive of autism, but it’s very similar to an autistic experience.

I said in the beginning that I didn’t think Wylan certainly had autism and I stand by that, but he is a powerfully honest reflection of many people who do. So he can be understood to have autism, and that’s part of the reason some people have that headcanon.

[amesstm]

Nose Bleeds: Part 1

Pairing: Ushijima Wakatoshi x Reader

Word Cout: 1692

A/N: sorry for taking a week off! I was drowned with schoolwork and then did some college visits. I’ll try to keep up with my set schedule! Also, this is my first Haikyuu story because it has taken over my life. Plus, thank you to whomever made the gif!

“Got it!” You exclaimed as you dug the volleyball towards your setter.

“Good Y/L/N!” Your friends cheered. The set ended with another point for your team.

Your team crowded towards the center of your side of the court. Amongst the trees known as your teammates, you looked like a shrub in comparison. Of course, your short stature was an advantage since you were the libero but it was always funny seeing as you only made it up to their shoulders or chests.

After bowing to the opposing team, your friend Tendo rushed to congratulate you. He swept you off of your feet – which wasn’t very difficult – and swung you around like a doll. “You did amazing, Y/N!”

You giggled as he set you down, “Thank you Tendo. But I could still use some work.”

Tendo grinned mischievously and wiggled his eyebrows, “I think I know how you can solve that.”

“No!” You whispered harshly. “I won’t take you up on that idea!”

“Please?” He whined, clutching onto your cheeks like you were a puppy. “I think it’d be a good chance for you two to get closer. There’s only so much time before we all graduate.”

You sighed, “I know, but I can’t even be around him! I’m as good as a rock when I try to talk to him.”

“Well, he’s more or less a rock in general,” Tendo acknowledged with a shrug. “Why not just one practice with Miracle Boy?”

You bit your lip and avoided looking at Tendo’s convincing smile. If he could control you like a Sim, you were sure your romance levels with Ushijima would be off the charts.

Of course, you wanted to get closer to Ushijima in the last months you had before you inevitably went your separate ways, but again – there were only a few months left. The boy seemed as dense as ever, never having understood what you tried to say to him in the first place. Then again, it might’ve been because you were incredibly flustered.

But, if you had only a few months left, why not enjoy it?

You sighed in defeat, “Okay, I’ll try one practice.”

“Finally!” Tendo jumped into the air from sheer excitement. “You’ll redeem yourself from the last time you tried to talk to him.”

A groan escaped your mouth, “Please don’t ever mention that again.”

Obviously, Tendo would always mention it. He would never forget when you tried to ask the tall boy if he could sit lower so you could see the board during class. Before you mustered the confidence, you could only rely on hearing the teacher to take notes. Even Ushijima’s broad shoulders prevented you from looking around him.

So, you finally tried asking him. By asking, you meant getting so shy that you were a whispering mess. In the end, you failed and had to ask to be moved up front. So much for being able to admire Ushijima’s back muscles.

“If you two get married, I’ll have a whole presentation of all the times you were shy around him,” Tendo teased.

“Do you want me to smack you on the head?” You threatened.

He smirked, “Can you reach?”

~

How did you let Tendo convince you to do this? Did he secretly enjoy your suffering? You saw Ushijima walking to the gym for volleyball practice, as usual. Butterflies fluttered in your stomach, urging you to beat them down. Breathe in and out. Inhale. Exhale.

Okay, you got this.

You stepped towards Ushijima, who noticed you immediately. His olive eyes peered down at you, looking curious. No doubt, he thought you were looking for Tendo. He was about to open his mouth to ask, but you beat him to speak first.

“Hi Ushijima. I know we don’t speak much, but would you mind practicing with me?” You asked as calmly as possible. Yet inside, your heart was pounding wildly.

He only blinked, so you elaborated. “I want to work more on my defense so I’d really appreciate if you would serve for me.”

“Why practice with me?” His baritone voice rippled. You were suddenly reminded of your thoughts about what it’d be like to rest your head on his chest. The thought made you blush and widen your eyes. Surely, you must’ve looked like a deer in headlights.

So, you faltered slightly. “W-well, I wanted to be able to practice with someone outside of my team.”

“Is Tendo not willing?” Ushijima asked, surprised that you two wouldn’t practice together first. He always saw you two attached at the hip. If Ushijima didn’t know that Tendo only saw Y/N as a friend, he would’ve mistaken them for a couple. Except for the fact that Tendo treats you like a little sister regarding your height.

You rubbed the back of your neck with a soft laugh, “I think Tendo would distract me more than anything.”

Ushijima resisted the urge to smile. Instead, the prodigy nodded with understanding, “Then we’ll practice tomorrow.”

~

For the first time, Tendo saw Ushijima smiling for no reason. It wasn’t one of his forced smiles when someone asked if he could ever smile. Those smiles were terrifying. However, this smile was different. Tendo had a gut-feeling that he knew why, but he would love to hear the reason.

“Hm, is there a special reason why you’re smiling?” Tendo teased, winking at his friend. He leaned over towards Ushijima with sparkles twinkling in his eyes.

Ushijima’s mouth returned to his firm line, secretly embarrassed at being caught. “Why do you want to know?”

“Is it because of Y/N?” Tendo asked in a whisper, using his hand so only Ushijima can hear.

Y/N and Ushijima didn’t know, but Tendo has been acting as Cupid ever since he found out they liked each other. For Ushijima, Tendo noticed the quiet boy looking at her more than anyone else, even with all his admirers. For you, it was because you couldn’t talk to him at all despite your radiating confidence. Of course, he was right. When was Tendo’s intuition ever wrong?

“I’m surprised that she asked me instead of you,” Ushijima muttered.

“Hm?”

“I thought I scared her.”

Perhaps all the times you were unable to speak to him was interpreted incorrectly on Ushijima’s end. It would make sense, given that he was intimidating for most people in the first place. It was even worse looking at the two interact. To anyone it would seem like he was scaring you.

Tendo sighed before he giggled, “It’s in a good way. Trust me.”

“Being scary is a bad thing,” Ushijima said with a hint of confusion in his voice.

His friend sighed and clasped his face, “What will I do with you?”

~

For you, tomorrow came too soon. Your nerves made you arrive earlier than necessary – 20 minutes early to be exact. You wanted to warm up a bit beforehand, just so you wouldn’t embarrass yourself in front of him.

You tied your hair up and put on your knee and elbow pads. Then, you decided to stretch out your legs. Spreading your feet out to match shoulder length, you sighed as you pushed yourself towards the ground. Luckily, you seemed to have the flexibility of a gymnast so you easily touched the floor.

“You’re here early,” a deep voice rumbled behind you. You look through your legs to see Ushijima. His eyes quickly averted from the position you were in.

You unraveled yourself, maintaining eye contact with him. As much as you could anyways, without combusting on the spot. “Yeah, I just wanted to stretch.”

He grunted, “We’ll start in a moment then.”

For a second, you watched him set down his belongings. The apples of his cheeks reddened slightly as he gulped. You raised an eyebrow, and then died a little inside when you realized why.

A few minutes of silence passed, until Ushijima called you to attention. He stood at the opposite end of the court, ready to serve. The absolute focus in his eyes ignited a sense of admiration within you. He smacked the ball in front of him, before looking ready.

You nodded. Not a second later, you were making contact with a ball he served. You’ve seen him serve before. A gunshot would ring out in the court, with the ball only making an appearance after it landed on the opponent’s side. Yet you were able to connect with the ball. However, it felt like he was serving directly at you.

He made another deadly serve. Once more, you were able to dig the ball. Another.

“Hey,” you yelled across to the other side. “Are you just going to serve towards me or make me work for it?”

If you were closer to him, you would’ve been able to see a small smile form on his face. Instead, all you saw was a nod and heard a grunt. He served towards the middle this time. You sprinted towards it and took a roll to get it. Finally, you were able to feel out of breath and sweaty.

“Again!” You smiled like a maniac.

Another ball went towards the back corner. You were fully in control of your side of the court. Ushijima made sure you were light on your feet by purposefully making the ball hit the net before slowly falling on your side. After an hour, you felt a bit fatigued by running across the floor.

Perhaps that’s why you didn’t notice the ball coming right at your head. You fell to the ground, feeling like you just got hit by a car. Afterall, sometimes spikes can be over 100 km/her. You groaned, the lights on the ceiling blurring. The dulled sound of long, quick strides towards you overwhelmed your ears despite the ringing in your head.

“Y/N, your nose is bleeding. I’ll find a tissue and then we’re taking you to the nurse.”

You couldn’t respond, except with a groan. He muttered something about not being able to find any. Ushijima returned to your side, taking off his shirt. Luckily, your vision was returning. Then, your nose started bleeding more.

“Is this heaven?” You asked, dazed.

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

Cult Girl: Doctorate (Hannibal x Female!Reader) pt. 8

Cult girl and Hannibal go through an exhaustive list of potential adoptive couples. 

@wisesandwichshark

Trigger warning: sexual harassment, christianity, discussion of pregnancy and family planning, adoption, murder and cannibalism 

Step two: find an adoptive family.

Some would say your list of expectations for potential adoptive parents was too extensive. Impossible for any human to reach. But it was really just the bare minimum.

Regardless of if they were two men, two women, one of each, or a few people, the parents had to be trustworthy. It wasn't easy to earn Hannibal's trust, but he could recognize those who had the capacity to right away. It was a little instinct you had dubbed 'friend or food'.

On paper, the apostolic pastor and his wife of 19 years seemed like the perfect candidates. The adoption agency tried to push them on you, as they had a great track record with adopting from them prior. Three boys, all of which were honors students.

Hannibal insisted on a formal introduction, during which you could conduct a proper, though surreptitious, interview. It was an invitation to dinner.

He invited the couple into his office, where a pot of tea and an interrogation was waiting for them. Then there was you. Barely-pregnant little [F/N], feeling entirely safe so long as your fiancé was beside you.

"You're doing the right thing, y'know." The woman, who introduced herself as Mrs. Landon, said upon meeting you.

"How do you mean?" You asked, already knowing the answer.

"All god's life is precious." She said, placing a hand on your not-even-remotely-showing-yet stomach. "You're walking in obedience to the lord by giving this child a shot at life."

Strike one: bringing up religion unprompted. Strike two: touching me without asking first.

You wanted to swat her hand away, but remembered that patience was a virtue. She and her husband took a seat across from you.

"Y'know," The man began, his mannerisms eerily similar to those of his wife. "I don't usually begin with the god talk, but I think a higher power had to have been involved in the conception of this- well, our child. I'd like to think the good lord brought us together today."

Strike three: already believes he is entitled to my child. You're outta here.

"Don't flatter the adoption agency like that, Jacob." Hannibal chuckled, placing his teacup on the side table.

"I'm serious, Dr. Lecter." Jacob interjected. "Faith and I really do believe that god put us on this earth to prepare his smallest soldiers for the spiritual war."

You shot Hannibal a side glance that said 'can we please just eat them now?'.

The answer was no. Hannibal liked to play with his food.

"And your adult children have all moved out?" He asked.

"That's right." Jacob nodded. "We have plenty of room in our five-bedroom house for the new little slugger to run around in."

"And if it's a girl!" The wife interrupted. "We have enough closet space for all the denim maxi-skirts money could buy."

Strike four: arbitrarily genders the behavior of a nine-week-old embryo.

The man then returned the teacup to the table, not bothering to use the saucer and instead leaving a nasty ring of condensation on the polished mahogany.

"Okay." Hannibal huffed, resignedly rising from his seat. He pulled two hypodermic needles from his back pocket and carefully, subtly stuck them onto the couples' necks. They couldn't even scream.

The tacos al pastor that followed (after a few days of marinating, of course) were exquisite.

The next week brought a new couple to your doorstep. Frank and Angela, they were named. Their claim to fame was that their oldest son played football for one of those big southern party schools. Either Auburn or Alabama. There was hardly a difference.

You sat for what felt like hours listening to the man speak in unintelligible football babble, waiting for him to take a breath. Surprisingly, it was the mom who got him to finally shut up.

"Frank, please." She said with more frustration than this one situation even remotely warranted. Either she had enough intuition to know she was being tested, or she’d spent the last decade putting up with this. Possibly both. "You're boring our hosts to death."

"What? No way! She loves it!" Frank replied, then turned to you. Not to Hannibal, just you. “Aren’t you having a great time, sweetheart?” 

Strike one: takes advantage of the female socialization to be passive and polite, allowing himself to take up the most space.

You shook your head. “I hate football.” 

His wife looked quite pleased with herself. 

“Angie, I just wanted her to know what good breeding her son is going to have.” He said, without a lick of irony or self-awareness. He eyed you up and down and licked his lips. “And it is mutual, I see.” 

The room went quiet as everyone tried to determine whether he was serious or if it was just a fucked-up joke. The longer the silence lingered, the more you realized he wasn’t kidding. Angela looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

“I don’t know what the agency told you, Mr. Wyatt,” Hannibal said, trying not to grit his teeth. “She isn’t a surrogate. She’s already pregnant.” 

Frank’s jaw hung dumbly open. “I thought you were looking for a sperm donor? I just-” 

“No.” You cut him off, raising your hand and covering your face. “I don’t want to know what you thought.” 

“Well, I would!” Angela interjected, righteous fury eclipsing what should have been crippling embarrassment. “What exactly did you think this was, Francis?” 

“The file said that he was over fifty, so I just assumed--” Frank rationalized, his voice far too loud for the room. “Y’know? That she wanted a baby that wouldn’t come out all funny-looking?” 

“You’re disgusting.” You blurted out. 

“Francis Howard Wyatt,” Angela scolded as if she were talking to her son. “You are forty-eight and the only increasing part of your body is your blood pressure. Why on Earth would any woman choose you over her smart, handsome doctor fiancé?”

This made Hannibal sit up a little straighter. He wanted Francis on the butcher’s block yesterday, but he momentarily considered letting Angela live. 

“They’re not married?” Frank whispered, or whatever the loud-aggressive-toxic-masculinity version of whispering was. He paused, as the dead hamster on the wheel powering his brain crept back to life. “That actually makes sense.” 

Angela loudly smacked her hand against her face. “Dr. Lecter, Ms. [L/N], I am so sorry.” 

“It’s quite alright, Mrs. Wyatt.” Hannibal stood up, readying the next batch of needles. “It just makes what I’m about to do easier.” 

It took quite a bit of restraint to not make their deaths hurt, but he made up for it when it came time to carve. He had fun running his fittingly small penis through a meat grinder. Not with any intent to cook it, though. Just because. 

Hannibal wanted to make Francis Wyatt into the least dignified meal imaginable. You quickly recalled going to a friend’s barbeque in Georgia and encountering a horrendously Southern delicacy known as Frito Pie. You proposed the idea to Hannibal, who, after reviling in abject horror at the notion of eating something out of a bag, agreed that it was the most fitting end. He could spare a few pounds of flesh to grind up and make into chili. 

The third week brought yet another couple. They seemed smart enough to realize your invitation wasn't the friendly olive branch the others had interpreted it as. Their healthy skepticism was refreshing, to say the least. Then, you met them: Max and Archie.

"You'll have to forgive my partner's paranoia." Max said upon entering the house. He tugged playfully at Archie's hand. "We watched Get Out recently, so an invitation to the suburbs sounded some alarms in his sleep-deprived brain."

"I love that movie." You chimed in. "It reminds me of my family."

"Oh no." Archie's eyes widened in only half-pretend fear. He shot an I-told-you-so look in his partner's direction. 

"But my favorite horror flick has to be Midsommar." You added. "My friends and I saw a midnight screening and we didn't sleep at all that night."

"But have you seen Hereditary?" Archie posited.

"Of course." You shrugged. "Aster is totally genius."

You made more than just polite conversation with the couple. Max, despite his young age, was a skilled data analyst and day trader. He attributed his success to the hard work of his immigrant parents. Archie was an environmental lawyer and land activist. He was also a bit of a thrill junkie, indulging in everything from scary movies to bungee jumping.

It didn't take long to realize that you wouldn't be eating them. They were far too pleasant of company to eat.

"So when is this baby planning to make its entrance?" Archie asked, gesturing to you. "You don’t look all that pregnant to me."

You put your hand over your slightly-protruding stomach. "Late August, I believe. If everything goes according to plan."

"You're not far along at all, aren’t you?" Max observed. "That gives us plenty of time to prove ourselves to you."

"Believe me." You put up your hand. "You're doing a great job so far."

“If you like horror stories, we might have to indulge you in the last two encounters we had.” Hannibal commented, leaning back comfortably in his chair. That was a good sign. “No blood was spilled, thank god. Would have ruined my carpets. But believe me when I tell you it came very close.” 

The couple laughed along. Archie leaned in like he was about to tell a life-shattering secret. “You wouldn’t believe the hoops we had to jump through to even have the chance to adopt. And I don’t want to say that it’s because we’re an interracial gay couple, but...” 

“Agencies aren’t exactly colorblind.” You finished, via his prompting. 

“She gets it.” Archie pointed to you. “See, Maxie? She agrees with me.” 

Max pushed his glasses up his nose. “I never said I disagreed.” 

You spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for the conversation to take a sharp left turn off a cliff, but it didn’t happen. They were wonderful company; polite, intelligent and articulate. Exactly the kind of people you’d want to see taking care of your child. 

You’d have to look for you next meal elsewhere. 

[stariwrites]

Hold You In My Arms (Hawks Comfort)

Summary-You have a bad mental health day, but Hawks is there to make you feel better.

Pairing-Takami Keigo (Hawks) x GN Reader

Warnings: Self doubt, fear of abandonment, brief mention of self hatred other than that it’s just fluff

Title was inspired by the song Hold You In My Arms by Ray LaMontagne

Hawks knew something was wrong as soon as you walked into his apartment. He called it intuition, but you blamed it on his hero work. He was trained his whole life to observe and notice if civilians were hurt or injured so that he could do his job proficiently.

The issue was you weren’t physically injured or hurt at all. It was a bad day plain and simple. You woke up feeling gray as if all the life had been sucked out of the scenery around you. It didn’t help that you were also trapped in your own head where your thoughts continued to grow and fester until it grew into a storm cloud that you couldn’t shake.

Normally you loved the rain but when your mind thundered hatred and the salty tears rolled down your face it was all too much. Inside you were sucked away into a whirlwind while on the outside you kept face and even helped your friends with their struggling mental health too.

That’s how it always was, you were always the fighter and the fixer. You’d push away your own inner turmoil and leave it on the back burner of your mind only for it to boil over eventually. You knew it was unhealthy and you knew that you needed to stop that but that was a problem for future you.

Today was the day where you would curl up in you and Keigo’s bed while listening to music and nap for 12 or so hours. At least that was the plan, but Keigo had other ideas.

“How was your day baby?” He asked from where he was perched on the sofa in the living room.

You could feel his burning gaze on you as walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. You both loved and hated how perceptive he was. Deep down you knew that you could vent to him about what was going on with you, but you held back. He was a hero, he dealt with stress and near death everyday and here you were beating yourself up for no reason.

“It was fine,” you managed to get out as you grabbed one of the take out boxes from the night before.

Hawks raised an eyebrow, “You sure? Cause you don’t look like it.” Even though you saw the question coming it still slammed into you. You shrugged it off with a wave of your hand.

“I’m fine really, just an off day I’ll bounce back.”

“Why do you do that?” Hawks asked. He got up from the couch, his red wings were resting against his back. The sun’s rays from the outside basked him in light. He was only in gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt.

“Do what?”

“That! You act like your problems don’t matter, why?”

You wanted to tell him, you wanted to spill everything but you couldn’t. You didn’t want to risk losing him. You knew that it was irrational that you’d never lose him over a bad day, but you couldn’t help it. The storm in your mind had only gotten bigger you needed to deal with it.

You put the takeout on the counter and opened the cupboard, grabbing a plate.

“I don’t know,” you tried to keep your voice even. You didn’t want to panic or upset him. “I guess I just don’t want let anybody down.”

Judging by the gasp that sounded behind you, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say. “Keigo I-“

Before you could even get the words out a crushing weight surrounded you. Your eyes widened while your hands hovered. His body trembled against yours. You were about to speak, but almost like he knew he shook his head where it rested against your shoulder.

“Can I talk now baby?”

When you didn’t say anything he took that as a sign and began. “Look, I get the whole suffer quietly on the inside and deal with it alone. I used to do that too, but here’s the thing you don’t have to. And I will never ever be disappointed in you. If you’re going through something talk to me, okay? Even if it’s a small thing like breaking a nail or losing your favorite pen.”

You sniffled and wrapped your hands around his back, careful to avoid crushing his wings. “It was just the inner demons is all. It gets tiring sometimes. I don’t want to second guess myself anymore or feel like I’m one wrong step away from losing everybody and making them hate me.” You were shaking in his hold, shutting your eyes tightly in hopes that it would stop the tears pricking at your eyes from escaping.

“I just-“ your voice cracked causing Keigo to hold you closer to him. “I wish that for one day, just one day I didn’t wake up thinking that I’m a horrible person.”

“Oh dove,” it wasn’t until you heard his voice break that tears began to roll down your face. He held you as if you’d disappear if he let you go. You could feel wetness against your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” you said in between sobs. You were sorry that you upset him, sorry that you couldn’t keep your own emotions in check and sorry for all your past mistakes of the day replaying in your mind. You were sorry, sorry, sorry-

“Hey, hey hey enough of that.” Keigo pulled your head away from his shoulder. He cupped your face while his thumbs delicately wiped away your tears. His eyes were bloodshot and twisted with sadness you almost started to cry again. You could see your reflection in his eyes, you looked exhausted.

“I want you to keep looking at me alright?” He said bringing your foreheads together. “You are one of the most amazing people I have ever met and I am so so so proud of you. You always do the best you can in every situation to make sure that you’re there to catch your friends, but please please please remember that I am here to catch you.” He smiled softly and stared at you as if you carried the moon.

“Do you understand?”

You nodded against him, placing your hands on top of his.

The two of you stayed like that a second more before he pulled you back into a hug. “I love you,” you couldn’t help but blurt out. You couldn’t see it, but you could tell he was smiling.

“I love you too.”

Author’s Note: This was purely self indulgent and if any of you feel the same I just want you to know that you are doing incredible and I am so so proud of you!

[dameronology]

one hell of a mandalorian {din djarin}

summary: actions speak louder than words - which is good for din djarin, because he's not very good at words. (this was a commission for an anon! i hope you enjoy).

warnings: language

enjoy!! if you're interested in commissions, you can find out more here :)

- jazz xx

Din Djarin was a man of few words.

That had become clear not long after you'd met.

It wasn't that he didn't like talking, or that he was rude - he'd just never had the need for it. The Mandalorian could spend days and days in hyperspace, on his own with nothing but a frozen bounty to keep him company. And they were hardly chatty, even before they were thrown away into the trawling depths of carbonite animation. There were a few select geniuses who tried to make conversation with him in a last-ditch attempt to appeal to his humanity and beg for mercy, but so far, they'd had a zero-for-zero success rate. It wasn't that he didn't have any humanity to appeal to it - because he did, and his weird, green surrogate kid was an absolute testament to that - but it just took a little bit for it to come out.

The beskar made him seem a little...robotic. Like a droid, which was ironic, because he wouldn't have gone near the things with a ten-foot-barge pole. Din had just become so used to people seeing his mask and his intimidating posture before him that having human traits, like feelings and thoughts and opinions, had never been any use. Having defining traits and a personality was all well and good, but nothing helped you through the galaxy quite like the ability to put the fear of God in people.

The Mandalorian was something, but Din Djarin was somebody. He was good; not necessarily pure and golden-hearted like a typical comic book hero, but he had a strong moral compass. Sometimes, it pointed in opposite directions, but he helped those who needed it and he paid his dues. That was probably a lot more than anyone in the galaxy could have said for themselves. In the fight of good and bad, in a world that existed entirely and black and white, there was nothing more grey than an honest man. Somebody who refused to pick a side held the power of both. For that, Din could have either been extremely smart, or extremely dumb.

Sometimes, he was extremely dumb. Made the wrong moves in combat, or got too cocky, however out of character it was for him. It was the losing fights that truly brought out the human side of Din, and it took a very, very specific eye to see it, sometimes to the point where even he missed it. It never went over your head, though.

You'd joined the crew on the Razor Crest as a mechanic - then you became a baby sitter, and his partner-in-crime, and the closest thing he'd ever had to a friend. His non-verbal nature meant that most of his emotional cues came in the physical form. It went over the heads of everybody else, but between your intuition, and the time spent in such a cramped space, it quickly became like a second language to you. Helmet tilts when he was confused, and little nods when he was pleased; tensed shoulders when the Mandalorian was nervous and balled fists when he was about to absolutely lose his shit.

Today was one of those days. Even though you were both in one piece and the baby was - by some absolute fucking miracle - asleep, it almost hadn't been that way. Nevarro had been quieter than usual, and Din had let his guard down; finally convinced himself to relax a tiny bit and ever-so-slightly loosen the stick that was firmly up his backside. His sudden lack of awareness for your surroundings had meant that someone managed to track the Crest, however briefly. The kid had barely noticed, and you weren't phased by what had been a simple, human mistake. Din, true to nature, was already beating himself up for it.

That was evidenced by his heavy footsteps, and the way he'd immediately retreated to the cockpit and slammed the door. Common sense would have entailed that he wanted to be left alone, but you'd long surpassed the point of any of that. Common sense didn't exist in a galaxy like this one. Doing the obvious thing was, nine times out of ten, usually the wrong way. Expecting the unexpected was the right way to go.

You'd paced outside the door for the better part of fifteen minutes - to go in, or to not go in, that was the question. You were torn between wanting to give Din space and wanting to be there for him; a cranky Din was often an unbearable one, but you cared deeply for him. Maybe a little too much, but that was a can of worms to open later.

"Din?" You gently called. Nothing. "I know you're brooding, or whatever it is you do under that helmet, but talking is good."

"I'm fine."

You sighed. "The scale goes great, good, bad, awful, world-ending and then fine."

"I've never heard that before in my life."

"Yeah, I just made it up on the spot." You murmured.

Resting your hand against the doorknob, you pondered for a moment. Did you want to risk it by going in? Making him mad when he was literally shutting you out? It was hard to know what to do with Din - it wasn't like he came with an answer key, or even a vague manual that could point you in the right direction. It was all just guess work.

"Is the helmet on?" You softly asked.

"Yeah."

You took that as a sign - with a deep breath, you gently opened the door and stepped inside the cockpit, shutting it quietly behind you. The tense atmosphere inside was almost enough to swallow you whole. The man practically radiated angst.

"Talk to me." You took a seat beside him.

"There's nothing to say."

"Bullshit." You murmured. "You might have a thousand inches of beskar hiding your face but your body language is a dead giveaway."

"I'm meant to protect you and the kid." He replied. It wasn't much, but it was better than silence. "It's my job to catch bad people and outrun them when I need."

"You did outrun them." You reminded him. "I'm safe. You're safe. The kid is safe. Does anything else matter?"

"It shouldn't have happened in the first place." Din said. "I was relaxed-"

"- you allowed to relax." You cut him off. "Despite your best efforts, you're a human being."

Reaching out, you gently placed your hand over Din's ungloved palm. He didn't resist or try to brush you away. His hands were soft and callous in equal measures, which felt like a fitting metaphor for him on the whole. You tangled your fingers in his and held on tightly, perhaps in a sad attempt to remind him that you were there.

But Din knew you were there - he could feel it constantly, and he thought about it just as much. Every day of his life prior to you had been filled with rigidity and angst, then you'd come waltzing in and for the first time in years, he'd untensed his muscles and stopped looking over his shoulder. Learnt to take a breath and enjoy the simple things in life, like Grogu laughing or you accidentally tripping over a tree branch. You'd become so important to him that the prospect of losing you was too much for him to even fathom. He'd come close today - too close - and it had been an eye-opener. The irony was that telling you why he was so fucking scared was more frightening than the entire thing itself.

"Don't be so hard on yourself." The gentle pull of your voice lulled him back to reality. "Please?"

His grip on your hand tightened. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." You breathily smiled. "You don't have to apologise."

"I never thought I'd have someone like you." Din admitted. "Coming so close to losing you was terrifying, even if it wasn't that close at all."

He'd never been so open about his feeling towards you before. Obviously, you knew that he viewed you in a way he didn't see anybody else, but that knowledge had been based entirely on physical cues and mere guesswork. You'd never expected him to vocalise the way he felt, or even acknowledge them. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, or even something you considered to be detrimental. The words came as a nice surprise.

"You mean a lot to me, Din." You said. He'd always loved the way his name sounded when you said it; nobody had used it for years, not since he'd lost his parents. It was something to vulnerable and personal. You were the only one he trusted with it.

"I do?"

You didn't mean to laugh at that - you really didn't, but it just came out. A low snort of disbelief; shock at his absolute inability to read the fucking room. Din was as intuitive as they came, with the ability to read criminals like a bedtime story he'd been rehearsing since he was a kid. Then it came to you, and he knew nothing. Absolutely nothing. To call him clueless would be the understatement of the century.

"Maker." You murmured. "Of course you do - more than anyone or anything."

"You're special to me." Din replied. "It scares me sometimes."

Din was straight forward with everything he said - it was just finding the courage to say it. He'd gone into battle with Imps and Republic Rangers alike; fought krayt dragons and droids and fellow Mandalorians and yet this entire thing shook him to his very core more than anything else.

You didn't know it, but you were perfectly holding his gaze. Staring right through it and looking right into his soul. He forgot he had one sometimes. It was probably a little dusty and covered in cobwebs, but it was there, and you were bringing it right out of him and back to reality.

Din used his grip on your hands to pull you a little closer - a moment later, he gently pressed the cold metal of his helmet to his forehead. It was the closest you'd ever been to him, even if it wasn't that close at all. You could hear his soft breathing through the modulator, the sensation acting as a stunning reminder that there was a person underneath there. There were times when you forgot, or felt a little disconnected from the idea entirely. You'd never felt the need to see his face, though - you hadn't a clue what he might look like, but at the same time, you had an image of him in your head. It was as clear as day; as bright as the suns on Tatooine and as persevering as the kid's insistence that he receive all your attention, all the time.

You knew what the action was; a Keldabe kiss. The Mandalorian had recounted its meaning to you not long after you'd met - he'd finally let his barriers down and let you plague him with questions about his culture and the creed, and you'd stumbled on the subject. Initially, you'd been entertained by the fact that it two such vastly different meanings. On one hand, it could be a headbutt. A beskar punch to knock the daylights out of anyone who particularly annoyed you. On the other hand, it was almost a romantic gesture; a way that Mandalorians could show their affection to one another without having to remove their armour.

Din had the latter meaning in mind, but also so much more. He was giving you a piece of his culture - including you in the very thing that defined him as a person.

"It won't happen again." The Mandalorian gently said. "I'll never let you get hurt again. I promise."

"I know." You softly smiled. Your eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of the cool metal against your forehead. "For what it's worth, I have your back too."

He softly chuckled. "Thank you."

You gently pulled back, eyes meeting again (not that you could tell).

"Seriously!" You said. "I can be a bad-ass."

"You can be a lot of things." Din replied. "You're one hell of a girl."

"And you're one hell of a Mandalorian."

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

Love Cuts Deep

Chapter 2- Together We Stay

Bucky Barnes x (f)reader Series Rewrite (Civil War, Infinity War/Endgame, TFATWS) 

Summary: After learning that you’re on a national watchlist from the exposure of Hydra, and seeking the only other person who’s lived a life like you have. Now you and Bucky adjust to being around one another in Romania.

Warning: big fluff, SMUT, more fluff i promised

Masterlist

5 weeks.

That’s how long it’s been since you’ve been allowed to stay with Bucky in his little one bedroom apartment in Bucharest, Romania. Fortunately for you, he’s kind enough to let you take the shit excuse for a bed while he claims the hardwood floor on the opposite side of the room, just about every single night. That’s just how its been, through true at it is, either one of you could handle sleeping on stone, but this bed is admittedly nicer, and you’ve got someplace to stay for the time being.

And Bucky.

He’s a quiet type for sure, keeps to himself, only really speaks when spoken to or when asking if you want something from the marketplace. But you’ve begun to witness first hand how he’s kind, funny in his own right, and respectful of your space and body within the time that you’ve had the chance to really know him. Which is more then most could say while you’ve been on the run in the past, from authorities and the Winter Soldier alike. 

Most days the two of you wander the various streets of this large pleasant bustling city, watching for any signs of danger or an odd person out of place as you go about your day. Other times the two of you would go hiking to the outskirts of Bucharest where no one could be of a bother, there, the two of you would spar each other for hours. Gotta keep alert, he’d always say. 

When he did speak.

But the nights when the city was sleepy with brightly beaming stars blanketing overhead, now those became your absolute favorite. You and your new found companion would spend those hours playing cards against one another, lasting deep into the wee hours of the morning when the sun was just barely rising into the sky.

Although as of late, Bucky has begun to speak more and more to you, even just yesterday when you shit talked some cheap vendor who was being very persistent as he wanted you to buy his ugly scarves, Bucky cracked a smile. Maybe even stifled a laugh. If you weren’t so invested in messing with the annoying little man, you would have seen the way Bucky’s eyes trailed adoringly over your mischievous face.

Maybe you would have seen how the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement as you flipped the guy off and practically swaggered away like the coolest person he’s ever met. Too bad you didn’t, but you would have loved to have seen it. Even for just a moment.

That’s what it’s been like recently between the two of you, small fleeting glances here and there, friendly nudges when you’re walking out in the park, and more time spent laying side by side with one another after an excessively intense workout session. Granted you’re sprawled out in the dirt and grass, sweaty and appearing like you just ran through a dust storm, but next to Bucky, things feel pleasantly different.

It’s strange, you can’t remember the last time you’ve actually felt comfortable around anyone since your mother, but that was a very long time ago. And she’s dead, and you’re not.

Unlocking the apartment door, you quickly turn the faded golden knob and walk into the dull sunlit room. The windows are covered in thin faded newspapers for the dying sunlight to struggle through, as this appears to be the only real source of efficient lightning since all lights are currently turned off. Though you can see well enough due to your body’s enhanced vision, small perks of the serums mutation that made you.

It’s almost 7pm on this cool breezy evening as you walk into Bucky’s apartment, shutting the door just as swiftly; letting your black cotton trench coat slip gracefully from off of your shoulders, you kick your boots off next before walking over to the kitchen and setting the coat on the back of the old wooden chair.

A tired sigh escapes from your parted lips as a sudden smirk begins to break out upon your sleepy face, “James.” You muse with a genuine smile as you turn to face your mattress for a bed, and the man sitting on it, “Nice to be greeted when I come back.”

He hands you an apologetic look before swiftly rising to his feet, “Just making sure you’re paying attention.” He quips with the flash of a grin, “You passed.”

“Alright smartass I brought you a sub from that little coffee place.” His cheeks dust pink as you hand him the sandwich from out of your bag, God he loves your accent, Bucky hands you a pursed lipped grin as you wink, “Just how you like it, old wet lettuce, a chunk of rat, and a moldy bun. Your favorite.”

He lets out a breathy snort as you practically swagger over to the fridge, opening it up to grab two beers before finding yourself a chair right across from him. “Here.” He quickly accepts your thoughtfully brewed offer of friendship, “Drink up Barnes it’s a new day tomorrow and we’re still kicking.”

He watches as you laugh before popping open the glass and taking a hearty chug, a small yet joyous grin pulling at the corner of your lips after you set it down again.

“To another day.” States Bucky before doing just the same.

Soon enough the two of you find yourselves seated comfortably on opposite sides of the old mattress with cards in each of your hands. A solid look of determination and fake suspicion on either of your faces as you stare each other down.

“Got any fives?” Asks Bucky with a raised brow as you simply roll your eyes, then biting your lip while you watch as he tucks a stray tuff of dark hair behind his ear.

“Fuck you.” Slips from your mouth as he bursts with the sweet sounds of laughter, his cards fall from his hands as you throw yours at his stupidly attractive yet winning face. Dammit you could have won.

“I can’t help that you’re a sore loser Y/N, I’m just that good.” Brags Bucky as you throw him a deadly glare.

“Whatever. It’s nearly 4am I’m off my game tonight.” You retort, shrugging as a yawn approaches right on cue.

Bucky glances at the wall clock before looking back at you, an tinge of disappointment lacing his soft voice, “Right. I’ll just head over to my spot then...”

Rolling your eyes yet again, you gently slap his folded thigh before he can attempt at leaving, “Awh come on Buck, you’re back has got to be shit by now. Let me sleep there tonight okay, it’s only fair.”

“Y/N I’m fine, seriously.” Admits Bucky kindly as he shows the flash of a smile, “Don’t worry about me. I’m good.”

Your teeth press firmly against your bottom lip as you think of how to thwart his stubborn mind, soon you look down to pick up some cards, “No, we gotta take turns. And don’t say “I’m good” because if you go over there I will have no choice but to fight you.” Words wrapped in sarcasm, you lay it on him, yet your face appears to flash with something different. 

“Fight me? You’d fight me for the shitty hard wooden floor?” Asks Bucky in bewilderment as you simply nod, agreeing to your last stated truth.

“See! You even admit it’s shitty.” You exclaim with a humored laugh while shaking the cards in his beautiful face. Y/N don’t you dare think about it, stop flirting idiot.

“Well...yeah.” Mutters Bucky as you both suddenly sit in an awkward silence, nothing heard except for the wind as it rattles against the old windowpane. You both are breathing a tad more heavily from the teasing argument a couple seconds ago, but now, some unseen yet intrusively felt emotion shifts the air. Is this what you think it is, or does your underlying feelings for him just like fucking with your better intuition.

Something is afoot, however your mind still doubts it. God he can be so hard to read sometimes.

Bucky’s blue irises flicker from you, to the floor-like-bed across the room and then back to you again, conflict clear in the way that his face shifts apprehensively, suddenly he moves to stand, “Wait.” You command with urgency, causing the man to stop dead in his tracks, curious eyes on you in a second.

Letting out a nervous breath, you decide to make sure he gets some proper rest for once, “Just sleep on the goddamn bed.” You deadpan as his face keeps unusually stoic, his body as still as a statue before without so much as a warning does he swiftly lean over and immediately crash his lips to yours.

Within seconds the cards are left for tomorrows cleanup as they flutter to the hard ground, completely forgotten as he presses a metal hand onto the bed for some stability while his lips move sweetly against your own, his flesh one positioned comfortably against your left jaw and partial cheek.

The shock you feel quickly gets shoved to the back of your mind as your hands immediately begin there exploration as they sift through his long dark hair. He tastes impeccably more delicious then you could have ever even imagined, not that you fantasized about tasting the Winter Soldier or anything, though maybe it popped into your mind as a harmless curiosity. Now however, you’re pleasantly satisfied to find out by the way his soft plush lips dance across your own; it’s enough to send your heart fluttering into a thousand excited butterflies, more like an avalanche for Bucky.

All too soon does be abruptly pull away to seat himself next to you while you begrudgingly retract your hands from exploring him further. His eyes quickly find the floor in embarrassment as you smile adoringly at him, “Sorry that was...”

“Fucking hot?” You muse as his flustered face immediately snaps over to yours, hope clear in his shimmering gaze and a tad bit of puzzlement. Guess he didn’t expect his little move of bravery to produce such an apparent positive reaction.

“Uh, well...that’s uh, good..” He mumbles while rubbing the back of his neck, eyeing shifting across the bare mattress before they slowly glance up to find yours once more. This time he hands you a shy nervous smile,”...can I kiss you again?” Wonders Bucky with the sweetest puppy dog eyes you have ever seen in your entire life.

Smirking mischievously, you gently caress the side of his cheek while he happily leans into it, “Bucky Barnes....you can do a lot more then just kiss me.” And with that said does your sweet man press his lips against yours, admittedly more hungry then the first.

He kisses you with such vigor and passion this time, becoming more bolder by the second as he gently tugs at the bottom of your shirt. Smiling against him, you quickly break from his charm to give him your approval, “Shirt comes off if yours does first.” You tease as he plants a chaste kiss to your cheek, then jaw.

Rolling his eyes while continuing to plant love marks around your neck, you take that as a positive sign to reach over and hastily remove his top, he then wastes no time in carefully slipping yours off as well, taking a second longer to unclasp your bra and fling it to the side. Problems for finding later. After the introductions are had, you both immediately take a long heavy moment to trail your eyes over every curve and blemish of each other’s body. You’ve never done this with him before, never even witnessed him without a shirt on, God is he ever more divine then you could have ever even imagined.

Trailing your eyes over ever muscle and crevice in the dull shadowed lighting of the room, your heart begins to sink with sadness and anger while you study the scarring on his left shoulder, the area between where metal meets flesh. Bucky watches as you frown before he takes your left hand in his, eyes softening while he holds it gently, “They hurt you like they hurt me.” He whispers.

Your eyes quickly flicker over to see his shadowed face, and the dark hair that frames it so perfectly, “They hurt everyone.” You whisper back as he brings your wrist up to his mouth, a second later be places the softest of kisses against your weathered skin, right where your tattoo is. The one you’ve had since you were eleven, the one Hydra gave you.

“Did they do this too?” He wonders, already knowing your answer as you slowly nod in silent reply; the black inked marking shows 00X13 as it sits horizontally against your wrist from where those bastards essentially branded you.

Frowning deeply at the black ink on your wrist, you take a slow breath as Bucky watches your every move, “I’ve tried to cut it off of me a couple times long ago.....but they did this to me before the second serum altered my body so that I could heal faster. I guess my body registers it as part of the skin now, but I’ve grown to live with it. It’s a reminder of my past and survival, I cannot stay angry with the dead forever.” You mutter thoughtfully, referencing to the former doctors and scientists who did this to you, understanding that those people are all dead now or incredibly old.

Bucky bows his head, dark hair tickling your hand and wrist as he holds it close to his stubbled face, brows furrowing you wonder what internal turmoil he may be processing, soon he rises his stormy ocean of blue to find your gaze, “I hate them. All of them.” He grumbles lowly, the icy dark storm clouding over in hidden rage that flashes within his eyes.

Not wanting to darken the blessed moment a second more, you push a piece of hair out of his eyes before placing a gentle kiss against his lips, pulling away he slightly follows, “It doesn’t matter now. We’re two lonely souls together in this fucked up world and I want you to make love to me.” A small grin replaces the once bitter frown as he leans in closer.

“Then I will.” Answers Bucky, his voice as soft and velvety as the most precious flowers, he soon moves forward to gently push you on to your back, stealing another kiss along the way while he hovers over your heated body.

His form is much broader then your own as he pins your vessel to the bed, hands drag lazily through his increasingly messy hair as you slowly part your legs for him to rest his clothed nether regions against your own equally as kept queen jewels. Now he lays flush against your clothed bodies, fitting perfectly like two golden pieces of a Kings prized puzzle.

The growing friction of his hardening member against your sensitive nerves is enough to make you growl in frustration from lack of satisfying contact. Tugging his head back from your lips, you smirk as he pouts, “I’m enjoying this Buck, I really am, but our pants gotta go.” He promptly breaks out into a knowing grin.

“I was thinking the exact same thing.” Muses Bucky in agreement as he leans back to give you some space for safely kicking off your pants and undies as he fumbles with his own from the spot next to your left. Naked and shining in all your magnificent glory, you watch in amusement as he struggles to shove down his jeans before a small giggle escapes your lips when he frustratingly throws them across the floor.

Knees guarding your hidden treasure below, you smirk while resting your arms against the bed, eyes flashing in entertained contentment as they glance up at him, “I’m not going anywhere, Buck.” You quip as he shakes his head in embarrassment.

“Yeah. Well...” He’s quickly interrupted as you pull him back down against your naked form, “oh, hi.” Whispers Bucky as his face keeps mere inches from your own, pieces of black hair tickling the sides of your face.

“Hi.” You mutter back with a shy smile before raising a brow and glancing downward for a brief moment, “Care to take those off?” You ask in referral to his underwear that’s still keeping it all in, his poor manhood that looks just about ready to rip through his boxers any second now.

Glancing down as well, he quickly smiles as a dust of pink coats his stubbled cheeks, “oh, right......just a moment.” His body leaves yours once again to kneel on the mattress as he almost trips out of them, you stare on in anticipated excitement as he swiftly pulls down his undies to reveal a very hard member indeed. He was packing this whole time!

Cheeks flushing pink once more, he gives you a shy nervous grin before placing his hands on either side of your closed legs. With pleading eyes of dashing cobalt, they flash a stormy sky of hunger and lust. Bucky draws his lips closer to your knee before suddenly placing a gentle kiss against your naked skin. “Is this okay?” He asks cautiously incase you might have changed your mind about everything, still completely uncertain if this is all some cruel dream and he’s about to wake up at any moment.

Parting your legs on your own accord, you smile fondly at him, “Of course. Now come here.” You beckon with a confident nod of your head, openly inviting him to join you now in the most intimate of ways.

Heeding to your pleasing command, the super soldier hovers over your naked body once again as you part your legs even wider for his wanting hardness that just barley brushes past your inner upper thigh, so close to your entrance. You could just about melt into a puddle of goo.

Your breaths are more heavy now as you both anticipate the sweet moment to come; both flesh and metal arm fall to either side of your face as his lips ghost over yours, breath hot against your smiling face, “I haven’t done this in awhile, I’ll admit. Sorry if I don’t do grea...”

Kissing him roughly, you shut him up real quick, “It’s fine. No judgment here, I promise.” You add honestly with another sweet kiss as you feel downward for his hardened cock, finding it rather quickly he hums in surprised delight as you grasp it before leading him to your slick entrance.

Once close enough to get there on his own will, do you smirk up at him with a face more valuable then all the diamonds in the whole entire world; your hands grasp either side of his biceps, as he studies your nodding face, “I’m ready.” And with that does his tip touch your fiery skin, slowly he pushes into you with a pleasurable groan escaping from his parted lips. 

Immediately do you gasp in surprise at his fullness graciously stretching your walls, “Did I hurt you?!” Worries your new lover as you wrap your legs around his hips before sending him a confident wink and a kiss for good measure.

“Nothing can hurt me.” You confirm with another heated kiss to his lips, soon you begin grinding into him the best you can manage as he starts moving pleasantly against your core. His strong hips pushing you back into the mattress in the absolutely best way possible.

Bucky soon finds an effective pace and with that begins thrusting into you harder now as he gains more and more confidence with your wanting body of pure flame and desire; only the delicious sounds of skin on skin contact making itself present in the tiny apartment, besides your labored breaths of intense love making.

Your mind is nothing but foggy mush as he pushes himself deeper and deeper into your slick entrance with each beautifully graceful stroke of his godlike hips. Soft moans and muffled grunts continue to leave his throat as he pumps in and out of you over and over again. Ugh, you could just about die happy.

Causing you to whimper in pleasure as the tiny growing coil inside you gets tighter and tighter with every new thrust to your center walls. His hard cock twitches against your sensitive nerves as his own orgasm begins reaching its inevitable climax, he’s so fucking close.

With a couple more powerful thrusts does he finally succumb to your glorious body and cum hard inside you, his voice gravely and deeply enthralling as he moans in pleasure of the golden release. Feeling his member twitch angrily from within is enough to send you over the edge with ecstasy, causing your walls to clench instinctively against his dexterously slick cock. Fuck he feels good.

More whimpers and moans fall helplessly off of your tongue as your fingers trail pink fiery lines across his glowing skin, he’s without a doubt just as sweaty as you are by this point, and all the more beautiful.

Kissing your lips hungrily, Bucky pounds relentlessly harder into you now as the two of you silently decide to continue on for a swiftly approaching round two. In no time he has the both of you cumming even harder and messier then the first, with moans and groans of plenty reverberating off the aged old walls of his tiny apartment.

Leaving your body a shaking and sweaty mess as he thrusts a couple last pumps into you for good measure, pink swollen lips not once leaving yours until at long last does he gently pull out for the first time in what seems like hours. Though you definitely weren’t complaining, both of you have a plethora of stamina to spare, though you did wear him out.

Falling into an exhausted heap of Bucky next to you on the messy bed, his chest quickly rises and falls with heavy breaths as your does the same. For a few long moments do the two of you keep silent, just the sounds of your heavy breathing the only thing of any significance in the darkly room lit room.

After giving yourself a couple minutes to cool down, Bucky blissfully chuckles, causing you to turn your head towards his beaming face as he stares up at the ceiling, “Something funny Barnes?” You muse in that gloriously prominent accent of yours that drives him wild. He turns his sweat covered head over to you, pieces of long hair sticking to the sides of his handsomely beaming face.

“Are we dead? This feels like a dream and I’m going to wake up alone any second now.” Mutters Bucky, eyes blinking in hopes this is real and true as life itself.

Laughing, you move from your back to lay flush against his left side while watching your every move, kissing his chest you hum, “Well, you’d have a real mess in the morning.”

Bucky immediately scrunches his nose up in slight disgust as you sling an arm over his bare chest, “Thank you for that image Y/N.” He retorts with a short burst of air leaving from his nostrils, indicating he did indeed find it rather amusing.

Kissing his cheek you shrug, “It’s not like your load isn’t still....in places, it’s sex Buck. It’s messy and beautiful and I’m glad I could do this with you. Seriously, I thought we’d never get here.”

Bucky’s face appears rather thoughtful for a long moment before he finally speaks, “I didn’t think you liked me like that.”

“What!?” You exclaim in bewilderment, causing him to snicker as you continue with your explanation, “Was I not obvious enough with the stolen glances and whatever else I could get away with? I was trying actually if you wanted to know....in my own way, but still.”

“I did try to kill you once.” Confirms Bucky as you lay comfortably against his metal arm, head resting on his upper chest while his eyes flicker back up to the ceiling.

Scoffing, you flick a piece of his hair, “I didn’t take it personally.”

Thinking for a moment, he finally looks down at you, “I’m glad you didn’t. And I’m glad that you found me.” Whispers your lover as he reveals the most dashing smile you’ve ever seen, while his flesh arm gently caresses down your shoulder in a blissfully comforting manner.

“Me too.” You add, pressing another soft kiss to his lips as you trail a finger down his side, “Now let’s take a shower......and probably change the sheets.”

“We don’t have sheets.”

——

An annoying ray of golden sunlight shines brightly in your closed eyelids from a small tear in the middle of the window newspaper, as your senses slowly come back to the world. You squint before taking a deep breath and shifting your gaze to make a full circle of the room, since you do happen to be facing away from the wall.

Your eyes trail over to Bucky’s usual spot only to reveal absolutely nothing, your heart suddenly jumps in your chest as the pleasurable memories of last night come flooding into your head once again, and some of the leftover smells, you can thank those fucking scientist for that. 

That’s right, you think, you slept with Bucky, and he’s literally snoozing away right behind you.

Smiling into the morning sun, you quietly sit up before turning your head to look down at Bucky, his hair is an absolute adorable mess as it lays across his face in various dark strands. He’s currently shirtless with the exception of some sweatpants and the thin blanket he owns that’s positioned across his torso.

You’re clothed as well, deciding it best to be dressed and comfy after the heated shower session you two shared; oh to be back in that moment for another minute longer, how nice that would be.

Slipping away from your daydreaming of Bucky, your heart skips a beat as he stirs, soon enough does his beautiful blues open up to the world. Finding your adoring gaze, he rests a hand on your folded leg, “Mornin’ Y/N.” Mutters Bucky in that raspy early morning voice of his, the actual greeting sounding more like a toddler learning to speak for the fist time then anything truly coherent. Or like a drunken man.

Rubbing a hand through his dark locks, you smile lovingly down at his stubbly morning face as he closes his eyes yet again, showing pure bliss while your fingers run through his scalp. “Touch starved much?” You quip as he opens his eyes and yawns like that of a sleepy old bear, metal arm flashing a quick stray beam of light when he shifts.

“Maybe.” Teases Bucky as he silently beckons for you to lay down with him, heeding to this hopeful inquisition, you scoot yourself onto your side and graciously welcome as his flesh arm reaches over your torso to pull you in closer.

Noses mere inches from one another, you raise a brow as he stares lovingly into your eyes, “Cozy?”

Gently kissing your lips in reply, he pulls back to reveal a positive lazy grin, “I think so.” Jests Bucky as he pushes you onto your back so that he can sling an arm over your rib cage, essentially pinning you to the bed with no real intention of letting you go any time soon.

The both of you stay like that for a good couple of minutes, just enjoying each other’s company in the late morning sun before he finally decides to speak, “Was last night....uh, good?” Wonders Bucky in nervous apprehension as his head rests comfortably against yours.

Giving him a light peck, you grin, “The best I’ve ever had.” And you mean every single word.

He gently squeezes your side in reply before muttering, “You were great too.”

Lightly chuckling, your eyes squint as you smile brightly at him, “Well that’s good to know. Glad I hadn’t lost my incredible seduction skills.”

“Yeah, I was thoroughly seduced.” Quips Bucky as you snicker.

-

Tagged: @minigranger @bibliophilewednesday @holyhumorliteraturelight @diegos-butt​

[idontblushsrry]

Itadori Yuuji Boyfriend Headcanons

A/N: Reader is from America and a black female. Idk why i decided to write this but I think that Yuuji would be a fun boyfriend lmao. I don’t entirely know what the reader’s cursed technique should be so lmk if you have any ideas. Until then enjoy Yuuji and reader being 2 idiots in love. Spoilers for all the eps of jujutsu kaisen up to about episode 11, nothing past that though as I want to finish the show first before reading the manga, so please be respectful of spoilers and label them (and tag if necessary) in the comments. Also srry if this cuts off abruptly bcus of the point the show is at. This is also like, all over the place but whatever.

(also sorry this was posted later than usual oops)

Word Count:  1943

This dork-

He is so sweet and kind and considerate 

But also a dumbass but also like he’s your dumbass

You and Yuuji are both equally stupid like bless yalls hearts

You and Yuuji met during his time at the Tokyo Academy when you transferred from America

The moment this man saw you walk up with Gojo-sensei he was smitten

Like your skin was glowing??? how???

And you had a slight accent but like he loved it too

And when you came up to greet him and shake hands you smelled so good and your skin was so soft

((He would later come to find out that the root of that was the shea cocoa butter lotion you used))

But yea mans was smitten and he is fully in love with you lmao

Will do literally anything you ask

You hungry? He’s prepared a 5 course, michelin star meal

Want new clothes? He’s been training for the day he could hold your bags for you

Ran out of hair products?? He’s already back with a special box of your products that he had imported from America

To this day you don’t know how he was able to get those products so quickly

He is loves when you tell him things about you from your day, to your times in america, to how your cursed energy works

Yall are the couple that does stupid shit together

Like one time you showed Yuuji one of those life hack videos and he was like 

“We should totally do that” 

And you were like “Bet”

Needless to say Fushiguro was very confused at the sight of bandaids on both of your fingers the next morning

“???What happened?”

“Well you see, I told Yuuji that I should use the glue gun because he didn’t even know where to put the glue stick. And he said nah, I got it and um yea so I fell and the glue gun was plugged in and then he tripped over me and so now we look like this.”

Gojo and Kugisaki thought that this was hilarious while Fushiguro decided that he’d store your guys’ glue gun in his shadows from now on

How yall manage to get through missions you go on together alive is a miracle

Speaking of missions, you eventually ask Yuuji what’s his deal because you feel a powerful aura coming from him but he never uses cursed energy, always cursed weapons

Cue Sukuna’s mouth popping up on the side of his face like “Hey mamas”

(You can’t tell me that Sukuna isn’t the type of guy to ask where his hug at)

“YUUJI WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!”

“Oh, I guess you haven’t met Sukuna yet, huh?”

So he sits you down and explains how he ate Sukuna’s finger and you're sitting there like ‘mhm mhm mhm, sorry you what?’

For like 3 days after he told you that you couldn’t bring yourself to kiss him just because you were processing the fact that Yuuji ate someone’s nasty old ass finger and would have to eat 19 more

And the fact that he’s the vessel of like the worst curse known to man 

During those 3 days, Yuuji’s pouting because he’s like ‘I fucked up, now she doesn’t wanna kiss me let alone talk to me because of this monster inside of me :(’

Meanwhile you’re just like ‘why would anyone eat some random mummified finger?’

Eventually you get wind of Yuuji’s bad mood and immediately, you rush to smooth things over with him.

You knock on his door and hear blankets rustling before he goes, “I’m not in the mood to play fight right now Kugisaki’

“Can I come in baby?”

You immediately hear the most comical almost cartoonish amount of noise ranging from a cup falling over, sheets falling off the bed, and what sounds like Yuuji falling flat on his ass before he opens the door

When he does, you’re laughing and it’s like the sky is no longer grey and the world is filled with color

You smile at each other before your moment is interrupted with Sukuna going “Finally, full offense, his whining was getting annoying”

You step inside his room and apologize for ignoring him, explaining that you just needed time to process things, explaining that you should’ve told him that before dipping

He just grabbed you in a bear hug and lifted you of the ground and spinning you around laughing happily, after all he wasn’t even upset with you, he just missed you

And thus begins the honeymoon phase of your guys’ relationship

Fushiguro is actually really happy for you guys and is the most supportive of your relationship but if anyone asked him to admit that out loud he’d actually apparate to the nearest marooned ship

Nobura doesn’t hate you guys but she thinks all couples are disgusting, so while it’s nothing personal, she does gag when you and Yuuji do so much as make goo goo eyes at each other

Gojo is actually like the main cheerleader of your relationship. 

He is the teacher that changes the seating chart to put students he ships together

He was always pairing you and Yuuji up on missions and placing you as sparring partners like ur not slick

If Gojo is the cheerleader, Sukuna is an actual antagonist

Like the man goes out of his way to CHOOSE violence

Like on time you kissed Yuuji’s cheek on a date and when you pulled back, your lip was bleeding and Sukuna’s mouth was smirking at you

Another thing he likes to do is tell you all of Yuuji’s simp^tm thoughts

Like all of them

Now Yuuji isn’t ashamed of how much he loves you and is in fact very open with it, but he doesn’t need Sukuna telling you that the only reason he bought x mouthwash was because it made your breath smell like “sunshine” and he had to see if it would work on him

Speaking of dates, good luck

Now I stand by the fact that Yuuji would never half-ass a date and things with him are certainly never boring

But he’s also like a country boy in the city and his tourist tendencies tend to get the best of him

Like you’ll be trying to find a spot to eat and when you look back Yuuji’s gone

((Prolly to buy another I <3 Tokyo shirt so you can both match))

He always catches up with you ad you eventually learn that but like the first few times be havin you ready to put up a lost child signal on the loudspeaker

He’s very sweet and this is where his thoughtfulness shines through

You and Yuuji plan dates in the same way one plays bingo

Like because you never know where you’re going to be r when exactly you’ll both be free (especially with Gojo-sensei and his bare minimum ass information) you two tend to go ‘ok well if we’re here we’ll go here and if we’re here, we’ll go here’ and so on and so forth

But Yuuji always remembers such little one-off details about you that make your dates.

Like you mention wanting to try a sushi train and he’s already scrolled through multiple yelp reviews and watched every youtube restaurant review like 9 times

But every high has a low and Yuuji and your’s low comes suddenly and it brings you crashing to the ground with no warning and nothing to slow your descent

When your class of first years were sent to exorcise the special grade cursed womb

When Yuuji’s hand got blown off and he told you to run you froze, your mind racing faster than your legs could even start

“(Y/N) RUN!” Yuuji’s voice broke you out of your fear-based trance

“I- I...can’t...I can’t leave you!” you cried out all your rational senses screamed at you to go, run, he had Sukuna and you were barely a grade 2 sorcerer. But your intuition told you if you left him you wouldn’t see him alive again.

You were trapped in a paralysis of indecision but the choice was made for you when a sticky tongue wrapped around your midriff and you were gulped into the mouth of one of Fushiguro’s frogs

“Goddamn it Fushiguro! Let me go! I need to... save... him.” You were outside the building before you could even finish arguing.

You glared up at Fushiguro but your eyes softened some when you saw how beat up Kugisaki looked.

He gave you this look that said he did what he had to do and he didn’t care what you had to say about it 

You and him waited in the rain for Yuuji or Sukuna to exit the building

You tried to focus yourself and save your negative emotions for your cursed attack

When Sukuna inevitably appeared, one finger stronger, you were fully prepared to fight him

However, he didn’t seem interested in fighting you and more engaged in fighting with Megumi

You tried to urge Fushiguro to wait it out, eventually Sukuna would lose control, but when Sukuna took Yuuji’s heart hostage, you both knew you’d have to fight

You and Fushiguro gave it your all but when Yuuji came back he still died 

It took all your strength to not completely fall apart after his death and the support from the second years as well as Kugisaki and Fushiguro helped

You’d tried to visit him at the morgue but Shoko only told you that she didn’t think it’d be a good idea.

You still slept in his sweaters and the things that smelled like him from time to time, trying to make the idea of him last, but after a month, the smell of him had started to fade

Everything about Yuuji’s memory seemed to become leached away with time, from his smell, to the wear present on things he’d given to you

You couldn’t help but feel resentful towards yourself but also to Sukuna, he’d taken Yuuji from you with the same care that one would throw litter on the ground

The pain in your chest didn’t wane either, it only became ignorable to a degree as training for the exchange with the Kyoto students became more intense

Fushiguro is a comfort to you as well, aside from you, him and Yuuji were the closest to each other and so he gets a lot of what you’re going through and doesn’t push when you become more withdrawn

He also lets you pet his demon dog too but when you ask him why he’s letting you pet it he just says ‘because no one would believe you if you told them’ lies

The bastard really just does it because he knows you’re sad and he doesn’t want you to be sad

Speaking of the Kyoto students, Zenin Mai and Toudou Aoi are permanently on your shit list

You’re relieved that Panda, Maki, and Inumaki came to your guys’ aid but like if you had your way Mai wouldn’t even exist

Anyways Maki has Panda physically restrain you while she tries to calm you down 

“(Y/N), you can kick her ass at the exchange!”

When you calm down, Panda puts you down and even though Mai’s long gone with Todou to go get his handshake, you make a promise that carries through the wind

‘Zenin Mai, pray that the next time you run across me I’m feeling kind, because if not-’, the last word is lost as the wind picks up but Mai feels a shiver rack through her body that more than ensures your message.