#the moment i saw that art my third eye activated

[einsatzzz]

nekobari au where hibari gets turned into that one merch of him as a cat boy for no reason at all other than for my entertainment ft kana

nekobari...save me...nekobari...save me nekobari

[crescentfool]

What are your ryomina headcanons? I've loved these two since I played P3 FES, and I'm so excited to get back into the fandom^^

hi!! thank you so much for the ask, welcome back to the p3 fandom, it's always a delight to see new and old ryomina fans alike! 🥺💛💙

as for headcanons, here's a "few" i that i tend to come back to a lot! my interpretations of them are influenced from both the source material and other's fanworks, so i've linked to them as i saw fit! hcs in no particular order under the cut because oops this got long (900 word bullet point list, mentions of reload content up to 1/1)

minato's hair is dyed blue (hair originally brown, you can see it in his roots!) and he has a beauty mark on under his left eye. i like mirror imagery and there's definitely a few arts i've rb'd that portray them this way :) (e.g. this one by feliichu and this one by marasschino)

as far as i'm concerned the bathhouse scene from the manga where ryoji's hair down = similar shape to minato? that is canon to me. this art from xierru is a fun depiction of hair down ryoji :D

ryoji is homeless. everyone say thank you foxmulder_whereartthou for this awesome fic it's why i have the headcanon! but like seriously. we have no idea where ryoji lives and i could believe this.

minato dying at the end of the game is sad to an outsider's POV BUT!!! ryomina gets to be together in death for the rest of their lives (this illustration from mafuwara is a gorgeous representation of them as nyx avatar + the seal)!

speaking of the seal, they are like telepathically communicating to me in the great seal together. (mymp3 had a comic wip with this. give it a looksie :D)

ryoji likes cuddling with minato because he's warm :) (something something orpheus has fire affinity, minato is warm by extension and ryoji is cold because he's death)

ryoji's camera roll is filled with pictures of minato! ryoji... loves life, to me. and i feel that photography and journaling are perfect ways of expressing gratitude and capturing the moments in life that are most important to you :3

my other favorite activity for these two is stargazing- i feel like it's something they could appreciate either in life or death (looking at the stars from the great seal...)! they do a bit of this in the fic eurydice's vow by crescentmoontea (P5R spoilers, takes place in third sem it's a very fun fic concept).

between ryoji and minato i feel like ryoji was the one who fell in love first- and it doesn't really click in place for minato that he loves ryoji until december hits (appriser reveal + ryoji transforming into thanatos). its about the realization that ryoji was with him for his whole life and that he gets him like no one else does.

ryoji is like a sad and wet puppy who is so scared minato won't like him back. he is so scared of being rejected by minato to me like. this boy straight up deflates after he does his "i know i said i wanted us to be friends, but... i actually want to be something more." / "what about you?" on 12/1 ???

AND SPEAKING of wet puppy ryoji. ryoji is like. every animal in the world to me. he's a bird. he's a cat. etc. and also ryoji knows every language in the world ever and uses it to express his love for minato. see this fic from superheroics to see what i mean.

both of them are lactose intolerant. "this isn't lactose, it's milk!" i definitely think ryoji would make himself sick eating ice cream and milk he doesn't know what lactose is. (i made a silly poll about this once and the tags were very entertaining.)

i see minato as transmasc or nonbinary depending on the day (schrodinger's headcanons babey they're simultaneously true and not true at the same time!!). either way he's not cis to me and ryoji is like. His Gender. anyway go read this fic by nail_gun for t4t ryomina :D !

ryomina are WEIRD GUYS TO ME!!! they are so strange and they understand each other better than anyone else because of the circumstances of their relationship!!! if you asked them to do the "i wonder what i taste like" meme i think they'd start biting each other (affectionate) tbh but that's just me.

after ryoji gives minato the music box in 12/31 on reload, minato listens to the music box every night in january. this boy has insomnia and also chronic illness to me (things that housing death does to you). but i think he finds comfort in the melody and memories he made with ryoji.

in general, i think it's fun to imagine minato taking ryoji to places and show him things he's interested in! i feel that ryoji takes a lot of interest in minato's life, this isn't really a hc because in reload, minato DOES give ryoji a tour of the school (11/9) and possibly port island (11/12). but ITS CUTE OK! (tangentially related fanwork: this series of doodles from vinnigami: 1, 2, and 3)

not a hc but minato's kindness is like the backbone of their relationship and i think we would not have the ryomina we know and love today if minato wasn't such a kind soul. oh minato.... we can learn so much from you... like ryoji did!

anyway! that's all the hcs that i could think of, thank you for the ask! i had a lot of fun answering this, these two mean a lot to me 💛💙

i hope you don't mind the links to the fanart and fanfic as well, the fanwork people have made for ryomina have really made an imprint on me! if you want to see more of them, i definitely recommend looking through my tag for them because oh. i got a lot of them reblogged alright 😂 (<- SOOO NORMAL)

[soranihimawari]

24-hour smudge proof

A short about something I saw earlier:

Word count:

Pairing: friends->lovers: kuroo x reader

Rating: 17+

Warnings: two 18 year olds have miscommunication & make out

Notes: in my inbox drafts for a while…unedited 😑

𝖴𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗍𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝖺𝗅， 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝗂𝗍’𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖼𝗅𝗈𝗌𝖾𝗌𝗍 ．𝗀𝗂𝖿 𝖨 𝖿𝗈𝗎𝗇𝖽 𝗍𝗈 𝗁𝗈𝗐 𝖺 𝗌𝖼𝖾𝗇𝖾 𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗌

You remember the first time you tried the new Revlon Color Last lipstick. It was advertised as a 12-hour formula for lasting lipwear. Smudge proof. You nearly hugged your television when you turned eighteen. Y’see your school and even your parents were on the side of “no make up unless special occasion (or club activities for festival days)” where as being in the makeup department for theater and arts club were the specialty clubs excused.

You loved to paint, more with eyeshadows and foundations, yet here you were at eighteen, sprucing up your natural makeup with a Sakura-pink hue. It’s the most flattering pink you own outside of Barbie doll fuscha and not as mature as Snow White Red which came out that year. Contrary to popular belief, you had just been asked out on your first date by your classmate since middle school—he played a team sport and on good faith asked if you were free Saturday night. Mentioned he’s been thinking about confessing for a little over a year now, so you agree. Today was just a test date, you remind yourself in the mirror. Liking each other has little to nothing to do with this. Little do either of you knows you’re about to embark on learning a more intimate part of the other.

So, you board the nearly packed train to the aquarium. A few minutes go by and you see him at the entrance. He’s dressed just as casually as you are, and you notice he has a small token in his hands. He hands you the hair pin with a cat on it.

“Flowers were too expensive,” he sheepishly apologizes.

“Thank you,” you smile telling him it’s alright. “I think these are way better Tetsurō.”

You’re calling him by first name? His heart nearly falters at that. Blinking golden irises mask the blush forming on his cheeks. Jesus, you should warn a guy when you’re gonna call them by their name, his inner voice says.

“You look cute,” he gets his bearing right.

You compliment his outfit too. He holds your digital tickets on his phone and a polite, “shall we?” is heard.

You hold his hand as you take the lead in guiding him in where you want to go. Both of you explore the monthly exhibits and the classic shark aquarium. You take photos together with a seaside frame. He keeps the bottom two that print and the top two go to you; you’re securely tugged into his side and the bashfulness in your closeness is masked by a near kiss when your lips almost mark the corner of his mouth. He slyly teases you by smiling a bit wider a little more shocked in his expression on the second picture. maybe it’s your favorite one because for a moment, though brief, you can say with confidence, Kuroo Tetsurō, Nekoma Third Year, the scheming captain, had eyes only for you.

The rest of the date goes on as sweetly planned. It ends around dinner time and you coincidentally knew of a small French restaurant that won’t break the bank. He walks with you, talking about how excited he is for inter-murals to start.

“I’ll be there,” you smile. A small fist is raised moderately high and you hear him chuckle.

“You better be,” he holds your hand and pushes it down.

“Kuroo…,” You don’t fight the comfort his hold brings. Rather, you relax your hand in his.

“YLN.”

“…I, how can I say this?”

You’re nervous, he can tell by how tense your shoulders are becoming.

“I’m not the one you should be here with,” you say after exhaling a deep breath. There is a brief look of embarrassment on his features. Still worried about that? Why? He ponders.

“If you’re implying I should be here without you, then perhaps I wasn’t very clear when I asked you on this date,” Kuroo leans forward to bring a kiss to your knuckles. “I lied about using you to go on this date because I liked someone else.”

You feel your blush only adds to the stunned look you give him.

“Eh?!”

“Shh!” An elderly couple hushes you, unaware of what had transpired. Kuroo shrugs and you lean back uttering how you’re going maim Morisuke for gossiping behind your back.

“Hey, hey,” Kuroo brings your out of your two step plan to ruin Morisuke’s chances overseas as a joke. “Breathe.”

You do exactly that and as you calm down, you hit your head on the table with an a abhorrent thump!

“Should I come back?” The waiter had graciously brought you your meals, but alas, when your non-date-date explains, the server just rolls their eyes saying it’s the fourth time this week. You nervously laugh saying to come back, apologizing for the scene.

Over the course of the meal, Kuroo is an open book to any and all questions concerning his newly formed affection for you.

“About a month ago?” You nearly choke on your chai tea.

“Promise you won’t beat me up too?”

You nod. “It depends.”

And so, Kuroo enlightens you the thing known as ‘the list.’ All captains of the sports team have a yearly list of people they think are highly attractive.

“It’s for the yearbook, that’s how it started,” he explains.

“…okaaay…?”

Then it dawns on you, someone put your name on the list. That someone being the jerk who couldn’t take no for an answer.

“And I told him no one can have you unless I try first.”

“How chivalrous of you,” you muse, yet you have a darker expression set in. Kuroo thought you were angry about being on the list, you were, but that’s not why.

“So you basically asked me out to save me the embarrassment from some other guy?!” You’re whisper yelling now. “That’s even worse than being asked out on a date or a bet! Tetsurō, we’re friends, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Are you really that mad at me?” his voice is more shocked than anything. “Oh, oh no.”

You’re pretty face looks crestfallen when you abruptly stand, thank him for spending time with you, but you leave. He doesn’t have the heart to stop you, it was a fifty-fifty chance you’d be highly upset. Kuroo didn’t know it would be the worse possible outcome.

You don’t talk to him for three weeks. Avoiding the captain is easier because outside of the shared classes you have third years, you pay him no mind. Kai and Morisuke are mortified when Kuroo tells them what occurred, but one of them enlightens their captain as to why you were so angry (something about it’s your choice who to date and who to decline that privilege and though his heart was in the right place, Kuroo took away that power of choice from you).

Within that time, the silence had become too much. You still talk to the others just fine from the team, but you still ignore your friend. You’re having trouble processing the fact he not only confesses, yet finding out about “the list” as the motivator for Kuroo to finally confess doesn’t sit right with you. Texts and calls slowly diminish until the screen with his name has been made up of dry humor and possibly even drier “how do you do’s.” None of which go answered for days at a time from you.

Kuroo eventually gets sick worried over how cold you’re being. First it starts with him being more introverted than before. It was like he reverted backward to when he was in elementary school: shy and observant. Then came the skipping of meals or barely eating because he would spend lunch breaks with you or vice versa; his bentos usually taste the best when shared, so why would he eat only a little less than half? After the terrestrial downpour which started over the weekend, Kuroo forgets his umbrella and catches the worse cold he’s had since the flu came around the first year hallway two years ago. You don’t find out any of this until you’re pulled out of class by Kenma of all people.

“Kodzuken?” you say flatly. “Kuroo sent you too?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“You’re here about what happened?”

The duo toned kid nods.

“I know about the fabled list. I’m on it, aren’t I? Did you know too and you’re here to beg forgiveness on his behalf?”

“…he’s been dealing with a fever, so he’s not here, I’m here because I told our mutual best friend to tell you the truth and he does care. He’s an idiot you’ve known this.”

“Rewind, he’s sick?”

“Kuroo’s been sort of depressed since he came back to school and he’s been stressed since the upcoming practice match with Karasuno. So,” kenma looks at you. “What are you going to do?”

.

.

.

You never bounced your leg out of habit with anxiety, yet you do so as you sit on the train en route to Kuroo’s. He may be an idiot, but you still care. Sure, you needed a month to process, yet Kenma of all people talked you into seeing the scheming captain on a whim. Your texts and concerned voicemails are delivered, but not replied to, so you take it upon yourself asking for extra worksheets and assignments used for his classes. Kuroo and you were varied, but balanced students, so it was no problem to hand over the coursework to you. The teachers were grateful, even Nekomata-sensei.

“Team and practice needs their captain, yn-chan,” he pats your shoulder.

“I know,” you answer. Small smile drags across your face.

Now outside the door with the inscribed Kuroo plaque, you knock on the door twice. By the third and final “panic” knock, Kuroo swings the door wide open. His gel pack on his forehead slides askew, he’s wearing a Christmas sweater you got him with sailor moon motifs at the bottom, and his nose is a little pink. Kuroo is worse for wear, but boy does his heart leap when he sees a concerned you fussing over his cold. His pajama pants are a day old and he stands aside while you bully yourself into his abode.

“…and these are from physics, college algebra one, and—”

“YN,” he interjects.

You ignore him.

“Modern English and Japanese are here in this folder, history there…”

“YN.”

He is holding every paper you hand him, placing the neat stack on the kitchen coffee table now. Stepping toward you, peeling the gel pack off, Kuroo grips your shoulders, relief written all over his features, and he shakes you gently after explaining you can stay if you like.

“We have time,” Kuroo gives you a soft stare.

You frown with your brows, but his clammy hand cups your face instead. Heeding his request to breathe with him, he sort of wears a lopsided smile. You’re here, for him, worried and upset he didn’t take care of himself like he normally would.

“YN, I’m fine. You’re here to make sure I didn’t die, yes?”

“But you got sick because I stopped talking to you, Kenma said so.”

Kuroo waits for you to stop rambling on about how you heard second hand how he got sick. His palm never stopped rubbing your cheekbone. You ramble when you’re worried, he can hear the unsure breaks in your voice.

“Oi,” His body stands closer to you now.

Quickly, one arm steadies your shoulder, the other snakes around your hips and he abruptly pulls you forward and higher. Your eyes focus on the ground instead of where Kuroo’s seem dead set on. You continue going off about derivatives until Kuroo leans down and kisses your lips shut. It’s a bold move, one he’ll regret later passing on his cold to you, useful and effective. You feel his smile against yours when you instantaneously hold him by his plush sweater. The stronger the grip you have, the more you’re losing your stance on annoyed refined and well placed anger—then it takes you a full fifteen seconds to start kissing him back. He gasps a little when you sneakily slide an arm across his broadening shoulders. Gods you drive him insane, even if you want to part, you can’t because the second you do, Kuroo’s breath dances across you Cupid’s bow.

“Can you be quiet for a second?”

Your noses bump against the other as you nod. Eyes opening back up wide, yet drowsy have a flirtatious gleam reflect back to the other. You inhale briefly tilting your head to one side a little curious in the expanding silence.

“Good because I’m about to kiss you again with your permission, ok?”

You blink, understanding whatever he just said meant and you easily lose the shake ground you formerly stood with him. Hungrier and greedy, that’s what his lips are; tender with promise are how his arms holds you; and when you lead, you feel his heartbeat through the sweater. Your cool hands sneak underneath the fabric and he stutters, almost slipping his tongue into your mouth again.

“Careful,” The word is swallowed by your mouth on his, returning the adoration felt from him.

This goes on for five plus minutes until he pulls away to a disappointed you. He sort of chuckles when you answer if it was something you did. Pulling down your uniform shirt and you his sweater, you stay comfortably close.

“No,” Kuroo slyly smiles. His hands play with your hair trying to smother it down now. “You just…?”

“Mm, so I did,” your middle and forefinger press against his pursed lips. Mirthful laughter behind graham cracker hazel eyes and your stifle giggle has kuroo biting an embarrassed smirk into the crook of your neck. You’re affectionately running both hands through the roosters nest of noir hair and he thanks his stars you forgave him.

“Don’t care about some stupid list,” you say. “And yes, whatever we are now, we’re going to be just fine…”

Kuroo just lets out a sputtered laugh before biting your cheek affectionately.

“Be my girlfriend,” his voice is saccharine brimming with forgiveness. His lips press against your higher cheekbone this time, feeling the muscles twinge with a small smirk. You remain quiet though. “Please, YN?”

“Well, since you asked so nicely, I think my sick boyfriend should go back to bed, hmm?”

You pat his shoulder when you wiggle out of his hold in his family kitchen. Unbeknownst to either of you, the front porch door chime had rang signaling someone’s return home. Thank goodness you two sat at the kitchen counter talking about how math these days are filled with nothing but the minimum calculus equations both of you have come to like; physics can wait.

Both Kuroo and you, for now, talk about finding limits, yet the laws of thermodynamics can wait when he shows up to classes two days later and you? Over the weekend, you text your boyfriend from bed, cursing him out for all those times you and him spent time together (though brief) because now you’re about to find out just how spoiled being Kuroo Tetsurō’s significant other actually is. And believe you me, it’s quite fun having him come over with some rice porridge from his granny, have him help you out of your blanket burrito, just so you could sit side by side and watch a comfort film—typically a musicals—and a majority of the time he comes over after you beat the flu, he helps you test out all twenty four color last lipsticks. His favorite one? The one you continue buying for three years until they discontinue the old formula.

[icarianiscariot]

for ao3 wrapped!!! 5, 6 ,17, 29?

kae!! thank u for the ask :D

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

OOOOOOH okay as far as fics i wrote this year, "can heaven fall into my lonely earth" which is one of very few iskris fics on ao3 and??? has the most bookmarks out of my bllk fics (i think only recently surpassed by dtootc), and the third highest amount of comment threads (surpassed by dtootc and wwap, both of which are multi-chapter works vs this little oneshot?!) ....however. this year i also had uh. an old work kind of blow up on twitter??? which i NEVER expected. and it was like 90% really positive stuff too! so shoutout to "01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101, or something," a poem i wrote in 2016 about robots being married. the official star wars twitter account has seen my gay r2/c3p0 poem. the tweet that someone posted about this poem has over 5mil views. my brother and his friends were actively discussing the tweet in their groupchat before finding out it was written by me. random IRL people mentioned it before finding out it was written by me. this was definitely not on my 2023 bingo card.

6. Favorite title you used

the rituals are intricate, bro!!!! it really felt like it encapsulated otoya's voice for me and he was just so fun to write sldkjflskdjf

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

sae for sure!!! although i think i've had so much fun with all the bllk boys that i've put into pickle jars and shaken around slkdfjlskdjf it's hard to pick just one!!

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

shit this is HARD. fuck. KAE HOW COULD YOU MAKE ME CHOOSE OTL maybe: "Here's the thing: Bachira looks at Rin as if he's stained glass, transparent and a work of art all at the same time, delicate and sharp in tandem. He looks at Rin and says lonely where others see alone, and when Rin throws thorns at him, Bachira only smells roses. So when Bachira slots himself into Rin's life like moss on a river stone, Rin takes him for the tumble." (but if your lightning lips aren't mine) > I'm really proud of the metaphor tbh, it feels very apt for both their characterizations and it was a strong opening that I still enjoy!! or, "We were fourteen together, fifteen, sixteen, which means we know more about each other than our families ever will again, because that's what this career has done to us." (we wrote a prelude) > something something The Burden of Teenage Nostalgia, the way sae didn't go home at ALL from ages 14-18 which i think are core years to becoming a human being, the way kaiser was there but rin wasn't, something something - the point of Being Changed in a way that your blood relatives cannot understand but your comrades do or, a handful from dtootc: "Rin can hear it when his engine revs and his tires squeal. Like Rin is important enough to run stoplights for." "Rin knows that other teenagers don't feel like this. No one else drowns like him. // Sae around this age was cruel; at fourteen he was curious, at fifteen he was already sharpening himself into a knife, and sixteen saw him as a scalpel, carving out pieces of himself while also cutting Rin down to the bone with surgical precision. Somewhere at seventeen his edge dulled, but the damage was done. // Some might say Sae has always been cruel: it's in his nature, with his blank face and calculating eyes, the bluntness of his tone that bruises, the sharpness of his words that scar. // But to Rin, he'd once been kind. The kindest in the world. // (Maybe Sae had been drowning too. // Maybe that's why he left.)" ""No one has ever looked for me." // Shidou turns, pink eyes bright and brow furrowed, a kind of innocent confusion that doesn't seem suitable for a demon. He's not wearing eyeliner; it makes his face seem more human. // "I did." and finally, spoilers for the most recent chapter: "Their hand lingers for a moment, and then in a motion achingly familiar, nostalgic like childhood fevers, Sae brushes a strand of Rin's hair from his face, tucking it behind his ear before adjusting the blanket over him once again."

WAUGH KAE THANK U THESE WERE HARD BUT GR8 QUESTIONS

ao3 wrapped game

[gerdavonrinnlingen]

Since I recently cracked the 1 million word mark on AO3, I want to revisit my old fics. This is my third GR fic, I really like this one - my first Longfic ^^ I'm still proud of it.

Read it on AO3

The wonderful art is by @zlatokryletz - thank you <3

She checked node after node, at the seventh she found a single burnt out chip. She replaced it and studied the node. There was a room right next to it. She closed the panel and got up. Perhaps she should take a look? She chewed on her lower lip. Was she too rash?

In this moment the nightly energy mode kicked in and the lights in the hallway she was standing in dimmed. Well, it seemed like a good moment.

Rose took the scanner in her right hand as if she wanted to scan the next node and stepped closer to the room. To her surprise the door slid open, the room itself was almost dark – there was only one large holoprojector in the middle of the room, its blue light painted the surroundings in a cool light.

The holo showed an enlarged blue print. She gripped her scanner tightly. This was it, it had to be. The new weapon the Order was building.

She stepped closer, eager to take a look- suddenly she heard something on her right. Instead of trying to hide she just froze and gripped her scanner so hard that her knuckles turned white.

A tall black figure stepped into the cold light of the holo. Rose felt all colour drain from her face when she recognized Hux. He stopped dead in his tracks and narrowed his eyes.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he asked sharply.

Kriff! Why hadn’t she just waited?!

“Specialist Phan, sir. I- uh I noticed that through the ship’s isolinear chips burnt out before expiration date and I-” Crap, that sounded unprofessional. She cleared her throat. “I’m replacing chips in the nodes on this deck, sir.”

He stepped closer, only now she registered that he looked positively tired and worn-out. His usually meticulously slicked back ginger hair looked as if he had carelessly ran his hand through it. From the corner of her eye she saw a black great coat lying on a table with pads. From the looks of it he was working here … but why would Hux work in the middle of the night on weapon prototypes?

“You’re replacing chips? And this couldn’t wait until the morning I take it?” There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

He was right of course – there was no way she could explain why she was so eager to work this late. Suddenly she remembered what Poe had told her: ‘Try to be as honest as possible, lie only in the details.’

Yes, the only way out of this was to grasp the rancor by the teeth. “May I speak freely, sir?”

He clasped his hands behind his back and stepped even closer, apparently using his height to intimidate her. She was almost two heads smaller than he. To her dismay it worked, she felt uneasy.

“Go on.”

She lifted her chin. “I’m a civilian worker, sir. Since I arrived here I did mostly boring maintenance work … its fine of course. That’s what I’m here for. But when I discovered a pattern to the burnt out chips today I- uh, I got excited. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. There was a burnt out chip in the node in front of this room – so curiosity got the better of me and I came to look.”

Hux scanned her face with his ice-blue eyes, apparently trying to decide if she was lying to him. “What kind of pattern?”

It was working! She pulled her pad from one of her pockets and activated it. “As you can see, the energy surges seem to originate from this deck, the WDD to be exact.”

He took her tablet and looked closer; she noticed that he wasn’t wearing his black gloves. That and the fact that way his hair wasn’t immaculate … seemed almost casual. What the kriff was he doing here?

He suddenly seemed to lose interest in her, he turned on his heel and stepped to the holo. He zoomed out of the blue print, and checked it with Rose’s diagram. Strange, but since he didn’t seem to be interested in her presence anymore she slowly approached the holo.

She realised that she wasn’t looking at a weapons design but at the energy and power systems of the Finalizer. There were readings on the lower corner of the holo – someone had increased the energy output by 0.3%. It was marginal, but the increase of power in the whole ship had caused a local spike in some nodes ... and fried the chips.

Should she just stay silent and wait for Hux to kick her out? Or should she try to gather some intel? Well, she was here …

“The additional energy would improve the performance on some systems, but the GXP-chips used in the nodes can’t compensate for the additional power,” she said while continuing looking at the holo.

He snapped his head around. “GXP-chips have latitude for 0.4%.”

She shouldn’t contradict him, the Force knows how a guy like Hux would react to that. She bit her lower lip. But on the other hand he was simply wrong. “Theoretically yes, but in real life they can’t handle more than 0.28. Especially in a large network like the one on this ship. There is simply too much voltage.”

He scoffed. “Nonsense! The overall performance was increased.”

“It will fry even more chips over time!”

“A few burnt-out chips are easily replaced.”

By the stars! Why didn’t he get it? “Every burnt-out chip has to be replaced with new ones! A crate with 200 chips takes about two weeks to deliver. At this rate we’ll be out of chips by end of the month.”

He stared at her with his icy eyes, she crossed her arms and glared back.

Suddenly she had an idea, she stepped to the holo and pointed to the aft section of the Finalizer. “The problem is the size of the network, but if we add buffers to every section the voltage wouldn’t be as high. It would even be possible to bump up the energy output to 0.33%.”

His eyes went wide and he quickly added the suggested buffers to the holo. He rubbed his chin as he stared at the simulation. “You’re not wrong.”

She almost rolled her eyes. Of course she wasn’t wrong – she was right!

He eyed her. “What exactly is your profession?”

The smug feeling from before disappeared. Damn her stupid pride. She was supposed to keep a low profile. “I don’t have a profession, sir. Back home I was a jack of all trades and simply fixed what needed fixing.”

He wiped over his face and suddenly looked exhausted. “Dismissed.”

[safety-net-did]

Today was the second day of the stabilization dose for the simulant. It's too early to be sure, especially with outside influences, but I think I might prefer the middle dose.

The weekend was kinda a lot. Went out of town with the ze-partner to see a comedy show. He-partner's mum had gotten tickets but decided she wasn't comfortable with the COVID risk anymore, so we had three tickets. Got to invite one of my primary friends, who I haven't seen since before COVID.

We made a day of it. Went to the city's local art gallery, then met up with friend to wander around the mall for a bit and catch up before the show. It was a lot of fun, but it was a lot, y'know?

We also managed to take just about every wrong turn possible the whole day, which was funny but stressful.

Sunday was supposed to be grocery day... But everyone was worn out. While doing morning stuff we saw a rogue dog tearing down the street, so I popped some shoes on and took after it in my pyjamas. Managed to track it down and coordinate with the owner (who was being playfully, skillfully evaded, and thoroughly ignored).

Thankfully the power of "new friend‽" is very strong. Especially in young Australian Shepards- she must've been about 8 months old. So once I was close enough and in eye sight, I just went to the ground and knelt down low and playful. She ran up and mirrored me, and as soon as she found me safe rolled over for excited belly scritches... Which let me grab her collar and get her back to her person.

According to my partners I have experienced a higher than average number of helping strangers with odd things moments like this in my life. 🤷(shrug) I like helping people, and seem to notice and react to situations a bit more readily than most people? Idk.

Anyway. The partners had their scheduled important relationship talk on Sunday, too. I was there to help- emotional support partner! It went somewhat better than expected, tbh. We'll know more in about two weeks, at the follow up talk, how well it went exactly.

That was a very emotionally draining activity though.

He-partner had his newest datemate over that evening, while ze-partner, step-teen and I chilled out and had a fire in the backyard. He had another date night with other datemate tonight after work. I'm in constant awe of his neutotypical ability to just. Do stuff, all the time.

Ze-partner and I did the grocery shopping after ze finished work today.

I put my big U pillow in the laundry because a one of the dogs vomited on it, and I'm worried I won't sleep well since it is still drying.

Made a quick dinner and realised that one of the food-related issues I'm having is that meatier and more processed foods are especially unappealing (like literally just more ingredients/flavours/levels of cooking, not necessarily high sugar/high fat "junk" foods). I was interested in and able to eat a solid portion of steamed mixed vegetables. But I couldn't get even a single piece of the beef noodles in my mouth.

I am very verbose today. In writing at least. This is the third quite long post I've written today (and the first one I had to write twice since Tumblr ate it). I like it. I miss writing.

[jdgo51]

Turn Off the Tech

Today's inspiration comes from:

A Surrendered Yes

by Rebekah Lyons

"Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ." — Galatians 1:10 ESV

"'I started using Instagram on May 7, 2011, to be exact. Though many of my friends were active on social networking platforms, I was not a savvy social-media user. But the idea of keeping a real-time photo journal to share with friends and family? This was something I could get behind. After one weekend, I was hooked.

But what began as memory making became a compulsion to share. Gabe noticed before I did. “You don’t need to capture everything; just enjoy the moment!” he said. Kennedy, my daughter, saw it too and would ask, “Can you stop looking at your phone?”

In the spring of 2018, I felt God whispering that I should fast from social media. I dismissed and defended my actions. It’s no big deal, God. It doesn’t mean that much to me. But I woke up a few weeks later feeling an urge, a conviction even, to press pause for a season. I couldn’t wait another day.

In the spring of 2018, I felt God whispering that I should fast from social media.

When I jumped off social media, things changed. First, I started dreaming again. On the back porch, journal in hand, new ideas and thoughts flooded my mind. Second, I was sleeping better than ever, my mind and body catching up on much-needed rest. And third, my passion for learning returned as I read more books, listened to more podcasts and talks.

My worth is found in the loving gifts God offers in the “right now”.

A month into this fast, I drove around a bend in the road and gasped at the sky, ablaze with pinks and reds. Normally, I would have pulled over and angled for the perfect shot. That’s when God reminded me of this truth: “You are worthy to receive something beautiful, and you don’t have to share it.”

What began as a break from the constant churn of social media became a fundamental lesson in worthiness.

I came to see that my worth is not found in approval “out there.” It is found in the loving gifts God offers in the “right now,” in the intimate invitation of a sunset.

When I did reenter social media, it was with caution. I didn’t want to lose the slower pace of life I’d found or my longer attention span and diminishing need for public approval. I can see the flicker in my Kennedy’s eyes as she shares something from her day, and I give her my whole attention. I catch our son Cade’s goofy smirk when he’s up to no good. By resting from social media, I’ve recovered the lost art of paying attention, and somehow, that has brought me a sense of peace and tranquility.

Consider taking your own social media fast. Leave your smartphone in a box by the front door when you walk in after a long day. Limit the number of texts you send in a day. Give your mind, soul, and body the rest they need — for your sake and for the sake of those around you."'

Excerpted with permission from A Surrendered Yes by Rebekah Lyons, copyright Rebekah Lyons.

[bonky-n-steeb]

𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘃𝗲

𝙎𝙏𝙀𝙑𝙀 𝙍𝙊𝙂𝙀𝙍𝙎 𝙭 𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙀𝙍

𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮 || Steve’s life takes a quantum leap when he finds you unconscious on the beach.

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 || ANGST (with a happy ending)

This is the second part of six feet under.

I know I broke your hearts, so here comes the second part to mend it! I hope you love this!

“You are my mission.”

Steve felt as if the walls of his heart were pricked by a thousand needles. It ached too much for him to bear. Unable to look in your eyes, he cried in his own palms.

The Asset wasn’t built to show emotions, but you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion at the picture in front of you; your mission had just dropped down on his knees and was pathetically sobbing.

Why wasn’t your target fighting. You were informed that he was great at hand combat but not really outstanding with guns. So why wasn’t he attacking you as expected. Why was he showing you his back in surrender?

You were told what to do if the mission fought. But you weren’t informed what to do if he just... surrendered.

Walking close to your mission where he was crouching down, you stared at him for a moment. You weren’t wearing your combat gear, and neither was he. You both were instead dressed in far from modest clothes.

You didn’t know why, but you couldn’t bring yourself to harm him in any way. With the way he was trusting you, you could’ve killed him within seconds. But yet your heart somehow ached at his situation.

When he didn’t even look up, you nudged his thigh with your left foot. When your mission finally looked up, his eyes were bloodshot and he was incessantly crying.

“Fight me.” You said as he just stared at you. Your blank gaze terrified Steve more than any alien or villain ever had. You didn’t know why, but you wanted him to fight you. You weren’t able to attack him if he just gave up.

Steve blinked his eyes as he took in your words. Why weren’t you killing him? He had surrendered to you and yet you were just looking back at him instead of fighting. Why did you want him to fight you?

“No.” Steve had never thought love would be his weakness. Or maybe he had never truly realised it. Steve loved Bucky as a friend and had rained hell when his friend was in danger.

And here he had signed off his soul in your name. He would literally bring you the moon and stars if you asked to. And he would bare his throat for you to slash through. But he couldn’t possibly ever hurt you.

“I said fight me.” Steve Rogers, your mission was supposed to fight you. Not just sit down and take whatever you gave him. You didn’t know why you were angry at his lack of self preservation.

What happened next was within the blink of an eye. Steve’s arm shot up and curled around your wrist. And with a quick pull, he pulled your entire body down.

His agility took you by shock and before you could react, you were down on the ground pressed against the floor with him straddling you. Taking both of your hands in his, he pinned them above your head, making sure you were immobile.

You were royally fucked. Your handlers wouldn’t take it lightly if you messed up. And that was if you reached them in one piece. Chances were you were gonna die here, right under Steve Rogers.

You opened your mouth to bite and hiss and Steve took the opportunity and dove right in. You stilled with surprise when you felt the captain’s plump lips right against yours. This man was super insane.

You mercilessly but his lower lip and ended up drawing blood. But as soon as he started licking in your mouth with his tongue, you melted right on the spot.

The warmth of his mouth slowly brought back the warmth of your memories. Steve felt you go pliant under him for some moments before you started fiercely kissing him back.

You entwined your fingers with his and gently pressed your tongue against the bite mark on his lips. You didn’t notice the tears that slipped through your eyes and how they mixed with Steve’s own tears falling against your face.

“Steve.” You called his name just like you always did. With love and belonging. He opened his eyes to see you staring right back at him with your lively eyes.

Steve had never been happier before. Pressing his forehead against yours, he just breathed you in for a moment. “Steve.” Your hand was now caressing his face.

Your eyes peering into each other were enough to convey the million thoughts you had and the thousand things you wanted to say. Pressing a loving kiss to your forehead, he got up and you followed him.

You both sat on the floor with your legs crossed, you kept some space between you two. “I’m… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Steve repeated as he broke down once again.

You hushed him and held him in your arms until he calmed down. “I shouldn’t have done that, but… but I wanted to know.” Steve couldn’t ever forget how your face had morphed into that of betrayal as he recited the words.

“But I want to know one thing. Do you love me? Or… or is it some tactic of hydra to ruin me?” You wanted to slap Steve for asking this stupid ass question. Of course you loved him!

But then you realised where he was emotionally. If you were in his position then maybe even you would fear the same. “It’s real Steve. It’s definitely real.”

You framed his face with your hands and caressed your thumb over his cheeks. “Steve, I love you. And by ‘I’, I mean Y/N and Soldat. My soul belongs to you, no matter it’s name.

How can you doubt our love when it was the only thing that brought me back?” It was true, you wouldn’t have remembered anything if Steve hadn’t kissed you.

You could see the colour fill in Steve’s face. He pulled you in a bear hug and held you tight. “I love you. I love you.” Steve chanted in your ear just like before.

Once you were both calm enough to think straight, you decided to go out on the beach. You sat in the sand with your head tilted on Steve’s shoulder as the sea breeze kissed your wet cheeks.

“I barely remember who I was before all this Steve. I can only remember glimpses of the shield and the avengers. I’m no more the Y/N you once saw.”

Steve was silent as he listened to each and every word of yours. He wanted to say so many things back, but he knew he had to listen to you first.

“But I remember how they took me Steve. It was probably my third official shield mission and we had all thought that base was not active. But when we broke in, the operatives were waiting just for us.

It was trap and we fell willingly into it. The others managed to escape, but… but I couldn’t. And they took me Steve. I… I waited for you people.

I still remember shivering in that cold cell all alone, praying for you to find me. But you never came. And with time I just kept forgetting until I couldn’t remember anymore.” Your voice cracked yet you kept going.

“Even after you retired, you still were hydra’s number one target. It’s almost personal now. It took them some time, but they finally traced you and they knew you were alone.

I was supposed to use a boat as long as I was out of visibility and then swim till the shore so that you wouldn’t notice me. But I miscalculated the current and the rocks on the shore.

After I abandoned my boat, I jumped into the water and got caught in the water currents. It was a terrifying experience, just spinning wildly underwater as the water took you.

But I was oddly at peace as I thought finally I would be free. But then I hit my head on the rocks and got washed up. And I woke up remembering absolutely nothing in your warm bed.”

“I’m sorry.” Steve couldn’t ever forgive himself for all that had happened to you. He was sure shield must have tried their best, but he couldn’t help but feel guilty.

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. I’m sure they must’ve tried.” You both sat quietly staring at the calm ocean which reflected the night sky.

“Do you still love me?” You asked with a dejected sigh. “I’ll always love you.” Steve replied pulling you closer. “Even after knowing who I am and what I was here for?”

“You could’ve easily completed your mission. I know you are capable enough of doing that. But, you did not. You couldn’t harm me even when I openly surrendered to you.

So yes, I still very much love you and I’ll stay by your side forever.” The last word pierced through your heart like a knife. You couldn’t give him what he wanted.

“Steve, I… I have to go.” Steve looked at you quizzically. “Where?” You gulped audibly before meekly replying, “Hydra.” You could feel his body tense.

“You aren’t going back there, no matter what.” You wanted to believe Steve’s words, but you knew that couldn’t happen.

“I’ve tried to run away. So many times. But they always find me. They’ll find me this time too. And if they find me, they’ll find you too and I can’t let that happen.

I won’t be able to live if something happened to you. I’ll never forgive myself. And that’s why I need to go.” If this sacrifice was going to keep Steve safe, then so be it.

“Nothing will happen to me. And if they come, we will fight them. Together. And nothing and no one can stop us if we are with each other. Stay with me, please!”

You kissed his cheek to stop him from pleading anymore. You couldn’t tolerate the man you loved begging you. “I’ll… I’ll stay with you. I promise.”

Steve hugged you so tight, you wondered if you broke some bones. But being in the arms of the man who loved you, felt better than heaven itself. It was a different kind of a feeling, one that no words could ever describe.

“Steve, what do you think about Paris? I’ve always wanted to go there.” You asked as you both sat silently on the beach, basking in each other’s presence.

“I’ve always thought about visiting Louvre too. But I never really got the chance.” Even as a sickly kid, Steve wanted to get mesmerised by the art in the famous museum.

“And what about Sydney? Or Amsterdam? Or Barcelona?” Your eyes lit up like an excited kid. “What about all of them?” Steve jested.

Steve wanted to travel the world too. In a sense he already had, but it was always for some mission and never for the sake of relaxation. “Yeah, we could do that!” You exclaimed as if the thought hadn’t occurred to you.

It would be a new beginning for both of you. A new life away from your tainted past. A fresh canvas to paint with the colours of your own choice. A much needed restart that both you and Steve needed.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s pack our bags!”

[arievir]

Event Special

This is one shot story as a gift for valentine day to all people who support me!

__________________________________________

More by Design than by Accident

Nanami x f! reader, Megumi x f! reader 💕

Genre: angst, fluff

Warning: cheating, implicit sexaul activity 

__________________________________________

You studied in Studio Art, which was fun at first since you learned only fundamental subjects as a freshman with people in the same faculty, just different majors.

The second year was more intense, but it was the memorable year especially, you got into a relationship with him. Nanami Kento was 7 years older than you.

Kento worked at Gojo company as CFO. He was everything that beyond you could dream of. He was mature and reliable. Since you had him, you needed no one. Studying was busy enough, you rarely hung out with anyone besides your boyfriend.

“Sweetheart, take a break from your homework, and eat some food” Kento asked while walking into the bedroom.

“Nah, I have a lot to do, you can eat first” you said.

You were startled by Kento's action. He carried you in a bridal style out of the room.

“Kentoooooooo, nooooooooooo, I’m still workinggggg” you whined.

Kento giggled warmly then he bit your lower lip with his lips. “If you eat dinner with me now, I’ll feed you and a little reward before sleeping. If you are stubborn, no vacation to the beach next week, hmmm?”

You enlarged your eyes in joyfulness. “Eat eat eat eat now, yeah!!”

Kento brought you to settle on the sofa. He opened the anime for you to watch when he sat next to you and fed you food. Ke knew you were tired from studying, so he wanted to do everything for you.

____________________________________________

Kento drove you to the beach. He booked a 5 stars hotel where the room can see a panorama view of the beach.

“It must be so expensive right?” you sat on his lap while being held in his strong biceps on the couch.

“It’s worth it. I’ll do everything for my sweetheart. And next semester you’ll be in the third year, so you need to relax beforehand” Kento slid his hand in your shirt and wrapped his warm arm around your waist.

“Kento, you work a lot and you’re busy too. You should spend money for yourself. My parents can support me too” you kissed his ear from his earlobe slightly down to his neck.

“Hmm, but seeing you’re happy makes me feel happy too. Also, I’m old, and I don’t know how long I’m gonna be your boyfriend” he said with a deep voice.

You jerked your head off from his neck immediately. “A-are you breaking up with me by taking me here as our last time?”

“Well, we may have to break up if we are going to marry because we’ll be a married couple and you’ll be my wife” he nibbed the skin on your neck and carried you to the bed.

He towered your figure on the bed. You encircled your arm around his neck and giggled with him. Every moment with him was wonderful for you.

____________________________________________

The new semester made you exhausted. Moreover, you barely saw Kento. You weren't the only one who was busy. Kento was so stressed and busy with his new project.

Last week, you could only spend one day with him to go on a picnic. Before sleeping you asked Kento to lay his front body on the bed, you gradually sat on his lower back and massaged his back and shoulders for him.

“What did you do sweetheart? If you admit now, I’ll forgive you” Kento asked.

“No!!! You’re mean. I just want to take care of you too” you pouted and moved to lay down on the bed next to him.

Kento shifted himself to look at you turning your back to him. He smiled at how cute you were but his eyes were full of guilt. Kento slid his hand to wrap your torso. He brought you close till your back touched his wide chest. He slowly kissed your earlobe.

“Forgive me sweetheart, hmm?” he asked you with a husky voice before kissing your shoulder. Then you turned to gaze at him and smiled sweetly.

Kento shoved your hair from your face. He leaned his head to use his warm lips nipping the skin of your neck. You and Kento shared the night with heat and passion.

____________________________________________

Months passed, and you were still busy with your school. You hadn’t seen Kento for 2 freaking weeks. He sometimes didn’t come back home since his work got busier.

You finished some homework and projects, and you decided to surprise him today at his office. You stopped by his office sometimes as Kento liked to bring you to his office. You dressed in his favorite mini black dress with an open back. 

It was around 8.30 pm. The building was closed and a bit dark, but Kento gave you a card a long time ago to get into the building as Kento was in a high position, he was also a close friend of Gojo Satoru.

You took an elevator to get to the floor where his office was. The light was all off but only in his office was turned on and he didn’t even close the window blind.

From afar, you saw your lovely boyfriend sitting on the office chair that was behind the table. The chair was slightly away from the table, his head leaning on the head rest, and closing his eyes.

You assumed he must be so tired. You approached his office slowly and quietly. You giggled a bit to think what expression he would make when you surprised him.

Nevertheless, it was so funny because he was the one who surprised you instead. When you got closer to his office you saw someone sitting on the floor. You only saw the legs but you believe it was a woman because she wore stockings sheer. Her upper body was behind Kento’s office table, which was the same position where his chair was.

Your body trembled. Tears brimmed in your eyes. You covered your mouth with both hands to stop your sobbing. This was unbelievable. He was always a lovely boyfriend.

“No no no” you stepped back. Maybe your sobbing was too loud or maybe your footsteps were too loud, but you couldn't hear anything. You only saw a woman standing up with ruined makeup on her face and Kento who had a horrified expression with a belt was on the ground.

You moved as fast as you could and took a cab back to the apartment. You didn’t know where to go or who to call. Your parents lived in another city and you had no friends. You decided to pack clothes and your stuff to leave this place. You heard a jingling sound, you noticed he was here.

A moment later, he stood behind you and hugged you tight. “y/n, listen to me. Don’t go, please. I’m begging you”

“Let Me Go. I hate you. I freaking hate you” you yelled at him.

“Yes, it was my fault, just at least listen to me. I’m not making excuse but at least if you’re going to leave me, I want you to know how much I’m regretful”

You pushed yourself out from his body and turned to look at him. “Say it and don’t dare to touch me”

“I was so stressed. The project had so many problems. She was a new co-worker who helped me with this project. I didn’t mean to come this far. One day Gojo made things harder for me, for the team and she was there to help me and things happened” Nanami explained.

“How long?” you asked.

“Months, y/n, you are the best woman in my life and I love you. I-I am sor-”

“Stop, if you loved me, you wouldn’t hurt me. If you loved me, you would have stopped it. From now on we’re done. I hope she can help you feel better with work and everything. Don’t call me and I hope we won't meet each other again” you bit your bottom lip to cease yourself from crying but tears kept coming down.

Nanami was shocked. He regretted it, he wanted to stop you, but it was too late. He was sinful, he felt disgusting to let emotion take over his logic. He could only watch you leave him.

You left his place and went to the hotel. You cried all night long on the hotel bed. You felt like the world got destroyed in one blink.

You appeared to school lifeless the next day, but no one asked you how you felt although your eyes were swelling. It made sense really because you had no friends and no one would bother to care for a stranger.

You wished to spend your day sobbing on the bed, but you couldn’t. The hotel room was quite too expensive to spend a month in. You had to find a new place real quick. You went to the announcing board at your university until you heard someone call out your name.

“H-huh? Nobara?”

“y/n, feel like I haven’t seen you forever. What happened? What are you looking for?”

“I-I’m looking at a new place to stay. I need to find a room to share with someone" you said softly.

“Ohh, why don’t you come to stay in my place? I shared a room with my roommate but now I live with my girlfriend. You could stay a month for free since I’ve paid and we can talk about the next month”

“A-are you sure? Will your roommate be okay? I-I can pay you for this month” you asked.

“My roommate will be fine and no need to pay!” Nobara smirked at you.

____________________________________________

Nobara was a friend you met in your first year. You hung out with her a couple of times and didn’t see her again since you and Nanami got together. You felt awful, she even helped you move your stuff from the hotel and unpacked everything.

You told her you broke up with your boyfriend, she didn’t ask anything, only said things would be okay. She was with you to wait for her roommate, so she could introduce you both to each other.

Nobara's roommate stepped in with a bored face. He looked familiar but you weren’t sure where you met him. He had spiky hair and dark blue eyes. He was shocked to see you in his living room.

“What is this?” he asked.

You were startled when he asked a question because his voice was harsh. “Megumi, this is y/n. y/n, this is Megumi, From now on y/n will live in my room since I paid already, I figured it’s better to have someone stays”

“Nobara, you said you would move out soon?” Megumi questioned.

“Sooooo y/n, I paid for this month and I am trying to find a new person for Megumi, would you be okay to be his roommate?”

“Nobara!!!!” Megumi yelled.

You were frightened to hear him yelling as well as confused to hear Nabara’s question. You assumed he was angry that everything happened so fast.

“I-it’s okay. I’ll find a new room as soon as possible. I’m sorry Megumi. Thank you Nobara, I think I’ll get back to work on my final project in the room”

After you got back in the room, you heard them talking to each other. You didn’t want to hear any privacy stuff, so you put on your headphones. Unfortunately, you found some stuff you’d left in Nanami’s home, so you tried to continue your work with whatever you had.

You didn’t get out of your room for 2 days since the room had a private bathroom and you stored some food already. Sometimes you worked and sometimes you cried like now you were crying when someone knocked on the door.

You jerked your head up from the pillow. You weren't sure if you heard it right, but the knock was louder. You swept your tears and quickly ran to open the door. You saw Megumi standing tall.

“Anything I can help?” asked you.

“You didn’t come out for 2 days. I was worried you died” Megumi said calmly.

“I-I’m still alive. Thank you” you were scared to talk to him, He seemed like he disliked you.

“Can you come out? I want to talk” asked Megumi.

“S-sure” you nervously stepped out and walked to the living room. You watched Megumi flopped on a sofa, you quickly followed and sat across from him.

“Megumi, I’m searching for a new place now. I think I’ll move in a month or 2 so no worry” you quickly responded out of your fear.

“What are you talking about? I want you to live here. I knew you from Nobara already and we used to have classes together too. I think It’s better than living with a complete stranger” he explained calmly.

“We used to have classes together?” you stared at him shockingly.

“My point is don’t find a new place, please be my roommate” Megumi spoke.

5 seconds later, you recognized Megumi was okay for you to live here. You widened your eyes and jumped from the sofa.

“Really???? Thank you Megumi!!!!!!!” you yelled and smiled cheerfully.

He was taken back before replying. “U-umm”

Nobara began to move out while you and Megumi helped her. You got to meet Nobara's girlfriend whose name was Maki. You weren’t surprised why they were together. They were both friendly.

After moving stuff, Nobara invited you and Megumi to have dinner at a grilled barbecue restaurant. You couldn’t remember the last time you had dinner with friends. Normally, you either ate alone or with Nanami.

There was a prick in your heart when you thought of your ex. You used your chopsticks to drag meats around on your plate until you saw someone’s chopstick stopping your motion.

You looked up to see that those chopsticks were Megumi’s. You watched how Megumi snatched the meat from your plate into your mouth. You automatically opened your mouth. A moment later you realized what just happened. Your cheeks began to pink.

“You like to be fed?” Megumi asked.

“I-I n-no. Why did you do that?” you felt your cheeks burnt.

“Because it was annoying and you shouldn’t play with your food. If you don’t eat, I’ll feed you” Megumi said while eating.

“N-no. I-I can eat by myself” you were so nervous. Though it’d been a week since you had a conversation about being a roommate, you were always afraid around him every time.

____________________________________________

During your time with him, it was great. Megumi wasn't a talkative person. Still, you could tell he was caring for people around him.

The final project for your third year made your life busier. It was tiring but it helped you not to think much about Nanami.

Not only you but also Megumi was busy too. His major was painting and drawing, certainly, you both had a big project to do.

You didn’t realize how it started but someday you woke up with breakfast that Megumi made because he went to sleep. Someday Megumi woke up in the evening with dinner that you prepared before going to bed.

Like, you both lived in the same home with a different time zone. You hadn’t chatted to him, but you felt closer and closer.

One day before your final, you discovered there was some stuff you left at Nanami’s place which you must use for your project.

You bit your lower lip and decided to ask Megumi to go with you. Surprisingly, he didn’t ask anything, just asked the location and drove there with you.

You knocked at the door and waited for a moment until it opened. It was funny. A familiar figure of a woman who you saw at his office was at his door.

“How can I help you?” a dark haired woman asked you.

“I’m here to-to meet Mr. Nanami for my stuff I left” you spoke brokenly.

“Baby, someone is here. You could come in, my boyfriend is taking a shower” she told you.

The sadness showed on your face. He got together with the woman you saw at his office on that day. Your heart dropped. Apparently, a part of your heart was still with Nanami.

You weren't aware of Megumi's actions. He grabbed your hand firmly and brought you in. Nanami's apartment had not changed at all. One thing that was changed would be all of your photos with him were removed.

“Y/n?” Nanami called out your name in shock.

“Hey, I-I’m here to get my stuff. I need them for my school” you said without looking into his eyes.

“A-are you y/n?” Nanami’s new girlfriend asked nervously.

“Yes, sorry I didn’t introduce myself. I just come here real quick to get my stuff”

“Oh, ahh I see. Er….y/n I packed your stuff in my office. I’ll bring it for you” Nanami clarified.

Once Nanami brought your box to you, you reached out your arms to take it, yet Megumi was faster to carry the box from Nanami's hands.

“It’s quite heavy. I don’t want you to carry it. Let's go back home. You have some work to do too” Megumi said casually.

“Oh ahh yeah. Thank you. Nanami and you, his girlfriend. I gotta go. Thank you for keeping the box for me. Hope you both are happy and goodbye” you pushed Megumi’s back to get out.

“y/n…” Kento called out your name.

However, you didn’t turn back. You kept walking following Megumi out of the place. It was so unreal that you were a stranger who needed permission to be inside, where you used to live with him, with your ex.

On the way back, you didn’t want Megumi to feel uncomfortable, so you looked out the window and hid your tears. The tears of the pain to see he moved on when you were suffering every day.

You weren’t aware at all, you weren't aware Megumi didn’t drive back to the home. He took you to a yogurt ice cream shop. You realized that when he parked a car.

“Why are we here Megumi?” you asked after secretly brushing tears on your face.

“I heard from Nobara that you liked yogurt ice cream and I want to try, I haven’t tried before” Megumi replied and got out of the car.

You both got in the shop but you were confused when you heard the owner speak to Megumi…

“Hey Megumi, how have you been?” a lady owner talked to him.

You tiptoed to whisper close to Megumi. He automatically bent his body for you, but it was too close, your breath fanned on his neck which made him shiver. “Megumi, you said you haven't tried?”

“I meant I haven’t tried EATING ice cream with you. I usually come here with my sister” he clarified.

“Hmm, feeling like an excuse to me” you shrugged.

“Wanna go home now?” he rolled his eyes.

“N-nooo” you quickly ran to buy ice cream.

You and Megumi enjoyed eating ice cream. Megumi kept peeking at how satisfied you were and it made his heart glow. You, on the other hand, were too concentrated on eating.

“Thank you for helping me today” you mumbled.

“From now on, whatever you need, I’ll help you” Megumi said.

You met his eyes. His eyes were soft and calm. You could tell how much he cared about you. It had been months since you lived with him, but it felt like you were his friends for a long time. You both smiled at each other.

____________________________________________

You went to school to submit your final project. When you were back from school, you saw Megumi sleeping on the couch. It seemed like he’d submitted his already. You sat on the floor next to the couch. You studied his sleeping form. He was really gorgeous with long eyelashes. The skin seemed fluffy though you hadn’t touched it, you could tell by looking.

You studied his chest rise and fall…a bit fast. You assumed he must have been tired just like you. His chest was wide and looked sturdy. You smiled to yourself to think how crazy you were gazing at your new roommate sleeping. You were exhausted, abruptly your eyelids were heavy and you fell asleep.

Immediately, Megumi’s eyelids opened. He slowly got up from the couch and walked away from you. He touched his chest lightly. He could feel his heart about to explode from the excitement. He crouched down to hug his legs. His head was placed on his knees.

He was so happy as hell. It was the first time you were the one who looked at him first. He remembered when he was a freshman, he was in the same class with you. You, Nobara, Maki and him got to work in the same group.

He was nervous and over the moon at the same time. You were so cute, cuter than all women he had seen and he was sure no one could have been as cute as you. He knew immediately it would take the next hundred years to like someone else. He fell in love with you too hard.

He’d liked you since then. He tried to talk to you but he was too shy, one day he understood he was too late. You got a boyfriend who could take care of you very well. Although he didn’t know why you broke up with your ex, he predicted it must have involved a woman he met.

He secretly adored you. Until the day you came to school with swelling eyes, he was so worried, so he asked Nobara to talk to you. He didn’t want to know why you broke up, but he only wanted to know whether you were okay or not.

He was so dumbfounded when he saw you in the living room with Nobara. He wanted to shout to Nobara to move out right away, so you could move in. Yet, he was too stupid he made you believe he disliked you.

He moved close to you, he wanted to help you sleep properly on the couch. He stretched out his arms. Nonetheless, you woke up and met with his lovely eyes. 

“Megumi, what are you doing?” you looked up at him.

“w-why did you wake up? It was like 5 mins that you slept” Megumi asked.

“That was why it was called taking a nap” you giggled.

“You could take a nap for more than 5 mins. You were tired too” Megumi eyed you standing up.

“Actually, I want to tell you something. I’m going to meet my parents and stay with them during the summer. So, gonna go now. Do you have any plan for your summer?” you asked.

“I usually stay here during the summer. My family is so annoying, especially the clan. They like to gather with the members all the time” he replied. He was sad to learn he wouldn’t see you all the summer when he expected to spend time with you more.

You could tell he was unhappy, but you assumed he had an issue with his family. “D-do you want to spend your summer at my parents’ house? We live in Yamanashi. If you don’t want-”

“Yes, I want to. Let’s pack our clothes and go now” Megumi answered.

You were bewildered. You hadn’t done speaking, yet he answered and went to his room already. You smiled and went back to your room to pack your clothes too.

____________________________________________

You both arrived at Yamanashi. You told Megumi your family had a grape farm. Megumi was pleased to learn more about you, but he didn't imagine it would be a pretty big farm. He could tell your family was quite wealthy. Now, he was more cautious about meeting your parents, he wished they wouldn't hate him.

“Mom!! Dad!! We’re here” you ran into the house. Once you met your parents, you hugged them tight.

“H-hi I-I am M-megumi, Fushiguro Megumi” he was so nervous. He politely bowed.

“You must be her roommate then! Come in. Megumi, we’re thankful you take care of our girl for us” your parents talked to him.

“It’s fine. I’m glad to have her. I-I meant as my roommate”

“Oh right, we don’t have an extra bedroom. You could stay in y/n’s room and y/n you could sleep in our room” you mom told you.

“I can sleep in the living room without a problem. I already bothered to be here all summer” Megumi said.

“Mom, dad, Megumi can sleep in my room with me. We’re friends and I trust him with all of my heart. No worries” you smiled and led Megumi to your room.

Your parents were amazed to hear that because you never brought anyone here except Nanami and now you took Megumi to your room. Your parents were slightly worried about a man and a woman staying in the same room. However, your parents also trusted you, so they only nodded and smiled softly.

Not only your parents, but you also didn’t see how the color drained out of his face to realize that he was gonna sleep in the same room with you during the summer. He only hoped to spend time with you, but this...this was more than he asked for!!!

At first, it started with the big pillow between you both on the same bed. As time passed, there was no pillow in the middle until cuddling each other to sleep every night began a routine.

There was nothing more than cuddling but your heart was warm just that. For Megumi, every morning he woke up to see you in his embrace, he always thought he was dead and was in heaven.

You got more intimate with Megumi. Eventually, you told him why you broke up with your ex boyfriend. You also told him you lied to your parents that you broke up because of the age difference. You never wanted people to hate your ex, to you what in the past stayed in the past.

____________________________________________

The fourth year in university for you both was overwhelming since you were near to graduation. However, it was like a habit, no matter how busy you both were, you both would have a meal together at least once a day and had a cuddle session every night.

You both need to do an internship. You didn’t expect to get an internship in the famous museum. It had been a month since you worked at this place.

Undoubtedly, you never expected to meet Gojo Satoru and Nanami Kento again here. The museum was owned by the Gojo company, so it explained why you met your ex here.

“y/n, how are you?” Nanami asked.

“I'm good and you?” you asked.

“Y/nnnnnnnnn, sweetheart, my baby, little one. I miss you so much. I miss seeing you when you were with him, but I'm more happy you broke up. Are you interested in being my girlfriend? I swear. I’ll take care of you very well” Gojo said cheerfully.

You giggled to see how playful Gojo was, but you could tell Nanami was annoyed. You recalled this situation when you were still with Nanami. “No, Gojo. I don’t want to”

“Fineeeee, to answer your question, Nanami’s single. He broke up a long time ago. Do you have a boyfriend? girlfriend?” Gojo asked.

“It's a secret, Gojo-san. I think I should get to work if I want to get a job here” you laughed.

“Don’t worry if you marry me, I can buy a museum for you too” Gojo suggested. 

“Stop, Gojo. Y/n, go do your work. I’ll take him away” Nanami smiled at you.

It was awkward for you to meet him again, but it had been a year and you felt better now. You learned some people didn’t mean to be with each other and that’s life. You preferred to concentrate on your internship.

Nanami watched your back. He wanted to hold you again. He missed you so much. He broke up because he admitted he couldn’t forget about you. You were the only woman he yearned to spend his life with, but it was wrong to come back to your life after he destroyed your love and trust.

“If I were you, I would take her to A room” Gojo whispered.

“Shut up” Nanami said and walked away from his friend.

You usually finished your job at 6 pm. Today you waited for Megumi to pick you up, but he texted you he would be late. You then looked at your phone while waiting. You didn’t hear Nanami approaching you from the back until he touched your head.

“Nanami, I could have died if you scared me like this” you said.

“Sorry sorry, may I take you home? I don’t even know where your home is. I’m worried about how you live after we…” Nanami lowered his head.

“I live with Megumi, a person who came to get the box with me. I’m fine and I don’t want you to blame yourself. It’s been a year, I still can't be lovely friends with you, but I don’t hate you anymore” you spoke softly.

Nanami gazed at you with his gentle looks. You were just liked how he remembered, adorable and considerate as always.

“Thank you, y/n. I-I miss you a lot. I knew I shouldn’t ask for another chance. I’m sorry I shouldn't have done that in the first place. I was selfish, just because I was stressed I shouldn’t do that. I still love you” Nanami stroked your cheek with his long fingers.

____________________________________________

Megumi entered the museum. He felt awful to let you wait. He ran inside, but to see you and Nanami hug each other. He was terrified. You didn’t tell him you met Nanami again. He had many questions in his mind. He decided to walk back to his car and call you instead.

You said goodbye to Nanami and went on to meet Megumi. You sensed the dark aura from him, but you didn’t know why. You asked Megumi a lot of questions, but he only answered whatever questions you ask, nothing more or less.

Until you both arrived at the apartment, you followed Megumi to get inside. Abruptly, Megumi stopped and your head hit his back. You watched as Megumi turned his body to face you, then you remembered something.

“I’ll go to my roo-”

“No! You won't go anywhere y/n. Am I too young? Do you think I’m not reliable? Yes I know I haven’t asked to be your boyfriend or never tell you I liked you since we were in the first year and now I freaking love you so much. Am I too late again? I should have told you before you got back to him. I should have told you how much I love you and how much I need you in my life” Megumi confessed with his painful expression.

“I-I don’t know what you're talking about” you blinked quickly.

“I saw you hugging your ex. I knew he cheated on you but I could tell how much he wanted you back, he’s such a responsible guy. And I’m freaking jealous” Megumi said with a low voice.

“I have to go to my room. Can you wait for me here?” you told him.

He nodded. He couldn't believe you didn't even listen to him. What the heck did you need in your room that was so important? What was something your ex gave to you? you wanted to show him he was just a roommate?

He thought the time he was with you was special for you. Apparently, it was unforgettable for him only. He didn't want to be taken for granted. It hurt him to think that. Still, he wasn't mad. He could be whatever you want him to be, even just a thing to kill time while you were missing your ex.

Megumi lowered his head but he saw you showed him a small navy velvet box.

“What is it?” he asked while looking at the box in your tiny hand.

You didn’t say anything but opened the box for him. Inside they were a couple rings. He understood he was right. You showed him the rings of your and your ex. Maybe he gave it to you before today or it was from a long time ago.

Maybe this time you both could get married then since Nanami was ready to take care of you. He was still young, he couldn’t even take care of himself now. He had no job and still received money from his dad.

“I hope you both are happy. You can invite me when you both are married” he turned his back and began to walk to his room.

“Megumi!!! Don’t go” you ran to stay in front of him and opened your arms to stop him from walking.

He stared at your small figure. You were still as cute as ever. Suddenly he was stunned to see you sat on your one knee and presented the ring to him.

“Can you marry me?” you asked.

“H-huh? Huhhhhhhh? Whattttttt????? Huh?????? I what I you huhuuu?” Megumi widened his eyes.

“I think we can skip boyfriend/girlfriend stuff and let’s promise that we're gonna marry each other once we both work. We can marry as soon as possible. I love you Megumi. I knew it was a year we knew each other but one thing I’m sure of I want you and only you”

“W-what about you hugging your ex in the museum?” Megumi questioned.

You knitted your brows and realized why Megumi was mad because he saw you hug Nanami. “He still loved me, he told me, but I told him I found someone I love with my heart and brain. We ended things for good and hugged for the last time”

“So Fushiguro Megumi, will you marry me?” you smiled brightly at him.

Megumi looked at you for a moment before leaning his body to carry you a bridal style. “Yes, I will. Since we skip boyfriend/girlfriend stuff, let’s move on to do something that we can practice as a married couple”

Your cheeks were rosy once you saw Megumi smile mischievously. You wrapped your arms around his neck. You both chuckled with each other heartily before Megumi took you to his bedroom.

[dokoni-mo]

She Truly Was || Muzan Kibustsuji x F!Reader

Summary: Enmu helps Muzan remember you.

SFW // Fluff with small amounts of Angst

Word Count: 4626

WARNINGS: *slight Mugen Train spoilers*, slight mentions of implied sexual activity, obsessive(?) behavior, Muzan is soft for one person only, some angst, mentions of injury, mentions of blood, I also barely proofread this lol

A/N: I've had this in my head for a while and decided to write it down. This is largely just a compilation of scenarios I made in my head to fall asleep at night when I was stressing over exams and stuff, all loosely thrown together with a plot. This is my first time writing for demon slayer, so please be patient! I also am basing a lot of my info about the characters on s1 of the anime, some of the manga, and the wiki. I apologize if something isn't accurate. tldr; I just think he's neat.

~~

Despite having lived through thousands of years with hundreds of stormy nights in the midst, Muzan Kibutsuji never learned to appreciate them.

Something about nights like those in Japan just never sat right with the demon. It wasn't that they were too dreary, not at all. Life as a demon was plenty dreary. On the other hand, it wasn't that they were to lively either. No one ever went out on stormy nights; demon or not. Perhaps it was just because the rain was another reminder of the singularity that was being a demon. The poignant pitter patter just seemed to have a way of whispering to whoever heard it, telling them the most unpleasant yet quiet truths of their lives.

After Muzan's bloody meeting with the lower moons, he had told Enmu his task Muzan had planned for the pitiful, weaker demon. Although he had doubts that Enmu could hear him over the sound of the weaker demon's screams of pain from the blood he gave, Muzan was pleasantly surprised when Enmu understood the orders the first time around. Seeing as though it would cause trouble if the lower moon started to go around bragging about his newfound power and job, Muzan decided it would be best to keep a crimson eye on the demon.

This is what led to the scene before Muzan now.

Muzan had taken Enmu back to one of his many properties scattered across Japan, this one being tucked away in a lush, quiet forest in the middle of seemingly nowhere. The lower moon had not said a word throughout the entire journey there, and still refused to say anything now. Most likely out of fear.

Although it had been a long day of wrangling the lesser worms he called pawns (or "moons" if he was generous), Muzan did not want to show any weakness towards Enmu by resting. To busy himself, Muzan decided to do the tedious work the humans have him do in the job he took to please his human wife.

That insufferable woman.

With his bowler hat placed on his desk, Muzan had taken a seat in his large, leather chair, ordering Enmu to stand at the edge of the desk and face the opposite way. And, for extra edge, he was not to say or do anything.

It had been about two hours since then. The room was filled with only the sounds of Muzan's writing and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.

Although he ordered it to be that way, Muzan was already sick of it.

Peering his red eyes up from the papers scrawled below him, Muzan fixated his bone-chilling gaze upon the back of Enmu's head. Muzan could see the corners of the lower moon's mouth turned upwards as he faced the wall, presenting himself with an expression of dumb content.

Freak.

Enmu was definately a curious specimen. So eager to die, yet so eager to please Muzan. The demon lord would have been confused if he were not who he was.

Perhaps it was his own boredom setting in, perhaps it was because he wanted to feed his already gargantuan ego, or perhaps it was just because he was tired, Muzan decided to speak up.

"Tell me," Muzan said, his deep, smooth voice making Enmu perk up slightly, "Why is it that are you so loyal to me?"

Enmu took this as an opportunity to finally move, but not without some caution. The lower demon only turned his neck towards Muzan, along with a tilt of his shoulder. Muzan noted the disobedience of orders, but decided to let it slide this time.

The rain must have told him to be generous that night.

"Why, Master Kibustsuji," Enmu said, a faint blush adorning his cheeks, "It is because I am so delighted to be in your presence, and have my power be of service to you."

The demon lord felt his jaw clench at this, his red eyes peering up at the lower moon from under his abyssal lashes. Although Enmu had an... odd, way of putting things, Muzan always did like it when someone stroked his ego, even if all they ever said was the same banter over and over again. He was nearly perfection, afterall.

Muzan sat quietly and pondered Enmu's response for a second, before formulating his own.

"Your power, as you put it," Muzan said, his voice firm, "What is it?"

Enmu's grin widened, "Dream Manipulation, Master. I can enter, manipulate, or control anyone's dreams however I want to. I can use it to kill from the inside, eating a person spirit first and body second. I can also put people to sleep."

Muzan wasn't necessarily impressed by this, but he wasn't disappointed either. An ordinary power, really. Nothing that could ever rival his own.

However...

Muzan's gaze flickered down to the surface of his desk. A flicker of a long lost yet not forgotten feeling bubbled deep inside of his being. A mere spark of light, really, a piece of warmth he felt from long ago, lost to the wayside by the vestiges of time.

It was something Muzan thought he would never experience again.

Dream manipulation, huh?

It might be worth a try.

Muzan looked back up to Enmu, sharpening his gaze, "Tell me, are you able to give... pleasant dreams?"

Enmu was surprised to hear this come from Muzan to say the absolute least. He took this as another opportunity to disobey orders and turn to Muzan again, this time fully and whole-heartedly. The lower moon looked right into those blood red eyes, looking for any sign of a rare flicker of humor or joking.

Muzan's gaze was serious, poised as ever.

Muzan was being for real.

Taking a pause to swallow, Enmu allowed his soft smirk to return to his gray, pale face.

"Why," the lower moon retorted, "I can, Master, yes."

Muzan eyed the lesser demon for a good second at his response.

This move was risky. It could damage his image. Yet, if he was to do this with any of his pawns, he would do it with Enmu. Enmu seemed to have no intent on harming Muzan or his image in any way; he was far too loyal for that.

Besides, if someone were to question the might of Muzan, he could just prove them wrong.

Muzan leaned back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other and lacing his fingers together, wrapping them around his knee. His icy gaze still on Enmu, he spoke again.

"I wish to see a pleasant dream."

Muzan nearly rolled his eyes when he saw just how wide Enmu's grin had gotten and just how flushed his face got.

It was repulsive.

But, if it meant what Muzan thought it would mean...

It was worth stomaching.

After a breif moment used to compose himself, Enmu's smile faded to normal again. He pulled up the sleeves to his coat.

"I will give you a dream where you will experience the happiest days of your life over again, Master Kibutsuji," the lower moon stated, "Is this to your liking or would you prefer something else?"

"No," Muzan stated flatly, "That is fine."

Perfect, even.

Enmu smiled widely one last time, holding out his arm and pointing it at the demon lord.

"Sweet dreams, my lord." Was the last thing Muzan heard before falling into a deep, deep sleep.

~~

"Muzan..."

Despite his blood demon art being so much weaker than his, Muzan wasn't quite ready for just how Enmu put him into a dream like that. Muzan's headache had grown ten-fold now, and he could feel that his face was scrunched.

"Muzan..."

Slowly but surely regaining his full consciousness, Muzan could first feel that he was in different clothes than what he had been wearing before. These ones were lighter, softer, and much more airy than his normal suit. Squinting open his crimson eyes, he saw that he was in what appeared to be a long, dark, flowing kimono.

The second thing Muzan could feel was that it was rather cool where he was, and that he appeared to be lying on the ground. Sifting his weight slowly, he could then feel that his head was lain upon what felt like two soft, plush pillows firmly squished together.

The third thing, however, took him a little longer to discern quite that it was. At first, he thought it was a pair of chopsticks running across his scalp over and over again. Upon, further thought, however, Muzan was further snapped back into awareness.

Those were not chopsticks.

Those were fingers.

All too familiar fingers.

"Muzan..!"

Muzan felt a stir deep down inside of him. He recognized this feeling, this touch, this warmth. It had been so, so long since he had felt like this. How long was it again? It had to be an eternity ago. An eternity wrapped within all time time in the world.

Muzan was speechless. Muzan couldn't move. Muzan was struck from deep within, and nothing in the world could ever compare to its blow.

"Muzan!"

Although the calling of the demon's lord name had been going on for some time now, he was just now able to respond.

Tilting his chin upwards towards the voice's source, Muzan nearly fell to bits right then and there. If he was someone else, he would have wept deep, earnest tears at the very sight of the being above him. For everything and nothing surrounded him as he studied the bright, radiant face above him, and nothing else seemed to exist other than that smile.

Other than her.

Her.

Oh, her, her, her.

His beloved. His sun, moon and stars. The ground beneath his feet and the air around him. His joy and love, his woes and sorrow. His fears and excitement. His warmth and his cold.

You.

You were really here.

"I was wondering if you were ever gonna wake up," you said, a faint laugh behind your voice, "You were out for so long!"

This scene was all too familiar to Muzan. He had replayed it in his head countless times, as if it were the only record left in the world.

He knew what this day was, and he knew all of your lines.

How could he ever forget?

Every moment he had ever spent with you had been a blessing.

Right now, his head was cradled in your lap, your soft, delicate fingers combing through his hair oh so gently as he had slept. It was deep into the night, and ordinarily Muzan would not be sleeping at this time. However, your touch was just so relaxing to him.

Everything about you was.

Today, you and him had spent the night wandering through the garden of your home together, chatting about anything and everything. It was only about two months into your relationship with Muzan. Muzan had first come to your home with the intention of eating everyone within the residence, but once he saw your face, watched you, saw your heart, your spirit, your you, he just couldn't.

He just...

couldn't.

You were human, yes.

But Muzan didn't care.

He was in love with you.

Muzan had yet to tell you the truth about him, however.

But that could come later.

"Muzan, are you alright?" He heard your voice echo again, snapping him out of his trance. He saw your face painted with worry, making his own features soften.

His darling angel. If only you knew just how much it pained him to see you with anything other than a smile.

Muzan reached his hand upwards, steadily maneuvering his fingers to brush your hair behind your ear and cup your warm cheek. He was shocked at how real you felt, shocked at just how similar it felt to all those years ago.

Perhaps Muzan had to give Enmu a reward.

The demon lord caressed your cheek gingerly with his cold, calloused thumb, savoring in just how warm your flesh was compared to his. For the first time in what felt like eons, Muzan felt a smile adorn his handsome features. Not one put on just to appease the humans around him, but genuine. The type of smile only you got to see.

Only you.

"I'm more than alright, my darling." He responded, his voice soft and warm, without the normal venom he gives to his subordinates. A voice reserved restrictively for you.

Finally, you let a soft grin come over your heavenly face again, making all seven of Muzan's hearts swell.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up," you said, "But it's about to be dawn soon. I don't want you to get a burn, so let's go in the house again, okay?"

Ah yes, the lie Muzan told you. He, of course, couldn't be with you in the sunlight (as much as he wanted to). So he had told you that he had a rare disorder that made him extra prone to sunburns and heatstroke.

Just something to keep you safe from the truth.

His soft smile still adorning his features, Muzan gave you a nod as he slid his head off of your lap. Since you were on your knees, you were quicker to stand than him. Brushing off your kimono quickly, you offered one of your hands to Muzan to help him stand, of which he gladly took. He had long since forgotted just how perfectly your hand fit into his, along with how radiant your kimono made you look.

Once he was back on his feet, Muzan couldn't help but to hold your arms, holding you a few feet away from him to simply admire you for a moment, his crimson eyes doing laps around your face and body.

You were perfect to him.

Every single thing about you was without flaw in his eyes. Not one curve of your body was too shallow or too wide. Not one strand of your hair was misplaced or without poise. Not one feature on your face took away from your radiant beauty. And you had not one bad bone inside of your body.

Muzan was never one to believe in angels.

However, if anyone in any part of the world were to tell him that you were one of them, straight from the heavens themselves,

He would believe them.

~~

As soon as Muzan stepped through the door, his hand in your own, the scene before him changed in one giant, peaceful flash of white light.

Before him now was no longer the house that he had shared with you all those years ago. Now, in its place, was a beautiful, lush springtime garden, all dredged under the cover of the night. It was not devoid of light, however. There were a few lanterns afloat in the water of the stream, as well as some within the structure of the small bridge that went over top of it. Flowers adorned every nook and cranny of the space, and the occasional insect or bird would make a brief appearance.

A small slice of paradise, just for you and Muzan Kibutsuji.

Fearing that you were no longer by his side, Muzan turned his head. His fears were quickly subsided when he saw you there next to him. Your delicate hands were placed on the railing of the bridge, and your eyes were fixated on the calm water below, almost as if it were a window into the heavens above. There was a small smile plastered on your face, and the delicate lights illuminated each of your features so perfectly.

Muzan knew this night.

This was the night he told you the truth.

The truth about him, about his "condition", about where he went for days on end, about why he couldn't walk with you in the sun, about everything.

This was the one night Muzan had ever felt fear.

"Is it really true, Muzan?" You asked, your gaze still fixated on the water below, "Are you really a demon?"

Muzan felt his lips part in small surprise. Even though he had replayed this night time and time again in his mind, it felt as if this were all happening for the first time over again.

Enmu really was good at this.

Muzan wet his lips before responding, setting his gaze on your precious, beautiful face and refusing to move it, "Yes, my love. It is true. I would not lie to you about this, I..."

A pause to collect this thoughts, before he could continue, "I kept it from you to protect you, (Y/N). I did not want any harm to come to you. My darling, I... I love you. My love for you knows no bounds. You are the stars that shine at night, and you are the shining moon above. Each time I look upon you, all I can stand to think of is how deep my love for you runs. I... I need you, (Y/N). I do not wish for you to be frightened of me, my angel. I would never, not ever harm you, nor let any harm come to you."

You still weren't looking at Muzan, yet your smile had yet to falter. Muzan felt a bubble of nervousness in his gut. Although he knew your response to his words already, even thinking of this moment never failed to make his stomach churn. He hoped his words to you were enough. He doubted that he had ever said anything more truthful in his entire life.

After a long pause of silence between the two of you, you closed your eyes and widened your smile. Then, you opened your eyes again, finally turning to face your lover. You looked Muzan right in the eyes, seemingly unfazed that you were standing so dangerously close to the most powerful being alive.

You were so brave.

Your heart was so big.

Muzan felt so overwhelmed.

"Muzan," you said, your cheeks dusting a light pink.

What you said next to him, Muzan could never get out of his head, never forget. No matter how much he tried, he would never not ever forget your words in that moment.

Within that one short, simple phrase, the king of demons fell in love all over again.

"I've always known."

~~

Another flash within his crimson eyes, and the scene had changed again. Nighttime again, of course, but this time within the confines of the bedroom you and Muzan shared. Both you and Muzan were nude, sans the blanket that covered the lower half of your forms. Muzan was on his back, one strong arm wrapped around you, the other cradling the back of his head. Your legs were intertwined with his, and your hair and hands were sprawled out on top of his lean, muscular chest.

Muzan knew this night as well.

It was his most loved night with you, but also his most dreaded.

How cruel fate was.

Stroking your back with the tips of his fingers, Muzan stared up at the ceiling above the two of you. Your body was flush against his, and as warm as ever. He wondered to himself if he was making you cold. If he was, you didn't seem to mind.

After a long period of savoring the silence between you and him, you softly snorted out a cute, soft giggle. This made Muzan angle his chin downward to look at the top of your head.

"What is it?" He questioned.

You giggled again, tilting your head up to look at him. Smiling, you turned your body to lay on top of the demon king, your breasts smushing against his own. Instinctively, Muzan laid his hands on your hips, rubbing small circles into them as he held you in place.

"I just find it funny that even though you profess to have so much stamina, you get tired after only two rounds." You explained to him, a playful mischievousness in your tone and eyes.

Muzan breathed out a smile, reaching up a clawed hand to brush your hair out of your face.

"As I recall it, you were the one complaining it was too much." He quipped back.

You snorted, "As if that ever stopped you before."

The demon let out a soft chuckle, leaning forward to give you a kiss on the forehead. Muzan couldn't remember ever laughing so genuinely before you came along. You truly were the light of his life. You filled his days with the sunlight he had long since forgotten, as well with the warmth no other demon could ever have.

He loved you.

He loved you he loved you he loved you.

And he still did.

He watched as you dropped your gaze to his chest, running your fingers along the flesh.

"Muzan..." you said, your voice more serious than before, "I've been thinking a lot lately..."

The demon king hummed, brushing more hair from your face.

"What has been on your mind, my love?" He asked.

You paused for a second before continuing on. Muzan could practically see the gears turning in your head.

"Well, I... I'm not getting any younger, you know, and I've been thinking. I... I really love you, Muzan. You're the only person I can imagine myself being with for the rest of my life. The other day, I was in town, and I saw the cutest family ever with a husband and a wife and two adorable little children, and it made me think..."

You looked up at him again, giving him a soft smile.

"What if we were to have a family of our own?"

Muzan could feel the same sense of joy, love, and pride in his chest as he did this same moment all those years ago. In this moment, he had never felt closer to you before, nor could you recall ever looking more beautiful.

He wanted nothing more than to be a family with you for the rest of eternity.

"Darling, you know what that would mean, correct?" He questioned you. He had told you long before that demons could only have offspring with other demons, for a demon baby would eat its human mother from the inside and kill her. It was gruesome, and had originally made you cringe at the thought. Muzan had thought your reaction was quite cute.

"Yes, yes, I know," you answered, "and I'd be ready for it. Even if I'm a demon, and even if I can never go out in the sun again or live normally ever again, I'd be happy knowing I got to be with you and our baby for the rest of time."

Muzan gave you a smile in return, his long, white fangs flashing in the light of the night. Leaning forward, he kissed you upon your soft, warms lips, gently pulling you closer to him.

This was one of the thousands of reasons why he loved you.

You were always so sweet, so kind and optimistic. He would admit, he did have a soft spot for you and you alone. But he didn't care. You were worth it. You were worth every single piece of money on planet earth. You were worth the sun the moon and the stars, and all the planets here and beyond. You were worth any injury, any heartache, and any trial or tribulation in the world.

The king of the demons unquestionably, unfathomably, undeniably, adored you.

Pulling gently away from the kiss, Muzan looked deep into your eyes, right past your pupils and looked right into your soul, your very being.

"I would want nothing more, my sunlight."

If Muzan could turn back the hands of time, he would have kept you here with him for the rest of everything and beyond.

For he did not know then that was the last kiss you and him would share.

~~

Another flash, and Muzan was no longer greeted with a visage of the past. Much to his dismay, the demon was now greeted with the sight of his office, with a smiling Enmu creepily watching him from across his desk.

What a fucking freakshow.

Taking in a breath of air through his nose, Muzan sat up tall in his chair again, rubbing the bridge of his nose with this thumb and pointer finger.

You were gone again. You were again nothing up a memory, a whisper of a time from the past.

Muzan could hardly bare it.

He had felt you, held you near him.

And just as fast as you came back, you were gone again.

This was a pain almost too hard to bear.

How long was he asleep for? Muzan really didn't care how long it was.

No amount of time with you was enough.

"Did you have the pleasant dream you wished for, Master?" Enmu asked the demon king. The lesser moon was lucky Muzan was in a somewhat good mood that day.

"Yes." Muzan replied simply, closing his eyes to rub them with his thumb, "Excellent work."

Enmu's smile widened at this, his cheeks turning pink again.

"Why, thank you, Master." He responded, his excitement prevalent in his voice.

Enmu really was a special one.

After composing himself again, Muzan scooted his chair forward up to his desk, fixing his gaze back onto his work sprawled out below.

Muzan just wanted to be alone again after that. He had been alone for years now, but he wanted Enmu out of the room. Although he could have easily ordered it to be so, he again did not want to show any weakness to the lower moon.

Christ on a bike. Muzan was so fucking stubborn.

He remembered all the times you nagged him for it.

Oh, what he would give to have you nag him one last time.

After a long bout of silence, the lesser demon decided to speak up again. He turned his head over his shoulder again to Muzan, trying to sound as naieve and innocent as possible.

"Master," Enmu said, "Where is she now?"

Muzan stopped his movements and glared up at Enmu with a venomous glare. How dare he even refer to you. You were so far above him, how dare Enmu even think to invoke your name.

Though Muzan wanted to kill the other demon right on the spot, he decided against it. He still wanted to see how Enmu would do on his mission. Also, Muzan had to admit that he did feel lighter and more generous after his dream with you. And he supposed it was fair that Enmu had his questions.

Feeling nice, Muzan decided to entertain Enmu's question.

Shifting his gaze back to the papers below, Muzan replied.

"Gone." he said, "The night she asked about a family was the last night I saw her alive. The next day, a group of slayers found her and our house. They knew who she was and that she was human, but killed her anyway. All in attempt to get to me. I found her in a pool of her own blood, limp and cold. The slayers died that same night."

Enmu's smile faded at this, his face taking on a look of shock. Closing his lips into a tight line, Enmu looked away, out of a quiet unconscious respect. Everything made so much more sense to Enmu now. Why the demon king was the way he was, his hatred for slayers, his cold-hearted, murderous nature.

It all clicked into place.

"I... I am sorry for your loss, Master." He said, his voice quieter than normal, "She seemed like a lovely woman."

Muzan peered up at the back of Enmu's head. Through his thick, black lashes.

"Yes..." Muzan said.

"She truly was."

[edna-skiffens]

The Best Medicine

Summary: You are in the hospital, but you can never sleep in hospitals. Good thing you have a very attractive night shift nurse who is willing to help out.

Word Count: 4.5K

Warnings: hospitals, light med talk, bad medical writing, fluff

A/N: Please ignore the plot holes or the fact that this isn’t the most realistic and also I know this isn’t how discharge works at the hospital.. It’s called fiction for a reason, darling. Also, I left the reason the reader is in the hospital open ended bc some of us may have medical conditions/reasons that we can attach to this, but if not I tried to keep it vague enough on purpose so that you can imagine whatever. Also if you like Nurse!Tom and have requests for him lmk bc i’m happy to write for him.

Toss and turn. Toss and turn. The routine was getting old. This was your third night in the hospital and sleep just wasn’t coming to you.

Maybe it was the medicine they had you on. Maybe it was the constant symphony of sounds and people passing in the hallway. Maybe it was because you weren’t at home in your own bed.

Maybe it was just because you were in the hospital.

You couldn’t be sure. What you were sure of is that you weren’t falling asleep anytime soon.

Feeling another presence in the room, you looked from the ceiling to the doorway where you saw Tom, one of the night shift nurses, standing cautiously.

“I didn’t wake you did I?” He asked as he eased his way inside.

“Nope.”

“So no sleep again, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Sorry darling. Let’s go ahead and get these vitals over with.” He took your blood pressure, oxygen levels, temperature and wrote it down in your chart. Putting the clipboard back on its hook at the end of the bed, he looked up at your tired face. “Okay. So now about that sleep. What do you think will help?”

“Not being in the hospital.”

He chuckled lightly while walking back towards your bedside.

“I know. You hate it here. You’ve made that very clear and I try not to take too much offense to it.” You let out a slight laugh and held back the fact that he was the best part of this whole experience. He almost made it worth it. “I’m sorry we can’t give you any sleeping medication. Do you think it’ll help if I talk to you?”

“You mean tell me bedtime stories?” You couldn’t help but tease him at the adorable suggestion, though it sent a swarm of butterflies off in your stomach.

“I was thinking more like bore you ‘till you fell asleep. But whatever works.”

“You’re the nurse. If you think it’ll help.” You both sat there smirking at each other for a moment. Something unspoken floating in the air between you two.

“Well, I need to finish my round of vitals first. I’ll come check on you when I’m done and if you’re still up we’ll see about those stories.”

“I’ll be here.”

About fifteen or twenty minutes later you heard a light tap on your door followed by “Still awake?”

“Always.”

“You up for a chat?” Tom asked as he made his way to the stool then rolled slightly closer to your bed.

“Got nothing better to do.” You teased again.

“Okay. Well you should probably lay down.”

“Oh. It’s going to be that kind of story, huh?” His laugh was so beautiful and you were happy you were the cause of it.

“No.” He corrected in between laughs “The goal is to get you to sleep. So sitting up won’t help.”

“Right. Right.”

“Well.. anything in particular you’d like to talk about?”

“Why did you choose to become a nurse?”

“Ahhh. Good question. So I actually went to an art school.” You couldn’t help the brief expression of surprise that crossed your face. “I know. Shocking. I did training specifically in dance and gymnastics and I loved it.”

“Wait, so what happened?” You asked, turning on your side to face him more comfortably.

“Well one day we were rehearsing for a show and I fell. Ruined my knee. Had to do physical therapy for months. I tried to get back into it, but it just wasn’t the same. However, through that process I learned a lot about medicine and the health side of things. It really turned me on to it. And when my Plan A got a bit messed up I thought ‘hey, this could work’. So far it’s treated me pretty well.”

You smiled at Tom, admiring his passion for his career and the determination he had to keep pushing after his accident. You enjoyed hearing him talk about it too. If you didn’t know any better you would say it was helping you relax.

“My story that boring?”

“Obviously.”

“Your sarcasm has no end.”

“Oh… goodness.. you thought that was sarcasm?”

Tom only laughed and shook his head the way he often did with you.

You may just have been his patient and he may have just been your nurse, but you both bonded. He kept you company and gave you comfort. In return, you kept him entertained during the quiet night shifts.

“I’m not going to sleep. I'm just resting my eyes. But still listening.” You told him as you nestled further into the hospital bed, trying to find a position that would make it comfortable.

“Okay, darling.” He grinned at you.

“Tell me more. What kind of-” You had to stop to yawn, “What kind of art stuff did you do?”

“Oh. Well, I was in a few musicals. I really enjoyed dancing. I did ballet ever since I was young and I love the control I have over my body. The tricks I can do with gymnastics or the turns and leaps. I mean I can’t do them to that level anymore, but I try to stay active.” He glanced up and noticed you hadn’t moved, “Are you still with me?”

“Mhm.” You barely respond.

“Okay. Well it was a performing arts school so we really were trained in many areas. We had classes in acting, singing, dancing, all of it. It was a lot of fun and I met my best friends there.”

Tom began telling stories about his time at school. Before he knew it, he lost himself and track of time. He looked back at you, quiet and still.

“Y/N?” You were finally asleep. “Goodnight, darling.” He whispered as he gently made his exit.

Because Tom worked the night shift, you never saw him when you woke in the morning. Instead, Tanya, a sweet nurse that felt like a big sister, or Linda, Nurse Ratched in the flesh, came in for morning vitals and meds.

You counted down the days until your release. Life in the hospital was pretty uneventful with the limit on visitors and limited activity. There’s only so many sitcoms one can take in a given timespan. The only thing that you really looked forward to each night was when Tom clocked in.

“Hi Y/N.”

“Hi Tom.” You would smile at each other.

“How are we feeling today?”

“Better. Ready to get out of here.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you are feeling better and still ready to jailbreak.” He smiled while writing something down on your chart. “They should be bringing up your dinner tray soon and then I’ll bring by your evening meds after that.”

“Okay.”

“If you need me you know what to do.” He called to you before walking out the door.

You were disappointed when Shelley brought your evening meds by later. She was a nice enough nurse. She just wasn’t Tom.

You’d grown accustomed to mainly having him as your nurse during the evening shift. At first you weren’t sure if it was coincidence or on purpose, but after a few nights of staying up and talking, you grew closer to him. You saw less of the other nursing staff and more of Tom.

You tried not to build anything up in your head. You were sure everything he was doing was in his job description and a part of being a good nurse.

He would sneak you extra pudding cups from the cafeteria and bring you an extra heated blanket because you could never stay warm. If you needed a new IV, he held your hand to ease the anxiety. He kept you company and made you feel less alone in such a sterile and intimidating place. And when he noticed you had trouble sleeping he chose to sit with you to help you fall asleep. You couldn’t help the butterflies that built in your stomach.

It became a sort of routine. He checked on you during evening vitals, even if someone else was doing them, and you were always still awake. He would then come and sit with you and chat for a bit, telling you different stories until you eventually fell asleep.

Some nights when you were extra restless he would help you walk the halls.

��The doctors have to see you’re stable enough before you can be discharged. Plus, maybe it’ll tire you out.” He suggested.

He would help get your IV pole ready so you could walk with it. He helped you into your slippers and eased you out of bed after passing you your robe.

Walking the hall slowly, Tom knew he had to remain professional, yet he found a few excuses to graze his hand across your back to ‘steady you’ when you turned corners or he thought you were looking tired.

“It might take me a while to get back to my usual jogs in the park, huh?” You laughed in spite of yourself.

“You’ll get there. Baby steps.” He encouraged, as you turned around the Nurse’s Station. You missed the faces the other night shift nurses were giving you both, but Tom was sure to subtly flick them off. “So, do you like running?” He asked as you headed back towards your room.

Throughout your late nights together, he told you of his three younger brothers and his dog named Tessa. You spoke about what you would do when you were out of hospital. He talked about his friends and flatmates and the adventures they had. He told you many stories, but each morning when you woke up he was clocked out and the day shift nurses were there.

Tonight was your last night. You’re set to be discharged tomorrow and while you are ecstatic to go home, you’re going to miss one thing about this place.

“I bet you’re too excited to sleep tonight. I don’t know if my stories will even help.” Tom said as he sat down next to you.

You smiled up to him sweetly.

“What are you looking forward to the most once you get out of here?”

“Sleeping in my own bed.”

“Well that’s no surprise.” Tom laughed, a contagious sound making you giggle as well. “Isn’t there anything you’ll miss about this place?”

“Yeah.” He smiled “There’s one thing.”

“What’s that?” He asks.

“The pudding cups.”

“Ahh the pudding cups of course.” You giggled while fiddling with the IV line.

“They just don’t taste the same in the outside world.”

His smile grew wider as you giggled.

“No, but really. As much as I give this place grief and say I’m ready to get out of here - which I am,” You gave him a pointed look to which he held his hands up in mock surrender, fully believing you, “it hasn’t been too terribly awful I guess.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad we could make your stay not too terribly awful.. I guess.” He teased. “Do you have anything exciting to look forward to once you’re a free woman?”

“Nothing huge planned, really. The doctors did say to take it easy.”

“That’d be wise.”

“Yeah. I’ll just lay low for a while. My sister said she may try to come visit me though so that would be nice.”

“Oh that would be nice. She’s your older sister right?”

“Right. She moved away last year to be closer to her boyfriend.”

“Ah. Do you like him?”

“Sorry?”

“This boyfriend. Do you like him?”

“He’s alright, I suppose. He makes her happy.” Tom nodded along.

“And do you have a boyfriend that makes you happy?”

“N-No. No I don’t. Not at the moment.” You began fiddling with the IV cord again.

“No boyfriend or not a boyfriend that makes you happy?” He asked.

“Neither.”

“Well that’s a shame.” If the heart monitor was connected you would’ve been screwed. “I just mean someone needs to look after you once you get home. I hope this sister comes through for a visit. You’ve got to take it easy.”

“Oh I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will be.” He smiled.

“How has your shift been tonight? Busy?” You asked, fighting back a yawn.

“A bit busier than usual. There was a slight emergency earlier which is why Shelley handed out meds tonight. Sorry I didn’t come around.”

“It’s alright. I know you have other patients.”

“Yeah, but none like you.” You were sure he said that to all of his patients. After all, you’ve heard similar lines ever since you went to the pediatrician as a child. But it still gave you butterflies.

“Are you getting sleepy?”

“A little. But it’s okay.” He gave you a pointed look but continued to talk anyway. “It’s the last night. One final request for storytime. Make it a good one.”

You thought for a moment before asking your question.

“Do you ever wish that life turned out differently? That you never had your accident and you could’ve followed your dreams to be a dancer?” You asked while turning on your side and getting more comfortable.

“Sometimes. At least, I used to. But I think I’ve accepted it now. And I really can’t see myself doing anything but this.” You nodded taking in his answer “I look at it this way. If it wasn’t for my injury then I never would’ve changed my career path and found my love for medicine. I never would have made so many of the friends I’ve made or the memories I’ve made. I never would have met you.” He finishes with a sweet smile.

“That’s a very positive way of looking at it.” You told him. “Be honest, are you a therapist during the day?” He laughed out loud.

“No. I’m not. I guess I’m a big believer in ‘everything happens for a reason’.” You nodded while covering a yawn.

“So I’ve been curious to ask you,” He began, “Do you usually have this much trouble sleeping? Because you can get help for that you know?” You smiled at him.

“What? I thought a night nurse talking to you was the cure?” Tom smirked and shook his head. “I’m kidding. No, I normally don’t. It’s just the stiff sheets and hospital sounds I think.”

“Darn hospital.” He rolled his eyes and joked. “So this time tomorrow you’ll be sound asleep in your own bed then?”

You knew it was meant to be a happy statement, but you were a little sad at the thought of not having any more late night chats with Tom.

“Yes. Thank God.” You forced a smile.

You felt another yawn coming and tried to hold it back. It was already past the usual time that you fell asleep.

Tom could tell you were exhausted so he launched into a story from nursing school, hoping to lull you to sleep.

You yawned your way through listening, trying to soak up every last moment with Tom. In the morning he wouldn’t be here. You’d leave and likely never see him again.

When he finished, your eyes were half open and he wondered how you were still awake. Or maybe why.

“Why are you fighting it? The point is to sleep. Give in.” He told you gently after another yawn.

You looked up at him, half asleep and rubbing your eyes, not finding the confidence to tell him the true reason you were trying to stay awake.

“I’m happy right now.”

He smiled down at you.

“I am too. But you need your sleep, darling.” You weren’t sure what to say and you didn’t have much energy left in you anyway. “How about this. I’ve probably been in here too long as it is. Let me go check in at the Nurse’s Station and then I’ll come back and check on you soon and see if you’re still awake okay?”

The thought that he was leaving gave you a sad feeling in your stomach. You tried to remind yourself that he was just your nurse. Nothing more.

“Okay.” You smiled at him, sleepily, while settling further into the bed.

He stood up and instead of walking towards the door he walked closer to you. He grabbed the thin, white hospital blanket and pulled it closer around your shoulders.

“Goodnight, Y/N.” He whispered before he walked to the door.

“Tom?” You called out just before he opened it. He turned around with an expectant look, “Thanks for everything.”

Even though the room was dim you could see his smile.

“You’re welcome, Y/N. Get some sleep.”

You don’t remember much after that. You don’t know if Tom came back to check on you. You just remember falling asleep with a smile on your face.

When you woke up the following morning it felt like any other morning in the hospital.

The hallways were much louder. Beeps, chatter, and phones were constant. The lights were brighter.

But you were quickly reminded that it wasn’t any other morning. You were going home today.

The door creaked open and Tanya, one of your regular daytime nurses, poked her head in.

“Oh good you’re up.” She made her way inside and over to the gloves. “How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty good. Thanks.” She gave you a smile, something hidden behind it.

“I’m sure.” She said quietly to herself. You gave her a questioning look. “Oh I just mean I’m sure you’re excited to get out of here.”

You nodded as she took your vitals one last time.

“Everything looks good. What do you say about getting this IV out?”

“I say that sounds amazing.”

She took it out and bandaged up your arm while informing you of how the morning would go.

“Dr. McCoy is making rounds now then he’ll be by soon to go over your discharge. You can get dressed whenever you’re ready. If you need help, buzz me. You’ll still have a breakfast tray come, but you don’t have to eat it.” She gave you a wink while taking off her gloves.

“Thanks Tanya.”

“Of course, sweetie. And in case I don’t see you before you go, you’ve been a wonderful patient. Take care of yourself.” You smiled at her as she left you to change into some leggings and a sweatshirt.

You were packing your remaining things into your bag when your doctor walked in.

“Y/N! How are we doing today?”

“We’re doing great because we’re going home.” You smiled while taking a seat to rest for a few minutes.

“I know you’re excited.” He laughed before explaining the conditions of your discharge. You had medicines to take, a follow up appointment, and strict instructions to rest for the next few weeks. After signing some forms he left you with a stack of papers. “Is someone coming to pick you up?”

“Yeah my neighbor should be here within an hour.”

“Sounds good. Don’t hesitate to call us or come back in if you have any trouble or questions.”

“Will do. Thanks.”

A few minutes after he left a nurse brought in your breakfast tray. There wasn’t much of a point for it but since your discharge wasn’t technically until 10:30 am you were still a patient during breakfast.

You took the pudding cup that you requested with every meal off the tray before sliding it away. Smiling to yourself, you tucked it away in your bag. All you had left to do was wait for 10:30.

Tanya came in to check on you again and told you to buzz the Nurse’s Station when you knew your ride was here. At 10:27 you had a text from your neighbor that they were out front in the pickup zone. So you hit the call button.

“Yes?” Linda, the scariest dayshift nurse, answered.

“Um hi. Tanya told me to buzz in when my ride was here so I could go down.”

“Okay we’ll be right in.”

Not even a minute later you heard your door open. Expecting to see Tanya or maybe even Linda you looked up.

An audible gasp left your lips when Tom stood in your doorway with a wheelchair.

“I hear someone needs a ride?” He smiled as he made his way closer to the bed.

“Tom. What are you still doing here?”

“I pulled a double.” You wanted to ask why, but decided against it. You were still in a little bit of shock from seeing him again. “If you’d rather I can go get Linda to walk you down?” He pointed back towards your door.

“No! No.. I’m just surprised s’all.”

“Well come on. I thought you’d be running out of this place once the clock hit 10:30.” Glancing up you saw it was now 10:34. Your neighbor is probably tired of waiting already.

You grabbed your discharge papers and reached for your bag when you heard, “I got it.” Smiling at him, you sat down in the wheelchair. Tom placed the bag around his shoulder and kicked the brakes off the chair. “Ready?” You nodded up at him.

He rolled you out of the room that felt so small for a final time. You passed the Nurse’s Station and waved bye to the staff. He turned by the elevators and when you looked up at him in question, he read your mind. Looked down at you he said, “We’re taking the staff elevators.”

When you made it there he hit the button, turning you around and backing you in once the doors opened. He hit the button for the Lobby and leaned up against the wall of the elevator, briefly glancing at you, as you rode down together.

“Well you made it. You’re a free woman.” He smiled shyly.

“Yippee.” He met your eyes for a moment before looking back to the floor. The dynamics felt different. It wasn’t like your late night talks together.

“Listen, Y/N.” Tom began as he stood up from the wall and faced you. He was about to continue when the elevator ding cut him off, signaling you had reached your destination.

Maybe that was what was different. You had reached your destination.

You had a fun time talking with Tom and entertaining each other when you were both up late at night. He was fun to get to know and you enjoyed having someone care for you. He was easy to banter with and certainly easy on the eyes. But your time at the hospital was up. You knew it would be eventually. You wanted it to be.

Tom was a nurse. He was just doing his job. He was helping take care of you. He was being nice. He was trying to make your stay more comfortable. There was nothing to read into.

Your time being his patient was up and your time with him was up.

You tried to remain realistic, but the sadness still crept up as he rolled you closer to the door.

Once outside, you saw your neighbor exit the car and wave you over. Tom steered in the direction and slowed before rolling to a stop and hitting the brake locks on the wheels.

“Hi, I’m Taylor.”

“Tom.” They shook hands as Tom passed off your bag for Taylor to put in the backseat.

“I’m sorry for the circumstances, but it really has been a pleasure having you as a patient and getting to know you, Y/N.” Tom admitted as he walked around to face you. He grabbed the papers from your lap. “Take care of yourself, okay?” You had shared many smiles with Tom, but this one felt sadder.

“I will. Thank you for everything, Tom. I mean it.” You reached up and squeezed his hand. He gave you a light squeeze back while smiling down at you. Taylor returned from the backseat of the car and Tom turned to them.

“These are her important papers about follow up appointments, medications, what to do at home, all of that so please make sure she doesn’t lose any of them.” He emphasized the point.

“Got it. Thanks.” Taylor held onto the stack while Tom turned back to you.

“If I can’t handle a few papers on my own, then maybe I shouldn’t be going home yet, Tom.” You laughed.

“I know, I just wanted to make sure they made it home with you.” He walked closer. “You ready to get in?”

“Yeah.” You nodded. He helped you up, supporting you just as a precaution. Once seated, you took a moment to catch your breath as you pulled the seatbelt down. He met your hand, taking it from you to buckle you in.

“You good?”

You nodded with a smile, “Just a little tired. No biggie.”

He looked you over before returning your smile, though his didn’t quite reach his eyes, “If you need us, call us. Otherwise go home and rest.”

This was it. This was goodbye.

“Thanks, Tom.”

“Goodbye, Y/N.”

He shut the door. He walked back to the wheelchair, released the brake locks and headed inside. He looked back only when your car was driving away.

“Here’s those papers that are so important.” Taylor handed you the stack after they got in.

“Thanks.”

“So how are you feeling?”

“Better. Thanks.” You felt them looking at you as they joined traffic.

“You sure? You sound like you feel awful.”

You try to remind yourself to forget the sweet and attractive nurse and start moving forward.

“Yeah. Yeah I’m okay.” You decide to distract yourself by reading through your discharge paperwork, when something caught your eye. On top was a sticky note with the hospital’s letterhead. You were sure it wasn’t there before. Looking closer it read,

Y/N,

In case you need someone to talk to when you can’t sleep.

555-5555

P. S. I have a connection to some pretty good pudding cups too.

Tom

The smile that grew on your face was undeniable. All the feelings you suppressed came flooding in. He wasn’t just being nice. He actually liked you.

One thing you knew for sure was that even though you would be in your own bed tonight, you still would be up, talking to a very special nurse.

Lmk if you want to be on my tag list

[owlf45]

(1/3) okay holy smokes. holy moly smokes. listen i was in the OFA legacy week discord and saw your amazing art of Yoichi with the spark, and I LOST it. my eyes turned to actual hearts. and i was instantly like "i need to find this owl person's instagram," right? so I went there, but it seems you're not as active. no sweats no frets! except my cantaloupe brain forgot other social media existed, so i just resigned to it not being around, followed your insta, and went on my merry way

I don’t know if Tumblr ate the third part but that’s hilarious!! Always live for the moment when people connect my discord-tumblr-ao3 presence haha. Also yeah I. Routinely forget that Instagram exists,,

ANYWAY you and I are sharing the Yoichi brainrot I see!! Glad to be of service :]

[cherrycocaineee]

7. Sasuke Uchiha - Protection

   Early morning dew clung to the sides of my black shoes, the blades of pine green grass brushing against my exposed toes tickled and the only relief I found in that moment was wiggling them. Trudging alongside me was Naruto, his arms were wrapped behind his head and he was frowning. I could tell he was tired and getting up early was never Naruto’s thing but the Prince that we were protecting was a complete morning person. Standing in front of us was Kakashi Sensei; Sakura and Sasuke were walking on the other side of the large carriage. Morning sunlight started peeking up above the trees creating a small amount of heat against my pale, cool skin. A loud yawn escaped from between Naruto’s lips as we started walking up a steep hill.  “How much further?” Naruto complained, eyes half shut.    “We just started walking, Naruto,” Sakura scolded from behind the Prince’s carriage. “I know!” Naruto yawned again, “but I’m tired.”  A small scoff sounded from Sasuke, and Naruto glared in his direction as if he could see through the carriage. I reached out and touched my blue eyed, knuckleheaded friend while shooting him a small grin. My smile seemed to help Naruto settle down as he continued walking with a smile now on his face. Four hours went by of continuous walking and my feet were starting to get tired, a small aching sensation pounded against the ball of my foot. I whined quietly, not wanting the others to hear, however, Kakashi Sensei’s superior hearing caught it as soon as it fluttered from my lungs.  “Prince Kichi,” he’s deep voice rumbled, “how about we rest and eat something?”  “Sounds like a lovely idea,” Prince Kichi hummed, “pull over.”  Everyone moved off of the path, pulling out their lunch to eat. I watched as Naruto made himself a quick bowl of instant ramen, smiling big as he waited for his noodles to steam up. I pulled out a bento box and started nibbling on some of the rice and other things I had packed, but really I was just enjoying not being on my feet. Lunch continued on for thirty minutes before we were up and stomping through the path once more. However, the happy trip didn’t last very long when my team and I noticed that there was a group of ninjas following us, hiding in the trees and leafy bushes. Naruto looked over at me with slanted eyes, my byakugan was activated and I held up five fingers indicating that there were five ninjas.   The five ninjas moved quickly amongst the green landscape, but I found myself laughing at the fact that they weren’t very good at sneaking around. That’s when my eyes widened as I noticed that another source of chakra flow was coming from beneath Kakashi Sensei. He didn’t seem to notice since he was more focused on the one moving beside him.  “Kakashi Sensei!” I yelled out, making him look at me, “move!”   Just as I warned him to get out of the way, the underground ninja slammed through the ground and latched onto Kakashi Sensei’s foot. He dragged Team 7’s leader into the ground up to his head before standing before all of us. Sasuke, Sakura, Naruto, and I stood between the rogue ninjas, who had joined the ninja who assaulted our Sensei, and Prince Kichi’s carriage. With my byakugan deactivated, I removed my kunai from my ninja pouch, the others following the same movement.  “Why don’t you four children step out of the way,” growled the leader, “we just want the prince.”  “If you want him, you’ll have to go through us,” Sasuke stated, a small smirk dancing across his lips, “now Kakashi, stop messing around.”  Kakashi Sensei bursted into a small amount of smoke and jumped down from a tree in front of us. Sakura squealed, “Kakashi Sensei!” Even though he wore a mask over his mouth, I could almost feel the smile on his face. Kakashi Sensei  looked at Sakura and I.  “Sakura, Akiko, guard the prince.”  “Right!” We said in unison. Naruto and Sasuke ran to join our sensei as the fight raged on. Sakura and I stayed behind guarding the prince as one of the rogues threw their kunai in our direction, his target obviously for the prince’s head as it slammed into the carriage, scraping his cheek. A small cry left Prince Kichi’s lips as he clasped his hand over the slightly bleeding cut. Sasuke turned around.  “Akiko! Behind you!” He yelled. I turned around and saw one of the ninjas charging at me. He started moving his hands to mimic symbols.  “Water Release: Water Cannon.”  His mouth pursed into a small circle as water came rushing out in quick, swift movements from his mouth. Steam hovered over the rocket of water. Sakura gasped, but I had to move quickly. My hands, with the speed of a jonin, created all the symbols needed for my move. The water was inching closer and closer.  “Ninja Arts: Barrier Seal Jutsu!”  Blue chakra from my body wrapped itself around the prince, Sakura, and I just as the gush of water slammed against it, bouncing off. The now hardened chakra protected the three of us from our enemies' attack. I pulled the kunai from the carriage and charged at the male ninja still trying to penetrate my barrier. Unfortunately for him, the chakra barrier was impenetrable. His eyes widened as I ran towards him, his kunai ready in my small hands. “Damn brat!” He hissed angrily. He went to punch me when I jumped up, avoiding his fist just a bit. His eyes widened as I slammed my foot into the back of his head causing him to fall to the ground. I landed on my feet inside the barrier as he climbed to his wobbling feet. I turned to Sakura and held out my hand.  “Give me a paper bomb,” I said, earning a nod from her as she set the paper bomb in my hand.  I attached the slim piece of paper onto the borrowed kunai and smiled.  “Let me give you back your kunai,” I said softly, my delicate hand tossing the cool metal towards our attacker.   Since he was still a bit taken aback from the hit to the head, he didn’t realize that the kunai now had a paper bomb latched to it and as it hit the ground, the bomb went off, causing a massive explosion and a loud scream to echo from his mouth. Sakura cheered. Kakashi Sensei was taking on the leader and another ninja while Naruto and Sasuke were teaming up against a third one. However, one of the rogues was missing and before I could activate my byakugan to see where he was hiding, a metal chain wrapped itself around Sasuke and yanked him around. Sasuke screamed out in pain as he was slammed through two trees and right into a large boulder.  “Sasuke!” Sakura cried out. The young Uchiha was lying against the cold stone and the ninja used that to his advantage. His large, muddy hands rapidly formed a group of symbols together, an evil smile appearing on his face. Sasuke couldn’t move from his restraints. He was also badly injured, making it impossible for him to stand up and move.  “Earth Release: Stone Spear.” Kakashi Sensei wasn’t able to get away from his opponents to rescue Sasuke and Naruto was being held against his opponent’s chest firmly. Sakura was frozen in place and trembling, tears slipping from her widened sea foam green eyes. Her small hand covering her mouth as the spear hurtled it’s way towards our bound teammate.   Making the ultimate decision, I ran from my spot behind the chakra barrier and moved in front of Sasuke. Everything felt slow. Naruto’s screaming for me to get out of the way, the dark chuckling coming from our opponents, Sakura’s screams, Kakashi’s movements as he used his chidori to free himself to come to our aid. But I didn’t waver. My skinny frame slid in front of Sasuke just as the spear slammed into me, piercing my skin through my white long sleeve shirt. It was now lodged into my abdomen and a high-pitched yelp struck the air. As I was crumbling to the ground, Kakashi Sensei used his chidori striking the two ninjas and the one that had used the stone spear. The last ninja released Naruto and scampered off into the woods. My body collapsed to the ground and everything started moving at a normal speed once more. All the air in my lungs was thin, tiny pants were leaving my chapped lips as I tried to catch my breath, metallic blood hugged my tastebuds. I could even feel the blood from my abdomen soaking my white shirt and lavender, overall skirt. Sasuke, who’d freed himself from his confinements, ran over with the rest of team 7. Prince Kichi stood in the distance, still protected by the faltering barrier. Soon it would be gone while I continued to black out.  “Akiko,” Naruto croaked, tears whelming up in his eyes.  Kakashi Sensei had removed the stone spear from my body and pressed his hand strongly against my wound.  “It’s okay, Akiko,” Kakashi said, worry laced in his voice, “you’re going to be okay.”  My eyes fluttered until they were staring at Sasuke, who was staring at me with wide eyes. I coughed, a wheezing sound leaving my lips, and I looked back at Kakashi Sensei.  “K-Ka-Kakashi S-Sensei,” I stuttered. “Shh, shh,” he whispered, “it’ll be okay. I promise.”  “Why?” Sasuke rasped, tears now forming in his eyes, “why would you throw yourself in front of me like that, knowing you’d be killed?”  “Don’t say that!” Yelled Naruto, eyes searing with pain and anger, “she’s not going to die! I won’t let her!” Sasuke didn’t react to Naruto’s outburst. I blinked once, and it was a slow blink.  “B-because if I d-didn’t, you w-would have d-d-died. T-then how would y-you revive your c-clan.”  Pain slashed through my body and I screamed, the pressure from Kakashi Sensei’s hand causing a small ache to erupt. I started seeing stars, my eyes started fluttering as everything became fuzzy, my friends’ voices fading more and more. I watched Kakashi Sensei’s face as he stared at me with desperation. Then everything went black.

Heat. That’s what I felt as my eyes opened. I was greeted by the sight of twinkling stars and the soft crackling of fire. Every inch of my body was aching with terrible shutters of pain. Slowly, and carefully, I started moving again, noticing that a sleeping Naruto was curled up beside me, his cheeks stained with dry tears. I looked around and saw Sakura also sleeping close to the fire, her hands stained with blood. Finally, I looked at myself and noticed that I wasn’t wearing my overall skirt anymore, just my black shorts and white shirt, which was still ruined with crimson, red blood.   Sighing, I pulled myself up from my spot, wincing as pain shot through my like pellets. I whimpered as I turned around, wanting to move and stop the growing ache in my body.  “Akiko.”  I snapped my head up and saw Kakashi Sensei sitting against the tree, wondering how I had missed him when looking at Sakura and Naruto. I also noticed that his uniform was coated in my blood as well.  “Kakashi -” As soon as I started speaking, I started coughing.  He was quick to come to my side, handing me a canteen of water. The nice, soothing water coated my burning throat.  “How are you feeling?” He asked, his revealed eye illuminating concern and worry as he watched me struggle.  “I’m so sore,” I whimpered.   “Maybe you should be laying back down.”  Shaking my head, I noticed that I didn’t see Sasuke sleeping amongst the others.  “Where’s Sasuke?”   Kakashi Sensei pointed to the top of the cliff in the distance where Sasuke was sitting, staring at the night sky. Kakashi Sensei, who had his hand firmly on my back supporting me, gently pushed me in his direction. I smiled a small appreciative smile before realizing that I still needed to thank him for coming to my aid as quickly as he did. I engulfed my sensei into a warm hug. ��“Thank you, Kakashi Sensei.”  “Of course, Akiko.”  Sasuke sensed I was coming before I even finished walking towards him, immediately coming to my side as he saw me hobbling towards him. The two of us sat down comfortably underneath the blinking sky. It took me a long time to catch my breath since I was still hurting. I could feel my bandages tightening around my stomach as I sat. Once my breathing was caught up, I turned to Sasuke and smiled.  “You okay?” I asked, realizing how stupid the question it was when I slipped out.  “Me?” He questioned, raising a single eyebrow, “you’re the one who was impaled.” I giggled, shuttering in pain, “guess you’re right. But you did get injured too when you were slammed around.”   Sasuke didn’t reply and worry started seeping through my skull, the feeling of him being angry at me for showing him up made me want to puke. However, Sasuke didn’t seem to care about that when he started speaking again.  “You’re an idiot,” he whispered, “throwing yourself into danger like that. What would Naruto do without you. Or hell, Sakura. What would… what would I do without you?”  His sudden outburst of emotion surprised me. He was never one to become emotional, and I not only felt surprised but happy that he trusted me enough to be this way toward me.  “What do you mean?” I asked.  “Akiko, you’re the only girl who doesn’t run around throwing herself at me to win my affection, my love, my attention. You’re the only girl who looks at me and wants to improve on your ninja skill rather than gawk at me. The only girl I’m willing to talk to and get to know. I never want to see you hurt like that again, especially for me. I want you to stand by Naruto’s side, reach your own goals…”  I stopped his talking by wrapping my arms around him, hugging his sulking form, and resting my weak head against his strong shoulder. His tense body relaxed and he wrapped his arms around me. We sat there for a few minutes enjoying the warmth of one another before I released him. His scent lingered in my nose for a few minutes.  “Sasuke, I care about you. You’re my friend and I couldn’t bear to watch you get hurt. I also couldn’t bear to watch Sakura lose the person she loves the most, even if her girly crush can get a bit annoying. I would do it again, if it meant protecting those I loved and cared about. Even you.”   A small smirk appeared on his face and he pulled me back into his grasp. He eventually pulled me into his lap and rested my head against his chest. I felt a small pink tint rush to my cheeks as I listened to Sasuke’s beating heart. It was slow and steady, the pace slowly relaxing me back to sleep. “Don’t get use to this,” he whispered, “I’m only doing this because I was the reason you got hurt.”  A gentle giggle left my lips. It was a complete lie and I knew it. He even knew.  “And next time, I’ll save you.” He pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead, but I didn’t get enough time to react as another wave of sleep hit me. Soon I was snoozing right in Sasuke’s chest listening to the small pitter patter of his heart.

[shyvioletcat]

I have no idea if you’ve seen NCIS: LA, but they have an episode just like your fic Treacherous of two agents posing as a married couple in the suburbs!! It’s season 3 episode 22 for reference!

Prompt based on that: A comes home and sees blood, panics and follows the trail thinking B has been hurt/killed. Carefully pushes the door open and finds A has simply cut their foot and didn’t hear B

I have watched some and I did go looking for this episode but came up bust in my search. It could have provided some good inspiration I’m sure. We all love a good fake relationship.

*EDIT: TAGLIST DONE. Sorry if you’ve already seen it and are getting the notification.*

Treacherous Masterlist

~~~~~

Grabbing the shopping bags out of the boot of the car Rowan swept his foot under it to activate the automatic close, all the while suppressing a yawn. He was dead tired. Aelin had gotten her revenge after the pen incident, setting an alarm clock in his room to wake him up at exactly 3:47. The damned thing hadn’t been within reach so he had to get out of bed to turn it off. And from copious missions together Aelin knew once he was up, he was up so he’d hadn’t bothered to try and get back to sleep. Knowing her she might have set others up in the room anyway, even if he had tried to sleep again paranoia would have kept him awake. All the while she slept blissfully across the hall.

Being just the two of them in the house they hadn’t bothered to keep up the bed sharing part of the charade. They slept in separate rooms and thank the gods for that. If he didn’t have that space to himself he might have never been able to get away from her and have some quiet. Aelin seemed to fill every room she was in and it was suffocating for him… most of the time. She had a way with people he had admired at times, it was what made her such a good agent, especially when undercover. Not that he would ever tell her any of that. No need to inflate her already insufferable ego.

When he had grumpily asked her over his third cup of coffee why she’d chosen 3:47 exactly she’d smiled at him, bright and cheery as ever after sleeping in until 8 o’clock, and alluded to some lockeroom talk she’d heard about certain measurements—in millimetres. When he had rolled his eyes she had gone on to clarify she was talking about 30 and not just 3 he’d promptly left the room, well and truly done with her immaturity. Her laughter had chased him out.

Shifting the shopping bags so he could open the back door, Rowan entered the kitchen expecting to find Aelin in there preparing the food for the ridiculous party tomorrow while listening to some obnoxious music very loudly just to piss him off. But she wasn’t, in fact the house was silent.

“Aelin,” he called, stepping around the length of the counter.

That was when he saw the blood.

Rowan dropped the bags, things crushing on impact. The blood pooled in one spot, then splatters made a path across the tiles. He didn’t have a gun on him, but there were enough stashed around the house and he found one in a low kitchen drawer. It was pointed and ready in moments and Rowan made sure he didn’t disturb the blood on the linoleum floor.

“Aelin,” he called again. “Agent Galathynius.”

Still silence. He followed the trail of blood towards the small bathroom that was on the bottom level, his heart pounding in his ears. There wasn’t enough that the situation looked dire, but the assailant may have dragged her off to another location, hidden away from windows. Why hadn’t the team been alerted to anything? Where was the back-up? Panic started to fill him, but his training kept it under control. If something had happened to Aelin…

He shook his head to shake out the thought. She was a perfectly capable agent, one of the best. Rowan was overreacting and he needed to calm down. A deep breath in and he nudged the door, when there was no reaction he kicked it open, gun ready. Eyes darting around the room, his gun dropped to the side when he took in the scene before him.

Aelin was seated on the floor, holding wads of toilet paper on a wound on her foot, wincing from what he gathered to be pain. She hadn’t noticed his entrance and was still focused on her foot.

“Aelin,” Rowan said, but got no response, so he tried a little louder. “Aelin.”

She jumped looking up at him. “Why do you have a gun?”

“Did you not hear me calling out?” Rowan asked, putting the safety back on the gun.

Aelin took small earbuds out of her ears. “What?”

Rowan rubbed a hand over his face, panic turned to exasperation. “I called out to you and you didn’t answer.”

“Podcast,” she held up her earbuds in explanation. “But the gun?” Aelin then asked him, her attention going back to her foot.

“The blood trail…” he said but didn’t elaborate.

Aelin straightened where she sat and looked up at him, then laughed. “Did you think I’d been murdered in the bathtub?”

Rowan didn’t answer her question. “Would you mind telling me what happened exactly?”

Aelin sighed. “I was trying to cook and I knocked a knife off the counter and my hands were full so I couldn’t catch it. It nicked my foot and now here we are.”

“Okay,” Rowan said, the adrenaline finally settling and he knelt down to assess the injury.

“What are you doing?” Aelin brows were furrowed in confusion.

“Inspecting the cut, you can’t get at it from the right angle,” Rowan said, turning her foot and earning a hiss.

“I can do it myself,” Aelin said and tried to pull her foot away but Rowan held firm. She relented with an over dramatic sigh and leaned her back on the bathtub.

Aelin had already got down what he needed, so he cleaned the cut up and foot, putting a large bandaid on it to stop the bleeding. “There,” Rowan said succinctly, brushing a thumb unconsciously along Aelin’s arch before letting go, making her suppress a laugh. She was ticklish.

“Hmm,” Aelin said, looking at him curiously.

“What?” Rowan asked, standing and washing his hands. When he turned around to dry his hands on a towel she was still looking at him.

“Careful Whitethorn, someone might think you were concerned for my well-being if they found out about this.”

“Not likely,” Rowan scoffed. “It was the paperwork I was concerned about.”

Aelin snorted and walked past him, Rowan taking a moment before he followed. There had been a moment when… He shook his head. Concern for a partner was only natural, no matter the feelings of enmity between them. The two of them couldn’t stand each other, but that didn’t mean he wanted her hurt or dead. Rowan left the bathroom, headed for the kitchen to put away the groceries when he heard a frustrated exclamation.

“Are you serious, Rowan?”

Any concern he had felt evaporated at Aelin’s tone. Entering the kitchen he found her holding a carton of eggs, leaking yellow and clear goop. They must have cracked when he dropped the bags in his panic at the blood.

“You need to go get more,” she told him, dropping the ruined eggs in the trash.

“No, I am not,” Rowan groaned. He was tired, he didn’t want to take another trip to the grocery store across town.

“Oh, you are. I needed those eggs for the barbecue tomorrow, so because of your overreaction over a little bit of blood I am now eggless,” Aelin explained. There was no answer from him as Aelin unrolled some paper towel to clean up both egg and blood. “Off you go.”

Too tired to fight anymore Rowan just grabbed his keys and left to get more precious eggs.

~~~~~

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[felikatze]

give me the a brainworms i am deeply invested in this man

(0) (2) (3) (4)

okay first of all you asked for this. second of all if i am a little off track from the game that is explained by me just building thoughts like building blocks without looking back. third i was supposed to be studying for an exam but this counts as practice right? it's character analysis anyway lmao.

buckle the fuck up, my dearest anon, because I have sub headings.

1. A as the Player Character

Let me begin with why I am obsessed with this horrid little guy in the first place: he's a silent protagonist. I am always obsessed with protagonists. It's a law of nature. I love taking hollow characters and dissecting them for scraps. It's a long standing practice of mine.

Being a silent protagonist, A, as X, does not have a set personality. However, there are patterns. Firstly, as any semi-silent protagonist, A is a reactive character. He does not start incidents, he only responds to situations, presented by the Sephirah, as they arise. He does not actively seek out new information, merely going about the routine of expanding departments, but expresses curiosity when information is presented to him.

I'm aware fandom likes to characterize X and A differently, likely because they are initially presented as different characters. I, on the other hand, would like to pose the theory that they are more similar than expected.

I believe that A is also a reactive character, rather than active. Despite the fandom wiki describing him as stubborn, the goal A pursues with such fervor, the completion of the Seed of Light, is not actually a goal he set for himself. Carmen is the one who set this goal for him by leaving him her legacy.

Throughout the backstory we get relating to the Cogito Project, A is Carmen's assistant, whereas Carmen is the driving researcher. This is how many of the City's inhabitants seem to be; going with the flow of goals set for them by superiors. Yes I will get into his attachment to Carmen later.

The above is not to say A isn't stubborn. Once he has accepted a goal as his own, he will pursue it at all costs, as is obvious from any and all flashbacks leading to horrible deaths. But the point isn't his pursuit of the goal, but where that goal comes from. Even Lobcorp itself supports this, despite what Hokma may say; A as X follows the "simple" task of managing the Corp's day to day activities, and executes any mission given to him by the Sephirah. He outranks them, and doesn't actually need to do their missions, but does so anyway. Players are driven by the reward offered by those missions, of course, and A might be the same in that regard. Nonetheless, at no point in gameplay do you do anything somebody else hasn't told you to.

The overarching narrative of the Script would be the most obvious example. Every single person in the game follows the script, whether they know it or not.

Lastly on this note, a phrase we hear attributed to A, "Machines must behave as machines." Now, Angela may be attached to this phrase because it bears significance to herself as a machine, and informs most of A's unjust treatmeant of her. However, what if it doesn't just apply to machines? The phrase reads as such, "Everyone must act according to their own role."

2. A, Carmen, and the disease of the mind

So, A will at any cost pursue goals Carmen set for him. Question is, why? The obvious answer would be saying he's in love with her, which like, true. But also, how did Carmen come to be so precious to him?

Let us return to the comparison, "This is how many of the City's inhabitants seem to be." We don't really know why exactly most characters joined Carmen, excluding mainly Daniel and Benjamin. But this does not mean we can't have theories.

Carmen's ideal was curing the "disease of the mind." What is the disease? Complete hopelessness. The inability to form aspirations and dreams, to think of a better future. A is a very reactive character who does not set goals for himself. Therefore, I personally conclude, that initially, Carmen's ideology resonated with him because he could identify with the disease.

This is the point where I start rewatching Lobcorp story clips. Dear god.

So, by briefly binging day 27 onward, I've come up with lines that very much support this lil theory of mine:

First, from Carmen, a description of the disease, "People lock away their own potential."

Second, a line from Angela, after the memory synchronization, "You've locked yourself in this prison without bars."

Carmen describes A as humble, and Benjamin thinks he is warm. If I suppose A was one of the diseased initially, Carmen would be the catalyst for this change. Carmen was someone with big aspirations, with plans to heal what is wrong with the City, and it gave him hope. He was one of the diseased, but through time with Carmen, with that relentless optimistic spirit, he may have been cured, for a time. It's not a stretch to say that she was his light.

But lor shows us what happens when the seed of light sprouts wrong, doesn't it? It distorts. A grasped hope for the first time and then it is ruthlessly crushed. Carmen was everything. Yes, A is described as a jack-of-all-trades, as a genius in all pursuits he puts his mind to, but what does that matter in the face of someone who can unite people? Who can give them hope of a better world? Who can inspire them to actually use the talents they have?

And what kind of pressure is it to put the legacy of a messiah in the hands of the diseased?

3. A and the Perception Filter: A is weak to White damage

No, I am serious about that. He's extremely weak mentally. Obviously death of a loved one is a changing experience for absolutely anybody, but Carmen's death destroyed him.

Not only did he refuse to confide this grief to anyone and bottled it up, now everybody looked to him to lead the project, but he just isn't Carmen. He isn't an ambitious person, he doesn't have the same optimism, he can't bring people together, but people expected him to, and he failed. Hard.

While he was without a doubt talented in science, he was also just an average guy.

After her death, A grew to hate humans. He lost trust in them. He refused to confide in anyone, and be confided in by anyone. Thus, the team fell apart.

In both lobcorp and lor, we get interesting tidbits about precations taken to protect the manager.

Firstly, Lobcorp's perception filter. The cartoony art-style of the game is a result of the game being in first person. Through the eyes of the manager, everything is cartoony!

This is a measure undertaken to specifically protect the manager's psyche. Angela tells us that, before it was deployed, the manager would frequently go insane, one notable incident including the manager trying to hang himself. When we first hear this, the previous managers and X are still separate in our minds. However, they're all A! A went insane multiple times without it.

This is understandable, considering that employees also frequently go insane and try to kill both themselves and others. But they're there in action, confronting the Abnormalities directly. Just watching them made the manager go mad. They could not handle the responsibility for the employees' deaths.

In lor, Angela explains why she picked the Rabbit Team from R Corp as their main contractor instead of any other team. One team was simply too big for L Corp's narrow hallways, and the other team... dealt in psychic damage. It was simply too big of a risk for the manager. But the manager is always secure behind the cameras. Would that teams methods just be that brutal visually, or would their attacks have reached the manager?

Combined with his immense grief at all of his friends and coworkers dying in part because of him, A cannot bear to look at death.

4. A's greatest flaw: Avoidance

A common thread during Core Meltdown flashbacks: A refuses to look at suffering. He just can't. Whether it be looking away from Elijah writhing on the floor or hanging up on Daniel's panicked report of death.

This is actually the thing Angela takes the biggest issue with, and what hurt her most. A would never look at her, acknowledge her, and she did not understand why. But I think A did not refuse to look at her out of maliciousness. Rather, it was out of grief over Carmen. He could not look at her without being reminded of what he lost.

Angela's creation came about because A wanted someone to guide him, someone like Carmen. He threw himself into the project to the point it made Benjamin happy that A was passionate about anything again. But as soon as the project he distracted himself with is complete, he is filled with regret. Carmen cannot be replicated, and he breaks again.

Furthermore, tying this back to my first point about A being a reactive person, we see Angela take charge over A. She's the one recruiting employees and leading the business. It was likely a relief for him to be able to step down from the leading position.

But avoiding it made everything worse. He did not act when he saw Elijah's unchecked ambition, he did not act beyond a simple check at Gabriel's decay, he gave Giovanni the same hope he clung to to no avail, et cetera et cetera.

Avoiding his problems is making them worse and sending everything down the drain (including his psyche), so he deals with it the only way he knows how, avoiding them more!

Biggest example of A's big avoidance problem as his psyche crumbles: the memory wipe. A, in perhaps his one singular moment of acknowledging his emotions, recognizes that he is incapable of fulfilling the Script in his current state. His grief is just too much.

By erasing his own memory, he could start fresh without his grief, because he might've really killed himself otherwise. His suffering became bigger and bigger, and he coped by avoiding it.

The memory wipe allowed him to distangle his problems. Through his interactions with the Sephirah (which I will not individually detail for the sake of my sanity and because I dumped all this on a friend on discord already), he can deal with and actually process his issues one at a time.

As the motto describes, only by facing the fear can he build the future. Only by finally facing his grief and acknowleding it, seeing that the past cannot be changed and he has no choice to move forward, can he actually do so.

5. The Sephirah as ghosts

Lobotomy Corporation feels like a ghost story. I've touched upon this in my previous A post.

As you reach the Corp's lower levels, there are less Sephirah. First there are four. They act like normal employees, and do not breach into the story's underbelly until you reach their core supressions and the facade breaks. Second, counting Tiphereth as one, there are three. They still go about their duties, but they know what they are. Third, there are two, and the facade is gone. They know what they are, and they will tell you about the sins of the past.

And finally, you reach Keter, and there is only one.

This gradual decay of the facade is what really gets to me. I said that by interacting with the Sephirah, A deals with his issues one by one, but that's what the Sephirah are, in this case. Representations.

The people the Sephirah used to be are dead, and the Sephirah are their ghosts. The core supression involve putting these ghosts to rest. Doesn't it match the progression of a typical ghost story? Find the ghost, find what they used to be, and help them move on.

So, if everyone is a ghost, then A is alone.

But, behind the scenes, the Sephirah are still there. They are still people, and they have changed for the better, too. As always, A simply does not look.

(Does he even see the good others see in him? Does he look away from praise, too? Did he even realize Benjamin's admiration for him? Will we ever know?)

6. A's end.

A's progression of moving on would be fine and dandy if it did not end as thus: A does kill himself.

A sees himself beyond the point of no return. Everyone is dead. He is alone. Carmen is never coming back. He can't call it quits now, or else everything has been in vain. (Even if the last days show us a part of him wants to just quit, so badly.)

So, there's only one thing left to do: follow the Script to its ending. Fulfill Carmen's legacy at all costs. Death as the ultimate release.

This is the point where I admit I do not like the death as release trope. But the game does a good enough job as presenting it as the only option A had, or the only option he saw himself as having.

However, I've mentioned it before, I'll mention it again: A was not alone. Death was his release, but he left wreckage. In order to end his own suffering, he inflicted the same pain he went through on others.

Throughout the game, he moves on and pushes through. The ending shows that in reality... he didn't.

At least in lor the characters stick together and help each other heal.

This has been most of my thoughts on A, amounting to my longest analysis post ever, having taken me approximately two and a half hours to complete, and clocking in at 2337 words including up to this paragraph.

Thank you anon for giving me the incentive to verbalize all of this, so I can finally be at ease having inflicted my thoughts on everybody else.

[lovely-necromancy]

A Cure for Insomnia CH.2

Getting back to your little one story cottage, you can only manage to rush in and run about in a mad dash as you try to accomplish getting ready for work and getting something to eat. Running through choices in your head as you change and freshen up, nothing sounds good. There's not much time since your shift starts at nine and to make it to the store you need to leave by eight twenty. You got home at eight fifteen, and while Nate, your manager, has never seemed to give a fuck what you did at work you're still in your probationary period and would like to keep the easiest job you've ever had.

It's a really simple gig, seeing as the store you work at is actually a front for some illegal activity. The variety of crime you aren't sure of, but you are aware there's no way you guys do no business and yet they can afford to pay thirty dollars an hour. Thankfully just keeping your mouth shut and being nice to little Jo, the owner's daughter, is enough to keep you in the cushiest job in the world. The store's front is a regular old book store, all the books are real, the registers work, you're able to sell books and you've run to the bank to do the weekly deposits twice for Book & Nook. The front is very legitimate or it would be if the amount of customers ever equaled the sales made.

Again you don't ask questions, because for thirty dollars an hour you get to goof off for a couple hours a day, plus you get a bonus when you watch little Jo at the shop. She's a real sweet eleven year old, she's got tourettes and took a shine to you the first time she saw you tic. While you both might not suffer the same disorder she finds the common ground nice, like it's not just her. It's not even hard to watch her or enjoy her company, she'll come bouncing in with her excited chittering and hands clapping spilling all the latest gossip that comes with being in middle school. And boy is there a lot of gossip.

It's really nice seeing that Jo has friends at school and is even considered a “popular” kid. You remember how tough school was because no one understood you and teachers never cared enough about your personality to bring up the fact that it was clear to most faculty members that you had Autism. You excelled academically so what did it matter if you got picked on for oversharing information or for finishing assignments the minute they were handed to you. As bittersweet as the parallels are you're so glad Jo doesn't have to go through that. Never would have thought a southern school could be so accepting, much less a middle school at that.

Tearing through the kitchen you honestly can't find anything that you want to eat right now. And even after a long night of hiking/dissociating you don't think you're that peckish at all. Figuring it's best to at least take something to quell any future nausea you grab a Pedialyte Pop from the freezer. As fast as you entered your home you left, and not before ensuring twice that the door was locked and secured. While living on the outskirts of town saves you from many potential robberies, and worse salesmen, there's still the chance of some lunatic with an ax hiding out in a closet to murder you. Better safe now than sorry later.

Pulling into park behind the shop right at nine is a blessing. You run into the shop to clock in blurting out a quick 'Morning' to Nate, who was carrying a particularly large box, as you passed by him. In a flash you were back at your car retrieving your newly prized deer skull. Lungs burning a bit from the all out sprint you just did you took a little extra time to close the trunk and lock your car up to catch your breath, and avoid any light headiness you might get from the empty stomach workout. Eager to share the wonders of death with your best work friends, and by that you mean Nate your manager...and only other coworker, you rush back into the building.

The shop was quiet as usual as you made your way through the door though you were in the back room where only employees could roam you had the slightest suspicion that the front of shop was just the same. It's there you find Nate, now lugging a medium sized box around to a side table. He did this a lot you suspect some type of smuggling but hey plausible deniability and all those legal matters. The taller dark haired man sees you and just as he's about to wave you over, notices your prize with a raised brow.

“The fuck d'you bring in the store?” he doesn't seem amused by whatever it is he thinks you're up to. “Deer skull.” Lifting it up in one hand and pointing at it, “Found this guy on my hike last night...or rather this morning actually.”

“YN, we talked about this, you said you'd get some sleep last night. No adventures remember.” he's only two years older than you and yet he acts as if he's ten years. He must be an old soul, or enjoys the role of care giver...or you're making him go gray prematurely, anything's possible.

“Eh, I remember saying I'd 'try' and get sleep.” for someone who's body is running on fumes your cheekiness is astronomical, “operative word being 'try', remember.”

It's a long silence as Nate decides if he wants to deal with your bullshit at this moment. After a minute or so he concedes leaning back on the table behind him. “Let's hear it.” and you perk up immediately.

“Cool, so I was walking along the tree line and spotted him, tried to find more but seems there's only one piece. Judging by the size of his antlers I'd say he was nearly fully grown. Now my plan is to do whatever treatments taxidermists do to bones and,” you continue to word vomit at the tired twenty-six year old in front of you, about the joys and wonders of taxidermy and the likely hood of ever finding a skull so nicely preserved.

“I can do that in here right?” even though it's been phrased as a question, you aren't asking permission, you're just being polite and letting Nate know the storage room will house your creepy deer skull antics for today...maybe the week you need to find a taxidermist book to figure out what you need to do.

Nate gives up and leaves with his box of new books to let you have full run of the back to do your weird vulture culture shit. He figures he's just too old to understand the new obsessions with the macabre. He hopes his cousin won't take to shit like this, the kid's weird enough as it is, no need to put another target on her back. Nate sets off to take down the Harry Potter sets in favor of this new comic series little Jo wanted.

Already taking his silence as the go ahead you place your found skull on the table and rush off into the store front to find a book on taxidermy and hopefully more specifically about bones. The set up and organization of the store reminds you a lot of the scene in Brendan Fraser's The Mummy 1997 where Evie is on the ladder and somehow causes all the book shelves to fall like dominoes. So unsafe, yet all book stores and libraries seem to have this set up. With the tall shelves it makes it difficult to accurately get a read on the spines. You don't even know what section taxidermy actually falls under, education maybe?

“Nate, where do you think a book on taxidermy would be?” you called out as you passed by him.

“...hobby?” that didn't sound right but you'd give it a shot anyway.

This should be fun, the hobby section was so disorganized and it took up nearly half the store too, Book & Nook had everything from fishing, to crochet, cooking, the art of film making, hell even had a cryptid hunting book a book that you may have to look into a bit later. You closed your eyes and let your intuition guide you, when you looked up you saw a thin black...vine, no whisp? It undulates in less than rhythmic movements nearly like a snake but it has no head, and not unlike a tentacle but without suckers. It's another hallucination so you were keen to ignore it until it stretched past your head, giving you an added auditory hallucination where you swore you could hear wind rushing past your ears, it swirled around you until it flew to the shelf and tapped on a book. Cautiously you walked over to it, it's never good to play into these delusions. Once you got close enough the black shape was gone but on the shelf was a creme colored paper back titled “Manual of Taxidermy: Complete Guide of Preserving Birds and Mammals.”

Walking to Nate with the book in your hands you asked him to read it and make sure you weren't having an episode and making everything up right now. You'd have to try harder to go to sleep tonight if that were the case.

“Oh you found your book huh?” he said looking down at the title.

Well this is getting weird fast, but you nod nonetheless. Might as well thank the weird hallucination gift right. Leaving him to do whatever it is he plans on doing the rest of the day, you go to the back. And just as the book instructs you set to cleaning the skull by setting it in some water and changing it as many times as the water runs murky. The book is quiet helpful to a beginner like yourself but it does seem a bit outdated from the bits of information you know from taxidermists blogs and vulture culture posts on the internet. Reading it in between water changes is a great way to pass the time though, not like you guys get any real customers anyways.

The bell rings as the front door opens and closes alerting you to someone's arrival on your third water change. Needing a little bit of mental stimulation you walk out into the front where Big Jo and Little Jo are talking to Nate. Little Jo sees you and skitters away from her father to rush you, she stops about a foot away and holds her arms wide open. She's a hugger but upon meeting you had never even thought people could be touch adverse so keeping in mind that you might not want to be touched she's learned to invite you into hugs and it's your choice to allow it or not. Placing a hand on your bicep you give a squeeze, checking your tolerance you find the thought bearable. Placing your arms outstretched at your sides Jo rushes your torso for her hug.

After she nearly body slammed you into the wall, and  let her death grip go she was off on a tangent about so many things. Her excited rapid blinking tic, one she developed after meeting you, triggering your own.

“Ok so you remember how last week I told you that Jessie Kinsleton said that Micheal Saleisa told Gigi B, not Gigi S. that Meghan,” you had no clue the lives of eleven year olds had gotten so complex, from the gossip you heard from Jo it seemed that the school's sixth graders were plotting for a war with an ice cream parlor up the street. No clue why, maybe just to fuck the system, kids are weird, preteens are weirder...and angry.

But you nod to Jo listening to her every word, and trying to calm your eyelids so you could actually open your eyes. After being told the sequence of events that would happen in the Tween Armageddon, something to do with Marco Salvator ordering three dozen donuts and a flock of geese, your eyes finally gained their ability to see back. Black whisps, much like the one from earlier, wandered all around your vision, it looked like a  dark smoke had settled eye level within the shop and was snaking through the isles.

Catching the movement of your eyes Jo looked around the shop too. Seeing nothing she turned back to you concerned, “Hey it's okay, nothin's there.”

Hearing the drop in volume of the normally chatty tween, Big Jo and Nate pause their conversation to turn their attention to you and follow you're gaze.

“Kid, you ain't sleepin' again?” Big Jo can already gauge by the bags under your eyes but he's a polite man so he feels the need to ask rather than state his assumptions.

“Day 6.” You answer simply, ever since you've started at Book & Nook the whole Cowell family became acutely aware of many of your disorders. By their record your longest time spent awake was ten days, you however adamantly say that you were an hour's mark away from ten full days so the longest you've been up is nine days in a row. And those are just the cases they know of since you've moved to Kepler.

Big Jo shook his head as a stern father would, which he is, “I have half the mind to send you home to rest.”

“That won't work.” you really don't mean to sound so coarse but it's so irritating having to go over this at least once a week.

“What about those gummy things Dia got you?”

“Long term that kind of stuff has no effect, sure it'll make me drowsie for an hour or two but even if it made me sleep one night I can't use it all the time. And before you ask the same questions again, caffeine has no real effect on me so limiting my intake will do nothing and weed doesn't do a thing for me either.” you state plainly, monotone as you present facts that everyone in the room already knows.

Looking at the stern face of Big Jo's and the exasperated face of Nate you continue, “I know it must be frustrating for you to not be able to help, but I'm content living like this. I like my late night adventures and when I do sleep it's really pleasant.”you threw in a smile for added comfort.

“Kid tha's not the point, there's somethin' wrong with you, medically I mean.” he's pinching the bridge of his nose, probably counting to ten to calm himself from raising his voice.

“Tons of people suffer from insomnia and there isn't anything a doctor could do for me except look for underlying conditions.” Big Jo's about to retort when you continue with, “Plus my dad and uncle both have insomnia as well so my case is due to the genetic lottery I lost.” You say with a hint of finality of your situation, you had to come to terms with this condition all the way back in high school. Having a decade to get used to your strange condition and the limitations it places on you from time to time. Whereas the Cowell family's only had two months to process this information, and you understand it'll take awhile before they stop being concerned. Same thing happened with you parents and friends back then too.

For now you're only met with more head shakes as if they were saying 'what are we going to do with you'. Leaving your medical issues aside Nate and Big Jo continue to talk shop, when the set up Nate just put on display catches Jo's eye.

Like lightening the tween was away from your side and by the new display shelf it looked like it held graphic novels. That's a first since you've been here, you walk over to join Jo knowing the second you do she'll start on about what's got her so excited. Most people might say you over indulge the child and coddle her but you actually just think it's really important to take interest in what makes kids happy. It helps them find their voices and also shows them that it's normal to get excited and like things.

“We got the TAZ graphic novels in?!” you hate rhetorical questions but smile and nod at her anyway.

“Have you read them? No, well you've listen to the podcast...what omg! Ok so there's these three brothers and their,” Jo begins regaling you with tales from the podcast known as The Adventure Zone and how fun they've made dungeons and dragons seem with their amazing story telling and funny characters.

You aren't sure if a show where the main group of heroes being called Tres Horny Bois is exactly age appropriate but when you look to Big Jo he kind of just shrugs it off. Turning you attention back to Jo who's now monologing about mongooses you just smile at the weird family you've found yourself in.

Let it be said that a tween with a slightly unhealthy fixation on something can find anyway to drag it back to that fixation. The day flew by with Jo explain the inner workings of dungeons and dragons, fifth edition, to you, her father, and her cousin after you mentioned why she didn't play. Apparently she'd love to but wanted a story fitting for her friend's to adventure. So being the good older cousin, father, and weird family friend you all were you came up with a story plot for her to use with her campaign.

The Jos had a lot of fun bonding over this little workshop and you guys even had food delivered so you and Nate could stay later. What was meant to just be a quick workshop turned into a mini family game night after you made several nearly impossible puzzles that wouldn't be used in Jo's campaign due to no one at the current table understanding how to solve it even after you showed them several times.

Overall it was fun and you think you might actually be tired enough to go to sleep tonight. You tried to stay and help clean up but Big Jo put his foot down and told you to go get some rest, he'd seen the way you occasionally look around the room as if something was moving behind them all. You may have started off as a cashier two months ago for him but his daughter has opened up a lot since meeting you and discovering that tics aren't so uncommon and there are people who wouldn't care or make a big deal out of them. Because of that you've earned your keep in his family, he already has you down on the list for Christmas cards.

Knowing you can't fight the six foot four man you roll your eyes and bid everyone good night, little Jo coming in to steal another hug from you and thank you for helping with her game. Checking on your skull you see the water's clear and dump it in the sink of the break room before leaving the skull to dry overnight, it's for sure gonna make Nate scream tomorrow, you can't help but chuckle at that.

Leaving through the back door and into the dusk colored parking lot you notice your trunk is popped open slightly. You definitely heard it shut earlier this morning. You blink before your head jerks to the right, unsettled by possibility of a break in and not risking it you head back inside.

“Hey, I think my car may have been broken into.” you stand awkwardly in the door way unsure of how to proceed.

Big Jo and Nate are out of the door as fast as they can. They find your car unlocked with the trunk popped, you know they weren't trying to brush you off when they asked several times if you did in fact lock your car this morning. After hearing your affirmative response each time, they began to inspect your car checking to make sure all wires are properly secured under the hood, Nate even retrieved the jack out of his own car to take a look under the car, ensuring the brakes hadn't been messed with. They started the car up just fine and it didn't appear tampered with. Even though nothing looked out of place and Nate's car, sitting in the same parking lot, hadn't been touched you appreciated them checking to make sure you were alright.

Knowing you're perceived as a woman by most, even outside of this small town, makes you uneasy when it comes to terms of abductions and violence. You know the chances and hear the stories whether it's from the victim's mouth or a podcaster's telling the story the dead can't. Nate offered to follow you home and make sure you were ok but you declined and said you'd call them both when you got home. Big Jo said to just call his home phone because Nate would be coming over tonight anyway, and if they didn't make it there before you called Dia was already at home and would pass the message along. You'll probably still try and give the shop a call if Dia answers, it wouldn't sit right with you if you wound everyone up just to not and at least try to settle their nerves.

With one final check of you car, the men even going so far as to lift seats up and feel under them, they sent you off. You drove carefully on the road tonight, ready to pull off into the shoulder at the slightest hint that something was wrong. Not even the radio was on something that you really didn't like driving without, but if there was the chance for you to catch a shift in tone of the machine you wanted to. Eventually you did end up making it home in one piece and you had called the Cowell family home, from the safety of your car, and got a spazztic eleven year old asking if you'd made it home alright. It took a little bit of coaxing but Little Jo calmed down and shouted to her parents that you were on the phone and alright.

“Kid,” looks like Big Jo took the phone away from Little Jo, “Everything ok on the drive.” Big Jo could hear the movement and shutting of your car door, he'd have to say he was relieved you waited until you were on the phone before exiting. He knew you lived out past the quiet zone in Old Lydia's house. A fact that did little for the unease he felt when he thought you were being watched.

“Oh, yea drive was fine, too quiet but fine.” you said simply as you began circling the cottage. Nothing seemed out of place on the outside, even looking above eye level where people tended to get sloppy in stalking or home invasion cases, everything seemed fine.

“Hope you don't mind if I keep you for a bit.” You had just unlocked your door and stepped in.

“Nah, kid 's fine.” you give a hum of acknowledgment as you look through the kitchen in cabinets, under cupboards, and even under the table.

“You're a smart kid.” he's taken that fatherly overtone that makes you roll your eyes. You understand the sentiment of parents and parental figures having pride in their child or ward but it's always been so weird to you when they feel the need to bring it up. Especially when they bring it up in situations that are dangerous, like can you not make it sound like someone's about to die.

Finding nothing in the living room, hall closet or bathroom you make sure all the windows are locked and dowels are in place to keep them from opening. And you double check that both the back and front doors are secured. You can hear the hushed whispers on the other end of the line, Dia must have just found out about your car, as you rustle through your kitchen utensil drawers taking out two forks before you make your way to your bedroom.

Once in your room you checked your closet and under your bed. Finding nothing you  went to the window in your room, the one right by your bed, you checked the lock, secured it in place with two dowels, and then covered it throwing a thick blanket over the curtain rod to ensure no one would be viewing you in your sleep or the precautions you were about to do. Turing around and locking your bedroom door you then jam one fork into the closed door crease, right below the locking mechanism, and jammed the other fork perpendicular through the prongs. You attempted to open the door with all your weight but only could get an inch in before the forks would stop more movement.

“Kid you alright over there?” it's rushed, he probably heard the commotion with your make shift lock.

“Yea, just had to add another lock to the door.” you trust the Cowell's but you understand how stupid it'd be to let them know exactly how you were defending yourself. Even if it wasn't them there's no telling if the person who broke into your car was outside and just good at hiding. You could also be too jumpy from your true crime shows but you figure it's better to be safe.

“I think everything's good Big Jo.” taking a final glance around your room eye's landing on the bed, “Think I'm even ready to go to sleep tonight too.” a small half laugh leaves your mouth.

“Alright kid, you call if you need anything got it.” it's an order not a request.

“Got it, good night.” Big Jo might think that'd been rude coming from anyone else but from you he can only roll his eyes at the brevity and the dial tone he's met with. He has his own sweep to do, if they were targeting his employee there was a reason. He hasn't had any problems since coming to Kepler but someone always eventually comes along who can't take a hint.

Even combing through your home with Big Jo on the line you didn't feel safe having your bed by the window anymore and moved it away and in front of the closet door. You'd rearrange your room later but for tonight this would have to do. By some grace of god you were actually able to shut your brain down tonight and rest. Maybe it was the excitement and merriment from hanging out with the Cowells or more likely the situation you find yourself in of perhaps being a target for something insidious.

Whatever the case may be you are off to the land of dreams before you know it. And unbeknownst to you the same eyes from this morning watch your home. They may not have seen what you did in there but they'd be sure to catch you when you come out. They'll wait all night to catch you if they have to.