#there were so many that just got abandoned cause my brain does not want the pairings anymore

[pxper-riings]

.

[idakyrie]

(This is part of an AU and a LOT OF TEXT asdfg) WHAT IF.... That weird deformed shape of Fake Peppino (AKA Bruno) is actually that way because of a brain problem (known as TBI)? That would explain that peculiar way of behaving (Silly? Goofy? Childish? Doesn't think straight? Doesn't know what he's doing? Almost 0 common sense, that almost permanent expression on his face, that strange way of moving... He is doing his best to stay on his feet and not melt completely (even if it shows a bit), he can barely speak coherently, among many things (WE MUST PROTECT HIM).

I'd like to think that the brain is the only organ he has, because the rest is just... Mmh, slime? amalgam? xD, it could be a HUMAN brain that Pizzahead (his creator) got (I like to think he is actually someone insane in a bad way and too different when it comes to his lab, just pretending to smile, hints of psychopath), that brain belonged to another chef, here I clarify about getting 2 adns: Peppino and Bruno (this last I mean the one from the abandoned pizzeria and yes, he is dead, where the hell Pizzahead was going to get that brain from? Actually dead for trusting a humanoid pizza)

So Fake Peppino has 2 adns? Yeah, that makes sense... Although Peppino and him don't look quite the same (Although Pizzahead's goal was that, to be the perfect impersonator), except for the clothes BUT here comes my favorite part, his stable form. 

Actually, his brain problem can be treated, he would still have 2 forms: stable and unstable, this unstable form is the one we all know, it would be present whenever he feels threatened, in danger or any other negative emotion (although he can take any form whenever he wants and be a mix of both forms).

Some history: Bruno is the first "clone" to be created, it went well, everything was perfect and one more minion... UNTIL... Pizzahead has a complicated, abusive, stupid, manipulative and ignorant attitude, basically he never treated him well, it started with scolding and even abuse (And yup! it was Pizzahead himself who caused him great injury) Why? He is a demanding and perfectionist guy, the clone had to come out EQUAL to Peppino (the irony is that he hates him and only does it to fuck up his life, to be able to replace him with some of the SO MANY clones out there) at the time he thought it was a GOOD IDEA to mix both adns and come out the same as the original, I repeat that this guy is an idiot?

Something funny is that after that he made other prototypes of clones (Classified as second generation idk) but these... None came out well, they are aberrations and can be found in a frozen chamber, he doesn't want to relive that moment and kept trying until he finally succeeded, the famous Peppino clones that can be found everywhere in the lab, inferior versions, weaker and more animal behavior than the first "clone".

Here comes another problem, Pizzahead paid more attention and was nicer to those clones, making Bruno jealous and annoyed, he never received a good treatment from him (Still he was loyal) and he had to fix and clean up all the atrocities the clones did, that means ALL the time, he could not defend himself and lived in silence, developing a great hatred towards them, precisely his behavior changes drastically to the most aggressive, just hearing a "croak" makes him angry (MODO BERSEK GOES BRR)

Many years enduring physical and emotional pain until he ends up in what? In an abandoned pizza restaurant? Just him being abandoned being very bad in all aspects? Completely alone for years, the only contact he had with others were those clones that invaded his "new home" (explaining why there are so many peppino corpses in that pizzeria).

(that girl in the image is an oc of mine hshs)

Bruno still has that silly and innocent personality, sensitive but at the same time disturbing if something bothers him. Paternal sense, playful and a big fan of Peppino, sometimes he annoys him by imitating him HAHA. Does he keep that frog behavior? YES! It's not as obvious as the clones because he knows how to control it. 

At the beginning he doesn't like to be touched, after all the problems he went through he doesn't even know if there are good people in this world, so gaining Bruno's trust is a bit complicated but if you talk nice to him (as you would do with your pet XD) the interaction will be effective. 

Does he have traumas? Besides he doesn't want to see Pizzahead and the clones again, or there will be a massacre, it's the first time someone is nice to him, he's afraid of abandonment and losing the little progress he has made... AND NEVER EVER SEE OR HEAR ANYTHING RELATED TO ANY LABORATORY AGAIN, his life was hell there, anything related either scares or angers him.

If you have any questions, you can ask and also, sorry if there are errors in my English, it is not my native language, I hope you can understand ;w;

[via-the-cryptid]

one of you, I don’t remember who but if it was you then here you go, mentioned Ellie befriending Ace. it took me a minute to realise that you probably meant the psychic little girl and not the pirate, but… now that I think about it, that’s actually a really good idea.

first off, I’m going to start by saying that I barely remember anything about Ace except hat she was super psychic, scared the Joker shitless once (good for her), and I think ended up dying as a result of her powers overloading her brain. I also remember Batman stayed with her until she died, but past that, nothing! so if my interpretation of her is off, well, that ain’t Via’s problem.

picture this: Ellie, approximately 14 in physical terms, only been alive for like a year or two. it’s post-Portal Incident II: The Reckoning, so her body is stabilized but her powers are going bat-crazy. she’s alone in an unfamiliar city with far too many restless spirits, being chased by actual supervillains, and she’s scared. maybe she ducks into an alley or hides in an abandoned building, and maybe one of those spirits was watching.

it’s been a long time since anything has caught Ace’s attention in the mortal realm. she likes to check in from time to time, see what’s happening as the world moves on without her, but it’s useless to linger over what she can’t affect. in the end, it only ever makes her miserable.

but sometimes, she can’t help but watch. sometimes, like today, she sees another little girl in trouble. she thinks, ‘she’s like me’, and she needs to know that this girl makes it through the night. even if she doesn’t, Ace still has enough power in death to show her a good dream before another ghost is added to Gotham’s countless number of lost souls. she follows the girl into the building, watches as she curls up in the corner, out of sight and barely there.

and then she looks straight at Ace.

“Did you want something?” Ellie asks, and she doesn’t break eye contact with the spirit floating in the doorway, even as her eyes go wide. “If you have unfinished business, I might be able to help, y’know, so long as you’re not trying to cause trouble.”

“You can see me.”

“Sure can. Kinda hard not to, your outfit’s pretty distinct.”

It’s the outfit she died in. Ace doesn’t really want to wear it anymore, not when she’s so far removed from that era of her life, but it isn’t like she knows how to.

“So,” Ellie says, “what’s your deal? Are you just here to watch it are you picking a fight? ‘Cause I’ll warn you, I don’t know how to play poker and everyone else so far has refused to reach me.”

Ace blinks. “I’m not here to fight with you.”

“Okay, cool. Are you… here to fight someone else?”

“No. I was watching you.”

“Well, that’s a bit unsettling.”

“You were alone, and you looked cold. I had to make sure you weren’t going to die in here.”

“Again?” Mutters Ellie, and Ace’s expression snaps from intrigued to guarded in less than a second.

“What does that mean?” She asks, glaring right at Ellie, and the other girl grimaces.

“Did not mean to say that one out loud. Okay, so hi, I’m Ellie, and basically I’m dead—”

“What? No, you’re not. I would be able to tell if you were dead.”

“Half-dead, then. I was a clone OFA guy who was half human and half ghost, ‘cept I was falling apart, so I decided to fix it by doing the same thing he did to become half-ghost, and I ended up standing inside a portal to the Ghost Zone while it was opening. Make sense so far?”

Ace’s jaw is dropping, but she can’t seem to find it in herself to care. “Half-dead.”

“Oh, we’re still stuck on that, then. Basically, if you— actually never mind, I don’t really know how it works. I can turn from ghost to human, if that helps.”

“How?” Ace whispers. “You said you were… falling apart. And a clone. And half-dead.”

“Well, now I’ve got two out of those three, since I fixed the first problem. Do you want to maybe sit down or something? This is gonna be a long story if you want the whole thing.”

Yes, she absolutely does. Ace float across the room and settles in next to Ellie, folding her knees up to copy the other girl’s pose. “My name is Ace.”

“Nice to meet you, Ace. I’m Ellie. Wait, I think I said that already.”

Somewhere on the other side of Crime Alley, unknowing of the two girls hidden away in a long-forgotten corner, Edward Nygma slams his head down on the desk as he once again fails to pinpoint the location of the mysterious white-haired girl.

[tamayakii]

Simonrileyscockring aka Maxim is a liar and claims frogchiro stole their ideas. Here's proof he lied.

@simonrileyscockring Now since you dont wanna acknowledge me or my post calling you out, i decided to make it its own post so more people can see it. I don't like liars. i don't like virtue signalers "dni proshippers" we interacted tons of times, i sent you asks, my own art, we talked in dms, i even checked on you when i worried about you and now you're worried about "proshippers" and realize the term i identify with, which means "anti-harassment, respecting peoples fictional preferences" and not whatever tiktok-brained bullshit you think it is? So convenient you say that AFTER i send you an ask asking if you were gonna acknowledge what the hell you did. edits: the only edits i did was "@/" Konigsblog cause they said they apologized and acknowledged what they did, whether or not the apology is accepted is not up to me.

original call out below: you absolute dunce. i LOVED your writing before but the drama on your page, responding to hate anons rather than just deleting their asks drove me off. I have so many words for you

EVERYONE can see your personal posts, they just don't LIKE them cause who the fuck wants to like a post that's a vent post? it feels wrong, people see it and choose not to react, people see you vagueing about someone stealing "your" concepts (which theyve written BEFORE cod fandom erupted on tumblr and aka before YOUR popularity) they'll want to know  cause stealing writing is very serious!! but oh wait!!! they didn't steal shit!!! They never wrote about a teenager, which btw when you say all this shit and show no proof it fucking sucks!! cause people are so tiktok-brained that they will believe anything!

Because you decided to pull a fuckin mean girl move with @/konigsblog you ruined someone's love for writing and this fandom. "no one got harmed" my fucking ass. You as a writer should know that motivation comes and goes, and that hyperfixtations can be the closest thing to people. So rather than acting like a fucking man, you vague and claim they wrote about a minor as well, btw heres the teenager you claim is well, a teenager

Scaramouche is a puppet made by Raiden Ei, over 500 years ago to the current time in genshin impact. When Raiden Ei's sister had passed and she wanted to make a puppet to be the archon but she left him in a slumbering state, free from her own control cause he came to life crying which puppets aren't supposed to do. He woke up and thought she abandoned him, then OVER 5 HUNDRED YEARS AND THREE BETRYALS LATER. The fandom baby-fies him admittedly, but he's not obsessed with his mother nor does he have a teenager mentality. He's a bitter and aloof character, only getting mad when his creation or betrayals are brought up,



"a teenager physqiue" Okay lets challenge that, In the game this model is called Short_Male, it been used for Cyno, Tighnari, Kazuha, Xiao, Albedo, Mika, Chongyun, Bennet, Xingqiu, Heizou, Gorou, Venti, Razor, and even the male traveller.(I'm gonna use basic terms since you obviously never played the game if you think he's child like) Cyno is basically an officer in the game for the Akademiya, aka an adult. Tighnari is basically like a forest ranger, an adult. Kazuha sails around the sea while being a poet AND a sword expert because of his family line, becoming an expert swordsman takes YEARS even in real life, he's an adult. Xiao is over 5,000 years old and a "deputy" for an Archon. Albedo is a synthetic experiment human made 500 years ago from the current timeline in the game. Heizou is also a cop, an adult. Gorou is a fucking ADMIRAL, an adult. VENTI is literally over 2k years old. an adult. The traveller is AT LEAST over a thousand years old, cause the traveller that you choose slumbers for 500 years.

The rest are hinted to be late teenagers or early twenties depending on who you ask.

I even took pictures of these models in-game compared to a Tall_Male model!

Here's scaramouche, compared to Diluc and Tighnari! who aren't children! Now let's see an actual model of CONFIRMED children, why don't we?

here we have klee, who despite being something like 50 or 75 years old, is still mentally a child!! So she has the child model since she is still physically growing up, unlike Scaramouche AND Albedo.

Scaramouche isn't a child. he doesn't have child-like features. He's not obsessed with his mother, cause he does not have one cause motherfucker is a 500-year-old puppet, he's mentally an adult, physically an adult that was prepared for archon duties.

Sorry, i droned on about this for so long but i just fuckkking hate it when people are wrong. So blindly like you are,

here's proof that you said that, incase you go on a deleting frenzy.

Now let's talk about the point system, point systems are so widespread in real life and in fiction, even i used a point system once before. So to see it, in a COMPETITION(cause they are in the pervy AU) between men isn't weird to see. If you genuinely had a problem with this, Kin would've LOVED to talk it out with you as they're lovely and understanding human being.

the stray cat au? i even remember reading about it on both of your blogs but heres the thing.... the last time they wrote about it was in October.. of last year.

i had to search your blog just in case i was wrong in thinking they wrote it before you did.

as you can see, this is march of this YEAR. checking your archive, you made your blog back in February of this year. To claim they stole your concept of stray cat is beyond fucking insane, as well as bringing up the post with scaramouche in it cause.. that was over at least 10 months ago, cause Kin had went on a hiatus when December came around and came back with a COD hyperfixtation.

Onto the stealing the hubull concept! Searching their blog I can't find any evidence of them even writing a bull-like idea, at all. So you seemed to pull that one straight out of your ass.

So let's go over this real quick! one more time for the people in the back!!!

@simonrileyscockring made a post vagueing that someone stole their concepts and ideas, @/konigsblog replies below asking, hey who is it? maxim responds saying its @frogchiro and claiming that they wrote about a teenager and stole their point system for an au. Publicly. Instead of going to Frogchiro and trying to work it out, like a 23-year-old should. You keep drilling on about it, claiming that people trying to defend them are being your entertainment now

sure some people shouldn't have come in attacking you, i won't defend people who throw cruel words at you. You can claim this to be an attack but all i'm doing is calling you out, cause as you claim "it doesn't affect the way you live your life" you let it go and ruin someone else's way of life, destroying their love for fandom and writing. As a writer yourself that ive SEEN struggle with motivation AND hate anons, you of ALL people should fucking understand that getting your love for writing ruined is a terrible thing to happen especially when its an outlet for stress.

"i wanna talk shit in peace, not have my shit gossiped about." .. that is noooot how the internet works OR how shit-talking works, as the biggest shit-talker in MY family, i understand that when i talk shit, there's another person behind me talking shit. When YOU post vagueing about someone, and then continue talking about them, people will gossip about you. End of story. You should've blocked them in the first place, you also should've messaged Kongisblog PRIVATELY if you really wanted to avoid all of them. The only screenshots that i know that kin was sent, were you confirming that they "stole" your ideas and that they wrote about a teenager. How can they refute your claims without knowing what your claims are. They had to defend themselves from people in their inbox.

So, really in the end here, you fucked up. As a previous fan of your im highly disappointed in you but seeing how you act i doubt that will affect you, i make this post-DEFENDING frogchiro from pointless claims, AND in hopes that anyone who wants to follow you. Will find this post cause you are a fucking asshole to the core. Step back and realize that while it may not affect you, your actions affect others.

[dirtytransmasc]

Just reading you about spider and agreeing he deserve better. Srsly my heartaches for him and everyone in the fandom painting him being a bad guy is too much like his gray character guys.

but what I notice from him he will never be truly accepted by the two species both humans and na'vi for the human's his to na'vi or (savage) and to the na'vi his the constantly reminder of what the human's did to their people and land and I cry for him for that. His just a kid who wants to be belonged and accepted but always getting rejected.

And what pisses me off is to those people who blamed spider for bringing the rda to the metkayina when in fact it was signal from norm and max got detected by the rda signal. And Jake also pissed me off saying that spider might betray them for telling where they are like sir that kid is literally a ride or die like did he ever think that the how dangerous humans are especially a military one those people will torture for info when like sir your was once a soldier you know how brutal they are? Did he not even think what will they do to spider a kid? Imagine if quaritch didn't step up that boy brain will melted off. So yes spider deserved better

spiders such a good kid, that like, yeah, by human nature he just wants to be accepted, but like, he so clearly tries to suppress it. like sure, he wears his hair like jake, paints blue stripes on himself, holds himself like they do, but we never see him actually try and force himself into their lives. he follows kiri and lo'ak around because they're his friends and they love him, but other then that, he tries to slink into the background and be useful. he doesn't want to be a burden, a reminder, one with the humans. he literally would do anything, sacrifice anything for the na'vi. he did one thing for himself (saving his father, who was one of the first, if not only adults to ever care about him in his entire life) after years of putting his wants and needs aside, and he gets absolutely shit on. like he's just a baby, who will never fit in anywhere, who "doesn't want" to fit in anywhere (cause 99% of humans suck and he doesn't want to hurt the na'vi anymore than he already does for existing.) and he's just hurting.

I think spider's gonna burn out by the end of these movies. not in the going villain or rouge sort of way, but I think we're definitely gonna see a breaking point where he's just done. cause it has to be so hard to keep going like that for years.

he's gotten kidnapped, tortured, dragged around by the rda, forced to watch brutal tulkun hunts and village raids, watched a sibling die to save him, gotten held at knife point by someone who should be like his mother, knowing she might kill him. he has given his all, and still just kept rolling with the punches like they didn't hurt. and still, everyone seems to expect the worst of him.

and that comment from jake, I took it two separate ways, but I guess they could both coexist;

he didn't trust spider to protect his family, despite the kids undying love and devotion for them, even after he was shown nothing but hate.

and/or

he knew they were going to break the poor kid and get what they wanted from him, no matter what it took.

I don't know which one makes me feel more sick. the thought that jake thought so lowly of spider, or the fact that he knowingly abandoned him to that fate. even if jake wasn't the kids guardian, he could have at least given enough of a shit to feign worrying about him, or mourning spider capture. I understand having to make harsh decisions like valuing the life of many over one (doesn't make it anymore palatable, but y'know, military politics) but like, he didn't give a single shit. that's what bothered me the most. they just forgot about the kid.

with what james cameron has said, I think things are going to start sorta looking up for our boy, but I don't have the most hope he's gonna get a truly 'happy' ending. I think so much damage has been done already, that spiders always gonna be that character that breaks my heart.

[rock-and-compass]

Angel 5.13 - Why We Fight

(I wrote this series of essays many years ago, probably around the time that the season 8 comics were being published. The were originally published on my LiveJournal and I'm reposting them here, mostly for personal archival purposes.)

I’m Angel! I kill the Bad Guys!

Yeah!!  Woo Hoo!    Yay!  … um��…. Yeah, okay ……Right.  Ummm………..Right. Ahh…yeah…

I’ll just go back to my desk now; I’ve got a few papers to sign… yeah...

So, he does. He goes back to work and tries not to think of the heroic, Fantasy-Angel, she showed him he was and should be. He tries not to think about the fact that he’s trapped here in the belly of the beast with no foreseeable escape.  He’ll try not to think of his surrendered son . . . or her . . . But he does think of that fragile shoot of hope, miraculously germinated with her fleeting return and he’s worried about it. It’s getting no nutrition or encouragement. It’s stunted and in danger of dying. But he wants to keep it alive, he’s trying to keep it alive, he’s trying to think of Cordelia’s visit as a gift, trying not to think that, yet again he’s been kicked in the guts by the all-powerful forces that drive the universe, trying not to let that feeling of hurt and abandonment overwhelm him, trying not to think of how his best friend is dead because of….no, don’t go there, too dangerous. She didn’t think he should be here at Wolfram and Hart, but she had faith he could get out . . . if only he could figure out how.  And so, he sits and works and deliberately makes no sudden movements, he protects that pathetic sprout from further damage because it’s all he’s got, and he knows his life depends on it.

But ‘Why We Fight’ opens in quite a different place and time; the Atlantic Ocean, 1943. It’s an X-File-esque beginning. A commotion takes place on a submerged submarine that has been caused by an unseen complication. The captain of the ship is desperately trying to get his men to safety, another sailor is radioing for help. The men get to another compartment of the sub, seemingly to safety, but before the hatch can be locked the captain is grabbed from behind and injured badly. He calls for help. Sam Lawson, a handsome young ensign, is willing to oblige and goes to his captain’s aid, dragging the injured man back towards the doorway to safety. Before he can get there, a tug-of-war ensues; the unseen foe wants the captain too. Lawson and another sailor are horrified by the sight, and they are no match for their attacker’s superior strength. They fall back and are showered by blood as the captain meets his horrible fate. Lawson and his crewmate stumble to their feet, back away with terror and scramble into the next compartment of the vessel, sealing the hatch behind them.

Back in the present day it's business as usual. Angel and his team are meeting in the conference room. Eve has apparently vanished, and Angel wants confirmation that Lindsey is getting his just rewards in whatever hell hole the Senior Partners zapped him to. Gunn says it will be difficult to confirm; there is no conduit, no liaison, they are alone in this. Charles seems to be having some difficulty in recalling the proper protocol for establishing a new liaison. Considering that this kind of stuff has been second nature to him since the brain upgrade, we know this can’t be good. Oh, and nobody mentions Cordelia. Just sayin’.

Later, the elevator pings and the doors open; that handsome young officer from the submarine in 1943 steps out and he’s still, well, young and handsome. We’re savvy with the way things work in the Buffyverse. We know what this means.  Fred returns to her lab. She is not alone. Lawson has beaten her there. He’s reading one of her reports. Fred tries to get his attention. 

Lawson: Oh. Hi. I'm sorry. I was just trying to understand some of your equations here. I used to have a bit of a head for numbers. It's funny how you lose part of your mind when you stop using it.

He seems so nice, not dangerous at all. We know what he is, and he doesn’t seem dangerous. He seems sad and . . . regretful, but not dangerous. Fred asks if she can help him with something, but he assures her, no, Miss Burkle, he just came to talk. The fact that he knows her name alerts her to the risk his presence poses but he doesn’t try to hurt her, he just begins asking metaphysical questions. Is she happy working here? Does she enjoy what she does? Is she eager to start her day when she wakes each morning? Good questions. Fred edges to the door, answering only in a vague, non-committal way. He knows what she is up to, warns her not to try it because then he’ll have to stop her, which, one suspects, wouldn’t be very nice.

Fred: What do you want?  Lawson: Actually, I came to see your boss. Angel and I are... old acquaintances. I was friends with him back in the day, back when he was in his patriotic phase.

It’s New York, 1943. There are newspapers strewn across the floor. “Allies Strike Back” is the topmost headline. Angel is sitting, brooding, in his darkened apartment. The war is something he reads about, but it’s not his war. It doesn’t affect him. It’s just something that makes his disconnectedness from the world and the people who inhabit it even more apparent. This is not his ‘patriotic phase’, it’s his apathetic stage. Suddenly his door is kicked in. Men brandishing crossbows and stakes surround him. They know what he is, and they want to talk. They have an ‘offer’ for him.

Seems the U.S. boys have managed to capture a prototype submarine. Trouble is, on the way back to friendly waters it hit a snag. Now the sub is stuck in hostile territory, stricken, marking time until it is destroyed. Hmmm, that sub sounds like someone we know; Angel - Stricken in hostile territory, facing destruction unless he comes to his own rescue, which is, coincidently, what the men-in-black want Angel to do too with the sub.

It seems Angel’s visitors represent a relatively new government agency, “The Demon Research Initiative” and they’ve decided to coerce Angel into helping the cause.

Military Man: We need that sub, and we need you to deal with... what's on it. 

They show Angel a file of the cargo manifest. They know what’s on that sub, they want it dealt with, but they still want the boat and the secrets it holds. Once he opens the file Angel understands. Something in that file makes him comply and cooperate.

There are a couple of points of interest here. Firstly, the existence of the government authorised Demon Research Initiative creates and corroborates the history of government involvement in the demon realm as explored in season four of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Secondly, that it is a further example of Angel being coerced into someone else’s agenda, a tendency that has proved habitual in his quest for redemption. 

On the sub, Lawson has the surviving sailors gathered in relative safety. He is concerned about his men and determined to get them out of this in one piece. Amongst the Americans is a lone Nazi, the sole survivor from the takeover of the sub perhaps? A valuable asset for interrogation? Their objective is to survive where they are until help can arrive. They have two days of air and a faint hope that those ‘things’ won’t figure out how to get through to them. They think that the ‘things’ are a creation of the Nazi’s, and more proof of Nazi monstrousness. 

They hear screaming from beyond their safety zone. They realise that one of their crewmates is still alive back there, being tortured by God knows what. Lawson, showing foolhardy bravery, wants to rescue him. The others blanch at the very notion. The unfortunate sailor is as good as dead, there’s nothing they can do for him and risking their own necks to rescue the lost won’t save any of them. Nevertheless, Lawson is determined. Guns are pointed; the survivors begin to turn on each other. And again, we are vaguely reminded of Angel, his impulses echo through Lawson. A brave but reckless decision was made, that put him and all his friends in danger to save the life of his seemingly unsalvageable son. Yet at least Lawson’s men knew what was happening around them and had the chance to protest against their sacrifice. Angel’s team had no such consideration.

The sailors are distracted by a metallic banging coming from the torpedo room. Lawson recognises the pattern of the sound as an SOS signal in Morse code. With pistols drawn they open the torpedo hatch to find, much to their surprise, a man, Angel, looking a little like a drowned rat. They free him but are suspicious; how could a man get down to them with no assistance, no air, and no suit? Angel avoids the question asking for the man in charge. As a result of the captain’s demise, Lawson reluctantly accepts the position, but once Angel provides him with a particular security code, he relinquishes it to the new arrival without hesitation.  The sailors are impressed. Angel seems like some kind of superhero, or at the very least, a super-soldier – just like Captain America. He re-enforces this conception when he shows no fear about confronting the monstrous killer at the other end of the boat.

Angel: …It's OK, Lawson. I know what I'm up against. Don't open up this door for anything other than me.

He knows precisely what’s at the other end of the sub, has done since he read the Initiative’s damn report. Consequently, Angel displays no surprise when he finds Spike trying to force his way through the hatch door. Spike looks different. Gone is the light chestnut hair colour from his earliest days, but the bleach blonde hasn’t been adopted yet. Instead, his hair is jet black and slicked back – very villainish, and he’s wearing a very fetching ankle length leather jacket, with a swastika above the elbow – but he’s not a Nazi, he just ate one and took a shine to the coat. He feels better they got Angelus too; doesn’t feel so bad about falling for the old ‘free virgin blood party’ scam (see Spike vs. Dracula, IDW Publishing for a prelude to his capture). Spike and “Angelus” head through to the next compartment where they find two more vampires captured by the Nazis - Nostroyev and the Prince of Lies

 “Angelus” forbids the consumption of the remaining crew. They will need the humans to sail the boat so that they can get off the bottom of the ocean. Nostroyev doesn’t want to play by these rules, and doesn't want to be told what he can and can’t do by Angelus. He wants to kill whomever he wants, when he wants. Angel can’t let that happen, so he dusts the non-compliant vampire without hesitation. He has stamped his authority on both sides now:

Angel:  We don't kill the humans 'till we reach land. Is that clear?  Spike:  Heil Hitler.

But the rebellion is a symbolic display only. Angelus is in command and Spike falls into line, just as he’s always done (although not without a shot at Angel’s dictatorial tendencies).  

Back at the office Angel is doing some paperwork. Lawson arrives. They trade ‘pleasantries’, mainly about the ironic ease of access to this supposedly highly secured building. But they quickly get to the crux:

Lawson: Seems like you're doing pretty well for yourself. It's a far cry from all those years you spent in the gutters, eating rats.  Angel: You've been following my life. I'm touched.  Lawson: I just check in every decade or so. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Mr. Vermin-eater himself was suddenly fighting evil and running Wolfram & Hart. Mind explaining that one to me? Those two don't exactly go hand in hand. 

Angel can’t explain it, it’s complicated. Lawson agrees.

Lawson: Find that's true about most things these days. I don't mean to sound like an old man, but... We used to live in simpler times, didn't we? Never thought I'd miss being on that sub. Things made a kind of sense. 

Simpler times - good guys, bad guys, right and wrong, war, peace, man or monster – easy. Except it wasn’t really simpler – he’s just looking back with rose coloured glasses, and doesn't want to acknowledge other versions, other interpretations of events…

Back on the sub, Angel has assumed total command. The sailors recognise his authority without question. He’ll get them through if they follow his lead. Angel makes the introductions this time and advises Lawson to put the other creatures to work, if he can use them. But Lawson doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand why they’re working with them, or for that matter, why they’re being allowed to live when they are responsible for butchering the majority of the crew. It’s all very allegorical of Team Angel’s life at Wolfram and Hart, isn’t it? And here also we begin to see the difference (and similarities) between Lawson and Angel.

Lawson: I don't think we'll need 'em.  Angel: They're extra hands.  Lawson: They're monsters. And I don't know why we—  Angel: You don't need to know why. We gotta bring this sub in. Those are our orders. Isn't that the point? Following orders?  Lawson: There's a difference between orders... and purpose, sir. I didn't sign on 'cause I needed directions. Hell, growin' up, I used to make fun of the military boys. Always figured they wouldn't know how to tie their shoes if someone didn't give 'em the go-ahead. Then I saw pictures of what the Krauts were doing. Evil's spreading, sir... and it's not just over there. It was on my ship, it killed my crew, and we gotta stop it! And I've been scared out of my mind since I signed on for this duty, but I can keep it together, I can even handle dying, if I know it's for a greater purpose.  Angel: We got a job to do. That job is gonna help us win the war. I don't need you to understand every detail but just know we're fightin' on the same side. I need you to trust that I'm gonna get us all through this... safe and sound.

Lawson has a commitment, to his men, to his captain, to his ship, to his mission, to his country, to the cause. He is a quietly heroic character, the very best of humanity on display. But for Angel, at this stage of his existence, it's not about a cause or a mission, it’s about a job that he’s been forced into doing and he just wants to get in and get it done and get out again. Simple as that. One wonders if a similar rationale was used for taking his team to Wolfram and Hart. He went there, accepted their proposal to achieve an end – a new life for Connor. It was never about the higher ideal of fighting evil from within the beast; that was just the ‘party line’ he adopted to explain the decision. Going to Wolfram and Hart was never about a mission or a cause. It was about a job. And the identity crisis he’s experienced this season is the consequence because he can’t be the ‘it’s just a job’ apathetic guy anymore, it just doesn’t jibe with the Angel he developed into or the Angel he wants to be. 

Back in the present Lawson questions Angel’s motivation for any of it. Did he really care, or was he there just to save his own ass? Well, yeah…that and that wayward grandson of his. But Lawson is making some philosophical demands. He wants to understand; to know why they do what they do. Angel doesn’t have the answers he’s looking for. He’s not in the mood to talk anyway. Angel catches Lawson unawares and goes to stake him, apparently, he’d promised as much should they ever meet again. But Lawson has something up his sleeve, something that makes Angel stop in his tracks.

He has Gunn and Fred and Wesley tied up, standing on unstable swivel chairs, gagged and wire tied around their throats. He doesn’t need Angel to understand every detail, but he does need him to trust that he’ll get them all through this safe and sound.

Angel: Whatever you want from me... this isn't the way to get it.  Lawson: Already getting it. The worry in your eyes, fear of what might happen next, which is right on the mark, 'cause I got a funny feeling there's gonna be blood spilled tonight. For old times' sake some.

Lawson is bitter and he wants to make Angel suffer. Unusual behaviour for a vampire? Not completely unheard of. . . We’ve seen this kind of thing before:

Drusilla: (pouring Holy Water on Angel) The lamb is caught in the blackberry patch. My mummy ate lemons. Raw. She said she loved the way they made her mouth... tingle. Little Anne. Her favorite was custard... brandied pears. Angel:  Dru... Drusilla: Shhh! And pomegranates. They used to make her face and fingers all red. Remember. Hmm . . .  Little fingers; little hands . . . Do you? Angel:  If I could... Drusilla:  Bite your tongue! They used to eat cake, and eggs, and honey.  Until you came and ripped their throats out.

Back on the submarine Lawson has got the boat moving, slowly but surely. Spike is being obnoxious but obedient to his superior. Lawson makes the correct assumption that Angel’s confidence that Spike will do as he’s told is rooted in a pre-existing relationship. Lawson is starting to think, make connections, and wonder about this ‘super-soldier’ who miraculously arrived on the sub to save the day... 

There is a commotion in the neighbouring compartment. The Prince of Lies is having a crack at the Nazi officer. He has a sheaf of papers that have upset him enough to attack. Angel tries to pull him off the German and Lawson takes the opportunity to shoot him, with no effect. Finally, Angel is forced to stake the ancient vampire causing him to explode into a cloud of dust before the very eyes of the startled crew.  Lawson sends his men back to work despite their questions leaving Angel, Lawson and Spike to wonder what upset the prince in the first place. Spike guesses that it was the contents of papers, but they are written in German. He tries to ‘charm’ the Nazi soldier into talking. Angel says they don’t have time for this (but, hey, what else is there to do, really).  Spike won’t be distracted. He slips into ‘game-face’ to hurry things along a bit. The German talks, in German, and it turns out that Lawson knows enough of the language to make rough translations. So, with Spike menacing and Lawson interrogating them they are able to discover that the papers detail experiments involving stimulation and control of neurological impulses that the Nazis have been carrying out on vampires with the aim of creating a super army. Lawson is sickened. It’s one more monstrous plot that unequivocally proves the inhumanity of Nazi ideals; confirms the superiority of morally upright America. The German laughs at the young sailor’s naivety. They’re not the only ones interested in such knowledge he suggests as he looks pointedly at Angel for confirmation. 

Lawson:  You knew about this?  Spike: He did?  Angel: It was part of the mission

The information, not the sub, is the main objective of the entire assignment. The newly created Demon Research Initiative is, presumably, a little behind the eight-ball in that department, particularly in comparison to the Nazis. What better way to catch up than to steal your competitor's research? After all, one of the main objectives of war is to know what the enemy is up to and then try and do it better.

The penny finally drops for Spike; Angel is playing both sides and while the younger vampire respects the tactic, Lawson is less understanding.  He refuses to believe that his country would stoop to such levels, would resort to ruthlessness and evil in order to win. Not his government, not his country. The vampires marvel at his idealism. 

Spike: Yeah? Let me know how that works out for you, Popeye.  Angel: None of this matters. Your people are getting this ship and their men onboard that are still alive. That's all! Spike . . . torch it

So the papers are set alight but an explosion elsewhere on the ship distracts him momentarily. Inadvertently his coat catches fire. While trying to stop himself from burning Spike drops the flaming documents before they are completely destroyed. 

Hmmm… 

Are we sure that ‘Destiny’ is not interested in the white haired one? Providence perhaps or is it just irony? I mean come on – Angel is sent to a submarine to retrieve sensitive documents about Nazi advances in demon control but only goes on the mission because Spike is on the sub and his family loyalty kicks in. They think they have destroyed all evidence of the findings but unfortunately, it's not, and the information eventually falls into U.S. hands along with the sub and so, nearly sixty years later Spike is captured by the Initiative, is the beneficiary of said research courtesy of the neurological chip that regulates improper impulses and inadvertently opens the door to his redemption and then eventually, the reclamation of his soul and his relocation back into Angel’s world. The symmetry is lovely. 

The Germans are not happy to have the sub and their precious research slip through their fingers. They would rather see it destroyed than let the Americans have it. Pursuing forces attack, causing the sub to have to take the evasive action of diving deeper into the ocean's depths. While in retreat they are hit. The propulsion motor is incapacitated. They are dead in the water. Lawson is the only one on board with the know-how to get the engines going again. He goes to try and fix them – lives and the success of the mission depend on him.  While he’s thus engaged the German officer is able to stealthily sneak up on him and stab him in the gut with a long screwdriver, twisting it brutally to cause maximum damage. Lawson is done for, and he knows it and it sucks. But he tries to get it done all the same. Angel arrives, sees the situation and knows what he has to do. It’s the only way. He brings out his vampire fangs and bites deeply into Lawson’s neck. Then he cuts his own wrist on a jagged pipe and forces the bleeding wound against Lawson’s mouth. Initial reluctance to drink soon turns to enthusiasm as the transformation from man to monster begins.

Back in the control room Angel and Spike wait while the remaining sailors languish on the floor in obvious distress. 

Spike: Air's about gone. Your new boy better get the engines running before the fish start flopping.  Angel: He'll get it done.  Spike: Hope it's in time.

Spike knows what’s been done to save the sub, knows it hinges on the actions of his new ‘brother’. Still, he’s hungry and it would be something of a blessing to put a few of the dying sailors out of their misery. The engines start up. Lawson has successfully got them moving again. Angel tells Spike to help get the men up so they can get the boat surfaced. It’s their lucky day. Spike once again shows that even when he was the embodiment of evil, he was capable of self-restraint. While yes, he views the humans primarily as food, he is still able to interact with them beyond his epicurean desires because a) Angel bids him to, b) his sense of self-preservation is quite acute and c) that lingering taint of humanity (the same one that makes him sing God Save the King and offer ‘mercy’ as a valid reason for eating the slowly dying sailors) gives him that freedom. 

Angel goes to Lawson to congratulate him on a job well done. Sam wonders why they are heading to the surface with the Germans hot on their heels but Angel explains that it is to save the men’s lives. They need air.

Lawson: They swore to give their lives for their country... just like me. Besides, I'm hungry.  Angel: They're still your men.  Lawson: But they're not the mission... are they?

Gone is the admirable, home-town hero. In his place is the vampire version, contaminated by sarcasm and nastiness, who mocks his former self. His mission has evaporated. Now there is no cause, no great fight, and no belief in right. Now he’s hungry and his mission is dinner, and his men are looking mighty tasty right about now. They look smaller, insignificant.

The submarine surfaces and one of the men opens the hatch to the outside world. It’s eight hours till sunrise and they are twenty miles from the coast. Lawson understands – he has to make a swim for it. Angel says he’s sorry for what had to happen and promises to kill him if they should ever meet again. 

Spike:  Bloody brilliant. Turn the poor sod to save the ship. Then make him dash for dry land before Mr. Sunshine scorches him a new one. You're still a dick. Angel: Yeah. I am.

Yup, Angel’s thinking he’s a dick because he went through all this, killed a fine young man, all to save Spike from probes and experimentation, and the ungrateful young pup doesn’t even freaking realise it. So he makes Spike take the swim too. The obvious question here is why Angel would do that? Why would he allow two bloodthirsty vampires to live and let them loose on the world when, surely the right thing to do would have been to stake them both? Well, it is his apathetic phase after all.  At this point in time Angel simply doesn’t care much about anything, let alone the nameless would-be victims of his ‘sons’. He can’t bring himself to kill Lawson again. He did that once already and his way of showing contrition is to let him go, though he does promise to re-evaluate that decision if they ever meet again. Maybe he thinks a new, inexperienced vampire with no tutelage is hardly likely to survive too long anyway? But then there is Spike. He knows what Spike can do, what he’s capable of, yet he lets him go too with no similar pledge of retribution should they ever cross paths again. He lets Spike go for the same reason he went to all the trouble to rescue him, he lets him go because he is Angelus’ boy.

Angel, in 1943 is a long way from mastering any control over Angelus. That’s why he sits in his room alone, separate from the world. Because he is afraid of his Angelus impulses, that they will exert their authority over Angel and the soul will prove pointless after all. He makes no sudden movements. He sits quietly and fights remorse and regret and urges and resentment that this conscience was forced upon him, that now all he can do is think and lament…

But to Spike he shows some kind of skewed loyalty, the same that he showed Drusilla in Sunnydale when he was very firmly on the side of good and using the soul as his guiding light:

Angel:  Drusilla, leave here. I'm offering you that chance. Take Spike and get out. Drusilla:  Or you'll hurt me?...No. No, you can't. Not anymore. Angel:  If you don't leave it'll go badly. For all of us.

Spike is his boy. Spike is his investment. Spike is his legacy; and so, he gets to live.

Back in the present-day Lawson wants to hear that his old crew at least tortured Angel, once they knew the truth. But Angel never gave them the chance. He jumped ship at the first opportunity and went underground for the duration of the war. He got his job done, achieved all objectives then made damn sure he wouldn’t be put to ‘work’ again by intrusive government interests.

Angel: I never wanted to do this to you.  Lawson: Oh, put your hanky away. I know how important the technology they pulled from the sub was to helping us stop the Germans. Sounded like a fair shake. One person damned to make the world safe for future generations.

So even as a vampire Lawson verges on the idealistic. He still needs to believe that he died for a cause, that saving the sub was integral to Allied victory, that there was some higher purpose to his actions. But that, sadly, is not really the case. He’s deluding himself. He died so that the US government could get their hands on some rather futile research into demonology so that his government, his country could do experiments too, have the same advantages as the enemy. He died for something that was fundamentally abhorrent to the human Lawson’s sense of right and justice. 

And now we see that Lawson is not just some random reminder of the past. He is, in fact a reflection of Angel – just a soulless one; not Angelus mind, no, he’s Angel’s reflection where Spike was Angelus’ And he turns up at Wolfram and Hart not because the time is suddenly right for revenge but because he’s angry that Angel is once again playing both sides of the line, just as he was in the sub. It reminds Lawson of his ‘mission’

Lawson:  We all need a reason to live, even if we're already dead. Mom, apple pie, the stars and stripes—that was good enough for me till I met you. Then I had this whole creature-of-the-night thing going for me—the joy of destruction and death—and I embraced it. I did all the terrible things a monster does—murdered women and children, tortured fathers and husbands just to hear 'em scream—and through it all... I felt nothing. 60 years of blood drying in my throat like ashes. So what do you think? Is it me, chief? Or does everyone you sired feel this way?

Death and mayhem and buckets of ruby red are not enough for this vampire. He’s discontent with his lot. He resents his death, he begrudges the loss of who he was. And well he might for Sam Lawson was never shown what it meant to be a vampire. He never had someone show him what to do or congratulate him on a kill or to share the slaughter of innocents with. He was released into the world with no tuition and, just like a human child who has insufficient guidance; he grew up ‘wrong’, never quite getting what he was supposed to be. We’ve seen evidence of this before in Harmony (also see the excellent graphic novel “Tales of the Vampire”, published by Dark Horse for further exploration of vampiric emotions and capabilities). Spike and Angelus are our examples of how successful vampires can be when properly schooled. Harmony and Lawson show us what happens when they are not. 

Angel admits that Lawson is the only person he ever sired after he got his soul. Lawson is hopeful that it might mean he has one too:

Angel: I don't think it works that way, son. 

Angel is understanding, almost kind, because he can identify with Lawson’s plight, from his own first-hand experience of being directionless, lacking a purpose but also because it’s eerily similar to when his son, his human son, asked him for answers, told him he couldn’t feel (A4.22- Home) and it will end the same, only ensign Lawson doesn’t get a second chance or a new beginning. Now at this point Angel could have made a different choice, he could have told Lawson about Spike and the chip and the soul and the saving the world and showed him that his death wasn’t entirely pointless, that there were actually choices available if you were prepared to make them, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead Angel and Lawson get into a scuffle. It’s a non-event. It’s too unequal. 

Lawson: You gave me just enough, didn't you? Enough of your soul to keep me trapped between who I was and who I should be. I'm nothin'... because of you.

He’s a man forced into being a monster, living off instinct and urges he can’t control. He feels like nothing. We’ve heard those words before. We know another vampire who felt like nothing, neither man nor monster. We know what the other vampire did with these feelings and it wasn't to track down the ‘ol sire to try and extract revenge. No, he made a much bigger decision and made a real change. But Lawson is in no such position. He lacks any essence of moral clarity to change his behaviour. He is a slave to his demonic impulses whether he likes it or not. Spike was lucky really, being the beneficiary of experimentation that grew out of that formative research found in the submarine, that allowed him to navigate a route between human and demon existence, that enabled him to make a choice. Lawson has no such luxury. 

The fight continues. Windows are shattered (again). Lawson grabs a splinter of timber and stabs blindly, but Angel catches his wrist and turns the makeshift stake onto Lawson’s non-beating heart.

Lawson: Come on, chief. Give me a mission.

With that, Angel pounds the wood into his chest turning him into nothing but dust, one more nasty reminder of the past dealt with but also helping Lawson finally fulfil the ultimate demand of his human ‘mission’; to truly die in the line of duty.

Later, the morning sun is streaming through the necro-tempered glass in Angel’s office. Angel is looking at the outside world from within his silk-lined prison. Spike arrives. He’s been visiting Fred and she gave him the Cliff Notes on the night’s events. Spike assumes that revenge was the main order of the day but Angel doesn’t think so.

Spike: No? Then what was he looking for?  Angel: A reason.

And isn’t that the same thing Angel is looking for?

 The episode closes with the two vampires, side by side. Angel sits slumped, downcast while Spike stands tall, confident and assured. Spike is over his little glitch, that whole pretend ‘destiny’ thing. Now his post-Sunnydale life begins in earnest. Got body and no ties, will do whatever he bloody well likes, including keeping an eye on the old bastard! And how could Angel not be struck by a new respect for Spike? Suddenly, he must seem beyond Angel’s comprehension. Like Lawson he suffered dissatisfaction with his vampire’s lot but in response he sought out a soul and won. And he’s not divided or conflicted. He’s Spike, with a soul, now very firmly on the opposite side of the line than he was before. He’s a hero, he’s a champion. He saved the world. No wonder Angel can’t embrace him, can’t call him ‘son’ cajolingly, like he could Lawson – he can’t understand this creature who has faced the monster inside and won, who doesn’t need a purpose or a ‘destiny’, whose mission is simply to not be what he was before.

Suddenly, that withered little shoot has a tremor of growth. It decides to fight for survival. It’s found an unexpected source of nutrition. Hope really does spring from the most unlikely of sources.

Next up Angel 5.14 - Smile Time

[raven0the0writer]

My friend and I were talking about what super power we would want and they said probability manipulation cause then you could technically have any power, just change the probability of you having that power to 100 and boom you got it. That sparked my brain and I decided to explore that a bit :3

TW: physical abuse, death, food-based trauma, bad foster system

Sometimes, a person is born, and no one knows. Sometimes a mother is on her own, and sometimes she dies. Sometimes, a baby is left somewhere no one could find them. After all, what are the chances that a random person would wander into a specific abandoned building in a specific town in a specific state at a specific time, just in time to save a child crying by his mother’s corpse? Usually, the chances would be pretty low. But sometimes, the stars align just right for a life to be saved. And if the baby had something to do with its miraculous rescue? Well, I guess no one would be the wiser. After all, who could guess a baby could change its fate?

5 years later

“Timothy! Wake up! It’s your first day of school!”

Those were the first words he heard on this fateful day. He hadn’t had the worst time so far, bouncing from home to home, but now there was a new element to the mix. He watches as the category “school” appears in his brain. Other people don’t talk about their categories, so neither does he. Maybe it’s just something people don’t mention. A five year old wouldn’t know the difference between a well known secret and an individualized experience, after all. He decides to look through the category while he readies himself, dressing in his favorite yellow t-shirt that’s a few sizes too big and his favorite shorts, worn from years of use and hanging off his bony hips with only a threadbare belt with a few extra holes to keep it up. In the category he finds many things he’s seen in other categories such as “make a friend” and “enjoy the morning/lunchtime/evening”, but there’s other options as well such as “bus crash” or “the teacher gets your name wrong”. All in all, he quite likes the probabilities for the day, as far as he can understand them, and decides to leave them as is.

School:

Make a friend: 72.6%

Enjoy the morning: 12.4%

Enjoy lunchtime: 50.2%

Enjoy evening: 04.2%

Be liked: 47.3%

Bus crash: 01.1%

Teacher gets your name wrong: 10.1%

There is an emergency: 00.1%

He knows there are other things that could happen, but those are the most likely, and the ones he most cares about. If he really tried he could see the probability of every little thing that could happen that day, he could also see the probabilities of things that could happen that week, or even that year, or even for his entire life. But that’s a bit overwhelming for a five year old to take in, so he likes to stick to the day. He used to change the probabilities all the time, before he realized that changing the probability of one thing always changed the probability of multiple things. When he was born, he only saw two probabilities:

You die: 99.9%

You live: 00.1%

He didn’t really understand what they meant, but due to the nature of his power he could get the gist. He changed his probability of living to 100%, and ever since, he tended to have lower probabilities for things that would help him survive. The first home he was placed in, the probability of having guardians that cared about him was lower than 50%, he decided to keep those odds and went to a house with a junkie who forgot to feed him most of the time and used all the stipends to buy more drugs. Every day there was a probability that someone would find out what was going on and move him to a new house. Every day that probability was in the 20s or lower. So he decided to take matters into his own hands for the first time since he was born. He changed it to 100%. That changed the probabilities around enough that someone came and robbed the house, found him half dead from starvation, and took him to the closest orphanage where they just barely managed to bring him back to a healthy state. That was a scary time. Every day there had been a probability of whether he lived another day. Every day he moved it so it would be above 80. That was when he learned he didn’t need it to be 100 for something as ambiguous as whether he would survive. After all, the definition of survive has quite a bit of leeway and covers a lot of ground. You can survive on no sleep for weeks. You can survive with no food for months. You can even survive your heart stopping if it gets back going fast enough. Eventually he was placed with another family. Then another, and another. Until now, he is with his fifth family and he’s considering changing the probabilities to be able to leave them. They’re better than most families he’s been with. They leave him to fend for himself most days, scrounging whatever food he can from the kitchen, putting himself to bed, finding ways to entertain himself. He’s even able to look at the probabilities for ideas of what to do for fun, even see the probabilities of what will bring him joy to do.

Today though, he’s going to kindergarten. He’ll ride the bus for the first time. He’s not entirely sure where the bus stop is, and he doesn’t expect his guardian to show him, so he’ll just check the probabilities. See which street has a higher chance of him making it to the bus stop on time until eventually he gets there. As he’s checking his possible routes, he starts getting his lunch ready and packing his rugged blue backpack with a missing strap.

All packed up and with his chosen route in mind, he starts off towards the bus. Eventually he reaches a place where everywhere he looks the probability of him reaching the bus on time is lower than right where he is, so he figures he must be at the bus stop. Sure enough, the bus soon comes and he gets on. The ride to school is pretty uneventful, there was a time that a car ignored a red light and almost rammed the bus, but they hadn’t started moving soon enough for that to happen. Now the probability of getting in an accident was 00.0%. One disaster avoided, pretty good day so far.

He gets to school and finds his classroom without much trouble, watching the probabilities to find it. One downside of his power is that there is nothing to show what can naturally cause a probability to change, however he can make an educated guess. With that in mind, he immediately goes to introduce himself to his teacher and introduces himself as Tim. That is his least hated version of his name, as he is not overly fond of his name in general. The probability of the teacher getting his name wrong decreases to 03.1%. Not perfect, but it will have to do. Only thing he could do now to make it lower would be to manipulate it with his power, but he’s already learned that manipulating one probability can change the others in ways he doesn’t quite know how to predict yet. He leaves it alone for now.

The bell rings signaling the start of class. The teacher starts the roll call. The teacher calls him Tim. The probability goes away.

As the day goes on, he keeps to himself and keeps his head down, but notices that the probability of him making a friend is slowly ticking down as well. He wonders if it really matters all that much. After all, he’s survived this long and never had a friend before. He decides he doesn’t need a friend, they’d probably just get annoying and mean like his guardians. He lets it tick down, watching it speed up as his resolve to not make a friend strengthens.

Lunch is enjoyable. He is left alone to his lunch meat sandwich and carrot sticks he had prepared this morning. Through the years he has found he likes being alone. People tend to complicate things. They make the probabilities harder to track. He doesn’t like when the probabilities act up. So he avoids people as much as possible.

It’s the end of the day. He successfully avoided interaction with anyone. The bus ride home is just as uneventful as the one to school. More so even due to the lack of a near miss by an inattentive driver.

He finds his way home with the probabilities, which road is most likely to lead him to the house. When he gets inside, no one greets him. He hears laughter from another room. His guardian is watching television again. He heads to the kitchen to grab something for dinner, some leftover soup, before heading to his room for the night.

The next day he repeats the motions of the day before. Making sure nothing will kill him today as he tries to get through kindergarten. The year passes with nothing remarkable happening and by the next year he is still under the care of the same guardian. He has decided being ignored is better than being hit and that at least he still has access to food and a comfortable bed. He’ll stay for now.

[minusgangtime]

Apocalypse kitty crew: batch 5 bios:

“I’m sorry sis..hold onto my crown until I can endure your safety..you’re a pretty princess now.~”

Name: Ella

Age: 22

Status: infected (corruption infection (stage 1)

Feeling: hopeless

Bio: Ella was doing ok,trying to put on a brave face for her baby sister,especially after Leo locked himself away. But then she got infected. She didn’t trust herself to be with her sister with an unstable infection..so she gave Elly a parting gift,her crown and locked her out,promising once she can control her condition,she’d let her back in..not much is known about her,aside from the fact she only opens her door to occasionally wash herself or accept food.

“No!..I can’t let anyone get hurt by me!..”

Name: Leo

age: 20

Status: infected (stage 1 of corruption infection.)

Feeling: paranoid

Bio: back in the day,the siblings would go together as a trio to get supplies,however, on day,they were ambushed,causing Ella and Leo to get infected,though it took several weeks for Ella to see and realize she was infected. Leo locked himself in his room,only c on ing out to wash himself and up accept food,he considered himself a danger,having the feeling that at any moment,his infection would take control,and the last thing he wanted was the possibility that he could potentially kill or infect his youngest sister..

“I don’t underswand..why?..dwid I do something wong?”

Name: Elly

Age: 7

Status: healthy

Feeling: rejected

Bio: Elly is the only sibling of the trio who was uninfected and who frequently rummaged around the house,she desperately starts conversations with the crew around the house,while it is a nice bonding experience,that’s not why she does it..she does it to distract herself from the pain of “losing” her siblings and the feeling of abandonment that haunts her greatly when she’s alone..

“You think I can’t fend for myself? Hehe..~ watch me!”

Name: lapis

Age: 20

Status: immune

Feeling: brave

Bio: perhaps cause of her magical transition. Lapis discovered through a blood scan she was immune. Realizing this,she ROLLED with it. She is the most successful in getting supplies and returning safely,which BAFFLES the infections,wondering how the hell this lady Gaga looking ass can consistently survive them,to which responds “you don’t know what I’ve been through,and you don’t know what I can do.~” thus logic inspires her to keep up her optimism through even the worst days,cause after all,you never know what might happen.~

“Have you forgotten? I already know what it’s like to fight day after day for your life.”

Name: Zack

Age: 20

Status: healthy

Feeling: determined

Bio: with how much Zack got into pranking before the apocalypse,everyone,even Zack had forgotten he actually did have experience in fighting for survival. When it hit though,and he was allowed to go crazy,everyone remembered. He uses all kinds of battle equipment to fend off infected,any weapon you can think of,he’s used. Though he’s not just a battler,when he’s with his family,his more joking side comes over. He dosent prank much anymore,seeing how many people are on edge,so he does the one thing that guarantees laughter,jokes/puns. :3

“Bluey..I miss you..I could use some happy laughter right now..”

Name: emerald

Age: 20

Status: infected (stage 2 zombie infection.)

Feeling: depressed

Bio: emerald once tried getting supplies,but was ambushed,thanks to his leg condition,he couldn’t fight back..the only reason he survived was cause shelby saved him..he soon realized he was infected with the zombie infection,so he was given the brain protection spell and the vaccine. From that day,he just stayed in his room..feeling miserable..

“Eat this fucker!”

Name: Xavier

Age: 20

Status: healthy

Feeling: vengeful

Bio: being half machine,once Xavier was allowed to fight back,he knew what to do. He used Shelby’s wishing necklace to wish himself a multi-purpose canon,and he uses this to drive off infected. He’s very harsh and brutal with them,cause behind his calm face is someone who has seen how his family has deteriorated cause of the infected. And it fills his heart with malice and desired vengeance.

-mod shelby

(Throwing Blue at Emerald right now >:'3)

[zeroducks-2]

has anyone asked abt batjokes for the ship game

you're the first anon! And DAMN YES

I ship it!

What made you ship it? Reading The Killing Joke at the ripe old age of eight. My mother thought comics were for kids and bought me a big ass "essential Batman stories" book, which started out with The Killing Joke and it rewired my brain I guess (my Batman experience up to that point had been random episodes of Batman Beyond).

What are your favorite things about the ship? I reckon I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here. Sorry Anon I don't suppose this was the answer you were hoping for, but I am unable to contain myself :> So being that this is my first DC ship (and it might even be my first ship PERIOD), I'm more of a "I nostalgically ship it from afar" than an active, fanfiction-reader/writer kind of fan, but surely my enjoyment has always been rooted in the fact that it's a villain/hero situation where they're two sides of the same coin, at the point where they can't exist without one another. I ship Batman with 50% of his rogue gallery tbh, and unless it's just 'cause it looks hot, it tends to be about how Bruce tries to see the human side of these people (sometimes because he's known them since before they were rogues), how he extends a helping hand when he can, how he refuses to kill them because there has to be a way to rehabilitate them (and sometimes there is, and it's just the tragic nature of these stories which prevents the "rogues" from getting their own form of happy ending). This happens with the Joker too, and the most memorable occasion in which this happens is after Joker tortured and crippled Barbara (someone Bruce is supposed to love and care for), beside what he also does to Jim Gordon (also someone Bruce is supposed to be friends with). Joker himself tells Batman more or less "I hurt a defenseless girl, I terrorized an old man, what are you waiting for just beat the shit out of me" to which BRUCE SAYS NO. He says no because "you're just like me except you had one bad day too many, and I know you can get better, and I want to help you". We all know how The Killing Joke ends, with the proverbial joke and them laughing like maniacs about it (I have the panels always around so yall can experience them with me)

And the image of them laughing together is forever seared into my brain, especially because even if this guy did whatever the hell he did (and will keep doing it), Bruce replied with empathy and compassion. A monster, the irredeemable one who's never going to stop before anything because he's not even human, at this point he's the embodiment of everything wrong there can be in a person - he just got smothered with compassion and it almost worked. The "joke" (two madmen escape the loony bin, etc) is Joker's way to say "I'm sorry I really want to take your hand but I can't, I just can't do it", and Bruce understands this and for a brief moment of six panels it's just two friends laughing together. And that part of me which will always see itself in the ugly, irredeemable, rejected monster was and will always be so profoundly fulfilled by this.

Of course I am also not immune to the whole "you need me, you love me and you can't live without me" thing to which Batman reacts by kicking and screaming that it's not true, but which is indeed true and in every story in which Joker actually dies, Bruce cannot for the love of him cope one single day without him. This post puts it briefly but beautifully, go give it a look if you're rabid a fan of the dynamic such as I am.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? Liking this ship (and Joker in general) is unpopular in and of itself lol, but I guess I can say that my unpopular preference is that as much as I ship them, I don't see sex involved in any part of their relationship which is more based off of beating the shit out of each other (or laughing about a dumbass joke in a stormy night in an abandoned amusement park), and being unable to let the other go when the chance presents itself. I see sex as essentially unnecessary in their dynamic, but it's also true that I don't really peruse Batjokes content beside the occasional fanart, so the sex part might have just not clicked with me yet.

[mischief-lies-and-stories]

Abandoned Loki Theories

My best friend and I tend to watch the same media, and Loki was no different. However, we no longer live in the same place, we have different schedules, and I am a much bigger Loki fan than she is (so I was much more likely to turn on the new episode as soon as I got home from work, no matter what). But since I want to remember everything I want to talk to her about after we both watch the episode, I have taken to making notes in my phone while watching. I usually condensed these notes into something more coherent before we talked, but I saved the original notes. I recently reread these incoherent, mostly caps-locked reactions, and compiled several ideas I had while watching episodes that I've since abandoned.

"Wait, is she a Timekeeper?" So this is a direct quote from one of my reactions, and I don't remember if I was referring to Renslayer or Sylvie, but I'm pretty sure it was one or the other. Obviously, since Renslayer didn't know she was a variant and the Timekeepers turned out to be fake anyway, I doubt either one is true.

C-20 isn't dead: Man, I hope this is still true; she and Sylvie had some great fake chemistry. I was once a spn fan (and my brain sometimes thinks I still am), and I refuse to accept death in shows if I don't see the body. But sadly I think if she was still alive she'd have shown up by now.

TVA planted memories of Sylvie's arrest as a child; she's really from post-Infinity War: So this was in part when I thought Sylvie was genderfluid like Loki, rather than a transwoman (as in consistently one gender), so the timeline as we know it was the same both events and gender-wise, and then at some point after faking their death, their gender shifted. Either Sylvie changed her name as an alias or as a fem name (or a name that better fits her just in her opinion; she can be Sylvie even if she's having a masc or nb day). But while I think it's possible for the TVA to have altered her memories (it's explicitly been stated that they can do it, after all), I think it's too involved for a side plot. There's too much else going on. Plus I think she's a transwoman not genderfluid.

Lamentis nexus event was a paradox; there can't be two variants together: I refuse to believe the nexus event was Sylvie and Loki falling in love (though that'd be a little paradoxical as well). I think the nexus event involves both of them, and I don't think it's for the reason Mobius thinks it is. But they were in the same place the entire episode, and the TVA didn't find them until right before they bit it, so I don't think it was just them together that caused it. I don't think it was love, at least not romantic. Loki doesn't even seem to consider this a possibility until Mobius suggested it. My new thought is this: either the catalyst is they both make the decision to trust each other (which is not something a Loki does often), or this is the moment Loki looks at Sylvie and for the first time sees the true scope of his own potential, stretching bright and beautiful and endless within this fearless, resilient version of him. This is a very subtle recreation of that one panel from I don't know which comic of a bunch of Lokis standing around and then they start whispering into each other's ears, "You can escape."

(I do not know if this is a legit panel or an edit, I'm sorry.)

Various people being Loki variants-- Renslayer, Kang, etc.: This one makes sense for why I abandoned it. Both have variants (in Kang's case, at least, canonically many) of themselves that we've already seen.

Classic Loki is Old Loki from AoA: His character design, his age, the fact that Old Loki canonically messes with the timeline, too, it made sense before hearing his backstory. And listen, seeing Kid Loki and Old Loki at the very end of the episode? I spent an entire week going feral with AoA thoughts. But the backstory doesn't match up.

[kaija-rayne-author]

Finished the main game with my qunari. (Again, 3rd time, this series has me so hard.) I'm very ready for this run to be done.

The 'make Solas hate me' thing wasn't even remotely easy for me. Though, I gotta admit antagonizing him was fun for a while. 😅 I'm only playing Trespasser with this character, (not the other DLCs) because I'm having painful dysphoria issues with the curvier female qunari form.

There's a reason I usually play male elves. Skinny little twinks are pretty androgynous and don't bother my dysphoria so much. Even female elves don't bother me. They're all pretty androgynous. If only I were.

Plus pointed ears. My entire family has slightly pointed ears so it's just fun.

I actually only gave Sera a Romance chance because of a tumblr post I saw. I'm glad I did. It was the hardest Romance of all for me, but it’s actually really sweet and happy. Good brain chemicals.

As soon as I finish Trespasser to get angry Solas end lines, I'm going to take another run at modding Frostbite. (Seeing bitchy Solas in game was way more powerful for me than a YouTube watch would be.)

I've been modding games since modding became a thing, so it wasn't fun to realize how bloody difficult Frostbite is to mod.

But because I really want to play DA:I with some of the mods, and because DA:DW is built on Frostbite too, I gotta figure it out. It was mostly an ADHD patience/frustration thing, I think. I expected reasonable levels of difficulty in modding Frostbite and it is an absolute monster.

I'm actually tempted to play the whole series again since I'm almost done with reading the books and comics. They added so much depth to the games and characters that I'm curious about how it'll change my perception of them.

And I've heard there's art and references to 'The Dread Wolf' in all games. Curiousity absolutely gets me into trouble, frequently. 😅

It's how I ended up on the Solavellan Hell train. I knew who Solas was 'cause I'd already played DA:I, but I still did a Solavellan playthrough out of curiousity.

Being a writer/editor/literary analyst, I didn't truly think that Weekes would snag me, much less snag me so fucking hard!

So, yeah. A day or two, depending on how much time I have to game, to finish Trespasser, and then I'll be trying again to mod this beast of a game engine.

Once you're an insider in publishing, it becomes more and more difficult throughout the years for stories to capture you. I know all the tropes and can see where things are going so easily because I've been working professionally in this field for close to a decade.

Even with that, Weekes grabbed me by the heart then proceeded to rip my heart out. (He did it in Masked Empire too, great book.) Gotta love star crossed lovers. It's one of my very favourite tropes and I'm actually grateful that Weekes reached me. So little does anymore. And to think I got into this field after leaving STEM because I love to read 🤣, oh... sweet summer child.

Once I get it successfully modded, I'll decide on a full series replay (it would give me more to write about) or not.

Right now, I'm so stressed out by my job search that I'm clinging to DA as my only real stress relief. Usually special interests aren't this chronologically long lasting for me. I tend to cycle through them more quickly.

But with the job search being what it is, and my stress levels being through the roof, I'm just grateful this one hasn't abandoned me yet.

You really wouldn't think finding a decent job (something I'm good at, salary with good benefits, ideally remote because I'm more productive from my home office) would be so difficult, would you?

Anyway, enough of me jawing about DA for now. I need to make an online portfolio for my graphic design stuff. I've been doing it as long as I've been doing editing & literary critique (24 years), and writing for 33 years, but having an online portfolio hasn't ever been a priority because my clients have always found me by word of mouth.

Sigh. I'd rather be doing many other things. I just want a job I can be good at that I'm paid a living wage for that actually uses my skills and maybe pushes me a little to increase my abilities. One that doesn't require my autistic/ADHD ass to do social things because that's probably around the 7th layer of hell for me. Why is that so hard to find?

[indeliblepromise]

Not anon hate! Someone seemed worried it was. I was just lightly poking fun at you for collecting muses that are super interesting but then the canon source just kinda ghosts them wrt Q and Misha/Mikhail. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings I wasn’t implying you don’t write them enough, whatsoever. Much love!

That's okay ! I'll admit I was confused about the wording and thought you were talking about my writing pace and I apologize for that. But I didn't perceive it as anon hate. You're perfectly okay ! However, you DID just open up a rabbit hole. I'll spare my dash and put this under a read - more.

But TLDR Anon, you're entirely right and your brain is so huge ( and much love to you too ! )

With Yumeno I'll keep it short cause this is not the correct blog. But it baffles me how they were handled. There's definitely a lot of ' flat ' crazy creepy child characters with zero development or backstory and they're only there to be creepy. But they gave Yumeno just enough backstory and importance ( being around since Dazai and Chuuya were also kids, the whole mafia massacre incident that was never elaborated on at all, their true feelings about their ability ) to like be interesting and then just DROPPED THEIR CHARACTER ENTIRELY ? HELLO ? I still think Asagiri could have used them in the vampire arc but that did not happen.

With Misha VNC / Mikhail ( taking up two Mishas was a mistake ), it actually GENUINELY pisses me off how he was handled. There was this whole build - up about how Misha's ' death ' was haunting Vanitas and how much Misha meant to him. THEN it went though the whole backstory about how they essentially went through hell together and how they were all that they had. Even then, when Misha got corrupted by the Book of Vanitas, there was that panel where Vanitas was reaching out to help him before Noe stepped in. And then it feels like Mochijun retconned all of that and suddenly made Vanitas not give a FUCK about Misha once chapter 55 happened. Like I get that Misha's co-dependence on Vanitas is not healthy and Vanitas should have friends too but at the same time, Misha is definitely being AT MINIMUM used ( if not neglected and/or abused. My interpretation is just neglected ) by the Comte. It's unrealistic and its heartless. People in reality are capable of having friends / romantic interests / and siblings at the same time and that's totally not rocket science or anything ! There's a sliver of hope I suppose because VNC isn't over yet but it could have been handled much better and there was no reason for Vanitas to outright ABANDON Misha. Literally what the fuck was Mochijun on about with that creative decision. She's a wonderful writer but those were really bad choices.

With Misha HSR, I'm not necessarily ANGRY about that like I am with Misha VNC. However, it does make me depressed that we're most likely never going to see him again. The story was handled wonderfully but at the same time, I think I would have rather had him be a little less lore relevant but still appear more often like say, the trio of Guinaifen, Sushang, and Huohuo or the random five stars that appear every so often like Argenti. Not to mention we won't ever get a character - centric event for him like the Wardance with Yanqing and Luka and Sound Hunt Ninjustu Inscription with Rappa or even see him just talk like say Pela and Lynx and Qingque ( though we barely get Pela as is. But at least she's ALIVE ). He's just. Gone. I saw someone on Reddit say that Misha's story was just beginning and they're entirely correct. Misha should have been on that train. And you can't tell me there weren't ways to keep him alive cause like I said in a post I made a while ago, there's Sora and Roxas and however many derivatives he has, there's Steven Universe and Rose Quartz, and I HEARD there's like something similar going on with Furina and Focalors though I've not played Genshin before. Either way, THEY COULD HAVE TRIED HARDER BUT THEY WANTED TO KILL HIM SO BAD 😭 AND GALLAGHER TOO.

Well. Maybe they'll pull a Tingyun / Fugue. Maybe I'll get my five star Misha one day. Maybe Misha will be alive one day. TRUST.

[silentmassacres]

sun, nov 3

nostalgia, jealousy, and neglect

i have an odd experience with dissociation, one that occurs again and again. not constant, but familiar enough. i can feel as my brain latches onto certain memories or ideas, trying to bring me back to them.

of course, i can't go back.

the christmas of 2012 at my grandparents' house won't return. my cousins are older now, no longer carrying around toys and a ds with games for me to explore. i got yelled at until i cried that night, for reasons i can't remember. i still miss the glowing lights of the tree that i helped decorate.

my elementary school library is, undoubtedly, different now. kids are no longer playing poptropica on the computers while i check out every i spy book. i miss the way they smelled.

—

many times, i find myself giving in. mentally living at least a decade ago. it's easier, i guess. i know it furthers my dissociation, to be solidly convinced i'm in another place and time. my brain is stuck there, and i don't feel there's much i can do.

i'd rather be there and disoriented than here and miserable

—

i didn't like school as a child. i found it boring and my peers frustrated me. many times, my teachers did as well. i was an easy target, i suppose.

yet, somehow, despite all of it, i miss it. i shouldn't. i don't know why i do.

i'd like to go home now.

—

i don't like calling myself disabled. i know that, realistically, i am. sometimes i'll use the word as if it proves anything, as if i am somehow more heard.

my body is deteriorating from the inside out. they don't know what's wrong with me, and nobody bothers to care or check. so i remain a mystery. of course, it's internal. there is never a moment i am without pain and i will try not to collapse when my body decides to give up on me — but that is unseen.

it feels like a cruel joke at times. if i were a character, it'd be some parallel or metaphor or other literacy device; a play on how, with all of my mental suffering internalized, i am now facing the same with physical issues

—

i'd like to hope there's something solid wrong with me. maybe they could do something.

for another day and another week and another month, i will ignore the concept of chronic pain and fatigue and what basically amounts to rotting internally being as a result of trauma. i will not receive help for that.

even if it is physical, i still don't receive help.

—

i dislike feeling jealous. it makes me feel like a bad person, in all of my misdirected anger. it's not the fault of those who have what i cannot, and they shouldn't be the target of my frustrations.

yet i can't help but compare myself.

maybe it's worse in some aspects for others, but i still find myself fighting to prove that i'm somehow more worthy. i begin to believe that worth means nothing if not recognized — worth is only built on recognition after all, is it not?

i keep it to myself, most times. no need to express it

—

it's not just hormones, i've decided. it's part of it, i guess. the hormones make me irritable with others. but they're not what's causing me to be miserable. suicidal ideation used to be reserved for the week or two before. we're past that now, and i still feel depression wrapping around me.

i don't know what i'm going to do. i'm told it's fine (of course, what else are you to say?), but i still worry.

it still lingers with me, having been abandoned during arguably the worst bout of depression in my life, and then claiming i was neglectful. i don't want to go through that again.

i'm not wonderful with being. openly caring. not in the way people want. it's easy for people to assume or say that i don't care and paint me in a negative light. and when the time comes in which i can barely care for myself, will i continue to extend that towards others?

i fear it only breeds resentment.

does it matter if i hurt myself, so long as i behave normal enough? so long as i'm caring?

i worry she'll be mad at me for it. i don't remember where that feeling comes from.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE YAYYYYY AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME I LOVE TORTURING MY FRIENDS <333333 PERFECT SPIKE WITH THE KNIFE VOLLEYBALL

>> yes yes yes I was absolutely picturing trickster seeing him on the news. Just like a shaky faraway video a civilian caught on their phone or something. but it's enough for trickster to see some of that dreamlike stuff and then ashe like. steps backward into one of his doors and disappears before a big wave hits where he was just standing or something. why does the trickster get TV service in his evil little chaos zone? why would the trickster be watching tv? I don't know! I dont care!! but he does and he is at least for this one moment. maybe he like. invades somebody's house and They were watching the news and he got distracted. idfk.

>> side note about tricksters territory I've been dying to picture visual parallels to the spirit realm even though i KNOW the chaos zone is different from the spirit realm they are still connected in my mind. also side side note on that topic i had a couple thoughts about clarence and mal in this au. and also the nilbog type situation where trickster first gets contained there. but that's for later it's trickster time now. speaking of mal though you know how when they first went to go find tide and they ended up in that haunted carnival. i think it would be REALLY really fun if tricksters territory was a city that had an adjacent theme park . for funsies and to play into the whole "his motivations are like a bored kid he wants to do things because they're funny" . i want the wards 2 follow muse through one of his doors and end up in an abandoned carnival. do u see my vision here

>> SPEAKING OF MAL AGAIN. EHEHEEHEE LOVINGGGG the fact that you said nhw trickster makes you feel the same way that canon mal does. i ALSO want to explode him with hammers so so so badly. BUT. i don't want him to be toooooo similar to mal because we do also still have mal in this au i dont want there to be Two Of Him. so while the whole using puppets to get Ashe to trust him thing is suuuper creepy and slimy and manipulative I don't think thats tricksters normal forte ? his usual style is busting in somewhere and causing chaos, but he knows the subtlety is what WORKS with ashe (btw the whole "oh people are Nice, Actually and my dad is just weird and paranoid" thing is EXACTLY what i was going for thank u for having the same brain cells as me) and he wants ashe bad enough that he's willing to force himself through the patience and slowness of it. but it's REALLY hard for him he gets frustrated so easily . maybe he's a little too eager one time and it freaks ashe out a little bit and shatters a little bit of the trust he's building up and trickster throws a huge fucking tantrum about it because now it's gonna take him even LONGER and UGH why can't he just go and take him NOW . using the taylor in her lair comparison again but while she's sitting calmly in her chair drinking tea the whole time, trickster is pacing around and kicking his feet and just going absolutely like

(there's a piece of pd fanart that i can SEND YOU NOW ACTUALLY- hold on ill do that in a second- that is pretty much what I'm picturing here like. his ass is NOT sitting still!!!!!!)

>> ohhhhhhhh having so many thoughts abt mark. having soooooo many thoughts about mark. i am still hung up on the muse/tricksterisms (give it up for DAYYYYY FIVE *Mr Krabs bell ringing image*) but maybe perhaps at work today I will type up a nhw mark essay in my free time. it should be slow today knock on wood. god. the aftermath of Overlord is going to be such a huge fucking mess. still not over the fact of u CASUALLY saying mark breaks himself out of the fucking birdcage. thinking forever about that thing bizly said once about mark being one of the smartest people they've ever met. yeah.

>> DAKOTA TIIIIIIM E. YEA YEA YEA YEA YEA even though we are in worm world and everything sucks so bad all the time and they are all so extremely traumatized. we CANNOT lose the dakota cole spirit. we cannot lose that energy. I love him so much he is so nice to everyone and so. bouncing around like crazy. maybe a little bit more subdued than in canon but it's still THERE. also ashe has been so very sheltered his whole life and mark is desperate to keep him away from anything dangerous so i don't think ashe knows a Whole Lot about capes? like he has the general base level knowledge that everyone has, maybe a little more (un)healthy fear of things like the endbringers but I think he's pretty neutral on the whole cape thing. his dad hates them but ashe thinks they're kinda cool from a distance. so I don't think it's like he IMMEDIATELY figures out dakotas identity, he's a little more distracted by the fact that Oh My God I have real friends for the first time ever to notice anything past the surface level weirdness in their living situation and behavior. maybe this is normal for kids his age, what does he know!

>> I LOOVE BTW. I LOVE THEM FINDING OUT ABT HIS POWERS THROUGH SOMETHING STUPID. YES THAT IS SO PERFECT. dakota yelling "HEY ASHE, CATCH" and throwing something at him. ashe is unathletic as fuck and so very nervous and awkward he can't catch for shit. pillow flying at his face he throws his hands up to block it and oh wow wait it's floating in midair! huh! weird! cue dakota FREAKING OUT "oh my god you have POWERS" do u remember that bit with Doug where dakota kept being so weird and asking him if he was a superhero. I think william and virion are very On Edge about this situation at first. they like ashe, yeah, but now he's a cape? who the hell is he we've never seen anyone around here with telekinesis. is he a villain in disguise trying to get to us? does he know our identity? oh fuck. but then they have a Talk and it's Fine

>> extremelyyyyyy weak over the post-leviathan scene. mark winters please give your son a hug im going to fucking kill you. side note of course tide is there. and he's got his own issues with His Boys recklessly putting themselves in danger and giving them their own earful about it but also I am not immune to the tidalwaveisms of him seeingggggg Exactly what marks motivations are. This is why he does what he does. etc. he's just a guy. tide is really normal about this and does not have a soft spot about it at all . turns away from the sight of mark kneeling on the ground with his arms around his son who is too slowly coming back to his senses and there's floating debris falling back to the ground around them and they're both bruised and bleeding and maybe theyre crying but this is a private moment for their family so tide grabs his boys by the arms (dakota and william, he knows virion understands enough to follow without too much of a fuss) and brings them away partially to give the winters their moment alone and partially to talk to his own pseudo-sons (huge bone crushing hug followed immediately by what the hell were you thinking?!) sorry I got kind of lost in the sauce about that. I think about the leviathan thing a lot. what was I talking about before this?

I think that's all for now actually. mark winters essay maybe incoming later I have to live up to my reputation of being perpetually unwell and insane over him. love and peace on planet earth prime. prime worm. whatever we're calling this version . 🤞🤞🤞

YEAYEAYEAG I FORGOR. TRICKSTER TIMELINE. SITTING DOWN WITH MY PENCIL AND NOTES!!!!!!

OKAY. OKAY. OKAY. this is all a bunch of half-formed-while-at-work ideas so if they dont make sense im blaming it on that.

first. backrground worldbuilding context. u know how nilbog is like . they keep him sort of quarantined because they let him take over a town and be a little king of his own territory there (at least i think this is what happened. to my understanding) . im thinking maybe pre-nhw times trickster was in a similar situation. hes this horribly powerful terrifying master but his big weakness is that hes motivated by chaos, motivated by finding things funny or entertaining. he doesnt want to take over the world in the same way a villain like coil does, he wants to take over things because theyre fun, because theyre interesting, because he thrives in destruction and chaos . if they just like... let him take over a town, let him have his little army of puppets to play with, he stays somewhat contained on his own unless any other cape pokes their nose where they shouldnt. i assume the prt would monitor him from a safe distance just in case, but he falls sort of low on the priority list when theyve got other issues to distract them. and this works for a while.... until he gets bored. hes caused all the damage he possibly can in his little chaos zone, taken over the last of the remaining civilians... theres no challenge for him anymore.

but HEY. news from one of the closest big cities... theres a new cape thats joined the wards team, and his powers look. so fun. imagine the possibilities for silly fun distruction with powers like that. so hes got a new challenge. He Wants That Toy. i think he approaches ashe using one of his puppets first. hes not stupid, he knows the prt is watching him, he knows if he leaves his city theyll be on him in an instant, so he sends like... unassuming regular normal people. theres nothing special about them they arent even capes. but theyve all got these glowing orange eyes. and it starts small- ashe accidentally bumping into someone on the street, and they smile at him as they help him pick up his bag. a cashier giving him a complement on his outfit. after a particularly rough fight with his dad, ashe leaves home to go to the wards house. its pouring down rain, maybe hes crying as he walks. a friendly stranger offers him their umbrella. asks him whats wrong. ashe winters, clinically lonely teenager who has had extremely rare and paranoid contact wiht the outside world for 10 years. does not see anything wrong with these nice orange-eyed strangers. call it naivety, call it innocence, whatever. hes not stupid though. every time one of these people talk to him, they have the same smile. the same inflection in their voices. one time he asks them who they are, why they keep being so nice to him. i think this takes the trickster by such surprise that. camera cut to him in his lair taylor style and he just. sits up straight eyes wide, huge grin on his face. yeah this is the one.

he drops the illusion of being different people and leans into it. he calls himself something insidiously innocent sounding. "just someone who wants to help" "are you familiar with the concept of a guardian angel?" << EUGHHGHG THIS ONE MAKES ME SICK. ashe isnt stupid. he knows thats weird. but the idea of someone out there who doesnt know him, doesnt know the horrible things hes been through and done, just wanting to help him for no reason. its tempting!!!!! so he doesnt mention his secret friend to anyone, just... accepts the gifts as theyre given. this guy doesnt ever ask for anything in return, even! it all. comes to a head though with the overlord thing.

im gonna switch now to kind of talk about ashe timeline outside of trickster stuff. the wards are together maybe a year or two before they meet him. ashe is in his rebellious teen phase, hes frustrated, he wants to have a life to live, hes tired of being in his room, hes tired of his dad not telling him shit and leaving for days at a time, hes just so. lonely. so one time, when mark is on a long weekend "business trip", ashe sneaks out of the house. now. mark is a tinker, you bet your ass hes rigged their house to the teeth with motion sensors and cameras and shit . but ashe is smart. ashe also has powers. ashe has not used his powers in a Long Time, but hes so mad and hes already made up his mind, he wants to get OUT and hes doing it TONIGHT. so he messes with marks equipment and leaves. goes for a walk. maybe goes to like. a gas station convenience store to buy a slushie wiht the crumpled 5 dollar bill he found in the pocket of the jacket he grabbed from the closet on his way out (its marks).

theres. some sort of trouble that he gets caught up in. something minor, maybe someone tries to rob the store while hes there or something. maybe its something silly like le frog. idk. but hey guess who is on patrol in the area to deal with it !!!!!!! its failsafe. and dakota has this bad habit of being Too Friendly with people. hey theres this kid my age who looks SUPER uncomfortable and hes hiding behind his long hair and this big jacket and he looks kind of miserable but he just has this ENERGY about him like . adrenaline. giddy excitement. something like that. and dakota is just drawn to him. at first its a "check on the civilians involved to make sure theyre okay" and then its a "wow youre a blue raspberry guy? i like cherry more but my friend really likes blue raspberry too, you kind of remind me of him, i think youd get along-" cole style! rambling! and ashe is just sitting there like. why are you. talking to me. (<< same inflection as why are you in my house bc i fucking love that those are his first words i miss you so much ashe winters) but internally hes like "whoa this is so cool this whole talking to people thing is so easy my first night out in 10 years and im already making friends with a fucking cape, okay-"

ANYWAY. whatever whatever dakota runs into him a few more times on patrol and because hes. him. hes always really excited like "HEY I KNOW YOU!" etc. idk! whatever! they become friends! he meets the rest of the wards when theyre out of costume, dakota seeks him out out of costume specifically because he wants to be friends but oh my god ive only ever talked to this guy as failsafe i need to talk to him as dakota. the boys become ashes first friends ever! and then he. excited that he has someone to talk to other than his dad for the first time in forever. he tells them or shows them or whatever that he has powers. and then he learns about them being wards. idk this in btween state is still fuzzy to me. he helps them out sometimes acting as a rogue. idk how or why he officially joins the team but he does somehow. eventually. mark is EXTREMELY displeased wiht this, but its at a point where... turning down the offer would almost be more suspicious. whatever. help me out here i havent throught about this part as much.

ANYWAY. SOMETIME AFTER ASHE IS OFFICIALLY ON THE TEAM. the leviathan attack happens. i feel so very strongly about the leviathan attack being the equivalent event to the Meatball Planet only like. so much worse. leviathan is showing up in some random coastal city called. idk. maybe brockton bay. for funsies. and all the capes in new haven are called on for the battle. (tide especially. but this aint about him rn). mark winters is the kinda guy who would hear that and go "no fucking way i want no part of that my first and only priority is protecting myself and my son i dont give a shit about another city or other capes" but. he has to go. because overlord wants him to go. for whatever reason. and mark, knowing about ashes whole thing with the wards now, puts him on total lockdown. dont even fucking THINK about going anywhere near this. i dont care if your team gets summoned, you. stay. here. etc etc etc. the wards, ironically, do not actually get summoned! they are really powerful, yeah, but the prime force is already goign to be there and the prt cannot risk their backup prime force also getting taken out because they dont have a third option to turn to right now. the boys Do No Like This because! tide is going. they want to go with tide. they plan to sneak away and follow anyway. ashe tells them mark put him on lockdown he cant go with him. they break him out and the 4 of them get to town in the MIDDLE of the fight. shit is baaad. they kind of regret it almost immediately. but theyre here now they have to fight. i actually think it would be cool if. like with the meatball planet thing. having the nhw there is a huge advantage and they start winning. but. i think this is the first time they see ashe's breaker state. maybe its because one of the wards gets hurt, maybe he sees his dad going up against leviathan alone at one point, idk. something in that vein. i think breaker state ashe is actually the catalyst they need to start winning against leviathan, the thing that distracts him enough right in time for scion to get there and do his thing or whatever. the battle is over, they have a REALLY hard time getting ashe out of his breaker state. (side note i think the only way ashe can really come down from breaker state is by having whatever threat set him off completely removed from the situation. however bc he doesnt recognize good from bad in this state, any sense of big power or sudden movement or whatever is enough to kind of reset that meter and it just gets harder to break him out the longer they make moves toward him.) personally, because im biased as fuck, i think it would be sooooooooooooo fucking good to have mark be the one to get him out of breaker state here. the wards have never seen this side of his powers, they dont understand why trying to help him only makes him worse, the battle is over shouldnt he be okay now? but mark has seen this before. mark knows, if only instinctually, what worked before. maybe itll work again. and hes fucking pissed, hes pissed that ashe is here, that he disobeyed him, that he put himself in the worst fucking danger possible, that this is all the wards fault etc etc. but he HAS to push that anger to the side for a second to get ashe to come back to his right state of mind. they can have a screaming match about it later when reality is not actively bending and breaking around them. i also think this would be good for the wards to see that mark isnt... totally a horrible person. they only really know him from ashe, theyre super biased against him they hate his guts from the things theyve heard, but here. they just. get to see how much he loves ashe and even though his actions fucking suck and ashe has been miserable as a result... hes not an evil guy. hes just the universes most hated man.

ANYWAY. BACK TO THE ORIGINAL POINT OF THE POST. reports from the leviathan fight and the new member of the wards whose powers turned the tide (ha) of the battle. this is how the trickster learns about him. so ALL THAT STUFF i talked about before happens . and then mark goes missing. ashe doesnt. realize it at first maybe. hes used to his dad being gone for days at a time, but hes never stayed away for longer than a week. day 3 passes with not even an update from mark and he starts to get a little anxious, day 5 passes and still nothing, day 8 hes. freaking out. the wards are maybe a little crass about it "that guy sucks you can just stay with us" btu then they see ashe is like. genuinely distressed about it and they say theyll help him look for him.

mark. maybe disobeyed overlord in some way. idk. he did something stupid that made overlord mad enough to punish him. the wards track down the guy mark is working for (i imagine their knowledge about What He Does in this au is a lot more limited than in canon. they know hes wavelength, they know wavelength workds for someone, but they dont know who that someone is). they track down overlord and bust into his base and its. idk. similar ish scene to canon. ashe sees his dad in whatever the equivalent is of the tube he was in in pd. hes unconscious, but they cant tell whether hes alive or not. this sets ashe off almost IMMEDATELY into breaker state. and overlords base is not . the largest thing in the world. maybe its like. warehouse sized. but its still an enclosed space. shit gets dangerous FAST. ashe ends up killing overlord and its pretty gruesome and horrible. when he gets out of breaker state and fully processes what he did, he just. runs. he doesnt know what else to do. hes scared hes upset he still doenst know if his dad is alive (did he just lose the only family he has left? was this the thing mark was hiding them from for so long? mark dead, ashe a murderer, is that what simurgh wanted?) . he thinks the wards will hate him for what he did so instead of fighting them he runs! and who. is conveniently waiting for him. a kind stranger with glowing orange eyes. who hugs him, tells him everything will be okay, wipes his tears away. how can i help? do you need somewhere to stay for a while?

ashe is gone for a handful of weeks before the note appears on the wards' door.

IDK. THIS IS ALL SO LIKE. VIVID TO ME BUT AS ALWAYS IF U HAVE OTHER IDEAS I AM SOOOO OPEN TO THEM. i have a lot more thoughts about the trust that trickster tries to build with him through his puppets but this post is so fucking long already that might just have to be a full separate thing . god. im so FUCKING unwell. nhw disease instead of brain there is nhw. ashe im so sorry we put you in the blender i promise i love oyu and want you to be happy. what are your thoughts i need 2 know. oauguhg. dying 2 talk about this. as if i didnt just write out like a thousand words talking about it.

[comfortbucky]

hey hey! can u do some fluffy bucky about having to share a hotel room w u and there’s only one bed!!!! and he’s trying to be respectful n stuff but man does he have the fattest crush on u! thank u <333

HEY HEY YES OMFGGG THE ONE BED TROPE (ur mind😌🤝)

i’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE I DIDN’T EXPECT IT TO COME SO SOON

𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗱, 𝘁𝘄𝗼 𝗶𝗱𝗶𝗼𝘁𝘀 ⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ｡˚

pairing: bucky x fem!avenger!reader

tags: enemies(?) to lovers BABYYYY, angst, fluff

A/N: i almost always write about tfatws!bucky in mind but let me try and branch out by writing about avenger!bucky hehe

i hope u enjoy🥺💗i absolutely loved this prompt and loved writing this!!!! (it is almost 4am for me as i am posting this :) i’m insane :))

this oneshot will not be following the canon timeline!

word count: 2k

my masterlist!

completed requests!

“Stick to the plan, Y/N.” Steve’s voice came through over the intercom. She rolled her eyes at his warning. He always seemed to be extra cautious with her, making her feel like an unimportant member of the team, and this mission was no different.

“I got this,” she said, completely ignoring his request and charging headfirst at the enemy. Her brash decision resulted in her receiving a heavy beat down, ending up with a split lip and fractured ribs.

Needless to say, Steve was pissed. He and Y/N developed a close friendship over the years, during his search for Bucky. She was oftentimes the one who would stay up all night with him, looking for any trace of Bucky’s existence online. She’d become one of the closest people in his life, which is exactly why he was upset with her, endangering her own life.

After the mission, he confronted her at the base camp.

“You could’ve gotten killed!”

“But I didn’t,” she snapped back. “And the mission was a success anyways, so I don’t get why you’re so mad right now.”

Steve closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.

“It’s reckless behavior like this that’s eventually going to get you killed, Y/N.”

Bucky walked into the room and immediately regretted his decision as soon as he laid his eyes on Y/N. He’d come to foster an animosity towards her, after seeing her close friendship with Steve. After Bucky joined the Avengers, he noticed how much time they spent together, and jealousy started to fester within him. Steve was the only person he felt comfortable being around in the tower and she constantly took him away from Bucky. Everyone else seemed to have an aversion to him, or so he assumed. He never gave anyone the chance to get to know him, locking himself up in his room most hours of the day. Bucky didn’t think anyone would want to get to know an ex-assassin, especially one that killed the Tony Stark’s parents. She was the one thing that kept Steve away from him and he despised it. So Bucky did what he did best and avoided any sort of interaction with her.

Steve looked at Bucky and suddenly, an idea popped in his head. He had noticed how closed-off Bucky had been since joining the Avengers and refused to let Y/N be alone, worried that she might make another brazen decision. He hatched a plan to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

“Bucky,” Steve said, making his way over to him. “You and Y/N will be assigned to the same room tonight.”

Bucky choked on his own spit in response and Y/N began to protest.

“You’re not serious, right?” Steve turned to face her with a stern expression.

“You’re not giving me any reason to trust you to be alone.” She let out a defeated sigh and crossed her arms across her chest.

“Why me?” Bucky asked, trying to figure out how he ended up in this situation.

Steve placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. “Because I trust you, Buck. I need you to do this for me.”

Bucky could see the desperation in Steve’s eyes and reluctantly nodded.

Steve was able to obtain another key card to the hotel room that Y/N was assigned to for the mission. He forgot to take into account the logistics of the sleeping arrangements, leaving Bucky to find a single bed as he entered Y/N’s room.

Bucky froze, his right hand on the door handle, keeping it open, his left hand by his side, holding his duffel bag. He racked his brain, trying to figure out what to do, when Y/N’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.

“Relax,” she started, motioning for him to come inside. “I’ll sleep on the floor, alright?”

Y/N knew that Bucky didn’t like her, despite Steve trying to convince her otherwise. It hurt her feelings a bit, especially after she’d learned so much about him through both Steve’s stories and the time she spent tracking him down. He was such an important person to Steve, her close friend, and Bucky hated her. At first, she figured he was shy and wasn’t ready to open up to anyone else, especially after all the trauma he endured. But she realized he actively disliked her over time, with Bucky always leaving the room when she entered or ignoring her offers to hang out with her and Steve. Eventually, she gave up on reaching out to Bucky, as she only seemed to upset him further, no matter what she did. She figured it was for the best.

Bucky stepped into the room and shook his head.

“Bed’s too soft for me anyways, I’ll take the floor,” he grumbled.

Y/N shrugged in response, knowing that Bucky would be too stubborn to try and argue against. She turned around and picked up the phone, calling the front desk to ask for extra blankets and pillows. When she hung up the phone, she turned back to Bucky to see him nod in thanks.

The rest of the night was silent, as they both prepared for bed, taking turns going into the bathroom to wash up and change. While Y/N was in the bathroom, Bucky arranged the extra blankets and pillows into a makeshift bed on the ground, something that he’d done countless times before. Y/N exited the bathroom in an oversized t-shirt that covered her shorts, and placed her toiletries bag in one of the hotel dresser drawers.

“Bathroom’s all yours.” Bucky grunted in response, grabbing some clothes and a bag headed for the bathroom.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he stated, just before shutting the door behind him. Y/N scoffed at his comment, gently climbing into bed, in an attempt to not further injure her ribs. She winced as she tried to get into a comfortable position before settling to sleep on the side of her unaffected ribs.

Bucky emerged from the bathroom to see Y/N lying on her left side, her back towards him. He assumed that she had already fallen asleep and quietly crawled into his makeshift bed.

Approximately 10 minutes had passed, when he heard her sniffling. At first, he thought the noise was coming from outside the window, but he traced it back to her. He remained lying on his back for a moment, deciding whether or not to say something. Bucky sighed before speaking.

“You okay?” Y/N immediately stiffened upon hearing Bucky’s voice. She was hoping that he wouldn’t hear her crying, despite his super soldier hearing abilities.

“Yeah, ‘m fine,” she replied back, her voice wavering as she spoke. Y/N hated how weak and pathetic she sounded in that moment. Her fractured ribs made it hard for her to breathe and the adrenaline, that was previously shielding her from the pain, had faded, leaving her to lie there in agony. On top of that, she also felt that this mission solidified her belief that Steve had little faith in her ability to be an Avenger. The last thing she wanted to do right now, was to confess her insecurities to Bucky.

Bucky’s attitude softened, hearing Y/N’s voice crack when she spoke. He knew she’d gotten hurt due to her own, dumb, decision during the mission. Bucky quietly pulled his blankets off and stood up, leaving the room without saying another word. As soon as the door shut, Y/N burst into tears. Bucky did exactly as he’d done in the past many times before, leave. She wasn’t sure why this time upset her more than the rest. Probably because she knew that he was aware of her crying and he’d still chosen to abandon her completely.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening, causing her to stop crying. Y/N listened to Bucky’s footsteps growing closer, and felt the bed dip under his weight as he sat on the edge she was facing towards. She peered over the blanket she was covering her face with, to see Bucky facing her, holding a bag of ice, wrapped in a towel. Bucky’s heart sank at the sight of her glossy eyes and tear stained cheeks in the moonlight.

“For your ribs,” he spoke softly, gesturing to the ice bag in his hands.

“Oh. Thank you.”

Y/N took the bag from him, attempting to slowly sit up. She closed her eyes as she grimaced, and suddenly felt a hand on her back, helping her up. Her eyes opened to reveal Bucky, with a soft smile on his lips. She silently thanked him again, placing the ice bag on the right side of her ribcage.

“Thought you hated me,” she mumbled, keeping her gaze down on her lap. He furrowed his brows, keeping his eyes on her.

“I don’t hate you.”

“Well, you definitely don’t like me.”

Bucky paused at her comment, thinking about his next words, before responding.

“I don’t like that you take up all of Steve’s free time,” he grumbled, causing Y/N to quickly look up at Bucky, his eyes averting her gaze. Her face fell, immediately realizing why Bucky had treated her so coldly all this time. He just missed his friend.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her in response. “I didn’t realize, I’m sorry.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t expecting her to be so kind and understanding, even coming up with multiple points to argue back at her. He realized then that he didn’t know her at all, but that he wanted to now. In an instant, she became an entirely different person. He studied her eyes and wondered if they had always sparkled like that, if her cheeks were naturally rosy, or if her lips had always been so pink and plump.

His expression softened and he cleared his throat. “It’s fine,” he muttered, tearing himself away from her gaze to look down at his lap. After a moment of silence, Bucky stood up to return back to the floor.

“Stay.” The words left Y/N’s mouth before she had time to process them. Bucky froze and turned to face her. “I mean, if you want to, of course. Just figured the floor must be super uncomfortable for you.” Y/N felt a blush creep up onto her cheeks and kicked herself mentally. She looked down at her hands, regretting the words she spoke, before feeling the bed dip again. She looked up to see Bucky. He smiled and she almost melted at the sight.

She shifted over, putting the ice bag on the nightstand, as Bucky crawled into bed next to her. The two rested on their backs, both staring at the ceiling in silence. Bucky remained at a respectful distance away, not wanting to overstep any boundaries. Y/N turned on her left side, her good side, to face him.

“I’m glad you don’t hate me.”

Bucky turned on his side to face her before responding.

“I don’t think I could ever hate you.”

A strand of her hair had fallen in front of her face and Bucky, instinctively, reached out a hand to tuck it behind her ear. Immediately, he regretted it, about to pull his hand back when Y/N took her hand and placed it on top of his, guiding it to rest on her cheek. He cupped her face in his hand and she leaned into his embrace. Bucky felt his heart rate increase as she moved her body closer to his, wrapping the arm she used to hold his hand on her face, across his side. He shifted towards her as well, wrapping his arm around her body, bringing her closer to him.

“Is this okay?” He whispered, nervous that he might have somehow misinterpreted the situation. He hadn’t been with a woman in such an intimate way in years and had no idea what he was doing. Y/N looked up at him and nodded, before snuggling her face into his chest and Bucky felt a wave of calm wash over him.

“Can you stay here tonight?” Y/N mumbled, her face pressed into his chest. He chuckled at the vibrations from her voice and kissed her temple, smoothing her hair back.

“I’ll stay as long as you want me to, honey.”

[burnedbyshoto]

the bodyguard

— Kirishima gets assigned to be the bodyguard to one of the worlds greatest idols: you. —

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pairing: bodyguard!kirishima eijirou x idol!reader

warnings: nsfw, 18+, brat taming, authority kink, spanking, blowjob, slapping, choking, brat taming, brat!reader, modern!au, no quirks, bodyguard!kirishima, idol!reader, PTSD portrayal, anxiety, war flashbacks, implied minor character death, drugging, alcohol consumption, size difference: kirishima is 2 feet taller than you, regardless of the reader’s original height. If you’re 6 ft congrats he’s 8 ft.

word count: 20,500

a/n: this is for the bnharem collab.... im so sorry, it’s 4:30 am and I have a plane to catch in 2 hours to get back to school. thank you jo for proofreading this for me because lol I am a mess. if the paragraph spacing did not work as I wish it does, please let me know so I can go in and edit in visible paragraph spacers!

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“I’ll be okay.”

The smell of dirt, sweat, and blood clung to the air.

The sun was setting, its blood-red shine illuminating against the destroyed earth, making the already bloodied soil even bloodier. 

There was no telling if the land was quiet, if the reason why the world's silence was because the world just for this moment had gone silent, or if the earlier explosions were still ringing in his ears.

Kirishima sat wounded, his back pressed to the wall, his eyes wide, breathing erratic. He can’t move, can’t bother picking up the gun that lays abandoned by his knee as warm, sticky liquid spills onto his clothed knees and continues to soak the fabric of his jeans.

What had he done?

What in the fucking world had he done?!

BOOM!

Kirishima stills, his eyes stilling on the floor and looking at the clear moisture. He doesn’t need to touch his face to know it’s a combination of both sweat and tears. 

His ears sing with white noise, the erratic beat of his heart, and his pained breathing.

“I’ll be okay,” the ghost taunts his mind.

But I’m not okay, Kirishima tries to speak, but knows with how his tongue is sitting like a thick dried sponge in his mouth, he won’t be able to speak. Pushing off the cold floor, flops onto his back, his arm flinging over his closed, shaken eyes until the ringing in his ear disappears into his alarm clock. 

05:30.

Kirishima lays there for a bit more, his chest still heaving heavily with the weight of lead.

Inhale.

Hold.

Exhale.

Better?

No, not yet.

Kirishima runs through breathing exercises, his chest never stopping in it’s hiccuped, broken pants as his memories continue to haunt his mind. If only he was smarter, more observant, better.

“Time to get up, time to get up, time to get up,” his phone screams with his second alarm set at 06:45. The sound does what it’s intended, jolting Kirishima out of his own head. His labored breathing shallowing just enough for his lungs to finally grasp ahold of its required function.

Today was an important day for him; he needed to be on his tiptop game, according to what Toshinori said yesterday.

I’m okay, he convinced himself as he does every morning after having this dream. Kirishima flings his arm off his eyes, the morning purple sun shining softly through his blinds. I’m okay.

Date: 4/2 Time: 08:00 Location: UA Services

“And in other news, music industries princess Y/n has been attacked by yet another round of masked perpetrators. Fortunately for the music idol, she was left unhurt but was clearly rattled. This is but the fourth attack on Y/n since three weeks ago. It’s leaving many of us fans, spectators, and civilians wondering just what is being done to ensure her safety? Y/n is reported to not have a single bodyguard to her name, wanting to quote-on-quote ‘experience her fans to the fullest’, but with these recent attacks, we can’t help but hope something is done. At least until something is done about these attackers—”

Kirishima’s eyes tore away from the screen, his lips pressed into a deep frown as he took in the story. There was deep worry about it, not only because he hated the idea of people getting hurt, but because he was a big fan of yours.

Your debut album had come out during his training camp for the military. Not only was it an instant billboard smasher breaking every standing record, but his commanding officers were obsessed with the album and played it continuously until they graduated. Most of Kirishima’s comrades came to dislike your music solely because they remember throwing up, bleeding, and suffering while you sang about love and whatnot, but Kirishima? Kirishima fell in love.

It was a bright spot in his life, and he was grateful for your music, even if it has been ten years and six albums since the training camp.

“Yo, Kiri!” a voice cheered out happily as a hand clasped onto his shoulder from behind. Kirishima held the flinch that threatened to rip through his bones. Kirishima turned to find Kaminari grinning up at him, a cup of steaming tea in one hand as he grinned brightly at his coworker. “I heard you’re finally getting a good case today!”

Kirishima found himself relaxing at the sight of his rather spontaneous friend, a warm smile easing onto his face as he raised his fist for a greeting fist bump.

“We’ll see, I know Toshi’ said it was going to be important, but he also said escorting the paranoid old lady was important,” Kirishima sighed, his smile softening a bit.

Kaminari laughed, his arm slinging around Kirishima’s shoulders as he remembered that.

The little old lady was sure that the government was out to kill her and wanted protection until her son returned from his vacation. Needless to say, Kirishima had thoroughly enjoyed his time with her, even if she was a bit scary. It was a low-risk job, and he only was paranoid by her cane, which she used to thwack his back many times as she talked about how plums extended your life.

“God, I remember subbing in for you for one hour because of your family emergency, and she was so scary! She still haunts my nightmares!” Kaminari shudders, placing the cup of his tea to his lip and taking a long, slow drink. His eyes shift over to the TV, which is still broadcasting the story of your attack. “What a bunch of bastards,” he growls, eyebrows scrunching as the news reporter ends the segment. “Thinking they can go after such a beautiful and talented idol… I’ll kill them.”

Kirishima was more than well aware of Kaminari’s plentiful budding romances. The blond man fell in love with just about any smiling woman who happened to waltz in front of him. Still, unlike most times, he found himself agreeing with him.

“It sounds really serious. I hope that she really considers some type of security team,” Kirishima inputs too, taking the teacup in his fingers with a nod of thanks. “There’re too many weirdos in Japan and in the world, I wouldn’t want to hear the news the day something bad happens.”

Kaminari hums, his face nearing Kirishima’s as he takes a small sip of the apparently black tea. His eyes scrunch, and Kirishima smiles awkwardly as the blond studies him intently.

“W-Wha—”

“You like Y/n!” Kaminari exclaims (accuses, maybe?), his arm leaving Kirishima’s shoulders as he points a finger accusingly at him. “I thought I was the only one in this department who did!”

“Don’t be an idiot, Denki,” the familiar voice of Sero responds for Kirishima. “Everyone in the world is in love with Y/n; she was voted the favorite artist of the year in our company. Everyone but Bakugou voted for her if I remember correctly.”

Kirishima looks over at his black-haired friend who is rummaging through his locker, his mouth curved into an easy, teasing smile as he looks between the bashful Kaminari and sneering Bakugou, who also seemed to just walk in.

“Her shit is basic and overrated,” Bakugou defended himself. “Nothing special and bad for your brain and ears.”

“Your go-to music playlist is fifty percent death metal and alt. rock. I don’t think you have ground to say that it’s bad for your brain and ears,” Midoriya’s snicker sounded from behind Kirishima, and he looked around to see the freckled man grinning at the snarling ash blond.

“And how does your stalker ass know that, shitnerd?!”

“‘Cause I’m a stalker, duh.”

“Oh, Bakugou-kun, Midoriya-kun! You’re both here! Todoroki-kun is looking for you!”

“I’m just saying that Y/n’s dates to all the award shows and premieres have been blond. She’s into blonds, so she would totally be into me!”

“Deku, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to kill you myself.”

“You wouldn’t even be able to protect Y/n, bro. The only thing you performed well on in the application process was the tasing part. You can’t even tase people repetitively! She’d be dead in a second.”

“Can you believe my client dropped me because I couldn’t cook a five-star meal correctly? Hello, I can make 7-11 into a five-star course; it’s not my fault they’re not refined.”

“Kirishima-kun, are you okay?”

“I deadass got into a dance competition on the way to work. That’s why I’m late, why would I lie? Of course, I had to compete; my reputation was on the line!”

“Kirishima-kun?”

“Yo, he’s not looking too hot?”

“Kirishima?!”

“Can you hear us?!”

Silence.

Kirishima found himself opening his eyes — when had he closed them? For a moment, the air turned coppery, his body feeling weak, and he thought he felt something heavy on his lap. But that wasn’t right; he was standing up, he wasn’t sitting down. Most importantly, he was in Tokyo, Japan. He was alright. He was safe.

The sweat that clung to the back of his neck was cold, clammy, and intrusive. His chest felt tight again, his hands shaking so harshly the tea's warm, dark liquid was sloshing onto the floor.

There were seven pairs of eyes on him, each a different color, each swimming with concern and other emotions. Kirishima knew his ears weren’t working right now, his face unable to meet his brain's screaming demands to smile, and he watched as their mouths moved as they questioned his sanity.

He was okay.

He was okay.

He was okay.

“Kirishima?”

Kirishima looked up, his neck craning to the side to see a tall, skinny man standing at the doorway. 

Toshinori Yagi was an esteemed bodyguard, one of the best in the industry, which was saying something considering that most bodyguards went unknown and unnamed. According to Google, Toshinori gained the nickname All Might after saving multiple political and celebrity lives when the government could not. It was long after his prime, and the man had retired but has since filled as the company’s head — thus why this job was near impossible to get.

Kirishima heaved a breath, realizing that he hadn’t taken a single breath when Toshinori’s bruised eyes narrowed in his concern.

“C-Coming,” Kirishima smiled, the blood rushing to his ears mostly ignorable now, but the scorching concerned gazes of his friends feel like cinders on his shoulder.

He straightens his tie, fingers curling when he feels the cold sweat penetrating through his clothes, but Kirishima doesn’t let it show. Smiling like he does, Kirishima pushed through his friends and followed Toshinori out the door.

They walked down towards the conference rooms, rooms that held their contractors, in complete silence.

“This is an important case,” Toshinori began, his voice gentle and poorly hiding his concern. “I chose you because you are a great asset to have, Kirishima. You are strong and smart, and most importantly, are personable.”

Kirishima looked at the man, his face contorting with his anxiety. He didn’t want to be treated like glass.

“Honestly, you being so personable is why I chose you for this assignment. Todoroki-shounen was a contender at first, but he’s not much of a talker; the same goes for Bakugou-shounen. Midoriya-shounen was probably the best choice, but there’s a new assignment that asked for three, so I gave up those three,” Toshinori explained the current assignments. It both delighted Kirishima to hear that he could keep up with arguably the three most qualified workers here as it did, at times, make him feel lesser. 

“Oh.”

But he was obviously not the first choice still.

“The only reason why you weren’t the first choice is because of what I walked into just now,” Toshinori interrupts Kirishima’s thoughts and words. Kirishima finds his eyes tearing away from the smooth, polished wood floor to see Toshinori stopping in front of Conference Room A, his gaze intense on him. “To be frank, I wasn’t too sure if we should have hired you all that time ago. You are excellent on the field, your skills are phenomenal. Something to be proud of, truly, but you are clearly not completely healed from your time on the force.”

“Toshinori—”

“Kirishima-shonen, I’m not saying that there’s shame in your current struggles,” Toshinori once again interrupts, his hand a soothing warmth on Kirishima’s shoulder. “I’m still not healed from my past injuries, and as many people have undoubtedly told you, it’s okay to not be okay. But you barely passed the psych evaluation and only passed your field training because you scored so phenomenally on the other things your lack of a shooting score passed you.”

Kirishima felt unable to look away from the piercing blue eyes, and the lump in his throat never tasted as bitter, as sad.

He had barely passed the admittance test.

“I just need to know, are you ready to take on this assignment?” Toshinori asks in complete seriousness. “It’s a high stake, big-name client. We do not expect anything untoward to happen, but we never know in these cases. I think highly of you, Kirishima-shonen, and if you are ready to take this on, I’ll believe you, but likewise, if you’re not, I will gladly give this to someone else.”

Kirishima swallowed, his dry tongue passing through his equally dry lips.

Without question, he was not okay, not when he nearly broke down twice in a matter of hours, but it was just a bad day. He wasn’t as shaken as he was two months ago; he was going to his mandated therapy, talking to people who could assist him. Kirishima just didn’t want to be treated like glass anymore; he wasn’t glass; he was an unbreakable force.

Steeling over his nerves and ignoring how his stomach twisted and turned, Kirishima raised his gaze to Toshinori.

“I can do it.”

A smile.

“Good.”

If Kirishima was sweating because he was on a mental slip earlier, he was now sweating because he was beyond petrified and embarrassed. His hands raised up to brush against his red spikey hair, praying to God that it didn’t look dumb. His legs bounced at a speed that was bordering insanity, but he could only hear the sound of his racing heart as he stared at your frowning form from across the table.

It was you — the Y/n, the world's biggest music idol, an absolute legend in the making.

“This is our very own Kirishima Eijirou, age twenty-eight. He has been with U.A.Services for approximately six months now and is without a doubt one of our most capable and well-serviced men,” Toshinori began the introduction to the three people on the other side of the table. Kirishima could feel a blush rising up his neck and settling into his cheeks as what he presumed to be you, your manager, and your lawyer shuffling through paperwork that was very thorough on his background. “He was enlisted in the military before joining our ranks and was honorably discharged at the age of twenty-six as First Sergeant Kirishima Eijirou due to extreme injury. He excels in negotiating, scouting, and is, as you know, a skilled close combatant and was skilled in handguns—”

“I don’t think he’ll need firearms,” you interrupt, a frown on your face in contrast to the bright smile Kirishima was so used to seeing on your face. He tensed in worry.

“Y/l/n!” your manager, Sato Kimiko, scolded.

“What? It’s true! We’ll be around my fans for the majority, if not all the time! How is that right? For him to have a firearm around defenseless, and may I add, harmless individuals?!” you argued, your eyebrows scrunching in your fury.

Kirishima felt frozen in his chair, his eyes seeking Toshinori for guidance, but found himself unable to look away from you. He knew nearly everything about you, he could admit with a proud grin that he was a super mega fan of you, and he might have, at one point, looked your height up to imagine how you would appear beside him. Kirishima had known this entire time that you were two feet shorter than him, but it hadn’t hit what that meant until he was shaking your hand when he first entered.

You were tiny.

His dick and mind really liked that, and seeing your own passion spilling out for your fans was making him fall deeper into this hole he had for you.

“You don’t have a say anymore? Do you understand? You were nearly assaulted yesterday, and we are all done waiting around for something serious to happen!” Kimiko yelled, her face contorted into a look of both frustration and fear. “Either you take this, or we all leave you. I won’t have you murdered in front of me! You’re twenty-six now, stop acting like a damn brat and grow the hell up!”

The words scorched the table, blistering heat filling the conference room as you met Kimiko’s glare.

Kirishima watched with a dropped jaw as your nostrils flared, your lips pursing, and your eyebrows furrowing with unspoken distaste and anger.

“Six months tops.”

“Uh, yes,” Toshinori interjected. “Our contracts only last up to six months for new clients, but if you find yourself wanting to extend your contract after those six months, we are very much open to negotiations.”

You nodded your head, your eyes falling back onto the booklet in your hands that exposed all the information available on Kirishima. From his likes, dislikes, to his allergies and the reason why he was discharged. Each in disturbingly deep detail to make sure all things were up on the table.

“So, you can’t shoot your gun, Kirishima-san?” you speak, your voice tight, a pleased, almost taunting tone.

Kirishima stills, embarrassment bubbling in his chest as you drop the booklet onto the table, exposing his military history to him and you. 

“...no,” Kirishima answers truthfully.

The lawyer shifts from the other side of you, his eyebrows scrunching as he too comes across that piece of information. 

“He won’t use firearms?” the lawyer scoffs, his semi-permanent frown deepening. “How will we know that he will keep Y/n completely safe from any sort of danger that may come her way? We’ll be paying six months for a glorified security guard? We want a bodyguard.”

“And we clearly have one,” you snap back, your eyes narrowing. “If my bodyguard isn’t Kirishima-san, I’m not getting one. I mean, isn’t that what you said earlier?”

“When we were assuming that the person Toshinori was assigning to your case was a well-rounded bodyguard. Not one that was still clearly haunted by his past.”

Fuck, that one hurt.

You scowled, your head tilting as you bared your teeth slightly, “And what? He managed to get into the best agency in all of Japan in spite of that. Sounds like he’s competent. I already told you I won’t take on a team, just one individual. I trust in Toshinori-san’s guidance and his choice in picking Kirishima-san. If you disagree, that’s too bad for you.”

“Y/n! Please stop this! You’re being ridiculous!” Kimiko huffed, slamming her own booklet down, her eyes drowning with her exhaustion. “I’m so sorry, Toshinori-san, Kirishima-san.”

“H-Hey, it’s okay!” Kirishima immediately imputed, his hands raising in a sign of retreat. “I know that Y/n has always enjoyed her independence as a solo star, and how me being involved now is imposing, especially after multiple attacks.”

Kirishima felt that his smile was a bit strained, a bit too forced, especially as your eyes hawked onto him. He felt like you were examining him, like a lab rat going through its initial trial and not knowing just what was to be expected.

“Six months?” you spoke, your gaze not leaving Kirishima’s own.

“Six months,” Kirishima agreed.

You hum, your head nodding. “Fine, six months tops unless the Lieutenant Colonel can apprehend these assholes faster.”

It had been ages since Kirishima had been called by his title, and for some reason, he found himself blushing. His mouth, for the first time this entire meeting, curled into a wolfish grin.

“You got it.”

The lawyer groaned, entirely aggravated and insulted. He stood up, “You’re asking to be murdered, Y/n. Don’t come haunting me when you end up dead and mutilated. You deserve all the shit you’re getting.”

Kirishima watched with his lips parted in a bewildered expression as the lawyer walked out of the room with a loud slam of the door.

You were unfazed, and Kimiko groaned, exhausted and embarrassed as she mumbled a weak, sullen, “I am so, so sorry, Toshinori-kun.”

“Ah, Kimiko-chan, it’s okay!” Toshinori shook his head and smiled knowingly. It wasn’t as if the long time famous bodyguard hadn’t seen his fair share of childish fights between clients. “Thank you for coming as always, and we’ll do our best to make sure that Y/n is in the best of hands.”

“Thank you… and so, the rest of the contract?”

“Ah, yes, let’s continue.”

So, the contract was discussed to full detail.

For six months, Kirishima would be attached to your side. He must always remain at most three meters away from you when there is no one around, and during fan interactions no more than one meter. He had a full say about your safety. If things got rough, you were to follow his every command. Your agency would pay for his room and lodging. He was to wear black pants and a black long-sleeved cotton tee. He would be working with every venue, every hotel, every conventions security team. He would lead them and never leave your side. He was to be awake an hour before you, rest when you were asleep so long as it was safe to do so. He was your guardian angel of sorts, and you would do nothing but adhere to him. 

Most importantly, according to Kimiko, there was one thing they were hoping for: Kirishima's help and discretion. For the next six months, they would be relying on Kirishima’s support to figure out who the group behind the assault was and who the mastermind was behind it all is.

Or so the contract said.

“Y/n!” Kirishima called when the papers were signed, and the day he was set to start was printed. He will begin tomorrow. “Wait!”

You stopped at the door, Kimiko and Toshinori chatting merrily between them as they exited the conference room, Toshinori’s booming voice asking if it was true that Kimiko was attending to a near forty clients to which she bashfully admitted to. You were dressed in a creme knit long-sleeved shirt, faded ripped jeans, and a pair of nude heels. The heels were big, undoubtedly giving you inches, but you still barely got to his shoulder.

“I-I’m looking forward to looking — I mean working with you!”

You looked at him closely, your eyes dragging to the top of his toes to the tallest spike in his hair before your lips pulled into a contemplative pout. You looked back to his eyes, and you steeled over, your head tilting to the side.

“I mean no offense, Sergeant, I thank you for doing your job, but I have no intention of looking forward to working with you. I don’t want you here, so do your best to ignore the contract and realize that I am the most important person, so you will follow my demands.”

Kirishima can do nothing but stare as you turn on your heel and leave.

Well, so much for a good case.

Date: 5/2 Time: 14:00 Location: Tokyo Music Stadium

If you would have told Kirishima Eijirou that he had been working for the grand, the perfect, the fantastic music idol Y/n for a month now, two months ago, he would have laughed so hard he’d cry. Not only would he have not believed it, but he would only think of a million and two scenarios where he would go the entire day flirting.

Now a month into knowing you, of being your bodyguard on a contract for six months, Kirishima could say that of that entire thought, the only thing he had been right about was that he was, in fact, crying. Not only has he never managed to speak an entire conversation with you despite being attached to your hip seven days a week, but despite your much shorter stature, you had managed to get away from him.

You always managed to sneak away from him.

Kirishima could admit that the no more than five meters rule had been wholly and utterly demolished.

And now, Kirishima was crying, not out of joy, but of pure manly fear as he raced through the backstages of the stadium, desperate to find your short-ass anywhere.

“Go, Kirishima!” someone yelled as Kirishima whizzed past him, “Find Y/n!”

“T-Thank you!” Kirishima screamed as he continued onward, the yellow-lit concrete hallway seemingly haunting the further he went into it. The earpiece in his left ear shrilled, the telling sign he was getting a call. Putting a finger to the circle in his ear, he answered the car. “Hello?!”

“Ah, Kirishima-san!” Kimiko’s voice chirped on the other side of the line. “Wonderful to hear your voice again! I’m calling to let you know that the tour bus is parked outside of the venue now. The concert was a smashing success, and she’s come out unharmed for the past month! To make matters even better, since your arrival, there have been no more assault attempts! Oh, um, sorry, where are you guys?”

“We’re just, um!” Kirishima tried not to pant into the microphone; he was still racing ahead, his head peeking into every door and room he passed. “Y/n needed to use the restroom?!”

“Oh, wonderful. Okay! Let me know when you two are on your way over!”

“Ya, okay, bye!”

“By—”

Kirishima hung up as he crashed through the doors at the end of the hallway.

It was night out right now, the full moon reflecting down on the dirty concrete with the same intensity as the streetlamps overhead. And in the middle of a crowd of around twenty people was the person Kirishima was trying to find: you.

You were still dressed in the final costume change of your concert. Even from a distance, Kirishima could see the glitter and highlight on the tip of your nose and the curve of your cheekbones. The crowd around you was clearly not hostile. Each face was bright with broad smiles and sparkling with fresh tears, each voice high and pitchy as if they were talking with some goddess and not you. 

There was a slight longing in Kirishima’s chest at the sight of you interacting with your fans, your smile was so beautiful, and he wished just for a moment that he was the one that it was directed towards. If he had met you as a fan, and only a fan, he wonders if you would look at him as you did the others. Would he see the pure joy in the depths in your eyes, the love, wonder, and pride as they asked you questions and answered your own?

He wanted to be just a fan.

“Y/n, the tour bus is here,” Kirishima finally found his voice, the tenor of his voice spreading through the narrow alleyway. “Say your goodbyes.”

He had to ignore the way you stiffened immediately, the unsolicited joy in your face breaking and becoming bleak as you met his gaze. Kirishima absolutely did not feel pressure behind his eyes when you rolled your eyes and began to say your goodbyes; he did not!

The group of fans waved goodbye as you walked backward toward Kirishima; you didn’t stop waving and continuing your parting conversations with the group until the metal doors of the stadium doors closed behind the two of you. Kirishima let out a sigh, his eyes closing for a brief moment before looking down at you. You were expressionless, eyes cold as you looked dead ahead.

“You’re not supposed to run away like that.”

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t tell me what to do, Sergeant.”

“You know I can’t do that it’s not—”

“Part of your contract. Yeah, I know, but that’s your contract, not mine.”

“Oh, okay. Um, Kimiko? ...yeah, we’re heading out now. Five minutes, till.”

And then there’s only silence.

Neither Kirishima nor you bother talking the entire walk towards the tour bus, and you ignore Kimiko’s call that your lawyer would be meeting briefly before tomorrow's fan signing event. You walk into the bus and go directly to the beds, throwing yourself into the terribly padded bunk and passing out without so much as a sound.

Kirishima sinks into his own bed, it’s too small for him, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Sleep overcomes him easily these days; he’s always way too exhausted in chasing you down like some spoiled toddler you’re behaving like to dream. But that’s okay, he thinks as the comfort of sleep begins to dig its skeleton fingers into his side, at least the exhaustion stops the night terrors.

Date: 5/3 Time: 10:00 Location: Tokyo Music Tower

Now, Kirishima knew that it was a common belief and a nearly proven theory that when you met your idols, you should never ever have your expectations high on who they are as a person. Celebrities were out of touch, cruel, rude, nearly jaded. They weren’t exactly the common folk. With people willing to forget things like them being human beings themselves or the common thread of celebrities being too rich to care, any type of famous person was cold, rude, and ruthless.

He knew that.

He also knew that you weren’t like the nearly proven theory.

You were kind, sweet, a practical angel to anyone who dared to approach you. You were the exception to the rule, an outlier to them all. You spoke politely to all your fans, domestic and foreign, and you treated each fan like the most special person in the world.

You were a good person.

But Kirishima knew, just as you reacted to any cruel person you encountered, you had an edge. Your words were as vicious as your name was known. He genuinely enjoyed watching you put assholes into place, but he sulked, knowing he was always at the receiving end of the sharp, bitter tongue of yours.

For a month and a day now, he had been the number target of your bitter words and scorching hate, but he admitted that he enjoyed it when it wasn’t directed at him, if but a little bit.

“I’m not renegotiating my contract!” you groan, your palms slamming into the depths of your eyes. “I already told you that I don’t need all that money!”

“And I’m telling you that you need to increase the wages that you pay the rest of your team instead of all those charities or else people will begin dropping you!” the lawyer countered with similar fire, his scowl angry enough that Kirishima felt like he had to tear his gaze away from this horrible battle. “You won’t be the best of the best forever, y/n, get over your stupid savior act and look over the changes!”

Kirishima looked over at you, his eyebrows pinching as he watched you fold your arms, your cheeks pushed out to a puff as you looked at the stack of papers with the title page fully covered with the word Contract of Y/n and Co. on it. Well, it seemed that the rumor of you spending your paycheck on things that weren’t you was right, how entirely manly.

“Oh fuck off,” you growl, pushing out of the chair and storming away.

Kirishima glanced over at Kimiko, who was looking pale and exhausted, undoubtedly exhausted from the past thirty-minute battle between the lawyer and the idol that neither made a single step forward nor a step back. How you had the energy to fight so passionately was beyond him. Kimiko nodded minimally, her lips parting in a sigh as Kirishima stood up and followed after her.

“The only way that brat is going to listen is by force,” the lawyer sneered, his voice fading into the room that Kirishima exited. “If that’s how she wants to play, so be it.”

Fortunately for Kirishima, he catches up to you. There are tears of fury dripping down your cheeks, and he feels unable to speak as he discovers a new layer to you.

...how interesting.

“It’s my money,” you speak, but Kirishima is unsure if those words are meant for him or for the void, the earth that you would much rather converse with than him. “I already pay them all a much greater paycheck than they should be getting considering their client pool. Why do I have to bend to their stupid will when I’m the one making the money.”

Kirishima blinks, wondering just what people might want to raise with their contracts. But, he knew you were right. By her account, Kimiko had a client list of many successful individuals, and he may not know anything about the lawyer, but if he worked with Y/n, his name must be good. Guess they weren’t like you.

“People are selfish assholes,” was the only thing that Kirishima could think of, and was something he spoke before he could stop himself.

But you stop in your storm, the anger that clouded you somewhat dissipating, clearing just enough for you to turn to him, your sharp, beautiful eyes for the first time filled with rage that was not pointed at him, and an emotion that made him think of… amusement?

“Yeah,” you agree, a half-smile cracking onto your face, and Kirishima feels his soul begin leaving his very body. “People are selfish assholes, huh?”

“Very much.”

There’s a calm, a snorted chuckle, and Kirishima finds himself stumbling further into the abyss of his feelings for you.

The next ten hours seem to pass in a blur, Kirishima feeling like he was on Cloud Nine as he stood behind you, three meters as he watched fan after fan approach you. Signatures were made, pictures were taken, and Kirishima found that he never once had to approach.

Maybe, he thinks, just perhaps, the two of you can overcome this.

Ten minutes after the official signing is done, Kirishima can’t find you, and he curses loudly into the echoing floor.

So much for change.

Date: 5/17 Time: 23:00 Location: The Parking Lot - Mt. Lady Studios

Kirishima was, for the lack of better words, completely fucking done with you.

Don’t get it wrong, he still was a complete and massive fan of yours. He would never once betray his loyalty to you and your musical career, but he was slowly starting to realize just why the lawyer was set to dying of a heart attack any time soon. Despite your early entrance to stardom and the stuff of legends, you had kept your fiery, stubborn individualism.

Kirishima thought it was absolutely hot and sexy at times, especially the times where you strut around in revealing clothes because ‘this is your body,’ or the lingerie campaign you completed two days ago as part of some fundraising event. There were significant perks to your strong handle and claim to keeping your indestructible personality, but it came back to rub them all back in the worst of ways when once again, you escaped from Kirishima’s side.

To be fair, most of the time, Kirishima was a very level headed individual; he was near impossible to rile up despite popular initial belief. I mean, he was good friends with Bakugou Katsuki, who riled up just about anyone he talked to! He needed to have steel calm emotions, or at the very least portray that he does. But even the unbreakable after tireless attempts can, at times, be broken.

It had been a hard morning.

Kirishima had woken up in a panic, the sweat of his night terror soaking through the sheets of his bed, and his head felt like lead. They had been in the tour bus for the entire day because you were going from the tip of Japan to the bottom of it, thus meaning that you couldn’t run away from him, concluding that when he went to bed that night, he was merely tired, not exhausted.

“K...Kiri...shima?” the voice whispered in his ears when he bolted from his bed and tumbled to the ground, his chest heaving in his panic as he cried.

He only slept for four hours that night, the ghost of his comrade haunting him too much for him to ever drift back to sleep. The only thing he was grateful for when he stumbled down to the hotel lobby for breakfast was that he had an attack while in his own room and not in a tour bus with ten others.

But the lack of sleep and the twisting of his guts from his still unburied memories meant that his exhaustion was dialed up larger than he thought was capable. Today was an interview day plus a miniconcert at said interview.

That meant that for an hour before your interview and two hours afterward, Kirishima lost you and had to hunt you down. You weren’t making it easy on him and had started moving with the crowd you gathered to evade him.

But today, Kirishima was exhausted.

Today, Kirishima wanted to sleep.

Today… Kirishima broke.

“Let’s go,” Kirishima spoke in a low, commanding voice. His eyes were hooded as he looked down at you, the crowd of fans parting like the red sea as he stands behind you, larger than life, imposing.

You ignore him.

“We’re leaving, now.”

“Aw, did you make that just for me?! This beading is gorgeous!”

To be fair, Kirishima isn’t really sure if he’s crying right now or if steam is protruding from his ears like some stupid cartoon. The only thing he knows is that it's been a bit longer than a month, and his client is the most perfect person in the world except to him and some lawyer. All he knows is that he has been continuously mocked, shamed, and disrespected by his client, and at this moment, with his mind and body aching with the memories of the morning, he can no longer stop the tsunami of emotions and thoughts that shove out of him.

He grabs your wrist and begins pulling you away.

“We’re leaving now, sorry to disrupt your time. Come see Y/n another day.”

Kirishima isn’t even aware of your screams, the banging of your small fist against his back as his hand encompasses your bicep easily. He walks and walks and walks until he stops, his mind slightly put back into place.

“—FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM?! LET GO OF ME, SERGEANT!”

Oh, right.

He lets go of you immediately and nearly snorts at how you stumble into his back. So small, so delicate, and so completely weak.

“You want to know my problem, y/l/n?” he asks, voice eerily calm, much calmer than he actually is. “My fucking problem is that I signed onto this case with a single rule: keep you in sight and protect you. It’s simple, almost too easy, isn’t it? But easy and simple is everything that this assignment is!”

Your face contorted into a flash of anger and embarrassment, your nose scrunching as you found your footing, “And I told you that I don’t give a crap about that contract! I didn’t want it in the first place, but no one listens to me!”

Kirishima snorts, his body shifting so that he can look at you properly; your face is seething, your teeth bared and eyes wild, but Kirishima has faced worse.

“It’s not in my contract to listen to you, unfortunately,” Kirishima points out, his eyes narrowing. “I would have a better time listening to you, trying to find an agreement that worked if you used that brain of yours and figured out a way to compromise with me.”

“Compromises aren’t—”

“You think I wouldn’t?” Kirishima almost whines, his voice tight with emotions, fingers fisting in his hair, “You really fucking think that after a month and how many days of me spending stupid hours trying to find your ass, most of the time never knowing if you’re dead or not, I wouldn’t want a better solution?!”

“Like hell they’ll kill me! And if they do, I don’t fucking care!” you stubbornly insist, finger buried against the swell of your chest.

“Oh my god,” Kirishima can’t stop the bitter laugh from escaping, “you’re ridiculous.”

“I’m ridiculous?! I’m not the ridiculous one here!” you cry, your eyes bursting with unshed, bitter tears. “So what that I run away from you? Can you imagine living the past ten years of your life trying to be something that the media wants you to be? No! You can’t, Sergeant! Those times where I’m running away isn’t to be some dick, but to give me time to be me!”

“You’re a goddamn idiot!” Kirishima barks, his anger curdling in his chest like a raging fire. “If you had looked at my damn file correctly, instead of focusing on the stupid shit like me not being able to fire my gun correctly, you would be more than aware of the fact that you are one of my favorite artists!”

“Wh-”

“I am one of the best in my company! I am easy to get along with, personal, manageable, flexible even, but from the very first moment you laid eyes on me, you’ve hated me! You talk down on me, you shit on me, my job, the reason I’m here! Listen, I would fucking love to be anywhere but here right now. I have literally never hated my job before, but you just made that a reality. But the worst part of this all is the fact that you seem to think I would have kept you away, prohibited you from doing things that I already know you love! You stand there and tell me that I would try to force you to do shit you don’t want when I have merely been asking for you to take me there with you! I don’t care if I have to stand away and watch, but I want to be there! I’m supposed to be protecting you, but you’re being nothing more than a stubborn brat who refuses to see the efforts I’m trying to make, and frankly, I’m done.”

Kirishima’s chest is burning with the lack of oxygen, his eyes narrowed and filled with raging fire as he stares down at you, his neck craned so that he could be closer, more daunting, intimidating.

“Fuck o-off,” you snap suddenly, a lone tear, your voice tight and shoulders tense as you storm off.

“So predictable,” Kirishima calls after you, but it’s not filled with the previous anger he had but the sinking misery and regret.

And for a moment, it’s quiet.

Until a single name is screamed.

“SERGEANT!”

And then the all too familiar sound of a fist colliding with skin.

The anger in Kirishima’s blood evaporates immediately, and horror sinks in as he turns towards where you had stormed off. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

The parking lot is filled with an ugly yellow light that seems to set the stage for what was to come down. His footsteps crashing down against the black pavement were mute in his ears, and his eyes were focused on your limp body slung over somebody's shoulder. There was one person behind him, the other one already hopping into a van; Kirishima was the devil on their heels.

“Come on! Let’s go!” the one in the van screamed, his voice full of gruff apprehension and fear.

The van turns on.

Kirishima grunts, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he sidesteps the man who was lingering behind the one carrying you and quickly slams his shoulder into the man's sternum, knocking him out the moment he collapses onto the ground. 

He lets out a roar of such, his eyes glowing with anger and a single mind track to take down the person who held you, ready to throw your unconscious body into the back of the van.

Kirishima doesn’t even know when he manages to get to the man's side, one hand on his shoulder, the other on you, and with the strength and anger of a million fighting warriors, he ripped you from his hold and sent him stumbling into the trunk. Your shallow breathing brushes against his neck, and Kirishima is hyper-aware of the cursing men who chose to abandon their unconscious comrade on the floor. 

With his arms filled by your unconscious body, Kirishima can only watch the van scurry out of the lot, the license plate immediately burning into his mind.

T082-23

When the man on the floor finally wakes up, he’s in police custody, and you’re just waking up. There's a bruise on your cheek, and you begin crying immediately.

Kirishima watches from the distance, his heart aching and guilt climbing up his throat as he watches Kimiko hold you close, her arms warm and tight.

Well, shit.

So much for the month of no attacks.

Kirishima sits in a waiting room, his head relaxed against the wall as he waits for your discharge from the hospital. They suspect a concussion, and they’re running some tests right now. The police are there too, trying to get information from you on the failed kidnapping attempt as well as beginning the initial trials of interrogation of the abandoned kidnapper with a broken sternum, ruptured spleen, and three cracked ribs.

He was not surprised when the police officers came to talk to him, and he gave them the license plate.

But they also gave him an essential piece of information.

(“Well, when we asked for a motive, it seemed that it wasn’t his idea,” the detective admitted, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “His boss said that, and I quote, Y/n will end up dead and mutilated as is deserved. She deserves all the shit she has coming her way, end quote. Any ideas of who it could be”

Kirishima rubbed a hand across his face, the words striking a bit too familiarly to him, but from where. He shook his head, his eyes focusing on his bouncing knee.

“Thank you,” Kirishima said, his tone pointed in a clear indicator that this conversation was now over. The detective nodded, his frown slight as he left. The moment he was gone, Kirishima pulled out his phone and dialed a number. “Kimiko? Yeah, I think we might have our first suspect.”)

For now, he was waiting for you.

An hour passed before you shuffled into the waiting room. There was a bandage on your swollen cheek, but besides the obvious attack, your eyes looked strong, and it seemed like there was no concussion.

“I should be fine,” you speak first, your jaw tensing as if it physically pained you to speak (whether it was because you hated talking to him or because of the injury, Kirishima had no idea). “I will be fine; I just need some sleep.”

Kirishima nodded, his body completely exhausted, and his mind filled with nothing but regrets on how he handled his anger earlier. He needed to apologize. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but he had definitely crossed a few too many lines.

“Should we go?”

You chewed on your lip, your eyes looking down at the white tiled floors of the hospital — so bleak, so anxiety driving.

“I actually wanted to talk before we left.”

Oh?

“Of what, if I may ask?”

Your eyes raise back up before looking away again, “the contract.”

Kirishima finds himself nodding, his hand gesturing towards the empty seat in front of him.

“Sure.”

And with a heaving sigh that sounds like you were on the verge of tears, you sit before him.

The contract was then discussed.

It was decided that you could continue to interact with fans as you wish, so long as you took Kirishima with you. He didn’t care about the long hours, the manic fans, or the impending doom of a group of people who meant business. He needed to be there.

Everything else stayed the same, but Kirishima looked at you one last time that night in the hospital, his body leaning towards you as he did his best to keep his face void of emotion and any lingering teasing.

“I’ll only accept this new negotiation on one term.”

“W-What?!” you pause, thinking. “Fine, say it.”

“From here on out, I think we should be friends, yeah? I’m on your side, after all, it’s a bit weird if we stay just acquaintances.”

The tension and horror leave your body, and Kirishima, for the first time ever, bears witness to the most relaxed, meaningful smile he has ever seen you give. It had been one hell of a shitty night, but at that very moment when the seventh turned into the eighth, Kirishima felt a new warmth flood through his chest, his heart racing at the sight of your glorious smile.

“Of course, Kirishima.”

“Oh, and y/n?” 

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry about all that I said. It was unmanly of me and out of line.”

“It’s okay. To be fair, I was a bit of a self-absorbed brat, too.”

The next day, a picture of Kirishima holding you bridal style is trending.

Date: 6/12 Time: 19:00 Location: Hime Onsen

An Interview with Y/n | Vogue Japan 4.5 million views • Premiered 2 hours ago 874k [liked this] 12.3k [disliked this] Timestamp: 05:32 / 10:33

[Interviewer]: Now, Y/n, we must congratulate you on your latest achievement! Your latest self-titled album, ‘Y/N,’ has been nominated for a record high of twelve awards for the upcoming Japan Record Awards, which will be coming up in about a month! Tell us how you feel about this?

[You]: It was quite a surprise actually! I didn’t realize that it would have done so well in the critic's eyes to get this type of award. I am proud of myself and am excited to see all the other amazing artists and musicians who were nominated as well.

[Interviewer]: Now, your album is all about staying true to yourself, whether that be in love or war. It depicts your own highs and lows while also highlighting beautifully universal things many of us face. Without question, you have always been adamant on staying connected with your fans and keeping a simple rule: no bodyguards.

[Y/n]: Oh, (laughs) yes! That is definitely a new thing, huh?

[Interviewer]: A new thing and a beautiful thing at that, too! Look here!

[captioner notes: interviewer displays many photos of Y/n’s bodyguard, including the most famous one where he’s holding y/n after the failed kidnapped attempt]

[Interviewer]: This is a beautiful — don’t giggle! — a beautiful man, Y/n! What do you have to say for yourself?! Did you finally succumb to keeping untrue to yourself for this beautiful man?! If so, it is perfectly acceptable. By chance, is your contract with him done? I would personally love to have this man on my team.

[Y/n]: (laughing) By all means, take him! (Y/n looks behind her, her bodyguard is there) I’m kidding, I’m kidding! (pauses) No, actually, sorry. Kirishima is an outstanding bodyguard, and I have no intentions of leaving him so soon. Uh, while I did say I had no wish or intentions to have a bodyguard, obviously that was not the best solution, so I hired Kirishima. He is a wonderful addition to my team and still allows me to be authentically me, so it’s still all good.

[Interviewer]: Ah, okay, well, Kirishima-kun, if you ever need a new client, call me. But moving on, yes! Would you like to discuss the series of increasingly concerning attacks?

Kirishima stood in the softly lit hallways of a sauna.

Today was one of the last remaining days you had off, and in celebration of your upcoming award season, you had decided that it was mandatory to visit the hot springs. Everyone on your team — the backup dancers, band, and hair and makeup — were ecstatic to learn that they were being involved with it too.

This high-end resort had accommodated your entire team to receive their own private spring with an all-inclusive menu too. 

It was thanks from the owner for the free PR and, of course, because they were some of your biggest fans. So, in thanks, everyone got to enjoy the springs.

Well, everyone but Kirishima, that was.

As of the past month, things between Kirishima and you had improved a lot.

With Kirishima no longer needing to run a marathon daily to find where you were, he would find himself walking at your side. He no longer felt like you hated him. There was respect and actual friendship between the two of you. You joked with him, showed him memes and TikTok, sent him snapchat streaks, and invited him to watch weird shows with you. You even complained to him about the things that annoyed you, namely Kimiko’s attention being stolen by other clients and the rude conversations you would have with the lawyer.

It made Kirishima’s chest warm up knowing that you were friends now.

A stressful month had passed into a friendlier one.

But there were some things that Kirishima would not have expected to… arise.

Namely you growing to be comfortable enough to walk around with nothing but a thin pair of panties and a large shirt. You curling into his side whenever you watched a show together in the bus, the way your lips brushed against his neck when he leaned down to hug you, or the very so not obvious teasing you would do when you changed in front of him. It was as if you were watching his every reaction, enjoying the way that his eyes horribly tore away, or the silent hitch in his throat whenever you speed his heart up.

The biggest surprise arose the night after the failed kidnapping attempt:

You had come to his room, hours after you were supposed to have fallen asleep.

Your eyes were sunken, still a bit tired, and the bruise on your cheek was looking bad. In your arms was a white binder undoubtedly filled with the introductory packet you had received at your initial meeting. Kirishima had opened the door in his sleepy state in nothing but gym shorts. He had barely started dozing off, his mind wouldn’t stop thinking of what could have happened if you hadn’t managed to scream, and so he kept tossing and turning.

Seeing you outside of his room, his head dropped down to look at you properly, and his fist rubbing at his eye fell, “Y/n?”

“Did I wake you?” you asked, your face filled with a shocked, near uncomfortable, and embarrassed expression he doesn’t recall ever seeing on you. “I’m so sorry! I’ll wait until—”

“No,” Kirishima grunts while he shakes his head, his voice raspy and dry from his lack of use. “I’ve been tossing and turning, um, what is it? Do you want to come in?”

“I-If that’s okay?”

Kirishima breathes out a bit, his shoulders relaxing as he smiles softly, “Come on, let’s talk about what’s on your mind.”

The door clicked behind your tentative steps with an echo, and Kirishima watched as you walked into the hotel room with wariness and caution.

“Would you like some tea?” Kirishima offered, picking up a shirt from his dresser and pulling it over his body. The fabric was tight against his chest and shoulders, but felt more appropriate to wear around you.

“No, I’m okay,” you politely decline.

You stood in the center of the room, unsure of where to sit, stand, or lay.

“Go ahead and make the bed,” Kirishima offered, taking the chair by the desk. “I promise it’s still clean.”

You laugh slightly, smile strained but grateful as you sit at the edge of the bed, binder resting on your lap.

“Thanks, I wouldn’t want to sit on a dirty bed,” you joke, but it sounds weak to Kirishima’s ears.

“So, what questions do you have?”

“Hm?”

“You have my portfolio,” he shrugs, leaning forward so that his forearms rest on his knees. “I have a feeling you have some questions.”

“Oh, right,” you whisper, your eyebrows scrunching as you open the binder to the first page, but your eyes are focused on the desk. “What’s the medication for?”

Kirishima turns his head to follow your gaze and comes across the yellow tinted medicine containers.

“My PTSD,” Kirishima answers honestly, his voice soft with emotion, but there was no shame in it. “My service had a difficult end.”

“That’s actually… that’s what I came to talk about,” you rush, your hands slamming the binder closed. “If you don’t want to talk about it, obviously I won’t push it! God, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have—”

“No, it’s okay,” Kirishima interrupted, his smile sad, but he stood up, his body a tower in front of yours as he urged you to sit back down. “It’s okay; I don’t mind talking about it.”

“B-But what if I say something that makes it all worse?”

A pause.

“Then I’ll tell you that it’s too much.”

A nod.

“Are you… are you still experiencing a lot of symptoms?” you ask, your fingers tightening and untightening around the binder.

“Some days are worse than others,” Kirishima admits, his shoulders shrugging. “I don’t experience much anxiety while in crowds anymore; I don’t have many flashbacks to those days anymore, not since February at least. I do still get… I still get night terrors and dream of that day. It’s nowhere near as bad as the first few months after the accident, but it’s still here.”

“What happened?” you asked after a bit, morbidly curious.

The file had all the details that proved Kirishima to be a master of firearms during his entire time on the force. He was a powerful combatist, and his ranking was a clear indicator of the respect and skills he had. Still, it was the quick honorable discharge, the near year-long hospitalization, and the current inability to use a firearm that concerned you.

What had happened?

“I was involved in a grenade explosion on my last day on tour. I was the only one who managed to survive the blast,” Kirishima easily stated, his voice quiet.

“Oh my god, I… holy shit, I’m so sorry.”

“Nah, it’s all good. There were only two others around, and one of them was already dead.”

“Was that um, Major—”

“We called him Crimson Riot, actually,” Kirishima smiled, a chuckle light on his tongue as he leaned back onto the chair, nodding. “Yeah, that was him.”

“Crimson Riot,” you repeat, nodding. “Did you watch him… watch him die?”

Kirishima presses his lips tightly together, and for a moment, you’re unsure if he’s going to cry, answer you, or tell you to leave. There’s a whirlwind of emotions on your optimistic and typically jubilant bodyguard despite your asshole tendencies that make your stomach twist.

“Yes,” Kirishima finally answers, and you nod.

It’s hours into the morning before you finally depart back to your room, the horrors of Kirishima’s past still pounding into your ears. Kirishima wouldn’t notice, and neither would you, but on his shirt and yours, there’s a few drops of tears the both of you shed when you said goodnight.

Sergeant Kirishima Eijirou, while on an active warzone, had accidentally struck and killed his superior officer, his friend, his role model Crimson Riot, thinking that he was nothing more than an enemy target as he sat wounded behind a wall. He died on his lap, and as someone came to help, a grenade landed two meters away before detonating.

“K...Kiri...shima?” Crimson Riot had whispered as he fell to his knees, blood gushing and seeping through his clothes, spilling onto Kirishima’s lap. “I’ll be okay.”

For whatever reason, since that night, Kirishima felt something in him shift. He still took his medication, still had his virtual therapy sessions when he could fit them in, and even had painful night terrors of that moment, but it was becoming less frequent.

He wasn’t made of glass.

There had been more instances after the kidnapping attempt, but unlike the last times, Kirishima was prepared. He had stopped each one, keeping you safe and sound. As of one week ago, he had officially been given a firearm to keep strapped to his thigh at all times now.

It was an unfamiliar weight, one that still twisted his stomach and made him nervous, but he knew the reason why it was needed. Since the gun had been added to his gear, the attacks stopped. He was definitely not ready to be firing it anytime soon, but it had deterred the attackers for the time being.

Kirishima paused when he heard his earpiece ring, and he dropped his phone where he had been watching your interview despite being there himself.

“Talk to me,” Kirishima answered, his finger pressing the accept button.

“Kirishima!” came the distressed voice of Kimiko, “We just got a tip!”

Kirishima stilled, his eyes scanning the empty hallways that stretched throughout the private hot springs.

“I don’t know, but a person with connections with this mastermind said something about how there were two more events he was staging. Today is one of them!”

Kirishima’s eyes widened, his lips parting to answer Kimiko when instead there was a large, loud crash in the water from inside your room. He assumed the worst.

“Y/n!” Kirishima shouted, hands throwing open the sliding door and racing through the storage room, the shower, and exited out into the hot spring.

Steam curled through the wind, the white wisps of steam feeling warm and light against Kirishima’s skin, and Kirishima panicked when he couldn’t see your shadow or figure in the hot springs.

“Where is she?! Is she alright?!” Kimiko panicked, her voice panicking already. “I’ll call the—”

Kirishima turned on his heel, ready to complete a full sweep of the outdoor hot spring when he crashed into something smaller than he was… smaller, softer, and definitely the shape of a woman. Kirishima felt his entire body stiffen when his rough palms felt the undeniable feeling of wet, warm skin.

“Oh my god,” he heard you shriek. “KIRISHIMA!”

“She’s all good, Kimiko,” Kirishima stifled out, his voice tight, his head slamming backward so that his eyes were concentrated on the starry night sky.

“...sorry… uh aha! Another client of mine is calling, goodbye!” Kimiko’s apology was meek and small before she hung up.

Kirishima’s mind was racing a mile a minute, but his body was frozen, unmoving like a rock when he realized that pressing to his stomach was, without a doubt, your breasts.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“What are you doing in here, pervert?!” you splutter, your hands pressing to his stomach as you step away. “Are you a pervert or something?!”

“I, no! No! Of course not! Fuck, shit, I’m so sorry! I’ll go! There was a tip that something was going to happen right now, and there was a crash and—”

“What are you looking at?” you exclaim, squeaky frustration heavy on your tongue. “There’s nothing wrong with the sky! Look me in the eyes? Have you never been to a co-ed hot spring before?!”

“Y-Yes, sorry!” Kirishima apologized, bowing slightly in apology before he peered down. Still, his face bursted in a flame as he watched the way your jaw dropped in disbelief, the dewy wetness of the hot spring clinging to your body. You were, obviously, soaked, and Kirishima bit his tongue as hard as he could to keep the whimper from expelling past his lips when he saw the light gleaming off your breasts. But he watched your face shift between a million emotions, each one appearing too fast for him to read, too fast to register, but he saw the way a single-arm wrap around your breast and the other shoving into his stomach.

“PERVERT!”

“What?!”

“That was a test! This is my private room! I have the right to not be willing to be looked at right now!” you shrieked as Kirishima spun around, allowing you the complete privacy of his gaze.

“You told me to look at you!” he squawked. “Y-You told me, and I listened because of our contract!”

Kirishima could feel his body trembling, his mind reeling in disbelief that he definitely saw you in your entire nakedness, and if the swirling heat in his stomach had anything to say about it, he liked it. Fuck.

There was a soft laugh and the sound of sloshing water as you probably (he wouldn’t know because he wasn’t looking) reentered the spring.

“I know, I was teasing,” you sing, and he can tell the water is gliding around your body. “Turn around, Kiri, let’s talk.”

“Haha, um, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” Kirishima admits, although sitting in this steam-filled space with just you sounds so very nice. 

“Why not?” you asked, voice sounding a bit upset.

“I’m supposed to be outside, doing my job?”

“Augh, but these private springs are so boring alone,” your voice whines; the water sloshes, and Kirishima winces at the slight throb on his tongue as he continues to look at not your direction. “Turn around, Kiri.”

Not too long ago, you had taken to calling him Kiri, a subtle change, a not unusual nickname people gave him. But just because it was you, his stomach flipped and twisted, and now with the image of your tits in mind, his dick throbbed. 

Gulping, Kirishima turned, his gaze bashfully looking down at you before glancing away. You were chest-deep in the hot springs, tendrils of your wet hair sticking to your neck. Was he dead? Maybe dreaming?

No, his dreams were never like this.

“Do you want to come in?” you continued to ask, your body moving towards him in the water until you reached the edge of the pool, arms testing into the black rocks. “You’re the only one not in one, and since I hate being in these alone, I figured you’d like to join.”

Kirishima wanted to join. More than anything, he wanted to take his clothes off and jump into the springs with you, for you, but that would be unprofessional. Entirely and utterly unprofessional.

“Please?” you ask softly, pleadingly, and Kirishima makes the mistake of locking his gaze with yours. 

“...fine, but I’ll be on the other side of the spring,” he concedes, his steps near clumsy and oafish as he stumbles backward to the shower and closet.

“Such a gentleman pervert,” you tease, fingers curling as you wave at him until Kirishima finally closes the door behind him.

The empty room is nearly deafening in its silence and the future as Kirishima slumps against the sliding door, excited apprehension rippling through every cell of his skin as a smile spreads across his face. He walks to the storage room, and despite it being a private room, there were two closets. The closet not already occupying your clothes had the things needed for him, and thankfully, it fit. 

He undressed slowly, folding his clothes and placing them into the cubbies. Fully naked, he approached the showers, and under the lukewarm showerhead, he cleaned his body of any grime, dirt, and sweat. 

Feeling refreshed and clean, Kirishima began his descent to the hot spring, his heart hammering when his fingers grabbed the handle of the door.

“I’m coming in,” he announced, a healthy amount of fear, excitement, and heat drumming through him.

“I’ll keep my virgin eyes away from your body, don’t worry,” came your slow tease, and Kirishima snorted softly.

Kirishima stepped back out to the hot spring.

Just like the first time, the entrance to the spring was warm, the steam seeming thicker than last time, clouding the outdoor room and his sight. You were at the furthest out part of the pool, your back towards them as you worked your fingers through your scalp.

Discarding his slippers at the edge, Kirishima climbed into the pool.

The pool only went as far as his thigh, and he sank into the warm water. It felt wonderful on his body, relaxing his muscles just enough for him to wonder when was the last time he had managed to visit a hot spring.

“I’m in,” Kirishima said, his arms rising up out of the water, resting onto the black stone. “You can turn around now.”

“God, took you long enough,” you tease, your body twisting so that you were facing him again.

To Kirishima’s complete and utter surprise, you stilled, eyes dragging up and down his exposed chest, eyes locked on the series of tattoos all over his right pectoral, and trailed down his right arm. His lips felt dry as your eyes shifted back to his face, to his arm, and back to him. The smile on your face felt weak, but it sent a spiral of dizzying heat through Kirishima when he noticed the hushed lust.

For a while, the two of you remained at opposite ends of the hot spring. Eyes closed, hummed melodies passing through the song. You asked Kirishima about how he felt, if his medication was due for refills, if therapy was okay (he was doing better, a refill was due in two weeks, and therapy was going the same). He asked you about your relationship with Kimiko, with the lawyer, and if you had any real friends within the music industry (Kimiko was like an older cousin to you, the lawyer was a pain to deal with at times, and surprisingly, you did meet some genuine friends). You questioned how his friends were doing, if he had any contact with them despite their busy schedules. 

So Kirishima found himself retelling stories of his coworkers turned close friends. Each story he told left both of you with sore stomachs from laughter, and tears at the corner of your eyes from laughing too hard. 

“Was the tip story true?” you asked once the quiet overcame and grew old. You shift through the water, getting a bit closer to Kirishima.

Kirishima coughed, suddenly feeling a tad bit shy about his posture, but decided to keep from moving.

“You honestly think I would have barged into here just because I wanted to see you?”

Truthfully, had Kirishima been a man without morals, chivalry, or disrespect for you, he would have. Definitely would have.

“Let a girl dream,” you smile, like a luring siren as you wander closer by just a step. “It would go against everything I know about you, but it’s fun to tease.”

“You’re a bigger brat than I thought you would be,” Kirishima smiles back, trying his best to not show the way goosebumps were bursting against his skin, his eyes locked on yours, trying to not get distracted by the way your wet skin made his mind spin.

“I don’t think I’m a brat,” you counter, getting close enough that he could feel the currents of the water with your movement. But you were far enough that Kirishima felt like pointing out the fact you disregarded his keep apart rule would be a mistake. “How am I a brat?”

The sound of the water rippling through the springs along with the growing noises of the bugs began a melody around the two of you, and all Kirishima could do was stare at the way you blinked your eyes slowly — like a feline stalking a prey.

“A lot of ways, really,” Kirishima breathes, his heart rising up to his throat as he felt your hands gingerly place themselves on his knees.

“Yeah?” you ask, parting through his naked legs, and Kirishima felt his breathing stop when your exposed chest pressed against his. Your lips were ghosting so far from his but tantalizingly close enough that he felt drunk off your sweet breath. “And what are you going to do about it?”

Kirishima sucked in air, his arms resisting movement, and his eyes glanced down at the way your mouth was millimeters from his. His dick was very much interested in what he could do about it, and when your hands grazed up his thigh and onto his chest, Kirishima could feel something rumble in his chest.

He moved to eliminate the space, but there was a crash in the following spring, pushing you away from him long before he could claim your mouth.

“FUCK!” the person in the opposite spring screamed, and Kirishima’s eyes closed in his muted annoyance as you sighed.

His eyes dropped to the water, giving you the privacy to rise out of the water and make your way over to the wall.

“Jenny, are you okay?” you called.

“Give me a warning the next time you try fucking your hot bodyguard in the middle of a private onsen!”

“We weren’t fucking you prude!”

And with that, Kirishima took this as his embarrassed cue to leave.

He stood at the entrance of your private spring for about twenty minutes, entirely uncomfortable with the still hard dick in his pants, rubbing and chaffing against his jeans as he stood there. Eventually, you exited the hot spring, face glowing from the steam and eyes avoiding his gaze as you walked back to your room. Your robe was tight on your body, the hair on the nape of your neck pressed to your skin.

Kirishima sighed as he watched you enter your room, your smile short as you nodded a simple goodnight before letting the door slam shut behind you.

Rubbing his face, Kirishima listened to the voices in his intercom talk about how nothing had happened tonight. An attempted unwelcome visitor tried to get into your room, but they had stopped him. They didn’t fight, but they had run away the moment they caught on to the fact that they weren’t exactly authentic.

Kirishima sighed as he slumped into his room, collapsing on the too small bed as he found himself looking at the ceiling in deep concentration.

What was he going to do now?

That was undeniably sexual, his still semi-hard dick damning evidence to the known fact that he wanted you. By god did he want you. Wanted you beneath him, over him, splitting yourself down onto his cock while you gripped your arms and legs around him, fucking down onto his driving cock. 

Kirishima groaned low in his chest, guilt blooming in the back of his throat as his palm rubbed his pulsing cock.

Bad, Kirishima, bad.

“Kirishima-san?” a voice broke through his earpiece, and Kirishima nearly jumped out of his skin. “Are you there?”

“Hi Kimiko,” Kirishima sighed, his dick deflating instantly. “Everything all right?”

“Ah, yes! Sorry about earlier, the false tip and the sudden abandonment!” Kimiko embarrassingly apologized. “My client was ringing for the fourth time, and while I care deeply for y/n, I had to take it!”

“Mm, no worries, Kimiko,” Kirishima smiled politely despite the lack of visual contact. “How can I help you?”

“Ah, yes,” Kimiko asserted, her tone changing from apology to one of formality. “So, about the visitor incident I’m sure you were brought attention to, it seems that the vehicle they came in was with the driver's plate: T082-23. Does that sound familiar?”

“Not currently,” Kirishima sighed, his body stretching into a sitting up position. “Does it to you?”

“No…” Kimiko admitted, and Kirishima could feel the worried frown on her face. “Well, I just wanted to call and give you that information. It was passed along to me, and they mentioned they hadn’t told you. And since I was going to give you the schedule for the upcoming JRA’s award day, I figured I’d let you know!”

“No problem! Let’s go over the schedule now?”

“Yes! I have a client meeting in America right after this! Can you believe it? An American celebrity wants my help?!”

“That sounds amazing, Kimiko!”

“Okay, so this is how the day’s going to go!”

Date: 7/10 Time: 18:00 Location: Tokyo Hotel Room 101

Kirishima watched as an entire team was getting you dressed up.

Two people were doing your hair, three people doing your nails, one person doing your makeup, and five getting one of your three outfits for the night ready.

According to you, as you had strutted around in these outfits nearly two weeks ago were your red carpet and beginning of the award show outfit, your performance outfit, and of course, the after-party outfit. Each one was different, yet when adorned on your body was a perfect replica of who you were.

Most importantly, the two of you had decided to ignore every single instance of tremendous sexual energy and desire that basically leaked from both of your pores. It was for the best to ignore it. There was no point in pursuing it, especially when there was a known hunt for you, and Kirishima was the last line of defense between you and whoever it was.

Whoever it was, pfft.

Kirishima was willing to bet on who it was already.

Since the night of the initial kidnapping that finally closed the gap between you and Kirishima, there was something that the caught criminal said that stuck with him.

Everything you had coming your way, you deserved, he had said in bitter spite.

The interesting thing was that it was the lawyer who had said that, multiple times at that. The lawyer seemed to have everything to fuel him to rage against you. Everything you said or tried, the lawyer was on your heel, barking at you that it was wrong. Kirishima had also seen the contracts between you and the lawyer, and the amount that he was paid to be your attorney was not large at all.

The mass majority of the funds you earned were always funneled towards charities and organizations you trusted to help people in need — in fact, it was almost 80% of your total earnings. A meek, barely larger than 20% was split between you, your lawyer, Kimiko, your music crew, and any other unforeseen expenses. The lawyer was also in a situation where he was not in demand with clients, and if you weren’t heeding his expensive tag, he needed a new contract with you.

A contract he was always demanding to discuss with you that you denied to change.

Attacks tended to happen days after you and the lawyer tumbled, not enough to rouse suspicion if you weren’t looking, but Kirishima was. He just needed damning evidence now.

Something.

Anything.

And for some reason, his gut was screaming at him that something big was going to happen tonight, that tonight was going to be the last attack—the one to end everything.

So he had told everyone about it. Kimiko, the security at the JRA’s, even you. It made him nervous.

It made his hand sweat, the gun strapped to his thigh feeling like hot iron as he stood about as you laughed with your makeup crew.

Kirishima swore, promised, and vowed he would protect you.

He was going to.

And when the gold dress was tied to your body, fitting you beautifully, Kirishima found himself unable to look away like strands of your hair framed your temples.

“What do you think, Kiri? Will I be on the Best Dressed List?” you asked, tearing Kirishima’s attention away from the bodice and skirt of the dress. Your eyes were bright, hopeful, yearning for a positive reaction from him.

“How could you not be?” Kirishima admitted, his grin toothy, and he shifted against the wall.

“You’ll make me blush,” you grin back, eyes batting just a bit as you clasp your hands together. It takes everything in Kirishima to keep from striding across the space between the two of you and kissing you silly. “Are we ready to go?”

Kirishima wet his lips, unwillingly tearing his gaze from you, and whispers into the intercom.

“Ready to move out?”

“We’re all clear.”

Straightening back up, Kirishima smiled at you, his head motioning towards the door.

“Alright, y/n, let’s see you make some history?”

“Damn right I will.”

Kirishima smiled as he exited first, carving the path for you. 

Paparazzi were on you immediately, the lights flashing and terribly bright as he helped you through the throngs of them. His hand pressed to your back as they screamed demands, most of which you complied with until Kirishima stated that you would be late. You, unfortunately, couldn’t be late to the awards show.

Ushering you into the limousine, Kirishima follows in shortly after you, scrunching up in his seat as he sits opposite of you. However, your typical light and bright demeanor are gone; instead, you seem almost anxious as you open your handbag.

“You okay there?” Kirishima asks as he realizes you pulled out a distinctly obvious metal flask.

“Awards make me nervous,” you painfully admit; you're weakly smiling as you knock back a shot of the drink. “I hate winning and losing; the alcohol makes me less… of a wreck. Do you want some? I think it’s apple soju, I don’t know, a good luck gift from Kimiko.”

Kirishima grins, his eyes rolling as he decides to decline the drink. “Sorry, love, I think that I need to be completely sober for today.”

You scrunch your nose, obviously displeased, “Lame, who shows up to these awards sober?”

“Me,” Kirishima laughed, his head tilting back and scraping against the ceiling of the limousine. 

“Such a prude, sober, pervert,” you sigh, taking yet another swig before putting the flask back into your bag. 

“Such a brat.”

Just like every previous instance, your eyes seem to glow in glee at that name, your lips curling into a pleased smirk as you shrug. It's a sight that makes Kirishima’s mouth dry and heart racing. Fuck, he should not be thinking about fucking you in the limousine right now.

But before the heat in the limousine could simmer to one of undeniable boiling, you had arrived.

Kirishima cleared his throat, sending a quick wink your way as he exited the car first. The first stop was for him to join the lineup to guide you through all the different photo and interview sessions. No one wanted pictures of him emerging from the limo after all. 

There's a moment where after Kirishima closes the door, your eyes filled with worry and excitement as he winked goodbye, that things changed. He stood up, his eyes already scanning the area for anything suspicious, when he saw the all too familiar van.

T082-23.

His eyes widened, his head looking around for anyone else, but there was no one to help. No one could do anything as the car continued to drive away, disappearing from Kirishima’s line of sight. His heart hammered in his chest, and his hands instinctively went to his thigh. He had his firearm… he had it.

With nothing but a quick report to the head of security via his com, Kirishima pushed on ahead, waiting for your descent down the red carpet.

When you eventually emerged from the limousine, Kirishima found that at this moment, the entire world faded away as a gloved hand assisted you out of the vehicle. You were elegant, stunning, a realistic vibrant portrait within his world of greys. As you took photos for the cameras, he was by your side a few strides away as you talked to reporters.

You really came to life right now.

You were beautiful.

“For all the pain in the world that she is, she’s quite charming from a distance, huh?” a voice spoke to his side, and Kirishima froze. His eyes widened completely when he noticed that standing beside him was none other than the lawyer.

The lawyer was dressed in a nice suit, glasses perched on his nose, and for the first time Kirishima had seen, the scowl was not quite so hard.

He was here.

Every warning bell sounded in Kirishima’s head.

This was the man he was so sure was the reason behind your every attack. A man fueled by insufficient funding, a need for a new contract that would never be approved without your signature.

“What are you doing here?” Kirishima asked, subtlety never being something he was ever good with. “I’ve never seen you anywhere except to argue with Y/n about contracts. This doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to be discussing it.”

“Kimiko wanted me to give her a new contract proposal to give to y/n. However, to be fair, it’s quite easy for anything to come down to an argument with y/n,” he shrugs, and Kirishima watches a cloud of emotions pass between the man’s eyes. “At least between her and me, we’ve never gotten along, but I suppose that’s how it is for any type of family who works together.”

Wait.

“What?! Family member?!”

“Yes, I know it’s strange to believe. I am quite ugly, and she is not, but we’re family.”

Kirishima’s mind was racing now. It didn’t make sense. If he was family, why would he be in such pursuit of potentially murdering you? If you were family, he was sure that you would help out? If he needed a raise like he thought, wouldn’t you have helped?

There was no way you wouldn’t.

Was he wrong?

Who was it?

“Kiri!” your voice broke into his mind and tore him back to reality. You waved at him, then passed a stuck-out tongue to the lawyer in a teasing fashion. “Let’s go in?”

Kirishima looked over at the lawyer who greeted a woman, who was also walking down the red carpet, a celebrity he could name no less, with a warm kiss. 

Oh fuck.

He needed to call Kimiko; he was so very wrong.

You had won two awards so far, and at this very moment, Kirishima was being ushered back to his seat in the audience as you were being escorted to the main stage to perform your latest song. You had removed your gold dress for a black, sleek gown. Your lipstick changed to a dark red, and your hands trembled in the white lace gloves you wore.

“Oh, Kiri,” you wheezed almost, your hands shaking as the announcers on stage were announcing the last awards before your performance. “I’m getting nervous. What if I mess up or sing off-key? I’d be the laughing stock!”

Kirishima laughed gently, his hands easily encompassing your waist as he stilled your frantic moves. “Y/l/n y/n, if there is anything I know for sure about you is that you are one hell of a singer and a performer. The awards you’re nominated for tonight speak for themselves! You never fail at your performances, and even if you somehow manage to sing off-key, I’m sure that no one would notice! Your biggest fan in the world won’t notice, at least.”

Not more than seven days ago, when you had cried about the impending nerves of being an artist, Kirishima had come to claim the title of being your biggest fan in the world. It had made you chuckle through your tears before coming near a hysterical laugh as the two of you held each other close.

“You’re a nut, Kirishima Eijirou,” you laugh, hands resting on his lower ribs, but your smile was bright, warm. You paused a bit, fingers pulling at the fabric of his shirt. “I’ll sing just for you then, but I think I should take another swig of that soju.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Could you tell that Takeyama is completely drunk off her ass?”

“...she’s drunk?!”

“Exactly, I’ll be fine,” you breathe, taking a new smaller flask from the purse Kirishima was holding for you and taking the final swig. Your face contorts at the bitter liquid. “Ew, Kimiko really fucked me over with this one. Why is it blue?! Have you ever seen blue apple soju?!”

“No?” Kirishima startled, his eyes looking at the indeed splash of blue liquid tainting a small part of your gloves. “Who gave you that one? What happened with the other flask of yours?”

“Oh, Kimiko sent it along after I lost my other one; it’s her own flask,” you said before the backstage crew whisked you away to begin your set, and without you, Kirishima was sent to the audience.

Kirishima felt trapped as he was ushered into his seat, his eyes scanning the entire audience for something suspicious, a familiar face perhaps. His broad shoulders continued to bump into his neighbors, their disgruntled noises doing nothing to stop his worry.

“And now, Y/n,” came the strong voice of the male announcer, and the light dimmed.

Kirishima watched as the spotlight came down upon you, a golden halo of colors against your darkened gown as the instrumentals began to play in the background. And he saw you take a step forward, the building motifs suddenly silencing when you finally sang the first note.

Despite the panic arising in Kirishima, the unknown of who was behind it all, what was going to happen, he stilled at the unmatched strength and ambiance of your voice.

You sang as you did at every stage, to every audience.

There was a reason why you were considered a legend.

And then, with one last sound, one last melody, and your hand holding your microphone dropped. Your chest heaving, tears falling down your face, and the roar of the audience was silent. You looked through the audience, unable to see, but for some reason, you just knew where Kirishima was.

You smile.

But as the looming sounds begin to fill your ear again, you find that the world is hazy.

You swallow, eyes unfocused as you bowed, hurrying to leave the stage.

Kirishima watched as you took a final stumbling step off the stage, something he felt was going to be written off as you stepped on your dress. But his mind whirled.

The lawyer felt like a setup; the contracts made no sense, the blue soju.

How were they related?

What connected them?

“Oh, fuck,” Kirishima whispered, horrified, and immediately his finger pressed to his earpiece. “Find Y/n! Now!”

Kirishima was racing through the back of the venue, the announcers' voices still ringing through the dirty, bleak hallways. You had just won but was written off as being somewhere backstage; after all, the show must go on.

Voices screamed in his earpiece, each declining to have found you. No one had seen you after you stepped off the stage. No one knew who had taken you.

Kirishima noticed the doors closing at the end of the hallway, and with a dreading sense of doom, Kirishima removed the gun from his harness. And with the devil on his heels, he ran.

Kirishima panted as he looked before him.

You were passed out, draped limp, confused, and woozy against Kimiko’s body, and two men knocked unconscious beside them. To anyone else, it looked as if Kimiko had saved you, some guardian angel within this world, but if Kirishima’s gut meant anything, he knew better.

“Kirishima-san!’ Kimiko squeaked as Kirishima raised his gun, his body tense, unwilling to take a chance on her. “I don’t know what those two were doing! I was saving her, I swear!”

“Don’t do this, Kimiko,” Kirishima whispered, his head shaking. “I figured it out.”

There was a shift in Kimiko’s face at that; the scared unknowing hero melted into one of anger, resentment, one of someone who knew they had been outed.

“So, you figured it out,” she bitterly spoke, her arms that were supporting you from behind revealing to be a firearm of your own. “I didn’t expect you to.”

“I can’t say I figured out your reasoning; honestly, it doesn’t make sense to me, but I felt like it was you,” Kirishima carefully states, his heart roaring at the implied danger of the firearm against your chin. “Don’t do anything stupid, Kimiko.”

Kimiko stares, her lips forming a small o before changing into one of a large, near unattached grin.

“Anything stupid? If anyone is doing anything stupid, it's this selfish prick!” Kimiko spits, her arms tightening around you, making you whimper ever so gently in pain. “She thinks she’s so great, so rich, so smart! Just because she wastes most of her money on stupid shit like charity! Everyone thinks working for her is a dream, but they’re all blind idiots!”

Kirishima’s eyes widen as he notices the glazed, unfocused of your eyes as you shift your attention over to him. Were you listening?

“What’s wrong with the contract?” he asks, a small attempt to diffuse the situation.

“The fact she pays me next to nothing, and yet she works me half to death!”

“You have multiple clients, don’t you?” Kirishima splutters, unsure as to what was wrong. “Why is this one contract so important you wanted to frame her lawyer?!”

Kimiko laughs; it’s pitchy, almost hysterical as she bends over, your body slumping further onto the floor. “That was a lie! All a fucking lie! Do you know that I knew no one when I first started? Y/n is a name everyone wants. I don’t need to do anything to get her things! The world wants her! But the other clients? None of them stayed, none of them wanted me past a month! The salary was okay when she was a snot-nosed brat, but ten years later?! NO! She won’t fucking listen. She never fucking listens to anything but herself! So she has the option to give me the eighty percent, or fucking die here!”

Suddenly the gun in Kirishima’s hand feels like a ton, the skin on the back of his neck crawling and slicking with sweat.

“You know how much those charities mean to her,” Kirishima whispers. “She won’t do it.”

Kimiko trembles for a second, her arm holding the firearm lowering as she looks at the wall, shaking.

“Oh my god… you’re right,” Kimiko realizes, horror and uncertainty flashing across her face. “I guess… she has to die, oh my god, she has to die.”

At that moment, the world slowed down, and Kirishima swore he could see the atoms, the electricity flowing through the space between them. Kimiko’s arm holding the gun raising back up to your temple, her smile detached, horrific yet gleeful.

His body trembled as he doubted himself, his mind unsure if the finger on the trigger was going to be strong enough to fire away. Could he do it?

Was he ready?

Actually ready?

Save her, his past whispered.

Save her, his nightmares screamed.

Save her, his heart yelled.

Kirishima raised his arm, his focus blaring, his past just for a moment, forgotten.

BANG!

“The effects of the rohypnol have already worn out. Thankfully she wasn’t given a whole pill. If she experiences any nausea or throws up, please bring her back, should anything else happen, she’ll be okay.”

The words of the doctor rang in Kirishima’s ears. For tonight, they were going to be discharging you to him. Thankfully, it was all happening in Tokyo, so Kirishima’s apartment was near, and if Bakugou was true to his word, it was clean.

With the help of hospital security, he had managed to get your tuxedo concealed body into a car, and the two of you rode off to his apartment. You’ve been silent the entire time, eyes downcasted as you sit pressed to his side, feeling like a small child compared to him. You knew that he was much larger than you, a near two feet taller, but this felt unmatched. 

Kirishima’s jacket was warm around you, it’s sheer largeness another dress on your body, and despite the horrific turn of events, you were feeling warm. You couldn’t remember much of what transpired after stumbling off stage, but you did remember Kirishima bursting through the doors, a look of anger and fear blistering off his person in such a way that made you whimper when you remembered.

You remembered the onsen basically every night, cursing your stupid makeup team for interrupting a night that definitely would have ended with you fucking Kirishima. You cursed yourself for being a coward and not just saying fuck it and fucking him afterward despite the brief awkwardness.

He wanted you, it was clear as day, and you wanted him as well.

Tonight.

“Sorry about how small my apartment is, or if it’s messy, I don’t actually know if my friends have been keeping up with it,” Kirishima apologized, guiding you into the apartment by the small of your back. “You’ll be safe here tonight, and I promise we can get back to your own place tomorrow!”

“Oh, don’t apologize, it’s okay,” you smile, feeling flushed as you cross the entryway to the apartment. His apartment, despite not being home in so long, is clean. The halls aren’t messy, and a hint of lavender is saturated to the air. The dim hallway lights were barely bright enough to cause you to squint as it was dark out. “Thank you for having me tonight, especially after everything.”

At the hospital, you had been given a pair of sweats and a cotton t-shirt. The change in outfit from your event dress was definitely needed, and even though you were sure your makeup was streaked down your face, you felt good hidden in the depths of Kirishima’s jacket.

“Are you hungry?” Kirishima asked, handing over his guest slippers, which you gratefully accepted. “I might have some microwaveable food leftover.”

“Ramen doesn’t sound too bad,” you admit as Kirishima unbuttons the first few buttons on his white dress shirt. You were instantly captivated by the movement, your eyes shifting back to his face when he began to walk off towards the kitchen.

Kirishima talked warmly, keeping the conversation going merrily and bright throughout the entire time in the kitchen. He undoubtedly knew you weren’t entirely okay, and at moments like this, you were entirely grateful for his sweet personality. 

To be fair, you knew that you had been quite unfair to Kirishima in the beginning. Looking back at the first entire month of knowing him, you were horrified and impressed that Kirishima didn’t demand to be dropped. You had been selfish, stubborn, a bottom line brat, and he took it day after day. It wasn’t that you disliked him back then; hell, you had been in a near state of delirium when he entered the door during your first meeting because you had no idea such huge men existed to the caliber of his hotness.

But you resisted and might have been harsher than needed.

It was okay now; after all, if he was genuinely bitter about that entire month still, the onsen said otherwise.

It didn’t take long for your stomach to be filled with warm broth, soft boiled eggs, and ramen noodles. Kirishima did, in fact, have ramen, fresh eggs, and some vegetables. In a grand act of preparing you the most sufficient dinner he could, Kirishima presented this under budget ramen and laughed when you said it was terrific.

But it was growing late.

The two of you still sat at his table that was full of a card game, your empty ramen bowls, and cups of water. The clock on the oven read 23:38, and the city lights were slowly dying.

“Are you ready for bed?” Kirishima eventually asked you. 

You looked up from your joined hands; your fingers had been playing with his thick and long fingers for some time now. The apartment grew steadily quieter as you studied and attempted to memorize each callous and scar on his hands. They were definitely marked and nicked, the sign of the warrior he once was.

“Depends on the bed,” you tease, lips rising into a small smile as you compare your much tinier hands than his. Your fingertips barely passed the edge of his palm. “What does a big guy like you sleep in? A twin? Tatami mat?”

Kirishima laughed, his hands twisting in yours, wrapping it around so that he raised your hands up to press a kiss to the center of your palms. 

“A futon, brat,” Kirishima explained, his smile small but sharp with his humor. “Let’s get you to bed?”

You frown. 

“Where will you be sleeping then?”

“My couch is just fine.”

“I’m sure your stuffing in a trash bag had holes in it.”

“That’s okay,” Kirishima laughed, standing up and quickly taking you to your feet as well. “It’s just for a night, I’ll live.”

Your face warmed immediately as he guided you down the hallway of his apartment before finally coming into what was definitely his room.

Kirishima’s scent was faint in this room, cinnamon, wood, and warm spices. It made your eyes flutter as you observed his room from the entryway as he began to set up the room. 

His eye for interior decoration was quite… different. You smiled brightly as you glanced around; the diverse and rather boyish decorations around the room warmed your heart. It seemed exactly like what you would think of for Kirishima. 

“Well, that’s all!” Kirishima exclaimed, his hands landing on his hips in triumph as he looked around. “The bathroom is the next door over, and I’ll leave a toothbrush out for you. I also left out a new t-shirt of mine if you want to change!”

You nod some more, watching as Kirishima seems unsure of what to do next. He looks around, coughs a bit before nodding.

“Okay, I’ll be leaving—”

“Um, can we talk?” you interrupt, arms wrapping around your body. “I have some things I want to say.”

“Oh, sure!”

“You can sit,” you say, motioning toward the bed. “I have a few things to get off my chest.”

Kirishima pauses for a bit, his eyes looking you over before he eventually nods, and he sits down. The bed slightly creaks under his weight, and you feel your body warm-up at the sound. You want to hear the bed creak more, to rock under the weight of you and him pressed against the sheets as you cried his name.

“What is it?” he asks gently, observing you.

“I just…” you huff, words failing you, your tongue feeling heavy. “I wanted to say thank you for saving me.”

“It was my job to do that,” Kirishima smiled warmly, his arms crossing again.

He was relaxed.

“I mean, I can’t even begin to believe that it was Kimiko who was behind all that, even though we know it was… I know it was,” you trail off, shivering slightly as you remember your ex-managers demented laugh in your ear. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“Nothing would’ve happened to you,” Kirishima spoke with finality. “I promised to myself at the first meeting I was going to protect you, hell the entire world would. You’re not going to be taken down by pathetic people like that, not you.”

“Really?”

“One hundred percent.”

“I feel like I should repay you in some way, though,” you rub the back of your neck, eyes fluttering just the slightest bit flirtatious. Kirishima looked at you with full mooned eyes, his arms unfolding and his palms resting onto the bedspread.

“You repay me plenty already,” came his whispered answer, so quiet, so pure you almost smiled. “You don’t have to do anything.”

Your tongue pushes past your lip, wetting the drying skin as you take a step toward him. The shoulders of the jacket slowly fall from your own shoulders, pooling just above your elbows as you stop before him, hands resting daintily on his broad shoulders.

“And what if I want something?” you ask, finding yourself stemming with energy as his legs part, allowing you closer access to him. 

You step in closer and closer until your outer thighs are ghosting against the inner part of his.

“I think it’s in our contract for me to do everything that you request if I remember correctly,” Kirishima whispers, his bright clear red eyes turning a burnt shade: dark and ever consuming. 

“And if I want you to finish what you started over at the onsen?” you press, fingers curling against the muscles of his shoulders before locking behind his neck.

His nose was brushing against yours, cold yet burning against your own skin.

“I’ll gladly show you what I wanted to do that night,” he grunts, eyes deadly, and for the first time, his hands held your waist.

You took a second to recover, your skin sparking with the electricity of his touch, and you suppressed a shiver as you opened your eyes.

“Do it,” you cement your fates, “coward.”

And just like that, in a movement so euphoric, Kirishima’s mouth crashed against yours.

His mouth was hot, dangerous against yours -- a live wire sparking with uncontrollable energy and heat as your mouths danced. Hot puffs of air were passed between your mouths, your fingers shaking with an undeniable release of tension and want. 

The kiss was sloppy, desperate, so needy with unspoken frantic determination to fuck each other until the other could no longer move. 

Kirishima’s hand removed the jacket from your arms, letting the expensive material fall onto the floor with a heavy thud. Despite the lack of warmth the clothing provided, the feeling of Kirishima’s hands rubbing against your bare arms sent your mind spiraling.

“Get on the bed,” Kirishima commands against your mouth. “Let me fuck you.”

The words were nearly embarrassingly desperate, but the tone of his voice spoke of the absolute domination he wished to assert on you. He wanted you in one exact way, and you had a feeling you knew what it was. But if he had been paying attention, Kirishima should already know that getting you to listen was not easy.

“No,” you grin against his mouth.

Kirishima pulls away instantly, his lips red and swollen as he replays your word in his head. He looks frazzled, absolutely delirious already at the simple, passion-filled makeout. As soon as his eyes clear away the fog, your grin drops, and instead, you look at him with fierce determination and defiance. 

“No?” he repeats.

“No,” you confirm.

Your chest feels light, your head spinning as the hands on your waist tighten, and his eyes flash dangerously. The tip of his tongue pushes past his lips before quickly disappearing again. 

“Of course, you’re a brat in bed too, such a fucking princess,” Kirishima shakes his head, but his mouth curving into a shark-like grin. 

Menacing, promising, sending chilling shivers down your spine.

The world spins faster than you can keep up, your mouth opening to shriek as Kirishima easily lifts you up, and has you lying against his lap. 

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret, princess,” Kirishima begins, his large fingers hooking into the waistband of the sweats you have on and the panties you’re wearing. “My princess gets rewards for being good. If she can behave properly, she gets to be fucked with dick, her pussy gets to be fucked just the way she pleases.”

You can’t help but stifle a moan that threatens to spill out with his words and the way his hands move down the curve of your ass, exposing the naked skin to him. The waistband of both your panties and sweats stay high up your thighs, and it’s almost embarrassing to know you’re still so clothed despite what’s to come.

“And just what does the Sergeant do to bad girls?” you ask, unable to keep your tongue down, your hips rolling against his lap in undeserved friction.

Unexpectedly, abruptly, a hand comes down harshly onto your bare ass.

The contact is rough, stinging against your ass as you cry out in slight pain.

The hand not currently rubbing a warning circle into your ass twists the hair at the top of your head, lifting your head up so that your ear could near his mouth.

“Bad girls get punishments. They get what I want to give them. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Holy shit,” you whimper, heat flaring between your thighs at the thought of Kirishima doing anything to you regardless of if you were good or bad. You rut your ass back against his hand, longing for a heavier touch, a plea for something more.

“What does the princess want?”

“Nothing,” you bite, and the crashing smack of another spank has you moaning loudly at the stinging pleasure-filled pain. 

“You moaning like a whore at a simple spank says otherwise,” Kirishima chuckles darkly, his fingers pinching your stinging ass as your body bucks against him. He spanks you again, again, and again. Each slap is intentful, powerful, wanting to get you to admit what you want, and you cry against your hands each time, your eyes fluttering as the pain feels good. 

“Of course, a slut like you would be getting off on this,” Kirishima seems amused, his thick finger pressing to the slit of your cunt, spreading your dripping essence against your cunt. He presses against your entrance with just the tip of his finger, and you shriek in a sound for more, your hips jerking backward to get his finger into you, to fuck you with those thick fingers to do something about the growing desperate heat. 

“Kirishima!” you scream, your body sweating and twisting on his lap, desperate to find some way to get him to finger fuck you. 

“Ah, there we go,” he sighs in delight as his fingers swirl at your entrance, increasing the teasing and making your mind spin. “Tell me what you want, brat.”

“You!” you wail, two of his fingers carting between your wet, sloppy heated lips. They graze your clit, stimulating you further as you can do nothing but instinctively jerk against his hold, trying to get him to give you the needed pleasure to build up to an orgasm. “I want you to fuck me so good! Please, Sergeant, please, I want you to fuck me until I can’t remember anything but your name.”

“But you haven’t proven to be a good princess,” Kirishima tuts, his hands disappearing from your pussy despite your crying pleas. His hand grabs your ass, though, massaging the abused skin, grasping it tightly.

You moan, embarrassed at the sensation of his massive hand easily cupping your ass cheek, your fingers fisting into the fabric of his pants as you shake your head.

“Are you going to prove that you’re good?” he asks you, his tone like that of a parent chastising a child. “Gonna prove to me that you can be good?”

You shake pathetically against his legs, but you can’t keep yourself from shaking your head. You can’t prove to him that you would be.

“I can’t!” you whimper loudly, your body twisting on his lap to look up at him, your eyes filled with tears and pleading need. Kirishima looked down at you with lust filled eyes and an undeniable need to be followed.

“You can’t?” he repeats, his head tilting, eyes narrowing, and his fingers dug into your ass. “Or you won’t?”

You tremble on top of him, unable to answer because you weren’t ready to hand over the reins just yet. You didn’t want to submit so fast, you wanted to make his own head dizzy with need but the stubbornness to continue punishing you the way he was promising.

“I won’t,” you gasp, eyes fluttering at the way he finally drops your head.

You gasp loudly as you find him shoving you off his lap, and with your panties and sweats sitting so awkwardly high on your legs, you find yourself tumbling off his lap and onto the floor.

“Guess if you don’t want to behave, I’ll treat you like some fucking pussy pocket and dispose of you once I’m done,” Kirishima easily breathes, and you look up at the now standing man as he tears his shirt off.

Your mouth waters, your cunt throbbing at the sight of the rippling muscles and dark lines of his tattoos on his upper body. You watch fascinated, like one does to a masterpiece, as he undresses until he’s in nothing but his socks. And at the sight of his dick, you can feel at once all the blood in your flushed face drop directly into your throbbing cunt.

He was fucking enormous, his girth barely fitting into his hand, and the angry red head spilled its precum against his abs. A black happy trail connecting Kirishima’s abs to his vein throbbing cock.

Holy fuck, he could quickly kill you with that.

Kirishima doesn’t ask any questions as he watches your awkwardly dressed state of a body on the floor. His head is tilted upwards, a small pleased smile on his face as he looks down on you, his hand slowly, leisurely fisting his cock as you can do nothing but stare.

You make some insane noise at the back of your throat at this sight, your thighs trembling with need, and you're pushing off your side, your ass burning, and your balance off as you open your mouth, offering all you could to him.

And thankfully, Kirishima allows it.

He’s much too tall for you to suck him off on your knees, so he sits back down onto the bed, letting you scamper between his legs, mouth open wide like some needy pet.

“Such a good little slut,” Kirishima sighs, sinking his cock into your wet, hot mouth. “Such a fucking cockwhore, all it took was a single glance for you to lose your will.”

You whine against his dick, your jaw tight with the stretch, your tongue lapping so desperately around the cock that was no more than halfway in yet couldn’t go in any further.

“Suck me right, and I’ll reward you by fucking that pretty little pussy of yours,” Kirishima grunts, his fingers pressing into the side of your neck as he ruts his hips up into your mouth, shoving his cock even further into your mouth. “And don’t you dare look away from me while you suck me off.”

It feels like fire.

His cock driving down your throat hurts, the taste of his salty pre-cum slathering all over your tongue and dripping out of your mouth with the saliva you can’t control. His cock hits the back of your throat, and you continue to bob your head, continue to fuck him with your throat as animalistic, praiseworthy noises begin spilling from Kirishima’s mouth.

You whimper at the sight of his head dipping back, and you nearly whine when he shoves the fingers he had gathered your juices on into his mouth. He moans at the contact and with his pleasure with your actions so obvious as you choke against his girth. That was hot, holy fuck, you wanted him to fuck you, please fuck you. 

Your eyes close as he begins to fuck faster into your mouth, his delight in hearing you choke around him his driving force. Tears start pouring from your eyes despite your best efforts, your throat and inner thighs burning with lust and need as Kirishima groans, his cock twitching deep in your throat.

Slap!

“Hey!”

Slap!

You gag harshly as your cheeks sting with his heavy slap, your teeth grazing underneath his cock, right against a thick, twisting vein.

“Did I tell you to close your eyes?” Kirishima practically growls, his hands grasping the back of your neck, the other one slapping you across the face yet again. “No. I said… fuck… I said, keep your eyes on me!”

Tears weep down your face, your eyes struggling to keep focus on him as he continued to fuck deep and intensely into your mouth, shoving himself further into you until you could feel his thighs grazing your chin. Oxygen wasn’t flowing anymore; your gags and chokes the only time the burning element could manage to flow through you, but Kirishima doesn’t seem to care. He seems to delight in the way you are, despite it all, are moaning and looking at him in a pleading way for more.

More, you plead.

And he delivers. 

Kirishima pulls his still hard, not yet cummed, dick out of your mouth and stands. 

You splutter with the sudden intake of oxygen to your lungs, burning you from the inside out as you splutter on the ground.

“W-What’s going on?” you hoarsely stammer, your jaw and throat aching from its prolonged abuse. “E-Ei?”

However, Kirishima seems dead set on getting you naked, and you squeal in flustered excitement as he rips the shirt off of you and his mouth pressing against yours again. His mouth crashes against yours, and you moan into his mouth immediately.

His tongue curls into your mouth and your tongues press and rub against each other. Each passing second growing more desperate, needier, more intense as your clothes are ripped one by one off your body.

“Holy fuck, I’ve wanted you for so long,” Kirishima nearly whines, his mouth trailing down your neck, biting and sucking against every centimeter of skin he passed. “Wanted to fuck you against the wall, in my bed, and now I get to do that.”

“Please, please, fuck me, please,” you beg, your voice bordering a wail as your arms wrap around his neck, letting him lift you up off the floor. Despite you being so much smaller than him that when he held you to him, your cunt wasn’t pressed to his angry leaking cock, you continued to desperately roll your hips against his abs, the friction welcomed and easing the building pressure. It was an action conveying just what you wanted. “I need you in me, Sergeant!”

“Just cuz… holy fuck,” Kirishima breathes ragged, his body twisting around, and you cried when the cold sheets pressed into your back. “Imma fuck you, Imma… god, just fucking watch.”

Your head thrashed back onto the pillow as Kirishima’s teeth sunk into your collarbone, then captured your sensitive nipples, his fingers dancing against your clit and teasing your center. 

“Now!” you cry, fingers digging into his shoulder. “Put it in!”

This time, Kirishima didn’t need to be told twice.

His larger body was suddenly pressed entirely against yours, dwarfing you immediately as your arms wrapped around his back as his cock slammed into you. You screamed at the sudden intrusion, your pussy stretched beyond its typical limits by his girth, his size, his power.

Your cunt throbbed around him, your face buried within his pecs as you, despite the searing pain, shove your hips up towards him. Fucking into him, sucking him further into you.

“Holy shit,” Kirishima groans, “you’re amazing.”

“Talk less, fuck me more!” you screech, your body spasming, twitching so hard from the splitting pleasure and the lava pit in your stomach, and Kirishima does that exactly.

His hips begin to meet yours in equaled power, slamming into you so that the bed creaked beneath you. He fucked you until he had to hold a hand on your hip so you could stay there, and you kept a hand on the wall to continue to push yourself down onto his cock.

You screamed with pleasure, cried for more, Kirishima’s shark-like smirk getting bolder, darker, hotter with every slam of his hips until his tattooed right arm shot down. His hand wrapped around your throat, choking you.

“You’re so loud, princess,” Kirishima moans, clearly liking your loud noises, “but you’re going to wake everyone in Tokyo.”

His hand around your throat is enough to have your legs trembling around his waist, your choked and muffled moans and splutters drowning out even more as he pressed a kiss onto you. He kissed you, licking your mouth, and devouring your every word and thought. Your core twisted, tightened, and burned. It throbbed and clenched with it’s impending orgasm, and your body began to tense to the heavens as his cock throbbed deep within you.

“Who saved you?”

“E-Ei did,” you garble.

“Who’s fucking you?”

“E-Ei is!”

“Who’s going to fucking cum when I tell her to?”

“Me! Fuck, me!”

Kirishima laughs, his arms wrapping around your waist, and in one final, fleeting burst of strength, fucks into you with his own power, needs, and desire, and you can only take it. “Cum, princess,” he whispered almost sweetly against the top of your head, and it was all over. Your teeth sink into his chest as you scream, a blinding white light erupting through your vision as you cum around his cock.

Kirishima whimpers, his cock still pushing deep into your cunt, until you can feel the warm spill of his seed in your womb.

He collapses to the side of you, taking you with him so that you were resting on his sweaty chest.

“Holy shit,” Kirishima whispered after a bit, your body already warm and too lethargic to notice the star-like tone to his voice. “That was fucking… holy shit.”

“Does this mean you like me?” you half tease, half wonder.

There’s a pause, a silence, and you wonder if maybe he had fallen asleep.

But he didn’t.

“I’ve been in love with you for some time now, I think,” he admits, his hand beginning to rub small circles into your back.

You find that despite the exhaustion, warmth floods your cheeks.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess we’re going to have to discuss a more… permanent and maybe different contract tomorrow morning, huh?”

Kirishima chuckles, and you find yourself smiling into his chest.

“I think we do.”