#there’s specific things that I could tag this with but I’ll just leave it vague and talk about one specific thing

[moophinz]

While it’s understandable when people are against a live action adaptation of a source media- and I’ve had many such thoughts and opinions on that topic myself- there’s a certain extent that starts to bother me. There’s been an enormous amount of adaptations that completely fail to understand the source material and were clearly made with the hopes of a quick cash in on something without a doubt, but there’s some other stuff to be talked about…

1) It’s another no brainer that things would change from one medium to another. Yet, the things that would need to change, and the things that were changed gratuitously are not the same despite some viewers trying to say otherwise. I often see people shrugging the most unnecessary differences in characterization as an “obvious” thing because it’s in live action. There are certain things that can easily remain intact if the people behind it put forth more effort.

2) Not having played/read/seen the original it’s based off before taking on a role is another big one. This is up in the air depending on how things go with the adaptation. Sometimes, there’s a very reasonable explanation behind why the actors involved didn’t, or they were told not to by the show runners/movie people because of [insert reason here that makes sense]. Regardless, there’s no reason for the very gatekeepy attitude taken by fans when they get offended by “filthy casuals and locals” *looking at you gamers*. And I don’t think it’s completely fair to expect every single last person involved to have encyclopedic knowledge on something. All I ask is that it be respectful to the original. Which can be a tall order depending on who’s involved. I know this type of behavior stems from people believing fans will be nicer and more accurate about the original, though.

3) Adaptations that are 1:1 with the source material feel useless, admittedly. I don’t want them to veer off track heavily to the point it becomes unrecognizable, but I also don’t want a clone of what it’s coming from. I like a nice middle ground where that adaptation is able to stand on its own.

[its-time-to-write]

Hi y’all! This is my last unprompted angsty fic for a little! Gonna go back to our usually scheduled hijinks that are sitting in my request pile, I wanted to do this one first. I write all these as a way to deal with things that happen in my own life, whether it’s stressing about school and work, stupid romance, great romance, family, health, whatever, and I wanted to say (yet again) thank you for all the support. Sometimes I still can’t believe that you all like what I write but hey, there ya go

It’s funny, because my most popular fics are the ones that have been written directly out of my actual life. The ones that start out hard-to-deal-with, or with real, palpable heartbreak. The endings are often different because real life isn’t guaranteed a happy ending, but I’m allowed to take the past and see what it would be like if things went differently.

My characterization of Jamie is based on the only person I’ve ever really loved, which is why I can write his voice so clearly. I first watched Ted Lasso and was surprised at how similar they were, stupid hair and all. A lot of these fics are my way of archiving our story and immortalizing parts of it, as well as reminding myself that the love was there. It didn’t last and it wasn’t supposed to, but it was there.

Now, what’s real and what’s fiction? I’ll leave that up to you to decide, but I will say that it’s more than you might think and less than you might hope for.

So if you read this current fic and think, “huh, that was a really specific premise,” well I got news for you! It is. I’m in the first part of my journey on this, the early stages, and this story is not the way I want things to go for me. But I’m hoping that by creating a good ending out of a rough beginning, I can better face whatever lies ahead for me whether I approach it on my own two feet or with the assistance of some really sick wheels.

Anyway, enjoy this or skip it, it won’t hurt my feelings!

how to love being alive

Jamie’s at training when he gets the call. He barely registers the words on the other side when he’s cursing something awful, enough to make Roy Kent blush, and saying something about an emergency before speeding out the door. He pauses for a moment to look up an address in his phone, then he’s tearing out of the parking lot in a manner that puts Colin to shame. 

To summarize, he’s not acting like himself. 

He pulls up to a chiropractor of all places and the girl at the front desk must be able to tell who he’s here for because she just points to a door down the hall. Jamie’s pretty sure he’s never moved this quick in his life and wonders if this could translate to the pitch. Sure he’s fast, but he could always be faster. 

He bursts through the door to see you borderline catatonic, staring at the floor while a doctor pats your arm. She looks at Jamie and says, “Let’s chat for a minute outside,” before he has a chance to say a single thing. Jamie can’t tear his eyes away from you as the doctor leads him out and shuts the door. 

“Thought emergency contacts were for like, hospitals and shit,” he says. 

The chiropractor shakes her head. Jamie notes that her name tag says “Dr. Hadley,” and has a vague memory of you mentioning her a few months ago. 

God, it feels like a lifetime ago. 

“We’re not confident she’s in a fit state to get herself home,” Dr. Hadley says. “Her headspace is a little messed up, which is to be expected. Usually people come to these types of appointments with some moral support.”

Jamie asks, “What kinds of appointments?” and Dr. Hadley tilts her head at him. 

“You are Mr. Tartt, aren’t you?” she asks and Jamie just scoffs because he can’t decide between responding obviously, or telling her no, he’s not Mr. Tartt, that’s his father. He’s just Jamie. 

Dr. Hadley knows who he is because she doesn’t live in a hole in the ground, so she doesn’t ask for identification. She takes his scoff as permission to keep talking, so she says, “She’s here for her MRI results. We’ve been in the process of treating a protrusion on her spine.”

Jamie is positive everyone in this office must think he’s on drugs because Dr. Hadley is talking like he’s supposed to know this, but for the life of him he knows you’d never said a thing. 

“Your girlfriend has been in a severe amount of pain over the last few months, and we’ve finally been able to see the extent of the problem. Apparently she thought it would just go away, but it never did. So now she’s here with us.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jamie says automatically. Because it’s true, innit? You’re not. You’ve been broken up for a month because he couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take the irritation at attending his matches and the tossing and turning in bed at night and the fact that you were wound so tight that you’d snap at the most minor offenses. 

You hadn’t been surprised when Jamie said he couldn’t do it anymore, it’s over, and at the time he had wished that you’d shown just a tiny sliver of emotion. After all, a year and two months is a long time to be with someone for you to coldly slide him his key and then turn away as though he were a stranger. 

He could have sworn there was a glimmer of tears in your eyes, but they’d looked that way for a bit now so maybe it was just allergies. There’s no reason for you to have been in the verge of tears for the entire month before the breakup, right?

Right. 

But he can’t think about that now because Dr. Hadley is frowning at him in a way that so comically reminds him of Roy’s sister that he has to bite back a laugh. 

Everything’s all twisted. 

“I certainly hope your split was amicable,” Dr. Hadley says. “You’re the only one listed as her emergency contact. She needs someone to get her home safely.”

“Right,” says Jamie. “Yes. Fuck. Right. Um, what exactly is wrong with her?” 

Dr. Hadley shakes her head. “That’s her personal information to share with you at her prerogative. And we should probably go see her, I’m sure she doesn’t want to be alone for long.”

Jamie snorts at that. This doctor doesn’t know you at all. If you’ve received any type of bad news the last thing you want is people hanging around. 

Jamie used to pride himself on being the only one you’d let into the bad-new bubble. 

You don’t count with those other people, you’d said once while wrapped around Jamie so tight he thought he’d have to call Ted to bring a crowbar. You said, I don’t have to pretend around you. I don’t ever get tired of you.

Jamie bitterly thinks that that statement turned out to be a lie, but he shakes it off because you’ve only been separated a month, and apparently he’s still your emergency contact for a doctor he didn’t know you had been seeing and fuck if you didn’t look like the most pitiful thing he’d ever seen. He’ll pretend it’s ok for as long as it takes to get you home and comfortable, and then he’s calling this office to get his number switched off. 

So he follows Dr. Hadley back into the room as she softly says your name in order to break whatever trance has you studying the carpet like your final exam is in ten minutes. 

You can barely look at her as she whispers something about going home and being gentle, to which you nod and finally look at Jamie. 

He wonders if you recognize him, because the stare you have is so vacant that you might as well be looking at a stranger. 

“Is she on drugs?” he asks because it looks like you’re on drugs. 

Dr. Hadley shakes her head and holds out her arm to help you up. “No, she’s just in a lot of pain. And emotional distress. It’s a killer combo, and she’ll need extra gentle handling for a while. No sitting for too long, no bending, no lifting. There’s a back support at the front desk for you to take.”

Jamie thinks he hears something pointed in the way Dr. Hadley says, extra gentle. What, like he doesn’t know how bad an injury can take you out? He’s in the Premier League for fuck’s sake. He knows how to deal with a strained muscle. 

Dr. Hadley transfers your arm over to Jamie’s so smoothly that he barely understands what’s happening as she ushers you both out the door, thrusting a small foam roll into Jamie’s free hand. 

“For lumbar support,” she says. “Won’t help much, but it’s better than nothing.”

Jamie’s pretty sure he’s said thanks as you climb in the car and then he’s in the drivers seat and it’s dead quiet. 

“Right,” he says to the silence. “What the fuck.”

You’re picking at your nails something fierce. Jamie has to fight the urge to take your hand in his. A month of separation is not long enough for this shit. 

“Can you just drive?” you ask in a broken voice. “I don’t want to be sitting for longer than I have to.”

There’s a new pitch in your voice, one Jamie’s never heard before, so he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t turn on the radio or a playlist or a podcast or anything, just drives in silence. He knows if it’s quiet long enough, you’ll talk. 

He’s the opposite. He doesn’t need time to crack wide open, just a kind touch or a soft glance and he’s an open book. He was always shocked how early into your relationship you’d figured that out. A soft, “What’s on your mind, Jaim?” and he was unloading about whatever stress or fear he had. 

He’s two minutes away from your flat when you break the silence. “I have gradual onset paralysis,” you say in a voice devoid of emotion. “‘Gradual onset’ means it happens over time. Paralysis means, well…paralysis.”

Jamie can hear what you’re saying and he understands it, but what catches him is the way you’re like nothing more than a hollow body. Not cracking a joke, not picking a fight. Just- empty. 

Jamie says a long and drawn out “Fuuuckk,” because what else can you say? It’s not really his business to comfort you or to pry, except he’s the one the doctor called, so he allows himself one question. 

“How did it happen?”

Last he knew, you were healthy as a horse. 

“Two disks in my spine popped,” you reply, still in that same awful emotionless voice. “They’re not really sure how, could’ve been any number of things. Anyway, it got into my nerves. And my spinal cord. And it’s messing things up and it’s only going to get worse. The scans were to see if they could operate, because sometimes you can remove the shards. Or whatever it is. But I guess they can’t, because if they tried I’d definitely be paralyzed. So all I can do now is be in pain and wait for my legs to shut down.”

Jamie doesn’t know how to respond to any of that but he’s saved from thinking of an adequate response because he’s at your flat. 

It was smart of you not to sell it when you’d moved in with Jamie. He wonders if you knew the breakup was inevitable. 

He hops out and opens the door like a gentleman, offering his hand like he’s some Mr. Darcy-type shit, except you had both agreed that Roy was Mr. Darcy and he was Bingley. So it doesn’t fit at all except as soon as you’re done clutching his hand so you can get out without unnecessary pain, his hand flexes itself like he’s in that damn movie. 

It wasn’t even a conscious choice, just a thing his hand decided to do, and he definitely thinks he’s going to have to talk to Ted about this. Or maybe Sam. Sam knows shit and is good at empathy. Maybe he’ll know what to say when your ex-girlfriend tells you she’s not going to walk ever again. 

Jamie follows you to the door as you fiddle with the lock and push it open with a sigh. For a moment he doesn’t know if he should go inside, but it smells like honey and cinnamon because it’s the beginning of fall and he thinks that he should at least make sure you’ll be alright. 

He notices you’re moving weird. All stiff, like. You’re trying to get an icepack out of the freezer but you can’t maneuver in a way that’s comfortable so Jamie grabs it and hands it to you. 

You mumble, “Thanks,” and Jamie catches a glimpse of the perpetual glimmer in your eye. 

“D’you need me to call someone?” he asks. “I can get Keeley down here. Or fucking… Ted. Or Colin.” He doesn’t say Sam, because he needs Sam. He can’t talk to Sam if he’s here with you. 

You shake your head. Jamie wonders if it hurts to talk, but he remembers how much you hate the sound of your voice when you’re crying. 

You take a slow, shallow breath to collect yourself. “I’m ok,” you finally say. “Not much anyone can do, and you’ve got training. I- I didn’t know they’d call you. I still have to switch your number with someone else. I’m probably going to ask Keeley since my family’s still far away.”

“Right,” Jamie says. Not much else to say. Except- 

“You were seeing that bone doctor when we were together, and you didn’t fucking say anything?”

It’s accusatory and he knows it, but he can’t for the life of him say it kinder. Ted’s always on about communication and shit, and that is not communication. 

You shuffle over to the couch and use it to help you lay face down in the floor. The icepack is precariously balanced on the small of your back. 

“Didn’t know how to tell you,” comes your muffled voice. “Least, I figured out how to tell you too late. What was I gonna say, ‘Sorry I’ve been a complete bitch to you for four weeks, I’ve got shit floating around in my spine that makes me hurt so bad I want to die?’ Sounds fucking stupid.”

Jamie wants to say, Swear jar because it’s a long-standing joke, but he catches the words right before they reach the tip of his tongue. 

“You could’ve said something,” he replies instead. “Chronic pain’s shit. It’s really shit and it makes you act like shit to the people you care about. It’s not an excuse, but it’s a reason.” As the words are coming out of his mouth, Jamie is reminded of a time when the roles were reversed, and you were giving him the “excuse versus reason,” speech. 

You’d said, You’re dad’s an abusive prick, Jamie. Makes sense that you’d have a lot of negative emotions. 

Fuck, if only you’d said something sooner. Maybe this would be something that you’d be cracking jokes about, or Jamie would be holding your hand, or he’d be laying right next to you as he runs his fingers through your hair. 

But your muscles spasm so that thought gets banished as you bite on your forearm in an effort not to yell. 

“Fucking hell,” Jamie says. “I don’t think you’re sorted on your own. I’m calling Ted.”

He walks to the other room so he can pretend he can’t hear your protests. 

—

Ted leaves training to Roy, Beard, and Nate. What’s the point in having four coaches if one of ‘em can’t leave for family emergencies?

Sure, you’re not actually family, but that’s Ted for you. He doesn’t do casual friendships. 

Jamie is out the door like a shot as soon as Ted knocks with a “Sorry, coach,” that Ted barely has a chance to wave off. 

Ted doesn’t say much once he’s inside, just rambles on about training and Kansas and Henry. He’s clattering around in your kitchen and you can’t find it in yourself to care what he’s doing so you just keep laying on the floor, willing your back to stop hurting. 

Finally, he comes over and sets down a smoothie in a short glass with a straw. 

“It’s so you can drink it without moving,” he explains. 

“I don’t think I can do this,” you say more to the couch legs than to Ted.

He sighs from where he’s crouched down next to you. “You don’t really have a choice, darlin’. You have to do this. The question is, are you gonna go through it alone?”

You shrug as best as you’re able. 

“Wrong answer,” says Ted, standing up. “You’ve got a whole crew of people here who are gonna root for you and support you with whatever you need. All you got to do is ask, sweetheart.”

Ah, fuck, you’re crying again and Ted can definitely tell because your shoulders are shaking. He’s pretty sure you’d want to save face so he stands up and says, “Beard’s coming over after training. Says he wants to figure out how to modify your house for a wheelchair or something. Thought I’d make us all dinner so we’re not so hangry when he mentions taking an ax to anything.”

The mental image of Coach Beard chopping down your stairs is enough to make you smile a little through your tears.

—

Waiting is really shitty. Like, really shitty. Every day is the same thing: tingly legs, shooting pains, phantom cramps. The worst was when Dani and Richard were over and you stood up to get something from the fridge, and your legs decided at that moment to lose feeling. You panicked with your arms held out for balance as you swayed back and forth for a moment, willing your feet to fucking move. They did, but not before Dani and Richard were on you in a flash, ready to catch you if you fell.

“Well that was weird,” you joke in an effort to cut the tension. They laugh, but you still catch their worried glance.

“You do not have to put on a brave face for us,” Dani says. “If you want to joke, we will joke. But if you want to cry, we will cry too.”

“You can cry,” Richard says, “I will just pour more wine.”

You laugh. There’s been a steady stream of Greyhounds at your flat for the last week and a half. Everyone and their mother (quite literally) has come by to see you. Your own parents were coming in a week to stay indefinitely while you sorted things out.

You wonder if it’s easier to lose control of your legs slowly or all at once? On the one hand, you at least have notice. But on the other hand, the long, drawn-out waiting feels like slow torture. Every day you wake up from restless sleep and experimentally wiggle your toes. Every day, you check off one more box on your mental calendar as you count down to a date that doesn’t even properly exist.

The only person who hasn’t visited is Jamie. You don’t blame him, though. Keeley’s come round almost every single day and has been successfully switched to your emergency contact. She’s the one you’re calling as soon as you discover you can’t move.

You’re pretty sure it’s getting closer. Your legs fall asleep more frequently and things are all numb. It’s like you know you’re in pain, but it’s not quite registering with your nerves.

It fucking sucks.

—

You don’t believe in intuition like spirits and all that, but you believe in it in that your brain can pick up things that you couldn’t if you were actually trying.

That’s why you’re pretty sure this is it.

Walking is pretty much a no-go right now, so you stiff-leg yourself to the couch and sprawl out as comfortably as you can.

You call Keeley, and she’s over in no time.

“Hi babes,” she says as soon as she’s through the door, “Can I call Rebecca for girls’s night?”

“Sure,” you say, “Might as well live it up.”

Keeley replies, “Great! She’ll be here in ten minutes,” and you laugh, really actually laugh, because of course Keeley’s already called her.

Rebecca swoops in all smiles and no sympathy which is great because if one more person pushes their lower lip out at you, you’re going to scream. She’s brought drinks and Keeley’s pulling out snacks and you’re going to talk and giggle until you fall asleep, ready for what the morning has.

“Is Shandy making a move on that one player?” Rebecca asks Keeley from the couch. 

“Nah,” Keeley calls back, “He said he wasn’t interested right now. Still hung up, I think.”

“What player?”  you ask. You know what Shandy’s like, and you feel for the poor guy.

Rebecca and Keeley are silent before Keeley says, “You wouldn’t know him.”

“Bullshit,” you reply. “I know everyone on that team and I know you haven’t signed anyone new recently. Is it Colin?” 

Rebecca shakes her head and gives Keeley a look. Keeley shrugs. “You’re the one who brought it up, babes.”

Rebecca turns to you. “It’s Jamie,” she says. “She’s been trying to bag him ever since Zava showed up.”

You shake your head. “She’s not right for him. He deserves someone better than that.”

Keeley’s back from the kitchen and scrutinizing your expression. “And what exactly do you mean by better?” she asks.

You laugh. “Oh no, not me. I wasn’t talking about me. No, I’m not- he needs someone different. Like, I don’t know, Roy’s sister, maybe? She’s great and a doctor to boot. Very caring too.”

“You’re caring,” Keeley says slowly, “And anyway, Molly doesn’t like him like that. They’re just friends.”

“Hang on, are you putting yourself in the same bracket as Shandy?” Rebecca interjects.

You shrug. “I was a complete bitch the last month we were together. There’s no excuse for it. I’m just surprised he lasted as long as he did.”

“You were in fucking pain!” Keeley exclaims. “You said you weren’t sleeping and everything fucking hurt and you couldn’t even think straight.”

You grab a handful of candy from a bowl. “Keels, I appreciate the sentiment, but I majorly fucked it. Like, there’s no going back. So he can date whoever he wants as long as it’s not fucking Shandy. Can we please, please move on?”

Rebecca’s eyes are narrowed but they both acquiesce. “Keeley, what about your love life? I’m sure it’s boring as usual.”

Keeley shrieks and smacks her with a pillow. “Fuck off,” she replies. “I’ll have you know it’s going very well…”

—

You were right. You wake up still on the couch tangled in Keeley’s arms, and the standard toe-wiggle just… doesn’t happen. It’s quiet, the early morning type, the kind where the sunlight isn’t so harsh and birds are chirping softly and all of Richmond hasn’t quite got up to begin their day. 

As you look at your unmoving toes, the first thing you feel is a rush of relief. The waiting’s over, you think. 

You look over to the wheelchair that’s been leaning patiently against the wall all this time. Here’s the first day of forever. You’re in no rush for it to start, so you let Keeley’s little snores and Rebecca’s heavy breathing lull you back to sleep. 

—

It’s definitely a learning curve. And it’s frustrating. And if one more person catches you crying out of sheer rage, you’re going to start throwing things. But like Ted said, you don’t really have a choice. 

Your mom said, “The only way out is through,” then grinned at the murderous glare you shot her way. She opened her phone and pulled up a picture of you, age three. “Same lovely expression as always,” she remarks cheerfully. That cracks your frown. You always were a funny kid. 

It takes a while to figure out how to get places. Keeley (the absolute angel) volunteered, but she’s busy with the PR firm and quite frankly, a little too delicate to help you into a car. You made the mistake of saying this exactly one time and because subject to a rant about how she’s “not weak, just PETITE FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!”

Roy had punctuated her argument with a couple “That’s fucking right, babe"s all while rolling his eyes behind her back. It made you giggle. 

The general consensus was that at any given reasonable hour (or unreasonable if you’re Richard or Bumbercatch) a Greyhound or coach would be able to get you where you’re needed. And today, that place is Nelson Road. 

“How often does Jamie come visit?” Jan Maas asks, straightforward as ever. 

“Um, never,” you reply. “We broke up, remember?”

“Right,” agrees Jan Maas. “We all know that, I just assumed you had gotten back together.”

You laugh. How absurd. “And why on earth would you assume that?”

“Because he talks about you all the time,” comes his prompt reply. 

Huh. That’s interesting. You haven’t received so much as a single emoji from Jamie, but hadn’t thought a thing of it. But this, this is strange. This does not fit into your idea of how broken up people act. 

“Weird,” you say. “Wonder what the fuck that’s about.”

Jan Maas shrugs and moves to lift you from the car. 

—

It’s weird to be at Nelson Road, number one because it’s been FOREVER, number two because you’re eye-level with all sorts of things you’d never noticed before (ahem, part of the wall Roy kicked that no one cared to patch up), and number three because the last time you were here, it was as Jamie Tartt’s girlfriend. 

Jan holds open the door as you roll in, ready to face whatever lies in wait. 

It turns out whatever is a very excited Ted and Beard as well as a neutral Roy who present you a coaching jacket and a whistle. 

“You’re coaching with us today because that little rat bastard Nate went to the dark side,” Beard says. 

You remark, “Tell us how you really feel,” earning a snort from Roy and a chuckle from Trent Crimm. 

“Oh yeah,” Ted says, “this is Trent. He’s writing a book.”

“Cool,” you say, “but you do know I know jack shit about coaching?”

Beard shrugs. “Neither do we. Worked out pretty well so far.” That earns another snort from Roy. 

“Right,” you say. “Well, I guess I’m up for anything.”

“You mean ‘down,’” says Ted. “Oh I’m sorry, is it too soon?”

“Never,” you reply. “It’s never too soon to make trauma-related puns and this world, it’s either laugh or cry. So fuck it, I’m going to laugh.”

“Fuck yes,” grunts Roy before turning on his heel to yell at the team to GET THE FUCK ON THE PITCH YOU LITTLE PRICKS!

—

You don’t do much except sit there and watch as the coaches yell and point and run drills. It’s a chore to remind yourself not to check out Jamie’s butt as he runs by so you start thinking not yours, not yours, like a mental mantra. 

He’s not looking at you so you won’t look at him and you’re sure it won’t be a problem because there are so many people to look at and talk to, except lunch rolls around (haha) and you sit at the head of a table and Jamie’s on the bench right next to you. So. There goes the no eye-contact plan. 

You take exactly two bites of your sandwich before thinking fuck this and pushing yourself back so you can roll away. You can just take the elevator to see Becca. 

You’ve made it a good way down the hall when you hear Jamie calling your name while saying, “Wait,” so you move a little faster. 

But it’s still new and you’re painfully reminded that arms are not legs so he catches you with ease. 

 “The fuck are you running away for?” he asks, and you want to point out that technically, you weren’t running. Metaphorically though, he’d be right. 

“I’m not running,” you reply. “I was just going to see Rebecca.”

“Bullshit,” he says. “I know you, and that was running. Is it because of me?”

“No,” you say, and you realize how much you’ve been looking up today. Your fucking neck needs a break so you rub it and look straight ahead, past Jamie at a life-size decal of O’Brien on the opposite wall. 

“Why would I be running away from you? You’re not- I’m the shitty ex in this situation. I’m the one who fucked things up, Jamie, so… you don’t have to like, pretend that it’s your problem. I actually think it would be better if you were just mad and avoided me instead of whatever the hell is currently happening.”

Jamie rubs his jaw. He should be exasperated, he should, but instead the gears in his mind are turning. A few words stick out to him and then it’s like the final puzzle piece has clicked into place. 

“Hang on,” he says slowly. “Hold the fuck up. Did you mess things up on purpose?”

The moment the words are out of his mouth he wants to take them back and apologize, because there’s no way they’re actually true, except you have a look on your face that can only be described as guilty. 

“Fuuckkk,” Jamie breathes out and you hurriedly interject, “It wasn’t intentional! At least, not at first. It started because I was irritable because I hurt a lot, and then I convinced myself that I was faking it so I got mad at myself for being a little liar. And then I couldn’t sleep because I hurt so bad and everything was making me uncomfortable so I started snapping at you. I noticed it pretty quick so I figured I’d get the pain checked out and sorted because I didn’t think pulled muscles were supposed to last this long. And it turned out that it wasn’t a pulled muscle but some of my disks were all weird, and then one day in between physical therapy and the chiropractor, I fell on my back and jostled everything wrong and it fucking popped.”

Jamie thinks he knows exactly when that was. He remembers you saying something about falling while walking to your car after work and him asking if you needed ice. It was at the tail end of things, and he’d taken your stiffness figuratively as opposed to literally. Like, you were acting all cold because you hated him, not because you couldn’t move. 

“So,” you continue, “I just leaned into it. I mean, Dr. Hadley was only one of my doctors, but she’s the one who told me I- you know, could end up like this. She said if things popped and it got into my spinal cord or fluid or whatever and they couldn’t get it out, it was only a matter of time before it messed everything up. They only way to stop it at that point would be to not move so either way, I end up stuck.” 

You half-sob, half-laugh. “I didn’t know how to tell you and I could tell you were already annoyed with me so I just decided to let it happen. You’re better off without me, anyway. I hate asking for help and I hate when people give me empathetic looks or what-fucking-ever, and I was going to have to ask you for a lot of help. You don’t even fucking have time for that, Jamie.”

Jamie is at a loss for words, and you’ve run out of things to say. 

You stare at each other in the hallway by the elevator, breathing heavily. You’ve both triggered each other’s fight-or-flight response, and it seems you’re both down for a fight.

“Right,” Jamie says finally, “ok, yeah, ok. You didn’t tell me because you didn’t want me to have to deal with this?”

You nod. 

“Right,” he says again. “That’s fucked up.”

You don’t respond and he looks at you closely. “You know that’s fucked up, yeah?”

You shrug. 

“Jesus, babe.” Jamie runs his hands through his hair. He’s going to have to fix his headbands. “Alright,” he says yet again, “look. Dr. Sharon and me- we talk. And, you’re supposed to be able to talk to people about shit like this. Like, me playing football isn’t supposed to mean I don’t have time for the people I love. And if you’re feeling that way or if you’re hurting, you have to tell me so I don’t think you’re being all pissed off because you hate me. That’s the whole point of love, babe. You take care of each other’s shit.”

“Jamie, I can’t get places easily anymore. I can’t drive and I can’t go up steps. I will never be able to storm the pitch to kiss you or walk with you in Brazil. I get mad really easily because everything’s so fucking frustrating and I just want to punch something.” You shake your head. “You don’t deserve any of that. You need someone who can be there for you and isn’t a total pill to be around.”

“Are you fucking trying to push me away?” he asks.

“Yes!” you exclaim. “Obviously!”

“Well fucking don’t. You almost had me the first time, but good luck getting rid of me now.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“For fuck’s sake, just kiss,” groans Will, walking by with an armful of laundry. 

“Fuck off, William!” you both say in unison and then Jamie’s on one knee, eye-level with you and brushing a thumb across your chin. 

“Fucking hell, love,” he breathes. “You have to remember that you can talk to me, yeah? Just promise you’ll remember.”

You nod, unable to speak. 

“Good,” he says. “We’re giving this another go. And if you can’t kiss me on the pitch, might as well do it here, yeah?”

[zannolin]

★ (LEMONS) ✿ (NT polyfic) ↻ (polar express au but somehow. it's star trek characters. your choice of which)

★ what was the scene you most wanted to write in [when life gives you lemons]? what was the hardest scene to write?

for the uninitiated the so-called "LEMONS" aka my national treasure crack treated vaguely seriously fic, is basically 3k of me faffing about answering the age-old question in national treasure fan spaces everywhere: why the fuck does patrick gates have so many lemons in his house? (in this version, he does not. hijinks ensue.)

honestly i just wanted to write the concept, not a specific scene. i was like but what if he DIDN'T. what if they're out here, actively pursued by the FBI, in possession of THE most beloved/idolized/renowned historical artifact in the wider american historical consciousness, still dressed for a party, cannot use their credit cards—and they have to buy lemons. like don't you just hate when you're on the run from the feds but your dad doesn't have any goddamn lemons to decode the hidden map on the back of the declaration of independence? it was just funny as hell to me to think about and once i had the concept of "i'm not leaving you alone with the declaration!" "well i could say the same of you!" "i said it first" "well i'm not leaving you alone with riley then" in my head i just had to go for it, you know?

hardest...i don't know, probably the grocery store itself, specifically when riley's buying the lemons, because i was typing it like "...is this too much? this is too much. this is definitely too much, right?" i second-guessed the entire thing but i could just See it happening in my brain and i had to bring it to life. hence the crack tags.

✿ did anything major change when you started writing [three's a crowd] to when you finished?

well. the length, for one. i believe in the span of like 2 days it went from "teehee lil post-book of secrets oneshot!" to "please send help this fic spans like 20 years and has just broken 10k". also i recall i was watching the terrible, horrible national treasure show WHILE writing and made the decision to incorporate the funeral episode into my canon (thus extending the timeline of the fic by a DECADE) because that shot of riley in sadusky's study seeing the pipe from the charlotte changed me on levels chemical, spiritual, and previously unknown to man. those were really the only serious changes that happened, which is impressive, considering i did not finish the outline before starting the fic. like a fool.

↻ pick a fic and a different ship and I’ll tell you how I’d rewrite it

well i had a whole intelligent answer here that was very in depth and then accidentally deleted it and started screaming so you get a really cut down vers. i'm not sure i could ever replicate that fic with a different set of characters because the Vibes don't fit very well with anyone i'm familiar with, esp not star trek. like it's about growing up. and faith. and belief. not even in a religious sense, strictly. just, like. magic. goodness. christmas. whatever. it's about losing the innocence of childhood and looking at the world with a cynical eye, unable to take anything at face value anymore—but then finding magic in the wreckage of your childhood. (okay well when i put it like that i could totally do this with mike but i'm not going to because i don't think it would be transformative enough from the og. it would just be me writing the same story, and not in a cool and new way like please don't hold me to it being the spiritual sequel to planetarium stickers ykwim?)

if i did it with anyone it would probably have to be the PIC s1 crew and be not a polar express situation at all, which is highly dependent upon children as characters and i just could not do that with them. would probably just have to pull elements like idk it's a magical transport of some kind. or we're thrown together under unlikely circumstances. they're all on a train going home for the holidays or something idk. just something about connection, not necessarily childhood. maybe b'elanna or sisko could work as an MC too but i don't have enough brainpower to consider how to fit spots for other characters from VOY or DS9 into the story when PIC falls together pretty easily. i dunno. that au was sort of lightning in a bottle and i don't know if i can ever do something like it again barring. you know. the narnia au i already did.

send me fic asks!

[alovelyburn]

For the tag game " Immortal Stars Have Gone Awry?"

That's one I was TRYING to do for the GriffGuts weekend but I failed miserably. But basically, Neo Griffith and Guts find themselves trapped together in a town they had once spent time in during their mutual Hawk days and have to deal with each other while trying to figure out both how to get out and how the hell Griffith is even trapped, because they both know that makes no sense.

I want to say it had two timelines but really it's more like it had one timeline and a lot of flashbacks to their days in the Hawks and what they were doing in that town back then (that sounds so mysterious rofl they were on a mission having to do with the local lord but it had some thematic resonance with the main timeline).

It was also half-half on the POVs.

....I'm really like, not capable of writing anything simple, I don't know, it's a curse.

Anyway, also a post-364 thing that skipped the whole destroying Elfhelm thing because I just didn't feel like dealing with Casca being kidnapped and Guts suffering an existential collapse over his sword.

Excerpt from Griffith's side, in which he and the Reborn Hawks are in town to to clear out some monsters:

----

“When did the refugees say they’d abandoned this place?” He looks around.

Zodd draws closer. “A week at best.” He looks around the area. His warhorse stamps a foot at the dusty ground.

Griffith sighs. “It isn’t impossible for the survivors to have been consumed in that time.” Even so, he can feel human od faintly pulsing beneath the maelstrom that is his companions, the creatures hiding in the darkness, and himself. “It doesn’t matter. The plan hasn’t changed. Seek out the monsters, exterminate them, and collect any survivors. There should be at least a handful, though I’ll not guarantee their condition.” They’re alive, at least, but depending on where and why they’ve survived, they may not be pleased about it.

He gestures to his men to begin searching. Zodd hesitates, as always, before leaving his side – ever the loyal guardian. It’s almost funny, really. Griffith smiles and points toward what appears to be the ruins of a town hall. Zodd lingers for another moment before moving away, a handful of soldiers following behind him.

As for Griffith, he scans the shadows and watches them move.

It starts as a vague curiosity, eyes drawn to the unnatural patch of darkness lingering in the alleyway between two barely standing buildings. It seems odd, wrong even to his eyes – too dark to be explained by the lighting conditions or the positions of the buildings that frame it.

...it’s been quite some time since something confused him.

He drops from his horse ad walks toward the shadows, head slightly tilted, eyes narrowed, scanning. His black pupils dilate into white, and yet there it stays, stubbornly impenetrable and, for that reason if nothing else, irresistible.

Griffith glances around, catching a sight of his men scattering, looking into empty buildings, stepping over human bones gathered in against walls and in the gutters. It’s grotesque, really. It’s also nothing that requires his attention.

He steps into the dark.

---

Excerpt from the Guts POV in which Guts is trying to kill some Apostle:

It’s around the time that his back hits a tree and breaks it in half that Guts decides he should pay more attention to the apostle’s tail.

It’s not that he’d ignored the tail, obviously. He’s killed enough monsters – and enough Apostles specifically – to know that any random part of them could turn out to be a weapon. If an Apostle has especially large ears, it’s a good bet the fucker can shoot them off it ahead and shove them down someone's throat and use them to eavestrop on things or some ridiculous shit like that. If it has tiny, useless looking arms? Well, they probably extend half a mile at will. That’s just how Apostles are.

Even so, he’d somehow managed to lose track of the tail.

Well, he had a lot to keep track of. The tail, the arms, the tentacles, all acting at once – it’s like a hydra, except uglier since it has more tentacles where the eyes are supposed to be. Fuck if he knows how that even works, but who cares? Guts makes an irritated scoffing noise as he pulls himself to his feet and hefts the Dragonslayer, shifting the balance between his two hands. He gathers his focus and—

--when Guts left Elfhelm, he hadn’t intended to get back to monster-hunting. At that time, his intention was both specific and focused. After so long – too long – distracted from the war he’d begun that night years ago, with Casca and the others enjoying their safety, it wasn’t as difficult as it should have been to leave them behind. He told himself that they deserved the peace, and that he’d come back one day to find Casca again... but the truth is that, at that time, his old restlessness had settled over him and he found himself watching the horizon, thinking about the silver light that waited beyond it.

He’d like to tell himself that he could have stayed if Casca had been able to look at him – if it hadn’t been so easy to tell himself that she would recover more quickly and comfortably without the threat of seeing him. But even if he says it, he knows it’s a lie. He had been half-planning to leave her behind since the moment he decided to bring her there to begin with.

He had tried to live for her. Really, he had. But in the end, hadn’t it always been about—

--Focus gathered. His breath rumbles in his throat and he rushes at that fucking demon in front of him. That rush, the thumping in his head that reminds him of his rage, it’s so familiar. More familiar by far than trying to be supportive. Trying to be soft. When the hell has he ever been either one?

There’s probably an answer to that, but he’s not inclined to think about it.

Instead, Guts lets himself feel the hate, the anger, as it claws its way up his spine and settles in the back of his brain, driving him forward. His sword's rough surface is a dull gleam, catching the sunlight and the shadow, and then breaking the air as he swings and hits—

[lightning-writes]

good heart (faulty machine of a man) - 8/30

fic summary: bucky meets someone at therapy

chapter summary: bucky likes the rain.

word count: 1522

tags: fluff, post endgame, pre tfatws, hurt/comfort, slow burn, canon divergent, canon compliant, au

warnings: therapy talk

a/n: enjoy!

AO3 MASTERLIST X

October 21

Outside the window in Raynor’s office, it’s pouring. Lightning illuminates the night. It’s easy for him to get lost in it. Stormy nights were the only times when he could actually sleep, when he was under the control of Hydra. He feels his body relax in his chair, finding himself looking forward to getting home. Maybe he’ll sleep in his bed.

“I hate this rain,” he hears Dr. Raynor mutter. His eyes cut to her, still hunched over her notes but, occasionally, glancing out the window with disdain.

“I love it,” he admits.

“Why?” She looks appalled. “The city reeks more than usual, you’re more likely to get sick, not to mention it’s depressing and soggy and…” She gives him a cursory look. “Why would you like that?”

He takes a minute before he says the truth. “It’s the only thing that can drown out my thoughts.”

She understands he’s referring to his past. She carefully puts her pen down, like she’s trying not to startle a wild animal. They stare at each other for a moment, anticipation filling the room. He waits her out, like he knows he can.

“Care to–”

“No.”

She sighs, covering her face with her thin fingers. This is the most human Bucky has seen her act. 

“James…” She leans into one arm of the chair, hitting him with a heavy stare. “I know this is a difficult process. I’ve witnessed many veterans fall apart in this room - hell, I’ve fallen apart in a room like this - and God knows how much more you’ve experienced…”

(Bucky feels panic agitate his stomach.)

“And the shitty part about this situation is the US government is expecting certain things from you. Hell, I’m pretty sure they bugged this room, even though I specifically told them I won’t be recording our sessions.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Instead of you coming here to process things on your own terms, I’m here, being the bad guy, pushing you to say the right words and do the little dance around, so I can check off the right boxes, so you can just exist.”

Bucky thinks about his time as a fugitive, after getting away from Hydra and before undoing the brainwashing in Wakanda. It was difficult and uncomfortable. He was afraid of getting caught, being iced, or worse - being used again. But being a fugitive felt… safer, more liberating. Everything he’d done was on his own terms, and he was learning how to just be again.

(A fleeting thought of ditching his pardoning thing and becoming a deserter again crosses his mind.)

“So, let’s make a deal.” His eyes fix on her. “Every other session, we talk about what you want. In the other sessions, we work on this bullshit,” she taps her pen to her journal. “Let’s at least try.”

Against his better judgment, he says, “Okay.”

////

As he leaves, Dr. Raynor leans out of the office. “You can get out of here, Ruby; I’m leaving with Dr. Paz.”

Rue stops shrugging on her raincoat and gives a composed smile. “Thanks Dr. Raynor - see you Tuesday.” When Raynor closes her door, Rue shares a look with Bucky. “Did you know they…”

“I suspected.”

He pulls his hair back into a low ponytail. He didn’t have anything to cover his head as he walked to the subway, so he’d just have to book it.

“You’re not walking home in this,” Rue says incredulously. To punctuate her point, a roll of thunder rattles the room. Her eyes bug out a little more dramatically.

(Bucky vaguely thinks Thor is playing a prank on him.)

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re gonna rust.” She shakes her keys at him, several keychains on a lanyard jingling at him. He notices a mini mjolnir and a keychain taser. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

“Wait, I–”

She’s not listening. She’s hustling out of the lobby, unwrapping her umbrella, and motions for him to come closer. It’s ridiculous, his wide frame crowding her under the little, hot pink umbrella, shuffling to the gray sedan.

(She loops her arm through his metal one, so he ‘can’t escape’. She smells faintly of cigarettes but also something deep and woodsy. He could easily bury his face in her hair from this position.)

“It’s a good thing Vick didn’t need the car today.” He watches her go through her routine of getting settled in the car. “Victoria is my roommate,” she explains belatedly. “Anyways, what’s your address?”

(Bucky has a flash of suspicion but remembers not forty minutes ago when Raynor behooved him to ‘open himself to trust’ because it might ‘help him trust himself’.)

He tells her his address and adds, “The fastest way is on FDR.”

Aside from Rue asking if he’d mind the radio, they drive in silence until they get to the Brooklyn Bridge. He notices the way her fingers tap the wheel when she’s annoyed, the way she sits up in her seat when she changes lanes. He hears her swear under her breath and hum along to the radio.

(Being exposed to her this long makes him feel… something.)

“Oh, Brooklyn Heights, right?” She smacks a palm to her forehead. “Duh, I saw that on the Captain America tribute.” She winces, peeking at him sheepishly. “Sorry, that was weird to say. Does it ever feel not weird for people to know stuff about you?”

“Uh,” the question surprises him. “It’s never not weird, but I guess I’m used to it. Steve was Captain America in the ‘40’s, so I was associated with him then. And, um, my past…”

“As the Winter Soldier,” she acknowledges softly. He knew she knew who he was – a lot of people knew thanks to the media – but he still avoids her glances.

“Yeah, that guy,” the mechanics of his arm whir quietly as he clenches his fist. “I had a reputation, so… I guess I’m just used to people knowing things about me.”

“What’s something people don’t know about you?”

They’re in bumper to bumper traffic on the bridge. The rain is beating down on the car so loudly, it’s nearly comical. Bucky looks at Rue, a mystery to him, studying her earnest features.

“I read.” Her eyebrows raise, impressed. “I read a lot in my down time.”

“What kinds of books do you read?”

Bucky reaches into his inner jacket pocket and produces Steve’s notebook. He’d gifted it to Bucky, on his own birthday, and told him to ‘catch up’.

(Looking back, he wonders if Steve knew his time was coming to an end.)

“I read mostly fiction - Hemingway, Austen, Orwell, Wilde, Plath, Christie…” He pauses, wondering if he wants to continue. Her look is patient and soft. She’s leaning against the driver’s door, head resting against her propped arm. “I also went back and looked at the top books from when…” He casts around for the right phrasing, “from when I wasn’t myself.”

“You know, I bet that’s a good way to learn about pop culture and society.”

He continues, “And if there was a movie or TV series adaptation, I’d watch it.”

“Like what?”

He knows she’ll get a kick out of this. “Like Twilight.”

He’s right. She laughs so hard, tears fill her eyes, and only honks from behind them jolt her back to the present. They inch up, and she says, “You read and watched Twilight?”

“And Harry Potter and the Hunger Games.” He’s grinning, despite himself, at how much she’s enjoying this.

“Incredible.” She wipes her eyes. “I wonder what World War II you would think about that.”

“He’d be confused for sure.” He doesn’t say that current him had been confused too. “But, at least I know what a horcrux is.”

“And that vampires sparkle.”

When they finally get to his apartment, the rain has finally eased. He feels strange, having talked so much about nothing with someone he hardly knows. They talk more about books and movies and television; she listens to him talk about Brooklyn and how much it’s changed. She doesn’t say much about herself except that she’d gone to college to study psychology - that’s why she knows so much about therapy - and that she had worked a short time for the VA. She talks more about her roommate and her casual boyfriend.

(She says, “He’s the first man I’ve dated in a while,” and glances at him in a meaningful way. He gets her gist.)

She parallel parks by a hydrant and turns to him with a small smile.

“You know, it wasn’t that bad of a drive.” They both look at the dashboard clock. The twenty minute drive had been stretched to an hour and a half. Her eyes flit to him, almost nervously. “It was nice… talking.”

“I think that’s the longest I’ve ever talked.” Warmth travels up his neck when she laughs. “Thank you for the ride.”

“I couldn’t let an Avenger get water damage.”

He rolls his eyes and opens the door. She grabs his hand, his metal one, and they both look down at their joined hands. She folds her lips into a thin, embarrassed line, before letting him go. He wonders what’s going through her head.

“Good night, James.”

(His name sounds good coming from her.)

“Good night, Ruby.”

[swiftlythebest]

1. you didn’t peak! you obviously don’t owe the fandom anything more but every fic you have posted since has been *chef’s kiss* ❤️❤️❤️

2. that particular corner of hstwt is SO weird about fic, no regard for the usual fandom etiquette. the complaining and screenshots about harmless stuff like fics with less than stellar characterization. keep that shit to yourself? or complaining about tropes (like cheating) they CHOOSE to read? people are doing this for free, if you want to whine keep it to your gc for god’s sake. i hope their antics don’t put great writers like you off because i think it’s just a few really obnoxious people, but i understand 😭

1. Thank you! It’s just one of those late night thoughts I’ll have sometimes that I’m always going to be chasing the high of that fic. But also, I have way too many ideas to just give up now so you’re all stuck with me until I lose motivation.

2. The thing that makes AO3 so important is that anyone can post whatever fic they want. And I feel like people who don’t get why that’s important haven’t been in fandom that long. Before we had any centralized site, there would be countless forums for various fandoms and those could have whatever restrictions the admins wanted. And then Fanfiction.net came about, which centralized stuff, but also had multiple purges of content they deemed inappropriate. AO3 exists with such a comprehensive tagging system because it doesn’t have those restrictions and relies on readers to regulate their own reading experience.

There’s a ton of fics I just don’t engage with because I know I’m not going to like certain elements. And if I do engage with them and then dislike it, I just stop reading. You can’t really tell people they shouldn’t write something a certain way (as long as it’s not plagiarism or outright hate speech) just because you personally don’t like it.

I had an experience in a previous fandom where someone seemed to be hate-reading my fics and leaving negative comments on all of them. And then if I even vaguely vented about that on here, I’d get hate anons. And that really turned me off of that fandom.

I guess my point is that I’m not interested in dealing with that again and will not tolerate unsolicited criticism on my fics. I want the freedom to write whatever I want, even if people don’t agree with it, and I’m not going to be bullied in my comments. My DMs are open on here if someone has something to say.

But also! Learn fandom etiquette! If the writer doesn’t ask for criticism, don’t comment it! And no one is writing for you specifically (well, I am writing for me specifically, but no one else is!) so you not liking something is bound to happen. Don’t bully people into deleting their fics because a character isn’t exactly how you think they should be.

I have once again ranted far more that planned, but it’s too late now.

[brightblessed]

hello! my name is TOPAZ, i go by he/they pronouns. i’m gonna iron out the really important stuff here first. i always tag triggers. I am currently caught up to the end of 7.0 msq. I will tag all spoilers as 'dawntrail spoilers' and '7.0 spoilers'. If you are on a previous expansion, please let me know so I can tag spoilers for those. By default, I do not. But I will if requested.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT ROI DOES ENGAGE IN SUICIDAL/SELF-HARMING/SELF-DESTRUCTIVE WAYS. I will always tag these things but fair warning!

I have not played Kingdom Hearts or basically ANY Final Fantasy games aside from X, VIII and XVI. I won’t follow you if you are from any of the other games or from KH. I am not familiar with them at all. I am open to crossover if you have a XIV verse. If I KNOW you OOC or you have a XIV verse, I will follow you regardless of what you are from.

I don’t follow blogs that are just companions for in-game roleplay. I don’t really do in game rp. I also won’t really follow aesthetic blogs for characters because I am strictly interested in writing. 

I am open to plotting multi-WoL threads. It just has to be plotted out a little bit. I do have some options for non-WoL verses, but Roi is VERY DIFFERENT in those verses. I can also leave things vague until we decide.

If I am interacting with someone that makes you uncomfortable, please let me know. I know confrontation is hard, but I promise I value your safety especially if we are friends/interact at all.

Roi does not like or trust Garleans. He gradually gets better with this, but he still has a lot of personal issues with them. He can be downright aggressive at times. He also hates A LOT of characters I don’t. I don’t want to water down his very real feelings. I LOVE Fordola, but Roi hates her with a  passion. There are a lot of examples. 

now on to the roleplay stuff. 

PERSONAL BLOGS: do not reblog ic posts, headcanons, or answers to asks. i will tag posts with ‘ok to rb’ if anyone can reblog them. please respect this. 

IN REGARDS TO MAINS/SHIPS: If you go inactive or stop interacting with me, I’ll probably just remove you. I am always open to becoming mains again. But it is kind a sad to go to my mains page and see no one that still interacts with me. 

muse:

Roi is, by default, the WoL. I have added a non-WoL verse. it’s very different from his main verse. I can use this when interacting with WoLs. My default will be WoL, however. I can do non-specific interactions around ARR, and depending on that it could branch off to him joining the scions since he does have the echo, and going down a different path. but it’s only if plotted out with specific partners. Roi was not going down a good path in ARR. His ONLY goal was to get stronger so nothing would hurt him again.

Roi is incredibly traumatized. He’s got a lot of issues. In general, in ARR he can appear reserved and standoffish, whereas in HW he is at his lowest. Dealing with him in heavensward is VERY DIFFICULT. He slowly starts improving from stormblood on. But please keep in mind that Roi has some ugliness inside of him. He usually takes it out on himself. 

Roi does not like the empire. They ruined his life and more or less killed his entire family. he has almost no sympathy for them. He can feel for conscripts who have no choice, but anyone willingly in support of the empire is an enemy to him. He HATES them. Roi LOATHES the empire. There are a few imperials that he is more sympathetic towards. He has very complicated feelings about Yotsuyu for example because of her circumstances and his own personal feelings about society. But yeah, if your muse is imperial he is not going to get along with them. He eases up as time goes on, but he will not go easy on reminding them of the sins of the empire. 

INTERACTIONS:

IF WE ARE MUTUALS, send memes, like my calls, respond to my opens. if we’re mutuals, i want to write with you!

IF WE AREN’T MUTUALS, you can send memes so long as they aren’t interaction-based (drabble prompts, headcanon asks, ect…), but do not like my calls or anything. thank you. this isn’t personal. it usually means i don’t think our styles will work together, i don’t know your fandom, you’re a personal blog, you have broken one of my rules, or i will possibly break one of your rules with the content i post. 

IF YOU ARE A DIFFERENT FANDOM, so long as we’re mutuals i want to write with you. i don’t typically follow fandoms i’m not knowledgeable about a least a little. unless i know you from another blog or the character seems really interesting. 

IF YOU ARE AN OC, if we’re mutuals feel free to interact with me in every way you can think of lol. if not, it may be because i couldn’t read your about page or something, your character won’t fit with mine, or you’re part of a fandom i don’t know. 

ON THE SUBJECT OF ASK MEMES, if i reblog them it means i want them in my inbox. i don’t care if you reblog from me every so often without sending any in. but i greatly appreciate when you do. even if it hardly works and i never answer it, it means a lot to me that you thought to send me something. asks are how i get 90% of my threads. 

FOLLOWING/UNFOLLOWING:

IF YOU ARE INACTIVE FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, i may unfollow you. if i did, just unfollow and refollow me or shoot me a message. 

IF YOU BREAK ONE OF MY RULES, i’ll unfollow you depending on the rule. if you want to talk this over calmly, message me. in case tumblr made me unfollow for no reason, since mobile likes to do that.

IF YOU MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE because of the content you post, like constant suicidal/self harm ooc content, i may unfollow you. 

IF YOU SAY SOMETHING I DISAGREE WITH to the extreme, i will unfollow you.

IF YOU VAGUEBLOG A LOT, i will def unfollow. i don’t need that drama in my life lol. 

IF YOU POST A LOT OF CALLOUTS, i’ll unfollow you. please tag them with cw drama and it should be fine. i understand why callouts have to be posted sometimes. 

I DO NOT ALWAYS FOLLOW BACK RIGHT AWAY. I like to look over someone’s page before I follow them. So if you follow me and a week out, I have not followed you back and you have a rules page and about page AND I have been remotely active. I may not have time to look over your page yet. Sorry.

SOFTBLOCKING

IF YOU SPAM THE SHIT OUT OF MY CONTENT, i will softblock you. this means you going down literal pages and reblogging stuff. i’m happy you like my content, but please use the queue. 

IF YOU REBLOG CONTENT THAT I HAVE WRITTEN, HEADCANONS, ANSWERS, REPLIES, ECT… and you are a personal blog. you will be softblock, if not just outright blocked. 

BLOCKING

IF YOU ARE CLOSE WITH PEOPLE THAT HAVE HURT ME, i might block you so they don’t see me. 

IF YOU SEND ANON HATE and i find out, blocked. 

IF YOU SPREAD LIES about people, blocked. 

IF YOU TRY TO FORCE ME TO SMUT, blocked. 

IF YOU MESSAGING ME OOC EVERY SINGLE TIME I COME ONLINE and get really passive-aggressive when i don’t answer, blocked. 

IF YOU GUILT TRIP ME, blocked. 

IF YOU POST SEXISM, RACISM, TRANSPHOPBIA, HOMOPHOBIA, OR BIPHOBIA… you will be blocked. i don’t care how mild it is or if you don’t see it that way. 

IF YOU REBLOG CONTENT that i have written, headcanons, answers, replies, ect… and you are a personal blog. you will be softblock, if not just outright blocked. 

UNLIKE WITH UNFOLLOWING, AND EVEN SOFTBLOCKING, DO NOT TRY TO ASK ME WHY. BLOCKING YOU MEANS I DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOU. IT MEANS YOU MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE. IT MEANS, PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN. THANKS. 

[adzeisval]

A Curse is a Curse

Chapter Six: Talking and Not Talking. Also on AO3. Check out my curse is a curse tag for chapters on Tumblr.

Stede has a conversation with Buttons and tries to not fight dream Izzy.

Stede tried to do things differently in the dreams, he really did. But every time he saw Izzy standing between him and Ed the urge to fight him took over. Stede had a feeling that what he was doing to Izzy was part of the problem in getting things wrong, but sometimes it just felt so nice to win something. To be good at something. To best someone at the top of their game. To be a real pirate. 

Because while he was trying to keep positive things were starting to bother him. The cramped sleeping quarters. The lack of savings. The nightly fights and ending shift smelling like booze, it was a bit much. He tried to keep in mind that he was doing it for Ed and that it was going to be worth it. He would reunite with Ed. He would get the Revenge back and maybe another ship, he would do right by his crew as well. 

He needed to pay attention to the dreams and do things right but it felt too good to let off steam sometimes. 

Stede sat down outside Jackie’s with a cup of soup and pondered his next move. 

“Be careful Captain.” 

Stede jumped and looked up to see Buttons standing looking around. Stede looked around as well but didn’t see anything to be worried about. 

“How do you mean?” 

“It’s something ye shouldn’t talk about so don’t get specific. Don’t mention or say too much or it’ll cost you something. But I know.” 

“I see,” Stede said though for a few moments he really didn’t. There was only one thing though that Buttons could be talking about; the cursed bangle. 

“These things have a way of being vague,” Buttons said. 

“I’ve noticed.” 

“You can influence them a lot. In ways you don’t even know. And people are not always exactly as they are here.” 

Stede nodded and tried to make sense of what Buttons was saying. It was a difficult thing to do on a normal day but when Stede couldn’t  come out and ask him specifics it was even harder. He didn’t know how Buttons knew or how much he knew but he could sense something that no one else could. It was nice that he was trying to help but Stede would have appreciated some more straightforwardness. Curses didn’t work like that he supposed. 

“Just try different things,” Buttons said, “And figure out what people represent, not who they look like.” 

“I’ll do my best,” Stede said. 

“Good. It would be nice to get back to the sea,” Buttons said, “The sea…” 

“I know Buttons, Afraid I’ve got to get back to work,” Stede said and got up. He really didn’t but he wasn’t realy in the mood to listen to Buttons talking about how much he wanted to make love to the sea. Again. 

That night when Stede started to dream he told himself to make an effort with Izzy, to not give into the urge to fight him. 

“Bonnet.” 

“Izzy. I’m here for Ed not for you,” Stede said. He felt the bangle get warm around his wrist. He was doing the right thing!

“You can’t have him, he doesn’t want you.” 

“Maybe. But I need to see him anyway.” 

“Fight me coward,” Izzy said. Stede tried to resist the urge to do so. Ed was the more important goal, he could always deal with Izzy later. 

“Piss off Izzy,” Stede said. 

“Afraid Bonnet? Afraid of what he’s going to be like, afraid of seeing how much you hurt him,” Izzy taunted. 

“I am not afraid!” Stede said. 

“I think you are,” Izzy said. 

Stede knew he should just walk past Izzy, just leave him be and not give in to the urge to fight him. The dreams were trying to help him get to Ed and he just needed to focus on that. Izzy was an obstacle but not in the way Stede first thought. 

“I don’t care what you think of me Izzy,” Stede said. 

“I think you do,” Izzy said and drew his sword. 

Stede tried to walk by Izzy, he really did, but it was too much. Too much. Stede drew his sword. 

“That’s more like it!” 

Stede fought to kill. He was going to get Izzy out of the way and gone. Though he knew it would happen he still wished Izzy would just disappear in the dreams once he was killed. 

Stede impaled Izzy to the mast of the Revenge. 

“Fuck you Bonnet,” he said and spit blood in Stede’s face. Stede punched him in the face and then close to where the sword was and enjoyed the groans of pain coming from Izzy. When Izzy finally slumped over Stede realized he had gotten it wrong again. Ed was there. He’d spent too much time on Izzy. 

Stede woke up in a sour mood. 

He’d let Izzy goad him into a fight again. Fucking Izzy. Why did it have to be him? Stede didn’t understand why the dream kept presenting him with Izzy if that wasn’t supposed to somehow be important.

Stede knew he was missing something still. It was starting to get quite depressing really that he couldn’t figure it out. And if Buttons was right then he shouldn’t ask for help. That it would be dangerous to do so, like he could pass on the curse if he wasn’t careful. He wasn’t sure about it and Buttons was a very strange man but Stede didn’t want to risk it.

“I’ll get back to you Ed,” Stede said. 

That evening he went to the beach to send off another bottle. He had no idea if any would reach him but he had hope that they would. Until he could actually get a ship and try to find Ed it was all he could do. He had to keep moving forward. He couldn’t get stuck in despair and give up. He was never going to give up.

He wished he had help. 

The dreams were too vague and annoying to be useful. It seemed more like they were designed to drive him mad.

[theschlaepfer]

2024 goals

This is a non-comprehensive list of some things I want to achieve in the new year. Maybe I’ll set reminders to check in on this as the year goes on.

Downsize

I want less stuff. Every time we move there’s a box or two full of random stuff that just sits in another box or drawer until we move again. Not great! But also so tedious to go through! I’d love to take a week and just really decide what things I need, and what things are weighing me down. And also figure out eBay.

Read a book each month

I read my first full books since high school this year, and I enjoyed it a lot. I always envy readers and bookworms. I have a lot of other media I like that can eat away at my free time (games, shows, films). Zelda especially has just torpedoed my free time. I’ve loved every second of it, but wow is there a lot to do in that game.

Getting off topic. Point is: time short, want read book. I got a couple for Christmas so I’ll start there! To make it more of a tangible goal, I’ll try to read one book each month. I can already tell you I’ll fail but at least it gives me a framework.

Brush up on a language

I took three different languages in school: Spanish in junior high, Latin in high school, and German in college. I’d like to brush up on either Spanish or German in the new year.

Spanish is vastly more practical for me because of where I live, and would be used weekly if not daily.

German is of interest to me because my family is from Switzerland. Ideally I’d love to learn the Swiss-German my extended family speaks, but learning resources are scarce. And nearly all of them are fluent in English so it’s not a pressing matter. Just would feel nice to connect more with that family history.

Then there’s an entirely impractical side of me that wants to learn Japanese. Japan is the Switzerland of Asia in a lot of ways and visiting this past summer made me want to go back so badly. Probably has the most uphill battle to learn though, so maybe I’ll leave that for another year.

My tentative plan is to put on some videos and such while I do dishes or other chores, when my ears and brain are a captive audience!

Establish a workout rhythm

This is such the stereotypical New Year’s resolution, but yeah, I’d like to get fit. Specifically, I want to know what it’s like to feel “in shape”. Especially since becoming a father, there are so many things in my daily life that I think would be so much easier if my muscles were just a bit stronger or my heart and lungs a little more efficient.

How am I going to do this? Not sure yet. There’s a gym club near us that offers childcare so I might try that for a bit. I’ve tried running before and I liked it when I could find the time for it. And Fitness+ gets flack but I’ve done quite a few exercises through it and it’s honestly quite enjoyable.

I’ll end up doing a combo. Or nothing at all. But maybe me saying this into the internet will provide some sense of accountability. Ideally I just want to get into a sustainable rhythm. Doesn’t have to be much, just something.

Use public transit?

This is a tough one for me. Right now I live in the mountains on a somewhat steep, busy, and narrow road with a lot of blind turns. This makes riding a bike a bit treacherous from my home, especially after dark. When the days start to get longer, I’d like to try riding my bike to the bus station and ride the bus to work more often. It tags on quite a bit of extra time in my commute, but I’ve just grown to really resent driving recently. Tough in a car-dependent area of a car-dependent nation.

Unlock the power of Costco

At the end of this year we went to Costco a few times and I forgot how much is there in terms of building blocks for easy meals. I want to come up with some meal plans using Costco stuff to cut down on grocery costs and also make dinner a bit easier at the end of the day.

Well that’s about it. I have some other vague goals of journaling or meditating but I can’t really put it into words yet.

See you in a few months, wall of text.

[kerosenecrushh]

20 questions for fic writers!

Tagged by @sensitiveheartless (kind of, they left it open at the end to anyone who wanted to do it)

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

40, as of today!

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

79,131

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mainly Bungou Stray Dogs, but I occasionally write for My Hero Academia and Sk8 the Infinity as well.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

tastes like candy

raw

Kinktober Day 4: Praise Kink

Kinktober Day 3: Dirty Talk

wanna get out of here?

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yep, pretty much always! The only times I don’t are if someone leaves a one-word comment or I’m not sure how to respond lmao. I love when people show their appreciation for my writing, so I try to show that gratitude by replying!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I wouldn’t even necessarily classify it as angst, but the Fyolai Blood Play fic didn’t exactly end with aftercare and cuddles.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Pretty much all my fics have happy endings. I hate sad endings with a burning passion, so as a treat to myself, I just don’t write them!

8. Do you get hate on fic?

I haven’t so far, thankfully! I have had people comment vague stuff about being “traumatized” by my work, but that’s mainly people who didn’t expect to find smut, I think.

9. Do you write smut?

Yepppp haha, in fact I’ve only recently branched out to writing SFW stuff.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I haven’t yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out for the future. I just haven’t felt inspired to write one so far.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, but I have seen a fic that HEAVILY borrowed from one of mine. It pissed me off a bit, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that these things happen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I don’t think so. No one’s asked me if they could translate any of my fics, at least.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but I’m curious what that would be like. So far I’ve only ever worked alone in the writing process, so think it would be challenging to adjust to working alongside someone. Again, not something I’d rule out though!

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Man this is tough. Fun fact, I have a Pinterest board for ships with 26 subsections of specific ships, so there are plenty to choose from here. Soukoku and BakuDeku are ones I love to write and consume content for, but my favorite to actually write would probably be Ranpoe. They’re just so fluffy! I always feel better after writing a fic about them.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but probably won't?

There’s this one idea I had based on a BSD theory that ended up being wrong. It would essentially be a long multi-chapter fic where abilities were written out of existence, so the story restarts at the beginning and the characters all eventually find each other, even without abilities or past memories pushing them together. So, for instance, Kunikida would still be a math teacher; Atsushi would never have been kicked out of the orphanage; Yosano would (interestingly enough) be working at a candy shop; and so on. I don’t know that I’ll ever get around to writing it, since it’ll take a TON of research on the canon materials. I’ve started the planning phase but it truly is a mammoth of a fic. Link to my theory if you’re interested in the details.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think characterization is a strength of mine. I also typically have a first draft that’s like 95% ready to post, since I edit while writing. I usually do a quick read-through, change a word here or there, and post.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Non-character details (like setting). I get too caught up in the action! I can also be impatient with transitions between scenes, hence the massive amount of one-shots.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I’ve translated one word for a fic, but even that felt a bit cheesy when I did it. I try to avoid it, since there’s almost definitely native speakers out there cringing at literal translations and google translate errors in fics.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The first one I wrote for was Bungou Stray Dogs, and that remains the one I write for the most!

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Kinktober Day 31. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I must have read it at least 5 times now. I’m really proud of how it turned out.

Following @sensitiveheartless’s example, I hereby tag anyone who sees this and wants to do it! Have fun!

[mimzy-writing-online]

You probably know this by now, I don't know if you keep up with Whumptober, but one of the prompts this year includes "blindness". I'm not blind but based on your posts about writing blind characters, and based on how I would feel if one of my disabilities were used as a whump prompt, I'm not super comfortable with it. I was wondering what your thoughts are on blindness being a Whumptober prompt.

(unironically and with feeling) thanks, I hate it.

Yes, I’m familiar with Whumptober, but I’ve never participated myself and I haven’t seen this year’s prompts.

Edit: I later did see the prompts and check out the blog. I think it's a good set of prompts and I look forward to all the promising content, especially since some of my favorite tropes are there. To be clear before you read this, I have no problem with Whumptober2021 or whump in general. This is not the first time blindness has been included for a list of whump prompts, and it won't be the last.

This post directed at the concept of "blindness" as a whump prompt and why I think it's a bad idea. The intended audience is individual writers thinking about future projects.

The timing of this is almost too perfect because I read a fanfic earlier this week that would meet that prompt exactly. Tags included whump, blindness, and angst with a happy ending. Now whump, hurt/comfort, and angst with a happy ending are tags I enjoy reading, but blindness as whump has a specific message to it.

To explain that message, I want to discuss what whump is. Many readers are already familiar with the genre, but I think taking the specific definitions and picking apart what it means and what expectations we carry when reading whump fanfiction

Urban Dictionary defines it as: taking a character and putting them through physical and/or mental torment and is typically followed by the same character being treated for their traumas. To indicate the characters place in the situation they’d typically be called a whumpee (the character being hurt/comforted), the whumper (the character that causes harm and trauma), and the caretaker (the character designated the helping/healing/comforting the whumpee).

Fanlore has a page for whump that explains it in depth, including where it started in fanfiction, examples of whump, and even a list of “popular targets” in different fandoms. (Warning: you might find yourself called out on the popular targets list)

“The term whump (or whumping) generally refers to a form of Hurt/Comfort that is heavy on the hurt and is often found in gen stories. The exact definition varies and has evolved over time. Essentially, whump involves taking a canon character, and placing them in physically painful or psychologically-damaging scenarios. Often this character is a fan favorite…”

To add to that, I think an important detail is the distinction Fanlore makes between hurt/comfort and whump:

“While some communities and fandoms may use whump as a synonym for hurt/comfort, there is still a recognition that whump refers to darker and more extreme scenarios. And there are still whump fics been written that have very little, or no comfort at the end of the story.”

The big appeal of hurt/comfort is getting to both explore the darker sides of pain and then experience the catharsis of being taken care of, of being supported by your loved ones as you recover from the trauma. The character is the proxy for experiencing those highs and lows while you yourself are safe at home.

I personally don’t read much/any whump without some h/c involved, but I’m happy there are stories out there for people who do enjoy it. I’m not here to judge what you like reading or what you do to your characters.

What I want is to express how blindness, my disability, used as a whump prompt personally makes me feel and what message it sends to me, to others, and how that message affects my daily life.

Whump undeniably involves watching a character suffer through something painful and traumatic.

My use of the word “suffer” is what I want you to focus on.

Vision loss can be painful and traumatic. I personally developed an anxiety disorder in response to vision loss. Others experience depression. For some it might result in relapsing into old, maladaptive coping mechanisms like drug use, self harm, or eating disorders.

A big part of my anxiety was how people reacted to my vision loss. It was a cause of their stress. They were worried because they genuinely believed I would never live a happy life without normal vision, and that my life would only be struggle and pain.

I recently saw an old friend who hadn’t heard about my vision loss. The conversation was awkward, but the worst part was how they reacted as though I had experienced an insurmountable tragedy. And even when I assured them I’m happy with my life, they clearly didn’t believe me. They acted like I was just lying or in denial.

I love that people want to empathize with my situation and ask themselves what they would do in my situation, but I hate when the conclusion they come to is something along the lines of “I could never do that, I’d be too miserable thinking about everything I lost, I’d never be able to do anything I enjoyed ever again.” But I did go blind. And I’m not miserable, I’m actually happy with the direction my life is going, and I still enjoy my hobbies, even if I engage with them differently.

I’m not suffering. My life didn’t end with vision loss. It’s not ruined, broken, or worthless.

I read a fanfic that was tagged with whump, blindness, and angst with a happy ending. A general synopsis of the plot: the whumpee had gone blind due to a curse. It was true love’s kiss that broke the curse. Even from the summary I knew it was going to end with whumpee being cured somehow and that I’d leave that fanfic vaguely dissatisfied no matter how good the rest of the fanfic was.

I can say this for the fanfic: the whumpee had already accepted that they would likely be blind for the rest of their life, but everyone around them was treating it as a tragedy that needed to be fixed, working tirelessly for a cure despite the whumpee’s protests that they didn’t have to.

It actually hit home to my personal experience.

I still left it dissatisfied with the ending. I might love curse fics in that fandom, and I love the “true love’s kiss” trope, but it wasn’t enough to distract me from the fact that: an actual person out in the world thought the best happy ending, maybe the only happy ending, would be if the character got their sight back.

(note: I clicked kudos and exited out of the story's page because no fanfic writer deserves unsolicited critique or hate, especially for content I consumed for free and at my own volition.)

Why read a story I knew would disappoint me?

Because blindness representation is so damn rare that I feel like I’m wandering in a desert, dying from thirst and desperate for that oasis. But sometimes that oasis is a mirage and the author is unintentionally telling you that your life is actually awful and you’ll never be fully happy like this. And that is a shit mentality to walk through life with.

I don’t appreciate blindness being a whump plot. I hate it. Hundreds (thousands?) of fanfictions featuring blind characters are about to enter the internet and the overall message is going to be “You poor thing! You must be in so much pain, you must be miserable! Who’s going to save you? Who’s going to comfort you? Wouldn’t it be terrible if there was no one in your life to take care of you? You poor helpless thing!”

And I feel objectified. I feel trivialized. The mirage in the desert is going to become a starch, empty room filled with dozens of water bottles, almost all of them poisoned. My representation is going to hurt me personally, and it’s going to reinforce that idea strangers have about how awful my life must be.

(I returned to school this past month, and every day I’m hesitant to tell someone I’m visually impaired because I don’t want to be treated differently. If I’ve managed to pass as sighted this whole time and then suddenly reveal “oh yeah, I’m visually impaired” I feel this instant silence, this pause of awkwardness as people suddenly question how they’re supposed to treat me. They treated me like a person, and now I’m something strange and unfamiliar.)

I’ve worked so hard to improve representation for blind people, to give internet strangers the exposure to a blind person they need to normalize blindness because I hope that if they’re ever so lucky as to meet a blind person, they’ll treat that person with respect. That hope that another person in the blind community will find a friend they feel comfortable and accepted with. I hope that I’ll meet people who accept my blindness as just another aspect of me (like being bisexual or gender fluid or a writer or a cat lover).

Please don’t turn me and my community into a caricature. Don’t erase everything I’ve worked for with this blog.

To be clear, this is not just me saying "I hate the cure trope" again. This is me saying "the purpose of whump is to painfully hurt your favorite character, and I hate that your idea of pain and suffering is my daily (wonderful) life."

[scaramoon]

matchmakers | childe x gn!reader

synopsis: childe’s family seems to know about his feelings for you... maybe he shouldn’t have taken you to meet them; 2.9k

tags: roommates, friends to lovers if you squint, fluff

notes: ib @/test-tube! this is crossposted to my AO3 but no other reposts are allowed :)

Childe wrote about you a lot. At first, he told himself that it was just because he needed to tell his siblings about something other than his “job”.

However, soon every letter back home had a mention of you. His older siblings smiled fondly at the letters, clearly seeing that Childe had developed feelings for you — it just seemed that he hadn’t noticed.

It wasn’t until he got a particular letter back that he started to think about his relationship — rather, friendship — with you. The words were written at the bottom of the page, in a handwriting akin to scribbling, and in clear contrast to the neater handwriting at the top:

“are you and y/n married? —teucer :)”

Childe felt his cheeks burn as he read it, failing to hide the smile spreading across his face. As much as he hated to admit it, maybe Teucer was onto something. He had been staring at you an awful lot lately, and maybe that weird feeling he got in his chest around was him getting flustered, so what? It wasn’t like his feelings were anything more than—

He heard you giggle from across the room and almost forgot what he was thinking about, the warm smile never leaving his face when his eyes landed on you.

“What do you look so flustered about, huh?” You asked, rising from your chair. He held the letter close to his chest. “Don’t tell me Teucer’s gotten into writing romance novels.”

“It’s nothing,” He assured you, and then a few moments later, “I have some free time in a week or so, how would you like to come back to Snezhnaya with me?”

Your eyebrows shot up your forehead, eyes growing wide and lips parting slightly. It took you another few moments to process that he’d really asked you that. Of course you would love to, but you didn’t completely understand why he was asking you; sure, you were friends, but you also know how much Childe values his family.

“Oh- uhm, yeah. I’ll have to make some arrangements so things don’t fall apart here, but that sounds fun.”

“Great,” He smiled. “I’ll tell them you’re coming then. I’m sure Tonia wants to meet you.”

“Oh yeah? Do you write about me a lot then?” It was meant to be a teasing question, but you didn’t miss the way his cheeks burned red.

“Whatever,” He stood, shoving the now folded letter in his pocket. “I have stuff to do, I’ll be back later.”

You hummed in acknowledgement and watched him leave. Then, your gaze shifted to his bedroom door. The two of you’d been staying together for the past three or so months; he said something about it being more efficient money-wise, since the two of you often lost track of time and stayed some nights with each other anyway. He wasn’t wrong, and it got oddly quiet living by yourself — what was the harm?

Stepping into his bedroom, you began looking for his family’s letters. The room was clean and the bed was still made. No doubt, it was a product of his late nights and extended stays away from “home”.

(Childe has a few definitions of home, although he wishes you could see that you’re one too.)

The only thing that looked vaguely messy in his room were the papers on his nightstand. A paperweight rested atop them, although most of the papers were riddled with folds and stood no chance of staying neatly stacked.

They were the letters from his family. Most were written by all of them, but a few came from his parents and others from specific siblings. On more than one occasion, you’d found him rereading them alone in his room, especially after long days. He treasured those letters.

So why had he taken that one with him?

You got your answer about a week later. It was cold, worse than that of the sub-zero climate in Dragonspine, but what was worse was your nerves. From what Childe said, they’d love you, but you weren’t so sure.

“Still cold?” He asked, noticing the trembling in your hands. Your hands were certainly shaking, but not because of the temperature.

“Yeah. I’m okay though, how much farther?”

He gave you a worried look, and you half expected him to offer up another one of his coats, but he finally looked away from you. Something about his eyes looked dull as he stared down at the snow.

“Not too much farther, don’t—”

“Ajax!”

You both looked up to find a handful of people beaming at the two of you, and you looked over to find Childe smiling back. His hand grabbed yours and he pulled you through the snow.

“Hello, my lady,” Childe leaned down and picked up one of his younger siblings, — Tonia, you think — setting her on his hip after giving her a nose kiss. “How have you been?”

You were about to ask to go inside, the cold biting through your clothes, when someone who you presumed was his mother started towards the door. Everyone followed her.

Childe placed a gentle hand on the small of your back and nodded for you to follow his family. You did so, somehow feeling safer with him only a step or two behind you.

The door was heavy and made a loud noise when it closed behind him. It was much warmer inside though, a familiar crackling coming from the logs in the fireplace, and you watched as Childe moved towards a blanket thrown over the back of a couch.

You didn’t pay much attention to him, assuming that he was going to use it or hand it to one of his little siblings. What you didn’t expect was for him to walk over to you and place it over your shoulders.

“Warmer now?”

You just stared at him for a moment, before nodding and smiling.

“Good,” The woman you’d decided was his mother spoke. “You both looked like you were freezing, dear. Ajax is used to the cold but it seems he’s been away for too long, hm?”

The look she gave him was something like scolding him, but there was a smile working at her lips. He just smiled sheepishly and rubbed at the back of his neck.

“You know I try to visit when I can, Mama.”

“Then that’s not enough,” She said, motioning towards the couch. “and sit down. I’ll make some tea.”

With that, she disappeared into a room that you assumed to be the kitchen. You didn’t follow this time and instead sat down beside Childe on the couch.

“Big brother!”

A kid who could only be Teucer (very ungracefully) climbed onto his lap. The kid’s knee dug into Childe’s thigh but he put on a good poker face — that or his pain tolerance was high. Or maybe he was just too excited to see his family to care. You knew that there was nothing that could wipe the smile off of his face.

“Are you and Y/n married yet?”

Except for maybe that. You watched his face fall, before he quickly recovered and the tips of his ears turned red. You didn’t think it was because of the cold this time.

“No, no, we aren’t,” He finally said, subtly moving Teucer’s knee. “Why, do you plan on being my best man?”

Teucer just laughed and collapsed onto Childe’s chest. You swear you can see his heart swell as he holds his younger brother just a little tighter, planting a kiss on the top of his head.

“Ajax, come give me a hand?” The voice belonged to his mother, coming from the doorway to the kitchen.

“Coming!” He called. He pressed another kiss against Teucer’s temple and then set him down on the couch.

After Childe had disappeared into the other room, Teucer giggled and plopped himself down on your lap this time.

“Teucer!” It was one of his older siblings, although you didn’t remember her name. “Sorry, Y/n, he apparently was never taught boundaries.”

“It’s alright.” You said with a smile, letting him grab one of your hands and begin playing with your fingers.

The room was quiet now and it was obvious that everyone was straining to hear the conversation going on in the kitchen. You made out a few mentions of your name, and Childe laughed a few times, but you couldn’t hear much else.

After a few minutes, his older sister moved to sit beside you on the couch. Her eyes slipped towards the door Childe had gone through, before flickering back over to you and Teucer. Her lips quirked up into a mischievous smile.

“Y’know, he’s not so different from Childe,” She said, looking at the kid that had now claimed your lap as a seat. “That’s what you call him, right? Childe?” You nodded. “When he was little he would whine and cry til he was held. And trust me, if he wasn’t fronting for you, right now he’d be cuddled up to one of parents. If—”

“I see you’ve met the dramatic one of the family, Y/n,” Childe came back into the room with what he hoped was a confident aura. He didn’t know you noticed the flustered look on his face.

“Oh, I don’t know, I’d believe it.” At your words, he gave a nervous smile and his siblings laughed. “You’re the one that sleeps in my room all the time because you’re ‘too tired’ to walk down the hallway.”

“You guys live together!?” Teucer asked. His eyes lit up and he looked from you to Childe.

“Yeah, but it’s not—”

“So you guys are married!”

You laughed, looking up at Childe who was now frozen. His eyes were wide with something between embarrassment and horror. Eventually, he laughed nervously and rubbed his nape. He was about to move towards the couch and sit next to you again when you spoke.

“Sure, why not,” You said. “We’re married, right, love?”

“Y- Well, uhm,” Childe made a few more indignant noises, then his eyes landed on Teucer. The excited look on his face shifted into something mischievous; Teucer knew full well what he was doing. “something like that, yeah.”

“What?!”

He looked up to find his mother walking into the room. She had a tray in her hands, a few mugs sitting atop it. Almost everyone in the room was surprised that she didn’t drop it.

“I’m kidding, Mama,” Childe said. He still had that nervous, almost flustered tone in his voice.

“You better be.” She warned. Then she turned to you with a warm, genuine smile. “But you are a sweet thing, I’d be happy if he married you. He better invite me to the wedding though.”

“Oh! No, no, it’s not that. Childe and I are roommates? Something along those lines, anyway. We aren’t involved… like that.”

“Sure,” One of his older brothers laughed. “he just proclaims his love for you in his letters because he finds it funny.”

Your heart seemed too big for your chest for a moment and when you looked at Childe, he seemed absolutely horrified. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his sleeve and coughed, the words apparently surprising him enough to make him drink his tea the wrong way. If he were able, you’re sure he would have dug a whole and buried himself in it. It took a moment for him to recover. He smiled and laughed nervously, eyes darting down to the ground.

“Right, sure. Because telling you about my annoying roommate is proclaiming my love.” He finally says, a teasing tone dripping off his words.

“Oh, annoying?” You tease. “I’m not the one that comes home at ungodly hours, raids the kitchen, and then falls asleep on the couch so my dear roommate can get scared when they see a strange man sleeping on the couch.”

Neither of you noticed his older sister reach for a stack of papers on the table beside the couch. However, you do notice when she begins shuffling through them. Childe’s eyes widen and he reaches to grab the stack out of her hand, but she quickly moves.

“Hey, hey, stop!” He whines and reaches for the letter.

You grab him by the waist, pulling him back towards you. He doesn’t put up much of a fight before he relents and lays down, setting his head down on your lap. The dramatic pout on his face shifts into a smile when you lose your fingers in his hair.

“‘Y/n is doing well, I think.’” His sister reads one of the letters after clearing her throat. “’I’ve been gone for a few days and I’m honestly surprised at how much I miss them. It feels odd to be apart for so long, like someone tore out some pages from a book. ’Incomplete’ I guess is a better word. Anyway, I—“

“That’s enough!” He said, quickly grabbing the letter and shoving it into his pocket. He swatted at Teucer’s hand when he tried to grab it. (You swear you can almost see him relent when Teucer pouts, but he holds his ground.)

“Oh, come now,” His mother shooed him off of your lap. He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair in a poor attempt to straighten it. “Don’t act like that conversation didn’t just happen.”

Again, his face burned red. Nervous eyes flicked over to you, to the ground, and then to his mother. They seemed to be dull now.

“Conversation?”

She smiled. “I think it’s best if the two of you discussed that later.”

You looked over to Childe, who was now chewing the inside of his cheek. Though you opened your mouth to say something, no sound came out. He cleared his throat and stood, careful to step over his younger siblings’ toys that were scattered across the floor. He offered his hand to you, which you took as you navigated through the mess as well.

“No kissing!” Teucer called as you two disappeared down the hallway. Childe just made a noise somewhere between clearing his throat and coughing.

He hesitated for a moment before opening a door. “This is my childhood bedroom so just… don’t pay attention to it. Especially not while I’m about to have this conversation with you.”

Despite his words, you did not ignore the room. For the most part, it was clean just like his one at your shared home, although a few trinkets littered his desk and posters were taped to his wall.

“What's so bad that we had to leave for you to tell me?”

“It’s not bad!” He said quickly. “It’s— well I suppose it could either be really really good, or I’m moving out.”

At this point, you were worried. A part of you was wondering if this was about what Teucer and the rest of his family had said, but another part of you feared that it was just the opposite.

“Childe, whatever it—”

“I like you.” A few beats of silence followed. Then, he swallowed thickly, ran a hand through his hair, and continued. “I like you more than an ‘annoying roommate that scares you senseless at eight in the morning because i didn’t tell you i was coming home and passing out on the couch’ kind of way.”

You blinked. It took you a moment to register what he’d just said, and once you did it took you another few moments to come up with something to say. He was already speaking before you could.

“I get it, that’s okay. It’s not safe here though, at least let someone make sure you get home alright, and I can come get my—”

You didn’t really know what to say, but you knew that you should say something to make him stop talking, to stop overthinking, to show him you had feelings for him too.

Before you realized you’d even done it, you held his face and pulled him towards you, pressing your lips against his. It was a sorry excuse for a kiss, being that he was frozen and you were processing what you’d just done. You stepped back with an apologetic look on your face.

He blinked a few times before smirking. “I take it that I get to stay?”

“I guess I’ll keep you around,” You said, sending him a playful glare. It was a contrast to how fast your heart was beating in your chest. “by the way though, what did you and your mom talk about in the kitchen?”

He cleared his throat and looked down at his hands, like he was trying to decide whether to tell the truth or not. Then he took a deep breath and spoke.

“She- ah, she says I look at you the same way Papa looks at her. And she kept asking if we were an item, and I said no, but I wanted that to be a lie.”

“It can be a lie. If you still want, I mean.”

Childe’s eyes grew wide. A few beats passed before he recovered and he smiled; a hand came up to the back of your neck, pulling you towards him.

This time, when your lips met his, it was more coordinated. His lips were soft and tasted faintly of the tea he’d drank earlier, moving against your own in a way that was so gentle compared to his usual demeanor. The kiss was cut short when he smiled; you could feel his breath against your skin when he laughed. He pressed another quick kiss to the corner of your mouth before pulling away.

“Then I guess I’m a liar now, my dear.”

[kira-the-whump-enthusiast]

sorry this took me a while to get to!!

Historical or Futuristic

Defff prefer historical stuff. Idk I’m not really into sci-fi? Usually I write/read semi-modern or fantasy stuff. I have a soft spot for dystopian settings tho :D

Opening or Closing Chapter

I’m gonna be honest here, I have never written an ending chapter. And I don’t know how to! I’m bad at finishing things! It’s much easier for me to begin. And not even at the beginning. I just write something from the middle of a silly plot in my head and post it and just be like “here’s 3 sentences of explanation, have fun” and that’s my idea of an opening chapter woohoo.

Light and Fluffy or Dark and Gritty

Seriously, mad respect to the people who can write fluff. I can’t. I am anti fluff. All characters need to be in situations. Dark and gritty stuff is great but I think my tastes lie a bit in between. It can’t be all dark and gritty. Gotta be a little light stuff in there. Something to hope for. Otherwise I get depressed. 

Animal Companion or Found Family

I have a cat. I do not have a lowkey kinda shit family forcing me to rely on friends for all my family needs. I think my OCs usually end up with nice friend groups rather than like found family stuff specifically. Also one of my OCs has a time kitty who can control time. I think that’s really cool.

Horror or Romance

Look. Cocaine Bear vs Hallmark movies. I know which I’d rather watch. Obviously cocaine bear is not peak horror lmao but girl I am literally so tired of the romance genre and it’s 6 million cishet white man and cishet white girl fall in love Twilight-ass bullshit 😭 Also I’m aromantic. Romance isn’t cool unless it’s dysfunctional and toxic as fuck but not in like the heterosexual way in the queer way. If you get what I mean. Or they eat each other. Idk man. Horror is better. Honestly I think whump could count as a form of horror itself--some of the most horrifying stories I’ve read have been other people’s whump pieces. Horror is fucked up and owns it and I like that. I could go on but let’s leave it there.

Hard Magic System or Soft Magic System

Look I am so bad at making consistent rules. I just get a silly idea and I’m like “yeah I’ll make that work.” I could never make a comprehensive system for all this unless I bullshitted it. It feels like inventing math.

Stand Alone or Series

Literally can’t consistently write a series for the life of me. The devil grants me my writing skills and he gifts me motivation at completely random times for completely random ideas. The shit I post? That’s up to Satan, baby. Also I’m bad at making series so everything ends up being stand alone anyways just in case I never write the next one. I love love love reading series tho. Shoutout to writers who can do that I love you all very much.

One Project at a Time or Always Juggling 2+ 

Just look at my masterlist. My WIPs folder has like 10 projects in there. Never, ever have I been able to do one project at a time. Too many silly ideas in this accursed brain.

One Award Winner or One Bestseller 

I’d get embarrassed if so many people read my book,,, also I feel like winning an award is easier to brag about. Actually no if I do become a published author, I would ideally like to have a small but dedicated fanbase that makes a fuck ton of video essays and dissertations about my book. Also they have to be at least 10 years late.

Fantasy or Sci-Fi 

I like the silly things you can do in fantasy. Like immortality and curses and stuff. Idk how to explain it man. Also fantasy outfits are cooler sorry.

Character Description or Setting Description 

I am so bad at settings. Theyre all kinda vague in my head. Characters I’m better at. Also cuz I usually get a visual reference for them so it’s easier to describe them.

First Draft or Final Draft 

If I can get to it, that is.

---

tagging uhhhh anyone who wants to jump in cuz I am become Tired and I cannot do a thought rn. have fun guys :D

This or That Tag

Thanks @verkja for the tag!

Historical or Futuristic

Hm…I prefer to write in a setting that’s loosely based on irl historically-inspired timelines. It serves as a sort of backdrop I can manipulate into an entirely different setting— which works great for writing fantasy. But if I’m reading, I love a futuristic setting.

Opening or Closing Chapter

Okay I love both but an opening chapter sets the stage— it can have so much tension and I love it when a story hits the ground running.

Light and Fluffy or Dark and Gritty

Dark and gritty! Serious undertones and desperate characters and the snap of a lighter in the background? Yes please.

Animal Companion or Found Family

Well, I’ve never written a character with an Animal Companion before, so we’re going with Found Family.

Horror or Romance

Eh, neither. Romance stories really aren’t something I enjoy and Horror may be slightly better, but if I had a choice, I wouldn’t read horror either.

Hard Magic System or Soft Magic System

I like the creative license a soft magic system gives me. I have tried to write a hard magic system but I often box myself in with rules that contradict themselves…so soft magic system it is.

Stand Alone or Series

Cannot for the life of me write a stand alone. The stories always drag on way past the ending I had planned so I usually try to write in trilogies or in interconnected stories.

One Project at a Time or Always Juggling 2+

Oh lord, I wish I wasn’t juggling so many. But my brain refuses to just work on one WIP— always bringing in different ideas, like the jerk it is.

One Award Winner or One Bestseller

If I was ever traditionally published, then I’d have to go with the award winner. I feel like it would be more satisfying, but idk.

Fantasy or Sci-Fi

Fantasy. Yes. That’s all >:D

Character Description or Setting Description

I struggle more with setting description than with describing my characters. I guess I’m worried I’ll bore my readers by over describing the scenery, and so by default writing setting also bores me.

First Draft or Final Draft

Ha it would be great if I could finish either. But yeah, final draft— I can’t think of anything I want more than holding a completed manuscript in my hands.

tagging: @kira-the-whump-enthusiast, @another-whump-sideblog, @whump-queen, @whither-wander-whump— if you want to, no pressure!

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Request: Imagine being Lin Beifong’s daughter and having a crush on Iroh II

Tags: @tincdraws

Growing up as the daughter of Lin Beifong metal and earth bending were your whole life. You learnt to earth bend by the time you could walk and your mother had you in training from a young age so you graduated from the earth bending school at the top of your class with your eyes firmly set on following in your mother’s footsteps whilst also trying to emulate your grandmother’s success. You had a sharp focus and nothing else really caught your attention. You had friends but training came first and dating seemed something superficial you could live without. Republic city was your life and you would never dream of leaving it but your mother had other ideas.

Your mother thought you needed more worldly experience before you joined the police force so she sent you to the fire nation to gain some training as an officer. She claimed the fire nation had some of the best officers in the world and that they would help you learn invaluable real-life experience. You did not agree and protested the whole thing. All your training had revolved around the needs of Republic City specifically and you couldn’t see how you’d learn anything new about how to protect your city by travelling all the way to fire nation but your mother refused to change her mind and that was that.

So you were shipped off to the fire nation fresh out of the academy. Your mother had spoken to Firelord Izumi and it was agreed you’d be staying at the palace so not only would you be unfamiliar with the environment, you’d be in a place where every small look, word or action had large consequences. You didn’t know much about the fire nation and couldn’t really recall the royal family. You were aware your grandmother was very close with the late Firelord Zuko but since then things had changed. Although your grandmother’s friends (mainly Katara) had tried to keep the group close it was hard with everyone scattered across the four nations and so with each generation the group had drifted further and further apart. You knew Firelord Izumi had a daughter older than you and a son around your age called Iroh. You recalled meeting Iroh when you were younger at some event in the south pole but couldn’t remember much more than a serious fire nation child. So you arrived on the steps of the palace utterly out of your depth determined to see these three months through so you could return to your beloved city. You were shown into the palace immediately, your belongings taken by maids who refused to let you carry them yourself as you were a royal guest. You weren’t used to finery so proceeded through the palace partly in awe and partly in utter confusion why someone needed this many paintings of old men everywhere. You were finally shown into a large room. “Ah you must be y/n Beifong” a voice called and you turned to see someone who looked vaguely familiar. You knew he wasn’t Firelord Zuko or Firelord Izumi’s husband as he was too young so figured by his royal outfit this was Izumi’s second child the prince. “Prince Iroh, it’s an honour to see you again” you said bowing and he chuckled “I bet you thought that would be a winning line with any fire nation citizen didn’t you? Because we’re still all obsessed with honour like we were centuries ago?” Iroh asked and you hesitated. “If I caused any offence...” you started but Iroh cut you off breaking out in a large smile “no I was only kidding, it is a winning line we are still obsessed with honour”. You watched as Iroh laughed at his own joke surprised, you didn’t expect the prince of the fire nation to be like this. You figured royalty lacked the ability or the clearance to have a sense of humour but apparently not. “So have I really not changed since we were eight?” Iroh asked and when you frowned he elaborated “you recognised me but the last time we met was just over ten years ago”. You paused “ow no I didn’t actually recognise you, you were young, dressed in fine clothes with royal hairpins, not to mention you’re in the palace...you had to be the prince”. “Good deductions officer” Iroh said saluting you before he grinned “i’m in training too”. That piqued your interest “really? for the fire nation army?”. He nodded “yep! I’m an officer but my hope is to be general one day and to fully earn it, rather than just get it because of who my family is...hopefully in a few years i’ll get there”. “I’m sure you will” you agreed and Iroh led you into a large dining room. “Are we dining alone?” you asked confused and Iroh smirked. “Why? Not pleased with me?” he asked and you rushed to assure him that wasn’t the case when he laughed again “I’m joking again y/n, I know my grandfather told you the whole family would be dining with you in his letter to your mother but he, my parents and sister were all called away to an urgent matter and asked me to fill in as we’re similar ages”. “Ow” you nodded “that makes sense...is everything okay?”. Iroh nodded “everything’s fine just boring fire nation stuff...so shall we?” he asked holding out his arm to you. You weren’t sure if this was appropriate so averted your eyes and only took his arm lightly. Iroh smirked at your caution and led you into the room.

The meal with Iroh was nice. He was friendly, hard-working and interesting. You soon got used to his humour and learnt not to take him too seriously. You hadn’t met many other people your age who shared your passion for a military career and found it was nice, a sentiment Iroh apparently shared. He enquired what you were doing the rest of the week and when you replied nothing as training didn’t start for another week he soon had several of your days planned out with fire nation sights to show you. Iroh seemed to understand you didn’t know much about the fire nation so planned to take you to all the important sites as well as areas relevant to the army to peak both your interests. You enjoyed the prince’s tours greatly and even when training did start you continued meeting with Iroh regularly. You liked his company and were surprised that didn’t fade the more time you spent with him, if anything it grew more and more. You thought he’d be a spoilt entitled prince but he was kind and considerate pleasantly surprising you.

You didn’t become aware that you liked Iroh as anything more until one of your friends at the academy pointed it out. Since starting training you were progressing well, you achieved high grades and were held in high esteem by your fellow recruits. You had made some friends and often trained with them after the academy retired for the day. After a long training session you were heading to the palace when one of your friends called out to you “hey y/n some of us were going into town to celebrate our class’s good progress, do you want to come?”. You smiled pleased they wanted you to come when you remembered you couldn’t go “I’d love to Shani but sorry I can’t I have plans”. “Of course you do” she smirked as your other friend Aizori grinned “is it with Iroh by any chance”. “Actually it is” you said frowning at their shared look “why?”. “Ow nothing just it’s not every day your friend is dating the crowned prince”. “Me and Iroh are not dating!” you cried “our families are old friends that’s all”. “Uh...hu, if that’s true then what are your plans together may we ask?”. “We’re attending a party at the palace”. “Together?” Shani asked and you blushed “yes but he only asked me because it’s a formal event that’s apparently really boring so he wanted a friend there, trust me we’re not dating”. “But how can you resist?” Aizori asked “I’ve only seen the prince a handful of times but he seems to get better looking every single time! How don’t you get lost in those golden eyes and that chiselled jaw? The royal family has some amazing genes not even a Beifong can resist”. You paused considering it. For you looks weren’t very important so you didn’t tend to notice them. You held work ethic and determination as much higher priorities and Iroh scored very highly in both but in looks...you honestly couldn’t say. “I’m not sure I’ve noticed” you admitted and the girls rolled their eyes not believing you.

When you arrived back at the palace your friend’s words were ringing in your head and when you next saw Iroh something felt different. You took note of his looks and were surprised by what you’d found. Iroh was attractive, very attractive, how had you missed that? You stared at Iroh wondering if his eyes had always been that bright? Was his jaw always that sharp? His hair that good regularly when he frowned “why are you staring at me?”. “Nothing” you cried and he paused before shrugging “Are you ready to go?” he asked “the party has already started” offering you his arm. You nodded and took it cautiously following Iroh into the ballroom.

You could see why Iroh had wanted to invite you, everyone in the room was at least 60 years old or some stiff nobel person from an ancient line of fire nation families. All they seemed to want to discuss was old family bloodlines, territories or ancient traditions. After your fifth boring ambush by some old fire nation man Iroh pointedly headed for the gardens. You frowned as he exited discreetly, closing the door behind him, and headed away from the hall. “Iroh I’m pretty sure the party is inside” you commented and Iroh grinned “I know but I can’t take another second in there so humour me? One lap of the gardens then we’ll head back, please? I know you haven’t seen them properly yet so how about a tour?” Iroh holding out his hand to you. You rolled your eyes but took his hand happily. 

Iroh led you around the gardens explaining the different flora to you and their history. “I spent so many parties hiding in here as a kid” he grinned “this place is so huge they couldn’t find me for hours”. You smiled at the thought “my mother would’ve killed me if I did that”. “Mine did” Iroh chuckled “but I’d honestly rather face her wrath than some boring commander who wants to lecture me about our family’s history and why it’s so important...they’re literally my own family and even I don’t care” Iroh cried making you smile. “I see why you escaped out here so often, I’m very grateful formal parties were not a part of my childhood”. Iroh smiled and went to comment when the smile was wiped from his face and he grabbed you, quickly pushing you behind a large fern. “Iroh what are you...”. “Shhh they’ve come for us” he hissed and you frowned when you heard a voice. “Prince Iroh?” a man you recognised as the palace coordinator called “Are you out here? You’re needed inside”. You smirked and Iroh rolled his eyes “they’re relentless”.  “Master Iroh if you’re out there please return to the ballroom, your mother’s orders”. There was silence and then the sound of the butler coming closer. Your eyes widened and Iroh put a hand over your mouth pushing you further into the bushes. “Prince Iroh?” a voice called literally right beside you and Iroh smirked as you grabbed his arm in surprise. You heard a sigh and the sound of the man retreating. When the footsteps died away Iroh dropped his hold on you and you both burst into laughter. “I thought we were going to be caught and then royally punished...literally” you added and Iroh smirked “I wouldn’t let them punish you, it’s not your fault I dragged you out here”. “True but I didn’t try hard to stop you”. “You did encourage me” Iroh nodded thinking “okay it’s all your fault”. You gaped laughing “I never said that! You are such a liar” you cried pushing him and Iroh laughed grabbing your arm “okay okay maybe we share the blame 50:50?”. “No way” you smiled and Iroh paused “60:40?”. “I think 90:10?” you said grinning and Iroh sighed “fine, i’ll take 10% of the blame”. You shook your head at how wonderfully infuriating he was and smiled at him fondly. Iroh grinned back and you realised suddenly how close his face was to yours. Iroh seemed to notice too, he glanced down at your lips and you panicked moving away from him suddenly. There was an awkward tension in the air and you broke it with a cough “so want to show me more of the gardens then?”. Iroh nodded “right this way my lady” the awkwardness gone and led you further into the garden.

When you were safely hidden from the ballroom Iroh stopped walking, explaining this was one of his favourite spots in the whole garden and you gratefully took a break sitting down. “I can’t believe you’ve already been here a month” Iroh commented and you nodded “I know only 2 more to go then my mandatory 3 months work experience is done”. Iroh frowned “mandatory...so you could stay longer if you wanted to?”. “Hypothetically” you agreed and Iroh hesitated “do you think you’d extend it? Hypothetically?”. You paused “I’m not sure, I have enjoyed the fire nation far more than I thought I would but I’ve always wanted to complete my training as quickly as possible, I hope to be chief of police one day and I’ll need many years of service for that...”. Iroh frowned “isn’t the youngest chief like 41?”. You nodded “yeah so i’ve got time I guess, maybe i’ll stay for longer...is this just so you have someone to skirt your royal duties with?”. Iroh laughed “maybe...I like you being here, it’s nice not being the only person under 30 in every room”. You smiled “well i’m glad my presence isn’t displeasing to you...you’ve been pleasant as well” you added blushing and Iroh grinned. “Wait did I make a Beifong blush? That’s like a legendary occurrence, this is amazing!”. “Stop it” you cried but Iroh wouldn’t let you turn away “no, this will go down in history, Beifong blushes are rarer than dragons so I’m soaking up every second”. For the second time that day Iroh stared at you closely and you blushed more under his gaze but this time you didn’t move away. Iroh continued gazing at you before he lightly moved his hand to your cheek “y/n...” he said softly leaning in closer when a figure appeared. “There you are!” a voice cried and you both jumped away from one another. Your jaw dropped when you realised who it was and you dropped into a bow “Firelord Izumi...i’m so sorry I didn’t see you approach”. “Rise child you did nothing wrong” she said warmly “my son on the other hand...” she trailed off glancing at Iroh who paled. “Hey mom” he frowned and she raised an eyebrow “really? That’s all you have to say? No apology or grovelling”. “Erm I’m sorry for ditching?” Iroh offered and Izumi sighed. “Y/n would you please excuse us, I want to have a word with my son”. “Of course” you agreed bowing and you rushed away.

Iroh returned not long after with his mother and told you he had to stay in the ballroom for the rest of the party. You agreed to stay with him and he smiled gratefully at you making you blush and look away rapidly. The night passed and neither you nor Iroh spoke about what happened in the garden. How he’d almost kissed you and how you were going to let him. You couldn’t believe your own recklessness. What good did you think would come out of kissing the prince of the fire nation? You were obviously not an appropriate match and so there was nothing to be encouraged there. You resolved to never find yourself in that situation again and decided to just stay as friends no matter how much you got along or how attractive he was. Getting involved with a fire nation prince was not responsible behaviour. So after that night you made sure to put distance between you and Iroh. You didn’t stop seeing him you just made sure to emphasise it was a friendship. You didn’t let yourself get caught up in him the way you had in the gardens and always kept a level head. Iroh never tried anything or mentioned that night either and you supposed he picked up on your not so subtle hints. You carried on as before but there was definitely an unmentioned barrier between you which you never let fade.

You left the fire nation 2 months later. You didn’t extend your stay as with your feelings for Iroh you didn’t think it would be wise. Iroh saw you off and hugged you tightly before you got onto the airship. “It’s been nice having you around Beifong, I’ll miss you”. Iroh’s words made you hesitate and you hugged him tighter. For that time in Iroh’s arms you imagined what would have happened if you’d kissed him in the gardens that night. Iroh didn’t strike you as someone who flitted from person to person taking what he wanted, you think if he wanted to kiss you he must have felt something for you too and perhaps would have suggested dating. You imagined all the things you’d have done together but as a couple and wondered if you’d made a mistake, maybe you should have just gone for it? But then reality set in. If you really wanted to be chief of police then you couldn’t have short relationships with high ranking members of the fire nation. Other candidates could use it to show you had compromised morals and there was no way it would be a long term relationship due to your lack of fire nation heritage. Sure the fire nation was pretty progressive but that didn’t really apply to royalty. They had thousand-year-old traditions to uphold that couldn’t be broken easily so Iroh was never a long term option for you. Therefore all logical signs said you’d done the correct thing not persuing something with him...so why did it feel so shit? You finally pulled away from Iroh and he noticed your expression. “What’s wrong?” he asked and you shook your head looking away “nothing i’ll just miss it here...promise you’ll keep in touch?”. “Cross my heart” Iroh smiled “you’re not someone I intend to let slip away, expect a visit every time I come to republic city”. You pushed away the rational voice in your mind telling you to keep a distance from him and smiled “you’ll always be welcome and I’m very much looking forward to it”. Iroh blushed “thank you y/n” and you nodded back, just looking at him in admiration before catching yourself. “I should go...” and Iroh nodded “safe travels” and with a final look you walked away.

2 years later

After your departure you and Iroh stayed in regular contact and your letters only halted when he was deployed by the military but the second we was out he would write and arrange to come visit you in Republic City. You still thought about him and your feelings for him regularly and every time you saw him you knew your crush hadn’t lessened. You loved Iroh’s visits and soon they became the thing you cherished most. You told yourself all of this was fine because you’d never act on your feelings but sometimes you wondered if Iroh felt something too? You’d catch him staring at you or he’d blush if you smiled at him in a certain way. The very idea of Iroh liking you made you very excited but you also knew it would only lead to heartache. He wouldn’t be allowed to settle down with someone outside the fire nation so it didn’t matter if he liked you too. So you settled for his friendship which was more than enough for you. When Iroh was posted in republic city when he became general you were thrilled and you only continued to grow closer.

However republic city wasn’t as peaceful. There had been multiple attacks on the city from Amon’s chi blockers to Vaatu’s take over and you and Iroh were constantly pushed into the fray. Multiple times you’d faced staggering odds and every single time you wondered if you should confess your feelings to Iroh in case the unthinkable happened but every time you chickened out. You and Iroh had been safe every time but there was only so much you could push your luck.  

You’d been wary of Kuvira’s take over of the earth kingdom from the very start. Your aunt Su Yin had told you all about her so you weren’t surprised when she set her sights on Republic City but that didn’t mean you weren’t terrified. The avatar and her friends informed you what you were facing and you weren’t sure how you could even think about facing a giant mecha suit with spirit cannons. Iroh shared your sentiment but as general of Republic City’s army he was forced by President Raiko to lead his troops out there. Watching Iroh take to the front line you were swept with the desire once again to be honest with him, to tell him how you felt before it was too late. You decided three was too many times to chance it and so decided to finally tell him how you felt. You made your way to the general’s tent and found Iroh with Korra discussing strategies. You greeted them both warmly before making your way to Iroh’s side “could we please talk? I have something to tell you”. You knew Iroh had a hundred things to do but he nodded warmly squeezing your hand “of course just give me one second to...” when the radio sprang into action. President Raiko had surendering to Kuvira’s demands. Republic City was hers.

The avatar was furious and you matched her sentiment. You and Iroh joined her as she met with other leaders in the city like Tenzin and your mother and they all agreed something had to be done to stop Kuvira. A plan was quickly assembled, it was agreed that airbenders would attack the suit from the sky and earth benders would attack from the ground. You didn’t actually expect to damage the suit, you only had to distract Kuvira long enough for Korra to get inside. You were agreeing fervently getting ready to leave with your cousins when Iroh grabbed your arm. “Wait Y/n are you sure you want to do this?” he asked nervously “that mecha suit is dangerous there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to stop it”. I know but it’s my home, I swore to protect it and I won’t break my oath. I have to try and help”. Iroh sighed thinking and you watched him wondering what he’d say. “I understand why you’re doing it and I want to come too”. You paused pleasantly surprised “You do...but I thought President Raiko told you to retreat and surrender?”. “He told me to surrender the army not that I couldn’t personally engage in fighting, i’m not fighting as a general but as plain old Iroh” he announced proudly and you smiled “there’s nothing plain about you even without your titles”. Iroh beamed at you “Does this mean you agree? We can fight this giant together!”. You nodded your head “okay let’s go meet up with the others”.

You and Iroh rushed after the others and found them all suiting up. “Finally” your mother said spotting you but she frowned when she saw Iroh with you “y/n tell me you didn’t bring the general who is also the prince of the fire nation into this”. “She didn’t, I volunteered” Iroh spoke up “I’m not here as a general or as a prince but as a civilian so, where can I help?”. “You know your mother won’t like this” Tenzin commented and Iroh nodded “I know but some things are worth facing her wrath for” he said shooting you a smile and you blushed.

So it was agreed Iroh would stay. Your mother thought it would be best to place him on the roof with the airbenders, she ordered him to shoot lightning at the joints to try and cause some malfunctioning. When you’d all suited up the teams said their goodbyes and Iroh appeared in front of you. You didn’t have long, Kuvira’s giant suit was already in view and the ground shook whenever it took a single step. Iroh stared at you and sighed heavily “Y/n...”. “Don’t say it like that, we don’t have time and we’re both going to be fine okay?” you said faking a smile but Iroh saw right through it. “What did you want to tell me earlier?”. You froze caught off guard and blushed “I...I just wanted to...it doesn’t matter”. The ground jumped and Iroh looked at it nervously before stepping closer to you “I think I can guess what you were going to say”. “You can?” you asked nervously and Iroh smiled “yeah...you had another Beifong blush moment and I’ve noticed you do them around me a lot”. You went bright red and Iroh chuckled “yeah like that...”. You looked down embarrassed but Iroh took your hand gently “don’t, I blush a lot around you too”. You smiled blushing more and Iroh chuckled softly. “Y/n are you ready?” your mom asked and Iroh gripped your hand tightly. “Wait I want to tell you everything before you leave” Iroh cried but you squeezed his hand gently. “It’ll be okay” you smiled “you can tell me everything later and I think I can guess too”. Iroh grinned blushing “later then...just got to get through this”. “We’ll be fine, this is what he trained for” you smiled confidently “I promise I’ll see you on the other side”. Iroh nodded and stared at your lips, he went to move in when your mother called “y/n are you coming or are we leaving you behind”. “I’m coming!” you yelled and stepped away from Iroh “mothers” you commented and he smiled “go, i’ll see you after” and with a last look you both rushed off to your assigned group.

The battle

The fight went about as good as could be expected. The suit swatted the air benders away like flies and your group’s earth, metal and even lava bending barely slowed it down. But it didn’t matter, all that mattered was the avatar and her team managed to find a way into that thing and your team cheered when you saw she’d done just that. Now the fight was Korra’s so you let your guard down when suddenly the machine began malfunctioning. Your mother yelled for you all to take cover but you were too far away from the building. The suit exploded with a blast and you saw a blinding light and then black.

After the suit exploded everyone assumed the battle won. Half the air benders went after Korra to help her with Kuvira and the other half went to the ground to make sure the others were okay, of course Iroh went with the latter. He saw Bolin, your aunt and cousins but no sign of you or your mother. They told him they were all searching for you and he rushed to join in. With each street he passed his heart began to sink when finally he spotted you! In the arms of your mother unconscious. Iroh ran forward dropping to his knees beside you. “What happened?” he cried and your mother clutched you desperately “that thing exploded and she was too far to get into cover, it hit her sending her flying through the street and now she’s...she’s...”. Iroh saw the blood seeping through your mother’s hands where she held them against you. “No” he said viciously “y/n won’t...she can’t! We need a medic” he yelled loudly before taking off his jacket to wrap around your wound. “Maybe I can cauterise the wound?” he asked “seal it to stop her losing so much blood?”. Lin paused “I think the wounds too big but it’s worth a shot”. Iroh nodded and Lin lifted the bottom of your uniform. Iroh saw a large gash across your stomach and winced. He lit his hand on fire and pressed his hands against the wound. You gasped suddenly and your eyes shot open. “Y/n” your mother and Iroh cried in unison and you blinked trying to make sense of the situation before you groaned in pain. You tensed trying to get away from the burning but your mother held onto you “please y/n just hang on Iroh is trying to cauterise your wound”. “It’s not working” you grimaced resisting the urge to scream “Iroh stop! Please!” you cried and he yelled in frustration moving his hands away from you. “No it has to work if it doesn’t then you’ll.....we need a medic down here” he yelled again but he knew everyone else was spread out and there were no healers in the group. “It’s okay” you said breathing heavily as the situation dawned on you “Iroh it’s alright”. “No it’s not” he cried sinking onto his knees beside you “it’s not y/n, you can’t...you have to fight this, you can’t leave me”. You nodded “trust me i’m trying but Iroh if I do...”. “No y/n don’t even think about it! I won’t let you go it’s not going to happen”. “I don’t think we have a choice” you admitted trying to smile but Iroh just shook his head “but we never got our shot, we never got to talk, I never got to tell you...I love you y/n” he said simply “I have for years, that’s why I never found anyone from the fire nation because the perfect person for me is you. I know there’s traditions and rules but I don’t care, I don’t want anyone else but you. I’d give up anything for you and we were finally heading in that direction and now that stupid spirit cannon”. Tears leaked down Iroh’s face and you reached out a hand to him shakily. He took it and you stroked his face “it’s okay, i’m sorry for being too scared and cautious, I’m sorry for wasting our time together but I love you too, I hope that’s enough”. Iroh nodded “It’s more than I ever hoped, you didn’t waste time you have nothing to be sorry for y/n Beifong, do you hear me?”. “I do” you smiled before coughing in pain and your mother clutched you tighter. “Y/n” your mother cried and you smiled up at her “it’s okay mom, don’t worry. It’s all going to be okay”. You clutched her hand against your chest and took Iroh’s other one. “I’m with the two people I love the most, I’m happy. This is the best way for it to...”. “Stop” Iroh said crying but you just gripped his hand tighter “Iroh look at me”. He blinked through the tears but looked at you. “It’s okay, I promise you everything will be okay”. Iroh just said your name softly and rested his head against yours. Your mother wrapped her arms around both of you and you held onto both of them the best you could when you felt the world fading away. You heard sobbing and your mother faintly saying your name until everything turned dark and it was over.

Epilogue

Following your death the fire nation, earth kingdom and republic city all paid their respects in their traditional fashions. A statue was raised by your mother in the spot of your death and every year on the anniversary of your death both her and Iroh would visit it. Iroh and your mother supported one another following your death being the only one’s who understood how monumental the loss of your life was. They managed to get through it together and although neither of them ever stopped loving you they found a way to carry on. Iroh never married, he couldn’t even consider the idea and his family never pushed him to. He still lived a long and happy life. He was very involved with his sister’s children who he loved dearly and his family never stopped supporting him. If he went quiet and got a teary look in his eye or if he struggled serving in the earth kingdom they understood. Your family also treated him like one of their own, with Lin even calling him her son on a few occasions, and he was invited to all your family’s events in recognition of your love for him. Your memory never faded and when Iroh’s life eventually ended he passed on to find you waiting for him. He knew all the suffering and heartache was over, you were finally together at last. 

____

So initially I was going to write a happy ending as well but then I thought screw it, I want to cry so I killed off the reader...but I can release the happy ending as a part two if anyone wants it. 

Edit: For the happy ending version click here

[strawberrymilkgeorge]

Part Fourteen. There's No Way.

word count: 5k (not including pictures) warnings: swearing

behind the screen (irl dream x f!reader) series masterlist ultimate masterlist

a/n: yeeeeee very excited about this chapter!! we're getting so close to some good stuff!!!! hope you like it!!! (also, if you understand the reference to bug’s second tweet about mr clean, you’re a real one) 

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Y/n laughed as she tucked her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on top as she stared at her computer monitor. "Yeah, okay, Gogy."

Quackity's laugh sounded through her headphones, cackling loudly and gasping for air as George defended himself in their voice channel. None of them were streaming, which allowed them to tease each other relentlessly without worrying about leaking real things. Currently, the target of the teasing was Y/n. Her guilty crime: Dream’s nickname for her. "She got his ass!"

"Oh shut up, Big Q," Y/n quickly spat back. "At least neither of us has a nickname that lies about our size. Short boy."

Quackity stopped laughing and pulled out his defensive card. "Okay, that's literally not funny. That's messed up of you to say, actually."

"Waaah," Y/n mocked.

"Okay, Bugsy, but no one seriously calls me Gogy, it's just as a joke," George defended himself. "I was only saying that I think it's cute how Dream calls you Bug!"

"Shut up," she mumbled with embarrassment. She loved the nickname and especially how everyone seemed to agree it was reserved for him. She wondered if he noticed that too, how everyone else, including most fans, called her Bugsy, leaving Dream as the only online friend who used the nickname.

"She's embarrassed," Quackity giggled. "Awww. Is the Buggy Wuggy embarrassed of having a crush?"

“I don’t have a crush,” she lied convincingly. 

“You better not. The title of your affection deservingly goes to me,” he said proudly, as if there was any shred of truth in his words.

“Get over yourself, Quackity,” George laughed, “before Dream tells you off again about being too short for Bugsy.”

“HEY!”

"I'm back," Sapnap announced as he unmuted in Discord. "What did I miss?"

"They're still bullying me," Y/n exaggerated.

“No, they’re bullying me!” Quackity scoffed.

“Sapnap, make them stop,” Y/n begged playfully. Usually Sapnap was on her side.

"It’s for a good reason though," Sapnap teased. "I mean, we'll stop bullying you if you admit to liking him," he lowered his voice slightly, probably since he lived in the same house as the man they were talking about.

Y/n smiled to herself and hid it behind her hoodie sleeve as if they could see her anyway. She kinda liked that she hadn't told Quackity or Sapnap about her official crush, enjoying having a secret like that. Well, a secret that George, Karl, and Naomi knew too.

"Then I guess I'll be bullied until the day that I die," she sighed. She swore she heard George cover a laugh with a cough and she sent his icon a death glare. He seemed to enjoy knowing her secret a little too much. 

"Is anyone going to actually stream today?" Sapnap asked. "I wanna do something."

"I'm thinking about doing Jackbox later," Quackity admitted. "Do you guys wanna join if I do?"

"Yes! Please," Sapnap whined. "I'm so bored."

"Sure, I'll play. Karl is spending the night so I can make him play too."

"Sleepover?" George asked. " Can I come?"

"Hm, no."

"That's messed up!"

"Can you join, George?" Quackity asked. "I need you in my title."

George hummed contemplatively and his voice turned mischievous, if only for a moment. "Yeah, if you get Dream to play."

Yeah, he definitely enjoyed knowing her secret too much.

"Right, you only play when your boyfriend plays too," Quackity groaned. "Cancel Dreamnotfound, I believe in Dreamsy supremacy."

"Says the man who asks me to marry him every day," Y/n scoffed.

"Actually, you're right! Bugity supremacy," he said.

"I swear it's become more frequent since I said you could flirt with me online again."

"It has, I'm making up for lost time."

Y/n rolled her eyes and Sapnap laughed. "I'll get Dream to play," Sapnap offered.

"So you'll play, George? I need you to commit," Quackity said.

"Yeah, why not," George agreed before adding with a giggle, "I wanna see Dream try to flirt with Bugsy."

"I hate you all,” specifically you, George, she thought. “I'm not playing anymore."

"NO, YOU ALREADY SAID YOU WOULD!" Quackity shouted.

"FINE," she groaned, a small laugh escaping her lips and completely exposing that she wasn't actually mad. "Speaking of Karl sleeping over, he's coming over in a bit so I'm gonna get off."

"Booo," Sapnap protested lightly. "Have fun with Karl."

"Let me know if he's going to play Jackbox with us. He better," Quackity threatened with no real substance.

"I'll make him," Y/n promised. "Bye guys!"

"Bye!" George and Sapnap shouted together before she disconnected the call.

Y/n stood up from her desk, stretching softly before looking around her room. She had a laundry basket in the corner, overflowing with clean, and now probably wrinkled, clothes waiting to be folded. She decided to use her time to clean up before Karl got there, even though they were probably going to sleep on the couches if at all.

She dumped the clean clothes onto her bed, tossing the things that needed to be hung to the side and neatly folded the rest. When she put her hoodies and sweaters on hangers, she noticed how much of her friends' merch she had. She had two GeorgeNotFound hoodies, a Sapnap shirt and hoodie, and even a Quackity hoodie. Karl didn't have any merch, but she did have a few of his personal hoodies that she had stolen from him over time and considered those her own exclusive merch, even though some of them had the Mr. Beast logo on them. She decided she needed Dream's merch.

For some unknown reason, perhaps it was because of how much she liked him, her face grew warm at the thought of wearing a Dream hoodie, even though it wouldn't have belonged to him. The idea made her nervous, like that would somehow give away that she had a crush on him if she bought some of his merch, even though she bought some of her friends' and even had Karl's actual hoodies. Despite the reasons that that was stupid of her to think, her brain said owning one Dream hoodie would be a dead giveaway of her crush, so she put off buying any. In reality, he'd probably laugh in his cute way when he heard that she bought one, or maybe go "whAT!" in surprise and happiness.

She desperately wanted to tell him things like that, tell him how happy his laugh made her and how adorable he was, or how she got butterflies every time he talked about anything at all. Since she couldn’t just call him up and tell him she hated stopped thinking about him, she decided to do something bold and subtweeted him, even adding a picture of herself with her face covered, hoping he would know it was about him, but that no one else would. She turned off comments for good measure, in case the stans made assumptions. Now that she threw away the "no flirting" rule for all her friends, she could do things like this. Worst case scenario is he thinks it’s weird, she tells him it was only a joke, and they go on their merry ways. Her heart would be broken, but nevertheless her ego would be somewhat saved. Harmless. 

Nervously ― plagued with the thoughts of possible consequences of posting something so bold and, to her, so obvious — she made her way to the kitchen and got a glass of water. He would know it was about him, right? And that's what she wanted? It was so forward of her to say to the world, especially since she hadn't tagged him in it. Leaving it up to interpretation almost made it like she was trying to hide it from him, which wasn't the case or she wouldn't have hit, Tweet.

She waited for him to tweet something vague about her as a response, or maybe even text her, before realizing it had the potential to make him uncomfortable. Maybe he would pretend to not see it so he didn't embarrass her, or didn't even know it was about him. Or maybe he's asleep and hasn't been on his phone. She looked at her clock. Dream asleep at 3:30pm? Unlikely.

As Y/n fell on her bed, contemplating whether she should delete the post and pretend like it never happened, she felt her phone vibrate and quickly swiped the screen to read it.

Y/n had to literally set her phone down to scream into her pillow. He was killing her. Stabbing her in the heart and twisting the knife with his sweet compliments and smooth delivery. He had to know what he was doing, the way he was talking to her like that. No one said "prove it" in that context without having something more behind it.

Why couldn't he just like her? Why did he have to be so nice and flirty towards all his friends? Why couldn’t she be the exception?

She picked her phone back up and left the messaging app, finding her camera roll and swiping through it in search for something to catch her eye. Food pic, meme, Karl’s cat, meme, picture of Naomi nearly falling off a sidewalk... where were her pictures of her face? Did she really not have any of herself? The seemingly endless scrolling stopped when she found one from when she first moved into the apartment. Naomi had taken pictures of every room to show her parents and asked Y/n if she could show her parents the streamers room as well. Y/n cheerfully agreed, and actually wanted to be in the photo because she loved Naomi’s parents like they were her own, so she jumped on her bed and smiled for the picture.

It was cute, the comforter she sat on was messy and looked comfy, and she liked the way she was posed, cross-legged and beaming at the camera with her dying plant on the windowsill in the background and fairy lights around the room. It was also back when her room was clean and presentable. Y/n thought it was a good photo and even would have posted it if not for the whole her being a faceless streamer thing.

She held her breath, contemplating if she should just send the image to Dream. She wanted to, she really did. But that fear of how he perceived her still nagged in the back of her mind.

Y/n must have been mulling it over for a while because as she decided to not send it, Dream followed up on his last text, clearly worried that he was pressuring her. She wanted to change the subject as soon as possible before she changed her mind and face revealed to him.

Y/n took a deep breath at the thought of how close she was to sending that picture to Dream. It wasn't the first time she genuinely considered it, nor would it be the last, but that was the first time she actually looked through her camera roll for options. She so desperately wanted to. Wanted to show him what she looked like. Wanted to hear what he thought of her. Wanted to hear him say, "I like you, Bug" after finally seeing what she looked like. Wanted to let him know how much she trusted him by showing him her biggest fear. It would be so easy to just rip off the Band-Aid; only a few clicks and he could see her face. See her.

But then there was the possibility of none of her fantasies happening. What if she sent him a picture saying, "here is me!" and all he says is, "nice", not finding her pretty or ugly? What if he thought it was just like... seeing a picture of a friend. He and I are just friends, Y/n scolded herself. But him seeing her opened up the opportunity for him to like her.

It was scarier the longer she put it off, almost like the more she postponed it, the more she had to prove. If Dream knew what she looked like from the beginning, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But since she had waited so long to show him, she felt like she had to make it worth the wait.

Was she worth the wait?

Y/n's bedroom door swung open, ripping her out of her thoughts and letting her know that Karl had arrived. He smiled at her and she laughed in response.

"Hello, Karl. Ever heard of knocking?"

"Nope!" he responded as he set down a cupholder with three drinks on her nightstand. "How are you?"

"Good." Daydreaming out about Dream... again. "How are you?"

"I'm so excited!" He dropped his backpack on the floor and turned to her, pulling her off her bed and giving her a hug. "I've missed you!"

"You saw me, like, a couple of days ago," she laughed as she hugged him back.

"A couple of days too long," he sighed dramatically, rocking back and forth into the hug before Y/n lightly pulled away from him. "Where's Naomi?"

"Uh... in her room I'm guessing?"

"I'm going to go give this to her," he explained grabbing one of the drinks and walking out. "Don't miss me too much!"

Y/n laughed and shook her head, laying back down on her bed with her phone in hand. She reread some of the texts between her and Dream and couldn't help the large smile that plastered itself on her face.

When Karl came back in, he jumped on the bed, wrapping his arms around her stomach and snuggling into her side. "Hello."

She laughed but pushed him away slightly, trying to ignore the pout on his face at her actions. "Hi."

"Oh, happy December!"

"Already? Geesh."

"Yeah, only 27 days until the lake!!!!"

Nervous and excited butterflies festered in the pit of Y/n's stomach. "What drink did you get me?"

"Your faaavorite," he sang as he grabbed the drink letting her sit up and lean against the headboard before handing it to her.

"Thank you very much," she said as she took a sip. "Oh, hey, so Quackity wants to do a Jackbox stream tonight and I said you'd join."

Karl groaned and laid back on Y/n, careful not to knock her drink out of her hand. "Noooo...."

"You don't wanna play?" she asked genuinely, patting his hair lightly as his head rested on her legs.

"I just want to hang out with you. It's been so long since we had Karl and Y/n time."

She sighed. "I know, but it will be fun. We'll play for like an hour and a half and then we can hang out for the rest of the night and all day tomorrow until you have to go to Jimmy’s house," she bargained like she was talking a four-year-old into eating some vegetables.

"Hmph. Fine," Karl pouted. "Is Dream playing?"

She shrugged. "I think so?"

"That's why you want to play so bad."

"What? No! I agreed to play before Sapnap said he would ask him."

"Mmmhm. So that Tweet earlier wasn't about him?"

"The... Tweet?" she played dumb but her face warmed up.

"Or was it about me?" he joked. "Have you just been blown away ever since we met and you're still thinking about how cute I am?"

"Shut up," she lightly pushed Karl's head off her lap as her face grew hotter. "Am I wrong though?"

"I don't know!" he said as he sat up and looked at her. "I've never seen the man!!"

"Oh, really?" she asked. "I didn't want to post it because I didn't want people to think I was bragging about knowing what he looks like..." she sighed.

"Then why did you?"

"Because... I also really wanted him to see it," she said with a shy giggle.

Karl face lit up as he cackled at her. "Look at you, trying to flirt!! Let's gooo!!!"

Y/n buried her face in her sweatshirt collar and laughed.

"Oh my gosh? Y/n subtweeting and flirting at the same time?? What on Earth?"

"It only counts if it works."

"Did it?” Karl asked as he leaned back and played with his rings. “You turned off comments and I didn't see him subtweet you back."

"That's because he... texted me... instead."

"WHAT? What did he say?"

Y/n laughed. "He said I wasn't allowed to tweet something like that and then turn off comments so he can't tell everyone it was about him."

Karl cackled again. "HAHAH! So true though!"

"Whatever. I'm not telling you anything else about our conversation."

"Why, was it spicy?"

"No. But— this is weird to talk about!"

Karl frowned. "You don't have to tell me... I just think it's so cute. But if you ever do want to talk about how much you wuv Dweam, I'm all ears. Tell me everything."

Y/n rolled her eyes fondly. "Okay Kawl."

"What time is Quackity streaming?" Karl changed the subject, understanding that Y/n actually didn't want to talk about Dream.

"I don't know. Ask him. Also, tell him you're joining so he knows." She took another long sip from her drink as Karl pulled out his phone and texted Quackity.

Her fingers itched to make another Tweet about Dream and she finally succumbed, but decided to outright tease him instead of flirt, not hiding the identity of her target this time. Really, it was just an excuse for her to try to get his attention like she couldn't just text him and have it right away.

_____

"Sapnap!" Bugsy cheered as he joined the Discord, Quackity off talking to his chat while the others slowly joined. So far, the only people there were Sapnap, Bugsy, and Karl.

"Bugsy!" he called back with a giggle. "Hi! Is Karl coming?"

"I'm here, Sapnap!" Karl announced. "Bugsy and I are just using the same mic."

"Am I not good enough for you?" she teased Sapnap and he laughed.

"Well you're going to ignore me to talk to Dream once he gets here, so I need a backup so I'm not lonely."

Y/n rolled her eyes with a smile and Karl laughed.

"We can talk while they flirt," Karl promised.

"Both of you shut up," she scolded softly.

Pretty soon, the others joined. In the end, Quackity had convinced Bad, Punz, and Wilbur to play, as well as all the feral boys.

"You could only get nine people to play, Quackity?" George asked once Quackity unmuted. "Wow, you must not have friends."

"Hey! I have friends, George! I do."

"Then where's the tenth person, Big Q?" Wilbur countered.

"LOOK! It was last minute! Where's Drea– that man is always late, I swear to—"

"I'm here!" Dream said quickly, joining the voice channel. "I'm here! Hello, everyone. Hi, Bug."

Karl smacked his hand over his mouth to cover his laugh, which escaped anyway, as he nudged Y/n. She had immediately buried her face in her hands and Karl had to turn away from the mic so no one could hear him laugh at Dream's direct greeting.

She pinched Karl's side before greeting Dream. "Hi, Dream."

"Are you guys ready to play?" Quackity asked.

"Wait, no, we're going to have to have Gene! Can't you get anyone else?" Punz asked.

"Everyone I've asked has said no!" Quackity groaned. "I'm out of people. Deal with Gene."

Y/n and Karl looked at each other at the same time, thinking the same thing. Naomi had been talking about wanting to play Jackbox sometime but that she never has anyone to play with other than Karl and Y/n. She'd be meeting most of these people on vacation in a couple of weeks anyway, why not see if she wants to play?

"What about my roommate?" Y/n spoke up as Quackity sent the code to the Discord.

"Who?" he asked.

"You literally met her when you visited," Karl laughed. "Naomi."

"Oh, yeah! She's cool."

"Invite her to play," George said, making Dream laugh lightly and Y/n smile because they knew they had been talking a lot.

"Yeah, give me a second, don't start yet," Y/n said before sliding off her headphones and making her way to Naomi's room. Before Y/n could even knock, Naomi swung open her door quickly, phone open to the Twitch app in her hand.

"I heard everything," she rushed out, eyes wide and hopeful. "C-can I play?"

"Yeah, you want to?"

"PLEASE."

"There are currently 130,000 people watching, just so you know."

"That's fine, I'm cool under pressure." That was very true. Y/n wouldn’t have let Naomi join if she thought her friend couldn’t handle the attention. She thrived in it. "Should I come to your room?"

"Yeah, come on." Y/n led the way and pulled up a third chair to her desk. Karl offered to listen to the Discord on his phone so Naomi could use the second pair of headphones to listen to everyone. All three of them still used Y/n's mic, Karl muted on his phone. "Okay, kinda scuffed set up, but we're all here. Everyone, this is Naomi."

"Hello!" Naomi said happily. "Nice to meet you all!"

Everyone greeted her and Y/n noted the redness on Naomi's cheeks as George greeted her with a soft, "Nice to talk to you again, Naomi."

Karl giggled again and slapped his hand over his mouth; Y/n had a feeling he'd have to do that a lot this stream.

"Can we all agree to not pander?" Bad asked, earning a few approvals.

"What if we play one game where we only pander?" Dream asked. "Like pander as much as possible for every answer."

"Wait, yeah, let's do that so everyone can get it out of their system," Wilbur agreed.

"But Naomi doesn't know us well enough to pander yet," Sapnap countered.

"Yes I do," she said with a laugh. "I've watched enough streams and lore videos to know exactly how to get votes."

"Damn, okay then," Sapnap mumbled.

"Yeah, she'll be fine," George promise and Naomi blushed again, making Y/n laugh. Naomi joined the lobby on her phone and the round began.

Pandering being the goal was both annoying and hilarious because people used the same jokes, but it was funny to see how hard people were trying to get the audience votes.

"Something you would take with you on a deserted island," Quackity read out loud as the prompt showed up. "An iPad full of downloaded skephalo fanfiction, HAHAH, or dreamnotfound fanart." Everyone laughed and Y/n could hear George scoff at one answer in particular.

"Aw, I love Skeppy!" Bad said innocently.

"Was that your answer then, Badboyhalo?" Wilbur teased as everyone voted on their favorite. Y/n, of course, cast her vote towards skephalo, but still pretended like the other answer didn't make her jealous. The player votes were split, but the audience made Sapnap's answer win in a landslide.

"Okay, the most disappointing thing to hear from a friend," Wilbur read the next one out loud. "Dreamsy is real, and you don't have a shot with BugsyGames."

"What the hell?" Y/n laughed loudly at the similarity between the two responses. Dream was laughing so hard, wheezing like he would never stop, and the sound brought a large grin to Y/n's face.

Everyone's laughs overlapped and mingled with each other and it was such a happy sound, distracting everyone's attention from Y/n a little.

"That would be the worst thing to hear!" Quackity yelled. "Good thing Bugity is real."

Dream stopped laughing abruptly and instead yelled, "WHAT?" which only made everyone laugh harder.

"Vote!!" Bad reminded.

"Wait, Quackity, what did you just say?" Dream asked.

"Well, I've seen her face, so... I think she loves me more," he said, just trying to get a rise out of the other, which seemed to be working.

Y/n thought again about how close she was to sending a picture of herself to Dream earlier. He probably would have immediately used it against Quackity, but she didn't think she would have minded because it was funny to see Dream jealous, real or not.

"Only because you flew out to hang out with Karl!" Dream yelled. "I'd fly just to see her."

"Then do it," Y/n challenged before she could think and her heart stopped at her own words.

Dream went silent and it was Naomi's turn to cover her laugh with her hand, Karl's eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"Why are you so defensive, huh, Dream?" Punz asked.

"Uh, you-you have to be when fighting for Bug's love and attention," he joked finally, and Y/n's heart resumed beating, a little fast at the implication of his words. Why did she say that? He probably thought she was so weird. "It's every person for themselves." Then again, so was he.

The votes were pretty split since they said the same thing, but the surprising thing was who said what. She expected one of them to be from Quackity, but she didn't know who wrote the second one about not having a shot. Sapnap maybe? Karl? They all joke around so who put it?

"DREAM?" Sapnap laughed. "You wrote that?"

"Well, yeah, I mean..." he trailed off with a laugh and Y/n's face caught fire. Did he really think he didn't have a shot? Because reality check: he’s the only one with arrows and the target is wide open. Was he joking or stupid or was she just not as obvious as she previously thought?

"Okay, okay, next one," Quackity laughed. "If cats were political leaders, everyone’s favorite president would be: Patches, okay," he paused as Dream cheered loudly, "and Bingus."

"Corpse isn't even here! Wrong audience!" Karl said.

"Bingus is for all audiences," Y/n mumbled, making Naomi laugh.

"Uh-oh, another faceless man stealing Bugsy's heart—?" Sapnap joked, immediately cut off by Dream's stern, "no."

"Naomi, you put Patches?" Wilbur laughed as the votes went towards the girl on Y/n's left. "Okay, she does know more than we thought."

"Oh, I know everything," she said evilly, double-meaning evident in her voice. Y/n gave her a look and Naomi just smiled innocently.

The pandering got so intense that Y/n almost cried tears of joy when the first Quiplash game was over and the no-pandering rule got put back into play.

"What, you don't like your name being every other answer?" Wilbur joked and Y/n shook her head.

"No. But certain ones were okay..."

"Yeah, the Bugity ones," Quackity joked.

Dream hummed out a soft, "Okay, Quackity," and the next game began.

The games went on as usual and Y/n had a blast. It was so fun to see her best friend interact with all her online friends for the first time and it warmed her heart how inclusive they were, making sure Naomi wasn't left out of jokes. It helped that Naomi's sense of humor was similar and that she already knew a lot about the streamers, but Y/n was still grateful for all the efforts put forth by her friends.

It also helped that George and Naomi clearly liked each other.

"Is anyone going to stream?" Quackity asked as he started wrapping up.

"I will if no one else is," Punz said. "I'm going to play Valorant."

"Oh, can I play?" Sapnap asked.

"Yeah, definitely, dude."

"Okay, I'll raid you." Quackity muted after thanking everyone for playing and Y/n left the call.

"Dude, that was SO FUN!" Naomi stood up and yelled. She sat down on the end of Y/n's bed, hands balled up in excitement.

Karl laughed as he fell on top of the bed next to where Naomi sat. "I'm so glad you guys all got along!"

"Yeah, I almost started crying when everyone was laughing at your jokes," Y/n laughed, swiveling in her chair to look at them. "That made me so happy."

"Oh my gosh, thank you so much for letting me play. I had so much fun. And they're all so nice and funny and I was worried they'd make me feel left out but they didn't at all."

"I'm so glad you had fun," Y/n said. "We'll invite you again if you want."

"Please do. Only if everyone's okay with it though!"

"I'm sure they would be."

“The lake is going to be so fun,” she sighed whimsically. 

“Because George?” Karl teased, causing Naomi to punch his arm. 

A Discord notification sounded on Y/n's computer and she turned to look at the screen, smiling when she saw Dream's name.

Dream: You left the vc so quick :( Bugsy: I have two goons to hang out with :( Dream: :(((( Dream: I wanna be the only goon you hang out with Dream: I was right, I don't have a chance with you Dream: Karl is the only focus of Bugs attention Bugsy: ?? Bugsy: lies detected Dream: wait really Bugsy: ... Bugsy: do I need to remind you of the tweet I posted earlier Dream: bug don't say things like that to me Bugsy: why not Dream: can you kick Karl back to his house so we can ft or call :( Bugsy: no <3 Bugsy: we can tomorrow after Karl leaves Dream: promise? Dream: don't get my hopes up bug Bugsy: yeah I promise :) Dream: :D

"Pay attention to me!" Karl whined. Y/n turned back around and saw that Naomi had left the room and Karl was laying upside down, close to falling off the bed with his head dangling dangerously close to the ground.

She laughed and typed one last message to Dream.

Bugsy: bye bye dream :) Dream: goodnight bug :] sleep well

"Okay," she huffed jokingly, turning back to Karl. "You have my full, undivided attention."

_____

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[unityghost]

Applied Knowledge

Some more Post-Asmodeus Sabriel Feels content (part 31) for those who are still inclined to read, even if Supernatural is over. I’ll have to find a way to organize and tag this stuff on here; Archive of Our Own has it all organized chronologically. Thanks if you’ve stuck around up until this point! I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

Logic told Gabriel that there was no reason to expect a linear recovery, and yet he found himself expecting it to work that way no matter the dictates of rational thinking.

The relationship between his near-humanity and his somewhat-angelness was a constant source of confusion to Gabriel - and everybody around him - but it seemed that Sam had recently come to the conclusion that a working knowledge of human biology might be helpful in the short term.

“When you breathe in,” he explained, “It activates the sympathetic nervous system. Gets your adrenaline going a little. So - ”

“I have no sympathy for my nervous system,” Gabriel interjected.

“ - the important part,” Sam went on, ignoring the comment he’d probably expected, “Is to focus on your exhalation, which initiates something different - other hormones - to calm you down. So it’s best to take that nice and slow. That's your parasympathetic nervous system.”

“Activate parachute, got it. Free-falling becomes smooth coasting through a cloudless summer sky.”

“If that’s what helps you remember it,” said Sam, “Then yes, Gabriel. Pull open the parachute.”

“Listen," Gabriel told him, "I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about deep breathing before, and I suck at it.”

“I thought it might help to get more specific about what happens when you do it, so that you know why it’s helpful. It helped me to learn about that. A lot happens to the human body when it gets like …” He gestured vaguely to what was in front of him: Gabriel, still trembling from the taste of a nightmare at the back of his throat as sweat coursed down his neck and both fists spontaneously clenched and unclenched against the tangled blankets. “This.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t have a human body, then,” Gabriel replied. “Otherwise I might be a mess.”

Sam tried to smile. “Do you - ”

“No. No, I don’t really want to talk about it. I’m sorry for getting you out of bed. It’s just that I thought - ” Gabriel shook his head and looked down at the bedcovers clutched between his fingers. “I was so freakin’ tired when I fell asleep that I was dreaming about being tired, Sam. Kept trying to get up off the floor of that cell and find you, but Asmodeus wouldn’t let me, and I was too exhausted to pull myself to my feet.”

Sam nodded. Perhaps there was more physiology to be expounded upon with regard to the liminal space before waking waking, the crack in between that allowed for bewildered shouts for assistance, but Sam was tactful enough to withhold any further lectures.

“So I thought,” Gabriel continued, determined to complete his explanation, “That Asmodeus was in the room. I really did.”

He looked around. He couldn’t help it. He knew it was foolish, but it seemed even more foolish not to check.

Sam frowned at him.

“I was admiring the architecture,” Gabriel offered. “I’ve grown excruciatingly fond of this glamorized speakeasy you call a home.”

“Okay. I guess that's ... good. You want anything? Water, maybe?”

Gabriel turned his gaze downward again, debating whether to ask Sam to shift his weight so that Gabriel could properly pull the covers over himself. He decided against it: if he asked Sam to move, Sam might either take offense or understand the request to mean “leave and shut the door behind you.”

“Christmas crackers!” Gabriel hissed, pounding a fist against his own knee.

Sam looked horrified. “What are you doing? Gabriel, what's wrong?"

“I - ” Gabriel tried to remember what Sam had said about breathing - parachutes, right - and tried to exhale, then realized he couldn’t exhale without first exciting himself by inhaling, and came to the conclusion that the entire process was a self-defeating hoax. “I understand exactly what’s going on.”

“What? Going on with what?” When Gabriel didn’t answer, Sam pressed: “Has something been hurting, and you just figured it out, or - ”

“Geez, you really are in doctor mode tonight, aren’t you? I meant I know that I’m not in danger.”

Sam furrowed his brow. "Is that not good?"

“What isn’t good is that I’ve known that for months now!”

“I’m still not - ”

“What use is there in trying to convince myself that Asmodeus is gone when I still feel like he’s next to me or waiting for me or on top of me or - I’m starting to wonder if it’s worth the amount of effort I put into it every day!”

“I don’t think it’s that weird that you’d have a hard time finding common ground between what you know and what you feel,” said Sam.

“I didn’t say it was weird. I said it was pointless. Unless maybe I’m not trying hard enough; but man - I’ve been giving this everything I have in me.”

“It really hasn’t been that long, you know,” Sam reminded him. “You were in Hell for a lot longer than you’ve been with us.”

“So it’s going to take another truckload of centuries to bridge the gaping maw between what you’ve taught me and what he did to me?”

Sam spoke carefully. “I didn’t mean that. I was just trying to say that if you really want to focus on being rational, you’ve gotta factor in that imbalance. The time you spent in prison versus the time you’d had without Asmodeus manhandling you - that’s not a fair fight, so try not to be so rough on yourself about it.”

“Except,” Gabriel pointed out, feeling his chest tighten against Sam's audacious refusal to acknowledge Gabriel’s failure, “There was no gap when I had him breathing down my neck. I knew I was in danger and I felt that way, too. It wasn’t unreasonable to be cowering on the floor. Things are different now - I know there’s nothing to be afraid of, but my whole alarm system has short-circuited.”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “That’s usually how it works.”

Gabriel clenched his jaw and mangled the sheets in his fists again. “This isn’t funny.”

“What? Of course not. I know that.”

“Then stop talking to me like I’m a cute idiot, Sam. I don’t care how typical any of my behavior is; I want it to stop and you’re hearing something completely different. Just because you’ve got the knowledge and wisdom to smile and nod like I’m learning to walk for the first time - ‘Oh, look at this; it’s okay, we know he’ll stop falling even if he doesn’t know that yet’ - doesn’t make this any less exhausting for me.”

Sam looked bewildered. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I was trying to help. To remind you that - ”

“Shut up, okay? I know. I know. And that’s what makes it so difficult.”

“I just thought it might help you to know you’re not out of the ordinary for feeling the way you do - you know? I figure it’d only make me feel worse if I thought I was the only person to get stuck in the middle of what I knew was true and what I felt was real. I feel that way all the time. I’m not trying to preach to you. Or laugh at you. Why would I do that? I’m hardly in a position to brag about healthy recovery, am I?”

“Now you’re pleading!” Gabriel snapped. “I don’t want to feel like I hurt your feelings in addition to everything else!”

“Look,” Sam pleaded, because he was guilty of exactly that, “You and I are on a level playing field.”

“It sounds like you think you’re better than me.”

“Why would you even - I don’t think that at all, Gabriel.”

Gabriel pounded his knees again, thinking about the nightmare still sitting inside of him, exactly as real as the pain that resulted from hitting himself. “Well, you are, so maybe I shouldn't bitch about it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sam reached out and caught Gabriel’s fist before he could repeat the childish self-beating, the goal of which Gabriel felt might become clearer with each blow. “I wasn’t trying to prove anything. Maybe I said it the wrong way, but I really, really, truly, honestly meant that it’s normal to feel stuck like this. To know what’s the matter with you, to know what’s real, and to feel something totally opposite. I feel that way every day, Gabriel. And I definitely wasn’t trying to make light of it. If it came across that way then I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Oh, don’t be.” Gabriel tried to extricate his fist and Sam let him go. He thought about hitting himself again, but it seemed ungracious after Sam had made the choice to trust him with his own hands.

Sam’s voice softened. “Listen, Gabriel: you really need to sleep. I think that’s part of what’s got you so on edge.”

Gabriel almost said, Oh, is the baby getting cranky again? Let’s put him down for his nap but instead replied, “Or maybe it’s the quality of the sleep itself. I mean, if nightmares were the only issue, that’d make sense - I could figure that out. Maybe. But it’s the fact that my whole body is just flooded with the stuff.”

“That ... um ... feeling you get?” Sam asked.

Gabriel understood his hesitance, knew that Sam had never been able to comprehend what this “feeling” was - but perhaps that was simply due to Gabriel’s ineloquence. He had used adjectives like “dark” and “warped” to describe the tang that this feeling cast upon the world, had tried to articulate the deeply visceral flavor of ethereal horror that wrenched him out of the present and cradled him in the greasy jaws of memory.

Words, however, could not give shape to this feeling, even when Gabriel drew upon all his lifetimes of speech and his countless languages to try and force the feeling's essence into description. Yet it could not be coerced into the confines of vocabulary; it could only be felt, and only disgorged in the small horrible ways with which his near-mortal body was familiar: sweating; trembling; desperate, incessant vomiting when the terror would not abate.

In fact, Gabriel was convinced that this dark, otherworldly sensation probably was suggestive of neurosis unique to him. After all, Sam had never assured him of its normalcy. Maybe it was particular to angels, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to question Castiel about it. More likely, it was a symptom of the grotesque wrongness that had metastasized in Gabriel the moment Asmodeus first laid hands on him.

“Hey.” Sam touched his arm. “You all right?”

“Yes,” Gabriel answered hoarsely. “But that isn’t how I feel.”

“Nightmare still on your mind?”

“No. I … I don’t know.” Gabriel licked his lips. “Maybe I don’t really understand as much as I like to believe I do. Sam - ” He tried to meet Sam’s eyes but Sam was still clutching his arm. He didn’t mind if Sam touched him, or if Sam wanted to make eye contact, but in general Gabriel wasn’t willing to do both at the same time. “You don’t think I’m disgusting, right?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“Okay, but I do. I think that I’m disgusting, and I also feel like I’m disgusting. Like - in the way that maggots crawling over a decomposing body is disgusting. It’s not the corpse’s fault for rotting and it’s not the bugs’ fault that they feed on it. It’s just disgusting for what it is.”

Sam recoiled, and Gabriel jerked his head up. I was right.

Sam’s features had taken on the flush of anger. “I don’t like that at all.”

“Neither do I! What, you think I was just spouting a poetic monologue? It’s what I see, Sam. It’s what I feel.”

“But that’s just … Jesus. You’re not like that. That’s a horrible thing to say about yourself.”

“Then I’m sorry I said it! Look, you’re proving my point!”

“That’s just such a - look - ” Sam closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Pull the parachute, Sam,” said Gabriel, trying to ignore how fast his heart was pounding in response to the irritation in Sam’s face.

Sam opened his eyes. “Gabriel, I know you feel like you’re tainted or - or just bad, or whatever, but I hate to hear you talk about yourself like that.”

“Well, how am I supposed to believe it isn’t true? Based on what happened to me in Hell, I’m probably not that far off.”

“You are, though.”

“I’m not, though.”

Sam stood up.

Gabriel scrambled backward, slamming into the wall and toppling the pillow from the lip of the mattress to the floor. He had a split second’s regret - I could have used that for protection - and then several moments of quiet waiting, moments in which he was not sure what he did, moments in which he heard nothing and saw only darkness.

Then he heard his name, repeated gently over and over; he remembered where he was, and realized - with a spasm of humiliation - that what had felt like minutes probably had not been more than a few seconds. Both arms were thrown over his head as a makeshift shield - a fortress that had never proven effective against his attackers.

With arthritic slowness, Gabriel unfolded himself.

“It’s okay,” Sam whispered. “It’s okay. There we go. It’s okay. It’s all right, Gabriel; it’s all right.”

Gabriel nodded. He did not look at Sam.

Sam held out a hand, uncertain. “I’m sorry. I got a little - ”

“It’s fine.” But Gabriel was suddenly overtaken by such a violent urge to cry that he lay back down, bereft of the pillow, and turned away. “I just - ”

Sam waited.

“I forgot to activate my parachute,” Gabriel finished, and crushed his teeth together against a sob that jerked out of him like a seizure.

“Ah - ” Sam sounded shocked and unsure. “Oh man. I’m sorry.”

Gabriel knew that he was. It would only serve to make Sam feel worse if Gabriel were to vocally lament that he was terrified of giving voice to his deepest despair lest Sam lash out. Even if it was due to helplessness or to fury toward Asmodeus, Gabriel couldn’t handle that level of fire in Sam.

"Here, let's just - let me, um - " Sam tucked the blankets around Gabriel's shoulders, taking caution not to actually touch him. Gabriel had come to suspect that Sam felt most at ease in conveying affection, remorse, and protectiveness through some sort of physical contact. Gabriel often made this challenging for Sam. In fact, he reflected as he felt Sam draw away, why should he feel entitled to refuse Sam the small comfort of touching him when Gabriel was the one at fault for misinterpreting a benign gesture of frustration - especially given that the gesture was in response to Gabriel’s complaining about his poor self-image?

“Listen,” Sam said quietly. “Listen, Gabe - I won’t leave, but I’m gonna give you a couple minutes to calm down. I’m here, but I’m not going to hurt you, Gabriel.”

In the aftermath of the imagined assault, Gabriel was shaking. He listened to his own ragged breathing as he would have listened to a familiar much-hated song that played only because he was too unintelligent to find the appropriate dial to turn it off, while somebody else was forced to pretend it didn’t grate on their nerves and politely wait for the closing notes.

After a few moments, the surge of fear began to soften and the bedroom grew more solid to him. He debated the benefits and disadvantages of trying to halt his tears. Ultimately, he decided, it wasn’t a question of positives and negatives: there was simply not much use in pretending that Sam would have judged him after seeing it happen so often. The impulse to stoicism was there, as it always was - a costume with no remaining elasticity.

“I know,” Gabriel muttered into the damp sheet.

“Huh?”

He turned over, looking up at Sam. “I know that you’re not gonna do anything to try and mess with me. I really - I do. I know that.”

“That’s good.”

“If I could show you as much, I would. Instead you’ve got me whining about my self-indulgent hatred of - ” But Gabriel stopped, afraid to annoy Sam with additional descriptions of (as he’d considered saying) “this cosmic garbage that’s only ever been good for playtime in Hell.”

"That's all right," said Sam, although he looked pale and haunted. "Don't worry about it, Gabriel. Really. Just take it easy."

“You can touch me,” Gabriel offered. “If you - I’m sorry.”

Sam shook his head. “You don’t gotta make anything up to me, Gabriel.”

“I don’t want to get in trouble.” Gabriel gave a tight, nervous laugh. “If you want to, you can.”

“No. No, it's okay. Wait - if I say no, are you going to take that to mean I just think you’re gross?”

“I'm not sure."

“All right. Okay. Well, what do you want?” When Gabriel tensed - he loathed the question, abhorred the word - Sam corrected himself: “What do you need right now?”

“I’m not sure," Gabriel repeated. "I just know I’m sorry for freaking out.”

“Come on, you didn’t do anything wrong. Look, you know me pretty well, I think - and - well, hearing stuff like that can be rough because I want to change it. That’s all. It’s not your fault Asmodeus was such a piece of work.”

“I need to be more careful.” Gabriel smiled, fitfully, feeling delusional and uneven. He didn’t know whether he wanted to come across as serious. “One of these days you might actually get real pissed off. And whatever happens, I’ll have to take responsibility for not being able to control myself.”

Sam’s eye twitched. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Fine. I won’t. I’ll think them, but I won’t say them.” Gabriel was beginning to wonder if he was being difficult on purpose. “I don’t want to upset you; I don’t want to make you angry at anyone; I don’t want to make you sad when I’m afraid of you.”

“Stop.” Helplessly, Sam reached out and grabbed his hand. “You can say whatever you like, Gabriel. I just wish I could help.”

“Hey, you are helping. Like I mentioned, I at least know where I am. I know I’m not actually in danger.”

Sam gave a tired smile. “That isn’t what you just said.”

“Well - then I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. There are things I do know, and things I should know. Maybe I’ve actually lost my whole-ass mind. I believe you, I think. I believe you don’t want to hurt me. I just don’t - I guess I figure that might change.”

“But why?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Because it’s me, Gabriel. It's Sam. It's not Asmodeus.”

"Yes! And yet here we are!"

Sam gripped his hand more firmly. “But that’s okay.”

“It really isn’t. I need to be able to connect the dots better. For my sake, maybe, but for yours too. I need to understand things better. I need to be able to apply what I learn. Looks like I’m screwing up both parts of that process.”

“You need more time. Maybe a lot more time.”

“I’ve had time!"

“Some. Like I said, you had a whole lot more time with him than you’ve had with any of us.”

“I just - ah - I - ” Gabriel wiped his eyes. “I’d just really like it to stop. I could do without the nightmares and without being scared of you or anyone else. And without feeling like a diseased animal stinking up the place. I hate it. I want it to end. I’m confused about what to believe and what to feel and how to act. I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want you to hurt me but I - but I’m this thing, this nauseating, awful thing that he - that - and I can’t keep doing this because it’s too much for me. I can’t handle it. I can’t handle knowing it’ll probably take another eon before I’m not running away from you, and by then you won’t even be here. And I can’t handle thinking about that, either. I just want it to stop. All of it. I can’t do this." He shivered and tried to remember to breathe.

"I know," Sam murmured. "It's okay. I get it. But you're gonna be okay. I'm here."

"You - " Gabriel shuddered again, feeling sick and exhausted and still plagued by the grotesque haze of nightmares. "You can touch me."

Sam squeezed his hand.

“No,” Gabriel said, “I mean - ”

Sam eased him closer, into a gentle hug that felt undeserved but not frightening.

Gabriel took a deep breath, came close to making a remark about parachutes, and decided he had better not speak.

Since escaping, Gabriel had had instances in which he'd seriously doubted his own intellect. Surely he had simply not been clever enough to break free from Asmodeus; surely only a truly dimwitted being would have gotten so lost in the post-infernal labyrinth between knowledge and experience.

Despite this uncertainty, he didn't believe that he was stupid enough to miss what seemed obvious: the safety he felt in an embrace like this was instinctual. Perhaps it was a rudimentary form of applied knowledge. At least in this moment, there was no need to berate himself into common sense - not when the privilege of a warm embrace, however unmerited, felt quite different from anything else.