#they all connected in one mind and it was as if the three of them said it

[super-ion]

The Engineer

Part 4

(Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)

I don't know where the pilot is taking me at first.

I am realizing that my life has just been an endless circuit of routine: Quarters. Gym. Cafeteria. Maintenance bay. Cafeteria. Quarters. Repeat. Everything outside of that has become an abstraction to me.

I can't even remember the last time I made my way up to the level. Everything here is shiny and pristine, scrubbed spotless twice a day on the off chance that some senator or general might visit. It's all clean lines, camouflaged access panels, trim little admin offices.

I very nearly have to stop and stare at a potted plant, when was the last time I saw one, verdant and alive?

But the pilot is moving with single minded purpose and I am forced to hurry to catch up.

I imagine her dragging me into the commandant’s office. I imagine her presenting me in formal complaint, the guilt of my sins, my intimacy with her machine, written plainly across my face.

She comes to a stop so suddenly that I almost collide with her. It is not the commandant’s office that we have arrived at.

The gilded signage on the door simply reads: OBSERVATION

She glances at me, briefly hesitating. In this entire encounter, it is the first moment of uncertainty that she has shown.

She swipes her wrist over the access panel, the door whispers open and I understand the hesitation and uncertainty.

Observation delivers exactly what it promises. The far side of the dimly lit room is dominated by floor-to-ceiling plex that overlooks the expanse of the maintenance bay.

My breath catches at the sight of Her.

Morrigan is resting in Her docking harness, Her heat sinks fully spread like the wings of an angel, armor plating unfolded to expose superstructure beneath, countless docking umbilicals arrayed almost organically to connect to the facility's systems.

It has been so long since I've actually seen Her, all of Her at once, that I've forgotten the scale of it all. My entire world has been the cockpit and the docking vestibule and now I can barely comprehend how small the team of techs are next to Her as they scurry along like ants.

Some tension leaves the pilot's shoulders and she strides towards the plex wall. She gazes upon the machine with adoration, the most emotion I have ever seen on her face. I start to imagine that I understand why she brought me here.

I step tentatively into the room. The door shuts behind me and the dim space is suddenly intimate.

Alone with the Pilot, her framed by the vista of Morrigan, the space feels almost holy. A shrine. A Goddess and Her human avatar.

I imagine Morrigan watching us. Maybe She can. Her visual sensors are specially designed to pick out details at a distance. Perhaps the Pilot told Morrigan exactly where and when we would be her.

Almost in answer to my thoughts, Her exposed core pulses, a blue-white flicker of light, and the Pilot places a hand tenderly on the plex.

My stomach lurches. It is no longer me alone with the Pilot in this room. It is all three of us. It is me alone with them. The suffocating sense of being an interloper returns in full force.

“I read all your reports,” the Pilot says without turning, without breaking her gaze from Morrigan. “It's like fucking Christmas for her. She just can't wait to show me what you found in your analysis.”

I stand awkwardly, unsure how to respond, or if I should respond at all.

“It's so fucking hard sometimes,” she continues, “they pull you out and you can't even tell who you are. You leave something behind and you take something with you.”

She turns abruptly, fixing me with the intensity of her gaze.

“What were you doing three nights ago?”

I had been expecting the question, dreading it, but the abruptness of it catches me off guard and fresh panic licks down my spine.

I open my mouth, but I can't bring myself to say anything.

She takes a step towards me. I step back instinctively. My back meets the wall.

“I already know,” she says, her tone unreadable. “I want to hear you say it. Your own words.”

I swallow. My eyes dart back to Morrigan. She is watching us. I know it. I know it from the now blazing light in Her core.

“I…”

I swallow again.

“I had a nightmare,” I admit. “I went to Morrigan.”

She takes another step forward. She's taller than me and I have to tilt my head back just slightly to meet her eyes.

“Why?”

“I didn't… I didn't want to be alone. I didn't know who else to go to. I... I wanted to be with her.”

Another step. She's close now, close enough to touch.

“Whose nightmares?”

Fuck.

“Yours,” I admit. “...and mine.”

“You think a lot about neural bleed.”

It isn't a question. I don't think it's a question. I nod in acknowledgement regardless.

“You think about how the patterns of thought and identity leave marks. Imprints. You're in her head, so you're in mine. The three of us, we're just this fucking tangle, aren't we?”

Fuck. What does she want from me?

I don't know if she expects me to answer that, but there's another moment of uncertainty from her.

“She wanted me to talk to you,” she says. “Or I wanted her to want me to talk to you. I don't even know. I don't fucking know who wants what any more.”

She looks… vexed now. That intense gaze of hers has taken on a slightly different gleam.

My heart is hammering in my chest and my breathing has become ever so slightly ragged.

Neural bleed. Two halves to a whole.

She is Morrigan. The human half. The physical half.

She lifts her hand and I stand motionless as she reaches out to touch my face. Her fingertips meet my cheek and she blinks, almost surprised to discover that I am real.

She takes a breath and the uncertainty is gone, leaving naked desire in its wake.

She shifts her hand, palm sliding along my cheek to the back of my neck, her fingers tangling in my hair. The feel of her skin against mine is enough to make me gasp.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” she tells me in a low whisper.

“Please don't stop,” I beg in reply.

[tsukumomei]

OKOKOK in my mind in the “puppy love” fic, reader is moving to spain

and then three years later sae comes to spain cause he gets scouted by re al you know the story

and so they meet again ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹 (they have cute “dates” if you will, where she shows him around spain and what not 🤭)

now idk if you’re taking requests at the moment, or even want to write a part two for this, but i (and many others i feel like) would LOVE to see this!

no force though, if you do wish to write it take your time, and if you don’t it’s all fine too!

much love, xoxo 💋

a/n: This is actually insane because this is EXACTLY what I had in mind for a bonus part! I was originally going to end it when they saw each other again, but I took your request and wrote about their dates too. Enjoy! Mwah! I wouldn’t consider this a part 2, though—if I ever write one, it’ll still be from Rin’s POV. But I’m open to writing more bonus parts for this fic, so feel free to send me an ask! ^^

—RIGHT WHERE WE LEFT OFF

ft. Sae Itoshi

a bonus chapter for Puppy Love

synposis: Sae moves to Madrid after getting scouted by Real, but he has two problems. One—he hates it. The city feels unfamiliar, foreign, nothing like home. Two—he’s determined to forget about you. But the harder he tries, the more his own mind betrays him—because no matter what he does, everything leads him right back to you. wc: 3.1 k

The shuffling in Sae’s carry-on grows more frantic as he impatiently searches for that notebook from you.

It was the first thing he stuffed into his bag.

Flipping through the worn pages, his eyes finally land on the last one—covered in messy scribbles, but the only thing that stands out is a single line written in red ink at the bottom:

"Wait for me. ❤️ Y/N"

Sae presses his thumb against the words, as if touching them could somehow bring back the past. Could somehow make you feel real again.

He leans back into his seat, staring out at the endless stretch of sky beyond the plane window, but it’s not Madrid he’s thinking about. It’s you.

This morning, back at the house, he’d been kicking a soccer ball around the backyard, the steady thud of leather against concrete filling the quiet air. Rin was there too, watching him with a knowing look before finally speaking up.

"Nii-chan, it was just puppy love."

Maybe it was. Maybe Rin was right.

But if it was just puppy love, why is it still lingering?

Why did he still worry—that if you ever came back, that you’d be mad at him for not being there?

It’s been three years.

The chances of seeing you again were close to impossible.

—

Sae steps into his new apartment in Madrid, rolling his suitcase inside as his manager gestures around the space.

“This is your living room,” his manager begins, flipping on the lights. The apartment is modern, minimalistic—exactly what Sae expected. “Kitchen’s over there. Fridge is stocked for now, but you’ll need to do your own groceries after this week.”

Sae nods, setting his bag neatly by the couch.

“The bedroom’s down the hall,” the manager continues, walking ahead. “Bathroom’s connected. There’s a desk if you need to study or review game footage. Wi-Fi’s already set up.”

Sae peeks into the bedroom—plain, clean, nothing extravagant. Just a bed, a nightstand, and a small window overlooking the street below.

“You’re across the hall?” Sae asks as they return to the main area.

“Yeah,” his manager confirms, crossing. “If you need anything, just knock.”

Sae scoffs lightly. “I’ll be fine.”

His manager gives him a once-over, then exhales. “Good. Then I’ll leave you to settle in.”

With that, the manager steps out, leaving Sae alone.

The moment the door clicks shut, Sae gets to work. He unzips his luggage, methodically putting his clothes away, setting his toiletries in the bathroom, and neatly stacking his training gear by the closet. He takes mental notes of what he needs—more food, basic supplies, maybe an extra pillow.

Once everything is in place, he pulls out his phone and dials home.

His mother picks up almost immediately. “Sae?”

“I just landed and got to the apartment,” he informs her, his voice steady. “Everything’s fine.”

“That’s good,” she says warmly. “Have you eaten?”

“I will soon.”

“Don’t just eat whatever’s fastest. Make sure you’re getting proper meals.”

Sae hums in acknowledgment before adding, “Tell Dad I made it safely. And Rin, too.”

“Of course,” his mother says. There’s a brief pause, then a softer, knowing tone in her voice. “It feels real now, doesn’t it?”

Sae leans against the counter, staring at the empty space around him. His new home. His new life.

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

After a few more exchanges, he hangs up, setting his phone aside.

His eyes drift to his carry-on, to the one thing he hadn’t put away yet.

The notebook.

The worn cover, the slightly frayed edges—he traces them with his fingers before flipping it open once again. The pages are filled with your handwriting, messy yet familiar, scrawled with thoughts and doodles from years ago.

It’s ridiculous, really. He hasn’t seen you in three years. He has no idea where you are, if you’re still in the same country, if you even remember him the way he remembers you.

But memories flood in anyway. The afternoons spent at the park, your determined expression when you first crashed his soccer game, the way you always talked too much but somehow, he never minded. The way you scribbled on his arm once with the same red ink you used to write—

"Wait for me. ❤️ y/n"

Sae exhales sharply and shuts the notebook.

Maybe it really was just puppy love.

He stands, grabs his wallet, and heads for the door.

He needs to get out, get familiar with the city. He’s going to live here now, after all.

—

The city is foreign, unfamiliar—Sae hates it.

He was never one for traveling. The only reason he’s here is to play soccer at an international level, but outside of that, it feels suffocating in a way he never expected.

The streets are too loud yet too quiet at the same time. He doesn’t understand the conversations happening around him, the unfamiliar syllables blending into meaningless noise. The people pass by in a blur, all strangers, none of them acknowledging him beyond quick  glances.

It’s not like he’s stupid enough to get scammed—he’s careful, always aware of his surroundings. But that doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t belong here. It doesn’t change how frustrating it is to have all this free time and nowhere to go, no one to turn to.

The city is alive, buzzing with movement, but it only makes the loneliness feel sharper.

—

Today marks his second week in Madrid.

Sae realizes just how useless he is when it comes to directions.

The sun is already beginning to set, casting a golden glow over Madrid, and he has no idea where he is.

The street signs might as well be in a foreign language—which, technically, they are. He squints at them, but the unfamiliar words blur together, useless in helping him find his way. And as for Spanish? Well, he knows about as much as a toddler forming his first sentence.

Great.

Of course, it’s at a time like this that he remembers you.

Because you were always the human GPS between the two of you, navigating streets like you had a built-in map inside your head. You always knew the right turns to take, the fastest shortcuts.

And right now? Right now, he is the one most in need of that skill.

Rin thinks Sae is perfect, so he probably doesn’t even know about this little flaw of his.

Sae scoffs to himself, shaking his head. It’s ridiculous that, even now, when he’s supposed to be moving on, he still finds himself thinking about you.

He exhales sharply, pushing the thoughts away.

Enough.

With renewed determination, Sae steps onto the crosswalk, telling himself—again—that it’s time to leave his childhood love in the past.

But by the time he reaches the middle, doubt creeps in—just enough for him to hesitate, just enough for him to misstep.

And just enough for him to accidentally bump into someone walking from the opposite direction.

"Perdón," the girl mutters, barely sparing him a glance—until she does.

She stops short, eyes widening in surprise.

"Oh."

Sae blinks.

"It’s you."

For a moment, the city fades into the background. The people rushing past, the hum of conversation, the faint honking of impatient drivers—it all disappears.

You look different now. Your hair is dyed, a little wavier than before. A stylish bag hangs off your shoulder, outfit effortlessly put together in a way that makes you stand out even in the middle of Madrid.

But to him, you’re still the same stubborn girl who once barged into his soccer game with Rin, the one who never asked for permission—just demanded a pass like you belonged there. The one who never looked at him like everyone else did.

Your eyes are the same. That’s what catches him the most. Time has changed a lot of things, but not that. They still hold the same warmth, the same quiet confidence.

Sae wonders if he looks different to you, too. If you notice the way his shoulders have grown broader, the way the exhaustion lingers under his eyes. If you can tell that beneath all the fame and titles, there’s still a part of him that never stopped waiting for you.

Neither of you speak. Just stood there, caught in something neither of you were prepared for.

Sae exhales, then—without thinking—extends his hand toward you

But before you can take it, a sharp whistle cuts through the air.

"¡Oye! Move it!"

The traffic officer’s whistle cuts through the air, snapping both of you out of your daze.

Startled, you both turn at the same time, realizing the light has already turned green—and you’re still standing in the middle of the crosswalk.

Reality has always had a way of interrupting you two, hasn’t it?

Sae clenches his jaw, frustration flickering across his face. Meanwhile, you weren’t handling it any better—because instead of just walking away like a normal person, you were flipping off the traffic officer and hurling a wooden spoon at him.

Where did you even get that? Sae has no idea. And honestly, he’s not sure he wants to.

But then he feels you grab his arm, yanking him across the street as you break into a run—both of you fleeing from the traffic officer, who Sae can only assume is cursing you out in rapid Spanish.

And just like that, his expression softens.

—

“Whew, that was close,” you say between heavy breaths, still catching your breath from all that running.

Sae glances at you, unimpressed. “Maybe if you didn’t throw a spoon at him, we wouldn’t have to run.”

You roll your eyes, waving him off. “Oh, please. That guy already hates me. This isn’t even the first time, you know.”

Sae raises a brow. “Not surprised.”

You nudge him with your elbow. “Hey! Rude.”

He exhales sharply, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “What did you do to piss him off before?”

You smirk, tilting your head playfully. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Sae gives you a look—unamused but intrigued nonetheless. “I would, actually.”

You grin, pretending to think. “Let’s just say… it involved a churro cart, an old lady, and a very, very unfortunate slip on my part.”

Sae stares at you for a moment before shaking his head. “You’re a menace.” 

You flash him a cheeky smile. “And yet, here you are, running away from traffic officers with me.”

He huffs but doesn’t argue. Because, somehow, you’re right—because he’s relieved that he can finally talk to someone other than his manager, and just as relieved to see that you haven’t changed at all.

Isn’t it ironic? The very day he decides to finally let go of your memory, fate throws you right back into his life.

But something nags at him. You haven’t asked about Madrid, about why he’s here. It’s like you’re not surprised at all, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to bump into him on the street.

Sae narrows his eyes slightly before speaking. “Hey, you’re not gonna ask?”

“Ask what?” you blink at him, confused. Then, as if remembering something, your face lights up. “Oh! Where are my manners?”

Before he can react, you throw yourself at him, wrapping him in a warm embrace.

Sae stiffens, caught completely off guard. But before he can say anything, you sigh dramatically against his shoulder. “I missed you so much! I can’t believe you followed me all the way to Spain. Oh, you really do love me.”

He clicks his tongue, exasperated. You’re being an idiot again—definitely pushing it.

But he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t deny it.

Instead, after a brief hesitation, he exhales and wraps a single arm around you, listening as you ramble on like no time has passed at all.

—

“Maybe I should put a tracker on you.” you tease, walking a step ahead of Sae as you lead him through the narrow streets of Madrid.  

He exhales sharply, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I would’ve figured it out eventually.”  

You throw him a look over your shoulder. “Yeah, sure. After getting lost for another three hours.”  

Sae doesn’t bother denying it. Instead, he follows as you turn into an alleyway, stopping in front of a small, unassuming café tucked between two buildings. 

“This place has the best tostada con tomate in the city,” you say, nodding toward the café. 

“The old man inside—Rafa—he always yells at me for ordering too much, but then he sneaks me an extra pastry for free.”  

As if on cue, the door swings open, and an elderly man steps out. His eyes land on you, and a slow grin spreads across his face. “¡Ah, mira quién es! La niña que me arruina el negocio.” (Ah, look who it is! The girl who’s ruining my business.)  

You laugh, stepping forward to greet him. “Don’t lie, Rafa. You love me.”  

Rafa scoffs but affectionately ruffles your hair before turning to Sae, eyes narrowing in scrutiny. “¿Y este quién es?” (And who’s this?)  

“My amigo,” you reply smoothly, though there’s a glint of mischief in your eyes. “He just moved here, so I’m showing him around.”  

Rafa studies Sae for a moment before nodding in approval. “Bien. Come inside. I’ll make sure he eats something decent.”  

Sae barely has time to protest before you’re dragging him through the door, the scent of warm spices and grilled meat immediately filling the air. The restaurant is small, a little tucked away from the busier streets, but it’s lively, filled with laughter and the soft hum of conversation.

When the food arrives, you dig in without hesitation, taking a bite and immediately letting out a dramatic sigh. “Oh my god,” you moan, clutching your chest like you’ve just ascended to heaven. “This is it. This is what happiness tastes like.”

Sae raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You sound ridiculous.”

“You sound jealous,” you retort, shoveling another bite into your mouth. “You haven’t even touched your food.”

Sae watches you for a moment. The way you eat so shamelessly, without a care for how you look, is something he vaguely remembers from when you were kids. Some things never change.

“I’m just letting you be the poison tester,” he mutters, finally picking up his fork.

You roll your eyes. “Please. If Rafa wanted to kill me, he would’ve done it years ago.”

Rafa, passing by, snorts. “She’s not wrong.”

Sae sighs, finally taking a bite. He won’t admit it, but it’s good. Really good.

Just as you’re finishing your plate, you glance at your phone and stand abruptly. “Be right back. Don’t go running off without me.”

Sae only scoffs in response, watching as you disappear towards the bathroom. The moment you’re gone, Rafa leans against the counter, wiping his hands on a towel before turning to Sae with a knowing smirk.

“She talked about you before, you know,” Rafa says casually.

Sae tenses slightly. “Did she?”

Rafa nods, chuckling. “Not by name. Just 'some guy I used to know who’s hopeless with anything besides soccer and even worse with emotions.'”

Sae huffs. “Sounds like something she'd say.”

Rafa shrugs. “Well, if you’re sticking around, you better get used to her dragging you everywhere. She’s got a habit of making lost people feel at home.”

Sae doesn’t respond, just looks at him, expression unreadable. Rafa only chuckles, shaking his head as he wipes down the counter.

A moment later, you return, eyes narrowing the second you spot them. “What’s this?” you ask suspiciously, sliding back into your seat. “What were you two talking about?”

Rafa smirks, tilting his head towards Sae. “Oh, nothing much. Just sharing stories.”

You gasp dramatically, pointing a finger at Sae. “You weren’t talking bad about me, were you?”

Sae finally speaks, deadpan. “Wouldn’t need to. You embarrass yourself enough.”

You scoff, reaching over to steal a piece of food from his plate. “Unbelievable. I leave for one second, and you two become best friends conspiring against me.”

Rafa laughs. “Don’t worry, querida. He’s not that easy to befriend.”

You nod sagely. “That’s true. I had to force him to like me.”

Sae rolls his eyes. That was true for most people, but definitely not for you.

He liked you from the get-go, like there was a gravitational pull towards you that he just couldn't escape from.

The day continues like that.  

You don’t take him to the usual tourist spots—the grand plazas or famous museums. Instead, you show him the Madrid you love.  

A tucked-away bookstore where the owner lets you sit and read for hours without buying anything. A tiny family-run tapas bar where the food is cheap but incredible, and the owners greet you like family. A rooftop spot where you swear the sunset looks better than anywhere else in the city.  

Everywhere you go, you introduce him like he belongs there.  

By the time the sky turns golden, Sae realizes something.  

This isn’t just a city to you. It’s a home.  

And for the first time since moving here, Madrid doesn’t feel so unfamiliar to him anymore.  

Maybe it’s because he’s finally seeing it through your eyes.

And maybe that so-called puppy love Rin kept telling him about is beginning to grow into something more.

a/n: "Puppy Love" is the one and only beloved Sae Itoshi fanfic franchise that will remain untouched by despair. I wholeheartedly believe that at some point during his four years in Spain, Sae had his dreams crushed and utterly heartbroken. But in this au? nah. no angst, no career-crushing disappointments, Just endless, tooth-rotting fluff and relationship bliss. The kind of soft, sweet moments Sae would never admit he enjoys. Because for once, he deserves to have something go perfectly right.

[starredblood]

NOWHERE GIRL

PART NINETEEN

kang sae-byeok x fem!reader

synopsis: you come back with an anxious ridden feeling that becomes worse as time goes by—all because of the stone faced girl.

wc. 3.1k

warnings: very angsty | authors note: sooo the weather….

(nowhere girl masterlist)

(Three months later…)

Mi-Cha was getting more anxious by the minute.

When she went to visit you in your dorm, you weren’t there. In fact, when she asked your roommate about your whereabouts she too hasn’t seen you all day. So, she’s standing outside your dorm with her hands on her hips to ponder. Where could you be? Who will know? A light bulb flickers in her mind when she thinks of the only person in campus who knows everyone in her major.

She sprints to the floor above and knocks on the door of one of the most luxurious dorms in campus. Yoon appears minutes after, her eyes glued to her phone screen which aggravates Mi-Cha.

“Yoon. Earth to, Yoon.” she says snapping her fingers in front of Yoon’s face. She blinks and smiles wearily at Mi-Cha.

“Oh, hey, long time no see. How was your summer?” Yoon asks, batting her eyelashes.

“No need for small talk just tell me where she is.” Mi-Cha huffs impatiently.

Yoon’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “She?”

“Seriously?” Mi-Cha crosses her arms and sighs. “Who’s the only other person that we are connected to?”

After pausing to think, revelation overcomes Yoon’s pristine face. “Ah! Yes—I think she’s at our communal studio. I haven’t seen her around the dorms—“

“But you are our new resident assistant?”

“Exactly! I’m so busy trying to keep everything and everyone in check how am I supposed to know where everyone is at every waking moment?”

Mi-Cha scoffs, even though deep down she knows Yoon is slightly correct. And with that she walks away and out of the dormitory building. There is only one communal studio space for art students to attend whenever they like. She is surprised you’d be there though—it’s not even the first day of classes yet. And in all honesty, she’s a little offended that that’s the first place you go to.

She hasn’t seen you since you left for your Italy trip and you were barely able to reach out to her during your summer there. But from the small tidbits you shared, it sounded like you had a riveting summer in Milan.

After opening the doors to the large and spacious studio, there were mounds of students present with piles of canvases and sculptures ready to be displayed or worked on. She pushes past the students with the goal of finding you in mind.

It feels like Mi-Cha was back at the art gallery with how crowded this studio is. Finally, she thinks she found you and she let out a huge breath of relief.

You were currently helping lift up a large canvas with the help of four other art students and leaned the piece against the wall. Your hair was all over the place and the baggy jean shorts you were wearing got unknowingly stained when you wipe your hands against them.

Whilst catching your breath you wipe the sweat off your forehead, still not noticing your friend running to your direction.

“I missed you so so so much!” Mi-Cha merrily says after trapping you into one of her bear hugs.

“Hey! I missed you too.” you say, grinning. However, there was less enthusiasm in your voice.

“Why haven’t you stopped by to see me? I’m hurt.” she pouts releasing you from the hug.

She eyes you from head to toe. Something was different about you she just couldn’t put her fingers on it. Although, your skin did glow with more radiance, that wasn’t it. And when she looks into your smiling eyes, there was a hint of nervousness surrounding them that was illegible. Maybe she was just overthinking it too much. It has been awhile since she’s seen you.

“I’m sorry. All of my work just flew in and I had to unpack them all otherwise they would have gone ‘mysteriously’ missing.” you say, using your fingers to sign quotation marks on the word mysteriously. “And I stayed longer to help some people who went with me on the trip.”

“And how was it?” she gapes. “Wait never mind don’t tell me—let’s go grab lunch after so you can tell me all about it.”

Your eyes squint. “I hear that the cafeteria food here is…not the best though.”

“Yeah—that’s why I told you to enjoy as much Italian food before coming back. You’ll have to start getting used to the campus food now.”

When you open your mouth to speak a colleague of yours nudges your sides to help them lift up a sculpture tightly secured in a large box. You signal Mi-Cha to momentarily wait for you to finish and she observes you with eyebrows quirking up. She thinks she’s pretty good at reading minds, you seem anxious. The entire time you spoke your eyebrows were knit and the corners of your lips twitching like the smile you had was by force.

You clap your hands together to wipe away dust and debris, your face crestfallen. “What?”

“Did you see her yet?” she blurts out, wriggling her eyebrows. She was louder than she expected.

That’s when you freeze and Mi-Cha catches on. It had to be that girl you were so fawned over this past spring. She saw it in the way your muscles grew tense. You play it off with a smaller smile.

“No, as soon as I got back I had to get everything in my dorm prepared and talk to my counselor about my new tuition.” you explain quietly. “I’m going to stop by later though.”

Now, Mi-Cha feels guilty. She’s so ignorant for thinking that your only problems were your love life when you have financial stressors to take care of.

“Yeah, I know it’s expensive but don’t worry. Focus on school and worry about debts when you get a stable job after.”

“Being an adult fucking sucks.” you grumble.

“Yeah, I know.” she says, clearing her throat in contemplation. “Are you alright though? With you know…life?”

You start chuckling nervously. “Yeah. I don’t know…Ever since I got to Italy I’ve just been stressed and I still feel weird even after coming back.”

“Did you say stress? What could possibly stress you out in Italy?”

Sae-byeok actually.

There is no words in the human dictionary to describe the amount of stress you’ve endured throughout your trip to Italy. All because of the stone face girl you’ve fallen head over heels for. You never felt such intense emotions about someone other than her, it got to a point where she was always luring in the back of your mind.

On the last week of your studies in Italy, you and a couple of your colleagues ventured out to Genoa to relax on a boat. And embarrassingly enough, your drunken thoughts couldn’t see anything but Sae-byeok. It was killing you and for one reason only.

She hasn’t reached out to you ever since you arrived to Italy.

At first you didn’t try to worry. You didn’t have much reception on your phone but whenever you got the chance you made sure to stay up late reach out to Sae-byeok when you knew it would be day time in South Korea. But nothing. Halfway through the trip, you try dialing Ji-yeong asking if everything is alright but nothing. And when you tried reaching out to them the second you got back to Korea, their calls went straight to voicemail.

They’ve gone off the grid and you couldn’t stop your mind from going in circles trying to figure out what’s going on with them.

But now that you’re back you are going to find out.

After you and Mi-Cha head to the cafeteria and catch up on each other’s lives the past three months, you decline her offer to go to a welcome party held at her dormitory wing. You felt guilty not telling her about what really happened with Sae-byeok, but you were so afraid to get her response because she is such a blunt person. What if she would’ve told you that Sae-byeok ghosted you and to move on from her? You are still in denial.

So, after lunch you walk back to your dormitory.

“Hey, what happened to you?” asks your roommate, Lee Gyeong-ja who was currently laying on her bed playing a mobile game. “Haven’t heard from you all day and one of your friends came to ask about you.”

“Busy unloading some stuff from my trip.” you explain flatly. “And I met up with her earlier.”

You kneel down in front of your bed to pull out two bags underneath it. In the bag contains all the stuff you gathered from the trip and each has the label ‘Ji-yeong’ and ‘Kang siblings’.

“Okay…” she trails off before focusing back on her game.

“Bye.” you say breathlessly and walk out the dorm with the bags on each hand.

To make it to their apartment faster, you took the subway rather than the bus even though you prefer taking the latter. The entire journey was stress inducing—you hope that they have a good explanation as to why they haven’t been contacting you.

When you arrive in front of the apartment complex, you took a deep breath in to soothe your mind. You hope they’re alright. You hope to see their faces soon. And you hope they’re thinking the same about you.

You place one of the bags on the floor to knock on their door. Again, you breathe in and out but your heart keeps thumping loudly in your ears. It just got louder when you hear rustling coming from the other end.

Your racing heart stops abruptly to sink down your chest.

“Hello?” greets a man who looks to be in his thirties. He slowly pokes his head out the door to survey you—appearing very suspicious about your presence here.

“Oh uh,” you stammer and look to the side of the door to make sure you got the right apartment number. This was it. You awkwardly smile at the man. “hi. Sorry—two girls around my age used to live here. Do you—Do you know where they possibly…moved to?”

“Two girls?” he questions. Right after, a woman who you assume to be his wife appears behind him. He mumbles something to her and she shakes her head in response. “We aren’t sure—we just moved here last month. But I think I remember the landlord telling us that the old tenants left sometime in the…beginning of summer?” he looks to his wife for reassurance and she shakes her head yes.

“Seriously? Oh my god…” you mutter, your voice trembling. Before they get any more suspicious of you, you bow quickly. “I’m sorry for taking your time. Thank you.”

And with that you grab the bag you had on the ground and make your way out of your apartment.

So, you weren’t just going crazy for no reason…If they weren’t here then where the hell are they? You don’t want to think of the worst just yet. There has to be a fine explanation for this.

⊹ ✿・・───・・✦・・───・・✿

(One week later…)

The bakery is no longer there. Instead, there was a large ‘FOR SALE’ sign on the entire building which includes your old studio apartment. And the only other sign in front of the abandoned building was ‘RELOCATED TO SONJUN.’

You desperately wish that you could drop everything to go to Sonjun and hope Miss Ahn or her bratty grandson could give you answers. If they have any. But you couldn’t fall behind in school, not when it’s all you have.

As if you were in a trance, you kept swirling your line brush around the red acrylic paint. You didn’t notice you were doing this for the past three minutes—but you couldn’t stop thinking about Sae-byeok. It worries you what might’ve happened to her. When she told you she was able to stay a float, was the lying?

You didn’t break away from your trance until faint familiar giggles enter your ears. Blinking, you see Yoon enter the communal studio with her portfolio tote. She heads to the other end of the studio and you just go back to swirling your brush around. It wasn’t until a shadowy figure engulfs you that you peer back up.

“Yoon?”

“Hey!” she beams and bends down to give you a side hug. You awkwardly reciprocate it back by patting her shoulders and frown seeing her pull up a chair beside you. “How was Italy? Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, it was beautiful.” you reply coolly. “How was your summer?”

That’s when she lets out a biggest groan, disturbing some of the students around you. “Awful! First of all, I had to work at one of my parents cafe chains all the way at the end of town because they were short staffed. So, do you know what I had to do? Remove my acrylic nails! Then soon after, I stopped hearing less and less from Yen-ho and he’s seriously gone off the grid because I had to report him missing to the police! But of course they don’t care because of…you know. The criminal stuff. But anyway—yeah I haven’t heard from him since. It was seriously stressing me out that I couldn’t relax properly on my trip to Jeju all July. I hope that all the school work will keep my mind at bay…Seriously why should I be so worried over a prick like him? I’m sorry for ranting but no one besides you would understand.”

“No, it’s okay.” you say, your eyebrows knitting. “But when did you say he went missing?”

“I reported him in the beginning of July after not hearing from him for like over three weeks. Fucking asshole. I need to get over him quickly.”

“And he never mention where he was going or anything?”

She throws you a suspicious glare. “Are you seriously concerned about him?”

“No it’s just…” you say, sighing in frustration. “Don’t tell anyone but remember my friend who you saw at the art murals? Well, she’s moved out of her apartment sometime in June or July and I haven’t heard from her either. And she used to know him. Do you think…?”

“What? Was she a part of his gang or something?” she gasps. When you nod she starts rubbing your back soothingly. “Oh, honey…”

“I know it’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not. I mean…it’s very likely that they joined forces again though.”

“You think?” you raise a brow.

“Do you know how many times Yen-ho vowed to me that he would never go back to the gang? So many times.”

No, that can’t be it. Sae-byeok isn’t Yen-ho. She has too much to risk with Cheol under her care and too much of a caring heart to do that to him. It just seems unfathomable. But, how unlikely could that be? What if she couldn’t find a way to pay rent and asked Deok-su if she could join back in his gang…No. That can’t be it—she owed him a ton of money. That’s not possible—however, this piece of information about Yen-ho is very interesting.

“I’ll—I’ll figure it out. Thanks, Yoon.” you murmur after careful thinking.

She sends you an enthusiastic smile. “Aw, look at us bonding over our love for criminals!”

⊹ ✿・・───・・✦・・───・・✿

(One month later…)

You were starting to forget how they looked like. Whenever you think of Sae-byeok, the image of her in your mind is blurry and not all there. It’s funny, you thought you’d never forget a face like hers but you can’t even recall her most distinct features—her eyes. You remember them being sharp and cold, but you don’t have the clear picture of it in your head. Now, you regret leaving your sketchbook of all her drawings behind with her. It’s hard to believe it’s been five months.

Luckily, school has helped in some ways to keep your thoughts at bay. You drown yourself in your paintings and sculptures—learning new techniques thanks to your study abroad program you became more skilled in drawing portraits.

You sigh in defeat starting at the fully worked canvas before you. It was another failure. You didn’t get her eyes right again—this is the fifth portrait you have failed to perfect. If anyone knew how much time you were putting into drawing Sae-byeok they’d think you’ll need to be sent away. But you can’t forget her. You just can’t, but your mind is betraying you.

The alarm goes off in the back pocket of your jeans—altering you that you have things in your life you need to do outside of Sae-byeok. You click to turn it off and drape over the portrait with a long piece of fabric.

Texting Mi-Cha, you let her know you will be a few minutes late for dinner and to save you a spot. When she replies back with a thumbs up you put your phone back in your pocket and head over to the building where the financial support center is located.

Because you no longer have an internship and you don’t know when the next one will come, you did your best to sell your paints and sculptures you made back in Italy as a form of income. But it’s hard. After only selling three of your works, you only had enough money to pay a portion of your tuition—a small portion.

“Hi, I’d like to submit a deposit for my tuition.” you say to the worker sitting across the desk who was busy clicking away on the computer.

“Of course, I just need your ID, please.” she says robotically, still starting at the screen. You sigh and slide down your card to her. She grabs it, merely glances at it and starts typing away. After a minute of clicking and typing, her eyes slightly narrow. “Hm…”

“Hm?” you repeat. She throws you a look, making your cheeks go pink.

“It seems like your tuition is entirely paid off.”

Your jaw slackens by the miracle of this news. There your heart goes again, hammering like it was trying to burst out of your chest. “W—What? Are you sure you got the right person…?”

She purses her lips at you but turns to do more typing. You bite your bottom lip in anticipation when she looks at your ID and back at the screen. “Yes.” she answers flatly.

“Could—Could you tell me who paid it off? Because it wasn’t me.”

“The system says it’s been paid off by closed cash. Usually closed cash doesn’t provide a name in our system. I’m sorry but I can’t provide you the information you need. Perhaps it was your parents or legal guardian?”

You swallow back a scoff at her reply. However, that was the only plausible explanation. Was this your parent’s way of trying to make amends with you? But it doesn’t make sense—why now? Besides, your parents aren’t filthy rich it’s not possible for them to pay off your entire tuition in full. Ever since you left for Italy, your entire life began flipping upside down.

“Yeah…Thanks, ma’am.” you whisper, your eyes cloudy with thoughts that you forgot to bow. She grimaces when your back is turnt.

When you step out of the building, you just stand outside to ponder. The first day of October air strikes your burning cheeks, cooling them.

“What the fuck is going on?” you mutter to yourself.

You glance up at the sky and see the sun almost going to meet the horizon. If it’s not night yet, you could still get some answers. So, you pull out your phone and text Mi-Cha that you can’t make it because of a last minute homework you forgot to do. Then you check your phone map and to find the quickest route to your parent’s house.

In spite of the fact that you should feel terrified to meet your parents again, there is numbness instead. You have Sae-byeok to thank for that. At least this time you won’t storm off from your parents bawling your eyes out. Or, that’s what you like to tell yourself at least.

When your dad is the one to open the door, your chest pangs. The wrinkles on his forehead are more visible and his eyelids appear to sag more. He stares at you blankly for a moment before raising his eyebrows up in surprise when he realizes who is standing before him.

“H—Honey…you’re here?” he stammers breathlessly. He opens the door wider to instinctively to let you in, but you just glare at him and remain in your spot.

“Hi, dad.” you greet icily. It infuriates you the way he is looking at you like some wounded puppy when he let you go so easily—twice. They had two opportunities and now maybe three. “I just need to know, did you or mom pay off my tuition?”

“Your tuition?” he queries and pauses to think to himself. You can see the tints in his cheeks get more hue, he was embarrassed. “We—uh, we didn’t. Someone paid it off?”

“Yeah. I don’t know who. Anyways, thanks.” you say, your voice low and flat.

“Wait!” he says quickly. You stop yourself from turning around and look back at your dad, eyes squinting. “How are you? How’s school?”

“Great. I just came back from a trip to Italy. I got offered an internship to study there for the summer.” you say. It felt good to brag—especially with how floundered he looks.

“That’s…wonderful.” he stutters.

Disappointed. That’s how you feel. You aren’t sure what you expected him to say, but not that. You feel ashamed for still wanting your parents praise. When you exhale, a cloud of cold smoke puffs out into the air.

“Bye, dad.” you whisper and spin around.

“Hold on—“

“Yes, I’m still a lesbian!” you bellow unintentionally. His face falls and he’s staring at you blankly—exactly how he looked at you when you packed your things after getting kicked out. Those cruel eyes haunt you. “Have a good life.” and with that you head back to the subway station.

Half a year later, it hurts just the same.

⊹ ✿・・───・・✦・・───・・✿

(Another month later…)

Sae-byeok’s message is loud and clear. She doesn’t want to hear from you anymore. Your only theory is that they all moved to a different location after Deok-su found them. And maybe the reason why they cut contact with you is because they want a fresh start—and you’re part of a haunted past they don’t want to face anymore.

The walk was peaceful. The November leaves were colorful and full of life. The tones of browns and oranges covering the sidewalk gave you hope for a new start. That’s what you love about fall, although the change of leaves is because they’re withered and dead—you portray it as change. That change is for the better and it’ll make life all the more beautiful by the time spring arrives again to wake up the leaves.

This is your last chance. Your last resort and you’re fucking terrified. You officially haven’t heard from them for six months. This is the only other option you have and if nothing comes from it you have to move on. It terrifies you but you’re at a stage in your life where you can’t let this consume you or you will spiral. Even if they don’t want anything to do with you, you just hope they’re okay and most importantly happy with life.

You stand in front of Cheol’s elementary school and you gulp. This is it. If nothing comes out of it, you vow to never look back at the past again. You take a deep breath before stepping inside and to the main office towards the front desk.

“Hello, may I help you?” greets a man around your age with a chipper smile.

You blink at him and struggle to speak at first. It’ll be hard to explain this without it sounding off. “Hi, um, I know this might sound strange but I’d like to know if a student is still enrolled in this school. You see, his sister has gone completely missing and she’s his only guardian so I’d like to know if—if he’s…I don’t know—I guess if he’s okay? His name is Kang Cheol.”

“A—Alright?” his peppy voice wanes. He’s clearly new to this as he glances over at his more senior co-workers. “Let me get back to you on that. Normally, we don’t disclose information about a student unless you’re a parent or guardian but let me see if I can give you that information.”

“Thanks…” you trail off and chew on the inside of your cheek.

From the corner of your eyes, you watch him whisper to his older workers who shot weird glances at you every so often. You unknowingly tap your fingers aggressively against the counter, full on anxious. The waiting is killing you but you have a sense of hope when you see them checking the computer screen. You seriously hope Cheol is okay.

When he comes back, clearing his throat, he deadpans, “So, it says he’s no longer enrolled in this school.”

Your legs feel like jelly. “Huh? Why—“

“I’m sorry that’s the only thing I can tell you since you aren’t a parent or guardian. Which I assume you aren’t?”

Practically in the middle of feeling lightheaded, you feel yourself shake your head. “No. Thanks.” you think you murmur to him and stumble out of the office and out this building.

Once on the sidewalk, you press you back against whatever building you stumbled across and hold back tears. This stress is killing you from the inside out. What the hell happened to them? You don’t even care if they don’t want to see you anymore, you just want to know if they’re safe.

You keep choking back sobs as you were still in public.

Your blurry eyes fall down to the sidewalk and you focus on the leaves. Change—you’re supposed to change. However, you want one last cry.

“Hey—are you alright?” Mi-Cha’s normal tone dies into a worried one when she opens the door to her dorm and sees the state of you.

Your head is ducked low, you’re tightly clutching the sides of your coat, and your body is trembling. When she raises your chin with her hand she gasps at your red face and your even redder eyes.

“I—I don’t know…I just need to hug you.” you croak out.

Without furthering thought she pulls you inside her dormitory, is silently thankful her roommate isn’t here, and brings you to her bed where she solemnly wraps her arms around your shoulders. Your face sinks into the crook of her neck and finally, you let your tears flow like river streams. You two are in this state for a long time, with Mi-Cha rocking your bodies back and forth and you choking on sobs.

Once you finally calm down, you pick your head up and couldn’t stop hiccuping uncontrollably. “I—I don’t think Sae-byeok wants to s—see me anymore.”

She winces and pulls you back into her arms. “Fuck. Hey, don’t worry I’m here if you need to talk.”

But you didn’t want to. You just want to cry your emotions out until there’s nothing left but a void in your chest.

With every tear you shed, you wish it contains the memories of Sae-byeok that you want to forget about. But you don’t know what’s more painful, forgetting or wanting to forget.

If you know yourself, at some point you might’ve loved her. And now that she’s left you for good—you have to turn this love into grief. But grief is just as much a human complexity as it is love, and you aren’t sure how long it’ll take for you to endure it and move past it. It might take you a lifetime to forget about Sae-byeok.

🏷️: @monroesturnns @knfthxv @jumpedthenfell-13 @peelover25 @karli6 @kissedberries @bitchybananaflower @laurenkenss @saebyeokbliss @everly-summers-solace @we1rdth0ughts @wlvlurvsfimmia

[meguwumibear]

dominant!zayne x submissive!reader

tw for light BDSM, bondage/shibari, sex toys (vibrator), fingering, and some minor angst. mc calls zayne sir like twice. if i've missed something else that needs a tag, just ask! nondescript female reader with a bit of a backstory, just to make her feel more connected to the world.

Additional Disclaimer: Takes place after the events of the main story (which I am not fully caught up on). Reader is NOT the game MC in this fic. In my mind's eye MC decided to romance one of the other characters and Zayne does what he can to move on.

and yes, zayne's harness in the fic is 100% inspired by his harnes in the new trailer

In 2034 the world you as you know it ends. It happens suddenly one mundane spring afternoon. A great, gaping maw opens in the cloudless blue sky above Linkon City, releasing a tidal wave of ferocious monsters unto the earth. Locals come to call the event the Chronorift Catastrophe. The world later discovers that the great, gaping hole in the sky was the appearance of the first ever Deepspace Tunnel which attracted alien beings now colloquially referred to as Wanderers.

Everyone in Linkon City remembers where they were that day. They remember what they were wearing and who they were with. A flashbulb memory, the psychologists call it. A memory that endures. A memory that persists.

Like most survivors, it isn’t just the red rain falling from the sky or the horrible sound of the earth splitting around you that you remember: it’s the actions you took to survive. The people you ran past. The neighbors you didn’t save. The hand you didn’t extend to the woman who tripped over her own two feet running from the creature. The debris you didn’t help remove from the body of the elderly man too weak to push the plank away without aid.

For three weeks you see a therapist. You’re an adult now, still plagued by nightmares of the event. You tell the woman you’re meeting with that you are suffering from memories. She tells you that your body needs to learn that the danger has passed. The problem with that logic? The danger hasn’t. Your body can’t stop secreting stress hormones when you daily lunch breaks are constantly interrupted by Metaflux monsters.

Your past becomes a prison. An inescapable cage. Your therapists asks how you would feel if someone flung open the doors for you. You tell her it would depend on who opened the door and what’s happening outside.

The session before you ghost your shrink, she asks you to practice breathing exercises. She prattles on and on about the importance of nervous system regulation in trauma recovery. Apparently exhaling is supposed to activate the “rest and digest” response—the antidote to the “fight and flight” response that your body is stuck in.  

And that’s all well and good but even twenty years later the Wanders keep manifesting in Linkon City in numbers that the Hunters can’t keep up with. You’d move, maybe, if you had the means, though you did read somewhere once that a scared animal will continue to seek out their home, even if their home is no longer safe.

So you find an alternative way to cope with the stress of the new world.

There’s budding red light district about an hour outside the city. You go sometimes on weekends to decompress. Your favorite haunt is a small BDSM club run by a couple of old widows who lost their husbands to the war. They verify ages at the door and ensure all the drinks at the place stay virgin.

You’re not heavy into the scene or anything—you actually have quite a few hard limits—it’s just…nothing else you’ve tried has helped you to shut off your brain. To shift your focus from the past to the present. To shut out all thoughts of Hunters and Protocores and Wanders.

The doms you’ve had up until this point were perfectly adequate; they listened diligently to what you were open to and respected all of your boundaries. You aren’t sure why you’ve never asked for a more consistent routine with any of them. Something, somehow, was always missing from the encounters.

There are a lot of new faces at the club tonight. Or, rather, there are a lot of faces new to you. The club has many regulars, but you don’t make the hike often enough to have them all committed to memory. Still, you’re certain you’ve never seen the tall, stoic man in a leather harness swarmed by a gaggle of women before. Despite the fact that he clearly has his pick of the litter, your gaze keeps wandering to his solid form. The way his abs flex when he breathes. The way his lips quirk when he talks.

He's halfway across the room but must somehow still feel the heat of your wandering gaze because after a few stolen looks he locks eyes with you. Your whole body flushes as he acknowledges you with a raise of his drink. The tips of your ears burn as he takes a healthy swig of the beverage without breaking the eye contact. It’s you who looks away first.

When you chance a glance back over, he’s excusing himself from the women who flocked to him like a tourist attraction to pick his way towards you. Your heart flutters anxiously as he closes in, and you have to remind yourself not to take a step back once he’s close enough to touch.

“First time?” he asks, voice smooth like ice.

“Ouch,” you reply, gripping your own water glass to ground yourself. “It’s not. Do I really look that unaware.”

His expression doesn’t change but his eyes move to assess you, “What are you drinking?”

Though his tone is relaxed you can’t help but feel as if the question has a correct answer.

“Just water.”

“Hmm,” he hums. “Something with electrolytes would be more efficient. If you’re looking for a session tonight, that is.”

“I don’t like the taste,” you tell him, trying to keep the glass in your hand from shaking as desire swells within you.

He frowns, “Without electrolytes, your body will dehydrate, no matter how much water you consume.”

“You a doctor?” you ask.

He hums in what sounds like confirmation before wrapping his hand around yours. “I take the health of the people I play with seriously. This is about much more than sex to me. I like when my partners eat three square meals a day and have an effective exercise regimen implemented.”

You don’t resist when he slips your water from your grasp. You also don’t hesitate to open your mouth when he raises his own perspiring glass to your lips. His fingers don’t even graze you as you swallow down the fruity liquid, yet you can feel your insides come alight as you obey. As your pussy begins to leak it becomes increasing clear to you that you would do just about anything to have this man dominate you tonight.

“Good,” he says once you’ve downed the drink. “Now, do you happen to have a list of what you enjoy and your hard limits on you?”

With shaky hands, you reach wordlessly into your bag to retrieve what the man has asked for. He spends a few moments skimming the contents before simply stating, “I believe we are compatible.”

You follow him to a private room near the back of the club and watch as he begins to gather some equipment for the session. Without turning to look at you he says, “I noticed that you have some experience with light bondage. I prefer to use traditional single ply shibari rope or silk as restraints. These two methods prevent chafing and other potential complications like skin lesions or rashes. Do you have a preference for today’s session?”

“No preference, uh…” you trail off, wondering what the man would like you to refer to him as.

Sensing what’s on your mind, he offers, “I have no preferred titles, but you may assign me one if you like.”

“No preference, Sir,” you say, watching the man for his reaction. He seems unfazed by the moniker and continues to ready himself.

“Do you have any allergies or medical conditions I should be aware of?” he asks.

A lie forms on the tip of your tongue but the truth slips out anyway, “My heart’s a bit weak. Nothing serious. It didn’t develop properly when I was younger. I haven’t had any issues with it before.”

The revelation seems to give the man pause. He turns to you and motions for you to hold out your wrist for him, so you do. His warm fingers slip under your sleeve and find purchase on your pulse point. After a few excoriatingly silent minutes, you attempt to put his mind at ease.

“I’m, uh, a bit more excited than usual at the moment. My resting heart rate is probably higher than normal.”

The pads of his fingers don’t leave your wrist when he asks, “What’s your typical resting heart rate?”

You want to ask what that fucking matters, but sensing that won’t get you any closure to what you want you decide to humor the man. It’s been a while since you’ve been to a doctor. Back when they used to have you track it, the rate could vary depending on what task you were completing. It was higher, usually, when doing something strenuous. When you rested it would drop again.

“Usually around 90 beats per minute.”

His eyes flick to your face as he drops your wrist. “You should see a specialist.”

You roll your eyes impatiently, “Are we fucking or not?”

In response to your outburst, his hands find the hem of your shirt. “Who said I had any intentions of fucking you?” he asks, voice frustratingly emotionless. Your arms raise instinctually as he toys with the fabric, and the takes the opportunity to relieve you of the garment. “As I said before, this is about much more than sex to me.”

He circles behind you and draws you in close to him. It occurs to you suddenly just how much larger than you the man is. He rests his chin on your head as his fingers slowly trace down your sides, leaving a field of goosebumps in their wake. His hands make their way to the button on your pants.

“You aren’t just here for sex. Are you?” he asks, voice low. You feel the words vibrate his chest as he speaks them.

“No,” you whisper, eyes suddenly blurring.

“Good,” he says, undoing your buttons. “Let’s use the traffic light system today. It’s a simply way for me to check in on you and see how you’re doing.”

He lets the words sit in the air for a bit, fingers fiddling with your zipper. The only sound in the room is your own uneven breathing that you fight for control over.

The man pinches the tab of your zipper and shifts so his cheek is pressed against your forehead. “Color,” he asks, breath hot on the shell of your ear.

“Green,” you practically moan.

He slides off your pants with ease once he’s taken care of the zipper. He even helps you to keep your balance as you step out of them, one foot at a time.

“Color?” he asks again, as his fingers settle on the clasp of your bra.

“Green,” you reply, voice steadier now.

He undoes the hook with one hand.

You expect him to remove your panties next, but his fingers instead find the meat of your breasts. One of his arms wraps around you, securing you tightly against him, as you nearly keel over in a mixture of surprise and pleasure.

“Sensitive here,” he observes, cupping one of your breasts in his free hand. He uses a foot to nudge your legs further apart and slip a leg between them. The man isn't lying about getting off on this; his cock is hard as a rock against your ass.

“Fuck,” you whine as his bends you over ever so slightly. Just enough to rub your clothed pussy against his pant leg.

“Wet already,” he informs you, as if you don’t already know. As if you can’t feel the way the cotton material sticks to your lip. “All I did was undress you. That eager to begin?”

“Please,” you groan, desperate for him to take you apart with his slender fingers. “Please, Sir, I want you so fucking bad.”

“On the bed,” he instructs, releasing you, careful not to harm you as his leather harness peels away from your skin.

The rope he ends up choosing for the session is the jute rope. He takes his time winding the instrument around your wrists and pulling them above your head. His movements are practiced and skilled. His hands steady like a surgeon’s. You don’t even realize the effect watching him restrain you is having on you until a firm hand finds its way to your pelvis to stop your squirming.

Once you’ve settled, he retrieves two strands of additional rope.

“Are you familiar with the Spiral Futomomo tie?” he asks. “I understand that you’re still a beginner and tie will force you into a fixed position for an undetermined length of time. I trust you will use your safe word if needed?”

“You can trust me,” you assure him. “I know my limits.”

He must believe your words are sincere because he sets to work binding your ankle to your thigh, checking in periodically to ensure the wrappings aren’t too tight. The man is clearly in no rush and seems to delight in taking breaks between knots to steady your shaking form. You also notice the way his eyes shift to the growing wet spot beneath you as he progresses.

“What do you like about bondage?” he asks as he begins to work on your other leg.

“I don’t know,” you say, attempting to shrug before remembering your pose prevents you from such movement. “I’m never in control of my life anyway. May as well surrender myself to someone I know will take care of me.”

He doesn’t look at you, but you can see the way his eyes lighten. Your response must please him somehow. You decide to push the issue, “You like being in control?”

“I like caretaking,” is his response. “I like giving people what they need.”

“What if I need your fingers inside me?” you dare, feeling bold.

A small smile, but a smile all the same. “Then, you’ll have to patiently wait until I’m finished with the task at hand.”

He double checks all of his bindings once he’s finished securing you, mumbling under his breath about optimal blood flow. It’s cute, the way he seems so set on ensuring this is the best possible experience for you. You can’t remember the last dom you had who was this doting.

When he finally situates himself between your legs, it’s with gloved hands and a vibrator. You jump as the cool leather of the hand covering finds your inner thigh.

“Keep these spread for me,” he says, referring to your legs. Then he’s rubbing the vibrator, still off, up and down your panties with just enough strength for you to truly register the tool.

“You’re soaked,” he observes in that neutral tone of his, though his eyes glistening with awe. You wonder if he even realizes the vibrator isn’t on. His eyes find yours and for the first time all evening he smiles warmly at you. “Don’t worry. I’m going to take excellent care of you.”

Then he turns the vibrator on its lowest setting and your pussy truly begins to drool. He circles the vibrating toy around your clit strategically, watching your response to his ministrations intently. Fire pools in your belly as he slides the vibrator down your cunt and presses the tip of it gently against your opening. The panties you’re still wearing dull some of the vibration, but you can still feel the ungodly amount of slick that slips out of you at the slight penetration.

You do your best to stay still for him as he ups the setting, but your body starts to twitch in pleasure, back beginning to arch, toes threatening to curl. Your breath quickens as well as all the blood in your body seems to pump directly to your swelling clit. The same clit the man is now more firmly rubbing the vibrator against.

“Fuck,” you cry, starting to lose your composure. Your hips buck away from the relentless thrumming of the vibrator. Or maybe towards it. You’re not actually sure. It’s both too much and not enough at the same time. You need more. You need less. You need…

His unoccupied hand presses your hips back against the bed. “Easy,” he coaxes. “Don’t pull against the ropes.”

When you’re unable to obey, too overwhelmed with desire, he switches the vibrator off. The lack of sensation is so abrupt the tears you’ve been holding back finally spill, slipping down your heated cheeks. An animalistic whine you didn’t even know you were capable of escapes you.

“We’re not done,” he assures you, swiping at your tears with his thumbs. You wish suddenly he wasn’t wearing the leather gloves. You yearn to feel him skin to skin. The fabric is warm at least from the heat of his fingers. “You’re just getting a little fussy. I want to make sure everything is alright before we continue.”

He settles back between your spread legs and hooks his pointer finger in the bottom of your panties, pulling it aside to expose your dripping core and swollen lips. “Impressive,” he says, “how simple it was to elicit this response from you.”

He collects some of your spend on his index finger before starting to slide it inside you. It’s met with no resistance. He sinks easily in, straight to the knuckle. When he slips out it’s only to coat a second finger in your slick so he can sink that one in alongside the other. The two digits begin working you in tandem with each other, pumping deliciously against your walls. It doesn’t take him long to find what he’s looking for.

“Here,” he states, pressing and holding the tips of his fingers against the sensitive area. You involuntarily clench around them, body begging him to move them once more, but the man—to the devastation of your body—is nothing but the living embodiment of self-control.

You audibly cry out when he pulls his fingers from you. He locks eyes with you as he coyly promises, “Soon. I’d never leave a woman unsatisfied, and any man who would isn’t fit to be a dom.”

He picks the vibrator again and this time, when he touches it to your clit, it’s under your ruined panties. The thrumming sends a bolt of electricity skittering up your arched spine. Fuck, you’re so unbelievably wet. You feel your pussy fluttering around nothing and hiccup out a sob. You’re so empty. You’re so, so empty.

“Need,” you hiccup.

“What?” he asks patiently. “Tell me what you need.”

“Your fingers. I need your fingers. Please.”

He slips the same two from before back inside you.

“So well mannered," he praises. Then he asks, "Here?” as he presses the appendages against that spot once again.

“Yeah,” you agree, though you’re so far gone you would agree to anything he asked of you in this moment. “Yeah. Yeah. There. Right there. Fuck!”

He uses his fingers and the vibrator to bring you right to the brink of an orgasm. It’s so good. He’s so good. He’s touching you everywhere you need to be touched. Pushing all the buttons that need to be pushed. Your time in these rooms has never felt anything like this before, and you doubt it will ever feel anything like this ever again.

“Can I-”

“I don’t remember telling you that you needed my permission.”

Your orgasm ripples through you, strong and steady like a cresting wave. Once he’s certain he’s wrung the last of it out of you, the man withdraws his fingers and switches off the vibrator.

“I’m going to remove my gloves and start undoing your bindings,” he says.

“Yeah, okay,” you reply.

It takes a few minutes for him to completely untie you. Once he has, he asks permission to massage your legs and arms to reencouraged blood flow which you readily agree to. He produces a bottle of lotion that smells like eucalyptus from his bag and starts working the muscles of your arm.

“I wish they had showers here,” he offhandedly comments. “I don’t like sending people home without a proper washing.”

“A bath does sound nice,” you agree, sagging into his embrace.

“Promise me you’ll take one when you get home. I don’t want you getting into your bed dirty.”

“I would never make a promise I couldn’t keep, Sir.”

A comfortable silence falls over the room as he continues to provide you with aftercare.

“Zayne,” he eventually says, eyes fixed on the foot he’s been massaging for the past few minutes.

“What?”

“My name. You could use it if you’d like. Sir is fine too, if you’d truly prefer it, but I find names are much more intimate.”

“Oh,” is all you muster. Then you tell him yours.

“Could we move to the sofa while we continue to wind down?” he asks after testing the sound of your name in his mouth. “I like the casual skin to skin contact after a session. I’ll remove my harness but leave my slacks.”

“Fine with me.”

It takes Zayne a moment to remove his harness. Perhaps it’s his first time wearing this particular set of gear. You watch him wrestle with the final clasp through drooping eyelids. His expression softens when he catches you lazily staring at him.

“Admiring the view?” he teases.

“Never had a better one,” you reply easily.

He positions himself behind you when he joins you on the sofa. The two of you lay there comfortable for some time, breath seeming to synchronize in the quiet of the room. The world outside this secluded space slowly begins to creep back into your mind. Back to Metafluxes and Protocores. Back to Wanders and Hunters.

And then you start to cry.

If you weren’t so close to Zayne, you could probably hide it from him, but he notices the change in your mood instantly. He tugs gently at your arm, a wordless plea for you to turn to face him. You allow him to reposition you, curling yourself into his large body, tucking your face into his neck.

He pets at your hair soothingly while you let the worst of it out. When an appropriate amount of time has passed, he asks, “What brought that on?”

“It’s, uh, well it’ll probably ruin the moment if I told you.”

“I’d still like to know if it’s all the same to you. Debriefing is part of the scene after all.”

At first, you’re not sure you want to tell him what triggered the outburst, but considering the dynamic, you figure you owe it to him.

“I was thinking about my ex,” you admit.

Zayne stiffens, his caressing hand on your head stills. “They hurt you?”

“They loved me.”

 Zayne tangibly relaxes at your response, and he resumes petting your hair.

“What happened to them?” he asks, tone carefully neutral.

“They left me.”

The silence that follows your confession is welcome. You think you even dose off. When your eyes open again, Zayne is full dressed, sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows as he sanitizes the sex toy you soiled.

Sensing you stir he says, “You’re awake.”

“I am.”

Zayne dries the toy and sets it aside, turning to face you.

“I like to follow up with the people I dom for. You don’t have to give me your number if you’re not comfortable. An email will suffice.”

“You can have my number,” you say, gesturing for him to hand you his phone. “I’d actually appreciate a check in tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

He walks you to the train station once he’s certain the number you’ve given him isn’t a fake.

“Remember to get a full eight hours of sleep tonight,” he tells you. “And please eat a protein-based meal for breakfast. Something with eggs and meat, maybe. A shake if absolutely necessary.”

“Yes, Doctor Zayne,” you joke, offering him a crisp salute as you step onto the train platform. Maybe you're imagining things, but you swear he flinches at your response.

A firm hand on your wrist stops you from fully entering the car. You turn to face him one final time.

“About that,” he says, expression unreadable. “I was serious about you seeing a specialist for your heart.”

[notdotspot]

Dp x Dc Phys 3001

Masterpost

This has been one of the longest nights in Tim’s whole life. Yes, he did recently stay awake for approximately seventy-two hours, but his brain was led by routine. He could function at the lowest amount to stay awake while still completing tasks. Tonight is different. He is constantly processing and analyzing Phantom’s every move. Jason may be an asshole, but he is still his brother. Aside from the intent watching, Tim did not realize how emotionally charged curing Jason would be. He should have known. He remembers how Bruce and Dick acted following Jason’s death. 

Casual physical contact is not out of the ordinary for their family. Fighting excluded, his siblings never minded squishing onto one coach, but the hug Dick pulled Jason into was different. Jason seemed totally relaxed and at home in his big brother’s arms. Tim used to see them close like this at galas and high-class events when they were younger. Jason picks his head up to Bruce, inviting him in. It did not take much for the rest of the family to descend upon Jason in a dog-pile of a group hug, Tim included. 

Released from their grip, Jason yawns loudly, “I see what you mean by exhaustion. I could sleep standing up.” 

Danny gave him a small smile, responding, “Yeah. You need some rest and there may still be more side effects. Be careful.” 

“I think all of you need some rest,” Bruce says. He is ushering Jason toward the elevator. Before they reach the door, Bruce turns around again. Tim can see the look in his eyes before he utters a word.

“Phantom. Uh, Danny. Do you have somewhere to sleep? Alfred could set up a guest room.”

“No need. I have an apartment.” 

“But it is two in the morning. Crime Alley is across the city.”

“Thank you. I do appreciate the offer but I am more comfortable there.”

“Well, let Alfred drive you. You must be tired.” Tim held himself back from shaking his head in disapproval. Bruce was trying to adopt another kid right in front of their faces. 

“I travel just below the speed of light.” Danny seemed to know what Bruce was doing. Tim almost laughed at the startled look on his dad’s face. Take that old man. 

“I will be back tomorrow to discuss blueprints for the purifier. Bye!” Then Danny disappeared into thin air. Bruce seemed to realize he was not gaining another child tonight and entered the elevator. Tim was so tired a second ago, but now he is awake with thoughts thrumming through his brain. 

He had almost been too caught up to notice some of the odd things Danny had said. Who is Frostbite? Who are the other colleagues he mentioned at the Bat Burger? Are those the people watching his back? What did Danny mean when he said Jason’s hair was something he had seen before? Why did he need the special blade? Who is Danny? Is he more than just a ghost? How powerful is he? Tim had so many questions. He could not lay in his bed. He had to get answers, so he crept down to the Batcomputer and began his research. 

He should not have been surprised how easy it was to find Danny. One online search of apartment leases under the name Danny and he got three hits in Crime Alley. Danny Fenton was the name. Tim could have laughed. Phantom and Fenton. He would have to be blind not to connect the dots. With a first and last name, finding the rest was child’s play. Danny Fenton is a student at Gotham University majoring in astrophysics and a minor in engineering. Tim even found his class schedule.

Wait. A college student? Danny did not look a day over thirteen. Double wait. How does Danny Fenton exist? Is he not dead? After a little more digging, Tim found Danny’s high school transcript and birth certificate. They almost looked real. Almost. Danny Fenton is a fake persona. Unfortunately for Tim, that means no social media or background to look into. The only place he can guarantee finding Danny Fenton is at his physics lecture in Garrett Hall at eight in the morning. Shit. That is in three hours. 

“Better get some sleep. Wow. Never thought I would say that.” Tim yawned, logging off of the Batcomputer and shuffling all the way back to his room.

✩✩✩

Finding the lecture hall was easy, but Tim could not recall the room number for the life of him. He spent the first fifteen minutes of investigation time looking for the class. 

“Do you need some help? All these rooms look the same,” a girl giggles. 

“Yes. I am looking for Physics three thousand one.”

“Second floor, first hallway. Room two-ten.”

“Thanks.” He rushed up the stairs two at a time. Turned left in the first hallway and walked to the end. He silently opened the door and sat in the back row, pulling out a notebook and taking notes to blend in. He should have gotten more sleep because the dark room, lit only by the soft glow of a projector, and the monotonous tone of the professor lulled him right to sleep.

“Tim.” He jolted awake. The lights that had been turned on burned his eyes and he could feel the imprint of his spiral notebook in his face. 

“Of course, you had to track me down. Come on. I need to grab food before my next lecture. You are paying.” Tim blinked the tiredness out of his eyes. He got up to follow Danny with haste. This Danny was different. Taller with brown hair and blue eyes. Tim realizes they look around the same age.

“I have seen you before. At the Bat Burger.” 

“Yeah. You were in my favorite seat, so I left.” Danny’s voice displays his clear annoyance.

“If I were not so pissed at you, I would probably be impressed, but I guess all of you Bats are little detectives.”

“Sh!”

“Oh, so secret identities only matter when it is you and your family?” Tim panics. Danny is right. He violated the unspoken code of heroes.

“But, I am an unknown, right? Dangerous? Even after I helped Jason and cooperated with the Lazarus Pit plans?”

“Okay! I am sorry. What I did was wrong. I got caught up in theories and research. I am sorry.” Danny grabbed a sandwich and drink from the cooler and went to the register. The worker scanned the items, and he stepped to the side motioning to the card reader. Tim took out his wallet, handing a ten-dollar bill off. He grabbed Danny’s food and walked to a table, not stopping to grab his change. Danny sat across from him to start eating.

“So, why do you look so old or should I say so young as Phantom?”

“Right to the questions, huh?”

“Sorry. You do not have to answer if you do not want to.” Danny appraised him while chewing on his sandwich. 

“It is fine. Phantom is only the ghost half of me. Well, more like three-quarters of me. The rest is human.” 

“How are you a human and a ghost?”

“Poor parenting and a lab accident,” he says, sipping his drink. Tim is shocked by his casual nature. 

“How old are you really?”

“Depends. My human side only ages in human realms, making me about nineteen, but I have been alive far longer than that. A millennia? Give or take a few decades.”

“A thousand years? How come Phantom looks thirteen?”

“Fourteen, actually. Ghosts look the way they did when they died, minus an odd circumstance here and there.”

“That is why you talked to Jason about death like you knew it personally.”

“I do.” He whips his hands of crumbs, slings his backpack over his shoulder, and grabs his drink.

“I also have another class. Throw my trash for me. See you tonight and get more sleep. You are useless to me if you are too tired to read a blueprint.”

✩✩✩

Danny landed on the doorstep of Wayne Manor, letting the white rings of his transformation reveal his civilian clothes. He rang the doorbell and waited for an answer. Alfred answered the door politely.

“Hello, may I help you with anything?” Danny thought Alfred would recognize him as a human but it seems he was wrong.

“Um. I am here to see Tim.” Tim would be the only one to recognize him. Does he look that different? Just then, Steph was passing through the foyer.

“Who is here, Alfred?” Her head peaked past the butler. Her eyes lit up seeing him.

“Oh my god! The cute guy from the Bat Burger! Come in! We can go find Tim together.” She interlocks their arms to lead him into the mansion. This mansion has much more style than Vlad’s. Less dingy too. 

“How do you know I am here to see Tim?” She gives him a sidelong look, her smile widening further. Danny blushes at the implication and she giggles. She pushes open the door leading him into a room. 

“Tim,” she sing-songs.

“Steph, I am busy with WE reports. Can you wait a moment?”

“Someone is here to see you,” she responds, dragging out the end of her sentence in a teasing manner. Tim’s head turns slowly, his eyes still tracking his laptop screen as he types. When his eyes finally snap to Danny, they widen and he flips back around to his screen. Steph holds in a laugh as he vigorously types. Quickly finishing his report, he shuts down and closes the computer. Popping up from his chair, Tim puts on his best smile and strides over to him.

“Danny. I will show you to the cave.” He can see Steph’s demeanor change in an instant. She turns Danny to face her, examining his face.

“Danny? You look human. How did you age overnight?”

“Uh.”

“Steph, leave him alone. He can explain later. Right now, we can bring him to the cave. Bruce is probably already down there waiting for Phantom to show up. Why did you use the front door?” 

“I figured you had already told them about my identity. Either way, I know all of yours, so it is only fair.” They seem to take his answer, and Tim opens the door for him to exit the room. The journey down to the cave was longer than he expected. Getting to the elevator shaft and riding down probably took close to ten minutes.

“Is there not a more efficient way to get to the Batcave?”

“We have thought of other options but this one is good enough for the time being. Secure too.”

“Plus, B rejected Dick’s idea to add a firepole,” Steph tacks on. She leads the group into the main area Danny was in last night. He never did get the time to admire the Batcomputer for the glorious machinery it is. He would love to see its capabilities. 

Jason is parking his bike and removing his red helmet when they walk in. 

“Is Danny here, yet?”

“Yep,” Danny speaks up. Bruce finally turns to see the group walking toward him.

“Oh, I thought it was just Steph and Tim.” He can tell Bruce is taking in the change in appearance.

“Danny,” Jason calls, “You look significantly less ghost-like.”

“Uh, thank you?”

“Danny is your real name, then?”

“Yeah, so is Phantom. Are we going to get to work?”

“Yes,” Bruce speaks up. “Tell us the plan.”

Danny slipped the backpack off of his shoulder and pulled out a binder. Laying it on the table in the middle of the room, he takes out each blueprint to unfold them. 

“There are multiple components to my plan. This,” he points to a paper, “is the design for the ectoplasm purifier.” He bends down to his bag again. He produces a gadget that looks like the sketch.

“I made a prototype and tested it on a few samples I had in the fridge.” Bruce gives him a look.

“In the fridge?”

“Yeah, it is like an energy drink. I stock up once a month. Caffeine is insufficient and I have homework to get done.”

“Homework?”

“Tim, really did not tell you?”

“Danny, here, is a student at Gotham University,” Tim states.

“Yes, where Tim so gratuitously tracked me down this morning,” Danny quips. Tim looks embarrassed with his family's eyes on him.

“I said sorry.”

“And bought me lunch. Oh, before you ask, yes. I am older than fourteen. My ghost form just looks that way.”

“You are a human and a ghost? Like Jason?” Steph’s genuine curiosity stops Danny from yelling angrily at getting off track. He forgot these people do not know the ghost world or him. He has never had to answer this many questions about himself since Jazz found out he was Phantom. It is a solemn thought that makes him miss her even more. He has had centuries to mourn, likely more with the Ghost Zone to human realm time difference, but he just misses his big sister. Steph’s enthusiasm reminds him of her. He signs, resigning to the fact that he will have to explain himself. 

“I am a Halfa. Half human and half ghost. I would not say it is half, more like a quarter human. Jason and I are not the same. I died under entirely different circumstances.” He could feel the looks of pity burning into him. One part of him hates it, but the other part of him is grateful for the understanding. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz took a long time to realize he was only Phantom because he had died in the accident. Truthfully, he was so caught up in fighting ghosts that he almost did not realize it himself. 

“I am okay. I have had many years to come to terms with it. Let us get back to this.” He pointed at the table. Their attention was back on the project, but he would still sense their sad eyes. Jason especially looked heartbroken. Maybe he was realizing why Danny knew how to comfort him. 

“The prototype was effective, but we will need to scale it up. The next problem to solve is getting the processed ectoplasm into the Ghost Zone. There are only three ways to access the Ghost Zone: occasionally successful summoning rituals, naturally occurring rips, or a homemade ghost portal. It would take too long to find a ritual that actually works, so that is out. Finding natural portals is next to impossible without the Infi-Map. I will not endanger it by bringing it here, nor would the rip last long enough to complete the mission. A mechanical ghost portal is the best option, but once you open it, it is a two-way street. We could make an off-switch, but even a few seconds is enough for ghosts to slip through. I have not figured out a way to get around that. My only idea would be magic.”

“We can Zeta in some magic users. They may have the knowledge to assist you on the more ghostly aspects.”

“Thank you, Bruce.” 

“Well, later nerds. All this shit goes right over my head. Call me if you need to change a tire.” Jason turns to the elevator.

“I will go to. I am useless when it comes to this.” Steph jogs off the catch Jason, waving as the elevator door closes.

“Where is the blueprint for the ghost portal?” Tim inquires as he flips through the pages on the table.

“Up here.” Danny points to his head. “That knowledge is far more powerful than you think it is. I trust you, but not that much. It is my responsibility to keep the Ghost Zone safe.”

“But-”

“Tim,” Bruce cuts him off, “you can work on the purifier instead. Danny, can you build the portal from memory?”

“Yes.”

“I will go make some calls. When do you think it will be done?”

“A few days if I have all of the materials and work long hours.”

“And, I can finish the purifier quickly too. The blueprint is well drawn, and with the prototype, I should have no problem recreating the effectiveness.”

“I will leave you two to work.” Bruce turned, pulling his phone from his pocket, walking off to make his calls. 

Tim gives Danny a quick tour of the equipment and tools.

“How much space will you need?”

“I should be able to build the portal here. I will make it as small as I can while preserving functionality.”

“What is so dangerous about it anyway? Aside from opening a gateway for enemies. You seem a lot more scared of this thing than you are telling us.”

“It is unstable. I have tried to fix other versions of it, but I can never guarantee the safety of the operator. You guys are mortal and this portal has consequences I would never wish upon anyone. My parents were reckless. I can not be responsible for an accident.”

“That is what you meant when you said poor parenting and a lab accident. A ghost portal is what made you Phantom.”

“I have to hand it to you. You are sharp. Get to work. It will take you at least a few hours to construct the filter.”

For once, Tim got the hint to stop pushing into Danny’s past. They both descend into their work silently. Working well into the night before Tim yawns.

“Go get some sleep. You have made good progress.”

“Do you not need sleep?”

“Not really no. Do you want to head upstairs, or should I just put you to sleep? I have to warn you. Your neck will be sore if I knock you out in the chair like that.” Tim’s eyes widen.

“Is that something you are capable of?”

“Do you want to find out?” Danny raised a hand, making it glow green. Tim shoots up and walks to the elevator. Danny watches as the doors begin to close.

“Goodnight, Tim.” Tim smiles and opens his mouth to respond, but the closing doors cut him off. 

As his alarm rings, Danny is proud of himself. He got the whole frame built. All he has left is the wiring and the ectoplasm circulation system. The elevator door opens behind him. He turns to see Dick strolling in. He is dressed in workout gear with a protein shake, humming a tune. He stops in his tracks when he notices Danny. 

“Who are you? Better yet, how did you get in here?”

“Dick. I am Danny. I am also going to be late for class, so bye.” He transforms into Phantom right in front of Dick. If it were not for his enhanced senses, he would not have heard Dick’s shocked whisper.

“Woah.” 

Then, he is shooting off to his Astronomy class. 

-----

more romance coming eventually

aside from that, this is the first chapter I actually proofread

Thanks for reading!

[ass-fuehrerin]

The Line

Hwang In-ho/Seong Gi-hun

Word count: 3.4k

Summary: Gi-hun’s mind is a patchwork of missing time, blank spaces where memories should be. His life is simple — work, drink, exist — until nightmares start clawing their way into his waking hours, and the man at his side stops feeling like an anchor and starts feeling like a trap.

There was a before. There will be an after. The only question — where to draw

the line?

CW: post-Gi-hun’s second Game (with implied ending); psychological trauma (amnesia, PTSD-related dissociation, hallucinations, paranoia); physical trauma; complex emotional entanglement & gaslighting.

✐ᝰ

Gi-hun remembers nothing. As in nothing at all. Not a single fragment of that goddamn notorious incident and almost not a single one of the past several years has survived in his memory. It's as if someone took a scalpel to his mind and cut them out, leaving only the phantom pain of something missing. Something important.

He, along with several others poor desperate bastards, was kidnapped by collectors due to their gambling debts, and forced into some sort of slave labor in an isolated facility, enduring physical and psychological torture until he managed to escape.

At least that’s the story he was told — the supposed cause of his severe memory loss, leaving him with only fragmented recollections of the past.

“Dissociative amnesia,” the doctor had called it. A defense mechanism. The mind, in its desperate bid for survival, buries the unspeakable so deeply that it might as well never have existed. “PTSD.” Gi-hun’s mind simply decided the past was a wound not worth carrying.

So he didn’t carry it. Simple like that.

Instead, he built a life. Brick by brick. Well, at least he tried. He tried to wake up, get dressed, work, eat, drink, and kill his free time that was dragging like a chewing gum (so, more like survive it). Usually together with a man he knew (or thought he did), but didn’t remember meeting.

Young-il.

Their relationship didn’t fit into a neat little box — didn’t come with a label Gi-hun could slap on and say, "Yeah, that’s what this is." It felt old, like something that existed long before he even became aware of it. It felt odd, as if they’d been connected, but he didn’t really know how.

It was complicated.

When he woke up in a hospital bed — blank, erased, empty — it was Young-il sitting beside him and filling in the gaps, helping him piece together the puzzle. The one who told him they used to work and gamble together. Three of them — including Jung-bae. The explanation made sense. It didn’t feel… right though. And yet right enough that Gi-hun didn't question it. Maybe that is what bothers him. How easily he accepted that.

But maybe it wasn’t that difficult due to their common language — loneliness.

Gi-hun had lost his mother and never mustered the courage to insert himself into his daughter's life. Young-il had told him to go — offered to pay for the trip, even — but Seong refused. Money didn’t fix things like that. It was enough that Young-il had gotten him a job at the same vague company — or something like that (to be honest Gi-hun didn’t know a thing about it) — where he himself worked as a manager. Some low-level work, driving deliveries, moving packages, sometimes people, never asking questions.

There were no friends either. Sang-woo was still buried somewhere in America, his only contact — at least, Gi-hun thought so, though he didn’t remember it well — being a single wire transfer, hush money, sent to his mother, as if trying to buy back his absence. Jung-bae had vanished after his divorce — for reasons Gi-hun never managed to figure out. That left no one.

Just Young-il.

Young-il didn’t have anyone either. His wife had died in childbirth. He once mentioned a half-brother somewhere, but it was a passing remark, long lost in the haze of soju. He never brought it up again, and Gi-hun never asked.

Despite the glaring differences in their social standing, they spent a ridiculous amount of time together. Drinking in dingy pojangmacha stalls, playing endless rounds of janggi (Young-il taught him the rules, and over time, Gi-hun even started winning occasionally), or just sitting in silence for hours — either meaningful or empty, he wasn’t sure.

Talking, though — that was rare.

There was a subtle tension between them. It wasn’t spoken, but it was always there, lingering in the space between their words, between the clinking of bottles and the shuffle of their feet on cracked concrete.

It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. No, that wasn’t the right word to describe that.

It was something else.

Their “twoness” was quite strange, and Gi-hun could never brush off that disturbing feeling, no matter how used to it he had grown.

Every conversation, every glance, every shared game left a strange, crawling itch under his skin. Like something half-remembered, like a dream that was slipping through his fingers just as he was about to wake up.

Like an answer trying to claw its way to the surface, only to be shoved back down before it could breathe. Gi-hun didn’t know what the answer was. What question was he even trying to answer? He only knew that when he looked at Young-il for too long, he wanted to scream.

Or hit him.

Especially after waking up in a cold sweat from yet another shitty dream.

A nightmare too vivid to be a nightmare.

The same setting, over and over — a surreal maze of pastel walls and twisting staircases, like a playground built in hell. Masked garish-pink figures. A cocktail of terror and a faceless green mass. The gut-wrenching horror of a game where survival had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with luck.

And always, always, that one figure dressed in black. A shadow at the edge of every nightmare, the sight of which filled Gi-hun with something primal — dread, rage, betrayal, and a searing loss he could not name.

The figure bled into reality. Hallucinations. Another PTSD-gift. A distorted, mechanical voice that whispered in his ears. And also blackouts — minutes, hours, sometimes whole days gone.

Young-il knew.

It seemed like he knew him better than Gi-hun knew himself.

He was the one who dragged him to therapy. Psychiatry, to be specific ("You'll need meds," he had said, too sure, too knowing). Gi-hun went. But after the first session resulted in the worst blackout ever spitting Seong out into reality after God knows how many hours, with his fists still in Young-il’s shirt and a bruise blooming on the man’s cheek, Gi-hun started rationing his appointments — just enough to get a prescription and leave.

The doctor said all this was normal.

Young-il said all this was normal.

Gi-hun knew all this was anything but.

Yet, he swallowed the pills. Drowned himself in alcohol. Ignored the sick, festering contradiction that clawed at his ribs whenever Young-il was near — because he couldn’t tell if this man was keeping him afloat or dragging him under.

Young-il’s presence became a constant pull on Gi-hun’s thoughts, a weight he couldn’t shake off. It was not even that Young-il was a bad person, or that he’d done anything that should set off alarm bells. Nothing like that — quite the opposite. Sometimes when Seong managed to shake off the tenacious claws of dark feelings, he found comfort in spending time with him.

Besides, when he woke up from his nightmares — breathless, shaking, throat raw — the name that burned on his cracked lips wasn’t Young-il.

For absolutely no fucking reason it was In-ho.

The only In-ho he even remotely knew was the owner of the nearest pojangmacha to his house. And this decrepit old man — the kindest soul ever to walk the earth — was far from the concept of a menace.

But sometimes — when Gi-hun’s vision blurred and the hallucinations took hold, he saw the black mask slip over Young-il’s face.

To cherry-top this pile of shit — sometimes that was exactly when he wanted to kill him.

Sometimes.

"Sometimes" had a way of turning into "too often."

His mind was a damn mess.

Gi-hun feared himself — his fractured self, his unpredictable outbursts — but he feared for Young-il even more. He brought it up only once, and he could bet he saw it: the way Young-il’s sharp features grew even sharper, which made something in Gi-hun want to recoil.

He never mentioned it again.

Instead, Gi-hun kept taking the pills. He kept drinking. He kept ignoring the way Young-il looked at him — curious, sharp, like he was peeling Gi-hun apart, layer by layer, like a frog.

Seong couldn’t pinpoint when he began to sense the shift in his own perception of… huh… them? — from what seemed like just two people passing time together to something deeply unnatural, something fucked up.

But it was exactly in that very way Young-il watched him sometimes. Like he was waiting for something. Like he was checking whether Gi-hun remembered anything. Whether it was all coming back.

There was a contradiction in everything between them — an undercurrent of trust that felt like a lie. Gi-hun didn’t know if it was something Young-il was hiding, or if it was something about him that he couldn't understand. But the more time they spent together, the more it felt like a trap he’d walked into without realizing it.

Young-il didn’t seem to mind. His calmness, the ease with which he existed in Gi-hun’s life, was something both comforting and suffocating at once. Gi-hun felt as though he was being swallowed whole, piece by piece, and still, he couldn’t help but want to trust that man. Even when that trust made no sense at all.

The distance between them was narrowing. Every small talk, every joke, every half-smile from Young-il started to feel too loaded, too meaningful. A kind of slow drowning that Gi-hun couldn’t fight, even as he started to wonder on rare occasions if he even wanted to.

There were moments when their bodies and hands brushed against each other, just barely, subtly, like an accident. But with too much intention in it and too much awareness. As if Young-il was pushing the boundaries. Gi-hun told himself it was nothing. It was just the alcohol. The late hours, the heat of the games, and fruitless conversations. But when he looked at Young-il, he saw the flicker of something odd in his eyes — something he couldn’t even begin to understand.

A question, a challenge.

Gi-hun didn’t know if he was ready to answer it. He wasn’t even sure it wasn’t just his imagination. Another hallucination among many.

He refused to think about it altogether.

And still, somewhere in between those “sometimes” and his pathetic attempts to exist their meetings grew more frequent, their time together stretched longer as did their exchanged glances and accidental touches over shared games and meals — kimchi jjigae, banchan, steaming bowls of rice.

Gi-hun didn't even think he could embrace it, watching everything as if from the sidelines, as if it were happening to someone else.

And still, one night, in the quiet of his apartment, beneath the gentle rustle of cherry blossoms in the April breeze flowing through the open window, their fingers brushed against each other on the floor once more — and for the first time, intertwined — twisting their lives even tighter into an already intricate, tangled knot of red threads.

He refused to acknowledge it.

And still, the moment he clutched Young-il’s hand tighter he felt a jolt of electricity, a shock piercing his chest that he couldn’t ignore.

Gi-hun wasn’t sure if he was holding on to Young-il’s hand because he wanted to or because he was scared of what would happen if he let go. And still, —

at that very moment, he drew a line — separating the foggy “before” from the clear “after.”

To early though.

The line was still to be drawn in two months. The happiest two months in Gi-hun’s recent memory.

ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ

Young-il’s nearly week-long business trips had long since become a mundane routine for Gi-hun. What hadn’t was Young-il showing up in a horrifying state — head bloodied, stomach riddled with a bullet — after returning from one of them.

To Gi-hun’s own astonishment, he neither screamed in a panic nor froze in shock. Instead, something in him clicked into place. Without a moment’s hesitation, running purely on instinct, he loaded Young-il into the company car and drove him straight to the private hospital — the same one where Young-il had once sent him for psychiatric care.

In the small, dimly lit waiting room, no one so much as acknowledged Gi-hun’s presence. Doctors and nurses flitted past without a glance, as if the rigid figure on the couch — frozen like a wooden idol — were merely part of the furniture. No one asked questions. No one inquired what had happened (not that Gi-hun himself had any answers), who he had brought in, or why.

His emotions, dulled by the sheer force of stress, barely registered. And yet… something gnawed at him. An elusive, intangible detail. His hand clenched the black leather armrest so tightly that his knuckles blanched, but the buzzing, persistent thought refused to fade.

Something’s wrong.

Hours of empty waiting bled into each other before a nurse finally approached with a polite nod, inviting Gi-hun into the private recovery room. Whoever they thought he was, Seong didn’t know. But they let him in without hesitation, granting him unmonitored access to an unconscious Young-il. The nurse gave a brief report — he would need some time to recover from the surgery — but assured him that the patient’s life was not in danger.

Gi-hun sank into the small chair opposite the hospital bed.

Young-il’s breath was slow and even, deep in anesthesia-induced sleep. For once, Gi-hun saw him truly relaxed. The man was always composed, as if every muscle in his body, down to the cellular level, operated under strict control. But now, his face was strangely serene. Gi-hun let his gaze linger.

Almost absentmindedly, his hand reached out, wrapping around Young-il’s — warm, solid, real. A genuine, fleeting (more like unconscious even) smile disrupted the grim tension on his face. His eyes drifted, following the tangled web of wires looping over the bed and pooling onto the floor, before flicking back up to Young-il’s peaceful features.

Something’s wrong.

The thought stabbed through his skull with razor-sharp clarity. But why?

His gaze flickered downward again, drawn toward something at the edge of his vision — something his mind had registered before he had.

A patient file. Hanging just beside the headboard.

He wasn’t even sure why he was looking at it. He didn’t even mean to. And yet his eyes found the name printed across the top, and —

Nothing.

What the..?

For a second, absolutely nothing happened. Just the quiet hum of the hospital lights, the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. His brain refused to process what he had just seen.

Then, the world tilted.

Not physically — no, the floor remained where it was, the chair still solid beneath him — but his sense of it shifted, like a sudden, nauseating drop on a rollercoaster. A slow, creeping wrongness sank into his bones, spreading from the base of his skull to the tips of his fingers. The air thickened. He tried to swallow but found his throat dry.

His fingers twitched. He reached for the clipboard. But the movement felt distant, like his own hands weren’t really his. Like he was operating a puppet on invisible strings.

This isn’t real.

His pulse hammered in his ears as he forced himself to look again, eyes scanning the printed letters, trying to make sense of them.

Wrong.

The name was wrong.

But that wasn’t possible, was it?

His grip on the clipboard tightened, a cold sweat prickling at the back of his neck. He should know this. He should remember why this was wrong.

He shook his head. No. No, this isn’t right.

His breath stuttered — short, uneven gasps — but he forced himself to sit still. Forced his fingers to loosen around the clipboard, forced his mind to obey.

The doctor said this could happen. Hallucinations. Memory distortion. His brain was just playing tricks on him. That was all this was. He had grown used to it, hadn’t he?

He gripped the armrest again. Pressed down until his knuckles go white. Focus. Ground yourself. Breathe.

But his lungs wouldn’t work. His eyes kept dragging him back to that name, over and over, until the letters weren’t letters anymore, just shapes carved into his skull.

The answer was right there, dangling just out of reach, like something seen through fogged glass —

And then, without warning, the glass shattered.

And this time he didn’t plunge into some sort of a blackout or a fever dream. It wasn’t some twisted game of his mind.

Game.

A rush of images — too fast, too chaotic, too real — slammed into him like a truck.

Blood. The scent thick in the air. The taste of copper on his tongue. A voice — his own? Someone else’s? — screaming.

Concrete. Cold beneath his knees. A sharp, searing pain tearing through his body.

A number. White. Painted. Flickering in the darkness behind his eyelids.

His breath hitched. His vision blurred at the edges. His entire body seized.

The hospital room flickered, shimmering like a heat mirage, bending at the edges.

His ears ring — no, not ring, scream, a piercing high-pitched wail that swallows every other sound. The nausea comes next, curling in his gut, thick and relentless. The air is syrupy, clinging to his lungs like tar. His stomach twists. His pulse is wrong, pounding too fast, too hard. His throat spasms.

The taste of metal floods his mouth. Copper. Blood.

A voice. Distant. Mechanical at first. And then — human, painfully familiar —

“Player 456.”

No.

White. Black. No — Red. Blue. Floor flooded with corpses. A bright shiny room. Twisting, suffocating. Hands grasping at empty air.

A staircase. A scream. A gunshot. Another one. Not here. But inside his head, cracking through his skull like a fucking lightning strike. Too loud. Too real.

The scent of sweat and fear. The rough fabric of a black coat beneath his fingertips.

And then —

he wasn’t in the hospital anymore. He was —

No. No, no, no.

His stomach lurched. The room was wrong. The air was wrong. He was wrong.

He wrenched himself back into the present with a violent jolt, his body convulsing with the effort. His head snapped up, eyes wide and wild, chest rising and falling in sharp, erratic gasps.

“Young-il” hadn’t moved.

Nothing in the room had changed.

Except for Gi-hun.

ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــﮩ٨ـ

Hwang wakes an hour later.

His senses return to him in pieces, sharpening one by one like a blade being drawn from its sheath. Awareness seeps in, cold and mechanical. The first thing he registers is that he isn’t alone.

The second is who is with him.

Gi-hun.

And something is very, very wrong.

He isn’t just sitting there. He isn’t waiting.

He is staring.

Hwang should speak. Move. Do something.

But his hands won’t unclench from the sheets. And for the first time in years, his pulse stutters — with something dangerously close to fear. Seriously?

Dark eyes, too wide, pupils blown wide open in the dim glow of the hospital monitors. Not with confusion, not with worry, but with something else. Something raw. Something dangerous.

Hwang hates (sometimes to an extreme degree) that the gaps in Seong’s memory — minutes, hours, or even days of lost time — are his own routine by now. They are threads woven into the tangled web of his life, and he knows each one intimately.

He knows Gi-hun.

Three years have passed since Gi-hun’s last games.

Three years since a blank spot carved itself into his memory of them — and everything they entailed. The fleeting, fragmented return of those memories, surfacing in unprocessed bursts of aggression, is a passage Hwang has memorized cover to cover.

He’s studied Gi-hun like a well-worn book, returning to its pages time and again, willingly — almost religiously. A book meant to be owned, displayed neatly on the shelf of his personal library, within reach whenever he pleases.

To Hwang’s vague irritation, what began as a mere ”scientific” interest has degenerated into something painful, like an ingrown toenail he refuses to remove, for no reason at all. Or rather, for a reason he refuses to even put into words.

So, wehether he wants it or not, he knows Gi-hun.

And yet —

Something in that book has changed.

A new passage. Or, the old one, crossed out?

He knows Gi-hun.

He knows the way his body moves, the way his face twitches when he’s trying to hold something back.

This is different. This isn’t just confusion. It isn’t frustration or a hollow aggression. It’s understanding. A sharp, jagged awareness flickers behind Gi-hun’s eyes.

Hwang swallows. So that's how it is. So many years, and that’s how… — well, how stupid.

Awareness.

In his gaze.

In his posture.

In his voice.

Hwang blinks once. Twice. No surprise. No confusion. Just a quiet, detached acknowledgment. This was inevitable. But why the hell… why the hell was he so… disappointed? Upset? Really?

Silence. Thick. Suffocating.

Gi-hun breathes in. Then out. Slow. Deliberate.

Like he’s tasting the words before saying them.

Like he wants “Young-il” to feel it — deep in his ribs, where the knife Gi-hun pulled out of himself twists the hardest.

He tilts his head, eyes dark and steady: “What was the line? ‘Young-il. Just like my number.’ Yeah… —

A pause. A breath. “Young-il's” face barely shifts, but Gi-hun sees it anyway. The moment he registers the change.

A heartbeat too long.

Hell of a joke,

In-ho.”

[queerfables]

I found this super interesting, and I hope you don't mind, I have some notes of my own. Similar spoiler warning as above.

Thoughts:

If the elemental names are connected to the four tempers, could conflicts between elements of first and last name suggest conflict of nature? I'm specifically thinking of the MDR workers here. Dylan George, in particular, reflects a water/earth conflict. Helena Eagan, on the other hand, reflects a fire- light/fire-light harmony. Peter Kilmer is a little more complicated, because as @peopleareaproblem notes, kilns have a connection to multiple elements. I'd eliminate water, because by the time you fire clay in a kiln, you want it to be completely dry (clay that is not completely dry tends to explode). I'd therefore describe Peter's name as earth/earth-fire, not completely in conflict but not entirely harmonious either. I'm not totally sure what to make of Irving Bailiff, his surname is not obviously elemental, so I'm currently marking him down as water/??? but I feel as though Bailiff could relate to one of the tempers (dread? malice?) without going through an elemental link. Similarly for Mark Scout, neither name is obviously elemental, but there is still an interesting harmony to his name nonetheless. Mars is associated with war (and interestingly also with agriculture). Specifically though, he is not associated with destruction so much as with war as a path to peace. This harmonises nicely with Scout, which is a military role that prioritises gathering of information over direct violence. I'm not exactly sure what to make of this, but I think it's potentially worth thinking on further.

The R in Helly R. I don't recall this ever being said on the show, but apparently her fake surname is Riggs? The name means "ridge" which I think interestingly creates a fire/earth conflict in her innie name. But since she's mainly just referred to as "Helly R", I have two additional theories on this. The first is that the R could be an alternative first initial to Helena's real surname, turning Eagan into Reagan, and shifting the meaning of "little fire" to "little king". The only thing that gives me pause on this interpretation is that the shift towards royalty makes more sense applied to Helena rather than Helly. The second possibility is that the R is supposed to attach to Helly's first name, turning it into Hellier, an archaic English term for a slater, thatcher or tiler. Relevantly, the word derives from "hele" meaning to cover or conceal. I think there could be something to this; I'm interested in it along three axes. First, it matches the other MDR workers' surnames, which all describe professions or roles, and positions Helly as firmly working class. Second, the connection to concealment obviously relates to the way Helly conceals Helena's true role in the company. Third, and perhaps more abstractly, I find it interesting to conceive of Helly/Helena as a roof builder, when all the severed workers at Helena's company are trapped underground, separated from freedom by the ceiling above them, intended to never see the sky. Additionally, I think that like in the shift from Eagan to Reagan, there's a blurring here of the way "hellier" might relate to Helly vs Helena, and perhaps that blurring of identity is not an accident.

Dieter is usually short for Dietrich, meaning "ruler of the people", but also either "keeper of the keys" or "lockpick". Dieter is also homophonic with the name Diether, meaning "the people's army". Given all of the emphasis on twinhood and rhyme during 2x04, I don't think we can easily rule that irrelevant. I'm completely obsessed with the ambiguity and conflict of this name. Is Dieter a ruler or a soldier? Does he guard a locked door or steal through it? I share the general consensus that Dieter is likely not a literal twin but I do think he's important. There is something interesting to me in the way that Kier hid in the water at Woe's Hollow to protect himself while Dieter melted away, compared to Helena being forced into the water and Helly emerging from it. There's elements of baptism to this I think, but the significance of baptism is that you are symbolically reborn without sin, almost a new person. And so I wonder, is Dieter really Kier's imaginary brother? Or is he perhaps the original consciousness that Kier emerged from?

Milchik doesn't just refer to the prohibition against cooking meat with dairy but specifically means something that contains or was prepared with dairy and therefore cannot be cooked with meat. My take on this is that the severed workers are metaphorically the "meat", and his name indicates the ways in which he is separate from them and cannot be subject to the same abuses that they are. But dairy is still for consumption, just as he is still subject to exploitation. His name therefore also reflects that his separation from the severed workers will not save him.

Hale means healthy, but also whole. I think this could point to the significance of Ricken's unsevered status, although I'm curious as to why it is so significant for him in particular. It could also relate to Devon, who is both a Scout and a Hale.

Names in Severance

Studies show that first names tend to be particular to individuals, whereas surnames are tied to the family.

- The You You Are, Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD

I went on a deep dive on researching name meanings on Severance, as I'm sure many others have. For those of you not insane enough to do this, my findings are below the cut.

Spoilers up to and including episode four of season two.

Why am I doing this? Well, names play a massive role in this show.

Gabby chooses the name William for her baby but Gabrielle names him Declan, which clues Devon in to something being up with her. The first chapter of The You You Are is about names, and after Ricken's reading Rebeck says she'll have to change her name again.

But most notably: the innies have no last names of their own and don't know the first names of their superiors. This divide is a huge aspect of the power dynamics of the severed floor and seemingly the rest of Lumon, as Cobel is referred to casually as Harmony by Natalie and other superiors but only ever as Ms. Cobel by the MDR department. Helena knowing Milchick's first name and casually calling him by it is what finally confirms Irving's suspicions, and he immediately weaponizes it against him. "Yes, do it, SETH."

I'm listing the full known name at the top (except for repeats like last names being the same) and then the meaning of each name in a subsequent line. So for example "Ricken Lazlo Hale" gets three lines: the first one for Ricken, then Lazlo, then Hale. If it's in the same line it's a different possible meaning for the same name. My own notes are in brackets.

MDR

Mark Scout of Mars (the god) - warlike, indicator, sign someone who goes ahead to gather information about enemies

Peter Kilmer stone kiln worker, famous sacrifice

Helly R. / Helena Eagan torch (Helen of Troy's kidnapping started the Trojan War) little fire

Irving Bailiff green water, river Irvine law enforcement officer

Dylan George toward the tide (going with the flow?) farmer, earthworker

ADMIN

Judd a river, descending, flowing down (the river where Jesus was baptized by John)

Harmony Cobel / Selvig agreement, calm, music (harmonizing two different tones) fishing boat bay of seals (nordic place name, I thought this was meaningless until episode four and now I'm like ???)

Seth Milchick appointed, placed (the third son of adam and eve sent to heal the family after cain killed abel) a jewish dietary law forbidding "boiling a (goat) kid in its mother's milk" (this has got to be on purpose, but what does it mean??)

Natalie Kalen christmas day, birth of the lord slender, fair, blessed, pure, keeper of keys

Ms. Casey watchful, vigilant (this one really convinces me some of these names are chosen with great care)

Doug Graner dark river manager, german place name

Ms. Huang phoenix (literally coming back to life in a blaze of fire)

MARK'S LIFE

Gemma gem, precious stone, "a small cellular body or bud that can separate to form a new organism"

Devon cattle, divine, poet

Ricken Lazlo Hale powerful, wealthy ruler healthy

Eleanor shining light

Patton Thune nobleman money

Rebeck Gulk instrument, tie, snare friend/servant (sometimes: of Christ)

Danise devoted to bacchus / dionysus

Alexa defender of man

THE EAGANS

Kier (CEO 1865-1939) a vat where fabrics are boiled/bleached/dyed

Imogene maiden, innocent

Ambrose (CEO 1939-1941) immortal

Myrtle (CEO 1941-1959) evergreen shrub (evergreen = never dies)

Baird (CEO 1959-1976) poet

Gerhardt (CEO 1976-1987) hard spear

Phillip "Pip" (CEO 1987-1999) friend of horses seed, excellent

Leonora (CEO 1999-2003) light

Jame (CEO 2003-) follower, supplanter, protector

Helena torch

OTHERS

O&D

Burt Goodman fortified town good man

Felicia lucky, successful

DYLAN'S FAMILY

Gretchen pearl

Jim protected/protector

Merrick fame, power, ruler of the sea, dark

Ruth friend, pity, compassion

PETEY'S FAMILY

June young

Nina little girl / shortened form of any name ending in -nina

THE ARTETAS

Angelo Arteta angel evergreen oak

Gabrielle / Gabby woman of god / talkative

Bradley (NOT William) broad meadow (NOT will helmet / desire to protect)

Declan good man / man of prayer

Kai keeper of keys, the sea, king

MISC.

Asal Reghabi honey again stupid? (ghabi = stupid)

Cecil Fields (Burt's partner) blind / sixth pasture

Charlotte (Cobel, name on breathing tube) free

—

And what does all this mean? WELL, some themes I'm picking up on are the water, fire and earth, as well as light and living forever. It's of interest to me that both Gemma and Peter refer to a sort of stone, which is a plus for Mark/Petey shippers. There's a lot of water imagery connected with Lumon, but Eagan means fire. Then there's Huang meaning phoenix, which is rebirth through fire. I'm not sure how to take this yet but it's percolating.

The double meaning of Gemma is also really giving some big clone energy, I'm sorry to say. I know the makers of the show have stated that there's not a clone thing going on, but there's something happening here. I hope Ms. Huang isn't her clone, mostly because they're wildly different looking people whose only real commonality is being asian women.

I've also been looking into alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone as it relates to the themes of Severance, and all of this really rhymes with a lot of that. (I might make a seperate post about it tbh.)

Kilmer meaning kiln worker also really fucks with me, what with the water/fire/earth thing. You need water to mold clay, but firing it in a kiln turns it solid. In the Perpetuity Wing Irving tells Helly: "It’s an unnatural state for a person to have no history. History makes us someone. Gives us a context. A shape. But waking up on that table, I was shapeless." And Mark was a professor of history, and Casey made him sculpt his feelings out of clay, and he sculpted the tree that Gemma hit with her car, which neither of them remember... there's something here, I think.

I think Ricken and his friends, especially Patton, are descended from old money and may even be distantly related to the Eagans.

And then there's Reghabi, which doesn't seem to exist as a name/word outside of this show, but "ghabi" literally only returns results about the Urdu word meaning "idiot". I might be way off base but it makes me worried Reghabi isn't trustworthy. It's giving "the surest way to tame a prisoner is to let him believe he's free".

[amyrosedaily]

Day 29: Caught you!

PLEASE! Donate to save Muhammad Shehab's family! Main Post | GoFundMe

[lucreziaces]

thinking about the disconnect between cesare and lucrezia in “the prince” after cesare’s failed at murdering alfonso and lucrezia has to clean up his mess, and she asks “is that all i am now, brother, borgia?” with such disgust and he just doesn’t even hear her because he’s too focused on her mixing the poison and realizing that by being with her he won’t be corrupting her because she’s already a “professional” like him, like the assassin he was ready to send in to finish the job to keep her hands free of blood. meanwhile lucrezia is ALREADY making up her mind that she wants a love outside of HIS love for her because the way he loves her is selfishly and all consuming and overly possessive and makes her feel sick because some part of her still feels like god is in the room with them when he’s near, but now i think she understands that not to be true. and he was right to ask “god or the devil?” ACTUALLY maybe the disconnect begins before this….when he’s just run alfonso through with his sword and lucrezia comes rushing down the stairs to find the aftermath and cesare thinks he’s going to convince her it was an “accident” or perhaps it begins when lucrezia tells him “i am tired of my husband, of life, the only thing that never tires me is you”. yep this is when it begins i think!! right there. because of this he underestimates how much guilt lucrezia will feel if something happens to alfonso by cesare’s hand. how much she will come to resent being born a borgia, being loved by HIM.

[moreaujeans]

IM FREEEEEE

[stxrsniolo]

i have three things to say about this:

1. i have a love/hate relationship with harsh leader!matt, but i might stop doing one-shots and turn it into a well-structured, connected AU instead.

2. i think i’m going to have nightmares about all the military, combat, and related terminology because i spent hours diving into that world with videos, texts, interviews, and a ton of analysis to make it as realistic as possible without losing my mind in the process.

3. it’s funny that i decided to use writing techniques like structural repetition for overall narrative effects, leitmotifs for recurring symbolism, and recurring motifs for themes that repeat with meaning, when literally back in high school, i hated seeing them in class.

ㅤㅤִㅤ ݁ ꉂ no man's shadow ᴖ ֽ ㅤᷭ

ㅤ﹙ 𝟑𝟑𝟑 ﹚ㅤּㅤㅤ˻ㅤaegan is typingㅤ˺⠀⠀this is a dark, angst-driven piece centered on intense military themes and emotional conflict. expect a raw, gritty narrative exploring rage, vulnerability, and the weight of expendability in a high-stakes war zone setting.

a/n: i made sure to use structural repetition as a narrative device, repeating key phrases and ideas—like y/n's expendability and matt's inner conflict—to emphasize emotional tension, highlight trauma, and reinforce the story's themes of rage and vulnerability in this setting, so if you found repetition of some phrases, you're not going crazy babe. that was me and it was intentional.

warnings: military themes. violence. trauma. ptsd. anger issues. power dynamics. emotional conflict. dark themes. explicit language. mature content. deniability. human trafficking mention. chemical weapons mention. torture mention. death threats. emotional manipulation. training harshness.

pairings: harsh leader!matt × fresh meat!reader

you can create your own experiences with harsh leader!matt with this c.ai bot here!

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the room smelled like stale coffee and arrogance, a stench that clung to the walls of every briefing room matt had ever been in. he sat in one of those cheap, hard-ass chairs, the kind that dug into his spine like it was trying to break him, while the brass lounged in their cushy leather armchairs, looking down at him like he was some grunt fresh out of basic.

he hated them, hated their pressed uniforms, their smug faces, their voices dripping with condescension; but he didn’t let it show. he never did, he just sat there, arms crossed, jaw tight, his eyes locked on the table in front of him, waiting for them to get to the point.

they were talking shit, as usual. «operational efficiency,» «strategic imperatives,» all the buzzwords they loved to throw around to make themselves feel important.

matt tuned most of it out, his mind drifting to the last time he’d been in a room like this, when they’d ripped into him for not being hard enough on the rookies.

fuck ‘em.

he’d trained harder units than these clowns could dream of.

but then, they dropped the bomb: a new mission. and not just any mission—this was the kind of op that left scars, the kind that chewed you up and spat you out in pieces, if it didn’t kill you outright.

this organization didn’t fuck around.

they were the shadow behind the shadow, the ones who handled the darkest, dirtiest shit on the planet: human trafficking rings, kidnapping networks, drug cartels, black-market arms deals—you name it, they dealt with it.

they sent teams into hellholes no one else would touch, places where the rules didn’t exist, where morality was just a word you laughed at over a beer. assassinations, rescues, sabotage—it didn’t matter, they did what needed to be done, no matter the cost, no matter who got caught in the crossfire,

and if you didn’t come back? tough shit. no one would know… no one could know.

this was black ops, deep cover, the kind of work where your name didn’t even make it onto a casualty list. you just disappeared.

coronel harris, the silver-star asshole with a face like a bulldog, leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his voice low and deliberate. “this op’s a big one, sturniolo: high-value target. russian arms dealer, ivan volkov. runs a network out of a compound in eastern ukraine. we’re talkin’ fortified walls, armed patrols, the works. he’s moving product; chemical weapons, nerve agents, shit that could wipe out entire cities. intel says he’s got a shipment goin’ out in seventy-two hours, so we need that shipment stopped, and we need volkov neutralized permanently."

matt didn’t flinch, but his mind was already running the numbers.

eastern ukraine.

active war zone.

russian mercs, landmines, drones, the whole nine yards.

this wasn’t just a hit—it was a suicide run.

he kept his face blank, his voice flat. “and you’re sendin’ a rookie into that shitshow? you got a death wish for ‘em, or you just tryin’ to clean house?”

harris smirked, the kind of smirk that made matt want to slam his head into the table. “that’s where you come in. you’ve got the experience, you’ve run ops in worse conditions… but we need fresh blood on this, someone expendable, someone who won’t be missed if things go south.”

major ellis, the skinny prick with glasses who always looked like he was about to piss himself, chimed in, his voice nasal and grating. “the compound’s rigged to hell. ieds on the perimeter, snipers on the rooftops, and volkov’s got a private army—ex-spetsnaz, real hard bastards, we’ve got drone footage showing tripwires, pressure plates, the works. whoever goes in needs to be fast, quiet, and disposable, no extraction plan, no backup. if they get caught, they’re on their own, deniability’s key.”

matt’s jaw tightened, his teeth grinding together. disposable. that’s what they thought of the rookies. that’s what they thought of her.

he hated them for it, hated the way they talked about lives like they were just numbers on a spreadsheet but he didn’t let it show. he couldn’t, weakness was death in this game, and he’d be damned if he let these bastards see him crack.

harris leaned back, his chair creaking under his weight. “we’ve been watching your recruits, sturniolo, most of ‘em are soft, but the girl—y/n—she’s got potential. green as hell, but she’s got fight. this could be her chance to prove herself… or not. either way, it’s not our problem.”

matt’s blood ran cold.

he didn’t move, didn’t flinch, but something deep inside him cracked, a hairline fracture in the stone. 

y/n. the fresh meat. the rookie who’d gotten under his skin, who’d pushed back when he’d tried to break her, who’d taken everything he’d thrown at her and come back for more. the girl he’d fucked raw in her room, the girl he’d held onto like a lifeline when the nightmares came.

no.

that night had been a mistake, a slip, a moment of weakness he’d buried deep, locked away where it couldn’t touch him… but now, hearing her name, picturing her out there, in the dirt, bleeding out, alone—it hit him like a frag grenade to the chest.

he didn’t let it show.

“y/n?” he repeated, his voice flat, like he didn’t give a shit. “she’s not ready, she’s barely holding her own in training; you send her out there, she’s dead weight. she’ll get herself killed, and she’ll take the op down with her.”

harris smirked, leaning back in his chair. “it’s your job to make sure she’s not, you’ve been soft on her, sturniolo, maybe this’ll light a fire under her ass. she gets herself blown to hell by a tripwire, that’s on you. but we need someone expendable, and she fits the bill. no family ties, no connections. if she doesn’t come back, no one’s gonna ask questions.”

matt’s fists clenched under the table, his nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood, he wanted to lunge across the room, grab harris by the throat, and squeeze until his eyes popped out of his skull.

soft? fuck you. he wasn’t soft, he’d never been soft.

but y/n… she wasn’t just another rookie, she was the one who’d stood up to him, who’d stared him down when he’d pinned her against the wall, who’d taken his rage and his need and thrown it back at him. she was the one who’d seen him at his weakest, who’d held him when the nightmares came, who’d kissed away his tears like he wasn’t a monster.

and now they wanted to send her into a meat grinder, into a kill zone where the odds of coming back were zero.

“tell me more about this stupid op.” matt scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. 

ellis adjusted his glasses, his voice grating like nails on a chalkboard. “the infil’s gonna be rough, no air support, no drones, no comms once you’re past the border. you’ll be on foot, moving through contested territory. expect ambushes, sniper nests, the works. volkov’s got eyes everywhere—locals paid to rat out anyone who looks suspicious."

"if they spot you, you’re dead. if they don’t, you’ve still got to breach the compound, take out the guards, and get to the shipment. and volkov—he’s paranoid, always surrounded by his spetsnaz goons. you’ll need to be surgical, sturniolo. no room for fuck-ups.”

harris nodded, his eyes glinting with something cold and cruel. “and the girl—she’s your responsibility. she steps on a mine, gets her head blown off by a sniper, that’s on you, but if she pulls it off, maybe she’s worth keeping around. if not, well, we’ve got plenty more where she came from.”

matt’s vision tunneled, the room shrinking to a pinpoint of rage as he pictured it—y/n, her body torn apart by an ied, her blood soaking into the dirt, her eyes staring blankly at the sky.

he pictured her captured, tortured, screaming for help that would never come.

he pictured her gone, erased, just another ghost in the machine… and for the first time in years, he felt something—fear, raw and ugly, clawing at his chest. he hated it. hated her for making him feel it. hated himself for letting it happen.

matt leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and stared harris down. “you want her out there? fine. but don’t come cryin’ to me when she doesn’t come back. i’m not babysittin’ her. she fucks this up, it’s on you.”

the room went quiet, the tension thick as smoke.

the suits exchanged looks, nodding like they’d won some kind of victory. matt loathed them for it, but he wasn’t done, he wasn’t sending her out there alone.

not because he cared—fuck that, he didn’t care. he couldn’t. but he wasn’t letting her go without backup. not her.

“i’m goin’ with her,” he said, his voice low, dangerous. “that’s the deal: you want her out there? fine, but i’m leadin’ the op. non-negotiable.”

ellis raised an eyebrow, his voice dripping with skepticism. “and why’s that, sturniolo? you don’t trust her to handle herself?”

matt smirked, but there was no humor in it. “trust? nah, i don’t trust any of you assholes, but i’m not lettin’ some rookie fuck up my record; she screws this up, it’s on me, so i’m goin’. end of story.”

harris leaned back, his chair creaking under his weight. “you’re volunteering for a suicide run, sturniolo, you know that, right? no extraction, no backup. if you go in, you’re on your own, if you get caught, we don’t know you. if you die, we don’t mourn you.”

matt didn’t flinch. “yeah, i know how this works, i’ve been doin’ your dirty work for years, but i’m goin’. you want volkov dead? you want that shipment stopped? i’ll get it done… but i’m not sendin’ her in alone.”

the suits exchanged looks again, their faces unreadable.

finally, harris nodded, his voice cold. “fine, you’re lead and she’s your shadow, but don’t expect us to pull your ass out of the fire. you’re on your own.”

when the meeting ended, matt stormed out, his boots pounding the concrete like he was marching to war, no stopping until he was outside, the cold night air hitting him like a slap.

he lit a cigarette, the flame flickering in the dark, and took a long drag, trying to shove down the thoughts clawing at his mind.

y/n. out there. in the shit. he pictured her, her defiant eyes, her stubborn jaw, the way she’d looked at him that night, soft and gentle, like he wasn’t a monster. he hated her for it. hated himself for letting it matter.

but he wasn’t letting her die out there, not because he cared but because he couldn’t let her be another ghost on his conscience. that was it. that was all.

he took another drag, the smoke burning his lungs, and muttered to himself, “fuckin’ rookie. better not get me killed.”

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the training yard was a graveyard of silence, the kind of quiet that pressed down on your chest like a boot on your throat.

the rookies stood in a loose semicircle, their faces pale, their eyes darting like they knew something was coming but didn’t want to face it.

the air was thick with the smell of sweat and fear, the kind of stench that clung to you like a second skin. 

matt stood in front of them, his combat boots planted in the dirt, his arms crossed, his face a mask of cold, unyielding steel. he didn’t need to raise his voice. he didn’t need to shout. his presence was enough, a storm cloud ready to unleash hell.

y/n was there, front and center, her jaw tight, her eyes locked on him like she was bracing for a fight. she always did that—stared him down like she wasn’t scared, like she wasn’t just another piece of fresh meat waiting to be chewed up and spat out. matt hated her for it. hated the way she made him feel, the way she made him remember that night in her room, the way she’d seen him at his weakest. he hated her for making him care, even if he’d never admit it.

but right now, he wasn’t the weakling she saw that night, the man who’d held her like a lifeline. he was matt, the trainer, the leader, the asshole who’d break her if he had to.

“listen up, maggots,” he barked, his boston accent sharp as a blade. “you’ve been playin’ soldier long enough, it's time to see if any of you are worth a damn: we’ve got an op. high-stakes, high-risk, the kind of shit that’ll make you wish you’d stayed home cryin’ to your mommies, and one of you lucky bastards is goin’ in.”

the rookies shifted, their eyes darting to each other, their breathing shallow.

matt let the silence stretch, let the fear sink in. he wanted them to feel it, to taste it, to choke on it.

he scanned the group, his gaze cold, calculating, like he was picking targets on a range. but his eyes landed on y/n, and for a split second, something flickered in his chest.

he shoved it down, buried it deep, and kept going.

“y/n,” he said, his voice low, dangerous, like the hiss of a fuse burning down. “step forward.”

she didn’t hesitate, she stepped out of the line, her boots kicking up dust, her shoulders squared, her eyes locked on him.

she didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, but matt could see the tension in her jaw, the way her hands clenched at her sides. she knew something was coming. she wasn’t stupid. but she didn’t know how bad it was, not yet.

he took a step closer, close enough to smell the sweat on her skin, close enough to see the flicker of defiance in her eyes. “you’ve been chosen,” he said, his voice flat, emotionless. “congratulations, rookie, you’re goin’ into the shit: eastern ukraine. russian arms dealer, ivan Volkov. runs a compound rigged to hell—ieds, snipers, ex-spetsnaz goons who’d slit your throat just for fun. he’s movin’ chemical weapons, nerve agents, shit that could wipe out cities. your job? breach the compound, take out the guards, stop the shipment, and put a bullet in volkov’s skull. simple, right?"

her eyes widened, just for a second, but she didn’t say anything.

matt didn’t give her the chance, he leaned in, his voice dropping to a growl, low and vicious. “but here’s the kicker, sweetheart: this ain’t a fuckin’ field trip. no air support, no drones, no comms. you’re on foot, movin’ through a war zone with landmines, tripwires, snipers waitin’ to blow your head off where you step wrong, you’re a red mist. you get caught, you’re fucked—tortured, raped, left to rot in a ditch. and if you die? tough shit. no extraction, no backup. you’re on your own and deniability’s key. you don’t come back, no one’s gonna know and no one’s gonna care. you’re just another ghost.”

the words hung in the air, heavy, suffocating. the other rookies stared, their faces pale, their eyes wide with horror.

y/n’s breath hitched, her chest rising and falling faster, but she didn’t look away. she didn’t break.

matt wanted to shake her, to scream at her, to tell her to run, to quit, to get the fuck out before it was too late. but he didn’t. he couldn’t, he had to be the asshole, the trainer, the leader, he had to break her, even if it killed him.

“you think you’re tough?” he snarled, his voice rising, cutting through the silence like a knife. “you think you can handle this? you’re nothin’. you’re fresh meat, and out there, you’re dead meat.”

“you step on a mine, your legs are gone, your guts are in the dirt. you get spotted, they’ll carve you up, make you beg for death. and me? i won’t be there to save your ass, you’re on your own, rookie. you fuck this up, you’re dead, and i’ll be the one who sent you.”

her eyes flashed, anger and fear warring in her gaze, but she didn’t back down. “i can handle it,” she said, her voice steady, but matt could hear the tremor underneath. “i’m not scared.”

he laughed, a harsh, bitter sound that echoed through the yard. “not scared? bullshit. you should be because you’re walkin’ into hell, and you’re not comin’ back. you think you’re ready? you’re not. you’re weak. you’re soft. you’re gonna die out there, and it’s gonna be on me. but you know what? i don’t give a shit, you wanted to play soldier? this is what you get.”

he turned away, his back to her, his hands clenched into fists.

he couldn’t look at her, couldn’t see the hurt in her eyes, the fear he’d just poured into her like poison.

he wanted to take it back, to tell her he was going with her, to tell her he wouldn’t let her die, but he couldn’t, he had to be the asshole, the trainer, the leader. he had to break her, even if it broke him too.

“dismissed,” he barked, his voice cold, final. the rookies scattered, their footsteps frantic, their whispers echoing in the silence.

y/n didn’t move, didn’t leave, she stood there, staring at him, her chest heaving, her eyes burning with something he couldn’t name.

he wanted to turn around, to grab her, to shake her, to kiss her, to tell her he was sorry… but he didn’t; he walked away, his boots pounding the dirt, leaving her alone in the yard, alone with the weight of what he’d just done.

ㅤ﹙ 𝟑𝟑𝟑 ﹚ㅤּㅤㅤ˻ㅤaegan is typingㅤ˺ᅟ⠀ i appreciate the love shown through reposts, but let me be clear: my tales are not to be copied or adapted without a whisper to me first. my words are my treasure, and i guard them jealously.

my baddies: @courta13 @chrislilcumslvt @marrykisskilled @chrislova @sturnshood @inspiredangel @strnilolover @emely9274 @sturns-mermaid @blushsturns @ariieeesworld @pixie-sticks-are-good @luvjaeeee @sturnslutz @mattswifeyy

in case that you desire to be tagged in future works, here's the taglist.

[existentialcrisis-24-7]

Godddddd it’s such a pain to be hyperfixating on your own ocs. It’s a fucking nightmare. I just want these guys to do their thing and tell people their stories but nOOooOoOooo I have to write it first! But that’s not the medium I want to tell it through so I have to learn how to make comics! Or animate! Liek anfucking idirot

[villain-in-love]

Wait a second, I just realized something.

That's how I see it.

[quillheel]

❁ ( towards any of your zelda muses − hylia and the three godesses, mainly, but also botw & totk link / zelda / ganondorf if you feel compelled...!! )

Send me a ❁ for the type of flower my muse would give to yours // Accepting!

Hylia's answer comes, sharp and slow like a blade pulled uncutting against thought, a cool not-metal against the inner heat of mind. ━ the same as sky, not in the way of wind but in the way of open space, of nothing at all, of atmosphere pressing in from out against your throat. Almost frozen, almost frigid, but without the effort in coldness, in willful ignoring, of brushing one off : cold as in cold is the absence of heat. No, Iroha receives an answer. Stale pollen and bright, blinding knowledge. ━━━ she was not made to create the way the Goddesses were, and yet, the flowers bloom at their feet regardless : perhaps they should consider themselves special.

━ bachelor button, hydrangea, bittersweet, lavender heather, white poppy, blue violet, mixed yellow & red zinnia, white hyacinth, rose leaf, & buried beneath the rest; spider flower. ( 'You are not of my domain, I am indifferent to you. However, I respect your devotion. I sympathize, perhaps, with your situation. One day, perhaps, there will something other for you. One day, perhaps, you will make one.' )

the Goddesses' response is a ancient one. months hung above the stratosphere, dangling, dangling, waiting to be lowered. Months upon months upon months, the flower of the seasons dripping into the horizon in a haze of days and nights and days again: They were intricate, and slow, and often unknowable at all. how patient, you are, for Them. How kind, to wait, for Them. They reward Iroha with answer in time, in the humid shivering haze of early morning, a wave of such love of all Iroha does, of the endless sorrow They beheld upon their duty, arriving like quartz lining their throat ━ blooms growing from 'pon their fingertips, 'cross their knuckles. a gift, a gift, how merry to be known & seen, how terrifying by They to listen & answer in turn ━ how horrible, horrible to think you had been forgotten...

━ bachelor button, maidenhair fern, red carnation, dead leaf, purple hyacinth, dark crimson rose, pine, acorn, fern, fir, white heather, iris, lily of the valley, tea rose, palm leaf. ( 'We love you, We are sorry, your faith is not unseen by Us, for This to be your undertaking, borne as chains & key. Such is Our terrible, terrible doing. Such is Our apology. We hope, perhaps, one day the selves can exist without the other or in one without smothering, smothering light. We hope, perhaps, one day you are allowed to live; a role unshackled, unlocking Thy own binds. Chains & key. Chains & key. Freedom unmade for you, and yet, still hoping to grasp it.' )

Link & Zelda come as though offering memorial, bundles of blooms and sprigs tucked in their arms as they hurry past stream and grove ( "watch your feet, 'stream made the ground soft" "ah, thank you, I believe I'll be alright-!" ) to find the place where the Blupees haunched on hind legs and watched them with startling, ruby eyes. The one Link had gone before, a familiar forest in the heavy overhang of branches & leaves. a bowl is filled with fruit steadily throughout the day beneath a great cherry tree, pink petals like silk beneath the sun. a final act of care comes as sunset threatens to burn the sky alive when, on a brief journey back to a stable for a briefer meal, they're caught in a fleeting conversation of flora & the hearts beneath their stalks ( "Oh, you're going all the way up to Satori mountain? Hey, if you're going through all the effort, I've heard people bring flowers up there sometimes, you know, offerings and the like. Some people bring flowers, symbolizing what the 'Lord of the Mountain' protector means to them. Maybe it'd be worth your time?" ) ( "That sound's like a nice idea, I think!" "I think so, yes, but what would I even bring...?" ) ━━━ they in bundles, at last, arrive. Hurried up, past the stream, to find the tree again. Zelda hesitates, an offering of silent princess clasped between delicate fingers ━ "Would it be considered disrespectful to place it at the dish...? Maybe I shouldn't..." ━ before Link, calloused hands delicate, maneuver their hands to set it down along the rest, petals bright; bright in the clear sky.

━ bittersweet, bluebell, pink camellia, iris, cattleya orchid, magnolia, evening primrose, flax, rose leaf, forsythia, fern, lavender rose, bells of ireland, azalea, sweet pea, mixed zinnea. ( 'I think you're kind, and charming, and though I rarely see you, I hope you are well. I hope to change that fleetingness, if you'll let me? I think you might like Zelda, you might have more in common than you think.' / 'I've heard of you, but never seen you, all good things. I hope one day to meet, you seem good. Perhaps lonely. I might like you, if you gave me the chance, but I'd understand if you don't like me. I hope your future is a kind one, whatever kind of future it is. I don't know you well enough, even in stories, to tell.' )

Somewhere, there is a valley tucked neatly behind the ridges of hills, in the lowered groove 'twixt them where the land sinks ginger under the long grass and the wild flower of the knolls; as though gently swept down, as though the soft lowering of a stomach, ribs high against the soft tension of smooth skin in earth, as though the rounded edges of hands where the knuckles stood war-like as the gentle palm sinks; ball of the hand softer than the upper of the palm, the upper of the palm softer than the fingers, the fingers softer than the nails, the nails softer than the bones inside them all.

Somewhere, there is a valley of tender, shivering silver. plush moss lining the ground like bolster turned cloudy like rain, muted but beautiful in variation, white paint blending with greys in the fiber that wasn't fiber, the tissue that was. A place no one knew. a place one did. flowers split, forbearing as though shifting only between the folds, and reeds rose in the bed. A place that never died, flowers like chanting; the same message, 'hundred times over, 'thousand more. ━ Somewhere, you know this place. Somewhere, no one else knows at all. Somewhere, it tells you something. Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere...

━ lotus, cherry blossom, chrysanthemum. ( 'how much would it take to stop grieving yourself, and choose to live? how long?' )

[knaveofmogadore]

Kfkdks

[babycharmander]

(BOOK OF BILL SPOILERS)

I just finished reading The Book of Bill and I am kindof losing my mind over some of this stuff.

I had wondered if Alex Hirsch might make Bill sympathetic in some way and oh boy I was not expecting him to do it so successfully (and without cheapening Bill's character).

So, we learn that Bill was born into a 2D world... as a mutant who can see into the third dimension. He claims he was absolutely loved by all, but when talking about his powers, he mentions under Pyrokinesis:

"Cipher, Cipher, he's insane / Starting fires with his brain." The kids in grade school could be so cruel. But where are they now, huh? WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

So probably not quite as liked as he was letting on. To add to that, there's the silly straw page, which looks like silly nonsense until you decipher some of the codes:

"EYE DOCTOR OF A DIFFERENT KIND / WHO WANTS TO MAKE HIS PATIENTS BLIND" "THE DOCTOR SAYS / THREE SIPS A DAY / WILL MAKE THE VISIONS / GO AWAY"

I wasn't sure what this meant until I saw someone point out... he was seeing a third dimension that no one else could see. His parents probably took him to the eye doctor to try to "fix" him. Which, speaking of his eye doctor, the coded message in the section about human eyeballs says something interesting:

"MY OPTOMETRIST NEVER SAW IT COMING"

It could be a joke given beforehand he's talking about dissecting a human eye, but given the previous hints of medical abuse, I wouldn't put it past him that he tried to get revenge on his eye doctor.

Oh yeah and the whole thing about him setting his entire dimension on fire? Yeah it turns out it was entirely a mistake (he just wanted everyone to understand the third dimension he was seeing so they could be free of only two dimensions), he was so traumatized by it he blacks out when trying to recall it. He deeply, deeply regrets it, and...

"What? Your ENTIRE home dimension? destroyed? How? By what?" Bill looked distant, more distant than I'd ever seen him. "By a monster."

He sees himself as a monster.

And yet, he's not some innocent, misunderstood being. He still revels in causing pain and chaos. He's terrible in general, but becomes incredibly abusive toward Ford.

"YOU'RE MY PROPERTY. DON'T FORGET IT. The hillbilly abandoned you, your father won't want you returning without millions, you have no friends, and if you died out here in the snow, who would even miss you?"

Which... speaking of him and Ford...

Yes, yes, I know people ship them. But like, whether you see their relationship as romantic or platonic (I see it as the latter), there's some interesting parallels to be made here.

Both Bill and Ford are mutants who were mocked for their being different. (Bill was not physically a mutant, as far as we know, but more in the sense of him having vision stronger than that of everyone else in his dimension, and also having special powers. And he does describe himself as a mutant.) Both became social outcasts, separated from their families but still haunted by them (Ford seeing commercials of Stan on TV and running across old photos of him and his brother, Bill being haunted by his family in some form). Neither could return home for one reason or another. Both more powerful than their peers (Ford intellectually, Bill in terms of actual powers). Both of them isolated and alone. (Yes, Bill does have the Henchmaniacs, but they seem like shallow friends, and only really seem to follow him out of a desire to have a place to party.)

Ford was not aware of most of this, aside from knowing that Bill could not go home because his dimension was destroyed. But Bill absolutely saw himself in Ford. There was no other person he tried to use whom he felt a stronger connection to.

And he actually seems to care about Ford--he actually gave him a birthday present, and when Ford didn't like it, he decided to get drunk and party with him instead to make up for it.

And then when Ford realizes what Bill's plan actually is and refuses to go along with it, and fights back no matter what Bill does, Bill completely breaks down.

After living for trillions of years, he met someone who was like him, and that person rejected him.

He goes berserk, wreaking havoc, being caught by the dimensional authority that he's been taunting for most of his life.

And then after dying and being cast out of hell for being too annoying, he winds up faced with the Axolotl, who sends him to therapy, where he continues to break down further, sending out the book in a desperate attempt to find someone, anyone who will help him break loose and wreak havoc once again.

"You have no friends, and if you died ... who would even miss you?"

I don't know, Bill. Who would even miss you?

In short,

[ID: The front and back of one of Bill's Valentines cards. On the front is a black void with Bill Cipher lying down without his hat, gazing blankly upwards, with the text "I DON'T WANT TO DIE ALONE" above him. On the back is a simple white "TO/FROM" in red, with a red outline illustration of Bill spontaneously growing a mouth and eating a realistic, bloody heart. /end ID]