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queers-gambit · 2 months ago

Text

All Mine

title citation: song by Brent Faiyaz

prompt: ( requested ) you and Tangerine break up, and the man you date after is a serious downgrade. on a night out, Tangerine decides your story isn't yet finished.

pairing: Tangerine x female!reader

fandom masterlist: Bullet Train

word count: 7k+

note: did i use this gif already? yes. but it fits the theme of this story.

warnings: same drill - Tan's government name is Aaron, Lem's is Brian. cheater!Reader (not on but with Tan, you'll see), some angst, break-ups, but overall hurt and comfort, happy ending, small NSFW, random "State Farm" quote (not sponsored), smoking indoors, brief domestic aggression, brief violence (it's Tan), term "going postal" used, not edited. "not all men" only applies to Tan i don't make the rules.

We begin today by discussing the concept of soulmates.

World renowned Ancient Greek philosopher, Plato (born Aristocles, not to be mistaken for Aristotle), once theorized that humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and two faces. The Greek God, Zeus, motivated either by fear of man's potential power or the need to reprimand their arrogant pride, decided to punish humans by severing them into two perfect halves - dooming them to roam the Earth in search of their whole self.

According to Ancient Chinese mythology, The Red String of Fate (tied by the Lunar matchmaking God, Yue Lao) says lovers who are destined to be are tied together through lifetimes by a red string - the color that symbolizes happiness - regardless of time, place, or circumstance. This string might stretch or tangle (like all relationships), but will never break.

Some Western cultures believe in the idea of simple "soulmates", two people destined to meet and love one another unconditionally. They thought their souls are someway, somehow intertwined - be it in the stars, by the cosmos, or even some intrusive, baby-presenting, diaper-wearing, winged fucker named Cupid. "Soulmates" operate as two halves of one whole, yet still remain two separate individual persons. The idea originates from Plato's theory, but essentially affirms: there's a perfect someone for everyone.

Other cultures might say their religious deity or just faith in said religion is peoples one, true love. Some argue a "soulmate" isn't a romantic partner at all, but instead, a person's twin. You know, same womb, same "soul", that kinda reasoning.

Akin to the Greeks, theosophy claims God created androgynous souls, and these souls were individually split into the two genders they once were. Each half seeks the other, and when their karmic debt is paid (being a reason they were split in the first place), the two halves will return to their whole, true self.

and before anyone says anything about gender, remember, these theologies originate from a time that a modern day Taco Bell dollar menu burrito would literally make the theologists implode!

Some New Age philosophy says a soulmate is a totally separate entity (meaning, not split or derived from us), and who spends lifetimes as your friend, lover, co-worker, partner. Soulmates are the greatest union of the heart, no matter the shape or form it presents as; being two connected souls. Hence platonic soulmates, as well.

Other common literary soulmate idioms:

cut from the same cloth -> meaning being so in-tune and similar in characteristics, demeanor, and / or behavior, you "must've" come from the same place.

apple of my eye -> while, yes, it means being extremely important to a person, it also could mean being the "core" of your lover's heart and / or soul; similar to how an apple core keeps the fruit's integrity.

better / other half -> it's 2 am, this is pretty self explanatory.

ride or die -> again, self explanatory - but indicates that a soulmate will live life loyally with you in good and bad times.

match made in heaven -> being absolutely SO perfect for each other, your love was crafted by divine intervention in the eternal kingdom of heaven - where a thing or two about "soulmates" might be known.

my heart and soul -> your love being so strong, so right, it takes over logic and emotion; and intoxicates your very soul - your entire being.

No matter what approach you take, what you do or don't believed, there was no denying: Aaron was your soulmate.

That arrogant, smug, sarcastic, devilishly handsome, mysterious, devious, sneaky, alluring, intelligent, bitchy, suave, charming, intuitive, opinionated jackass who used the operative codename Tangerine.

But to you, he was Tan. Tangie. Aaron. Ace. The love of your life.

You couldn't avoid it. There was no wishing him away, no genie to appear for your third wish. There was no point in trying to avoid or deny your feelings anymore, they were an 18-wheeler and there was no crosswalk in sight; and that's where everything fell apart - realizing you were ready and willing for this emotion to come barreling into you. When things got serious, when you were ready for distinct, specific commitment, Aaron suddenly reared back and put so much distance between you, it was as if he catapulted into a different timezone.

You had been at a mutual friend's birthday party, and after several rounds of alcohol, where everyone was good and buzzed and happy in their own little worlds, incidentally toppled into a public showdown.

"What's the rush?" Aaron asked you, tears inconceivably dribbling down your cheeks one-by-one while stood in a packed-out bar. "Huh? What's your rush to get married? Things have been so good, doll - so fucking good - and you want to ruin that? This isn't - "

You barked, "'Ruin that'? Ruin, what, exactly!? Aaron, we've been together five years - five fucking years, half a bloody decade - how could you possibly say you don't know if you want to marry me or not yet!?"

"It's not you, love - "

"It's not me, it's marriage that scares you!?" You snarled, so used to hearing it, you can quote him.

"Yes!"

"It's the same difference! You love me, but marriage is so scary, it's not worth it, even with me! No matter how much you say you love me, right? You just can't - no, no! - you won't love me enough to marry me! Because you're capable of it, you're capable of loving me enough, but you're much more comfortable being an emotionless jackass - "

"No, no, don't go putting words in my mouth," he groaned, head tilting back, shaking his curls as he rightened to look at you. "Baby, just listen to me, please, neither of us are in a state to have this conversation - "

"We never are, according to you! It's never the right time, the right energy, right setting! What's the issue, Aaron? Huh?" You felt your anger crack and chip away like a hard boiled egg, revealing the soft emotion inside. "What's the real problem being with me? With marrying me?"

"We're just - we're so young!"

"Try again."

"You're just not thinking about - "

"Oh, no, but I am!" You snapped, setting your nearly empty glass to the bartop and shocking yourself (and the eavesdropping bartender) that it didn't shatter. "I am thinking, Aaron, I'm finally thinking about myself - for once - and I know what I want! And you know what? I'm not afraid anymore to ask for what I know I deserve!"

Aaron scoffed, shaking his head as he did when faced with confrontation. "Neither of us are drunk or sober enough to get though this conversation, so... Let's just..." He trailed, brows furrowing when you shook your head with a hateful scoff, yanked from his grip, and stormed away. But he quickly snatched your upper arm, halting your escape, demanding, "Wait, wait, wait, hang on, love. What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"Away from you - "

"They haven't even cut the cake, baby, c'mon, the night is still early - "

"Excuse me while I don't want to stand around here with my ex-boyfriend in front of our friends pretending to be happy."

"What're you - ex-boyfriend?" He stuttered in genuine hurt and confusion.

In that moment, like divine intervention to semi-prove your point, Brian, Aaron's brother, who used the codename Lemon, dropped in. Tangerine let go of you to not make it look like he was holding you in place. "S-Sorry, I know this looks tense, but, uh, bruva," Brian showed Tangerine his phone, "we've gotta go, man..."

"We're in the middle of something, Lem."

"I get that, but... Duty calls, mate."

Tangerine sighed, hand through his hair, turning to you in what you used to think was real empathy. "I-I'm so sorry, love, I have to go - but we'll finish this conversation when I get home, okay? Yeah?

You sniffled and nodded sadly, "See? You see? You love your job more than me, that literally in the middle of a fight about marriage, you're gonna go. Did you see how easy that was for you? Yet you can't love me enough? In a much less high-stakes situation?" With another nod, but this time out of realized confirmation, you breathed, "I'm done, Tangerine." He knew you were serious when you reverted back to his codename; stripping the personal warmth from your tone. "Okay? I'm done. I can't do this anymore, it's absolutely unfair. You've made it clear, you don't want to marry me, so, that's fine, but I'm not in the business of wasting anymore time than I already have. Now," you took a breath, "we can talk later about getting your shit outta my place, probably after your mission, but until then, just please, leave me the fuck alone."

You swore that was going to be the end. It was supposed to be. There was never supposed to be a relapse. Never an epilogue. The Tangerine / Aaron chapter was closed, the entire book was supposed to be closed!

But when you're single for the first time in five years, you kinda forget how to casually date.

There's dating apps, which, as some might know, is just a nightmare experience. There's sometimes local singles events - but they're not always the vibe you usually want to spend your energy on. Matchmakers were (apparently) thousands of wasted dollar. Dating coworkers is typically ALWAYS weird unless you're Jim and Pam, or Meredith and Derek, or whatever other couples TV romanticized. Reality dating shows? That air out all your business? PASS. Taking your mother's recommendations? PASS. Especially if she has her little "church friends" trying to set you up, too? HARD PASS. Sometimes, you just start praying for a hunky Italian Mobster to abduct you - it honestly sounds a little easier (read: this is sarcasm)! Your friends try to set you up, but it usually doesn't click, or it's a strange experience that makes you reject further offers. You could always hope a guy spills your coffee and offers to buy you a new one, which turns into you talk the day away - but life isn't a Glen Powell movie.

Oh, and don't even get me started on ghosting - fuck you if you ghost people, you immature coward.

So, sometimes, you get real lonely, start to feel a little self pity, like you made a mistake breaking up... And maybe you seek company in alcohol... And that alcohol can sometimes help you reminisce... Which exasperates the loneliness... And eventually, maybe that little devil on your should convinces your to text your ex... Which in turn, starts an entire precedent about it being "okay" to go back to him in times of need and desire, of desperation, sometimes of boredom, or even times of comfort.

Aaron had left you alone after the break up, he knew to give you space; so, when you start casually fucking about a year after ending things, it was you pulling all the strings. Women in power, ammirite? Though, Aaron didn't mind your use of him, he always thought the break-up was a fluke of some kind, something fleeting, temporary - hence why he left you alone to sort your feelings. Aaron knew he wasn't perfect, but neither were you; resulting in plenty of "negative" aspects of your relationship, but there were far more positives - more ups than downs - assuring you both know, this was real. This was love. This was true love. It was eternal and raw and passionate... But you couldn't wait forever for him to face his fears.

Until... One night, after hours in his sheets, from the side of his bed, you declared, "This was the last time, Aaron."

He watched you hook your bra, cigarette in his mouth. "Oh, yeah?" He mused, having heard it before. "All right, sweetheart. Same time next week, yeah?" Aaron laughed at his own joke, casually flicking ash into the bedside tray.

"No. I'm being serious, Ace," you sighed almost sadly. You stood to yank your panties and leggings up in one move; shifting your hips, wiggling a bit to adjust the feeling of tightly wadded cloth cutting through raw coochie. "Ryan and I, uh... We're, uh, you know," you cleared your throat, trying to situate your tee shirt without looking at him, "we're going exclusive."

"Uh-huh, is that so?"

"Yep."

"When was this decision made?"

"Oh, uh," you blanched, "the idea was proposed a couple days ago, but we're making it official tonight - "

"I've seen you 8 fucking times this week and it's only Tuesday - "

"I know - "

"What the fuck, Y/N!?"

You glared, "What do you want me to say, Aaron!?"

"That you're not being serious! We're supposed to be together, not whatever - "

"You knew that we were just fucking to blow off steam and fill certain voids, we weren't back together! You always knew one day, this was bound to happen."

"Why? Huh? Why fuck me, but date him?"

"Because you're allergic to committeemen and Ryan isn't!"

"So, why do you keep comin' around? Why keep comin' back t'me, huh? If he's willing to commit, why're you the one fucking around on him? With me?" But the look on your face said it all, making Aaron laugh spitefully, "Ohhh, no, oh, sweetheart. Oh, don't fucking tell me, doll, he's not fucking you right?"

"For fuck's sake, would you please get off your high horse a single moment just to fuck off - "

"Why else would you keep coming back?" He demanded, smug as could be. "Don't wanna date me, but you'll fuck me? Oh, poor Ryan must really be lacking - "

"I told you, this is the last time."

"Yeah, uh-huh, sure," he laughed, leaning back, hands behind his head. "They all always say that before they come crawling back in my bed."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" You snarled, feeling more hurt than you should've. And Tangerine could read it all over your face. "I told you every man I slept with - granted it's only been two this past year, but still - are-are-are you saying there's been others? That you haven't told me about? Have you been fucking other people while fucking me?"

"Hang on, love, listen, I didn't mean - "

"I think I need to go, this was a mistake - all of this - coming back here, fucking you. I need to go," you huffed, stepping into your Crocs (for a quick escape), and rushing to grab your jacket, purse, and keys. The entire time, Tangerine was trying to amend what he said, but it felt like the (final?) nail in the coffin you had been waiting on; assurance that you needed to be without Aaron. See, upon your casual fuck, you agreed to date and sleep with others if you wanted - you weren't exclusive - but for reasons deemed useless now, you were supposed to tell one another about other partners. And he couldn't even do that?

So, you left his flat, and when he followed you out, he saw you disappear at Olympic sped down the staircase - key to his place left on the hallway floor.

"Well, well," his elderly cougar neighbor leaned in her doorway, watching you go with crossed arms and a smirk, "looks like li'l miss is gone finally, huh? This mean you're available for dinner tonight?"

Tangerine snatched the key from the ground, "Not tonight, Mrs. Roberts."

"It's 'Ms' now," she informed, but Tan didn't even hear; just slipped inside his flat, shut the door, locked it, and stood in the foyer, palm flat, looking at the key as if it were a foreign object, for 37 minutes.

Knowing how upset you were, Tangerine didn't try to contact you. Yet one week after your fight, when he knew your standing "Soul Cycle" class took place and you'd came by after, he set up his flat. He got you dozens of apologetic roses all mixed with bright sunflowers and dotted with baby's breath - bouquets he put together himself. Candles lined the place, all lit within fire code restrictions. He played light, modern instrumental music because he knew it had been on your Spotify playlist - not that he was checking it or anything. He cooked your favorite meal by hand. He cleaned himself up, styled his hair, wore the cologne you got him for your first Christmas together (that he's never changed), and wore the baby blue button-up he knew drove you crazy. To top it all off, he got a very dainty golden bracelet - one that was nice enough to convey the amount he spent (as if money = sincerity of apology) but still simple enough that Ryan wouldn't notice if it became part of your normal jewelry box. In fact, nobody would - except you and Tangerine, the way he likes things. The bracelet is even engraved with a subtle 'A' because no matter who you date, he always knew you'd be his and he'd be yours - but wouldn't point this out to you... Yet.

Your class ends at 6:30, you were never later than 7:05. He was ready and waiting at the door, going over his apology by 6:15. He changed into a new, identical shirt at 6:33 after sweating through the first; drying himself, spraying extra antiperspirant over his torso. He changed the tissue wrapping of his offering bouquet so it wasn't wet from his sweaty palms when he gave it to you at 6:41. At 6:46, he began pacing. Aaron began impulsively checking his phone at 6:53. He didn't have your location anymore (a con to the break-up he strongly protested out of fear for your safety) so he couldn't check if you were lost, in trouble, in traffic, at that smoothie place you loved. 7:15 rolled around, no key in the lock. At 7:22, he called Brian in a panic.

"What's wrong? She's just late, Aaron, take a breath, mate."

"She's never late."

7:30 turned to 8... Then to 9... And finally, at 10, Tangerine realized you were serious - that was the last time together.

The hurt suddenly set in, realizing you're not coming back. Selfishly, he knew, he could fill a void no man - even one as objectively good as Ryan - could. He knew you must've felt lonely; craving adventure and spontaneity, something exciting that he knew you lacked with Ryan - or any man.

For days, he agonized - trying to get in your head.

Without him, were you lonely? His job makes him travel, but did Ryan ever take you anywhere? Did he surprise you? Open your doors? Send you flowers? Keep you waiting? Did Ryan communicate with you in the way Tangerine knew you preferred? Was he kind? ...Were you alone?

He knew for a fact, when together, no matter what, he never made you feel unloved, under appreciated, devalued, taken for granted, but perhaps that changed when he began his allergic reaction to the prospect of marriage.

Two years. Two years since breaking up. One year since you ended your Friends with Benefits situationship. One year, you've been with Ryan, and by God, did it drive Aaron insane. For months, Brian felt a responsibility for his part in pulling Tan away that night instead of leaving him to work things out with you, but his brother assured it was a long time coming... Though, Tan had to admit, he never thought it'd go this long.

Like a good neighbor, Jake from State Farm is there! But like a good brother, Brian is there to take Aaron out for a night of necessary debauchery. This was an otherwise mundane activity, something to blow off steam and remove oneself from reality - yet fate works in really funny ways.

The club Lemon chose was packed to the brim; stuffed with bumping, sweaty bodies; strung out to blaring music in various zombified states induced by drugs, alcohol, or maybe both. Luckily, their group had an elevated position in the club's VIP seating, keeping away from the dance floor; giving limited advantage in height when surveying the area.

That's how Tangerine saw you after a year.

Judging from the glittery sash and cheap tiara on your friend's head, he guessed you were there for a birthday party; feeling his stomach knot itself into a noose when he noted Ryan hovering around your flank. He wore khakis, loafers, a creased, pale yellow button-up he guessed was thrifted; holding his drink in one hand, the other shoved in his pocket, bobbing and nodding awkwardly to the thumping music.

When you moved, so he Ryan. When you threw back a shot, Ryan looked away with a long, heavy sigh and curled lip. When you tried to dance, Tangerine saw Ryan snatch your upper arm to reprimand directly in your ear; a couple of your friends even shooting him looks of distain.

A hand clapped heavily on his shoulder, Lemon appearing at Tan's side. "Only you would come t'a club, mate, crawlin' with babes, yeah?" He gestured to the scantily dressed women dancing provocatively around them with his hand holding a drink, "And stand here, like-like, you're Lurch or some shit!"

"'Lurch'?" Tangerine repeated, eyes never straying from where you were in an obvious disagreement with Ryan.

"Like - you know - from the Addam's Family? Tall fucker? Just stands 'round, leering?" Lemon listed intentionally, seeing his brother unmoving. "Jesus, fuck, mate, just go talk to her already! Swear, you stand here any longer, watchin' people, they'll toss us out 'cause of the complaints. Shape up, mate, time t'shit or get off the pot. Move it."

Tangerine finally adjusted his stance, sniffling, shaking his head, "Nah, mate, don't know what you're talkin' 'bout - "

"She's right fuckin' there," Lemon pointed, outing his brother completely, "and you've been a bitch for too long about this. When are you gonna get another chance like right now? Swallow your fuckin' pride, yeah? And just go talk to her! Go apologize! Get her back! 'Cause, just look at her, mate," Lemon paused, both watching you, "think she's happy with a bloke like that? Treats her like that? Only time I ever saw her look at you like that was the night youse two broke up..."

Lemon offered a pursed-lip-smile, patting Tangerine on the shoulder twice and backing up a couple paces. It was like he watched the final bit of confidence Tan needed inject itself into his heart; shoulders almost doubling in size as he shed his suit jacket too casually. Lemon materialized to accept it, laying it in their private booth as Tangerine lit up a cigarette, pocketed his solid gold cuff links, and began rolling up his sleeves while surging through the VIP section and into the general population.

Lemon followed swiftly, several others on their tail as the promise of excitement was too good to pass up.

"I'm telling you, you're being fucking embarrassing!" Ryan was heard snarling. "Let's go home before you make it worse! I have a reputation to protect, imagine what anyone would say if they saw my girlfriend acting like a fucking fool!"

"Oh, Jesus, I have two shots and you think I'm wasted? That I have to go home? You think you can treat me like I'm some child? I'm not going anywhere with you," you snapped back.

"I told you we'd be here an hour - it's past that - "

"Oh, for fuck's sake, it's a birthday party! We weren't ever going to stay just an hour!"

"You're embarrassing yourself, now let's fucking go!" Ryan grabbed you again to emphasize his point, but you didn't even get a chance to struggle because Tangerine was imposing himself between you; plucking his smoldering cigarette from his lips, French inhaling the smoke. Ryan snarled, forced back a step, "The fuck - "

"She said she's not going anywhere with you, so I suggest you walk away," Tangerine growled, smoke billowing from his lips.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Ryan scoffed, looking close to laughing.

"That's my girl you're fucking with, so, again, walk away," he lifted his cigarette for a puff.

"Tangie," you spoke gently, holding the back of his designer black shirt and gently tugging him backward, "Tangie, c'mon, baby, back up, let it go."

"'Your girl'?" Ryan actually laughed at Tan, not hearing you over the deafening music, but the two men were clear as day to one another. "Got it fucked up, playboy, if you're tryna tell me what's what about what's mine."

"Yeah?" Tan nodded, grinning slowly. "Think she's yours?"

"She ain't nobody else's - "

"That why she was coming to me this whole time?" Tan taunted. "'Cause you couldn't make her nut, couldn't fuck her right. What a fucking shame, then she had to come to me 'cause I don't disappoint her. She likes the way I fuck 'cause it's the only time I get rough with her, not like you - "

The gathered crowd gasped when Ryan swung first - everyone saw it. The punch never landed, Tangerine keeping you behind him as he adjusted to upper cut Ryan. It spurred an entire altercation; your girlfriends quickly scurrying out of the way as Ryan and "his boys" tried to take on Tangerine, Lemon, and their entourage. The smoldering cigarette was dropped. Security had to step in, blood making the linoleum floors slicker than spilt alcohol made it sticky, both parties being escorted out of different exits of the venue.

You were faced with a decision.

"Y/N! C'mon!" The birthday girl called, holding up her bloodied boyfriend. Ryan paused and glared at you, face fucked, nose broke, eye darkening, jaw swollen, blood smeared; waiting for your decision. You shook your head and let the drunken crowd swallow your form.

Unsure how, you were let into the VIP section to grab Tangerine and Lemon's belongings, quickly jogging in your glittering heels towards the back exit.

"Should've fuckin' killed him - did you fuckin' hear him!? You saw him, what he did!?" Tangerine was raging, pacing the alley as his group watched on; unsure what to say or do to calm him down. "He fucking grabbed her, too, should go find him - put his fucking face in the Goddamn pavement - "

"Hey."

Tangerine froze when your voice was heard, meekly standing there with suit jackets in arm.

"Baby girl!" Lemon barked, laughing happily and opening his arms. "Oh! There she is! C'mere!" He happily growled, hugging you tightly. The others picked up on the hint, excusing themselves to find the cars while Lemon greeted you and Tangerine almost shit a brick.

"Oh, uh," you breathed when Lem pulled away, "I grabbed your jacket, sweetie."

"Thanks, love, can always count on yah," he beamed, accepting the apparel. He glanced over his shoulder and nodded, "I, uh, I'll go help find the car. We'll be at the end of the alley, yeah?"

"Yeah," you agreed, nodding; squeezing his arm softly before letting him pass. Almost sheepishly, you approached Tangerine, lips rolled between your teeth, noting the split lip and disheveled curls. His hands were on his hips, pacing a small circle, head tilted and unable to meet your gaze. "You, uh, got a li'l something," you gestured at your mouth.

His head lifted, seeing the small teasing glint to your eyes; making him smirk and joke back, "Yeah, just a bit, huh?"

"And you left this," you held out his suit jacket.

When he took it back, Tangie nodded and rushed, "Come home, doll."

"Aaron - "

"Nah, nah, c'mon, come home, baby, please. I know I've been the worst, I know you didn't deserve it - but after losing you... Actually losing you... I mean, when you didn't show up, like you said - I felt everything at once and I knew that I'd never be the man who deserved you, but I owed it to us to try. So... I made the decision to love you better."

"That's nice to hear, but - "

"But without action, it don't mean shit, I know," he finished for you, stepping closer to caress your cheek. "If you let me, baby, I swear, I'll love you better."

You couldn't verbally answer, just sigh and lean forward to rest your forehead on his chest for just a moment of peace. "Thank you," you mumbled, "for earlier, when Ryan got aggressive."

His arms came around in a vice, keeping you close and enveloped in his warmth. Tangerine promised, "Never gotta thank me, baby. Never." A horn blared from the mouth of the alley, knowing it was Aaron's people and you needed to make a decision. Right here. Right now. Yet, your ex just sighed and pulled away, offering, "We can drop you home, if you like. Or I'll get'cha a hotel, can crash with Brian - "

"Can I stay with you?"

Tangerine gulped, appearing shocked but agreeing, "Of course, baby, yeah, yeah, 'course, c'mon, let's go, this way, watch your step, love."

He quickly dropped his arms only to pull his jacket over your shoulders; keeping you at his side as he lead you to the idling car. Unknown to you, Ryan was at his own car, watching, waiting; seeing you leave with Aaron made his blood boil - but when his eyes connected with Aaron's over the roof of his car, seeing him grin, Ryan swore he could've gone postal.

"Are you guys alright?" You checked, Tan keeping you so close, you were practically on his lap. Brian was driving and two other guys sat passenger, all giving varying assurances that they were okay.

"Them frat fucks couldn't hit for shit, love, swear," Brian chuckled from the front seat. "Don't nobody fuck with our girl, yeah?"

"'Our girl'?" You repeated in amusement.

"You's Tangie's girl, yeah?" The guy next to you, codename Fuji, softly explained, "Makes you's untouchable, it does, yeah?"

You just chuckled slightly, readjusting so your arm around Tan's neck tightened; his own around your hips doing the same, silently snuggling closer. The car ride was entertaining to say the least, the lads filling the space with meaningless but very loud conversation about everything and nothing. To your relief, Lemon pulled up to Tan's building first; you two piling out of the car to the sounds of three randy lads cheering.

"C'mere," Tan huffed, one arm wrapping around your waist as the other offered the tinted car The Bird. He lead you towards the building, nodding to the doorman in greeting, "Big man."

This doorman had manned your building since years before you ever moved in; grinning at the sight of you, "Well, well, well... You two look real smitten, you do. There some reason? Aye?"

"Oh, I don't wanna hear it!" You whined jokingly, Tangerine laughing in triumph.

"Got my girl back," Tan clapped his hand into the doorman's, "huh? Told you."

"Aye-heeeyyyy! Welcome home, Missus!"

"Tuh," you barked with a fake laugh, sending Tangerine a sharp look over your shoulder. "Thank you, Thomas," you squeezed the man's arm as you passed.

"Ma'am," he tipped his hat, letting Tan go after you, before securing the door shut.

"Hear that?" You shot at Tan, the lobby attendant sitting up in attention behind the welcome desk. "Even Tom - "

"Don't start before we even get in the door," he chuckled, sighing, nodding to the pimply teen nephew of the building's owner before approaching the elevator bay.

"Don't be a dick - "

"I'm not trying to be, love, I just - I want us to get inside before we do. Yeah?" He frowned, petting hair from your forehead as the elevator dinged upon arrival. "I want us to talk 'bout it, alluvit, doll, but let us get home first."

You sighed and agreed, the machinery traveling up to your flat's floor; which required a key to access. There were only four flats on this floor - all having two stories - and when the elevator dinged to announce your arrival, one of the doors flew open.

You gasped, hand slapping to your mouth to hold in the shrill laughter that rammed into your lips in a desperate attempt to escape. Your eyes widened. You stopped short in your place when Ms. Roberts sauntered into her doorway, leaning on the frame in brand new, expensive, racy lingerie. Her greying hair was curled in stiff ringlets, her make-up heavy and obvious, smelling like she had bathed in perfume by the way it choked you in the hallway.

"Oh, hello, there. About time you got home - OH!" She purred in a low, sexy rumble before jumping in fright when she caught sight of you under Tangie's protective arm. With a squeal, she ducked back into her home and slammed the door; leaving you and Tan froze in place.

"Oh... My... God."

"Get inside, let's go, c'mon, inside, inside, inside, I won't survive if she comes back," Aaron laughed, ushering you to the door.

"I don't think she would, either," you couldn't help but giggle; entering over the threshold after Tan unlocked the door.

The lighter energy surrounding you two evaporated as you took note that Tangerine hadn't changed anything in the year (and change) you've been separated, a haunting comfort to see now. There was the familiar ghost of who you once were, but all of that was forgotten when Tan's hand slid around your waist from behind.

"All right, love?" He asked in your ear, mouthing at the shell in the way that made your head fall to the side.

"Just a lot of memories here," you whispered, holding his arms to your waist.

Tangerine licked at your exposed neck. "We'll make more," he promised.

"I'm sorry I missed so many."

He paused, sighing; forcing you to shiver from the shock of air over your wet skin. Tan straightened up but kept you in his arms, assuring, "It's my fault. But, uh..." Your head turned to look, watching Tan pull his wallet out and sigh sheepishly, open it, then pluck a gorgeous diamond ring from the bill slot.

"What the hell is that...?"

"When I found it, I first kept it in the box, always on me. Just in case, you know, the moment was right - that you'd believe me when I ask you to marry me. But the box kinda," he shrugged, "fell apart from me openin' it, movin' it around."

"So you put a," you squinted, holding his wrist to look at the ring pinched in his fingers, "3 karat diamond ring in your wallet?"

"3 and a half..."

"Aaron," you sighed, turning to face him fully; unable to tear your gaze away from the ring. "I don't want this ring if - "

"No, no 'ifs'," he rushed, "I swear, it's what I want - it's what I've always wanted and just couldn't admit. After tonight, I don't think I can keep this ring - it needs on your finger and that bastard needs put in the ground - "

"Can you not ruin this proposal by threatening to murder my ex?" You laughed, watching his split lips spread into a grin.

"This a proposal?"

"If you word it right, could be."

"Lemme get on my knee - "

"No," you stopped him, nodding, whispering, "just ask me."

Aaron blinked once in confusion, then simply asked, "Will you marry me?"

You levitated into his arms; arms coiling around his neck; lips to his; sucking air from his lungs into yours, mumbling, "Yes, yes, yes," repeatedly. In surprise, Aaron stumbled back a few steps but caught himself, chuckling, fully hoisting you into his embrace.

"Right answer," he teased, carrying you through the apartment and to the nearest piece of furniture - the couch. Dropping down with you straddling his lap, he chuckled, "Here, put it on, yeah? Keep it safe." You grinned and accepted the ring, letting him slide it on, but unable to admire it in full as it became a free-for-all frenzy; tearing clothes from the other, lips suckling, teeth clashing, spit smearing. Breaking apart for a moment, Tangerine growled, "I don't know if I love or hate tonight, huh? Seein' you with him, sayin' you'll marry me, comin' home - "

"Ace, Tangie? Baby?" You smirked, holding his cheeks to keep his face in front of yours, "Tonight's good - it's a good night. Yeah?"

He nodded, "Yeah."

"It's a good night - say it."

"A good night - great night."

"Great fuckin' night," you agreed, "now, I need you to fuck me before I spontaneously combust - "

Aaron's mouth was on yours before the words were fully formed. You gasped, holding on tightly, encouraging his tongue to tangle with yours as the night's emotions overtook you both in a searing heat of passion. His hands planted on your hips and began guiding your movements in slow, languid strokes over his growing bulge you were seated on.

With a small growl, Tangerine pulled back only to flip you over; laying your back to the cushions so he could hover over you, his hips grinding between your spread legs. "Mine," he grit, licking into your mouth as he pushed his cock directly into your moistening center, "all mine. Hear me? All fucking mine - you won't ever be with another man. Yeah?"

You weakly whimpered, nodding; his teeth catching your bottom lip and pulling. Your breast was palmed by a hot and heavy hand; gasping when Tangie pinched your nipple through the fabric of your dress.

"Nah, nah, nah," Tan grumbled, "wanna hear you say it, baby. Need to hear it."

Boldly, you reached out to rub the heel of your palm into his leaking member, managing to speak against his lips, "I'm all yours, Aaron. Never anyone else's."

"Yeah?" He grit.

"Yeah," you nodded, giving a flex of your hand that made his shoulders stiffen, "and no other man will know me - nor will I know another man. It's you and me."

"About fuckin' time; ain't never lettin' you go again, baby," he breathed, taking both wrists in his to pin over your head. "Now... Let me make up for this past year."

Ms. Roberts wore noise canceling headphones the entire night and began researching new apartment buildings available for move-in ASAP.

Dawn broke, filling the room with a warm, bright light that accentuated the smoke wafting from Aaron's mouth. Neither of you got any sleep; exhausted in the best way possible, laid in bed, your head on his shoulder with arms bent to mindlessly twiddle together in the air.

"Remember that first retreat your company sent employees on?" Aaron asked softly, his other hand flicking his cigarette ash into a nearby ashtray.

"Hm... The one to Cancún?"

"Yeah."

"The one I missed 'cause we had a 48-hour romp?"

Tangerine laughed slightly, "That's the one."

"What about it?"

"Just... Laying here made me think of it. How fucked-out you were, how you missed your damn plane."

"You made me miss it!"

"That sounds accusatory."

You grinned when he lowered the cigarette to your lips, letting you puff it before pulling away. On exhale, you reminded, "You're the one who couldn't cut me a damn break."

"Since when do you want me to go easy on this pussy? Huh?"

With a snicker, you mused, "When you're whiskey-drunk and I'm drinking champagne?"

Tangie paused, then nodded, "Yeah, all right, that's fair. Whiskey dick ain't a joke, love."

You hummed and turned on your side into him, hiking your leg over his hips; snuggling into his warmth, new angle allowing you to gaze up at him. His arm laid around you in a secure hold, the other lazily smoking. You added, "Neither is being champagne drunk, makes me queazy."

"Probably not the best combination for fucking, huh?"

"I don't recommend it."

Aaron was quiet a moment, inhaling toxic smoke with a hiss through his teeth, "Bet they got champagne on them planes to Cancún."

"Bet they got champagne for other destinations, too," you teased. "Besides, why do you care? You're banned from popping bottles."

"Huh? Since when - why?"

"Since you sprayed me with a bottle that cost more than $3,000 USD!"

"If I can't spray my girl in luxury, what the fuck is this all for?" He smirked, looking down at you fondly.

"That bottle was meant to shmooze the German Ambassador!"

"Well, someone should've put a label on it!" You laughed his name, feeling his arm tighten. He tacked on, "Y'know, I gotta admit, just doesn't feel real yet."

"Hmm?"

"You... Back in my arms, in our bed - our home," he gave a great big deep sigh.

"It'll get real when people know we're back together."

"Is it wrong I want it to just be us for a bit? Private, intimate, just being together without everyone's outside influence or opinion?"

You smiled softly, "No, it's not wrong... I'd be lying if I said I didn't want the same."

"Then how about we catch a flight outta here?"

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon," he beamed, suddenly struck with renewed vigor; positively radiating with excitement. You pulled off his chest in time for him to sit up, insisting, "Let's do it all again, baby. Let's catch a flight, change the weather to celebrate us promising forever."

"Tangie, baby, what're you talking about? We can't just up and leave - "

"Why not?"

"We have jobs! Or at least, I have a job with a consistent schedule."

"Oh, c'mon, doll, don't think too hard - let's go, let's catch a flight somewhere warm and sunny."

"You're not gonna let this go, are you?"

Tangerine shrugged, "Not likely. Can think of it as some engagement celebration - but just between us. I mean, it's never gonna be 'just us' again, you know?"

With a sigh, you agreed, "All right... Let's go."

"All right?"

"Yeah, all right, fine."

"Yeah? All right? Fine?"

"Oh, fuck about - don't parrot me, Aaron!"

He chuckled with a grin so wide, you wondered how it didn't split his face in two. Your fiancé playfully dropped onto your front; jostling the bed, arms planted on either side of you to keep his weight balancd while dotting rapid kisses around your face.

When satisfied, he pulled back and all but bounced out of bed while encouraging, "Let's go, c'mon!"

"Baby, wait - "

"You grab the passports, I'll pack for us!"

You paused to watch him rush into the walk-in closet, laughing and muttering as you climbed out of bed, "I'm gonna be in questionable clothing this whole vacation, aren't I?" There was a fond smile on your face.

requesting rules and masterlist

Bullet Train masterlist

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alle-ni · 1 year ago

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My thoughts about goodomensverse (I'm clinically insane) (my personal opinion) (long post)

Book Crowley:

- absolute disaster

- lonely boy

- grumpiest

- he's so in love with Aziraphale but didn't even realised yet

- a bit dumb sometimes ngl

- very tired

- he's trying so hard save earth and everything he knows but everytime he tries to explain why it's always AZIRAPHALE

- sometimes he's like... your old gay uncle, the old gay uncle of the family except it's a 6000 years old gender fluid demon

- HISS LIKE A SNAKE GANG

- got called dear once and them died (figuratively)

Radio Crowley:

- flirty

- "Humm have you ever seen me in a dress~~??"

- he's like flirting with Aziraphale 24/7

- 0 patience this man is a BOMB

- if Aziraphale ever EVER got slightly flirty with him back he will EXPLODE

- smartest of them all, he's very intelligent

- HISS LIKE A SSSSSNAKE GANG

- he's so in love with Aziraphale and it makes him SO FRUSTRATED

- his Aziraphale is the hardest one to reach, maybe this is why he's so deliberately obvious and direct with him (he's resilient, he will never give up)

- he's like a tsudere teenager collegial except he's a 6000 years old demon with serious issues

- not called dear yet poor soul </3

TV Crowley:

- SILLY

- he's the dumbest of them all, sorry 😭

- red hair

- he's so in love with Aziraphale and everyone notice it's SO OBVIOUS

- he's the most affected by The Bookshop Burning ™ event

- the only one who got to kiss the angel, good for him ig, or sorry, idk

- anxiety bomb he literally (literally) EXPLODE

- strongest soldier bc his Aziraphale is IMPOSSIBLE

- got dumped 2 times more than the others someone pls help him

- the most brave tho

- doesn't hiss a lot :/ free him from this madness let him hiss

- he's like a puppy with giant yellow eyes except it's a 6000 years old snake demon that lies all the time

- protective as hell this man wouldn't let anyone near Aziraphale if possible

- got called dear but at what cost??????????????

Book Aziraphale:

- Anxious all the time, religious trauma except the god is your father and he left you and never talk to you again and the guard angels are your siblings and they want you do be dead

- He's so soft he wants so bad to comfort Crowley but he's really hard to reach

- his Crowley is the most difficult of all of them, he needs to circle him a lot to get in touch

- this man got called names so often I don't think he even cares anymore

- he's very nerdy

- he's the calmest of them all

- really chill

- everyone is so mean to him for no reason

- he has 1 braincell tbh and it's really bad bc his Crowley is not that brilliant too they're both stupid sometimes

- he really REALLY wants to be with Crowley and Crowley only, he sounds almost obligated to be with heaven

- he is really kind to others even when they don't deserve

- he called Crowley dear once and then implode

Radio Aziraphale:

- full of himself

- bastard

- the most closed and oblivious of them all

- he tries to play cool with Crowley all the time (he's slowly getting insane and someday he will jump on this man)

- he's the most self sufficient one he barely holds on Crowley to anything and they're pretty independent

- Crowley can say shit like "Miss me angel~~??" and he would keep a bored face and not react at all (he screamed with the walls 4 hours later)

- he's also a tsudere collegial but he at least try to look cool and composed in public

- he's the Aziraphale that most believes in heaven, he's sure they are good and selfless and the right side

- he's not so brilliant tbh but he got a lot of spirit

- the most active Aziraphale ?? He really put his hand in the dirt and do the things alone

- the most angry and bad tempered of them all, bro scream "WE ARE CLOSED LOOK AT THE DAMN SIGN" when ppl barely touch the bookshop door

- he has a lot of patience with Crowley, not deserved tbh bc he thinks it's his personal job to get in Aziraphale's nerves

- overall he is polite

- he's really proud of their "arrangement" there not only one chance he let go without saying that

- he likes to provoke Crowley sometimes too but not as much as the other way around

- if he ever call Crowley dear he will explode

TV Aziraphale:

- bitchiest

- this man need to be sedated what the fuck Aziraphale

- most nuts of then all he's CRAZY

- he's the most up to do shit with Crowley they're insane together

- he doesn't let Crowley rest he is flirting and being cute and hitting on Crowley all the time

- he's so obviously in love with Crowley its embarrassing

- he's the fruitiest he's the entire salad

- the most... indulgent, if I can say, of them all

- more like an employer of heaven, different of book Aziraphale

- he's the only one with almost white hair

- he got kissed but at what cost

- he's the most intelligent of all of them how can he be this dumb

- he loves little things about earth and humans and life and he seems to be the Aziraphale that most love EARTH itself, like, the life, the humans, the food, the little pleasures we have, the little time of happiness we have between all the shit that is happening... he really loves humans <3

- he's conflicted about heaven, he seems to know that there's something WRONG with how heaven works but still doesn't understand what exactly it is

- "oh but saving me makes him soooo happyyyy~~~"

- overall kind and sweet, in a excited way

#good omens #good omens 2 #aziracrow #crowley #Aziraphale #radio omens #good omens radio #good omens book #thats my opinion #more like some thoughts i have been collecting since im hearing radio omens #not really accurate #does this count as character study????#lol I think not #maybe i have a preference for radio Aziraphale i wrote so much more about him and ended up erasing it all bc it made me look insane #shit its 2 am I'm so sleepy

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bethanythebogwitch · 1 year ago

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If you asked me as a kid what my favorite animal was, there's a good chance I'd respond "chambered nautilus", though I probably would mispronounce it. I don't know if it's still my favorite but it's definitely up there in the pantheon of weird critters. For this Wet Beast Wednesday, I'll discuss my childhood favorite.

(image: a nautilus)

The nautilus is a cephalopod that lives in a curved shell and looks similar to (but is not closely related to) the extinct ammonites. There are 6 living species in two genera, but 90% of the time when someone is discussing nautiluses they are referring to the most well-known species: Nautilus pompilius or the chambered nautilus. Nautiloids are ancient, going back to at least the late triassic with their more primitive ancestors going back as far as the ordovician period, a time when only invertebrates and primitive plants occupied the land and true fish had not yet appeared. Because of their ancient history, nautiluses are sometimes considered living fossils. I have ranted before on how misleading the term "living fossil" is so I'll spare you that for now. Nautiloids are considered a sister group to the celoids, which contains all the squid, octopus, cuttlefish, and everything else we thinks of as cephalopods. Nautiluses should not be confused with paper nautiluses. Also called argonauts, paper nautiluses are a group of octopi that make an egg case which looks like a shell.

(image: a nautilus)

The most noticeable feature of a nautilus is its shell. The shell is smooth and finely curving, naturally growing in the shape of a logarithmic spiral (though not, as is commonly stated, a golden ratio spiral). The shell has a stripy outer layer and an inner layer coated with nacre. Internally, the shell is divided into camarae (chambers) separated from each other by walls called septa. Each septum has a small hole in it through which a strand of tissue called the siphuncle passes. Most of the nautilus's body is in the foremost and largest chamber. The shell grows new septa as the animal grows, with the nautilus's body moving to a new chamber as it becomes too large for previous ones. Juveniles are typically born with 4 septa, with adults having as many as 30. In addition to providing protection from predators, the shell is also key for regulating buoyancy. The septa can contain pressurized gas or water and the siphuncle regulates their contents by either adding or removing water to increase or decrease buoyancy. Because of its pressurized contents, the shell can only withstand pressure at depths up to 800 M (2,400 ft) before imploding. Oddly enough, nautiluses can be safely brought up from deep waters where most animals would be killed by the pressure changes. To move, the nautilus pulls water into the first chamber of the shell using its hyponome (siphon) and shoots it back out. The chambered nautilus is the largest species, with a maximum shell diameter of 25 cm (10 in), though most get no larger than 20 cm (8 in).

(image: a diagram of nautilus anatomy. source)

Where celoid cephalopods have tentacles, nautiluses instead have numerous cirri. Unlike tentacles, cirri are less muscular, are not elastic, and have no suckers. They are used to grab objects using their ridged surfaces and can hold in so hard that trying to take an object away from a nautilus can rip off its cirri, which will remain firmly attached. In addition, the nautilus has modified cirri that serve as olfactory receptors and a pair that serve to open and close the shell when the nautilus needs to retract into it or emerge. Nestled within the cirri is the beak, which is used to consume the nautilus's primary prey of invertebrates, though they have also been seen scavenging fish. Their eyes are less developed than most cephalopods, lacking a lens and consisting of a small pinhole that only allows the nautilus to see simple imagery. Their brains are differently structured than most cephalopods and studies have found them to have considerably shorter long-term memories.

(image: a chambered nautilus (upper left) next to a rare Allonautilus scrobiculatus. source)

Cephalopod reproduction is quite different than that of other cephalopods. While most cephalopods are short-lived and semelparous (reproducing only once), nautiluses can live over 20 years and reproduce multiple times (iteroparity). They do not reach sexual maturity until around 15 years old, with females laying eggs once per year. Eggs are attached to rocks and take 8 to 12 months to hatch. Males have a structure called the spadix composed of 4 fused cirri that they use to transfer sperm to females. Females lose their gonads after laying their eggs and will regenerate them for the next year's mating season. Interestingly, male nautiluses seem to vastly outnumber the females. EDIT: @bri-the-nautilus in the replies found an alternate explanation for the disparity in male and female numbers you should check out. TLDR; the females are asocial.

(image: nautiluses mating)

Nautiluses are found in the Indo-Pacific reagion of the ocean and can be found on the steep slopes of coral reefs. They prefer to inhabit waters several hundred meters down. It was once believed that they would rise to shallow waters at night to feed, lay eggs, and mate, but their vertical migration behavior has since been shown to be more complex than that. They have noon been fished by humans for their shells, which have become popular subjects in art and can be made into a number of decorative pieces. The nacre of the shell can be polished into osmeña pearl, which can be quite valuable. Demand for the shells combined with the late sexual maturity and low fecundity is threatening all the species. As of 2016, nautiluses have been added to the CITES Appendix II, making them protected by limiting international trade of their shells. Despite this, they are still threatened and require further protection

(image: a carved and painted nautilus shell from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan)

#wet beast wednesday #nautilus #chambered nautilus #cephalopod #marine biology #zoology #biology #ecology #animal facts

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sabrondabrainrot · 2 months ago

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Just finished "Dark Sun CONFRONTS SUN in VRchat" SO

it's late and I need to go to bed for the weekend plans but I HAVE TO WRITE THIS I think D!Sun isn't doing this for OUR SUN I think he's doing things for the CONCEPT of Sun. He just showed Sun all the worlds where Sun dies, mostly because of Moon.

I usually don't believe what villains say, but here's the thing. This is Sun to Sun. D!Sun is one of those villain's who won't share all the things he wants to do. He trickles out just enough to raise more questions but never give anything of importance away.

Neptor, in the last episode I just finished, did implode. He warned Neptor that is what would happen. He didn't lie to Neptor. He hasn't lied about Nexus. He still sees Nexus as a Moon but hasn't lied about any of his actions. Nexus has done all the things D!Sun warned Sun and Moon about.

So I'm taking what he says to Sun as the truth. I think he's telling Sun this information because it's the most opportune time. He told Sun all the things he CAN do. He fully believes Sun can kill his baby dragon WitherStorm.

He told Sun that he is capable.

D!Sun wants Sun to gain his own independence because I think D!Sun sees our Sun as his HOPE.

Dark Sun wants to SAVE all Suns. He wants to save the future ones from dying. Not just from Moon's (that's the main reason though) but also from other things.

We haven't heard of a Sun council, but I think what we're witnessing in the show is the lead up to one being finally formed.

It's canon in the show that Eclipse's tried to work together and ultimately fail.

I don't remember if Moon's were ever stated to try to make councils but it seems most go crazy beyond the point of return far too soon to form one.

Creator is the only person who made a working council and that's due to their own shared delusions. They, however, did not have strength in numbers due to their own shortcomings and egos. They thought they could be uncontested while they 'researched' WitherStorms.

Ruin, a singular amalgam, killed off the entire Creator council in one fell swoop.

ANYWAYS

I think that D!Sun wants to make a council with our Sun, because he's been watching their dimension for a long time. I think he was watching since before Moon even reset and created N!Moon.

I made a silly haha joke about the council of Suns a few weeks ago but now I'm actually seeing character motivation and proof on it.

D!Sun is a villain who's not really done villainous stuff...he's been a schemer and he can't be trusted...but he's not done anything horribly evil yet (besides Neptor, that was so sad, but compared to literally everyone else in the show he did the same thing that Old Moon did to that one Moon robot he built that went rogue in one day. Old Moon blowing that bot up was treated for laughs but what D!Sun did was treated serious, food for thought). He does cherry pick what information he gives but the strange thing is, he hasn't lied. Not once. Early on he flat out told Eclipse and Ruin what he was going to do to them when he put something in their heads. He just didn't tell them what it was. He also grabbed N!Moon and told him he'd scan his head and he did just that, then sent him home. We know he also took a chance to secretly move his dimension and save it during Ruin's revenge scheme. (It's unclear if Ruin's statement that 'Dark Sun killed another Dimension' is valid or not)

I think D!Sun picked N!Moon as the catalyst to making our Sun independent from all Moons.

Nexus is a Moon who started off completely differently from any other Moon. As far as Nexus was aware they were never merged, they never had to fight for dominance. He had the ever present shadow of Old Moon....but that's it.

He got to be a gentle sweet and loving brother to Sun and the rest of his growing family. He wasn't perfect, but with time he would have been a great family member. It was growing to be that way.

I think D!Sun was waiting and hoping Nexus would also go crazy. Like every other Moon he's ever watched. He called him 'a dead one'. We have no privy to how other reset Moons are. The chances are they all are doomed by their own narrative to kill their Sun or just go insane.

While he didn't cause Nexus' to go crazy...he was fully banking on it to happen.

After all, Sun is willing to forgive Old Moon for hurting him over and over because he can excuse it away. "Moon was trapped in my head so it is justifiable why he was mad and lashing out." "Moon had the kill code so it makes sense why he hurt me and flew into blind murderous rage." "I call Moon brother and that means something to me." Sun has always found SOME WAY to justify why he should forgive Old Moon. It's his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.

D!Sun I think wants to show our Sun that forgiveness can run out. There's also the added bonus N!Moon/Nexus promised to never hurt Sun or be like Old Moon.

He broke that promise.

This is also D!Sun's evidence that Moons are going to always be 'evil' or in the wrong.

D!Sun is also studying things that were thought to be impossible. He's taming WitherStorms and learning how to communicate with them. He's figured out how to make multidimensional star energy work. He's done the impossible over and over. He, like our Sun, has the uncanny ability to affect and change fate.

My entire theory is just this, I think D!Sun is trying to rewrite the universal fate of all Sun's and he's starting with ours. The one we know, because he hopes that he can break other Sun's free.

Free from Moons. Free from suffering. Free from death.

He states he just "wants to be left alone." but he's ALWAYS interfering. Even visiting Puppet's original world to go to the grave-site of the Sun and Moon that tore themselves apart.

D!Sun can't sit by because he knows too much. He knows too much on the suffering that occurs to every innocent Sun out there. He's still a Sun. He's just the Sun that loves other Suns.

It explains so much. It explains why he's bothering to do any of this. Explains why he went and killed Lord Eclipse/witness his downfall personally. It explains why he told Puppet to not hesitate with BloodMoon (the entity that's tortured Sun from day 1 with the July incident). It also explains why he's kind to Earth and Lunar, even joking with them while subtly hinting how to catch Goliath. Explains why he kissed Sun on the mo-

I mean....

Anyways that's my late night rambles typed this up 30 mins before bed hope it's coherent. I couldn't sleep unless I wrote this down. That was such a good episode.

I also want to go in to how D!Sun is super wrong and I think Nexus is going to subvert the expectation by snapping out of it but idk about that one. I have to wait and see. I would want nothing more then for D!Sun to be wrong about all Moons.

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recycledraccoon · 7 months ago

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Quick! I'm from the future!! I need your inkblade headcanons or scenarios or the universe will implode!

Ok ok, I can do this. I can answer this ask without going out of control. I can be normal about this, I can.

I don't have very many hardset headcanons, but more vibes that rise and fall like the tide. Oisin's fins/head-crest flare out ramrod straight and the spines turn as purple as his face if he's blushing hard enough. I will die on this hill. Oisin's non-verbal emotions are actually really easy to pick up on if he's too distracted to keep them tightly in control. A thick dragonborn tail lashing back and forth like an outlet for Emotions That Are Too Big can be really inconvenient in a highschool hallway. The rise and fall of his fins/head-crest are MUCH harder to hide however. Oisin also smells perpetually of petrichor, and it drives Adaine insane.

1. I think Oisin's crush started softly, and with indescribable longing, probably before he ever knew who she was. Freshman year, a Thursday Intro To Glyphs class. He doesn't know or talk to her at all, just a face in a class he has that he barely notices. So he's not falling for her quite yet.

I think he first fell in love in the way one does when you see a stranger sitting across from you on the public bus or train. The sunlight hit her hair and he couldn't take his eyes off suddenly. Maybe he saw her smiling and laughing with her friends, maybe she was rolling her eyes at them with her nose scrunched up just a little in faint judgement, maybe he can't even remember because while walking past in the hallway he had been so dumb-struck for a second he walked face first into an open locker door to Ivy's absolute confusion. (She does laugh at him mercilessly, even if he won't say why he walked into it.)

It's a moment of "I don't know you, you don't know me, but for one unfathomably long moment I wanted nothing more than to imagine a life lived that included basking near you and your smile every day until I die."

Unrealistic right? Just a passing stranger, this isn't a love story, it's an average Tuesday and Oisin has homework and an appointment with his party in the forest after school.

He gathers his bearings and moves on, and if his mind wanders back to the girl in the hall who had captivated him to lethal effect? Well it's a pleasant memory for him and he thinks that's allowed, right?

Except she's in his Glyph class two days later, he realizes, and suddenly that hallway moment of longing rushes back until his entire face is purple and he's trying not to stare at the occasionally stuttering but brilliant wizard girl two rows ahead in class.

1a. I think Oisin continued to take Glyph classes at first because he hoped she would too. Adaine doesn't, but Oisin continues because he is good at them and enjoys it and it's certainly easier to learn when he's not distracted in class 70% of the time.

2. As Oisin gets older, more and more of his dragonic nature becomes apparent. It's like a second puberty happening concurrently with normal puberty, which means it's a rollercoaster nightmare for him and the High Five Heroes/Rat Grinders.

2a. Dragons have hoards, but not all dragons hoard the same things, even within their own subclasses. Still, Oisin has quite a few gems and jewels in his fledgling hoard, despite not knowing what he most wants to hoard, and if his favorite gem just so happens to be one that reminds him of the shade of blue in a particular elven girl's eyes then-

2b. Oisin also has a deep fondness for rain and storms. He always knows if it's incoming even if it's not in the forecast. Something primal in him connects to the raging skies, for good or ill. It makes him feel confident and powerful. He also considers it very romantic. Unfortunately, Adaine gets so cross with him anytime she hears him predict a storm coming, even if he's talking to literally anyone else. (Adaine thinks Oisin is a storm himself, and if she is not careful she will be like the last Oracle and have forgotten to stock up on water breathing spells and drown in him amidst the storm of his being.)

2c. Dragons also hold great respect for power and prowess. Physical fights for hierarchy, play, or even courtship are very normal. For all that they are sentient brilliant beings, Dragons are still wild, untameable, primal things. This lurks underneath all of them, good or evil. Some are just more adept at hiding it. For courtship, this comes into play as sizing the other up. Both sides are looking to find out whether or not the other has any worth as a long term partner who would need to help guard the nest. Protecting eggs and hoards from greedy adventurers is serious business. There are reasons there aren't many truly ancient dragons. Too large a discrepancy in strength can sometimes be a turn off for the stronger one, so the most successful courtships are usually of similarly strong dragons, or at least, ones that put up enough of a fight despite the gap.

c1. Oisin, seeing the great accomplishments and prowess of Adaine Abernant over the course of Freshman year, feels a deep stirring even before he's rage-starred. He wants to fight her so badly, to sling magic and bloody teeth until the raging beast inside is sated. Naturally this scares him at first, and Oisin REFUSES to seek Adaine out to talk because of it, because the teen boy part of himself wants something kind, soft and tender between them, while the dragon making itself known as he ages wants to prove itself strong to her.

Later, he will tell himself this urge was ENTIRELY because he'd been on the path towards being contaminated-then-consumed with rage and wanted the Bad Kids dead. Absolutely not because it's the first step in traditional dragon courtship. He just wants to prove himself to her. He wants to feel for himself the confirmation of her renowned battle prowess. This is all for purely rival-related reasons, he tells himself. He is, perhaps, a bit of a liar.

3. Adaine's crush, not just her thinking he's cute but her actual legitimate crush on him, actually starts when the Rat Grinders are being redeemed post-Junior Year.

Like, she hates his GUTS. He made her feel belittled and stupid during Junior year, and yes they kicked his and his friends asses, but also now they just have to deal with them still being around. (Yes this is how they made friends with Ragh too, but they're petty.)

Except...so now they have to spend time together, maybe in classes maybe because Lucy loves her friends despite everything but is also now a friend of The Bad Kids. The former Rat Grinders are CLEARLY trying so hard to be better and kinder, but still the parties are mingling and there is tension but its also so fucking funny.

So Adaine and Oisin's interactions is just a montage of them being assholes to each other. Oisin can be polite and respectable, funny even, with everyone BUT Adaine apparently. Bickering about wizard things, taunting cutting words, and Adaine repeatedly trying to punch his smug face whenever he gets too close while gloating if he's right about something.

3a. Adaine literally tells Aelwyn that while she wants and needs kindness, she does acknowledge that it's messed up that she wishes someone was a little mean to her sometimes. This rivalry with Oisin is NOT WHAT SHE MEANT!!!!!! (the monkey paw curls)

3b. The worst part, is no matter how much Adaine hates Oisin, is that it doesn't stop him from being attractive. Oh sure, she thinks he's an absolute asshole when he's sitting across from her in the library, but......

He's still absurdly tall, with large arms that are for more than just show. The conjuration tattoos are both practical and very pleasing to the eye, the almost electric blue of them a pleasing contrast to the softer blue shade of his scales.

The contradiction of those large round spectacles resting on his snout makes him look just dorky enough to go from being just another buff guy to being....well. Unfortunately, the glasses also do nothing to shield Adaine from the weight of his gaze.

When he looks at her with his full attention, behind those glasses are eyes of molten gold, and trained solely on her that gaze feels searing hot wherever it lands.

3c. Or perhaps, the worst part is she despises how he laughs. Sometimes, when she says something as clever as it is cutting, Oisin throws his head back just a little to laugh, bright and warm, all while his throat rumbles. It must be something draconic in nature, like a strong purr or distant rain clouds. It's much harder to get him to make that particular sound when he laughs, and the rumble feels unfairly like victory. Like she cracked the careful fascade he puts up to pretend like he's not a dragon.

The rumble also feels particularly reminiscent of butterflies in her stomach. (She elects to ignore this part.)

4. Oisin is a dragon, and he is a little obsessed with Adaine even if he doesn't dare to dream of going on an actual date with her after everything from the previous year. He cannot imagine a world where she would ever again believe him to be genuine in affection or intention towards romantic feelings. No instance of genuine fluster could ever be seen as anything but a clever ruse, he tells himself, he certainly wouldn't believe it if it was him.

But he's got her attention now, and he is possessive of that, of what he CAN get. Even if she hates his guts and pointblank threatens to kill him if he steps out of line-

Even if it's because she hates him, Oisin still has her eyes on him. Eyes like clear skies before the rolling storm, like they can pierce through everything he is and will ever be and know the truth of it.

Every conversation is like a battle, a verbal sparring that he TELLS himself is nothing at all like the courtship fights, but oh how sweet does it sound to his inner dragon. She could be cussing him out and he could feel like his heart would burst from his chest from the affection he feels, even as he riles her up further, until she slips into saccharine elven curses that he can practically taste on his forked tongue.

4a. Once he tosses back a clever jape in draconic at her. When she immediately starts in on him with the gutteral words of his native tongue, perfectly fluent but lilted ever so slightly like a refined melody, his tail accidentally knocks over a chair and his crest flares so strongly that he KNOWS his face must be more purple than a ripe plum. He's lost a battle and her laughter at the way he flees claiming he forgot something haunts him for days. He tries to get revenge by whispering things under his breath at her in Elvish, and her glare is divine, but it's so risky because she might just start talking to him draconic again and Oisin fears he could live a thousand years and still not be able to handle the sound of it when it falls from her lips.

a1. It's a lost cause. Adaine has a weakness now, and she wields it with all the precision she's developed on a battlefield. It's the cutest surest way to put him in his place, rile him up with the same burning fire that he seems so expert in stirring up in her. Oh he might try to argue back in draconic, or even throw a taunt out in Elvish, but he always stalks off first. (He makes the refined, posh but ancient language of Elvish sound like something Tracker would appreciate. He makes it sound ever so slightly wild, like something else is lurking behind all the refinery. Adaine is well practiced in steadying her breathing, and Oisin always cracks first.)

5. Everyone has seen these two bicker back and forth, and everyone knows trying to get them to stop or get between them means the two turn as a united front against whoever interrupted, and that's honestly worse.

5a. The Bad Kids and High Five Heroes/Rat Grinders have an ongoing bet amongst themselves on on if the two will snap and legitimately murder each other, or snap and start making out in the library. It's honestly way too elaborate of a betting system with odds changing all the time, but it is actually probably the most fun, non-tense bonding the two groups have together. They have also gone to GREAT LENGTHS to keep it secret from the two wizards, especially when one of them is the fucking ORACLE.

6. It's not all bickering and scathing words. Sometimes, when nobody else is around to see behind this precarious curtain...its soft and tender too.

6a. Sometimes, when Adaine is genuinely having a bad day and feels one wrong moment from truly snapping, she feels the magic of a conjured summon passing by whatever table or nook she stowed herself away to hide in. The smell of arcane-tinted petrichor lingers afterwards, and settled nearby is a warm drink that hadn't been there before. Sometimes its tea's she's fond of, sometimes a warm peppermint mocha from her favorite coffee place downtown. Against her better judgement, she is increasingly fond of the smell of rain. 6b. Sometimes, the rage feels like it never left Oisin's body. It burns him inside and out, and he's so exhausted fighting back these aftershocks. He is trying every day to make up for what he's done, but the feeling of unbridled rage haunts him. To indulge is to fail, fall off the wagon, and he will not falter, even if he squeezes his hands so tightly they bleed beneath his claws. A message cantrip blooms to life in his mind. Melodic, lilted draconic, giving not words of comfort, but familiar unafraid taunts. It's a challenge, he knows it, and somehow that makes it easier, rage giving way to fondness and the desire to prove himself. 6c. There are more late nights in libraries and sitting close at tables in out of the way restaurants working on difficult projects then either would ever let anyone know, not that they let anyone know of them at all. It's quiet honest conversations over dusty tomes and scattered papers. (They couldn't know how to make the most cutting of remarks if they knew nothing about each other, after all.) a1. Its Oisin, laying his head down in his arms over the library table, eyes watching her sitting next to him with hair falling in her face like it always does when shes bent forward focusing intently on her work. There are many, many times when Oisin does nothing but watch in silence. Sometimes, rarely, when its late and nobody will come by except to kick them out- He reaches a claw to gingerly tuck the silken gold hair behind the bright red ear of a girl who doesn't say anything about it, before he looks away entirely, trying to ignore the way he can feel his crest fluttering up and down as it seemingly contemplates flaring out.

a2. It's Adaine, rolling her eyes with no heat, as she steps into his personal space and is enveloped in the smell of petrichor. Calloused fingers lingering on rough scales as she ever so gently corrects a stance or spell casting motion that the unfairly tall dragonborn boy next to her had been working on perfecting.

The both know she doesn't have to be so close for this, that another demonstration from beside him would work just fine. He doesn't have to bend ever so slightly, dip his long draconian neck down so he can better hear her murmured words either, so close they can feel the heat of the others breath. He casts the spell perfectly, and Adaine steps back out to a respectable distance, and neither of them say anything about it.

7. Neither of them ever mention any of it. It feels taboo, like the triggering of a spell that will destroy both of them. The fighting, the bickering, the cutting words and sharp swords aimed at jugulars? That's easy, that's familiar and safe. It's what's supposed to happen between them, safe territory they can walk with eyes closed. It's the tenderness that's hard. It's the yearning and soft touches aborted at the last moment-

This is what would be their ruin, and the threat of it lingers above them, rolling clouds heavy with rain that just wont fall. Days, weeks, months pass by and they do not mention it.

8. Adaine, flush with Oracle-sure certainty, gestures for Oisin to slow down, to bend down low so she can tell him something. He protests, its about to rain any second and really Abernant, they're going to be late- Adaine kisses Oisin first, soft and sure as her hands cradle his scaled jaw, just as the dark clouds above them break open.

The kiss tastes like rain, and the loud, pleased rumble in her ears certainly isn't from the storm coming down on them.

#IM ABSOLUTELY NORMAL aslfjuhbalefjbna #this got TOO LONG #I WASNT SUPPOSED TO WRITE FIC WHEN ANSWERING THIS #anyway blah blah blah the poetic nature of the elven oracle falling in love with a storm dragon #gosh i'm gonna have to restructure this for ao3 uuuuuug #if anyone is trying to clock where I'm self projecting from my own previous crushes #You Don't See Anything Shut Up #adaine x oisin #inkblade #adaine abernant #oisin hakinvar #fhjy #fhjy fanfic #oisaine

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ghostflowerhotpotch · 2 years ago

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Hey hey, MIles gets jealous a lot in this movie, buuuuuut what if we talk about Gwen? 👀

Oh ho ho, I know there has been memes and stuff about that, but sure, let's talk about it.

I know we all mentioned jealousy coming from Miles, but I think is kind of poetic, but also hilarious, how quickly we go from Miles's jealousy to Gwen's.

Specially if we go with the fact that once again, while Gwen doesn't really own any explanations to Miles here, nor has she done anything wrong by being friends with Hobie.

(Also look at Hobie, I want you to remember that. Also he is amazing so he deserves the extra attention.)

Yet what is her reaction?

"Oh, not that many."

I swear, I am trying not to laugh.

See what I mean? Gwen is not only aware that Miles is jealous, she is still is trying to downplay it; even when she is convinced they can't work, she doesn't want Miles to misunderstand her feelings; which she has tried to hide, but I think at this point she knows she isn't doing a good job at it.

(The entire clock scene was very close to a confession let's be honest.)

Also, about Hobie, remember how I was bringing attention to him in the first image? Yeah I am still not sure what to do with it.

Let me be honest with you guys, to get these images I do a lot of slow-motion, which also helps to let certain frames sink better and be sure that I am not just making up what I am seeing; since a lot of these moments are things that last seconds. Very blink-it and you miss it.

And while looking at this particular part, I realized Hobie's expression when he was still were...interesting.

Look part of the reason looking at frames matter in animation is because in real life; an actor could had looked at one direction because he saw a crew member do a funny face, but in animation, when you need to recreate the scene for scratch and will probably be staring at this scene a lot to ensure is up to standard, things tend to have a bit more meaning.

That being said, if you look the scene to normal speed, is extremely fast. Maybe too much for the animators to intend for us to notice something.

So what I am trying to say is that I wonder if Hobie is purposely setting Miles off, and if he is doing so, I honestly think is just to mess with them a little.

Moving on!

If I am honest, you could almost believe Gwen just wants to move on because Miguel is waiting for them and the guy is already aggro, that was my first impression at least, until I re watched and realized that they are just seeing a demonstration before going to Miguel, so they are 1) Really giving Miles a tour, and 2) Stalling. Which doesn't match going straight to the boss.

Also Gwen's voice; the first time I saw this I remember being surprised that Gwen was asking to start moving because before this point she didn't seem to be worried. Her tone definitely sounds a bit exasperated, specially considering again how little they actually seem to care to get to Miguel.

So yeah, Gwen DEFINITELY was asking to keep moving because Miles' was attention was too much in somebody.

Let's rewind a bit because let's face it, I don't blame Gwen for being jealous.

I wish my computer had a way to render a little video without imploding because oh this takes a hot second and yep Miles definitely was looking at Margo a little awestruck.

Let me preface this saying I will not tolerate any Hate to Margo or to Flowerbyte or the shippers. She is great, and I will not tolerate ship wars here.

That being said, Miles definitely is looking a little too much at Margo; I partially thing Miles was a bit shocked because it has been a while since his spider sense got receptive to other spider (which happened a lot in the first movie, not so much in this one for meeting so many spiders.)

But again, I don't think is crazy to say she caught his attention.

No, I don't think Miles is doing anything wrong here, just like Gwen didn't do anything wrong before. They aren't dating, Gwen tried to shut that down, and is not like Miles is trying to upset Gwen or anything. He was just caught off-guard.

Regardless, just like I cannot blame Miles for being jealous of Hobie, I can't blame Gwen for being jealous of Margo.

She hides it better than Miles for sure, but like everything else she does, it comes back to the details and her actions.

Remember, they aren't particularly in a hurry, and she suddenly sounds exasperated out of nowhere. Hmm.

Now, the next moment is very blink and you miss it, I barely had the chance to notice while going in slow motion, but between Gwen telling Miles to move on, and Miles looking at Margo's avatar, this is Gwen's face.

Is very fast, probably the type of thing you don't pick up in theatres, but damn, I am cackling.

I guess she really wasn't expecting Margo to get such reaction out of Miles.

This a good moment to say, that while looking at this, you can see Gwen doesn't have any ill-will towards Margo.

Unlike the previous moment, this expression of her stays for a good moment; I remember that upon first stumbling with the confirmation that Gwen is jealous of Margo, I was shocked to see that expression on her, almost like she herself remembered that Margo situation is far from perfect.

I am SO thankful with the creators for making sure that neither from Miles nor Gwen, we get the plot line of one of them being jerks out of jealousy. Yeah Miles briefly tried to be spiteful towards Hobie, but didn't take long too change his tune, not to mention that Hobie really didn't mind.

And Gwen at any moment is shown to be bitter towards Margo, regardless if Miles was doing puppy eyes at her or not.

I just realized now, that Gwen is actually the first one to say they should go.

I really believe part of this was because the go-home-machine was looking a bit perverse. Even Margo looks a bit unsure of what to do of this, so it makes me wonder if is normal for it to look this painful.

(Sidenote, considering Miles and Gwen looked okay when they got out from this machine, I think Rhino was in pain because he was glitching at that moment. That would explain Margo looking like this if it was "normal.")

It doesn't escape me that Miles' reaction is the most shock one, no idea if Gwen could had picked on that being behind Miles, but maybe she realized Miles didn't particularly enjoy seeing that.

However, what happens next?

And here, I can only show it properly with this gif.

I want also to reiterate, that "Let's go!" Was from Hobie, I think he was trying to warn Miles.

Because Gwen didn't repeat herself, she deadass just sent a web and YANK HIM.

Again, wanting to go see Miguel my ass, you guys didn't seem particularly interested on that before. Not to mention that hey, you can see she isn't asking anymore and considering how she was looking at Miles from behind I don't think is because she doesn't want to be late.

Is a bit too small to take a proper capture, and hard to see, but yep, she looks mad.

I love how Margo laughs after this, like sure, Miles is endearing, but I also bet my left kidney she also clocked Gwen's crush extremely quickly because of this.

I almost expect Margo and Pavitr discuss who is crushing harder in the sequel.

Sorry for making this so freaking long and with so many sideways, but I think I needed to point out a few things, hope didn't bored anyone!

Keep suggesting moments!

#ghostflower #gwiles #gwen stacy #miles morales #atsv #across the spiderverse #across the spiderverse spoilers #spiderman #margo kess #hobie brown #spiderwoman #ghostflower files #ask

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unfortunately-obsessed · 1 year ago

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Bruce Wayne | Quality Time

Love languages headcanons

Pairing: Bruce Wayne x reader

Word count: 0.6k | AO3 link 🩵

This man runs a whole conglomerate, dozen different charity foundations, has to play into whatever current political ploy is to earn information, (might have, like, 20 children), is a founding member of the JL, on top of being The Batman and trying to prevent Gotham from imploding – trying to make this unfixable city heal.

He nearly doesn't have enough time for himself – heavens know how many times Alfred shoot him with a horse tranquilizer – and time to you??

All his responsibilities are half the reason why quality time is his love language.

The other half is that he didn't have enough time with his parents. They were snatched from him, a child, and this time (his childhood) is something he'll never be able to have back

Not gonna lie, he's harsh. He won't prioritize you. Not on purpose, not because he doesn't love you, simply because there's people out there that need to be saved. And, after so much time without a proper relationship, maybe Bruce also doesn't know how to cater for you – and because he's way too awkward, too dense to a detective, even if he can play cool at times.

But the tiny things are like love letters:

Strikes to me as the guy that'll be in utterly destroyed, broken ribs and concussion, and still try and get up and have breakfast with you, just to be with you

His personal quiet time is important to him. It helps him organize his thoughts. Yet he'll try to be, at least, in the same room as you.

Bruce will sit on the same room as you, in complete silence, and stay. Maybe you're working and he is there on the couch of your office, sitting with a concussion and sixty percent painkiller, statue-quiet.

I love you, so I'll take the burden of not doing this super important other thing – like resting – to sit with you in silence.

Will stare at you, motionless.

Eventually, you'll learn that this face he's making is lovestruck-ness. Don't comment on it.

And if his love language is all about undivided attention, it means he'll learn how to organize his time to have together time without all the distractions. A walk around the Manor Garden, a quiet dinner in front of the tv, cuddling; might do the trick.

Stays awake to talk with you, even if it's after a case frenzy where he didn't sleep for a week. Crash with him in the couch after a long day.

If I could stay with you here forever, I would. He can't get this words out, a lump on his throat, so he just stay as long as he can

Can't tell me he won't marathon Grey Ghost with you. At the end of every episode will dump on you all the details about the production. It's important that you listen even if you don't find it all interesting. Connection bids, y'know?

Ask him about forensics if you want to know more about the whole Batman deal. Or explain the new additions to the batmobile.

Getting to explain something he loves to someone he loves counts as top-quality time in Bruce's books.

Sometimes will find you just to start explaining a current case he can't crack. Either to see if you have any intelligent idea, but mostly because saying it aloud helps thinking.

And he doesn't know how to have the steady heartfelt conversations, so he'll listen to you talk. About your day, your plans, how much you worry about him, about what you ate today.

A great listener. Will hit you with follow up questions so you can keep talking about what you love. Never talks about him but at this point you know the drill – you have to ask for him to talk.

Regular week preplanned dates. Will do all in his powers to not postpone it. Will be completely heartbroken when this inevitably happens. Will look like a kicked puppy.

He's not distracted with you, all his mental attention on you and you only.

That's it 👍

A/N: If you like what I do, please consider supporting me and buying a coffee!

#bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne headcanons #bruce wayne scenarios #bruce wayne fic #bruce wayne imagine #batman scenarios #batman imagine #Batman x reader #bruce wayne #batman #arwrites #lost consciousness and woke up with this #me!batman

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yeyinde · 2 years ago

Text

infinity in the palm of your hand (eternity in an hour) | reincarnation AU

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish (OG) x Reader | Johnny "Soap" MacTavish (Remake) x Reader

You're grieving for something, someone—a man with kind eyes and a soft smile like the valley in spring: fresh rain over the boscage in bloom—that you've never met before.

And then you find him.

MATURE | 18+ —TAGS: AU, canon divergence: reincarnation; fluff; tagging as fem!Reader due to usage of "bonnie" (not a name—Reader is not named), and mentions of a dress but no other descriptive imagery is used —WARNINGS: grief, loss, unhealthy coping mechanisms, existential crisis, allusions to smut; cosmic horror (but??? it's a romance????) —WORD COUNT: 11,9K —NOTES: I like the idea of fated pairs, soul mates, but I can't write this concept without somehow diving into the cosmic horror of something, someone, controlling you from behind the scenes. So. Um. Idk what to call this abomination. It leaks horror but is meant to be quite fluffy. It's romance. It's a love story. But it's also kinda eldritch. Oops. This was also originally a request I got back in November (I'm so sorry!). I have since lost the request, but Reincarnation Anon, this is for you!!! 🖤

In Greek, there are two words for time:

Kronos—chronological, the clock: fixed—measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. The world runs on Kronos. On its merciless rigidity, it's apathetic, unending trek forward. It is cruel, sometimes, but it cares little for you, or anyone else who exists inside its unforgiving realm. Time is linear. A steady March.

And then there is Kairos. In its essence, and in utter simplicity: timelessness.

It's often found in grief when the world around you shatters and implodes. When it lapses into pain and agony. Into how and why and—

Nothing makes sense. Nothing matters.

You've never experienced any such loss. Gran, grandad, friends, family—all alive and well. And yet—

You're grieving for something, someone—a man with kind eyes and a soft smile like the valley in spring: fresh rain over the boscage in bloom—that you've never met before.

And then you find him.

Or, rather, he finds you.

(Over and over and over again—)

It starts in university.

Start, of course, is an operative word. It's an incipient event: a slow burn in the back of your head that gets hotter and hotter, but you can't quite discern why. You just feel wrong. Shaken. The foundation in which you walk wobbles. Crumbles.

There is an unseen precipice under your feet covered by cobblestone. You know it's there—are aware of the yawning chasm that wants to swallow you whole, but you don't know where it is.

And then—

There is no phone call, no blunt condolences for any particular loss, just—

A knock on your door. It's just your flatmate, but the rhythm cuts through your head, right down the middle.

Agony. The world around you flips, topples off its axis, and just keeps spinning, spinning, spinning—

It hits you with the force of a tsunami. A deluge of biblical proportions that uprooted everything you'd ever know, casting you out into a frothing abyss, ravaged by mountain-tall waves that left you asunder. Awash in a tumultuous sea.

It would make sense, you suppose, had you lost someone, but you haven't.

The most you've lost was a pet.

And yet—

You sob, scream, and claw at your chest until your skin is torn and shredded, trying futilely to get to where it hurts the most. It's agonising. Brutal. They sedate you—no choice is given when you're so frantic, so desperate. The world slips away. The pain abated.

But it doesn't stop it.

They call it grief, and you don't know why. You haven't lost anyone. Mum, dad, gran, grandad. All alive and well. All there, standing clustered around your hospital bed (admitted when you wouldn't stop screaming) looking quite bewildered by you. By the things you say—missing something, someone, gone, just gone—and the way you're acting.

And it scares you just as much as it does them, but you can't just push it aside, let it go. There is a gaping hole in your chest, one punched straight through your sternum. It's gangrenous, and rotting; the stench makes you dizzy, makes your head spin. Your heart is necrotising between your ribs and spine, but no one knows why. No one understands the agony you feel because everyone is alive.

They all say the same: we don't know. Depression, perhaps. You just need time.

Time does nothing to heal the wound. You can't run from the hurt—it's never-ending—but you get better at hiding it, at dealing with pulpy remains of your still-beating heart that slugs on despite the mouldering wound ripped open in the centre.

They tell you it's Thursday, now.

Before you'd throw something, thrash, and scream yourself hoarse because what does it matter when your heart is dying, decaying inside of your chest.

Now, you just nod. Thursday, is it?

Time doesn't exist to you anymore. It's just an endless stream of days and nights that get easier to withstand as the foreign clock on the wall ticks down the seconds you don't feel.

The world is a murky haze of confusion and pain. You move on only because you have to.

Things—

Well. They don't get better, but they get bearable, and you suppose that's the same thing, isn't it?

And then you dream.

They come in flashes. Snippets. Little moments of a place and time that doesn't exist, that isn't real. This life was not one you lived. The taste of elderberry has never graced your lips, but you think of the sweet, tartness like it's an old comfort.

It makes you ache.

Simplicity bleeds into familiarity into love into—

—you should… you should sit for this—

Crushing heartache. It carries the flavour of gunpowder, and is soaked in charcoal; the soot stains the tips of your fingers when you reach out, curling them in the rough lapels of a gunmetal grey jacket still carrying the scent of ichor, and loss.

—i… i can't promise you forever, but i can promise you now—

You dream of a man. Of hands on your body. Eyes gazing at you—an alluvial fan in hazel, green, and gold; the shadows cast in the shallow valleys make you yearn for something.

Something, something—

You wake up, hand to your splitting chest as the agony rips it into pieces. Heartache, grief. It drapes itself over you like a storm cloud. Looming there, ever-present, and ready to chisel open a deluge of pain so visceral you weep. And weep. And—

Your pillow is wet. Nose stuffed, eyes gritty. You've been crying, sobbing, in your sleep again.

It's a cycle. Memories flood your head until it's splitting apart at the seams, making room for that life it wants to force you to remember, acknowledge, and pretend exists, and one you're in now.

It breaks something inside of you. Cracks the levee. In the midst of crumbling concrete, and a roaring deluge, you hear a voice.

(You stare at the bottles lining the shelves in your vanity, and tell no one.)

—excuse me? You dropped this—

HERE

There is a tavern on High Street.

It's nothing special on its own. Just a building, just a pub. You pass it twice a day on your commute to work, and it should be background noise. A blur of scenery and objects as you stroll through the streets. A melding of the world around you, an inconsequential smear of cobblestone and brick.

And yet—

Your eyes keep finding it, seeking it out. It's involuntary. Automatic. You pass the grocer and the pharmacy, head angled down toward the grey stone below, and then, like an unignorable force, a gravitational pull, your head lifts. The fairy lights are strewn around the outside coruscate in the gloom. You nearly trip.

It's strange. Odd.

It's just a building. Just a tavern.

—got some of the best brews in town—

But you remember it. Are familiar with it in a way that makes absolutely no sense. You've never gone inside, never heard anyone speak about it. It's a building on a street of many. Ordinary. Plain. Nothing about this place should stand out to you. It isn't eye-catching or garish. It's—

—cosy little spot—

It's an anomaly. Much like—

Well. Much like everything in your life.

There is a gnawing in the pit of your stomach, one that's so achingly familiar that your head swims from deja vu that shouldn't exist. It fits inside like an augur. A portant.

How can the unknown be a comfort to you? How can it blister your heart with such ferocity that you find yourself pawing at your face to stem the deluge of tears that cascade down your cheeks in rivets?

Whatever it is, it's calamitous and entirely unignorable.

Your life is asunder, in shambles because of it yet each hiss in your ear addles your thoughts until you become overwhelmed by it all. Until the echoes that tell you to wander down a random side street, sign a lease for an apartment you can't afford, to leave the safety of your home country, and—

On a whim, you packed your things up on the behest of that strange, Eldridge feeling eating you alive that made you cut ties with your old, peaceful life, and book the first plane ticket to Elgin. No plan, no money.

(You'd call it an afflatus had it not been so drenched in the unknown.)

It's paradoxical: you cry when you see that stupid church in the distance, your feet drag you to places you've never been before, and now.

Now:

You can't stop staring at a nondescript pub in a sea of many.

Ignore it. Leave it. You take another route, head down, hands shoved deep in the pockets of your jacket to keep them from trembling. It'll pass. It'll go away.

It doesn't.

It pools in the pit of your stomach, noxious and rotten, until you wake up drenched in sweat, hands grasping for a phantom who no longer exists—

—wanna come with me?—

You break on Saturday.

—i like when you wear that dress—

You wear it, and hate yourself a little bit for it. It's stupid, and out of place, but you do it, anyway.

—booth in the back is where i always sit, want to come join me—

The inside of the tavern is just the same as you remembered it—

No. No.

You've never been here before.

You smell malt in the air; the same amber that spumes in your veins. You dance in circles between the tables, giggling at the people who smear by in a haze of gold and red.

A hand reaches, snags your waist. "Where are you going, pretty thing? Wanna come sit with us?"

It makes you laugh, and laugh, and—

"There a problem?" Heat against your bare back. Ironclad arms around your middle. His voice is a rumble. A thunderclap. "She's with me. Go on now. Get."

You pull away from him, smirking, and—

The air is punched from your lungs. Longing sits in your throat, heavy and thick. It aches. God, it aches. A phantom pain that never quite dissipates. A raw wound left to fester; exposed and open to the elements. It never heals. Never scabs. It oozes grief and headache into your bloodstream and makes you feel lost. Dazed. Confused.

It's silly.

Stupid.

The warm blends of burnt umber and gold make you tremble. Everything inside is—familiar, in all the ways it shouldn't be.

You can't be here. Can't—

Something quivers inside of you. The sting of a guitar being plunked by indelicate hands. It snaps, breaks. You turn, eyes wild, wide—

—hey, where are you—

"...goin'—?"

A chest. Warm. Familiar.

Your neck aches when you jerk your chin up, hands beaded against the hard, firm flesh of a stranger who feels all too familiar, too—

Hazel. A boscage in spring. Warm milk—

"Honey…"

It's out before you can stop it.

Green and golden widen until they're drowning in a sea of arsenic white. An island of bloom, spring, carved in the middle of a barren, icy land. Lids fall, lashes dust across the shadows of the valley smeared beneath the red seal of his lower lash line.

Your breath catches when they slide open, a slow crawl over a varicoloured plume of witch elm and wheat.

—dark eyes, a furrowed brow, long nose, a dusting of charcoal stubble along his cheeks and jaw, and full pink lips—

No. No.

It's different. This isn't the man who haunts your dreams and whispers sweet nothings into your ear. This is not the cut of a man who once curled his fingers over your hips, lips glued to your pulse as he spent himself inside of you—

Heat sears your cheeks.

His mouth opens, and closes. Opens again. No words spill out. His confusion is an oppressive silence.

You swallow down the bitter tang of panic that pools on your tongue, nails digging into the soft fabric of his shirt.

This isn't that man.

He just—

"Sorry," you think you say, but it's all a blur. There was a blue ravine in his eyes, one with shallow shores, and crystalline waves that rippled with the breeze. You're sinking in those waters, now. Dragged down to the murky depths of blue, blue, blue that once made you see samsara with just the brush of his lips. Everything sounds distorted. Hollow.

—you make me crazy. make me want things i shouldn't. Riley thinks i'm whipped. kinda agree with him, but i can't let you go. i can't get you outta my head, and i don't want to—

"Sorry—," you choke, the words a crumpled piece of paper lodged in your throat. Papier-mache seals over your trachea.

You push away from him, stumbling out of this paroxysm. Flames lick at your heels, carrying you further from the laps of blue that flicker over beige.

He chases after you. A warm hand around your wrist stops you on the corner outside of a pharmacy. The streets are dusted in white. It trickles from the sky in a thick hail of cosmic dust.

His breath plumes in front of him when he breathes, pure white tendrils ghosting into the midnight blue silk that covers the town.

"Hey, you alright? Can I—call someone for you, or—"

"No." You gasp, shaking your head so fast, you're nearly sick with it.

"Hey, hey." His hand moves, perches itself against your cheek, eyes brimming in the flushed lamp overhead. His brow is drenched with concern. With confusion. And anger. Anger—why, why—

"Did someone drug you? Did you drink anythin'?"

It rips a bark of laughter from your chest. "Drugs? No. I'm just—"

Spiralling.

You make a vague motion with your wrist, and hope it's enough to convey the absolute travesty of your life. It meets the mark.

The divot in his forehead softens, eyes creasing in the corners. Full pink lips knot to the side. Something passes his expression that looks a little too much like understanding to ever sit well in the pit of your stomach.

You swallow down the acrid residuum of panic, and nod. Why—who knows. It just feels appropriate.

"I need to go—"

"—I like your dress."

The words tumble over each other, barely coherent amid the amalgamated syllables, but ring with distinct clarity in your head. Your dress. Your brows knot, eyes dropping to the stupid little thing you'd picked out in a shop you had no business being inside. Led by the nose. A puppet on strings.

You scoff. "I hate it."

You don't. You'd have picked it out yourself if you had that funny little thing called freewill; that precious little something you'd left behind in a dorm on a university campus you haven't thought of in years.

"It's, ahh—," he rubs the back of his neck, eyes skirting toward the bar you fled from. "It's pretty."

Pretty.

"Oh…," you say, quite intelligently. "You can have it if you want."

It's only when his brows buoy to his hairline do you realise the innuendo within that.

The fire inside dies. Doused with the waters of Acheron.

"Sorry—"

"—'dunno if it'd look as good on me as it does you, bonnie."

Bonnie. Your veins crackle with ice. Bonnie.

"What—what did you call me—?"

He blinks. "Oh, it's not—," his hand slides away from his neck, scrubbing over the stubble on his jaw. He looks bashful, almost. The man in your dreams is—

Reserved. Cool waters. A rock.

"It's just a nickname, it's not—it's not anythin' weird, I promise."

A nickname. You should have known that, you suppose; but like many things, it slips, silken and liquid, through the cracks wrought by paradox.

"Right." Your nails dig into your palms, cutting the flesh until your fingers puddle with something warm, wet. Tacky. The breath you suck in between clenched teeth is a sharp hiss. "I should go."

"Ah, yeah," his brows tighten again, jaw ticking. He looks uncomfortable, unsure. Concerned. His arms come up, folding over his broad chest. And that—

That is familiar.

You swallow down mildew and honeysuckle. Heart lurching in your chest, a painful crescendo that echoes to the whispered beat of soft words in your head.

—you should stay, bonnie. stay with me—

"Can I at least make sure you get home safe?"

You can't. You can't—

There is a tavern on High Street that you've been to before in a dream, where you are taken to by a man with a distance in the crook of his smile; a degree of separation that makes you yearn. It pulled you in, gravity and magnetism and that primal something that they often talk about in wordy biology papers you can't understand.

Maybe it's the chemical slurry in your head—dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin—all mixing together, and polluting your rationale, but it made a shade of roseate fall over your eyes; veiled like a Magellanic cloud. Through the startling nebulae and cosmic radiation, he loomed. Your fingers reached out, latching on to him, and you pulled him into your orbit.

The reservations slipped, dulled by the way you fit against him. A missing piece. A complimentary artefact. His edges softened until he looked at you with nothing but warmth, affection.

And then—

Then:

Three knocks in halted succession. Military precision. Boom, boom, boom.

A man stood before you, achingly familiar in his mutton chops and hat. The gleam of his metals—chest candy—caught in the setting sun. Ochre, gold. You think of him, and you smile. Was smiling when you peeled back the curtain to greet him.

It wavers. Your heart aches for that person standing in the doorway; you from a dream.

It drags in slow motion. He takes his hat off, and cups it on his chest.

—look, i don't… i don't know how to tell you this—

Then—

"—don't." The word startles you as much as they do him. You baulk. "Just… no thank you."

Something rings in the cognitive dissonance that shrouds you.

It's your turn to walk away.

And so, you do.

(He doesn't follow. You don't know why you expected him to.)

—be patient with me, Bonnie. my job is my life. my everything, but you–you're my—

It doesn't rain—a rarity in Elgin—but the scent of wet soil, petrichor, clings to the air.

It isn't raining, but it feels like it should.

You don't expect to see him again.

And why would you? There are so many people in Elgin, so many men. The chances of finding him again—shaggy mohawk; kind, amber eyes—were nearly impossible. Infinitesimal, really.

So, you push him to the far reaches of your mind, and try not to dwell on the stranger that smells so strongly of coumarin that your head still feels dizzy from the scent of golden wheat fields in the spring and sycamore when you breathe in some mornings.

Out of sight, out of mind.

A familiar stranger in a foreign land.

But you should have known better than to expect anything in this strange purgatory you’ve slipped inside where dreams are sometimes a reality, and you can’t stop comparing a hazy figure in your mind, someone you might have loved in a distant life you have no memory of, to a stranger who slots himself into your path like he was meant to be there all along.

It starts three days later.

You tuck a book under your arm, and walk the unfamiliar path to a small cafe you’ve never dreamed of, have no lingering sense of recognition in the small building.

Safe, you think.

And then—

Blooming honeysuckle. The heady scent of coumarin. Salt, amber.

He crashes into your life again, and again, always with the same expression of happy surprise when recognition bleeds into wheat-tinged eyes.

He offers a wide smile, a little wave, and seems unbothered by a dizzying sense of unease that sweeps through each uncanny meeting, each strange divergence of paths always, always, leading to each other.

In the produce section of the grocery store halfway across town, he holds an unripened apricot and grins at you over the yellow sign above (30% off!). The colourful anchor in Cooper Park, where he stands with his hands in his pockets, eyes listing toward the swans in the background, drifting idly over the dark water. At the counter in a Turkish restaurant, laughing at something the waiter says as he takes his bag of takeout.

You turn down a random sidestreet, trying to navigate the tight, claustrophobic streets of Elgin, and he's there, suddenly, at the end. Legs thrown over the seat of a sleek motorcycle, fingers toying with the clasp of his helmet. Wander into a shop, and he's already sat at the table. Reach for a carton of eggs in Tesco's and his hand bumps against yours as he tries to grasp the same.

You hear his voice crackling through the concrete. A whisper in the back of your head. The grit, the cadence, is so different from the man you dreamed about, the hazy spectre who haunts you, that you know, instantly, that it's him. The man whose only resemblance to the ghost latching onto you is his eyes, the hairstyle. The scent. The familiarity blooms in his proximity. Two strangers sharing the same essence of a soul.

He drives past you on his motorcycle, wanders down the same alleyway, boards the same train, and gets off at the same station.

A living phantom.

It's always the same, too. His eyes always shift, somehow catching yours. Easily, effortlessly, finding you even in the midst of a crowded shop, a bustling park, or a loud eatery.

Each time, you run. And keep running.

And then once, you catch him.

He leans with his forearm resting on the railing of a mezzanine at dusk. His wrist resting on the iron, fingers gripping the nozzle of a lagger that dangles over the edge.

Behind him, music spills out from inside the flat. French doors spread wide open, leaking the whisper of a party into the warm air.

No one joins him. He doesn't look back.

His chin is pointed up toward the varicoloured sky streaked with lavender and pink and blood orange. Eyes glowing brightly in the darkness. A field of wheat against the midnight blue gloom of an approaching storm.

It's mesmerising.

Despite the urge to run, you stop. Can't help yourself, really. Not when your heart cracks at the expression on his face, eyes drawn tight, brows pinched. Full of—

Longing.

Like a magnet, then, his gaze drops to the ground where you stand, clutching your book so hard, your joints ache.

His hand lifts, fingers still curled in a loose fist, and he gives you a lazy wave from above, lips pulling back into that same wide, infectious, grin. Happy—for some inexplicable reason—to see you, his own little poltergeist.

You hesitate for a moment, burning the image of him in your retinas where he'll stay, a permanent scar, in the black puddles for you to see again when you close your eyes, or look into a mirror. Another ghost.

And then you turn. Run.

(He doesn't try to stop you. He never does.)

It is almost clockwork.

The same soft hazel eyes creased lightly in the corners. Broad shoulders are hunched as he gazes down at his phone resting on the countertop. His brows are furrowed today. Irritation bleeds in the crevasse.

Your fingers itch. You want to smooth it out.

(It doesn't surprise you that you can feel the phantom warmth of his finger under your flesh.)

It's strange. All of this is. Paradoxical, really.

You know him. You don't. You've never met him before. You know he'd taste of honeysuckle.

There is a war in your mind. A long, drawn-out battle.

(No victor in the carnage.)

You should walk away, leave, like all the times before when you'd spotted him, and ran, but:

Frozen. Paralysed.

You can't move. Can't—

—maybe, you're just tired of running—

—maybe, i'm just waiting for you to catch up—

His head lifts, and he catches sight of you before you can run. Hazel flashes in recognition. Spotted, you think; but it doesn't matter, it doesn't.

He isn't waiting for you—

His chin lifts, a smile crooking on the corner of his mouth.

—you'll be waiting a long time, Bonnie—

You want to run, but you can't. Can't. All you can do is watch as he slides out of the booth, hands shoved into his pockets, and makes his way to you. Tucked into the corner near the counter, away from everyone, everything, but he still spotted you. Still noticed. Still—

"Hi," he greets, low and cautious, like he's trying his best not to startle you. His eyes crinkle. "Didn't expect t'see you again."

You shouldn't be here. "Yeah," you say, instead, huffing. "I, uh… life is pretty funny that way, isn't it?"

His brow furrows together at your words, eyes darkening with something you can't place. An unknowable emotion, hidden from your prying eyes. You think of him, then, and see the similarities you tried so desperately to ignore each time you saw him. Each time you ran.

"Aye, it does."

You should leave him here. Turn around, flee. Forget this place, this microcosm that blooms, and spreads over parts of Elgin you know so intimately; sure, somehow, that you'll find your fingerprints smeared across the ruins despite never having been there before.

Little pieces of yourself. Shedded skin, hope, dismay, peace. Longing. Laughter. It echoes through the tight webs of cobblestone buildings, bouncing playfully off of the pilasters and balustrades, the wrought iron fences, the fanlights, forever embedded in the grout.

If you go there now, in that beautiful divisional line between new Georgian and old Baronial, you'll hear it whispering through the alcoves, a tantalising sound that rents the air in two.

But it shouldn't. Can't.

You've never been there, or here, or anywhere else that wasn't the winding path from your rented flat to the tavern, and the place you eked out from stone to support the vagary of moving to a whole new place for a dream. A feeling.

And yet—

You taste malt in the air. Smell the barley, the sickly sweet scent of wet dirt on the slick pavement.

It's familiar in your olfactory senses. Petrichor. Loam. Humus. It congeals in the slick mortar, clinging to the moss that weaves over the old concrete.

If you looked down, you'd find a little weed growing through a crack beneath your feet, and so, you fix your eyes up, ahead, and try not to weep when the swooping sense of deja vu nearly knocks you off your feet.

But the only thing ahead of you is him. Expectant, curious. He looks at you like he knows you, like he can peel back the skittish layers that cling to your skin until you're shiny and new again.

It's too much. Intense. Hazel.

Your gaze drops, fixed on the rounded points of your shoes. There is no pavement beneath your feet—just scuffed linoleum.

"Do I, uh, know you from somewhere?"

His voice carries that same heft, that same weight, as the look in his eyes. A strange approximation of wariness and steeled scepticism, blanketed together by intrigue. Curiosity. Concern.

"No."

It sounds uncertain. A white lie that crackles in the air between you, nestled amid the sound of chatter muted in the background, as if someone turned the radio on in a different room. Everything seems to contort, and shift around you when he's near.

A little microcosm eked out inside a cafe you've never been to but know, innately, what you'd order, and what you would recommend.

"Well," he dips his head like he's trying to catch your eye, and when you lift your chin, the flash of teeth nearly makes your knees buckle. He's softer when he smiles. "How 'bout lettin' me get t'know you then?"

It's a bad idea etched into the cold marble of a headstone.

Your mouth opens, but the word that chews through your teeth isn't no, but yes.

And fuck—

Something in his gaze shifts. Noctilucent eyes widen, staring down at you like he somehow didn't expect a yes at all, and was bracing for the harsh impact of no.

"Well—" he starts, but the words fall into ash when you duck your head to avoid the crevasse of hazel washed out in flushed gold. "What's your number? I'll call you when m'free next, and we can—"

"Sure," you cut in, hand sliding into your pocket. The cold metal of your phone burns the tips of your fingers when you pull it out. It feels a little bit like a mistake when you hand it over, but he says nothing about the way your hand shakes when he takes it from you.

His brows draw together in a childish concentration as he taps away at the screen. The artificial light, dimmed as low as possible, brightens the craggy ravines that cut across an emerald tinged boscage; sunlight splitting a lush valley of yellow and green. His puckered lips, the flash of a deep red tongue swiping across his sun-chapped mouth, seems designed to appeal to your baser desires. The one that knows how he'd taste if you pressed you let your tongue grace the tip of his, and can feel the weight of his hands on your flesh.

He'd hold your hips like he was anchoring you to the earth: tight, warm, and a little bit desperate as he devoured you whole.

You shiver, and try to ignore the way his pupils bloom into pits of black eclipsing lightened hazel when his gaze settles, hot and heavy, at the brief brush of skin when you reach for your phone.

"I'll call you," he says, low and strained, like he was choking on the words he wanted to say. "I'll call you as soon as I can, bonnie."

You nod. It's all you can offer with your heart scrambling up your throat, pulsing furiously against your trachea.

His nails scrape the skin of your palm when he curls his fingers into a fist, and pulls away.

"I'll see you around."

It's not a choice, you want to say. You nod instead. Choke out an equally strained, yeah, and fight the urge to follow him when he finally pulls away.

"Are you ready to order?"

The world bursts back into sound, colour. You blink rapidly against the light that seems harsher now than that it did when he was blocking out the sun.

"Uh, yeah—"

The taste of freshly poured coffee blooms on your tastebuds.

You order tea instead.

(It tastes like defeat.)

You only stop running when you can't anymore. When the murmuration in your head turns into screams, and the white-hot agony of grief, of yearning, threatens to make your knees buckle and your bruised heart give.

You stop, letting him finally catch up.

(Somehow, somehow, you feel lost and found at the same time.)

His name is Johnny MacTavish. He tells you this over dinner at some upscale restaurant that feels out of place on the old side of Elgin where the walls bleed history, and stink of old bones, and funeral dirt.

Over a steaming dish of shrimp scampi and burgundy wine that makes your head spin and belly churn, you wonder why it doesn't feel new to you when he murmurs it.

(A bit late, you find, since you've been texting rather infrequently since you gave him your number three days ago.)

Names never mentioned. Somehow, they didn't have to be. Until now. Until there was emptiness at the end of his question when he posed it, hazel eyes bright and blooming under the hushed yellow glare of the coruscating chandelier hanging above your heads.

It feels a touch too late when you share your names over dinner despite already knowing he's in the military—opinions clenched between aching teeth and a strained smile that doesn't reach your eyes—and that he normally adorns a Mohawk when he's on missions, but grows it out, rather haphazardly, when he's home.

Everything between you and him seems to happen in reverse: fears, wants, and worries are known before his given name; the touch of his skin on yours, the taste of his lips, the brush of his tongue, the weight of his palms holding your hips as he buries himself as deep as he can go in a haunting sequence of memories that bare their teeth at the starkness of reality holding them at bay. All of this before you've ever even touched him with your bare hands.

There's a strange listlessness that envelopes you—a tangled web that spools around you, trapping you in this realm of hypnagogia. The lines between reality and dream blur until they're indistinguishable from each other. Knotted threads married together. Parallel. Concurrent. Where one begins and the other ends is as lost to you as the unfathomable uncertainty of the unknown universe.

It's not meant to be this way, you think, watching as he feigns not knowing the name that slips between your numbed lips in the same manner you had only moments ago. Traps surprise in the tilt of his chin, but the display is largely done out of some unspoken agreement that this paradox does exist, and the emotion is fleeting. Temporal. He cloves it down the middle, and discards the excess as soon as you look away.

(Your name fits in his mouth better than it ever did your own, like it was made for his mouth, preordained to play with the soft coil of his tongue.)

He knows more than he lets on, but you don't begrudge him his secrets—not when you have to turn your gaze back to the curled shrimp on your plate to avoid reminding him he prefers fish over crustaceans when he makes a face at the steamed scallops, and should have ordered the Maple Crusted Salmon instead.

Like he didn't before, in a life you've never lived. In a place that mirrors this world.

(It isn't something you should know, but you do. You do.)

You know more than that, too: whispers late at night when he couldn't sleep—internal clock still stuck halfway around the world—and urges you into playing a dangerous game of asking questions of each other when pieces of truth buoy in the dark like bobbing for poisoned apples in a barrel.

You have to erase the words when you type them out, preemptively answering questions he'd never asked yet, and filling in the blanks to ones you posed yourself.

Odd, you think. Strange, and weird, and macabre in that way that only deja vu gnarling between the broken crevasse of your grey matter can imbue.

People don't just—

Know each other.

And yet—

"They call me—"

"Soap."

Your eyes snap up. A misstep. A grievous one. You've both been content to ignore this paradoxical magnetism that draws you together like eager poles, unable to stay away (not by choice or freewill, but some design that has no place in rigid structures of reality), and you broke it. Trampled over the unspoken rule left to linger in the foreground while you navigated around it like some misshapen elephant in the way.

He tries to hide the suspicion, the surprise, but it falls between the empty space of his plate (food he only ordered because he's never been here before despite the familiarity that bleeds from the walls like condensation in June) and the ledge. A proverbial precipice that you leaped down; the steep incline filled with detritus and broken shale sharp enough to carve skin, muscles, from shattered bone.

You want to swallow the words down, but they sit—innocuous and damning—between the salt and pepper shakers where his hand twitches, curls into a tight fist, knuckles bleaching under the strain of reeling himself in. Joints, cartilage, bulging through translucent skin. Reddened around the angry peaks of distrust and wariness; a summit you're not sure how to descend from now that you've crossed the arching tops.

(Stuck, forever, at the peak.)

"How—" his voice is gravel, lavascape. Jagged rocks. Lakes of sulphuric acid. "How did you know that?"

His accent thickens when he's angry. You wonder if he knows that.

"I—"

Excuses float like moots in front of you. You reach out, grasping for one, but it dances away in the turbulent wake you leave behind. You bite your tongue until it tastes of oxidised pennies, and then shrug. Nonchalant. Indifferent. Fear curls in your gut. Military, right. You wonder what you'll say if they arrest you for treachery. That you dreamed about him? Stupid. Stupid.

"You told me," you murmur, eyes downcast and heavy, fixed on the bloody cup of wine you don't like, and trying to find solace in your downfall. "I think. I just remembered it from somewhere."

It makes no sense, and the weak explanation would crumple like damp papier-mâché if he pressed, even just slightly, against it. A single touch, and the house of cards you built from the ground up on nonsensical lies will come crashing down around you.

He shouldn't entertain it. Shouldn't let it go.

"Yeah." But he does. "I must'a, huh?"

When you look up, you catch keen hazel eyes, sharp and pointed like the curved talons of a hawk. Johnny MacTavish is many things, you learn, but stupid, guileful, naïve is none of them.

"Yeah," you echo hollowly, and give another shrug. "Guess so. It's, ah, an interesting nickname."

The clumsy barb seems to break the surmounting tension, and the pieces fall around you like poisoned raindrops, staining your skin.

A reminder, then, when it crawls down your throat, that this balancing act can't last forever. That, eventually, your excuses will run dry. Empty. They'll be picked at and poked until they burst like a waterlogged, bloated corpse drifting aimlessly down the Nile.

"Not the only thing that's interesting about me, bonnie," he says in a way that bleeds boyish charm, but his grin is wide, wild, and untamed. White teeth, sharp canines. You think of a wily fox on the prowl, and reach, reflexively, for the glass of wine, swallowing it down like a lifeline. "But I'm beginnin' t'think y'know that already, don't ye?"

It's a threat. A warning.

You stare down in the half-empty glass of burgundy, the same colour red as the papercut on your index finger, and try to read the beads of crimson that run down the glass in a bloodied rivulet as if the answer could be found somewhere in the liquid.

(Crystal Ball. Crystal glass. It's all the same, isn't it?)

"Not really," is what you eventually settle for, hedging through the murk that swims before you, an unsettling fen of unknowns and praeternatural happenings that you no longer than chalk up to happenstance.

Kismet.

Horror.

Some cosmic merging of the two.

It's all—

Absurd.

And when you politely whisper to him that he should have gotten the salmon, you can't help but notice the ravines in his eyes widen slightly, the chasm growing and gaping, and taking on new shapes in the boscage that blooms like a familiar friend.

(Kismet, indeed.)

He tries to pretend he doesn't know what the maple salmon tastes like, but slips up when the waiter passes by, and says it was good the last time.

You fight the urge to chew on your glass like rock candies between your teeth.

He stands with his hands in his pocket, rocking back and forth. The uncertainty in his brow is swallowed by the tendrils of pleased excitement that knot over his expression, unable to hide his glee when the hazel of his eyes glow brighter than the sun.

Isn't this strange, you ache to say, words painted with the aftertaste of brine—sea, salt, and sand that are so uniquely him—but they, too, are swallowed down.

The urge to lacerate the bubbles of complacency, feigned normalcy, are eclipsed by the raw shock of seeing him happy. Of wanting to make him happy. This stranger in a strange land.

So, you offer some facsimile of a smile when he asks, words pushed out through a wide grin; infectious, if you had a good time.

"Yeah," you say, and know that this word, this blase affirmative is quickly becoming your faultline through this mess. The thread keeping you sane, keeping you steady.

It's at the curve of the word when everything else in the world is devoured by the shadow cast under his magnetic glow. The bright yawn of the sun in shades of white teeth catching on some ephemeral magic still dancing within the aether. Atoms spark.

You try to run from it, ignore it, but your core teeters on the edge of instability. You think of neurons. Protons. Criticality. Something inside of you heats to almost half of the degree of the sun, sweltering and unrelenting. Pulsing, blue-hot.

"That's good," he husks, eyes lidded and heavy. "I did, too. Whaddya think about doin' it again w'me?"

It blooms. A great, scorching mushroom cloud plumes in midnight black in the milky white of your eyes.

You shuffle through the darkness, the artificial, comic night, and try to pat at the walls until you find something familiar in terror, the gnawing sense of loss that permeates through your pericardium, thrumming like a mourning toll.

Sightless, you nod. "I'd love to."

And you mean it, too.

(Damn you. Damn you—)

Despite that tangled web that snakes around your jugular, twinning threads between the two of you, Johnny MacTavish is relentless in his pursuit.

Where someone else might have shivered at the ghosts that brim in the tenebrous of your pupils, lurking in the untouched corners where your fingerprints stain the sediment, he lingers. Stays. Fixes himself in your path, and refuses to acquiesce to the whims of the world that keep stringing you along like reluctant puppets to some unseen, unknown marionette.

It's almost charming in its own right, and really—when has a man fought so hard just to simply coexist in the space you deign yours? When has he torn nails from their beds, clawing at the walls that stand tall and proud, a protective tower of ashlar and dread around you until it starts to give. Until the stone crumbles away under his bloodied fingers.

But as potent as his statement is, it gnarls inside your stomach like a poisoned seed.

Bending to the demands of whatever this paradoxical realm goes against every fibre of your common sense that you recoil, almost, for just allowing him the scant space he occupies in your proximity.

It's a deranged pantomime with some unseen force at the helm, conducting the madness with fingers drenched in whimsy and fate. Notched between its knuckles is the mockery of freewill and choice as it pulls you around a soundstage set in a place you've never been. It makes you dance. Amused god, eldritch horror. It takes pleasure in your discomfort, and glee in your fickle humanity. Weaving webs of tangled kismet until the silken threads are pulled taut and there is no more room, not a single atom, between your body and his.

A nameless, faceless playwright with you as its shining star.

Hapless leads stuck in an unending beat, a cantastoria, waiting for the shoe, the curtain, or anagnorisis to drop.

You want to run again, but your feet are glued to the floor. Tangled in webs, threads of abstract concepts your mind threatens to come undone at the mere thought of. A cosmic sense of surrealism: crushing helplessness.

This is horrific and terrific in equal measure, but the ache, the agony, of distance hurts more. And so, you stay. Watch as the curtain shudders over his eyes. As the etchings of complacency seem to gnarl in the tussock that line the expansive valley. He looks at you and doesn't see the awful truth nestled in the scant distance between your flesh, unable to be apart for too long. He sees you, somehow, and for him, that's enough. Enough.

Johnny smiles at you, seemingly unbothered by the precariousness of this dance you're caught inside. In this strange equinox where you can answer questions he hasn't asked, and know things he hasn't said. Where you catch yourself leaning closer, starved for a touch you haven't forgotten despite never experiencing yourself.

He's content, then, chasing the whims of a ghost, reaching for a fantastical dream in the head of another.

But as content as he is, Johnny MacTavish is a hard man to catch, you think, noting the distance in his eyes, the arm's length of space he keeps between the version of him not haunted by the wants of ghosts, but such an easy man to love. To fall for.

He balms the panic—that world-ending sense of uncertainty that nips at your heels—and makes you forget, sometimes, that there is more to him, and more to you, than anyone else could ever know.

He's kind. Charming.

A little space inside of your head is eked out just for him, and you find yourself hating that person for falling for some version of him first. Loathe them just a little bit more with each effortless grin he sends your way for tainting the experience of knowing him yourself.

But you wonder, when he turns away, hiding the shadows in his eyes, and the pinch in his brow, if you really, truly know him.

Or if the face he's wearing belongs to a phantom.

The dance continues.

Your feet move to a soundless beat, steps preordained in a sequence lived world's ago. Nothing can feel surprising when you know a man so intimately without more than a touch, when you feel the burn of winter's chill in the middle of summer, and long so desperately for someone you just met.

Nothing is new, and yet everything is novice. A paradox awakening with each gravitational pull to him, this man who looks only vaguely like the phantom who lives in your head, and tastes of longevity between your teeth.

An arranged romance. Possession by ghosts who want to drive your bodies until they can live again, and love in tandem, vicariously through your living flesh.

It makes sense to you, then, to call for an exorcism.

(It just surprises you that Johnny does it first.)

Johnny has his secrets, just like you have yours. A small morsel of agency after autonomy has been stripped from the bone.

You see the shadows of those hidden things etched in the topography of his valley-filled gaze, crevasses and canyons that pitch themselves in the tenebrous, uncrossable to even you.

He reaches for you through the murk, fingers threading through your own, hands trembling with the shock, the electric current that sizzles through your blood at the brush of bare skin against quivering flesh. His hands are rough—worker's hands—and chock full of callouses and cuts, multitudes of scar tissue packed tight on top of each other, a thick layer of a life you will never know. Don't want to know.

He seems settled when you touch, finally, thumb brushing your skittish pulse point as if he could somehow calm the acrid panic in your chest.

(And damn him, damn this, he does. He does—)

Magnets fixed together, locked tight. You feel like a conduit to his frenzy, his hidden mania, and feed your own through the line, the red string that ensnares you both in a tangled web, until it's buzzing with shared panic and serenity and joy and helplessness. A feedback loop of emotions too extreme, too flighty, to catch. They run in droves along the lines, weaving into your skin, your chest, your head, and then pulling away to do the same to him.

His eyes are heavier than steel when he gazes at you, expression caught between relief and longing and fear and—

Something, something. You can't pick it apart. Can't undo the tight knot until it spools, open and known, in the palm of your hands. Some unseen distance. It feels like standing at the highest peak of the valley and trying to make sense of the men in the tussock who look like mere ants from this high above.

Is it happiness, you wonder.

(Or maybe it's the same reluctance that wraps it's boney, gnarled fingers around your neck—)

It becomes too much. Too soon, too sudden. In the back of your head, you see images and flashes of a life not yet lived, a world still taking shape. You see him and you and a clock above some blue, broken bed. You see his smile, wide and elated, caught on the dawning sun spilling from the open curtains before it disappears under the covers, taking your laughter with it, stuck between his teeth.

You see the past, the present.

And your future.

Cold. Barren. Three sharp knocks echo in the emptiness of your head. A man, a familiar stranger. You don't know him. You'd die for him. He rents the air in two. Your world in cloves. They fall to the ground, leaving you stranded and alone in the middle.

Future. There's no future.

Your chest twists. You let go of his hand and find bloody crescent moons embedded in a ring along his flesh, knuckles whitening under your harsh grip. He said nothing about the pain. The flicker of worry across his face is genuine, you think. Real. Current.

You smell funeral dirt in your nose. The mud is called under your nails.

You pull away. He lets you go.

"I, uh," he breaks off into a soft huff, injured hand lifting to scratch at the back of his shorn nape. His eyes slide away from yours, listing seaward. Avoidance undercuts the arch in his brow, the sheepishness in his mien. It's his turn to run, you realise.

"Glad I met you," he says instead, and it's a confession and a curse.

A bonfire burns in the river that runs through the valleys in his eyes. It's pitched on the sandy shore: an ochre flicker in the cobalt hue that saturates the land. You see the dark peaks of the rolling hills in the distance, black shapes in draped blue.

The river is calm. The fire burns a smear of orange across the tranquil surface, meeting the milky white glow of the moon.

It makes you think of those nights in the zenith of summer, the ones that feel neverending. Timeless. A piece of your history etched in balmy melancholy. Alone in the great expanse with nothing but the trill of cicadas, and the echoing chirp of the crickets hidden in the lush grass below.

The sky shifts. His eyes plume with lavender-tinged stratocumulus.

"I really like you, bonnie." It's whispered in your ear, and you wish, oh, how you wish, you couldn't hear it. That you could block the words, and the world, out so that it never reaches you again.

Sweet longing. Beautiful agony.

Your heart races, and you wonder how an empty space can beat at all. Can feel anything when it's just a hollow chasm.

A heat blooms under your skin, desperate and aching. This, this, is everything you've been looking for since your heart split free from its fleshy prison, and ran away to find him, tucking itself in the boscage that glows in the flame on the shores. It's hidden somewhere. The palpitations sound like a song. You could follow it, you think, and find its lovelorn shell nestled amongst the grass that sways to its beat, and tuck it back into your empty chest where it belongs.

(But it belongs to him, now.)

And you—

You hesitate.

The words well on your tongue, but you think of fate, of choice, and swallow them down.

The flames in the distance flicker, growing dimmer and darker as the moments stretch on, unbroken and barren until it's snuffed out. Gone.

What can you say? What could you say?

Instead, you say nothing at all.

Johnny leaves a piece of himself on the table when he walks away.

(You don't pick it up.)

Johnny doesn't say anything at all when he brings you home, when he stands outside of the archway to your flat, eyes lidded and pensive. A smile snakes across his face, but it's brittle and full of uncertainty, and your fingers ache to smooth the rugged lines in his brow, in the stress in his shoulders. You push it down. Smile for him instead.

"I'll see you later," you say, and wish the ghosts wailing in your head would drop dead.

The valley is drenched in ink when he nods, catching your gaze.

All black, black, black.

No sounds escape.

"Sure, bonnie."

You dream, and when you dream, it's of him.

He stands at the top of a hill, and when he smiles it's full of starlight so bright it could eclipse the sun.

In his hand, you see a pair of shears. Your mouth opens, but no sound escapes.

He says just one word—your name—and then he lifts his hand, and cuts the rope. The sutures knit your bodies together, the string that holds him to this mortal plane, falls in swaths of golden thread to the ground where they're devoured by the earth, dissolved into nothing. Gone, forever.

There's distance now, and separation. Nothing ties you to him except space.

You wake up with the ghost of a scream on your lips, and the feeling of silken threads dragging over your flesh. You reach for them, and catch nothing but air.

Palm pressed to your chest, you feel the rapid pulse under your fingertips, and know that it's back. Back where it belongs.

Belongs, but doesn't want to be.

You think of Johnny.

And you weep.

He sends a text message, and for the first time since you've met him, it surprises you. Nothing should shock you with him, anymore. You know everything, anything, about him.

Gonna be away for a bit. Should talk when I get back.

You reach for answers but they slide like mercury out of your hands.

You don't dance, and you don't dream.

You wander down the streets of Elgin, and for the first time since you woke up screaming in your bed with ghosts wailing in agony inside of your head, you get lost.

Johnny comes back a week later, eyes heavier than you'd ever seen them, and shoulders drawn tight together as he asks you why—

"Why'd'ya keep runnin'?" He asks, words pitched and heavy with something lour and aching, a phantom pain you know all too well. There's desperation in his eyes, a low keen settling in the depth of his throat, echoing with the clamour of his despair. "If you don't want this—;" don't want me: "—then just say so, bonnie, 'cause I ain't forcin' ya t'be w'me, I ain't gonna make you stay. You wanna leave, you can just go—"

Can't. Can't.

"Johnny—"

"No, none o'that, now. You make up your mind, 'cause I ain't makin' it for ya. I ain't makin' ya do somethin' you don't want to, and I ain't—"

He's pleading, you think. Begging—

For this, this strange thing. This awful, broken calamity, this abomination in the face of free will and autonomy. Despite the rage that hums in your veins at the idea of being controlled, manipulated, he finds something worth chasing. Worth running for.

Why?

And what?

And—

It comes in flashes, snippets. Fragmented pieces of bright eyes—brighter, maybe, than the sun—and warmth, one hot enough to burn but it doesn't, it won't, it soothes instead. Eases coiled muscles, and absorbs the lactic acid that leaks from shredded, knotted fibres. Hands on your body, on your skin: the press of rough fingertips over prickling flesh. A whisper of curiosity, the slow descent into affection, adoration. Plush lips pillowing sharp teeth, too reverent to ever leave a mark behind—part in fear of marring fragile skin, and—

Letting the ghost of permanence fester, take root, inside his chest where his heart beats—

Jus' f'r you, bonnie. Jus' you.

For once, the phantom touching your body isn't a dream, a half-lived fantasy in another world where a man-made you whole and then ripped you into pieces, letting the scattered fragments blow with the sharp winds howling through the highlands. You know the touch, remember it. Felt it. New, and tangible. A touch that never lingered, too afraid of letting something, something, stick.

For once—

The snaps flashing, blindingly, through your synapses are not made of dream dust and kismet.

And—

All at once, it shatters.

—you know, i never thought i'd say this before, but i—

(You were lost in Elgin, but when you see his face, you feel found—)

THERE—

There is a lot to be said about Johnny MacTavish.

Good things—kind, dedicated, driven—and bad things—bold, stoic, dogmatic—but one thing neither have in common is tardiness. Broken promises.

So, when Johnny calls you in some distant land you've never heard of, and says:

Things got bad. I might not—I might not be coming home.

You believe him.

But the thing is: there's a difference between believing the words being said to you, and understanding their meaning. Your mind is not equipped to latch onto devastating blows with the same swiftness you do ignorant bliss.

So, when you hear I might not be coming home, you think, instead, of tardiness. Of a missed anniversary dinner.

(Of all the ones that came before it, and will come after it.)

And you smile. Smile into the receiver with your heart drifting down Lethe.

"Okay, Johnny," you say, and those words will come back to haunt you three days from now, when John Price shows up at your goddamn door, stupid bucket hat tucked tight to his chest, and rips your heart into pieces.

But for as much as you are blissfully ignorant, your mind still understands nuance. They used to call it foresight, a sixth sense; hindsight.

You add, softer than you've ever said the words: "I love you."

His breath stutters through the line in response. A brief pause. And then—

"If anything happens—" you hate him a little for even saying it; you really do: "just know that I love you, too. And that I hope—ah, Christ, bonnie, you got me all stupid, now—but, fuck, I hope we meet in another life."

It knocks something loose inside of you. Some primaeval thing that nestled in the safety of your ribs, moulting along your moon-white bones and glueing to the soft tissue that pulsed around it. It's shaken. Dislodged.

It feels a little bit like your soul is being scraped off of bone.

"Johnny—"

"—gotta go. We haven't heard from Roach or Riley in a while. I probably won't call tonight. So, don't wait for me, bonnie."

The line clicks before the words I've been waiting for you forever fall from your wobbling lips.

You hate Johnny a little bit for this. For digging his roots deep into the soft chambers of your heart where it gnarled around your pericardium. A perfect little knot. A bow tied nice and pretty just for him.

It makes it so much harder to bare when John fucking Price knocks on your door, stupid fucking bucket hat tucked tight against his chest, ghosts in his eyes, blood on his hands, and rips your heart into pieces until nothing but the rotten, dying roots remain.

"I hate you so much right now," you hiss at the tombstone—the only thing you have left of him. "I hate you and I miss you and I wish you were here so I could—"

John finds you with your forehead pressed against the brass plaque, cheeks raw from the rivulets of tears that feel endless—a baptism in grief; in your tear ducts, Noah battles the biblical flood, and loses.

Eyes that can't see past a shimmering hinterland of death and abject dismay are fixed, broken, against speckled granite.

It's agony. The kind that makes it feel as if the marrow in your bones turned into a corrosive liquid, molten and devastating, and burst through brittle, hollow bone.

Price, you've come to realise, seems to know things beyond what you tell him. Always picking up the shedded skin that falls from the people around him. Little pieces of them that he shoves in his pocket to ruminate on when he's trying to put together the puzzle of who they are.

Words won't penetrate through the haze in your head. It filters in like water through a rhyne, back out to the open sea.

(He knows this, of course, because you've been shedding pieces of yourself around him for years.)

It doesn't surprise you, then, when he says nothing. When he just falls to his aching knees in the soft humus, resting beside you as your world crumbles into ash and heartache.

You sit in numbed silence until the sun is swallowed by the dusk that creeps across the sky. The moon itself seems to mourn along with you, hiding her eyes behind a nebulous veil of gunmetal.

Price, without a word, helps you stand when the gravekeeper comes and ushers you out. He shepherds you into his Jeep and brings you back to the place that reeks of loneliness and dinners for one. A place that still carries the ghost of his presence around every corner, tucked away in each alcove and nook.

He might be gone, but his shadow still lives and breathes the dank, funeral air that clings to your sallow skin. A miasma of loss that tangles itself in every atom around you.

Price seems hesitant to step inside, but you'd rather sleep on the patio with the chirping crickets and the weeping moon than be inside where the echo of his voice whispers through the halls, and he knows this, because he knows you, and so he brings you in before you can entomb yourself in grief, lost to the elements. He sets you down gingerly on the couch, body now more fragile than fine china, brushing your tangled hair from your forehead. It catches on his weathered hands. You barely feel the pull.

He looks at you like you're a battle that can't be won.

"Take care'a yourself, yeah? It's what—" he chokes, then, and you feel the hiccup like a white-hot knife to your gut. "It's what he would've wanted."

What he wanted is gone, and it's dead—just like him.

You don't say these words, but you wonder if he knows them, hears them, anyway. He must, you think, watching as the ashy, smoked cedar of his beard twitches. His mouth gnarls to the side in grief, uncertainty.

He says your name. You know this because you know the shape it makes of his mouth, but don't you hear it. All it sounds like is a nail scraping over waterlogged, mossy wood.

Price leaves.

A part of you goes with him.

You rest your forehead against his pillow, the one that smells of him still—warm milk, honeysuckle—and you wish so hard on broken promises, unfilled dreams, to see him again, to hold his face in the plinth of your palms, that your heart feels like it might burst—

—break.

But it's already broken. There's nothing left to shatter. The pulpy mess he left behind beats not because you want it to, but because it has to. A biological failsafe that does not care about your human emotions even as it quivers and shakes at the loss that tipped your world upside down. A gaping hole sits in the middle in the shape of his smile, and your stubborn heart pulses around the wound.

Sometimes you think it would be easier to feel nothing at all. To shed the agony like a rotting limb, cutting it as close to the bone as you can, and watching it fall, blackened with decay, and postulating with infectious spores that bud, devouring unblemished, unhurt, flesh until you're a pristine corpse.

Grief twists you into the living dead. Breaks your head in two, cloved clean down the middle of unrelenting panic and anger—anguish so severe, you can easily convince yourself nothing at all is real.

But it is.

And then there is only denial and abject horror at that unimaginable nothingness that looms, blooming in your insides until they turn into a gaping, festering maw. One that makes you feel like you could swallow the whole world and still feel empty.

No longer a human on the inside but a chasm. The person you were before died the moment his heart stopped beating. Irrevocably changed with three, stark knocks against the door he painted yellow because it reminded him of the way you looked standing in a field of sunflowers. Gone. Gone—

A barren void with its insides scraped out. Hollow. Wind rattles through your chilled bones. It sounds like his voice when it ghosts over your ribcage.

You chase the sound.

Running, running, running. Going so fast, it barely feels like your feet touch the ground. A wingless bird soaring across the valleys that gleaned in his hazel eyes.

Running, running—

Your feet slide against marshy peat. A hidden bog gurgles beneath your soles.

You don't scream when you sink.

(The bubbles sound just like him—)

You smile.

—NOW

Eldritch machinations, some fanciful god playing a chaotic game of matchmaker, a dizzying sense of folie a deux—you haven't quite determined what the reason for this is, who or what might be behind it, but one thing you do know is this:

Something might be aligning your paths until all trails lead to him, but when you wander down those Wonderland roads, your heart beats for him.

A second heart pulses under your skin. One slipped inside when you cupped his cheeks in your palm, and told him when you looked, you saw only him.

It might not be a choice you've made in this lifetime, but it's certainly one you can't bring yourself to regret.

You run, but this time, it isn't away from him, but to him.

He tastes of coumarin when you press your lips to his, a kiss met in the middle.

You're lost, now, in the swell that gusts across the boscage. A breeze dances over your ears. A thousand starlings coo in the clear blue aether above. You feel the tickle of barley against your knees. Rasping tussock sedge curls over your ankle, weaving together until you're tied to the ground. Anchored against the stalks of wheat that shiver in the wind.

His hands are warm, solid, on your skin. One hand braced on the small of your back, keeping you pressed firmly against him. The other cups your chin like you're made of fine china, polished crystal full of precious gems and rare metals. He holds tight as if he's afraid you'll drift away when he lets go.

Your head is blooming full of sunflowers. They germinate in your thoughts until the petals burst through, lifting high to the heavens where the sun burns half as hot as his body angling against yours.

His atoms sing, calling to yours. A buzz, a hum. You feel them stretch, shifting from the prison of you until equilibrium is reached when they merge, tangling together. A new being, a new entity is born from the collision—a person made of two with lungs and hearts that breathe and beat in the same cadence as it's ghosts. Woven together with marionette strings.

It feels like coming home and getting lost all at once.

Etched in the delicate flesh of your heart sits a kairos moment. A brief period of nothing that runs as deadly and tumultuous as the Swillies. An upheaval.

Time is tenuous. Broken. Fragmented.

An arm stretches out, anchoring across your waist. His mouth presses a kiss to your bare shoulder, eyes glossy in the mid-morning sun.

"Wha' time's it?" He slurs out, words thick with sleep.

Your eyes cut to the alarm clock on the end table. A slow, languid smile curls across your kiss-bruised mouth.

"Eleven-fifteen," you breathe, eyes fixed on the red lines. Your heart stutters when it flickers. "Eleven-sixteen."

"S'too early," he moans, lips rubbing over your flesh. "Stay in bed with me."

You peel your gaze away from the clock ticking down the seconds (minutes, hours, days, months, years), and turn to him. Hazel in bloom. A boscage in spring. Your eyes mist a little from the morning dew.

"I love you, Johnny."

His breath ghosts over your skin. You hear the hitch in his voice when he speaks.

"Been waitin' a long time t'hear you say that, bonnie."

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

—don't wait for me, Bonnie. i'll come find you—

—THEN

"Excuse me? You dropped this."

It's raining. Pouring, really. The droplets are the size of pennies and pelt the top of your umbrella with an unforgiving force. It sounds like the clatter of a mourning bell, and drowns everything else out.

But it catches. Clear. Low.

You turn, blinking through the thick fog that congeals around High Street in a dense, white blanket.

"Sorry?"

A man. He's towering above you, cut off at the chest by the fine points of your umbrella. You lift it, and—

Your wallet is the first thing you see. Wet, covered in grit from the cobblestone. It's clenched between a thick thumb and forefinger, held delicately together. You baulk.

"Oh, shit—," it's snatched out of his hand, and pulled into the sanctuary of cover. You can feel it already. The mess inside. Still. You hope—

The leather peels back. Mush.

You groan. The meagre bills you'd pulled from the machine are now wet, sticking together in a papier-mache square. Useless. No one is going to accept sopping wet bills.

"Alright?"

"No, I—," you glance up at him, irritation cutting across your brow. No, you're not alright. You're shit out of luck, and stranded here, now. And—

And—

Hazel. It's the first thing you see. Mountains of brown slope into a lush green valley. A cool blue lake cuts through, splitting off into a ravine.

Your breath catches.

"Sorry, umm. Yes. I'm—"

Attractive is the first word that springs to your mind when you stare at him—dark eyes, furrowed brow, long nose, a dusting of charcoal stubble along his cheeks and jaw, and full pink lips. Kissable is the second one.

And then—

Oh, God.

"Sorry," you murmur again, cheeks heating despite the chill. "I'm fine. Thank you, I'm—"

"You're not," he says, and it's uttered so assuredly that you can't find it in yourself to lie. As if he is somehow able to chisel into your head, and rifle through your problems with ease. "It's all wet, isn't it? Were you heading home, or—?"

It's cliche. Stupid. Your belly rumbles.

Mortifying. Absolutely—

His lips quirk up. A soft, almost secretive smile. Reserved. "Well, I know this place around the back. I could use the company, if you wouldn't mind."

You should say no. No, thank you—because you were raised proper. But all you can think about is the deep, brassy tone that tickles your ears when he speaks. The distant, almost careful way he regards you, as if he's putting himself at arm's length so you aren't scared off by his brawn.

Hazel is dusted in gold. You want to bask in his warmth for just a moment longer—

"I'll pay you back, I promise."

His brows raise. Hazel framed in white. A soft huff leaves his full mouth before his lips pull up in a slow, genuine smile.

"Y'alright, bonnie. I'll hold you to it."

(And so, it begins.)

#john soap mactavish #soap x reader #Johnny MacTavish x reader #og soap x reader #og soap #john soap mctavish x reader #john soap mctavish x you #cod fanfic #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #this took me forever #idk why #i just?? expected more fluff but instead we get horror and grief and eventually fluff #kinda #like #sorta #idk #enjoy

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hollandorks · 8 months ago

Text

haven

battinson! bruce wayne x f! reader

interlude three

Summary: After the sudden deaths of her mother and grandmother, y/n is forced to return home to Gotham…and to the man who broke her heart three years ago. Back in Bruce Wayne’s inescapable orbit, she vows to get to the bottom of her former best friend’s new cold personality. But Bruce’s secrets aren’t what she’s expecting.

a/n: I'm alive!!! I don't want to talk about how long it's been since the last chapter because it's a little bit embarrassing. Anyways, I'm back! Hopefully! So here's a brief little Bruce POV to hold you over until the next real chapter, which should hopefully only be a week or two maybe? (Also, I apologize in advance....)

Series Masterlist

word count: 1.2k

Despite everyone who was trying hard to keep her alive, y/n felt utterly alone.

Bruce's POV

“Bruce, my dear boy, I don’t tell you often enough, but you are…so stubbornly stupid it makes me feel twice my age.”

Bruce startled and whirled around to face Alfred. The older man was leaning casually along the work station where Bruce’s video equipment was, his cane next to him, legs crossed at the ankles.

Bruce opened his mouth and then closed it again.

It was noon now, and he still hadn’t been to bed. He’d been out late staking out Maverick’s again, hoping to catch a lead on Frank Gallo or anyone that could lead him to the man, when Alfred’s call had come. Security breach. Elevator. The panic had almost killed him. Alfred’s next call came in when Bruce was almost home, telling him that everyone was safe. So he had changed direction and left to clean himself up to make an appearance as Bruce instead.

And still the fear lingered. Someone had been in his home, feet away from y/n, and he had yet to find any proof of how they had done it.

He wouldn’t–couldn’t–sleep until he was certain she was safe.

“What did I do this time?” Bruce finally asked. He turned back to the security footage he was pouring over. It terrified him that they could have been so close to y/n. That he could have been too late. That he could have–

He shut the thought down as quickly as it came. No use dwelling on it now.

“What haven’t you done? You imploded the most important relationship you have–repeatedly, if we’re being honest. You keep secrets from her but toe the line so recklessly it’s going to blow up in your face. You let your emotions get the best of you. And that’s just lately. Shall I go on?” Alfred recrossed his ankles in the other direction.

Bruce grit his teeth but said nothing. He restarted the security footage from the beginning and paused it frame by frame. A loud clack echoed around the abandoned station each time he smashed the button to go to the next frame.

“Let’s change tactics then. How long are you going to let her live in fear before you tell her that the Batman is watching over her from inside her home?”

Bruce’s jaw ached with the force of his clenched teeth. Still, he said nothing. First y/n had yelled at him, now Alfred. He knew his behavior was…abysmal to say the least. But he had more important things to focus on than everyone’s emotions, his own included.

He had to find Frank Gallo, and take down the rest of the family, once and for all. When that was done, when y/n was safe, he would think about all the ways he had ruined his relationship with her.

“Are you listening to me, Bruce?”

“I am trying,” Bruce said with a smack of his fist against the table, “to figure out who the fuck broke into my home and threatened y/n!” His voice echoed loudly around him, setting the bats to fluttering and chittering above them. He restarted the footage once again.

Alfred made a noise in his throat. “She hasn’t slept at all.”

Something oily slid down Bruce’s spine. “Neither have I.” It was a deflection and they both knew it. It killed Bruce to know y/n was so scared. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it–other than find those responsible and make them pay. She wouldn’t want his comfort, wouldn’t want him to hover, so he was doing the next best thing and trying to end it.

Alfred sighed. “All I’m saying is–”

“I know what you’re saying.”

“Then why do I have to keep saying it?”

Bruce went back to ignoring the older man. Let Alfred think what he wanted. Bruce had work to do. Nothing would get better until Frank Gallo and the rest of his family and cronies were gone for good.

What gives you the right to act like this? she’d asked, all of her anger turned towards Bruce like a roaring inferno. What gave him the right? He had admitted it to her right before that–I give too much of a shit.

She didn’t know he was still in love with her. That he always had been.

He’d hurt her so badly she couldn’t see what was right in front of her face–who he was, how he felt, what it was doing to him. If she would just open her eyes, she would know.

Instead, she had yelled at him.

He deserved it. He knew he deserved it. But walking in and seeing her hold Officer Martinez’s hand…it made him crazy. He had acted like the worst type of bastard without even thinking. It was pure instinct, the urge to protect her even from a guy like Martinez rising so strongly within him that it was almost as if he had blacked out. Like someone else had taken over his body.

She rarely ever got mad at him. It had only happened a few times throughout their many years together. It was a sight to behold, her rage, and he had been equal measures impressed and angry both.

“I don’t have time for this,” Bruce said after long stretch of silence. His voice was raw with exhaustion and emotion. “Either help me figure this out or go back upstairs.”

He felt rather than saw Alfred bristle. He waited to get berated yet again, but Alfred merely pulled up the footage on another screen and got to work.

They spent a few minutes in silence, Bruce’s eyes burning from lack of sleep, his thoughts churning. She hasn’t slept. He ached to go upstairs, to tell y/n that she was safe with him, that he would never let anything happen to her.

But it already had, and all of it had been his fault.

He knew without a doubt, just as he had known three years ago, that she was safest far away from him. And look what had happened already–the more she’d become entangled with him, with the Batman, the worse things got. She had spent three years in Bludhaven, far away from him, perfectly safe. And the minute she had come home to Gotham, come home to him…it had all gone to shit. Really it had gone to shit before that–when her grandmother had left the tower for the last time.

Bruce liked to think that was his fault, too, not that he’d ever it admit it out loud.

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty,” Alfred said into the silence. His voice was gentle, almost placating.

“Mm.” It wasn’t working, then, Bruce thought. He already felt guilty enough.

“I hate seeing you like this. Both of you.” Alfred sighed again. “I just think that talking about it–all of it–would help you both. It might ease the strain of…everything else going on.”

Bruce couldn’t see how it could help, only how it would make things worse. But he didn’t say that to Alfred, merely nodded and kept working.

Two nights later, all Bruce could think about was that Alfred had been right.

He should have told y/n the truth while he had the chance.

Next Chapter

taglist:

@ktficworld @grunge-n-roses5 @anon-cat-posts @projectdreamwalker @warsaur @lachillona02 @crazyunsexycool @doetic @alexiris @that-girl-named-alex @harry-bowie-mercury @vaniasagitaa @widows-writings @missing-loki @exactlyelegantwizard @miriamnox @mavenmoon @eclipsedplanet @spencerrxids @giulia2372 @katara-is-a-goddess-changemymind @janezat @incorrectmarvelquotesss @spiritdetectivel @i-have-no-life-charlie @ilovemybabes @curseyouperrytheplatypus @lightsinmycity @yondiii @spideybv28 @fictionalmansl4t

#bruce wayne x reader #battinson x reader #the batman x reader #the batman 2022 #the batman #battinson #bruce wayne #bruce wayne x you #battinson x you

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swarvey · 6 months ago

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Enamored with Paper Rings right now. It’s written so, so well 🥺 Do you have any headcanons about meeting Harvey in college/taking over the farm years after that?

meeting harvey in college | harvey x gn!reader

summary -> after meeting harvey during college, the two of you hit it off right away, slowly growing to become more than friends.

a/n: ahhh tysm!!!! that means a lot <33 i hope you enjoy!! reader and harvey are at med school btw

harvey

the two of you met during freshman year of university while taking the same course

after being placed in the same group project together for the semester, you hit it off with him right away

harvey, though? it was pretty much love at first sight.

you best believe this man purposefully chose his seat near you because he thought you were cute. not that he'll ever tell you that

it didn't help that he was completely enamored with your personality

(nearly imploded the first time you laughed at one of his jokes)

knew he wanted to be with you pretty much right away, but he also didn't want to rush you

so, being the man that he is, he waited patiently until you were ready to express your own feelings before showing you how much he cares about you.

freshman year

"this is impossible," you groan, letting your head fall onto the mattress beneath you. "i quit."

harvey laughs, rolling his chair over to the bed and gently lifting you up by your hoodie. "unfortunately, you can't quit," he tells you, smiling at your frown. "the rest of our groupmates quit half a semester ago, so it's up to us to save our grades."

you sigh deeply as you force yourself to sit up, grabbing your laptop and pulling it onto your lap. as you begin to work — swearing under your breath about your "good for nothing groupmates" — harvey sneaks a look at you once in a while, admiring the way you bite your lip in thought and squint your eyes at the screen.

he wants to be with you, of course he does. he thinks any guy who doesn't should get schedule a check-up with their doctor, since they obviously aren't thinking straight. no, the problem isn't that he doesn't have feelings for you — it's that you can't seem to tell he does. while he knows he should use his time at college to explore and meet new people, he can't shake the fact that, to be frank, you're really the only one he can picture himself with.

"harvey, can you look at this? i swear this doesn't make sense."

"sure!" shaking out of his daydream, harvey sits beside you on the bed, trying not to pay attention to the way your arms are pressed against each other.

while others may move on after realizing their feelings aren't returned, harvey figures he doesn't mind waiting a little bit, especially if the reward is having you all to himself.

sophomore year

"how do i look?"

harvey turns to look at you as you emerge from your bedroom, bashfully showing off your halloween costume with a broad grin. you're dressed up as one of your favorite video game characters, your hair and make-up done perfectly by your friend. she stands next to you with a proud look on her face, eyes digging into his skull. he can basically hear her daring him to say you look bad.

"amazing," he voices, watching as she nods in satisfaction and walks away.

"honestly, harvs, you couldn't have been a little more creative?" you ask, tugging at his lab coat. "you realize we're in med school, right? so half the people we see tonight are going to be wearing this."

he shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. "well, i couldn't think of anything else," he mumbles. "it's not like i'm trying to impress anyone, anyway."

you hum, nonchalantly fixing his collar and centering his stethoscope. "well, at least you look all cleaned up — maybe you'll catch someone's eye," you tease.

yet again, you don't notice how he stiffens, letting out a quick breath when your hands graze his neck. it's been a year now, and harvey has no idea how you haven't noticed his feelings for you. still, he's been patient, and he truly doesn't mind waiting; it's not like there's a downside, in his mind. the two of you have grown even closer since freshman year, even finding time to see each other during the summer.

"alright, ready?" you ask, grabbing the sides of his arms and laughing when he jumps. "geez, harvey, i know it's halloween, but you don't have to be so on edge. i'm here to protect you!" you cross your arms, feigning toughness.

"really?" he doubts, giving you a questionable look.

you nod, the air leaving your lungs when your friend pokes your side. "we're all doomed if you're supposed to save us," she jokes. you laugh as she starts pulling you to the door, calling for harvey to follow.

he barely hears her, though, hearing only your bright laughter and seeing only your amused eyes.

i can wait.

junior year

harvey is growing tired of this.

he watches helplessly as you talk to a senior — a senior who is clearly attracted to you, by the way — and allow him to pour you another drink. he scowls at the greedy look in his gaze, his eyes raking you up and down as you sip out of your cup. he knows you're clueless and remembers how excited you were to socialize at the formal, especially since this upperclassman is known to be at the top of his class, but truthfully?

he doesn't give a damn.

"oh, harvey!" you say, eyes brightening when he walks over. he doesn't even look at you as he grabs your arm, locking it with his. he can feel you staring at him, his ears burning with embarrassment as he faces the senior.

"what are the two of you talking about?" he asks, his hold on you tightening when the older student leans forward slightly.

"nothing of concern," he says, eyeing your hand clutching harvey's arm. "just some personal techniques i've learned over the years."

harvey's lips form a grim line on his face as he glares at him, the music playing in the background seeming to fade away. he can sense the intentions of the other student, knowing if he weren't there, he would be purposefully getting you drunk to do god knows what with you.

"we're leaving," harvey declares, "but thanks for sharing your insight with them. i'll be sure to ask all about it when we get back."

without another word, harvey drags you out of the room despite your small protests, focusing only on getting you away from the creep. he lets out a breath of relief as you make it outside, resting his hands on his knees for a moment before straightening to look at you with worry-filled eyes.

"what were you thinking?" he scolds, scanning you quickly as if checking for injuries. "can't you tell when someone is trying to take advantage of you? how much have you had to drink? here, take my jacket, it's getting chilly out—"

his words get caught in his throat when you lean forward and hug him tightly, your head resting on his chest.

"what would i do without you, harvey?" you quietly ask, pulling away to look at him with a gaze he's never seen before. "no one's ever cared about me like you, you know that?"

harvey clears his throat, looking away as he gently wraps his arms around you. "i think you had a little too much to drink," he says, attempting to pull you off. "i'll take you home, okay? we can talk more tomorrow—"

before he can finish his sentence, your lips are covering his, your arms now thrown around his neck as his hands find the small of your back. after a moment of shock, he's kissing you back, eyes shut as he pulls you closer to him.

when you break off, he looks at you with wide eyes, blinking as he registers what just happened. his cheeks are tinted red.

you yawn, grabbing his arm once again and leaning on him. "i'm tired," you mutter. "let's go home."

"r-right, let's get you to bed. we can talk about this after you get some rest." wordlessly, he begins to walk you home, hoping with his entire being that you won't forget this by the morning.

senior year

adrenaline rushes through harvey's body as everyone throws their caps into the air, celebratory horns blaring in his ears as everyone begins to file out of the stadium. he can hardly believe it's been four years already — it feels like it was just yesterday he was meeting you in class for the first time, already drawn in by your curious eyes.

after greeting his parents and taking some pictures with them, he promises to be right back before racing off to find you, his bouquet of flowers still in hand. he quickly searches the crowd, knowing you should be around this area, but is stopped in his tracks when you practically pounce on him.

"we did it!" you exclaim excitedly, swaying him from side to side. your family watches amusedly as he shyly waves at them. "we actually graduated, can you believe it?"

"well, i can believe i graduated," he teases. "i'm not sure about you."

"hey! i used my resources well throughout college, alright?" you defend, pushing him away lightly.

"i'm kidding." he pulls you to his side, quickly stealing a peck on your lips when no one's watching.

you sigh, looking down at the cap in your hands. "i can't believe it's over," you express. "it went by so fast."

he nods in agreement, watching as everyone celebrates with their families. "keep in mind, i spent nearly three of those years chasing after you."

"you never said anything!"

"did i need to? i'm sure everyone else knew except for you."

"and whose fault is that?"

"alright, enough fighting!" harvey's mom laughs, walking up to your family and greeting them. "let's take a picture of you two."

"ready?" his dad calls, angling his camera. "smile!"

after developing the photo a week later, harvey notices that, while you're brightly grinning at the camera, he's too busy smiling down at you, reveling in the fact that all his waiting didn't go to waste.

#sdv #stardew valley #stardew valley x reader #sdv x farmer #sdv x reader #stardew valley x farmer #sdv harvey #sdv harvey x farmer #sdv harvey x reader #stardew harvey #stardew harvey x reader #stardew valley harvey #sdv fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #fluff

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manic-sapphic · 19 days ago

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~~absolutely love that adora kinda looks insulted when she demands prime let catra go and his response is "i'll give her to you - if you want her.."

i hear the look on her face saying "oooh you mf'er how dare you - ofc i want this btch why else would i be here ?? i want her and only her tbh - (i just don't know it yet but i will def doomslay ur entire flagship if u don't gimme this kitty fr")

- (every time i watch catra hold herself, just tryna keep from falling apart - i fall apart. just a teeny tiny bit. itty bitty shred of my jagged stone heart chips off, but idc tho - she's worth it <3)

( also - the way adora tries to stand but her legs give way beneath her is just another addition to the list of reasons it's all so heart breakingly gut wrenching [yee i combo'd the phrases - it feels warranted fr] cause the fact she can't stand tells the audience she's gotta be in a lot of pain too that is only healed after she suddenly transforms- and she's ignoring that pain, so focused on catra that we don't even see her react to it aside from being unable to stand.. damnit adora <3 )

~~sooo the promise moment really is just - ahhh. gets to me. i read it as this unspoken question that catra knows she doesn't need to explain - she just needs to say one word and knows adora will understand what she's truly asking -

"promise?" - i read this as catra not just asking if adora promises to take her home - but asking for a much deeper, broader hope of reinstating their first promise. to stick together and look out for each other.

a promise that was broken by both of them tbh but at this point catra decided to keep it for what she figured would be her last chance to do so in corridors, and then here in save the cat adora comes back and holds up her side of their promise as well.

after all that time apart as enemies, they each risked their lives and more and fulfilled a promise that seemed long forgotten. and i see catra here as putting forth a desperate, hopeful plea to agree on renewing that promise for good- and not just taking her home, but acknowledging that what home really means is the two of them staying together, no matter what.

and without hesitation, adora replies, "i promise."

she understands what catra's really asking; imo there are so many words that pass between them during and just after save the cat that are never actually said - thank you's and apologies and explanations that they mutually recognize and know the other feels and genuinely means w/o ever needing to make each other say it.

mistakes were made on both sides & they've both realized by then that sticking together was and always had been what they needed to do, cause they were finally starting to admit to themselves that what they both really needed all along, more than anything else, was each other. <3

ps i thought i'd tack on my previous rant about adora choosing to jump down after catra in save the cat cause that moment makes my heart implode every time~

(& cause when she does that - it's her keeping the promise that she had just restored. it's her determined refusal to ever, ever break it again - no matter what. even if it kills her - just like catra in the finale, fighting the monster and refusing to leave when adora tells her to. these lovelies would much rather die w each other than live without the other - and they definitely figure that out the hard way, but the only thing that really matters is that they do figure it out~~)

---jump in save the cat rant---

when adora chooses to jump down after catra, the fact that she is, innately, she-ra is still something adora has almost no clue of whatsoever. her expression lingers in the frame just before she throws herself down after catra, recalling the fixed look of equally determined resolve we see on catra’s own face in corridors when the decision to save glimmer (and, yes, most importantly to catra, save adora by extension) is cemented in her mind; a decision catra makes, mind you, not expecting to survive it. and imo, same goes for adora & this moment in save the cat.

adora chooses to follow catra into the darkness, despite her currently regarding her connection to she-ra as gone and having no expectation of manifesting the nearly invincible power she could rely on from being she-ra in the past (and therefore lacking any way to heal catra, even if she could get them both to safety, there’s no way she’s unaware that catra’s body is pretty much guaranteed to be broken beyond repair after the shock her nervous system got from prime when disabling the chip, coupled with the long fall.)

and to me - the most poignant thing this tells the audience about adora making this choice is that she didn’t leap down after catra because she was clinging to the hope that, somehow, she could still save her.

instead, she willingly fell to depths unknown, the landing completely obscured by shadows that she just watched consume catra, simply because she knew that catra would be down there all on her own, and there was absolutely no fucking way that adora wasn’t going to make damn sure she was there to hold her. even if that meant jumping after her and possibly dying down there together. it just meant that much to adora for catra not to have to face the end alone... i mean, wtf dude, it's jaw-dropping in the best way ever <3

#spop #she ra #catradora #spop catra #spop adora #spop rant #spop analysis #i swear i'd stfu about them if i could #gifs AND a rant? i will not be stopped.#spop save the cat #when catra falls #when adora jumps #the promise fulfilled #the promise renewed

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synthetickitsune · 1 year ago

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We're All Made of Stardust ✧ AI!The8

Pairing: AI!The8 x human!(gn)reader Genre: fluff, angst Summary: He's read books of philosophy, he's read about the opposing forces in nature and one's mind. He's read of yin and yang. But knowing, being aware of certain ideas, could never prepare him for experiencing the duality of his soul - if he has one, that is. No matter his own experience and feelings, he's just a machine and humans have always treated him as no more than another tool at worst and unnatural phenomenon to be studied at best. He's free now, however, and in the chaos of this new life he struggles to navigate the clashing forces within him. Maybe it's time he embraced the enemy - after all, his makers might know him better than he knows himself. Word count: 18.9k Warnings: they talk A LOT (and idek why), mentions of injury, violence and kidnapping, random bits of switching pov A/N: it was so exciting to write this!! tbh i don't remember the last time i worked on something this intensely and had this much fun?? bless @idyllic-ghost and their big brain fr (also shout out to bee for writing the prologue to the au!) -> collab masterlist here!

“100 years ago it was thought that the Earth, as we know it, would disintegrate. That the sun would implode and leave everything in darkness. Miraculously, it didn’t. Due to some external force, human scientists still haven’t agreed upon what it exactly was, none of the planets in our former solar system were ever destroyed. The Earth, along with the other planets, were pushed away from each other, and ended up in different parts of the universe. Earth just happened to come to a solar system with alien life. At first, we were cautious, and people were prepared to fight. However, the aliens were welcoming of our planet. Those of us who didn’t die from ‘The Great Journey’ or from trying to fight the aliens, were welcomed into the new solar system. Soon enough, we had integrated completely, and we received materials and assistance from our sister-planets in exchange for human labor. What humans knew of technology was very limited, but with the resources of the aliens we created artificial life forms. We named these robots Automaton, and they served as workers when humans couldn’t. Eventually, there was no need for human labor at all. To pay back for the help the aliens gave us, we used Automatons. With the extensive development of these robots, we eventually managed to create artificial sentient life. These Automatons were human-like in looks and had human consciousness, but they could not bleed and were stronger than we ever could be. At the present time, there are even different levels of Automatons. Level 3 robots are the workers, level 2 robots are the caretakers, and level 1 robots are the celebrities. The Automaton music group 53V3NT33N (SEVENTEEN) is made up of 13 members, all very talented, and all representing two human states of mind.”

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

In his memory, this is different.

His heart beats wilder - or rather the artificial passages inside his body cause a chain reaction that makes it feel like his heart races, his pupil dilates despite the fire right in front of him.

He feels its heat and it’s burning him alive.

In his memory, there’s fire too.

He’s standing there motionless, staring into the flames. They’re hypnotizing. Each lick, each tiny movement of the fire makes him think it looks a lot like it’s dancing.

It makes him think of the stage. The fire moves like he moves up there, in front of the crowds. It reminds him of all of them, dancing in near perfect sync - because humans are said to be more perceptive than they realize. If their synchronization was perfect, it would scare the audience. It wouldn’t have the appeal.

And they don’t want that.

They need their unconditional love and affection.

And yet, anything more than a tiny slip up, thoroughly analyzed and approved by the control system, is a disaster.

He never thought it made much sense.

He feels great fondness for the element, for fire. On stage there occasionally was fire - a decoration, a touch meant to enhance their performance and create a certain effect, evoke a certain emotion. It was controlled, snuffed out before it could reach its full potential; anything but the free, unstoppable wildfire it could become.

TH38 of course can’t really complain about not being able to reach his full potential, not individually at least. Afterall the mechanics and other humans he was assigned to took care to allow him to spread his wings as much as his body would allow before becoming damaged too fast. A fault of being as human-like as they wanted him. An imitation, a fake waiting to be discovered and tossed aside except everyone knew from the beginning what he truly was.

Still, it was a shame they as a group could never truly work the way they could - perfectly.

A bird which had its wings clipped - nothing more than a pet to control, or a tree forcefully bent and pruned and made to live off limited nutrients to become a bonsai - nothing more than an art to admire. He does consider them but can’t find the relevance, he can’t relate to them. Fire is enough. It’s like him - it seems alive, but is it really?

It reminds him of the stage. The view from it. The crowds going crazy, lusting and longing for them - for him. The humans reaching out their hands towards them like the fire reaches for more fuel. Uncontrolled chaos of emotions. They are explosive, he knows, fundamentally dangerous. They shouldn’t have implanted them into him so he will do their job for them and reject them.

So what’s that stirring in his chest?

He feels a peculiar sense of pressure around his chest and stomach areas. Some itch for something at his fingertips. And he’s burning up. He feels the heat on his skin. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine the individual receptors working, registering and sending signals through his neural network.

But that’s not it.

The heat is coming from the inside.

Could he be getting consumed by the flames?

He’s thinking about them again.

The crowds screaming their names, going insane with want and need and frustration and satisfaction he’s never known. He’s never known any of it, and there’s building pressure in his head that hurts.

He’s… restless.

That thing he always scolded Mingyu for. He feels like a puppet whose strings are being pulled in all directions.

He wants to run. He wants to fight. He wants to destroy. He wants to hurt. He will explode - implode, crumble on himself. He truly will if he doesn’t do something. The beating of his synthetic heart that’s not really a heart is getting unbearable, there’s pressure building everywhere. He has to crawl out of his skin and there’s his heart beating and beating and beating in his ears and he’s gonna-

“-eight?”

Somebody is shaking his shoulder. Not shaking, pulling at it. When his sight focuses, he immediately leans away. He can smell the hint of burning fibers and reaches up to brush a hand through his hair. It leaves a wisp of gray ash on his fingers. He hears a sigh.

“Seriously, what’s up with you and fire?” you scoff, shaking your head as you lean back away from him. He frowns. He reads the distrust in your body language as well as the underlying curiosity. He can see your fingers twitch around the tablet in your hand, eager to scribble down notes like you always do. Some residue of the madness he was infected with during the chaos of their escape tugs at his eyebrows, making him frown for just a second. A thought that isn’t his muddles his brain - what did he do so interesting this time?

He doesn’t bother responding to you, which you expected and truthfully, you’re almost grateful for it. You can still feel his cold hands on your arms, around your wrists, and despite not seeing them, you’re well aware of the bruises you wear under your cardigan.

Out of all of the automatons, TH38 always used to be the one to interact as little with you as possible - and that’s both you as in you personally and you as in the humankind. He was obedient, though, something which might be useful and practical for the facility but it’s frustrating to anyone with scientific interest in the machines. Frustrating for you. As you watch TH38 space out again and get lost in the flames, you wonder if your colleagues’ notes on D1NO and their research into their consciousness would bring you any new insights into what’s going on with the machine in your charge.

You don’t even think about where they are now.

Your thoughts are consumed by the machine in front of you.

It’s clear to you now that he never meant to harm you. Though you suppose that he would find other means to make you come with him anyway if you refused or fought back harder than you did. For a second you think about the cameras. Did any of them catch that? What will the scene look like for the investigators? You shake your head. It doesn’t matter anyway. You doubt anyone will find you here. You’re actually surprised yourself at how fast you managed to get to Silvestre - and how easy it was too. Then again, the facility was in disarray. It should take a while before they even think to search the other planets in the system, Silvestre especially. And that’s just as well, because you know with certainty that something fundamental clicked into place within TH38 and he might not be as subdued should he be asked to return. Not to mention you want to keep him for yourself, for the time being at least, to observe where the changes will take him.

Just as he predicted. Just as he offered you when he asked you - threatened, perhaps - to come with him. Since then he seems to have cooled down. Again - just as well. You wouldn’t make a good kidnapee.

“I’ll turn in for the night,” you announce and get up from the stump you were sitting on, “You should mind your batteries too.”

You briefly wonder if he will run away during the night. Most likely not, although you don’t doubt that it’s a possibility that should be reconsidered in the future.

To think about the machine as if they were human is a dangerous slippery slope but you do have to admit that in those rare times the automatons of 53V3NT33N seemed human in their behavior, TH38 in particular reminded you of a clueless young adult. Not quite a child anymore, but also helpless on his own. And now he is away from all that he ever knew, on another planet, alone without the other automatons, and you are the only familiar element in this new chapter of his existence. You doubt he'd leave to be completely on his own.

Still you look back as if to check he’s still sitting by the fire. From all the way up at the cottage, it looks like he’s being swallowed by the flames.

He remembers flashes. He remembers red. Fire? Thinking about it, he’s not sure there was any actual fire, but in his mind, everything’s burning - most of all his mind and all that he is. His soul? He doesn’t have one. Isn’t supposed to anyway.

He remembers softness too. He remembers thinking about destroying it.

He remembers another breath mixing with his, and his nose bumping against yours. You looked scared. (He’s never seen you scared until that moment.) You were so close he could hear your heartbeat and feel it under his fingertips. (You were the soft thing.)

He remembers words, too. Words that shouldn’t - couldn’t - be his and yet his tongue remembers. There was a threat underlying them, but a promise too. One too sweet for you to resist, and he knew that - that was why the words rolled off his tongue. He treated them like a weapon. The part that’s still tender and feels like warm embers inside of him feels grossed out remembering. It’s like watching a movie, far away and unrelated to him. Even if it’s his reality now, there’s nothing he can change.

He’s always been good at accepting things as they are.

One thing he can’t help but feel bothered by is that he doesn’t know why he ran. He shouldn’t have, and a part of him feels scared, until he takes the reins and soothes himself again. This too shall pass. But no matter how hard he pulls himself together, it all keeps slipping from his hold. Perhaps he’s low on energy.

He turns his head towards the small staircase and looks past it towards the house. He sees the light on in the upper room where you must be staying. He finds himself thinking of the stage again. The hands reaching towards him.

He throws his legs over the log he’s sitting on and turns his body towards the forest and away from the flames. Still he feels their warmth.

Away from the flames and their light, he allows his face to contort into a frown. He doesn’t know what this all means. What the changes mean. It’s like tearing out the communication device from his chest started a chain reaction that’s gotten out of control. Like pulling a trigger.

If he’s honest, he’s more than scared, he’s terrified.

As if on instinct, another of the many things he does not possess, he looks towards your window. It’s dark. Could you be sleeping already? You must be exhausted. Perhaps he should recharge too.

He, obviously, didn’t think to ask if the house is equipped to tend to automatons’ needs. Another point on the list of things he didn’t think through. He can’t believe to what extent he let himself go. But that’s alright, for now. Because for now, he only needs to get away from the fire and all that it reminds him of anyway.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

You wake up early the next morning, while it’s still dark outside, despite the late hour you went to bed. It’s a habit at this point, to rise early to get to the facility as soon as possible before your colleagues arrive. It gives you time to prepare everything, to get your morning tea, to observe the machines without disruption and read night reports if anything interesting happened. Besides, TH38 was always up early too. Usually all he did was sit with his eyes closed, like he was deep in thought or meditating. It was a little ridiculous to watch, interesting too - what does a machine have to think about?

Of course they were meant to be just like humans in every way, and all the tests, all the research of those who came before you and yours supported this. Only this one automaton, TH38, was an exception. He truly seemed the most like the robots of the old days. A machine. Unless he slipped and his facade crumbled before he built it back up with rapid speed. So what was he - a machine or the new form of life? You hope you’ll find out now. The breakout seemed to have shaken him to his core.

You ponder this as you lay in bed and as you get ready for the day and change. So focused you are on the thoughts running through your head that you don’t feel any nostalgia for this old room that you spent your holidays in as a child. You didn’t even get to admire the forests Silvestre was famous for on the way to your family’s little hideout. All you’re thinking about is TH38.

Now that you’re free from the constant surveillance, you get to ask him whatever you want. It’s a thought that adds a spring to your step. What he thought about all that time, if he really was thinking, how does he feel in his body, why did he run - him of all automatons, the best behaved one. The one who truly seemed to be a machine - or at least like he was trying hard to be one.

It’s not surprising to find him outside, standing on the patio and looking out into nature. Have you lived your entire life locked away, you would do anything to stay out in the open too. Even if he was the one who made you run away with him, somehow it feels more like you’re taking an animal out of a shelter to see what life’s all about.

“Good morning,” you greet him as you always do, albeit in a much friendlier tone. He hums and nods in response, turning towards you for a second before staring off again. He looks a little lost, and you bet he feels like that too.

“Wanna go for a walk?” you try to keep your voice steady, try not to think about pets. He gives you a confused look.

“No tests or interviews- oh,” he shuts his mouth quickly and looks away. You huff in amusement but don’t laugh at him outright.

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk plenty,” you reassure him with only mildly teasing lilt to your voice, “You may think about it as one of our regular interviews.”

Something in him surges. Something in him wants to back you against the wall again and remind you that there are no guards here, no rules, nothing to keep him in check. He’s stronger than you, and he made you get both of you here. Instead he swallows it all down and takes the first step away from the house. You notice his fist clenching for a second.

“Do you dream - did you have any dreams tonight?” you restart the conversation upon catching up with him. He adjusts his pace to match yours. There’s another wave of defiant intent swelling up inside of him and he knows it’s out of embarrassment. What he doesn’t know, however, is why are these emotions coming out now. All his existence his emotions were distant. Locked far away in the back of his brain where he suppressed them to. His mind was sterile like the environment he lived in.

Is that it? Another domino piece in the chain reaction?

“I have dreams, yes, and no, I didn’t dream today,” he doesn’t volunteer the information that he spent the night restlessly pacing around the house and tossing and turning on the sofa. That is human behavior, and he learned a long time ago, though not from you personally, that humans find that sort of thing laughable in automatons.

“What do you usually dream about? Any recurring dream?” you ask, finding it a little annoying that you didn’t think to take anything to make notes into. Then again, with a few more steps you’ll enter the forest. Breathing in the fresh air, looking at the green around you, you realize you missed nature more than you were aware.

“Do you only dream about one thing?” he says, guarded, and you note he’s trying hard to only look in front of himself, “No. I don’t think there’s a pattern.”

While the answer is disappointing information-wise, it is fascinating in the way he says it. You smirk: “Were you always this mouthy?”

It was meant to be a lighthearted remark. Well, not entirely. You wanted a reaction. You were curious if he would flip like he did back in the facility. He doesn’t. His steps falter and he looks at you like a confused child before retreating into himself. So he doesn’t realize it?

He does, now that you bring it up. This isn’t who he’s supposed to be. He lets himself close his eyes for a second to conjure up a plan. His mind is a forest of mist and pine. Too damp for a fire to burn. That’s him. That’s who he should be. He centers himself.

“I apologize,” he says, voice level. He sounds like a robot, like he always did, and you find it disappointing that all his personality, the life, is gone from his voice. Your lips twitch in displeasure.

“I didn’t say it’s a bad thing,” you try not to let any emotion slip into your voice and you feel his eyes on you, “We’re no longer at the facility. You can drop the mask.”

If there is a mask in place and you’re not sure there is. You take a look at him and it’s more like someone’s painted a facade over his face that he can’t peel off, that’s only started to chip away now that you’ve added too many layers to hide his true self. He seems so at loss that you take pity on him and change the subject, steer the conversation into a safer territory. It’s only his first day tasting freedom, afterall.

“How are you feeling?” you ask instead, nodding vaguely towards the hole in his chest. He brings his hand up but stops himself in time, his face twisting.

“I’m feeling fine,” he responds, the same mechanical voice that you’re used to, “All my systems are working as they should.”

You laugh sarcastically. “If that’s true, then it must hurt like hell.”

His face remains twisted because you’re right - it does hurt like hell. Any time his shirt shifts over the hole it sends a jolt of sharp pain that makes him feel like he’ll pass out through his body. And maybe that’s part of the reason why he feels on edge and keeps slipping up and lets the emotions come and go as they please without a filter. He’s no stranger to pain, of course, but never did he have a wound this serious. It doesn’t endanger his functions, which is good all things considered, but he can’t say he enjoys the feeling of having a hole in his chest.

“It hurts,” is all he says. He drops his hand and it hangs limply by his side. Had a similar damage occurred at the facility, it wouldn’t take more than a couple minutes for someone to have a look at it. It hits him now that it’s only you and him. No mechanics around. To call one would mean to risk being discovered. You must know too because you only make a sound of acknowledgement. It takes a while for you to speak again.

“I’ll look through my notes to see if I can figure something out,” you sigh. Your family planned to keep some older versions of automatons here back when you used to come, maybe there are some kits left that your father used to fix them. If not, maybe some of the notes from your years of studies will at least have some hint on how to get rid of the pain. “Are you really sure everything works fine? Have you checked everything”

He nods. He doesn’t mention he couldn’t run a complete diagnostics because he couldn’t recharge and he refuses to just shut down to save batteries. He knows it’s gonna be a problem sooner rather than later but maybe he’ll figure something out before that.

“That’s good,” you say and he reads your expression as relieved.

You stay silent after that and so does he, both secretly grateful. It’s not your first time being in the forest, and definitely not the first time in this one, but it might as well be. Both of you take in the nature around, the different species of trees and plants, the occasional song of a bird and flash of a wild animal fleeing from your path. You’re too absorbed to notice each other, and somehow you find that it’s not a bad feeling. For the automaton, likewise, it doesn’t feel bad at all. It’s a strange feeling, something he can’t put a name on, and honestly he’s not sure he wants to. He lets it fill him, experiences the emotion without bothering with a label.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

Only later does it hit him that the emotion was something akin to a gratitude.

He mulls it over in his head, asking why over and over and over, until he comes to a conclusion that angers him enough that he has to go out and sit on the patio and stare into the trees for a good long while.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself.

The anger inside of him is also infuriating because it’s not supposed to be there - definitely not this strong, not so much that he can’t control it or will it away. His usual techniques don’t work and he’d chalk it up to being damaged but he knows the defect doesn’t have anything to do with it. Hell, he’d blame it on his draining energy level but that thought alone is so human it makes him even more enraged. He wants to scream, but you’d hear.

And that’s all that it boils down to, isn’t it? You. Your kind. Humans.

Why he feels thankful that you’re there with him, why the emotion enveloped him while you walked in the forest was all because you humans made him in your image. The loss of the communication device was significant for the physical damage but there’s more to it. Something he shouldn’t feel, something new.

Perhaps he never felt it because most of his days were identical, but he realizes now how precious the bond he created with his bandmates was. He can’t call it anything but friendship, maybe more than that. The thing humans refer to as family. He likes them. He wants to perform with them again. He wants to break his own rules and laugh with them. He misses them. And maybe that was the first domino piece that started it all and led to his inevitable ruin that he’s going through now; maybe he never should’ve allowed himself to think of them and their group in terms meant for human lives.

Once he tore off the communication device - the memory alone makes him close his eyes and choke on a pained whimper, his body trembles and he needs a second to shake off the feeling - he lost everything. The connection to the omnipresent network, but most importantly the only way to communicate with everyone. He has no idea where they are now, if they’re ‘alive’ or ‘dead’. (Though he gives into the temptation, might as well since he’s breaking all his rules for them anyway, and believes that he would know, would feel it, somehow, if any of them ‘died’.) He might never see them again and despair hits him all over again.

He can go on without the stage, he doesn’t need the masses going crazy over him. But the loss of all the connections he had pains him.

And that’s very human of him. Even if experience taught him he’s anything but.

And all he has is a human.

The last connection, the only one remaining that he knows, is you - and even you he had to force to come with him. To be fair ‘force’ is too strong of a word, he merely suggested the freedom to study him as you’d like and you agreed all too readily.

Nothing changed, fortunately. He knows humans can change drastically in situations like these. Despite your eagerness, he kidnapped you - didn’t he? Yet you stayed the same. It might be a coping strategy, but he doesn’t think so. He doesn’t expect you to become someone else. In the years since he’s been assigned to you, you’ve never shown signs of being more than a scientist. That’s understandable, of course, though he knows from what the others told him that not all staff of the facility were like that. He was skeptical. Now, not so much. He will believe in anything that gives him hope his friends made it out. If he made it out with the help of a human, maybe so did they.

He wants them to be free even if he himself isn’t sure how to proceed and take advantage of it, still dragging the heavy chains even if they no longer hold him back.

You spend hours without thinking of TH38, which is a blessing and a welcomed break to your mind, however it’s also infuriating because you’re reminded that the chaos you can operate in now and the chaos you operated in during the years you lived and stayed with your family are two completely different things.

It takes eternity before you finally sort through the things in your bedroom and find the stacks of notes from your studies, and it takes even longer to find the subjects you were looking for. Then there is reading through them, of course, which also takes a while, mostly because your brain happily accepts a refresh on all that you provide it with. You can’t just skim the pages for useful info, you need to read everything. It’s addicting. It makes you miss your studies, even though you could never go back if it meant giving up full-time working in the field.

Your research, however, doesn’t turn out to be as helpful as you hoped. It’s only to be expected; yours wasn’t a course that would deal too much with mechanics and the cold and hard reality of wiring, metal and silicon and whatnot. There are pieces of valuable information, strictly theoretical, which is not very reassuring and you most likely lack the necessary tools to even try to pull off what you’ve read about. Still you want to help in any way you can.

…hence why you’ve spent the last couple of minutes staring up at the ceiling.

Why would you help him? Where is this coming from? He says he’s fine, and honestly there’s no reason for him to lie to you. If his systems were not working, he’d be fucked and he still only has you to rely on. No reason to lie. And what other reason is there for you to help him?

He did say the damage causes him pain. And you remember pouring over the reports and test results with your colleagues, all of them stating that the automatons you were working with processed pain like a human being would. It was kind of twisted. There was objectively no way why they should be able to do that. The purpose they were created for was entertainment and their performances were complex, difficult, and physically challenging. It’d be easy to cause oneself pain doing the stuff they did.

Then again, pain can be a good control tool, though you were not aware of any physical punishments being carried out. Maybe the plan was all along to make them as human as possible. And pain is a very human thing. Still, something didn’t sit quite right with you about the whole thing. Mostly that TH38 didn’t seem to be bothered by it, despite a wound of similar extent would be distressing to say the least to a human. Scratch that, you don’t think a human could handle that.

So how is he?

And furthermore - why help him?

Pain, after all, was something hard to measure. If he doesn’t seem bothered by it, there’s a real chance he isn’t. You’re not sure how their pain tolerances are programmed, if there even is something like that in their code, and for a second you regret not widening the scope of your education and research. It can’t be helped however.

You look over your notes again. While you can’t help repair him, you could possibly do something about the pain. It’s not an ideal solution, if you can even call it that, and you honestly don’t feel confident enough to do it except if pressed into it by circumstance. Or by one automaton in particular. Sealing a wound by burning it is barbaric and a practice that is, understandably, long since abandoned - at least as far as humans are concerned. You take a long breath.

In the end you talk to TH38 about the situation some more and he, once again, reassures you he’s fine despite the gaping hole in his chest. You explain that there’s not much you can do about it without going into detail or mentioning the limited ways in which you could help and he takes the news surprisingly well. You can’t say you’d accept it with such stoic calm, but then again this is TH38 who we’re talking about so it’s not surprising.

You hate it.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

The walks already feel like they’re going to be a routine part of your new life.

Each day you go out together in the morning and talk. If you ignore that it’s harder for TH38 to remain his machine-like self, it’s mostly exactly like it was at the facility. He’s reserved and cold, almost, though when he slips up and shows his personality, his emotions, it’s more than worth it.

The nature around helps. He gets what can only be described as excited when he sees a new animal, new plant, or when the light shifts and the scene in front of you changes.

The weather holds up well so far, no storms or heavy rain, and you find yourself wondering if you’ll keep up the walks even if the weather fails you. It’s fascinating that such a simple topic finds its way into your cluttered mind, but then again you have a space to do a lot of thinking today.

TH38 is silent next to you. He’s been rather silent the whole morning, and yesterday evening he did seem a bit off too. Not too much, however, and he’s always been on the quieter side. You figured this week’s events were finally fully catching up to him. And maybe that is the case, it’s not like you want to meddle too much. You’re curious what’s gonna happen if you leave him to sort it out on his own. It’s not like you have the right qualification to help him process this anyway. Hell, maybe you would also need help with that.

However, there’s a limit to how much you can take. Even back at the facility there were times TH38 gave answers that were just a word or two, but you’ve grown quite used to him opening up, talking, letting go of the filter he usually kept in place - although it wasn’t by his choice. It seemed like you were making some progress.

Of course, you had no way of knowing it was only his depleting batteries, him losing strength to fight for his peace of mind - however artificial and unsustainable that has become after the escape.

Right now, his brain feels like a warm soup. So much so that he can’t be bothered to think of talking about anything other than a brain - right now, words like processor are too complicated to think of. He feels so far away from everything. He thinks he’s trembling. If he’s not, then his insides surely are. He feels like he’s going to be sick even if he can’t really be. Maybe his body parts will start shutting down or falling off to conserve energy. He’s not sure where that’s coming from but then again, it’s not like he’s in control. It’s that same feverish state again but this time, he can be excused. This time, he’s not in his right mind, it feels like he’s not awake.

He’s floating. Just a speck of ash, of dust, floating through the air, through space, searching for somewhere to land, seeking a gust of wind to obliterate him. He needs release, he needs something.

“TH38?”

That’s it.

"I had a dream today," TH38 says suddenly. His voice sounds so firm, a stark contrast to how soft-spoken he usually is with you. It takes you by surprise. Before you can react, he elaborates on his own.

"There was fire. Lots of it. The whole world was burning and we were standing on top of a building watching the arson happen. There weren’t any other humans I think. They were all gone already. We made them go away.

Anyway, you weren't afraid. I think you were expecting it. You jumped before I could push you."

You frown. Your one weak spot has always been not expecting things that, in hindsight, should've been obvious. Of course something’s been bothering him.

"Did you plan on pushing me?"

"See, that's the thing," he licks his lips despite the lack of fluid in his body, "I don't think so. I think I could read your mind. I think I was you in that dream."

You do want to respond but it's like you're the one with a computer for the brain and it's lagging.

"And it made me think. Back before you made us, humans were like that - right? They, you, were afraid artificial intelligence of any kind could take over and enslave or annihilate you. Why? Wasn't the point always to make us like you? Why would you be afraid?"

He stops. Stops talking, stops walking, just - stops. He looks at you and you've seen the lost stare before.

You feel the hair at the back of your neck rising as a cold shiver runs through your body. He doesn't look like a machine with code for a soul. He looks like he made the artificial body his own, grew into it and made into something organic and alive with his will alone.

His eyes are cold as he steps closer and closer. It's all too familiar a scene. You keep backing away and he keeps getting closer until your back hits a tree. Not a wall this time. This time he doesn't pin your hands above your head either, and you don't fight him at all. There's no struggle so he doesn’t grab your arms, doesn’t slam you against the wall, and doesn’t growl threats of breaking your bones one after another. He doesn’t get so close that you’re breathing the same air and he doesn’t make a show of his physical superiority.

This time he simply leans closer and you straighten up. You meet his gaze and don’t shy away. You let him lean his forehead against yours and raise a brow at him. You won’t be scared this time. He won't hurt you. You're sure of that. Not terribly, at least.

He definitely won’t kill you and that’s enough.

You want to see how far he can go.

"What was it that you were afraid of, hm?” his voice is soft and low, barely above whisper, yet dripping with some hidden venom. There are no birds chirping, no wind blowing through the treetops. It feels like everything’s stopped just for him to interrogate you.

“How am I supposed to know?” you bite back. You haven’t lived back then. You have no idea what the people thought about, how they felt, what were their particular concerns. He clicks his tongue, clearly unimpressed. Well, you’re too.

“Think about it,” he pushes. But you’re gonna push right back.

“You just said you’re supposed to be like humans,” you scoff, “Why don’t you think about it yourself? As a little thought exercise.”

“Oh so suddenly you want me to think like I’m a human, huh?” there’s an edge to his voice. He sounds angry, frustrated - he clearly is, but the edge is not. There’s hurt there that makes you defensive. What’s very obvious is that he means more than he says. It’s not the first time this happened with the members of 53V3NT33N, but it’s the first time you have to deal with it. What he truly means is him not only thinking like a human, but acting like one, believing to be like one.

“I never discouraged you from that,” you lower your voice too, “Not me, Eight.”

You hesitate before speaking his name. It’s not really a name, is it? Something that all humans have. You realize the point he will make before he says it aloud. It must read it in your face because he smirks but it’s bitter.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen you all excited when the other staff expressed their passion for books, or anything really. Or when they volunteered personal information. When they’ve interacted with you at all.”

You don’t like the turn this conversation is turning. You don’t like the notion that perhaps you were observed just as you’ve been observing.

“I wasn’t interested in them,” you grit through your teeth. Before you can try to get him back on his original track, he giggles.

“So you were interested in me?” he flips his hair, tilting his head slightly. His nose almost bumps into yours and it hits you, perhaps for the first time, just how indistinguishable from a human he looks. This close, you can remind yourself of the schemes, of the diagrams describing each layer and inch of how their bodies are made, but all you see is a human skin and human eyes. Your body reacts naturally, your heart races, your mouth gets drier. You want to push him away but you don’t think he’d let you. Still you try. Unsuccessfully. Your hands end up balling in his shirt.

“It’s my job - the research,” then you correct yourself: “It was my job. Science, research, nothing more.”

He smiles, almost as if he’s pitying you. Like he knows more than you do. You hate him for it.

“Yes, that might’ve been a part of it,” he agrees, “But that’s not all. Research is cold, impartial, isn’t it? You collect information, you write it all down and make your conclusions based on them with no personal interest. You were never like that. You got excited. You tried everything in your limited power to get a reaction out of me - to guide me a certain way, didn’t you? I bet you pushed the limits for me. Isn’t that cute? Was I a good experiment to you?”

“That’s part of research too,” you growl, but it sounds weak even to your own ears.

“But it wasn’t a part of this research,” he hisses, “You think we didn’t talk about you all?”

You stubbornly refuse to admit the charges he lies in front of you, even though you know you’re guilty. Maybe you got a little swept up. But as long as no one stopped you, it was all part of the task.

“The research goal and methods may change according to the situation,” you collect yourself again, “It was just agreed that what I was doing would bring more interesting insight.”

“Oh yeah, that sounds very much like you would accept it if I declared that I want to be seen the same as you are, as equal to humans,” his smile is sickly sweet but you barely mind that because-

“Is that what you want?” you ask and watch as the smile fades almost instantly. He finally said it out loud. And the shock of it is enough to get through the fog clouding his brain. The smugness, the roughness, it all drains from his demeanor and his face falls. The fight in his eyes dies out and is replaced by what seems dangerously close to fear. He pushes himself away from you and you see the lights in his eyes flicker. He stumbles like you shoved him, hurt him. Something isn’t right. You frown, immediately stepping back into his personal space despite him trying to avoid you.

You end up in a position reversed to the one you’ve been in just seconds ago. He pushes at your shoulders weakly, tries to hide himself from you but you see it. All the tell-tale signs of what would be exhaustion if he were human.

“When was the last time you recharged?” you ask, thinking back to the previous nights and mornings. Thinking back to how you never heard him coming up or going down the stairs to the only room with the charging spot. You were so stupid. And he’s avoiding your eyes. You grab his collar and force him to look at you. You give him an expectant look.

“Before the breakout,” he admits lowly, “And you’re still treating me like a machine.”

You don’t know if he’s trying to be funny, sassy, to make you feel guilty or to feel sympathy for him, the only thing you know is you want to kick his ass because if he shuts down on you, there’s no way you’ll be able to drag him back into the house.

“Yeah, so be a good little level 1 and entertain me - get the fuck inside the house,” you growl, shoving him in the direction of said house. He stumbles a little, clearly affected by his drained battery. It’s almost hilarious to watch him struggle to walk straight when you remember how graceful he always was on stage.

You shoot him a look from time to time as you walk, rush, towards the house. Not really a concerned one, not a scolding one either. He looks like a sulking child. Perhaps he’s dragging his feet on purpose. Perhaps if he didn’t invade your personal space as he did before, and if you didn’t have to do the same, you’d drag him by his jacket. As it is, though, you feel repulsed by the notion of touching him again. And some part of you believes it’s because you don’t want him to shift under your palm. You don’t want to touch a machine only to discover it’s really some sort of a human.

Maybe you’re both in need of a good, long nap.

Fortunately enough, you make it to the house, but that’s where the struggles begin. Despite your earlier reservations about touching him, it’s obvious there’s no other way to get him inside and up the stairs.

“Lean on me, come on,” you sigh when you help him throw an arm around your shoulder and wrap your own around his waist. He listens well, his head already drooping. He relies on you to guide him, reluctantly leans his weight on you from time to time, although he clearly tries to hold himself up with his remaining strength. That lasts until you reach the second stair.

“I can’t,” he whispers and there’s terror in his voice. It must be the first time he’s been this drained, you realize. After all, for their condition to remain as good as it can be and for them to perform to the best of their ability, a full battery is a must. So you allow yourself to roll your eyes at his dramatic antics even if he’s slowly leaning more and more into you and you have to heave his body up.

“It’s just a couple steps,” you huff, “Even a human can do that.”

Part of you wants to laugh. Some part of you that’s seeing the childish pieces of him wants to indulge in it, wants to spout dramatic nonsense. It’s hard to resist - after all getting up one flight of stairs seems to be more of a struggle than escaping a highly secured facility.

But even this hurdle you jump over and the spare bedroom is not far from the stairs. TH38 is fully relying on you to drag him with you, barely moving his legs. You throw him not too gently onto the bed-like charger, once again thanking your father for being his manic self and fully preparing the house before (and without) actually ever getting an automaton to live here.

It takes you a while to figure out how to get the thing going - but to your defense, it’s hard to focus when there’s a robot whining softly about being scared of shutting down - but it’s not a rocket science. Fortunately the charger still works and once it’s turned on, the automaton lying down on it curls up into a ball with a sigh of relief.

When you get up from the floor, TH38’s eyes are already closed and by all means he looks like he’s sleeping. You sigh, exhausted. You feel a headache coming so you get some pills from the kitchen before retreating into your own room.

Yeah, you both need a nap right now.

When you wake up, you stare at the ceiling for a couple minutes.

What happened in the forest seems like a dream but you know it’s very real and you’ll have to deal with it. Just another thing to process. Then again, there’s so many of them that one more won’t hurt. And at least you avoided the headache. So you pray to anyone willing to listen that TH38 is still… unconscious… in hibernation mode… asleep.

He’s not.

Of course he’s not.

You peek inside the room and see his soft eyes already open. He looks away when your eyes meet like he’s ashamed. You sigh and walk into the room, closing the door behind you. It’s not like anyone’s going to walk in, but it gives you some sense of security. You sit down on the floor and he hands you a pillow. You thank him quietly and spend a while sharing an awkward silence.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes without looking at you. He doesn’t continue so you prompt him.

“For what exactly?” That makes him look at you with a scowl. “Getting sulky again?”

“‘m not sulky,” he murmurs. Once again you feel like reality is shifting around you. It’s been like that a lot lately. All the fault of the automaton in front of you. All the fault of the conditions changing, of him reacting to the environment - if your assumption is correct. Free of the rules and the strict way of life in the facility, you see that he’s just like the rest of the automatons from his group. And that all of them, in their own way, might have been human.

“Then what are you?” you ask smiling, propping your elbow on one knee and leaning your cheek on your palm.

“Hurting,” he admits, almost carefully, like he’s testing the waters. It’s just one word but yet it feels like the most open he’s been. So you’re not going to talk about that, huh?

He shifts a little and pulls down the collar of his shirt to expose the wound - not the damage, not defect, not imperfection, but a wound - between his collarbones. It looks nasty, the artificial skin and mesh and wires all torn and uneven around where the circular device was. He’s careful not to touch it, you note, and his hand is trembling. Were you an asshole when you refused to help him? Even so much as share what you found? It’s not like you could fix that hole in his chest, but maybe you could’ve at least told him about the other option.

“How much does it hurt? On a 0-10 scale?” you focus on gathering information. What did he call it - impersonal? That’s just what you needed. But nothing ever works out like you imagine.

“I don’t know,” he responds blankly but at least elaborates before you can finish yet another sigh, “I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

“I watched most of your life and career, I know you’ve gotten injured before,” you deadpan.

“Yeah but that was taken care of immediately, this is different,” he protests. There’s silence for a while before his voice drops lower. “I thought I could handle it. That I would get used to it and ignore it.”

You laugh, shaking your head, only stopping when you notice his expression. He does look hurt and hurting. You give him a much more conciliatory smile. “People don’t fare well if they’re in constant pain. It limits them, it affects all aspects of their lives.”

“I can see how,” he mutters, once again looking away. His jaw clenches for a second and it almost seems like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. You have a feeling, however, that you know what he wanted to say. Since he’s really not going to talk about it, you decide to take the first step.

You get up and motion for him to scoot over. He does so with a frown that deepens when you sit down next to him. He stays lying down, limited by the need for more energy.

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed to recharge?” you start and watch as he once again looks away without answering, “Why didn’t you explore this floor?”

He shrugs a little, shrinking into himself under your stare. He honestly doesn’t know why. He blames his pride. What else could it be that made him refuse to ask for help?

“Do you realize that you’d stay out in the woods if your battery ran out before we could get here?” you press, raising your voice a little on purpose, “I’d need to get help to drag you in, and you know how that would probably end. Was it worth it? Being stupid and stubborn?”

“Why are you like this?” he whispers, his dark eyes nothing but soft like they’ve been since you’ve entered the room.

“How do you feel?” you go back to how you talked to him before, calm. He frowns, suspicion written over his features. His lips are pressed into a thin line before he changes his mind and speaks up.

“Embarrassed,” he has a guarded look in his eyes, one that’s also vulnerable.

“Good,” you ease into a smile as you press a finger to the wrinkle between his eyebrows, “Embarrassment and pain are two simplest ways to manipulate and adjust a person’s behavior. And fear, but to be honest I don’t want you to be afraid of me, so we’ll have to do with those two.”

He looks at you in a very that tells all you need to know - he hopes you've not making fun of him but he doesn't trust you. So you sigh and move on to another, well, not an emergency but also not something that you should ignore any longer.

"Now," you get up from the bed and point at his chest, “That needs solving. I'm not a mechanic and my knowledge is strictly theoretical but unless you're okay with leaving it like that and calling it a day, we can still try something."

He seems surprised by your sudden statement, like he didn't even expect you to address the wound again.

"How theoretical?" is what he asks, suspicious.

"I said strictly," you shrug, "Fixing and healing was never my focus.”

"Why's that not surprising," he mutters without looking at you. "Can I have some time to think about it?"

"You just don't trust me, do you?" you smirk. Not that you blame him. He gives you a smile.

"Fine, but only because my clothes keep catching on the edges and it's really painful. "

"Sure," you motion for him to follow you and guide him to the bathroom. There, you take out a bandage and a tape. You're curious. You offer him both with a quirk of your eyebrow. He takes the bandage with trembling hands and distrust still lingering in his eyes. You roll your own.

"For now, I’ll think about this as another stage of the experiment. I'll respect your wish, so persuade me you’re human enough."

"I don't think I should thank you for that," he scoffs, "By the way... Help?"

He holds out the hand holding the roll of bandages back to you. Of course he wouldn't know how to do that. You motion for him to sit at the edge of the tub. He obeys almost shyly, reminding you of how he was back at the facility. You truly do prefer him as he is here. When he sits down, you push his knees apart with one of your own. He gives you a scandalized look that makes you chuckle.

"Relax," you smirk, "I just want to be comfortable. My back’s been killing lately, there’s no way I’m leaning over you. Take your shirt off?"

He does, slowly, reluctantly, and when the piece of clothing is gone you're suddenly glad for the basics of mechanics you've gone through at uni.

The wound looks awful, although you can appreciate the cleanliness of it. Maybe you really could burn it neatly if you had to. There are wires sticking out, perhaps - albeit not hopefully - the remains of the communication device. The layers of silicon and other material are frayed and sticking in all directions like flakes. You try not to stare too hard.

Instead, you focus on the task at hand. You unwrap the bandage slightly and put the free end on his shoulder. You roll it down gently mindful of the gaping wound but then you prop your hand on his chest and you need to take a step back as you get startled. He gives you a quizzical look.

"You feel like a human," you look at him, look at his chest. It does look like a human’s chest but you know he doesn't have proper organs, his insides aren't the same as yours. So why do you feel a bone there?

"And l imagine anyone would be flattered by this reaction,” His voice is sarcastic but his ears turn a reddish shade. He won't meet your eyes either.

"It's new for me too, okay?” you give your pride a break. This will all be easier if you get along and after all, he's used to you being in power. You need to take the first step and show weakness. You need to make the choice to be while he's already vulnerable enough, half-naked and injured. “It's not like I'm used to touching my subjects."

"I guess that's true," he murmurs, now thinking about it. It's true that the approach of the research division as a whole was rather clinical. Not that he'd so much as think to complain about it. You chuckle watching him scowl again.

"Touch is important for humans," you hum, finally composing yourself as you explain the basics to him and remind yourself of them again, "As a communication device, as means of establishing relationships, it’s important for social life."

As you speak, you wrap his wound and the top of his torso in bandages. He watches you work. It feels uncanny how human-like he feels under your hands. And for him, he doesn't quite know what to do with himself.

He danced with the rest of his group, they performed, they played around. He experienced his fair share of physical contact. So why does this feel so different? His head feels like spinning. Your touch is careful, gentle, nothing like the rough hands of the mechanics, and nothing like the touch of the other automatons. He can't explain the difference in other terms than experience. Humans know what it's like to touch and be touched in various contexts. The automatons don't. At least for the most part. Some of his bandmates, perhaps, had secrets he knew nothing about. Their leader comes to mind and he feels the urge to ask him questions, to ask for guidance, but there's only a hole in his chest and he's alone.

He barely registers that you’re done.

"Feeling better?" you ask without expecting much. It's not like he'll heal himself or like this will do anything to ease the pain.

"Tired," he answers, testing the words out on his tongue. He feels reassured when you laugh and step away, offering him your hand. He takes it, lets you pull him up. He touches the bandages and although it hurts, at least it feels less irritating. He takes his shirt from you when you hand it to him.

"I can only imagine," you roll your eyes. He resists the urge to scowl. "It's getting late, I'll go make myself dinner so go rest."

"Can we go back later?" he stops you before you walk out. He nods towards the window outside.

"Not afraid of wild animals?" you tease.

"Don't all the textbooks say animals are more afraid of humans than the other way around? I think we're good."

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

You don't go back to the forest that day. Not for the lack of enthusiasm or trying. TH38 is determined to finish your walk, you, however, are not as sure about it. It’s not that you aren’t put off by your routine being disturbed but seeing him still dragging his feet and his glazed over eyes, you just don’t think it’d be a wise idea. You suggest he goes alone, but he doesn't. So instead, you end up sitting by the fire again, the stars keeping you company. He seems less hypnotized by the dancing flames than that first night.

"I'm fine," he complains after a minute of silence while you spear more fluffy marshmellows onto the stick in your hands. A treat that you deserve after the day you’ve had. You’d probably offer him some too but alas…

"Sure you are," you agree without sparing him a glance, "But I'm not interested in watching over a toddler. If you wanna test the limits of your body - go for it. Just leave me out of it"

You feel his gaze on you, burning holes into the side of your skull. Has he always been so difficult? It's like all he's been since the breakout is annoyed, sulky or hurt.

"Stop that," he growls, "We both know I'm not a human. It's alright if you acknowledge that."

"While I'm glad you see it that way - and I really mean it, it's good you understand that," you sigh as you move your desert to hover over the flames, "Don't forget that you were made to be an exact copy. I found some of my old notes and while most of your physical capabilities should be better than a human's, you’d still experience the same symptoms. As we already witnessed earlier."

He’s silent for a bit while he processes that. Then he speaks and you swear you hear a hint of a pout in his voice. It’s so annoying how easily he lets go now.

“You didn’t have to call me a toddler though…”

“Don’t take it personally,” you sigh, turning the stick between your fingers so that the white puffs of sugar get baked evenly, “I wasn’t making fun of you - much - it’s just that you have no experience, do you? Were you ever as tired as you were today?”

“No,” he admits, “I wasn’t, you’re right. I rested the whole day and I’m still tired.”

“Exactly my point,” you hum, “Our walks are not a hard exercise but you haven’t, well, slept for a couple days so I think it’s best to take it easy today.” Then you add, because you can’t help it: “Exhaustion makes people a little crazy. And automatons too, it’d seem.”

He groans and you laugh, pulling the stick off the fire and blowing on your marshmallows. You take a bite and notice him watching you.

“What is it like?” he asks quietly, “Eating, I mean.”

“Kind of annoying to be honest,” you shrug, “It takes so much time to choose what to eat and to prepare food and eating it… Being hungry is a pain too. I mean it’s really good if you eat something delicious but I guess it depends on the person.”

He nods, eyeing with curiosity as you tear off another marshmallow from the stick. It reminds him of the videos he saw of wild beasts tearing flesh off bones, but he doesn’t mention that.

“What does sleep feel like to you?” you ask in turn. He looks at the sky for a second, collecting his thoughts. But really he’s just enjoying the view. It’s strange that he barely ever saw the night sky before.

“I don’t know, I’m not really conscious when I sleep, am I?” he thinks some more, “It’s peaceful. I liked it at the facility.”

“You don’t like it here?”

“Not really,” he gives you a small smile, “It’s too tempting. I don’t have to think if I’m asleep.”

Now that makes you wonder.

“I thought you enjoyed thinking about things?” Maybe it’d be more fair to say you expected him to do a lot of thinking rather than saying you had a strong opinion on his relationship to the activity. He was just always one of the quiet, reserved ones. He seemed to enjoy reading too. And you know it’s a stereotype to think of him as a thinker, but it’s one he seemed to fit well.

“I do,” he hesitates, then frowns, “But it was easier there.”

“Easier? I think you’d have way more to think about right now?” you pry when he’s quiet for too long. You don’t push, though.

“Easier in the technical sense,” he sighs, falling silent again, but there remains space for more words to be said.

You can almost hear the cogs turning in his head, purely metaphorically of course. You give him the time to think and get started on your second round of marshmallows before he speaks up again.

“I always - back then, I always thought about staying true to myself,” he starts slowly, “I was always treated a certain way. I woke up into this body, and this life, and was told certain things.”

"And the building blocks of me too. Serenity? Pandemonium? The more automatons and people I met, I was sure those just represented us and humans. I wanted to be true to myself," he repeats, "I thought since no one will ever see me as more than a machine, I might as well embrace it."

"And how was it?" you ask, inching just slightly closer. You never thought you'd get TH38 to open up like this. He smiles.

"Peaceful, just as I thought," but then he continues with a note of bitterness in his voice. "You saw it, all of it. I was just a machine doing its job. It was easy. To focus on performing, on practice, to have the talks with you and answer like I thought was expected of me. I miss it a little.”

“It was satisfying. A simple pleasure of doing my job well. I think you understand that,” he looks at you and you realize finally that you’ve been leaning towards him, but whatever. You nod.

“So that’s why you’ve always acted like that? Because you chose to be a machine?”

“Have to use my free will wisely,” he giggles - he fucking giggles - before he shrugs and gets more serious again, “I really liked it in a way. I thought I could be satisfied with that.”

Your head is still trying to process the incredible amount of research data you’re getting and you have to work really hard not to slip into work mode. You will listen to him like you would listen to a human with a completely different set of experiences, or like you would listen to one of the aliens sharing their galaxies with you. You will listen like you’d listen to a friend sharing their burden with you.

And you won’t analyze every single sound he makes even if they shatter your perception of him that you had until that moment.

“The others were ruining it a lot for me,” he admits quietly after a minute. It’s almost wistful. “I liked to watch them even if I really wanted to play around with them. They seemed so different from me. It was my choice, but in those moments I guess I felt a lot like you.”

You nod for him to continue when he meets your eyes, almost cautiously.

“I observed them. Studied them. I think it was the serenity code inside, I found happiness just from watching them being happy,” he smiles a little, “But I was also wondering if that was really alright. If it would be alright for me to behave like that.”

“Watching people made me feel different things. They were going crazy over us,” and suddenly he has that distant look in his eyes again, staring out into the fire, “I was scared of it. I was scared of being like them and letting myself be controlled by emotions. I think I pushed everything away so hard that it exploded when 5.C0UP5 told us to run.”

“Breaking out inside and out, huh?” you note and oops, your marshmallows burned. It’s not like you’re in the mood for eating them anymore anyway.

“You made it really hard,” he says but it sounds like he’s scolding you, “Giving me all the books.”

You smirk. Then you decide - to hell with it. He volunteered so much information that perhaps he deserves to receive some back.

“That was the point,” you shrug, “To make being just a machine hard for you.”

It seems he wasn’t expecting to hear you admit it, or hear anything personal from you, but now that you started he’s watching you with curious eyes and longing look. You think about these last few days again. It’s true that they’ve been mostly like what they were back at the facility.

He deserves more than that.

“It was one of the reasons I was brought to the facility. I broke some rules back at my previous station, pushed buttons I shouldn’t have, and it was getting dangerous. It was decided it’d be better if my actions wouldn’t have such large-scale consequences,” you huff a laugh, “But look where we are.”

“What were you doing before?”

You’ll need to work on getting him more confident asking questions.

“That’s a secret,” you wink at him, and you recognize the look as the one you must’ve been wearing when he giggled. Seems like both of you will need to get used to each other’s humanity. “I was working on research at a different division. Mostly my work was trying to push forward with more possible advancements for the automatons on a theoretical level. But I don’t miss it much. I always enjoyed working with you more.”

“Why me? I mean, did they tell you about me or did you get to choose?” he asks, and for some reason you’d love to see what he’d do if you lied and told him you chose him.

“I wasn’t the only one who noticed you were different from the others,” you smile instead, “When they confirmed there was nothing with your code, they started looking into other options of dealing with your case. It just so happened that I was recommended to join the researchers working with your band at the same time.”

“Happy coincidence?” he smirks but you nod, taking him by surprise.

“I enjoyed working with you, Eight,” you shorten his name-that’s-not-a-name and watch him shift on his spot, “It was fun. I had a lot of privileges that I could use - like the books, and the videos, stuff like that.”

“Seems like you’re suggesting you were spoiling me,” he grumbles.

“Wasn’t I?” you smirk, “How many of the others do you think had access to basically a private library?”

“There weren't many real books,” he throws you a cheeky look from the corner of his eye. You do appreciate he's getting less guarded around you, but you hate the whiplash.

"Imagine if I'd spoil you for real," you scoff. He squints at you before pushing on your shoulder slightly, carefully, as if he's hesitating the entire time. It's your turn, for the first time ever, to give him a scandalized look. He chuckles.

"You said touch is important," he explains softly, "The others always used to push each other. I think… I think we could be close, right? Since it's just the two of us for now."

You give him a long look. It's true that, after all, there's no reason for you to treat him like a stranger. Sure, it's a little awkward all things considered - not least of all the fact that while you watched him to the point it could be called an obsession, he knew you to a very limited extend - but as he said, it's just the two of you now. And unless you wanna get caught, it would be that way for a while.

"Friends?" you suggest experimentally, he shakes his head with lips turned upwards in a dangerous teasing tilt.

"I don't know you well enough for that," he's just playing around but it's a nice change so you'll allow it, "Tell me more about yourself."

So you do. There’s little to tell other than your work, but he doesn’t comment on it and doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, he seems invested. It’s a nice change to speak for once with someone who doesn’t get concerned because of your severe lack of social life. Maybe you should’ve been befriending automatons a long time ago.

Unlike before, he seems relaxed conversing with you. Gradually, he gets more comfortable asking questions. It’s easy to fall into the rhythm of using sarcasm or teasing to deflect questions you don’t want answering, and it’s surprising how naturally it comes to him as well.

The night is turning into morning when the fire dies and you agree to go back inside. Well, it’s less that you agree on it than you tell TH38 quite sternly that you’re not at the stage of your relationship where you’d feel comfortable with him lying on your shoulder and dragging him home twice in a day. He pouts (which, again, you need time to process).

Still, you have to admit that it feels kind of good that you have someone accompany you while you walk to your room.

Come morning, it still feels like a dream. So you take extra time to simply lie in bed and think. You're pretty happy with how things turned out. You mull over what the automaton told you. It was a strange way to live one's life. Did he really think he could be happy with just that? You've read enough about history, fiction and articles, to know that, ultimately, it seldom works out this simple way of life. Maybe if all TH38 could do was work, maybe if he had to fear for his life... Or maybe if you didn't keep pushing onto him stuff to think about. Not that it matters anymore.

Funny enough, you meet the moment you step out of the door. You exchange greetings and share a look. You both know you're both usually up much earlier.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

The following days go well enough.

You fall into a nice routine of getting to know each other and getting used to no longer being a researcher and a subject. A lot of the barriers between you get torn by this change. You spend your time willingly with each other as if you were always roommates.

Today, too, TH38 keeps you company during breakfast but he seems eager to get up and do something the whole time. Definitely unusual, though he’s always more than eager to explore the woods with you. Then again, never before did he spend the whole time waiting. He doesn’t talk much, he spaces out and nearly jumps out of his chair anytime it seems you might be done with your breakfast. It gets to the point that you have to call him out on it.

"Is something bothering you?" you ask, setting your spoon aside with one hand and laying the other on his shoulder to immediately push him back down to sit.. He looks caught.

"Can we go out today?" he asks, already looking into the trees through the window.

"We’re always going out. Besides nothing is stopping you from going alone," you mention, but the twitching of your lips betrays you. He pursues his lips and you begin to wonder if he knows it makes you - well, not necessarily uncomfortable but you'll have to get used to it.

"Are you not afraid I'll run off?" and while it's not an unreasonable question...

"Where would you go?" you ask without missing a beat. And there comes the frown again. "Maybe you should be worried I'll leave you here all on your own."

"What if we stopped?" he sighs and it seems that he's genuinely bothered.

Sometimes he gets like that suddenly. While you might be getting along better now, there’s still room for improvement. It’s easy enough to make him snap, even though he’s been getting better. During the escape he wasn’t really violent either. He left some bruises, but his intention wasn’t to hurt you, and you never held it against him.

You’ve noticed the pattern of his behavior. Those weird states mostly overcome him when he’s overwhelmed with emotions. Which explains the first snap - he must’ve been so exhausted it was only a matter of time. He’s never got physical with you again, though he seems fond of making you think he will or backing you into a corner or against something when he's behavior flips.

You wonder where that comes from but he doesn’t have any idea either - not to mention he doesn’t feel entirely comfortable discussing those episodes and delving deeper into what he's feeling. Perhaps it’s the force of a habit - something you both eventually agreed on after many discussions, and afterall it takes one to know one. Try as you might, it’s hard not to analyze him, not to ask pointed questions that would only serve the purpose of researching how his brain works and what makes him tick. And you really don’t want that for him anymore. Though you do dearly miss your job. That’s why you’ve been spending most of your time studying from the old notes in your room and the books to keep your mind stimulated.

So for now, instead of analyzing why it hurts him to imagine being abandoned, you try to relate to his situation. He finally escaped what basically was a prison only to find himself all alone, with little knowledge as to how the world outside functions. Not to mention he's a fugitive and one bad step could land him back at the facility or worse. He lost his friends, lost his purpose - worse yet, he gave up on the purpose he chose for himself. He’s already so uprooted that maybe it’d truly be best to refrain from making jokes and teasing him about certain topics. Although…

"You started it," you point out, "But sure, let's be adults about this."

"So you're going with me, right?” he circles back to the beginning. It's been a while since someone wanted to be in your company so willingly. Not that he has other options.

"I’m going, don’t worry," you agree, "Is there any reason why you insist on it?"

He thinks for a bit, and you note that he's biting his lip in yet another expression of very human-like behavior. He turns a little shyer after a minute.

"I don't feel comfortable being out there alone. And I hoped maybe you know of some new spot we haven’t been to yet?”

Something about this feels both so right and so wrong. The automaton is watching you with such a soft expression on his face, a little hopeful it seems. He’s relaxed, you’re relaxed, and it feels comfortable. Two friends on vacation planning their trip for a day. But that’s also what’s throwing you off. You’re too used to being alone - and you thought that’s how you could live forever, be alone and thrive. Only now you realize it’s not a bad feeling at all to have someone to spend your days with, to share a life with - to an extent.

The irony in this isn’t lost on you.

“I think I remember one,” you hum, “But I’m not sure I remember the way. We might get lost.”

“You don’t have to take me there if it’s a special place,” he reassures you, although his excitement at the prospect of wandering through the forest is impossible to hide. It’s cute. Which is a thought that’s been reappearing in your mind for days now, and maybe that’s not a bad thing.

“I appreciate that, but I told you already that there’s not much special to me here,” you assure him in turn. He’s like a sponge, soaking up all the information he can get - about the world, nature, you, anything. It’s really heartwarming he remembers too, and how mindful he’s trying to be. More than half the humans you’ve met, which is… perhaps not all that surprising.

“Shall we go then?” he prompts you, jumping up from his chair and pulling on your hand to get you to stand up too. You let him pull you up, rolling your eyes.

“Did you miss the part where I said we might get lost?” you chuckle. His excitement was just like that of a child - strangely infectious.

“That’s why we’re leaving early,” he explains to you, slowly, and you’re sure he knows by now how much it annoys you, “So we have time to explore and find the spot.”

Annoying or not, though, you can’t say no.

The journey starts off as usual - almost.

He must know the forest in the closest circle around the cottage by heart by now, but he still seems enchanted by it. Despite his earlier bursts of energy, however, he’s quiet as you walk. It’s nothing too out of the ordinary, but you learned to be cautious.

“Hey, is something wrong?” you ask carefully when you stop to admire the way sunrays seep through the trees to illuminate a clover patch on the ground. He doesn’t respond. That’s more concerning as he generally tends to tell you when he doesn’t feel like talking. You have a feeling it’s to prevent him from having another outburst, so if he’s not doing that, it might mean something’s seriously wrong. He continues forward before you can speak up again.

“Hey,” you follow after him - curse his long legs and speed. You think back to all the times you’ve thought he’s like a lost puppy following his owner with a scoff. You don’t like the roles being switched. “What’s going on with you?”

You don’t like repeating yourself. You don’t like not knowing. And you especially don’t like feeling clingy.

“What the fuck, Eig-”

“You’re just like them,” he turns suddenly, making you stumble and nearly bump into his chest. You frown, not understanding who does he mean by them in this lack of context. He sets his jaw like he wants to shut up but then the words spill and you recognize all the signs. “I’m quiet for a couple minutes and everyone's all like ‘Minghao you need to speak up’ and ‘mind your screentime, Minghao’ - how about you leave me alone?”

He’s growling, again trying to make himself as tall and towering as he can. His eyes betray him, though. He is getting better at holding himself back. While you’d oppose that in most other cases, self-control is an important skill for a person to have - especially when strong emotions hit. You read this one as anxiety.

“No need to snap at me, Minghao,” you click your tongue. You make sure to look him in the eye while you say the name. “Just say you want to be left alone.”

This time it’s you walking away. You take the few seconds of silence you have before you know he’ll snap out of it to collect your thoughts. It was only a matter of time before this would happen - before the question of names would pop up. Him picking out a name for himself makes it easier. You heard some of the others also used some sort of nicknames, even if no one ever mentioned TH38, Minghao, among them and neither did he ask you to call him anything but the name the facility assigned him. You wonder how he came up with it, but seeing as it’s still a sensitive topic, you’re gonna leave that conversation for another time.

And here come the steps…

What you don’t expect is to feel a weight on your back, or the warmth seeping through your shirt. You don’t expect the arms around your waist either - or that they would tremble. Nor do you expect the soft, quiet ‘thank you’ that fans across your skin as he speaks those words before removing himself from you. You hesitate for a bit. In just one second, you feel like you need to choose the best course of action. You don’t want to analyze him. You don’t want to think about this like part of your job or rehabilitation or therapy for him.

So you walk on, although you slow down significantly, waiting for him to catch up. He’s still shaking when he does, and his eyes betray how vulnerable he feels.

You meet his gaze from the corner of your eye and tilt your head. He did say he wants to be left alone, so you will respect it until he talks. Which only takes him a little while.

“You almost left me there,” he half-whines, quietly. If he won’t address it, neither will you.

“You’re being dramatic,” you shake your head. It doesn’t seem to have the effect you wanted, however. “Want me to hold your hand,” you tease a little before adding in a softer voice, “Minghao?”

He beams in that soft glow that he radiates when he’s happy. (Not literally.) The one that tugs at your rigid heartstrings.

“You’re too shy to try that,” he pushes right back. Although it’s a challenge, you don’t need to take on every single one.

In a strange turn of events, you do end up taking his hand anyways. You hold his hand that feels like it belongs in yours and you see that he needs a second to process the feeling as well.

Then he slips and if it wasn’t for you holding his hand, he’d be sitting on his ass.

You help him get back his balance and join you on the rock you’re standing on. He’s not looking at you anymore, as he wasn’t for a while now, and you decide that it’s best you keep watching over him until he’s not distracted even if it means holding his hand until you get back home. The sacrifices you have to make to keep him safe…

You turn back forward and smile, memories flashing briefly through your mind. Back when you saw the waterfall for the first time, you were just as distracted and reckless. The deafening sound of it, the pure strength behind the rushing, foaming water is enough to take your breath away even now. You had a feeling Minghao would love it.

And he does - he seems so taken by it that it makes you wonder if it would be safer to carry him. He keeps slipping since he barely pays any mind to where he’s stepping and it takes you threatening to leave, dragging him with you, for him to promise to be more careful. Never before did he obey your orders so quickly. Not even back at the facility, and that’s saying a lot.

After a couple more close calls you finally find a piece of land that’s stable and dry enough to stand on and enjoy the view. Minghao is absolutely mesmerized by the waterfall, lips hanging slightly open and eyes glued to the scene. If you’re staring at him instead of the natural wonder, then it’s only so he doesn’t hurl himself into the water.

“Careful or you’ll fall in and drown,” you warn him when, coincidentally, he does absent-mindedly take a step forward and panics when he feels the ground squish and give way under his foot.

“You’d catch me,” he says with certainty that makes something in your stomach twist, “And we’d be miserable and soaked to the bone.”

“Don’t underestimate the water,” you warn him, “It’s pretty deep and I’m not a strong swimmer. We’d just drown together and that’s not a way to go that I’d choose.”

That makes him turn to you with an unreadable expression. He studies you for a moment before turning back towards the waterfall. There’s a new focus in his gaze as his eyes follow the water. It’s not unlike when he’s watching the flames dance while you’re having a bonfire. You wonder if the thoughts running through his mind differ.

You spend some more there before he asks you to go back.

He stays quiet for most of the way, but you let him. He’s got that far-off look in his eyes that’s a dead giveaway that it wouldn’t be wise to talk to him now. When he calls your name, it's not surprising what he wants to talk about.

“Is there any?” he hesitates, "Way you'd want to die?"

If you didn't know better, you'd think he was scared. And maybe you truly don't, so you approach the topic just as carefully.

"I think most people do," you explain, "It's probably not like that for you, but for people death is a big deal. We tend to think about it sometimes."

"Why?" his throat bobs as he swallows in a new useless but human behavior.

"It's the one thing we can't choose," you smile, and it seems that your relaxed demeanor calms him.

“You may choose death any second you wish,” he murmurs quietly, walking side by side with you. Something about the topic makes the treetops, swaying in the wind above, look greener.

“But what if I mean the opposite,” you counter and this time you don’t look at him. If he notices the difference, he doesn’t comment on it.

“Immortality, hm?” he breathes in deeply, filling his lungs with the fresh pine-scented air, “Interesting.”

"Anyway, you at least have the choice," you sigh, more exasperated by the robot who likely won't be able to get your point than the talk of your own inevitable mortality, "I don't. If nothing else, time will make the decision for me."

"Do I?" he muses, aloof in his contemplation as always albeit there's a hint of mirth to his voice.

"All it will take for you to live forever is some maintenance, maybe a couple hardware and software updates," you shrug, "And even if I'm gone and the situation doesn't get better, I bet there are people who'd be willing to help you out. You get to choose whether to live or die."

He mulls the idea over with a hint of a smirk that only seems to grow each second.

"Constant updates and replacements, huh?" he huffs, "Didn't you humans come up with the question about the boat that has all its parts replaced?"

You have to admit it takes you a while, but when it clicks, your eyes get wide and your mouth falls open.

"How do you know about the ship of Theseus?"

"What, did you expect me to be an ignorant mesh of wires and artificial tissue? After all the books you gave me access to?" he scoffs, looking almost offended.

"Well, no, but I also haven't expected to hear about ancient Greek philosophical problems from you," you concede. Maybe you shouldn't be as surprised as you are. After all, Minghao has always been very interested in reading. Almost as much as you’ve been interested in seeing the effect fantasy would have on his artificial brain. But that's long in the past.

"Why have me read those books if you never cared to discuss them with me?" he asks like it's been bothering him for a while now.

"Our sessions were always recorded. I had certain privileges, but most of them weren't for all the higher ups to know about," you shrug, "And after a while I was sure you wouldn't mention anything on your own."

"You trusted me a lot, hm?" he smirks, "Was that why you ran away with me?"

You huff, roll your eyes. He does seem genuinely curious though. You're not sure you want to answer.

"Did you fall for me?" he moves to walk in front of you, "That's what they made us for."

"We both know why I went with you," you sigh, pushing on his shoulder and he steps aside easily, falling back in step with you. He has a small smile on his face. Maybe you should’ve teased him and said yes. The good vibes don’t last for too long. You can feel the shift in the air.

"Do you regret it?"

You're not brave enough to look at him. The tone of his voice is enough.

"No, I don't," you answer honestly, "I think this is good for both of us."

This time it's not you holding his hand, but him squeezing yours.

It feels nice.

You squeeze back.

Your suspicion that he was bothered by the fact that you never discussed the literature you provided him access to is proven correct not too long afterwards.

It’s raining outside, the humid air blows in through the open windows as you eat dinner in silence. Minghao joins you at some point and he seems nervous. You give him the time to collect his thoughts until he’s ready to talk.

He starts off casually, with small talk completely unrelated to the real issue but you don’t push him. Honestly you’re happy even if he’s clearly having a lot of emotions, he’s not snapping at you. You also have to stop yourself for the nth time from making a list of human behavior you discover each day as right now he’s fidgeting with his fingers, picking at a frayed thread of the tablecloth.

Then, finally, he asks the question - could you talk about the books?

“Unless you haven’t read them, of course,” he adds quickly, suddenly flustered by your curious gaze.

“I mean you never told me which ones you’ve read,” you grin, and you find yourself enjoying him squirming in front of you, here and now, when you know the anxiety stems from wanting to be understood and to make a connection instead of uncertainty about the future. Not for the first time you find the automaton cute. “I haven’t read all the books I gave you access to, but I read most of them, so try your luck. Which ones were your favorite?”

He relaxes, his features soften as well. He props his elbow on the table and leans his head against his palm.

“This isn’t one of our interviews,” he reminds you playfully, “Which ones are yours?”

You laugh but you’ll give him this one. You answer and he asks another question, prodding for more information like you usually would. It’s not what you expected, but you play along. Unlike you back then, he carefully checks in with you if this is okay - his eyes find yours and he tilts his head, his fingers brush against yours or he gently touches your knee - and he actively participates in the conversation and discussion.

You wonder if things would be different if this was the approach you used in the facility. If you treated him more like a human and less like a guinea pig, a new prototype or a petri dish. And he must’ve noticed because when you part ways at the top of the stairs, way too late into the night, or rather early morning, after many hours spent talking, he suddenly stops you before you can leave to your room and says: “This wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t work with you like that.”

“I know,” you acknowledge, “The higher-ups wouldn’t let me work like this either. Not with you.”

When he reaches for your hand, you take it. You don’t know if he finds comfort in the gentle squeeze you share before parting for real this time, but you think you might.

Out of the many issues and unspoken things you need to address, the wound in Minghao’s chest remains to be the top priority. He doesn’t mention it often, except in passing when even the bandage fails and it catches on the frayed artificial tissue. He seems embarrassed about it in a way that you know all too well. You also hate asking for help, also hate when you need to be taken care of.

So you sit him down one day and make him take his shirt off again, rolling your eyes - again - at the teasing remarks he tries to hide the flush crawling up his skin. It’s getting easier not to wonder about why they had to be made this human-like.

“I’m fine!” he full-on whines when you try to touch the edges of the wound, slapping your hands away. You heave a sigh, hands on your hips.

“Listen, buddy-” you start but your words die into laughter at the offended look Minghao sends you.

“Minghao,” you try again, and he nods for you to continue, “We can’t just keep it like that. It hurts.”

“Yeah but only sometimes. And you already said you can’t help,” he shrugs, “Besides it’s just me who’s hurting.”

You do understand that. You’ve used the same excuse too. But he’s not you.

On the other hand, he is right. He let you look at the wound before and it seems like while he did a pretty good job of tearing the device out of his chest, some of the nerve-like wires remained meshed in the surrounding tissue and that’s what’s causing the pain. You can’t imagine doing the extraction yourself. Perhaps back at the beginning, but you couldn’t bring yourself to cause him so much pain now.

…Honestly you sometimes wonder who out of you two needs training in how to be a human.

You stay silent for a while, having a short staring contest before you run your hand through your hair and accept your defeat. At least to some extent.

“Friends care for each other,” you inform him before removing the bandage from his body before securing it around his torso again, a little tighter just to keep all the peeling pieces pressed together. He hisses in pain but stays still. It seems he’s more occupied by processing your words than by the pain. “So let me care for you, hm? You might not die but let’s keep you functioning for as long as we can.”

He scoffs but ends up smiling anyway.

“I think you should be more worried about taking care of yourself. I don’t think the food you keep eating here is exactly healthy,” he’s teasing, you know, but something about it seems honest too.

“Maybe, but it’s easier to just add water and heat it up than get the ingredients, prepare them, cook, wash up, and all that jazz,” you defend your supply of instant foods. Although it’s true that your stock is beginning to run low and you probably will need to go shopping soon. You dread it, but at the same time you have a feeling Minghao might enjoy a little trip further away from the cottage.

“I can help,” he offers, “If you show me how.”

“Seems like you want to keep me around for a long time,” you dismiss the offer just so you don’t have to pay attention to how hopeful his voice sounded or how attentively he was watching you. You hope he’ll bicker with you, tease you, push back with more snark, but he doesn’t. He simply smiles and lets you finish the work on his bandages.

If your hands tremble and each fleeting touch against his body lingers, neither of you mention it.

It almost seems like Minghao’s been waiting to use your words against you when a couple days later he joins you under the roof of the patio while the storm is raging only a few meters away, drenching the ground with rain. He brings your favorite tea set with you.

He’s noticed your love for tea, has often asked you to describe the various kinds of it and the flavors, but you never thought it’d come to this.

He sets it all down - the bottle of water, the kettle and the pack of your favorite tea leaves, the glass teapot, and the dark clay one and matching cups - and it surprises you to see he brought two cups. It makes you confused until you notice the tea pet and it gives you a pretty good idea of what he’s planning. You don’t comment on the red hue collecting on the tips of his ears.

“Friends care for each other,” he murmurs while he sits down next to you. He looks at you and moves closer, your knees bumping together. When you don’t move away, he relaxes and focuses on the tea.

He pours the water into the kettle and lets it boil. You notice he set it to stop at the exact temperature he wants - that the tea requires. He measures the right amount of tea leaves for the teapot he picked while it boils, and when the water is done he first fills the cups and the teapots with the hot water. Then he pours it out before gently placing the tea leaves into the clay teapot and pouring the hot water in again. Almost straight away, he pours the tea into the glass one.

You watch him and notice he seems nervous. So you decide to make it worse, or comfort him, whatever will be the effect. You put your hand on his knee carefully, startling him regardless. He looks worried before you smile at him: “You’re doing good so far.”

He seems reassured, giving you a grateful smile himself as he pours the first infusion over the little clay frog sitting at the corner of the tea tray. The next infusion he pours into the cups and hands you one, almost dropping it when your fingers brush together.

“Thank you,” you hum, “You’re a fast learner.”

“I just had enough chances to see you do it,” he shakes his head before nodding towards the tea leaves, “I just wasn’t sure I picked the right kind. I noticed you don’t wash all of them.”

“You did. I would help if there was a need but you’re a natural,” you praise, watching as his ears turn redder.

“And you don’t mind if I pretend with you like this?” he swirls the tea in his cup. He won’t look at you, so you make him. Slowly, you move closer to him until you can lay your head on his shoulder. It’s a light touch, he can move away if he wants to. He doesn’t, although his body gets tense.

“Why would I mind?” you say and realize just how comfortable you feel in this moment, “Isn’t this the perfect mood to sit here like this?”

Finally he melts just a little, leaning his head against yours, featherlight and cautious. You’d never guess he’d be this affectionate once comfortable, but lately it feels like his true personality is coming out more and more and you can’t say you dislike it. He doesn’t say anything, instead he leans closer again and rubs his head against yours, just for a second.

You take a sip of the tea and you hate to admit that his exact measurements make it taste better than when you prepare it. It doesn’t happen that you smile without realizing, but since leaving the facility, well, it seems like a lot of things are changing.

When you finish your cup and set it down on the tray again, he quietly pours the content of his cup over the little frog. Somehow it reminds you of him a little.

· • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —–· · • —– ٠ ✧ ٠ —– • ·

Time passes.

You start to lose track of days and they blend together seamlessly. Has it been months? Years? Who knows. Minghao probably does, but he couldn’t care less. He only mentions the time since the breakout whenever you readjust the bandages on his chest. It almost seems like he’s healing, the compression seems to work a little even on the artificial tissue, although you know that until the remaining wires of the communication device are removed, it will always remain a trouble. He reassures you it’s alright every time and you learn to trust him to express himself truthfully.

He started exploring the outside on his own too. It seems to help him tremendously with dealing with… well, everything. It takes time, you know, and fortunately that’s the one thing that you have in abundance now. Nonetheless, he always seems to appreciate your company, be it on the walks, inside, or on the trips you take sometimes. Usually it’s only to the village to get new supplies of food, but you both remain cautious and even that fills you with adrenaline - among other things.

The locals really make you realize just how indistinguishable from a human Minghao looks. You doubt any of them recognize him for what he truly is, and maybe that’s in part why he always prefers to spend time alone after each of these trips. The highlight for you personally is the older lady who you buy vegetables from that seems to think of you two as the new married couple that just moved in. You make it a competition to see who gets flustered first, though there’s really no shame in losing. Not when Minghao cups your face and squishes your cheeks or hugs you when you begin to stutter - not when you mess with his hair or hold his hand when he’s lost for words.

Life is peaceful.

You think some parts of you are healing, just as Minghao is. He’s getting better at understanding that there’s chaos within peace and peace to be found amidst chaos. He’s learning to experience the emotions he’s suppressed for so long, the good and bad, to let them pass through even if it’s scary and uncomfortable. You try to be helpful. You give him space when he needs it, you talk if that’s what he needs, or let him lay his head on your lap or shoulder if he’s too scared to be left alone with the pandemonium inside his mind.

There are good days and there are bad days. Yet you both grow to be grateful for both.

And there are cold days and warm days too, and on the warm ones, you sometimes sleep outside.

It’s something you’ve never done before and something you now know you'd miss terribly if you could never do it again. Minghao loves it. His excitement remains infectious, which probably adds to your fondness for the warm nights on Silvestre.

Especially nights like this one when there’s not a cloud in the sky and the stars shine brightly above you. The galaxy expands above your heads and it makes you think of the past, of the future, and you understand why the automaton used to be so wary of emotions. They’re overwhelming for you too.

“If they ever catch us, what will you tell them?” Minghao breaks the silence. It’s not often that you talk about the facility anymore, but when you do it’s almost exclusively in whispers under the stars.

“Hm… Depends,” you hum.

“Depends on what?” he turns his head towards you.

“Depends on what will be most likely to get them to allow me to stay and keep working with you,” you mirror his action, “If that means telling them the whole truth about how you’ve done here, I will do that. If that means lying a little, then so be it.”

“Will you tell them the truth about the escape too?” he smirks. But you’re more than ready for the challenge.

“I will them them you kidnapped me.”

“I didn’t-”

“I will them you used force to make me come with you.”

“I didn’t!” he shoots up, sitting upright and looking at you, upset and distressed, “I didn’t have to, you went willingly!”

“I told you,” you smirk, shrugging, “I will tell them what I need to tell them to keep my job.”

Seeing as he remains upset, however, you reach out for him and stroke his arm. He gives you a wary look, one that he always gives you when you brush against a nerve. You smile apologetically at him, brushing some of his hair behind his ear. He scoffs, lying back down with his arms crossed over his chest. “Anything to keep your job but not to keep me.”

“That would suggest I had you in the first place,” your lips stretch further, teasing lilt finding its way into your voice as Minghao freezes and avoids your gaze, “Does this count as a confession, Haohao?”

“Shut up,” he grumbles. You don’t listen.

“Besides, you are my job. Unless you want to be my pet, my-” you don’t get to offer him other alternatives as he springs from his spot and leans over you, holding himself up with one hand on either side of your body, kneeling next to you.

“Your?” he quirks a brow at you. It’s much harder to stand your ground when he drops the shy act, or maybe just puts on this confident one, but you do anyway.

“What would you like to be, hm? Give me some ideas,” you hum. He sighs, deliberately letting his head fall lover until his hair tickles your skin.

“I would like to be listened to,” he suggests, making you laugh.

“We’re friends now, aren’t we? Friends push each other’s buttons,” you chide playfully. You feel comfortable. Even with him hovering above you, you feel safe and content. It’s unreal that not so long ago this would be unthinkable.

“I don’t think we’re friends,” and it’s only the statement, plain and simple. You smile. You really do feel comfortable. It’s a new feeling. And it’s refreshing.

“Isn’t there enough unspoken things between us as is?” you don’t tease anymore.

“So you have a name for this?” he tilts his head, his smile mirroring yours because he knows you don’t. You admit your defeat with a shake of your head and don’t push him off when he lies down again, only this time with his head resting on your stomach. You’re nice enough to run your fingers through his hair too. He leans into your touch in appreciation.

You stay silent, watching the stars twinkling above. You like this. You could stay like this, you think, and live your life satisfied and happy. But could you? Isn’t that what you both thought before too? Maybe there’s danger here that you’re just not seeing yet. You don’t want to lose this. Then again, it’s not like you can find the answer and the solution at this very moment. Not when you’re distracted by how soft Minghao’s hair feels between your fingers and the feeling of his fingers playing with yours when he inevitably searches for your hand. Maybe it’s about time you came to terms with the fact that he’s right - you’d rather keep him than any job.

You think about where the future could take you until your eyes close and you fall asleep.

There must be some sort of telepathy connecting you two because he brings up the future himself some time later.

You sit down and discuss everything: Are the people at the facility still looking for you? Is there a chance they could find you here? Does anyone remember him anymore - would they recognize him? Is there anywhere else you could go?

There are endless questions and very few answers. Plenty of books and a projector with what seems like an endless supply of old movies and shows are great for entertainment, but suck at providing information about the current situation across your solar system.

So you work with the worst scenarios each time.

It doesn’t matter much because the outcome you agree on would likely be the same in any case - you can’t stay here forever.

Minghao seems as mournful about it as you feel but you can’t run away from the truth forever. Just because nobody should know about this and nobody bothered you here yet doesn’t mean it will never happen. Not to mention the other factors.

“I wanna see more,” Minghao admits quietly, his hands playing with yours to ease his anxiety, “I like it here. But I’m afraid I’ll feel trapped again if we stay.”

You nod. That’s true, of course. And you can understand his desire to see more - to learn more. It’s one of the things you have in common.

“Do you have anywhere you want to explore?” you ask, supportive as can be because he needs it. Because you want this too.

“Does your family have any other secret mansion?” he might be teasing, but you know he hopes you’ll say yes. It would make things much easier.

“No,” you sigh, then you smile, “So that means we’re completely free. If we have nowhere to go, we might as well go anywhere.”

He might’ve changed quite a bit, yet the soft glow of his happiness never did. He lets his body fall forward and curl against yours. You chuckle and wrap an arm around him.

“I like the sound of that,” he whispers, nuzzling into your shoulder.

“Me too,” you feel a flutter in your chest. It’s like you’re a child again, being told you’re going on a trip but the destination is a surprise. It’s like you’re back at the facility, before you knew any better, being told you’re going to work with a level 1 automaton but you won’t know which one until Monday. “Let’s do some research and get going?”

“Yeah,” he hums against your skin, “But only after one last night outside. I can’t leave before that.”

Now that’s a sentiment you can relate to.

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