#they enable each other and they don’t grow because they can’t because there’s always something else BECAUSE THEY’RE BOTH BEING ABUSED BY GOD

[monsterfuckermilligan]

i am not anti sam but i sometimes find myself hating sam because some samgirls are super into bio/gender essentialism whether or not they realize it. sam is a woman and dean is a man and sam is the victim and dean is his abuser like what show are you watching?

[zara-renata]

And everything that is now already existed then | ao3 | masterlist

Summary: Sylus shows you his favorite parts of his house, you are haunted by a strange feeling of familiarity, you spend some time with the twins and Noah, you learn about the bet they have going, no this is not a wattpad bet story that will be turned into a multi-part tv series even though i love that trope so much, the self control i exerted should be acknowledged if not praised. This part has less humor than other parts, I've been in a contemplative mood recently, sorry. Part 17 of the Sylus series.

Notes: Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc, second person POV, some Sylus POV. They/them pronouns are used to refer to reader as a placeholder for your preferred pronouns. The slowest of slow burns friends-to-lovers. This story contains: angst, fluff, banter, poetry, questions of morality, video game violence, discussions of real life violence, profanity, alcohol mention, self-harm mention, mc with self-esteem and guilt issues.

The water is warm. The man underneath you is warm. Your heart, you realize, is also warm. Quiet. Nothing hurts. You marvel at the feeling. How long can you get away with this? Plastered against Sylus’s big body, his rough hands just resting on your back. You feel guilty for keeping him from doing something else. For not being at work. For doing absolutely nothing useful to anyone. For feeling so good.

Sylus holds you, seemingly content to just sit here with you as the water laps against the sides of the pool.

“Don’t you have business to attend to?” you reluctantly ask, because you’re incapable of just trusting that good things can last. That the fulfillment of your deepest desires won’t be snatched away when you least expect it, so you push, push, push, seeking the weakness that will ultimately crack and cause the moment, finally filled, to break.

Sylus holds you a little tighter. “No.”

You wait, but he doesn’t elaborate. You should just accept it. Just enjoy this moment. All you have in this life is each moment—that’s all there is. Why can’t you just experience each one, savor it, suck it dry, until the next? Why must you always waste the pleasure of each moment by being in such a rush to get to the inevitable end?

But you can’t just accept it. You don’t know how. Your whole life has taught you that the moment you trust the permanence is the moment that the moment shatters. Might as well ruin it first, instead of fearing the end. And who are you to complain? What have you done to deserve it in the first place?

“Business slow in the Onychinus economy?” you ask.

“Tch,” he responds, seemingly indignant at the mere suggestion that his business isn’t printing him money even as he canoodles in a hot tub with you. “Business is booming, darling. The human capacity for cruelty is an endlessly growing market.”

You press your cheek harder against the sweaty skin just under his collarbone. You don’t want to think about what he offers people to enable that endless cruelty right now.

“Then how do you have the luxury of lazing about with me?”

“I’ve tasked Aidan with handling business that requires executive decisions for the foreseeable future. As much as it annoys me, I will likely have to answer calls like this morning, but I’ve informed him that I will not be leaving the base unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

You lift your head, curious. He looks down at you, relaxed, eyes glowing in the low light from the pool.

“Why?”

One corner of his beautiful mouth lifts. “Guess.”

You stare at him. He’s taking time off, not pursuing new deals, not focusing on growing his wealth… for you? Ridiculous. 

“What will you do while you’re not doing business?” you ask, not able to bring yourself to guess out loud that he took time off for you, to spend time with you while you’re staying with him.

“What do you want to do?” He runs his fingers along your temple, brushes a lock of hair behind your ear, traces the shell of it with a fingertip.

“That’s not an answer,” you say, softly.

“Yes, it is.”

You can’t believe it. The man who is always on the go, from one deal to the next, disappearing for weeks at a time, doing who knows what, who knows where—the man who probably gets bored out of his mind while instigating a riot—says that he just wants to do whatever you want to do. You, whose idea of excitement is a new pair of sleep pants and a night off to watch let’s plays of horror games that you don’t have the time and energy to play yourself anymore.

“You can’t mean that.” You frown at him.

“Try me,” he challenges.

You try to think of something that he’d hate just to prove your point that he doesn't actually mean it when he says he’ll do whatever you want.

“Oh, kitten’s plotting,” he snickers after seeing your expression.

“I want to watch every Justin Bieber documentary ever produced,” you say defiantly. You really don’t. But you’re sure he’ll balk at this outrageous suggestion.

He shrugs a little. “Okay. We can see if they’re on demand in the theater room. If not, I’m sure we can pirate them.”

You narrow your eyes. He can’t mean it. Fuck, if he’s going to call your bluff, you’re going to have to actually sit through who knows how many hours of Justin Bieber: Our World. You barely suppress a shudder.

“Actually, I want to fly to a warm seaside resort and swim with dolphins,” you try, the picture of casual entitlement. You do not want to do this. You’re fucking tired. The last thing you want to do is get on an airplane.

“Dolphins can be as vicious as humans, but if you really want that, we can pack some things now and be on our way by dinner,” he says calmly. As if the suggestion isn’t utterly outrageous.

Is he being as petty as you, intent on not admitting that he didn’t actually mean it when he said he would do whatever you want, or does he actually want to do whatever the fuck you want? You can’t read him at all right now.

You’re desperate and stubborn. “Actually, I think the amusement park in Linkon City is having a furry event all week. I’d like to dress up as our respective fursonas and ride the roller coasters all day.” 

Sylus doesn’t even blink. “Do you have a fursuit already, or do we need one tailored before we can go?”

You laugh in disbelief and rest your forehead on his shoulder. “What about you? Do you have a fursuit already?”

“No, I don’t have a fursuit, because I’m not a fucking furry,” he says drily.  “But I do think I’d make a very majestic caracal cat. Which goes nicely with your kitten fursona.”

You blink. “That's quite self-aware of you." And then you scowl. "My fursona wouldn’t be as lame as a kitten.”

“Oh? What animal do you think accurately portrays your personality?”

You lift your head and think. You’ve never really thought about it. Something small and mean, probably. “A mongoose.”

He tilts his head, considering. “That actually fits you quite well. Good at hunting snakes, and very, very cute.”

You can feel yourself blushing. “Yeah, well. I’m not a furry, so it doesn’t matter even if it doesn’t fit,” you mumble a little.

“And yet you want to go to the furry event at the amusement park,” he lifts an eyebrow. 

You stare at him, mulishly. You’re not going to admit that you’re trying to poke holes in his patience because you can’t trust nice things.

“But I don’t think that’s what you actually want to do,” he continues, with a gentleness that hurts your heart. He urges you to wrap your legs around his waist. “When I said you could test me, this is not exactly what I had in mind,” he teases. “How about you test me by telling me what you actually want to do, and then you’ll see that I mean what I say when I refrain from complaining about being bored while we do them?”

You wrap your arms around his neck as he stands gracefully, the water sliding down both your bodies. “I don’t want you to just not complain about being bored,” you argue. “I don’t want you to be bored at all. You don’t have to entertain me while I’m here. You can do whatever you really want to do.” You mean this. It’s enough, just being in the same house as him right now. Knowing that in the evening he’ll end up in the same bed as you. You don’t want him to tire of you too quickly by insisting that he spend every moment with you.

“Then I repeat—what do you want to do?”

Okay. Okay, he asked for it.

“Show me your favorite things to do at home, when you’re not being a warlord.”

He looks surprised. “That’s it?”

“Yeah. I’m really tired. I never get a chance to just relax. I don’t want to go anywhere, or do anything exciting.” You bite your lip, unwilling to admit that you’re desperate to learn more about him and that worried he’s going to think you’re boring. 

He leans forward and catches the side of your lip not caught in your own teeth with his. With your lip between his sharp teeth, he pulls back, gently, until you release it from your own. He pauses, inhales, and then lets go, licking your bitten lip with a quick, soothing flick of his tongue.

“That’s my spot,” he murmurs, pulling back.

Your brain is offline. You have no idea what you were just talking about, or what just happened. All you can feel is the slick of his saliva on the plush of your lip.

Fuck.

You want to fuck him so badly.

You search his face. Can he tell? Does he feel the same way? He touches you like this, and then does nothing. What does he want?

If he can tell what’s going on in your head, he doesn’t comment on it. “Then we can stay home. I’ll show you what I like to do when I’m tired and don’t want to do anything exciting.” His faint smile is tinged with self satisfaction.

“Okay,” you choke out. You will not slide down his body, push him onto the soft moss, and jump on him. 

“But first, I will feed you.” The tendrils of his evol bring the fluffy towels to his waiting hand, and he wraps one around you, all while you cling to his torso. He just drapes the other around his shoulders, over your arms still wrapped around his neck. His evol then ferries the two cocktails that remained untouched for the whole time you were in the hot tub, following you back through the pool room and into the chill hallway as Sylus carries you to the kitchen. Between the heat of Sylus’s body and the towels blanketing you, you’re still warm. You watch the drinks following you over his shoulder, and then glance at him.

At your look, he says, “What? It would be a shame to let perfectly good drinks go to waste.”

“What time is it? Don’t you think it’s a bit early to start drinking?”

He shrugs. “It’s probably past midnight, sweetheart. That’s when one normally drinks alcoholic beverages, isn’t it?”

You sigh. “So it’s basically noon in your day-night cycle.”

“Time is a construct, and inherently meaningless,” he says serenely.

After this insufferable response, you give up trying to save his liver for the moment.

____________________

Later, after Sylus serves you a meal packed with protein that pairs nicely with the cocktails as the fire crackles pleasantly and the clouds, reflecting the N109 Zone’s bright lights even at night, sweep across the sky outside his kitchen windows, after you’ve showered and put on warm, comfortable clothes, you find him in the sitting area of his bedroom, reading a book, the Beatles playing on his record player. You recognize the song— The long and winding road. 

You stop, suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of sorrow. He looks up from his book and watches you curiously.

You left me standing here, a long long time ago

You feel like you’re forgetting something very, very important. Like your dream last night, but not about your family. About the man watching you inquisitively, his long, graceful fingers holding the book gently, the outline of his aquiline nose limned in the soft lighting of his bedroom.

Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door

You suddenly can’t bear to be separated from him for one more second. You pad to him on your freshly bandaged feet, knock the book out of his hand, clamber into his lap, and hug him.

His arms come around you as if he doesn’t mind that you’ve just bulldozed your way onto his lap. After a few minutes, the song ends, and a new, more upbeat one begins.

You feel like you can breathe again.

You sit up, looking down into his face. You want to kiss him so badly. You’re afraid that he’ll gently push you away, as he pushed your hand away from the tie of his sleep pants that you were fiddling with recently. With such kindness, but a loud, resounding rejection of what he perceived to be you offering your body to him.

He’ll bite your lip, but you’re so scared that he doesn’t want to kiss you. Sometimes it seems like he wants you, you, not just a body, not just anyone praising him or challenging him, but you. Do you really still not know? My beloved is perfect to me.  

But what if you’re wrong? What have you done to earn this incredible man's devotion?

“Will you tell me what you’re thinking right now, without the guessing game?” he asks softly. 

You shake your head. “No. And I don’t want to play the guessing game right now.” You can’t bear to think about what you may be forgetting as you look into his blood-bright eyes. You can’t bear to reveal how badly you want to kiss him, only to be rebuffed.

“Not even a hint?” He nudges your nose with his. “Otherwise I’ll spend every free moment sitting around reading, listening to classic rock music.”

You look at him in confusion. “Why?”

“It seemed to work in luring a kitten into my lap this time. Maybe it works every time.”

Your heart is doing something funny. It doesn’t hurt. It feels… it feels so fucking warm. Like in the hot tub. What is happening to you? 

“The music made me sad,” you offer this truth, as a reward for his sweet response.

“Not a fan of the Beatles?” He fiddles with the hem of your shirt, his knuckles brushing against your skin underneath.

“I do like their music. My gran used to listen to them a lot.”

“Is that what made you sad?”

You give him a look. “I said I didn’t want to play the guessing game.”

“I’m just asking questions,” he protests, the picture of innocence. “Is it a crime to want to get to know you?”

You gaze at him. Weren’t you just thinking about how you’re desperate to know everything about him? “Not one I’d arrest you for,” you say, looking down, smiling a little.

He laughs softly. “Lucky me. It would be hard to uphold my end of our deal and show you the music room, the library, and my favorite part of the greenhouse from behind bars.”

“That sounds like a busy itinerary,” you say, lifting a finger, tracing his clavicle revealed by his soft v-neck sweater.

His knuckles sweep over your skin just above the band of your soft pants.

“We have time—we don’t have to do everything today. Which one do you want to see first?”

You don’t care. Your heart is being weird and Sylus is touching you, and you’re touching Sylus. You could just sit here, forever, and enjoy whatever this… feeling is. But you’re afraid you’ll ruin it. Like you always do. If you take too much, he will actually get bored. You should pick one.

“Library,” you say firmly.

“As you wish,” he says, standing, holding you all the while. You can’t bring yourself to protest. You can walk on your own feet. Your feet already feel a little better after just a day. But he’s warm. And he doesn’t seem to mind at all. You drape yourself over him, and let him carry you through the dark halls to his library.

He sets you down outside one of the ubiquitous black doors, and then opens it for you. 

His library, like the greenhouse, the pool, the room like a mountain hot spring, is lovely in a way that the rest of his house simply isn’t. Soaring ceilings, heavy built-in wooden bookcases lining the walls, a huge fireplace, electric as opposed to the wood-fireplace from the kitchen, at one end of the room. A wrought iron spiraling staircase leads up beyond the heavy wooden rafter beams to a space you can’t see. Deep red, plush rugs in antique designs hush your footsteps. Plush, deep seated chairs and loveseats, side tables with Tiffany lamps gently illuminate the space. One wall of his preferred floor-to-ceiling windows letting in the N109 Zone night, the red moon bright in the sky as the clouds scuttle past. 

It’s like a library from an old, prestigious university. The kind of university you always wished you could have gone to, if you lived in another world. If this world didn’t need people prepared to kill and die for existential threats to humanity. Where you could study something functionally useless, but enriching to the human experience. Like French literature or poetry. The room smells of wood oil, old paper. 

You turn in a circle and find Sylus leaning against a bookcase, watching you take in the room. “This is one of your favorite spots in the house?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s quiet. The twins aren’t big readers, so they don’t come in here. It’s a good place to think, and concentrate.”

“Have you read every book in here, like you’ve seen every film in your collection?”

He straightens from the bookcase and walks to you. As he comes to a stop in front of you, he reaches for your face, holds your cheeks gently in his hands. “No. This room is more about the future. Books I’d like to read when life is a little less busy. I’ve read some, but not as many as I would like.”

“Do you think that someday your life will be less busy?”

“If I have my way, yes.”

“And you’ll spend your days quietly reading in the solitude of your lovely library?”

“Not in solitude. But yes. You think it’s lovely?”

You look at him strangely. Didn't he just say he enjoys it because it's quiet and no one bothers him here? “Of course I do. It’s like someone designed it just for me.”

He looks down into your face, thumbs brushing across your cheekbones.

“Like I said. This room is about the future.”

You tilt your head at his non-sequitur. What does your loving the library have to do with his quieter future?

It almost sounds like…

The moment is full. You refuse to shatter it by considering such outrageous thoughts. You will enjoy this moment for what it is. A peek into the mind of this enigmatic man. The opportunity to explore a beautiful, private space in his home.

“Read to me,” he orders, striding to one of the soft couches and plopping down.

You snort. “What do you want me to read you, your spoiled highness?”

“Anything you want. Look around, pick something that catches your interest.” He lets his head drop onto the back of the couch, eyes half-lidded as they follow you walking to one of the bookcases, as you let your fingertips run along the spines of book after book. You see a lot of titles you don’t recognize. You see a lot that you do—classics as well as newer publications. You and Xavier spend enough time in the bookstore that you know a lot of titles by sight, even if these days you rarely have the time to read beyond the manga you share with your partner.

Your eyes catch on a familiar title.

“Oh,” you breathe.

“Find something?” Sylus asks languidly.

“One of my favorite poets. Gran had a copy of this.” You pluck the book from the shelf and walk back over to where Sylus is sprawled on the couch. The moonlight through the windows makes his eyes look even brighter than usual, glowing in the soft light.

“You’re a fan of poetry?” he asks, eyebrows lifting.

“Don’t act so surprised. I’m not entirely uncultured.”

“Your manga collection could have fooled me,” he teases.

“Manga is art. You’re a pretentious fool if you can’t recognize that.”

“No need to get your knives out, kitten,” he smiles, one sharp tooth peeking from behind his full lip. “I have a collection of manga here as well.”

“You do?”

He just steadily stares at you.

“Where?”

He closes his eyes. “Guess you’ll have to stay long enough to explore and find it.”

You stand over him, drinking in the sight of him. Surrounded by the scent of books, polished wood, the moon’s red light rendering him slightly otherworldly.

You want to stay long enough to find out. It’s only been two days, and you want to live in this moment forever. You're so greedy. You're so unworthy.

“Still want me to read to you?”

Instead of answering, the tendrils of his evol wind up from your ankles to your waist, lift you, deposit you on the seat next to him. He scoots down, places his head in your lap.

“You could have just said yes,” you say drily. “No need to be dramatic.”

“I don’t hear any reading. Chop chop.”

Oh hell no. You scowl down at him, but his eyes are closed. “Lap service costs extra.”

“Good thing I’m filthy rich.”

You scoff. “I don’t want your money.”

He opens his eyes. “I suspected as much. It makes taming you all the more difficult.”

You look at him curiously. “Is that what you’re doing? All of your generosity, in order to acquire a tame hunter?”

“What use is a tame hunter?” He dismisses your suggestion. “Your imagination is distressingly limited.”

“Once again, I disappoint,” you murmur. He clearly isn’t in the mood to answer your questions.

He tsks and closes his eyes again, wiggles a little to get more comfortable in your lap. “Make up for it by reading your favorite poetry to me.”

You want to lean down and kiss the smug look off of his face. You don’t want him to turn away if you do.

You begin to read.

“Try to praise the mutilated world.

Remember June's long days,

and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.”

He interrupts you. “I see why you like Zagajewski. Someone else who shares your taste in middling wine.”

“No comments until the end, thank you,” you jostle his head by bouncing your thigh a few times.

He scowls, places one big hand on your thigh and presses down. “Stingy. This should be interactive storytelling.”

You ignore the howling need in you to grab his hand, to guide it further up your leg. You continue to read.

“The nettles that methodically overgrow

the abandoned homesteads of exiles.

You must praise the mutilated world.

You suddenly think of the N109 Zone and all of its misery. Paying the price of some shitty corporation’s greed. But you keep reading.

You watched the stylish yachts and ships;

one of them had a long trip ahead of it,

while salty oblivion awaited others.”

You pause, thinking about Sylus’s wealth, the wealth of people like him, and everyone else. The yachts, versus the ships that will sink.

“That’s not the end. Why have you stopped?” Sylus's voice jerks you out of your thoughts.

“You know this poem?”

“I own the book, don’t I?”

“You said you hadn’t read everything in here.”

“Point,” he concedes. “But yes, I know this poem. I’m also an admirer of the poet.”

You think about him calling you kindred spirits, when you first met. How angry that idea made you. Now, you want to lean down and kiss him. You shake your head a little. You keep reading.

“You've seen the refugees going nowhere,

you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.

You should praise the mutilated world.

Remember the moments when we were together

in a white room and the curtain fluttered.”

Sylus interrupts you again. “I always liked the imagery of the moments spent together, the simplicity of the white room, the curtain fluttering. What more can one desire, when at their love’s side?”

You don't think you've ever heard him say something so romantic. But why would you have? You're not in a romantic relationship with him. Your heart doesn't seem to understand that fact—something inside you thrills that his idea of romance mirrors yours so closely. But his focus on the gentle moment, instead of the rest of the poem, strikes you as strange. “That’s what you see? Not the lovers enjoying simplicity, safety, while the refugees are going nowhere, and the executioners are singing joyfully?”

“The point of the poem is that you must wrest joy from an imperfect world where you can. You’re not helping the condemned by moping about their fate.”

“Is that the point? Perhaps the point is that all you can do is try to praise the mutilated world, but it’s fruitless. If that were the point, he would have entitled it 'Praise the mutilated world,' not 'Try to praise the mutilated world.' ‘Trying’ isn’t succeeding—try all you want, but it’s impossible to praise the world as it is. Better to use your yacht to save those drowning in the salty oblivion.”

“Idealist,” Sylus scoffs, as if the label is a profanity instead of a compliment.

You jostle his head again. “Cynic,” you retort.

“You’re not done,” he sniffs, closing his eyes again.

You resist the urge to buck your hips in order to dump him on the floor. You read again.

“Return in thought to the concert where music flared.

You gathered acorns in the park in autumn

and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.

Praise the mutilated world

and the gray feather a thrush lost,

and the gentle light that strays and vanishes

and returns.”

You finish, filled with a strange feeling. You’ve loved this poem ever since the first time you read it with the sunshine gushing into your gran’s living room on a slow summer day. As you grew, you loved it for different reasons, for its ambiguity, its hope and its resignation, its acknowledgment of the horrors of life and its simple pleasures. It always felt familiar to you, but the specific imagery reading it this time around is familiar in a way that feels concrete. 

You think about the gray feather, the light that strays and vanishes and returns. You think about the feeling while listening to the Beatles, that you’re forgetting something important. You think about Sylus’s casual dismissal of the suffering of others.

Calling suffering fate seems like a convenient excuse to you. Why bother trying to make the world better, if fate deems that it should be miserable?

You think about sipping the rosé, biting the strawberry Sylus offered you. Your curtains fluttering in the breeze in your room, when Sylus has come to your place at night. These things you have enjoyed, as people suffer beyond the safety of your apartment and Sylus’s fortress walls. 

“Stop torturing yourself, darling,” he says through your racing thoughts. He turns his head, presses his lips against your thigh, inhales deeply. It’s not a kiss, but you feel the press of his mouth through the fabric of your pants as if it were. You resist the urge to spread your thighs further.

“Should I read another?” you ask quietly. You don’t want to think about these things. You want to live in the moment. What kind of person does that make you? The desire to ignore the cost of this pleasure, your enjoyment of Sylus's home, proves that you don’t deserve it. 

“Of course,” he says, but his phone vibrates in his pocket. He grunts unhappily as he reluctantly sits up, sliding the phone from his pocket. “Keep exploring,” he says, heading to the door. “I’ll try to make this quick.”

So you do. Wandering amongst the books, finding other titles that are your favorites, but so many that you’ve never read, never heard of. Many of them are not in your native language. You wonder how many languages Sylus speaks.

After a surprisingly short amount of time, he returns. "Read more to me," he orders, sprawling on the couch once more.

You look back at him, admiring the wrought-iron staircase spiraling up, the moon through the windows, his long, strong body casually stretched along the couch.

“Can we light the fire?”

“Of course. Fire," he says, and the fireplace flares to life at his command. You wonder if such a system is in place in each room. You wander back to the couch, and he pulls you down. You read him the rest of the poems from this collection, arguing here and there, learning his favorite parts, both matching and diverging from your own. Until your stomach growls, causing him to nuzzle it, insist on taking you to the kitchen and feeding you another meal. After you're once again full, he offers to show you the conservatory.

“Okay,” you say, relaxed, satisfied. He wraps his arms around you, lifts. You let him, wrapping your legs around his waist. You think about a gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns. What are you forgetting?

He takes you to the music room. It’s behind another black door. You would never be able to guess, walking through his solemn hallways, each expansive room unfolding behind each uniform door.

As you walk into the beautiful space, you’re struck with the realization that Sylus’s home is strange in many ways, and not just because it serves as both his home and his fortress, an armory and an indoor playground. The halls are winding and despite the height of the ceilings on each floor, they’re oppressive. There is no open floor plan for the house itself. Each room’s door can be closed, barricaded, turning the room within into a bunker. But behind each door, each room fans out, soaring windows, high ceilings, glass giving way to a savage view of the harsh landscape in a way that renders even the ugliness of the N109 Zone beautiful in a stark, barren-planet kind of way. You suspect that the glass is bullet-proof. You wonder what kind of impacts it can withstand beyond firearms. Could it survive a thrown grenade? A direct strike from a drone? Would anyone dare actually wage a full-on assault on the leader of Onychinus’s home?

“Not even the greenhouse rendered you speechless, kitten. Does that mean you like it, or hate it?”

You blink. You had been so busy wondering about the strategic choices of Sylus’s architectural design that you hadn’t even begun admiring the metal support beams, curling like vines in a distinct art nouveau style between multiple panes of glass, each meeting at the pinnacle of a glass ceiling. Two of the larger glass panes are not the standard window glass, but are stained glass, continuing the art nouveau theme, depicting colorful curls of plants, flowers, as well as animals—beasts from mythology, dragons, phoenixes, winged chimeras. Luscious potted plants scattered along the white marble floor. A white grand piano sitting in the center of the circular space. Instruments of all kinds, from all parts of the world, hung or resting on more organically wrought metal display mounts along two-thirds of the glass walls. A seating area, filled with comfortable, low furniture, carved blond wood in flowing, plant-like designs, sits between the piano and the view of the landscape through the clear glass, framed by the murals of stained glass.

It’s breathtaking. But you’ve had your breath taken by the greenhouse, the pool, the room with the hot tub, the library. Each in a distinctly different style from the rooms of the house that see daily use by their owner: Sylus’s bedroom. The kitchen. The hallways. The imposing dining room and its equally imposing banquet table. The cave-like theater room. Each dark—black marble, maroon accents, deeply masculine, modern, abstract art. But the rooms that have taken your breath instead of making you feel oppressed are so startlingly different from Sylus’s often-used spaces.

You can’t accept the moment. You can’t stand not knowing, even as you are afraid to know. You have to ask. “I don’t understand,” you say, turning to him.

He glances around the room, and then looks back at you. “It’s a home conservatory, sweetheart. Not a trick question.”

You ignore him. Your curiosity will eat you alive if you don’t ask him. You want to know. You don’t want to know. “Why does it feel like two different people designed your house?”

His eyebrows lift in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Half of your house is edgy, big-dick rich vampire man-cave, and half is this,” you sweep an arm to indicate the delicate yet sturdy steel beams, organically curving into the height of the room, the chairs carved like palms, stained glass, the lush vegetation.

“Can one person not appreciate more than one style of home decor?” he asks, walking over to you, winding an arm around your waist.

You stare at him. Nothing Sylus does is by accident. You know this much by now. You know a lot about him by now. You don’t know enough about him by now.

“The parts of the house you spend the most time in reflect your style. But the other parts… the parts that wait for an owner that rarely comes. Did you choose the design yourself? Or did you let your architect run wild?”

His smile is faint as he gazes down at you. “How very observant of you, darling. But I designed every room in this house. The architect modified the plans where necessary to ensure the structural integrity was sound, but I chose the decor.”

You wait. It sounded like he ended that sentence with a ‘but.’

“You’re right. I didn’t have just my preferences in mind as I was planning each room.”

You want to know. You don’t want to know. What if you’re wrong? The very idea is insane. Presumptuous. How could he possibly know? You only met him a few months ago. This base isn’t newly built. You have no idea how long I’ve already waited, his voice whispers through your mind.

“Whose preferences did you have in mind?” you ask, your heart doing that thing again. That weird thing that doesn’t hurt but scares you with how good it feels. Don’t leave me waiting here, lead me to your door.

His smile widens, just a little. “Do you really not know?”

You can’t process this. How could he have known?

It’s like these oases in his dark fortress of a home were designed with your deepest heart’s desires in mind. 

You want to kiss him. You want to resonate with him again. You want to drop to your knees in front of him.

The enormity of your feelings is terrifying.

What if you’re wrong?

How much worse will it be, if you let yourself believe, and he turns you away. What if he designed all of this for someone else. Because how could he have known, before you met just a few months ago—how could he have known the contours of your tastes, the things that make you most comfortable, the yearning of your heart in your small apartment, of what you’d give yourself if you could ever afford to make your home exactly how you would want? A refuge from the harsh world. Space to breathe.

Your feelings are choking you. You step away from his embrace, turn. You have time. He said he’ll wait. You focus on this room.

It’s beautiful. Because of course it is. You don’t recognize even half of these instruments.

You turn back to him. He has moved to the piano, straddling the white bench, legs spread, just watching you.

“Do you know how to play all of these?”

He shakes his head. “No. Most of these are collector’s items, antiques. But I do know how to play the piano.”

You stand, resisting the constant pull towards him. You want to go to him, run your hands through his hair, tug his head back, expose his throat, bite.

“Only the piano?” You satisfy your need to move by walking over to the sitting area, forcing yourself to sit away from him. You need to control yourself. You plop down on one of the beautiful chairs, carved like a ginkgo leaf.

He turns, sitting properly on the bench in order to face you, and opens the cover over the piano keys. He leisurely presses down on one key, and the note resounds through the lovely room.

“I can also play the organ,” he murmurs, before beginning to play in earnest.

You don’t recognize the piece. You know you’ve never heard it before. But the longer he plays, the more you’re overcome with the sense that you know it. The blood under your skin, your lungs, your bones—you feel pulled to him, to his long fingers sweeping over the keys, unseen from your vantage point in the room. You know what’s coming, the crescendos and the pauses. It’s beautiful. It hurts. Your thoughts drift to the poem. Its strawberries, its rosé wine. Its familiarity. Return in thought to the concert where the music flared. You want to ask Sylus if he owns a yacht. You’re convinced that there will be a park, and acorns, and you will pick them up and offer them to him on a sunny summer morning after a long, long night. It has already happened. It will happen in the future.

You can’t resist the pull any longer. You stand and walk over to him, stand next to him at the bench. His hands hypnotize you. Big. Rough. Delicately pressing the keys—sure, confident, flowing. Like his evol. Like him.

“Sit,” he orders, and you obey, sliding in next to him. You try to give him space, but he takes one hand, still playing with the other, and pulls you by the waist until you’re shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. 

You watch his hands, lost in the moment, lost in the feeling of recognition, of … something. That warm feeling in your heart, threaded with the pain of having lost something that you can’t remember.

Slowly, the piece comes to an end. His hands become still on the keys.

“What song was that?” you ask.

He flicks his eyes to yours.

“It doesn’t have a name.”

“Who composed it?” You hope that perhaps you can track it down later and listen to it again when Sylus isn’t around.

“Me,” he says, turning his head to look at you.

Wait, what?

“It’s already shocking enough that you play, but when do you have the time to compose?”

He lifts one of your hands and threads his fingers with yours. “Why so shocked that I have hobbies, like anyone else?”

“I just figured you’re always too busy with murder, mayhem, and munitions to have hobbies like a normal person,” you squeeze his hand as it swallows yours.

“I don’t have a lot of free time, but when I do, I like to spend some of it practicing and composing. Sometimes when I’m bored during business meetings I compose a little in my head and then write it out when I get home.” 

At your incredulous look, he flicks your forehead gently with his free hand. “What would you have guessed that I spend my free time doing if it occurred to you that I do not, in fact, work in every waking moment?”

You consider it. “I would have assumed you spend all your free time hanging out in your shady nightclubs.”

He frowns at you. “I own classy nightclubs because they make me money and provide convenient venues for business deals now that I no longer host such deals in my own home. I do not spend any more time in them than necessary.”

“Is that what you meant when you said that Amnesia isn’t really your vibe?”

“You remember,” he says, sounding pleasantly surprised. 

“Even though it feels like weeks ago, you did just tell me that like, two nights ago,” you flick his forehead in revenge.

“Fair point,” he concedes. “All right, then, yes. That’s what I meant.”

“So what is your vibe?”

“Curious, kitten?”

“Yes.” That warm feeling you have is overriding your fears of admitting this to him. You want to know him. You want to know everything about him.

“It’s easier to show you my vibe,” he shrugs. “We’ll make a date of it.”

He dropped the “fake” part again.

His phone begins to vibrate in his jeans pocket again.

He frowns in irritation. You stand, forcing yourself to move away from him.

“I’ll entertain myself,” you smile at his questioning look. He holds onto your hand as you move away, until your arm and his are stretched between you, and then he lets go.

You’re thankful for the interruption. Too much unadulterated time being the subject of Sylus’s entire focus makes you think insane things. Like that he designed parts of his house with you in mind. That you know music that you’ve never heard before. That you’re forgetting something important about him, even though you only met him recently. That a poem you read in your youth is a roadmap of things that have already happened between you and the man pacing behind the door, and what will happen before the light strays, vanishes… returns again.

You step into the hallway and wander back toward the kitchen. After a few minutes, you hear the flap of Mephisto’s wings. He’s keeping you company again. You keep walking.

You’re distracted halfway to the kitchen, however, when you hear voices coming from the theater room. It sounds like the twins, and someone else whose voice is familiar, but you can’t pinpoint it. You knock.

“No need to knock,” one of the twins yells.

You open the door and peek into the room. It’s dark, with all the lights dimmed.

On the large screen where you almost watched a movie with Sylus the other night, a video game is playing.

Luke sits on one of the loveseats, holding a game controller, while Kieran is squished onto the same small loveseat with him, their two big bodies barely fitting, hiding his face in Luke’s shoulder.

Noah is sprawled out on another loveseat, perfectly at ease. She gives you a lazy wave.

Luke pauses the game and looks over his shoulder at you.

“Boss busy?” he asks as Kieran lifts his head, a look of relief on his face at the interruption.

“Business call,” you say, nodding. You stare at the screen. It looks like…

“Are you playing the Silent Hill 2 remake?” you squeal.

“Yeah! Since boss is on a little holiday, he gave us the time off as well. Figured we’d finally play it.”

“Are you a fan of the original?” Kieran asks.

You nod. “Huge fan. I was so excited when they announced the remake, but I’ve been too busy with work to play it.”

“Wanna join? Kieran is too scared to look half the time. We can take turns, if you want,” Luke offers, sounding pleased to have another person to share the game with.

You seriously consider his offer, but you’re still so tired. You don’t really want to learn the controls mid-way through a playthrough. Weren’t you just thinking about watching let’s plays of horror games you haven’t had a chance to play yet? You can watch Luke play without having to do a thing.

“I’m good, but do you mind if I stay and just watch until Sylus is done?”

“Is that even a question? Get in here.”

Luke unpauses the game, and the familiar sounds of the world of Silent Hill, with amazing, updated graphics fills your vision. You slink inside the room and sit on another love seat, preferring to give Noah her space since she’s sprawled out like she already owns the place.

You watch as Kieran hides his face in Luke's shoulder again as a lying figure jerkily lumbers towards James Sunderland.

Apparently Noah notices Kieran’s fear as well.

“Aren’t you one of the feared Raptors of Onychinus? Like, you’re famous in the Zone. How can the same person who is known for intentionally leaving mutilated corpses in public as warnings to your boss’s enemies be afraid of video game monsters?”

You turn and stare at the twins, a little horrified. Not entirely surprised, because you know what kind of man Sylus is. You know what his organization stands for. But mutilated dead bodies? Where normal people just trying to get through their shitty workday, where kids can see them?

“That’s fucked up,” you say out loud.

“Hey, you’re a fucking cop. We know what cops are capable of,” Kieran says softly, with a flatness in his tone you’ve never heard before. Noah looks between you and Kieran like she wishes she has popcorn. “Don’t act like what you sometimes do is any better than our calling card.” Luke kills a monster shaped like two shapely pairs of legs attached at the waist with a metal pipe, and it dies loudly. He stomps on it for good measure. “At least we’re honest about it, and don’t hide behind a shield of so-called legitimacy. People know what they’re getting when they deal with us.”

You look at Kieran thoughtfully. It’s difficult to admit, but he has a point. You know that there are corrupt hunters. The so-called Tenebrae. You also recognize that dark part of yourself, when you’re faced with someone who you know has done terrible things, and the itch to pull the trigger before you can bring them in. You know that innocent people suffer at the hands of criminals and law enforcement alike.

Kieran stares steadily back at you, his normally cheerful face serious. “How did you come to work for Sylus?” you ask.

Luke pauses the game. “We don’t talk about that,” he says in the same flat tone that his brother just spoke in.

“Oh?” you say, because you don’t want to continue to pry, and you don’t know what else to say.

“Boss says it doesn’t matter where we come from. Only where we’re going. So there’s no use talking about the past if we don’t want to.”

“And you don’t want to?” Noah asks, the look of entertainment morphing into something else on her face.

The twins shake their heads in unison.

You think she’s going to say something snarky, but she just nods. “Then you shouldn’t. No one is entitled to your story.”

“That’s what boss says. I see why he hired you now,” Kieran says, smiling at her, the odd stillness broken.

“He hired me because I’m fucking awesome,” Noah sniffs, flicking her braids behind her shoulder. They’re down now, spilling over her back.

You tilt your head. “Are you a new hire?” For some reason you thought that Noah had been Sylus’s driver for a long time.

“Did he not tell you?” she asks, looking at you strangely.

“Tell me what?”

“I’m not gonna do his work for him,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she smiles at you, and it’s unnerving instead of soothing. “Anyway, yeah I’m a new hire. You’re gonna be seeing a lot of me in the future.”

Although Kieran seems to have reached some sort of approval of Noah, Luke still shudders and starts the game again.

You let it go. You’ll ask Sylus about Noah’s weird comment later. Instead of dwelling on it, you sink into admiring the awesome graphics, the atmosphere, your childhood nostalgia rendered in state of the art graphics

When the sirens go off as James is about to enter the Other World, you have a sudden flashback to playing the original Silent Hill 2 with Caleb. You were also too afraid, like Kieran, to play yourself, so you just clutched Caleb’s arm as he held the controller, and you delighted in the safety of vicarious thrills, of Caleb’s reassuring, solid presence at your side as you experienced the story. You suddenly miss him so, so much. The feeling of loss is overwhelming.

The sudden punch of grief leaves you breathless. Everyone else is so focused on the screen, they don’t notice your gasp. You want to watch. You’ve been wanting to experience the remake ever since the developers announced it, over a year ago. You want to experience it with who you are tentatively thinking of as your new friends. But you need a second to ground yourself before you can bring yourself to keep watching. 

Your force your voice through your throat. “I’m going to grab a snack. Do you guys want anything from the kitchen?”

“Popcorn!” Noah calls.

“We’re good,” Luke answers, because apparently Kieran is almost catatonic with terror.

“All right, be right back.” You take your time getting to the kitchen, Mephisto following you out the theater room door. You rifle through the fridge, shove some snacks into your mouth. You’re shocked to find microwave popcorn in one of the cupboards. Sylus strikes you as the kind of snob who insists on popping loose kernels on the stove, or over the fire in the fireplace. Nothing so pedestrian as store-bought and in the microwave. You snicker, that feeling of sorrow fading as you engage in everyday tasks, with company to look forward to. You’re not alone right now. You’re excited to see more of what the devs retained from the original game and what they added or changed in the remake. You head back to the theater room, but accidentally drop the bag of popcorn before you can open the door. As you pick it up, you can hear Noah.

“You know you don’t actually have to kill every monster you encounter, right?” She asks in barely disguised disdain.

“You know that you don’t actually have to offer your opinion when no one asked, right?” Luke snarks.

“Oooh, someone’s grumpy because he isn’t going to have an advantage in the bet like he thought,” Noah says through a snicker.

“What advantage? We agreed not to interfere. Boss is gonna have it in the bag even before the two weeks are up even without our help,” Luke responds.

“If he doesn’t fumble it by being too passive,” Kieran adds, thoughtfully.

“What ‘help?’ I bet your help would result in more delay than progress,” Noah taunts. “I probably don’t even have to do anything to counter your nonsense. You’ll do all my work for me.”

“Hey, flooding the guest floor was a good idea,” Luke protests.

This is just met with a cackle. 

You stand, frozen. You didn’t mean to eavesdrop. But what is their boss going to have in the bag without their help? What bet?

Something inside of you already knows. Hadn’t you thought earlier that the twins probably made a bet out of your obvious, pathetic crush?

But they said it was about their boss achieving something. Not about your feelings.

You don’t want to know.

You try desperately to cling to that warm feeling you’ve had since the pool.

Boss is gonna have it in the bag.

You spin on your heel, intending to return to the kitchen without them knowing you heard anything, just to buy yourself time to process. But of course, you promptly knock over another ugly sculpture. It shatters on the floor.

You stand there in your bandaged feet, holding the popcorn, staring down at the mess you just made.

The door swings open and Kieran, Luke, and Noah jostle each other to see what just happened in the hallway.

“Sorry,” you say. What the fuck else can you say?

“What happened?” Kieran asks.

“Just me being clumsy,” you say, trying to smile.

Luke squints at you. “Oh shit.” He turns to Kieran. “They’re making that horrible face again.”

Kieran stares at you.

Noah flicks her braids and tilts her head, examining you like an art critic trying to find meaning in a child’s finger painting. “What does that face mean?”

“It means they heard what we were discussing,” Kieran says grimly.

Luke glares at Noah. “What are you even doing here? Now the bet is fucked and boss is gonna be mad because his hunter’s making that expression again. Look at them. We’ve hurt their feelings!” He gestures at you.

She glares back. “Boss told me to report here for duty every day to remain on standby in case the hunter wants to go anywhere. What are you doing here?” she sneers.

“We live here,” he answers, looking confused that that’s even a question.

You take a step back, away from the sharp shards of the broken sculpture. Maybe they’ll be too busy arguing to notice.

That good feeling is gone.

You think about every move Sylus has made since the auction. All of his attention, his gentleness, his kindness, his dogged reappearance at your home, his arranging for you to have sick leave.

Would Sylus do all that for a bet?

Is he that bored? Is he that good of an actor?

How on earth would you even know? You don’t know shit about him. You’ve known him for a few months. In that time, you’ve seen him a handful of times. What the fuck are you doing?

You think about that feeling you had while listening to the Beatles, while listening to Sylus play the piano, of forgetting something really important. You want to throw up. 

Yeah, you’re forgetting something all right.

You can’t stand the feeling inside you right now. It’s too big. It’s eclipsing everything you’ve felt up until this point.

You think about what it will take to get out of here.

You think about picking up one of the sculpture’s shards and digging it into your thigh, anything to override this feeling inside you now.

You think about the resonance with Sylus when you woke up. Could he fake that?

His evol is unearthing a person’s deepest desires. But is it more than that? Could he make you feel adored without using his aether core? Did he promise not to use his evol on you because the terms of the bet forbade interference? Your fears send you spiraling.

“Oh no. No, no, no, no,” Luke says, peering at your face again. He takes a step forward, reaching out to you like someone trying to calm a wild animal, his house shoe crunching on the broken bits of sculpture.

You take a step back.

Noah just looks between the twins and you, confused.

“I’m just going for a walk,” you lie. You take another step back, turn, and start to walk down the hallway that will eventually lead to the lift. The lift that goes to the underground garage.

As you round the corner, Luke says,“Get—”

“On it,” Kieran says, with his phone to his ear.

Noah looks thoughtfully down the now empty hallway. “The hunter’s fucked up, huh?”

Luke shrugs. “Aren’t we all?”

Noah frowns at him. “Speak for yourself. You don’t know shit about me.”

“I know that boss hired you after looking into your soul. Which means you’re fucked up too. He isn’t interested in wholesome things or people—too boring.”

“And you?”

“You said it yourself. I really enjoy carving people up.” He shrugs. “Soothes something from our shitty childhood.”

Noah considers him. “Your brother seems to be okay with me now. Are you going to have a problem with me?”

Kieran grins at her. “What makes you think I have a problem with you?”

“You were mean when I suggested you try to stealth around the monsters. And don’t think I didn’t see your reaction when I said I’d be around more often. And acting like the hunter being upset is solely my fault, when we all made the stupid bet.” She counts each piece of evidence on her pretty fingers.

“Who the fuck likes backseat gamers?” He pouts a little. “And I didn’t like being hit on within an hour of meeting you. I don’t like people like that.”

Noah scowls back at him. “You don’t like people like what? ”

“I mean, I don’t like, like people. I get the creeps when people hit on me.”

Her lovely eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Oh.”

“But boss likes you, so I like you. We’re cool, so long as you don’t hit on me again.”

Noah nods.“I was just giving you two shit since you hauled me in front of your scary fucking boss. But I promised boss I wouldn’t do it again.”

“Then we’re cool. And if you don’t like how I play Silent Hill, then you can play if you want.” He opens the door again, gesturing for her to go in ahead.

“Nah man, I like being in the peanut gallery.”

“Does that mean you’re not gonna shut up?”

“You know it.” Noah gives him a big, feral grin.

Luke grins back at her, equally frightening. “Then I’ll be sure to kill every single monster we come across, no matter how much ammo it wastes.” The door swings shut on Kieran standing in the hallway, looking thoughtfully down at the phone in his hand.

_____________________

Sylus hums the melody of the music he played for you as he ends the call with Aidan. Luckily the issue this time could be settled by answering Aidan’s questions, and he can still look forward to a mostly uninterrupted day with you. He wonders where you’ll like to go next. Back to the library? To the greenhouse?

He’s in a great mood, despite the interruption. Every conversation with you convinces him that you’re closer and closer to accepting the truth. That you’re his, and he’s yours. He wants to drag you back to the library, listen to you read to him, argue about poetry—the way your eyes flash when you’re making a counterargument, the sneer in your retorts to his needling you—he wants to kiss you. He wants to kiss you so much it hurts.

His phone vibrates in his pocket again. He clenches his jaw, pauses. He wants to throw the damn thing against the wall and just continue looking for you, business be damned. But he also doesn’t want to leave Aidan in an awkward position. He fishes the phone out of his pocket and accepts the call.

“Boss, your hunter is making a strategic retreat again,” Kieran says breathlessly.

Sylus jerks to a stop.

“Repeat that?” he demands.

“They overheard us talking about the wager,” Kieran explains, sounding pained.

It takes Sylus a second to remember what he’s talking about. “The bet about how long it will take for kitten to realize that I want to date them?”

“Yeah.”

Sylus thinks. Why would you be spooked by a stupid bet between his henchmen and your driver?

“But they—well, they overheard us talking about it, and they don’t know what the wager is actually about. I am afraid that they might have misunderstood something,” Kieran says carefully, like he’s waiting for Sylus’s wrath.

Sylus immediately realizes what probably just happened.

“I left kitten alone for less than twenty minutes,” he sighs. Just his fucking luck. It’s like the universe or some cruel god wants to create obstacles in his path to winning your precious heart.

“Your bet is over,” he barks.

“Understood.”

Sylus ends the call and pulls up Mephisto’s app. You’re walking quickly, with purpose. He squints, trying to figure out which part of the house you’re in. It looks like you’re trying to get to the lift that leads to the underground garage. Sylus dissipates into red and black mist.

_______________

As you walk, you make your way to the garage, not even sure what your plan is. You have that hollow, manic feeling filling you—the feeling that always fills you when you’re hurt like this, when you just need to get out, to outrun your own body and the feelings it contains. This time though, through the noise in your head, you remember your promises to Sylus. About not hurting yourself, but going to him. If you have doubts about his intentions, to go to him. To ask him when you have questions, instead of making assumptions.

But how can you? What’s the point of honoring promises made to a man who thinks your feelings are fair game for a bet? 

You need to think. You don’t want to think. You’re hurting so, so much. You need time. Your body feels like you’re out of time. You miss Caleb. You miss your grandmother. 

It takes all of your self control to stop moving. You hear Mephisto’s wings flapping behind you. You close your eyes. You resist the urge to punch yourself, barely. If you’re just a bet to him, you should punch him instead. You open your eyes and realize you stopped next to a door with an electronic lock blinking on the handle. You turn and look at it fully, and you hear the lock click.

It recognized your face. Just as Kieran and Luke told you all the locks in this house would. Why would Sylus bother programming your face into his home if you’re just a bet?

You watch your hand reach out, grasp the handle. You pull, and the door opens easily. You slip inside and let it close before Mephisto can follow.

The lights flicker on.

You gasp.

It’s like standing inside an upscale jewelry store, built inside a bank vault. Except instead of sparsely filled display cases, designed to emphasize and showcase a select number of precious jewels, each glass case is stuffed with the things. Diamonds. Rubies. Emeralds. A mind-blowing variety of beautiful stones that you don’t even know the names for. Loose stones, as well as jewelry—necklaces, rings, earrings. Where most of Sylus’s house is the picture of meticulous order, this vault looks like a dragon’s hoard of priceless treasures, casually piled high without much thought.

Why would Sylus trust you with access to such wealth, if you were just a bet?

But more importantly, how much death must Sylus Qin sell, to afford such a vault?

How many lives in exchange for each gem?

You turn in a circle as you slowly process the fact that you’re standing in the middle of a sea of blood diamonds.

What are you doing?

What the actual fuck are you doing?

You were just marveling at the luxury of the rooms he designed, filled with the thrilling possibility that he had built them for you. You had thought about the cost of the heating in the hot tub, the pool. And yet you were willing to overlook such expenses. Why? Because at least the pool, the lovely architecture are useful? Because they provide some value to the human experience, even if only a select few will ever get to experience them at Sylus’s house?

But what value do diamonds have? Shiny clumps of compressed carbon. You can’t burn them for warmth. You can’t eat them. Okay, so maybe they’re used in some industrial processes, but for fuck’s sake, artificially created diamonds could serve that purpose. And you’re absolutely sure that the diamonds Sylus has hoarded in this vault are real, products of millions of years of pressure, and not made in some lab.

You sink to the black marble floor. It’s cold. You draw up your knees and hug them.

There’s too much happening in your brain right now. Your grief. Your uncertainty about Sylus’s intentions—the question of who his beloved is. The bet.

The realization that you’re falling in love with a man whose life’s work is bringing misery to others.

You hate yourself. Here you are, thrown into a tailspin from the idea that Sylus may have spent all this time on you because of a bet with his minions, when you should be in a tailspin about the fact that it’s probably already too late for you to stop falling for a man who not only praises the mutilated world, but is one of the people shoving the knife in deeper. 

There is so much you don’t know about him. But what you do know is that Sylus is too busy pouring salt into the wound of the world to dedicate so much time and resources to something as frivolous as a wager about how long it will take for him to get you in the bag. It’s pure, self-pitying hubris to assume otherwise.

You’re focusing on the wrong things, again. You’re forgetting what’s important, again.

What do you want? What can you live with? Why do you feel a connection with this complicated, cruel, ruthless man, as if you’ve known him for more than a few months? What kind of person are you, if despite sitting in a sea of diamonds paid for in other peoples' blood, you still want this merchant of death to come find you, to hold you in his arms, tell you that he wasn't placing bets on how long it would take to have you in the bag?

You begin to rock, somehow resisting all of your terrible urges: to hurt yourself, to run, to set this awful room on fire. You rock, and you hurt, and you wait for the terrible man you’re falling in love with to find you, as he always does.

______________

Sylus finds Mephisto pacing on the floor in front of his gem vault. He caws in distress when he sees his owner re-materialize in the hallway. Sylus finds the fact that you’re in the gem vault, and not currently trying to procure a getaway car, to be a source of hope—a strange feeling for him. What use does he have for hope? He has plans. Plans with contingencies, alternatives, backups. They either succeed because he planned well enough, or they fail because he did not plan well enough. 

Hope has no place in his world.

People suffer and die. Deals are made and broken. Fate is cruel, inflexible. He knows this all too well, no matter how much he’s struggling against fate this time around.

Hope has no place in his world.

But.

You could have kept running. You could be in any one of his vehicles right now, trying to break land speed records to get the fuck away from him, convinced that he was involved in a bet about the biggest gamble of his life.

But you’re not. You’re in his gem vault, for some reason. You strange, unpredictable, delightful creature.

He finds himself hoping that this misunderstanding hasn’t just caused you to retreat beyond his reach again. 

Your fingers in the dip of his clavicle.

The yearning look on your face, that he doesn’t think you even knew you had, when he bit your lip—the closest he’ll allow himself to a kiss until he’s one hundred percent sure you’ll welcome him while awake.

He opens the door.

He pauses, struck with the strange sensation of viewing his greatest treasure surrounded by so much of his material treasure. You belong here. The value of all of these precious stones nothing in comparison to you, shining like a beacon to him at the end of a long and winding road from the marble floor, dimming everything else in this room by comparison.

His house shoes whisper along the cold marble floor where you’re sitting, curled in on yourself.

He has watched you take down wanderers the size of an elephant. All that strength, contained in your huddled body. You look so small to him. He wants to protect you from all the horrors of the world. But of course, he’s the biggest horror of all. Is it any wonder that he keeps hurting you instead?

A better man might keep his distance in an effort to protect you. Like your partner. A better man might know when to quit. Like your dandy artist friend. A better man might be content with loving you from afar. Like your fucking doctor. 

But Sylus is a terrible man, because he’s not going to stop trying to get it right, even as he hurts you in the process, until you order him to stop and mean it.

You don’t look up at the sound of his footsteps, but you also don’t retreat as he approaches.

He sits on the floor next to you, wraps an arm around your shivering shoulders. He pulls you into his arms, feels the rush of hope when you let him.

He cradles your head in his palm.

“The twins bet on everything. Which snail is the fastest on a leaf. Whether it will rain or snow tomorrow. How long it will take someone to bleed out. Whether the traffic light will change in five versus ten seconds,” he says softly into your hair.

“About how long it will take to get your pathetic hunter in the bag?” Your voice is small, just as your body feels in his arms.

“About how long it will take for my beloved to realize how I feel about them,” he sighs.

You stiffen, and he feels a moment of paralyzing fear, before you melt into him. He breathes again.

“What did you bet?” you ask, and Sylus feels the sorrow in your voice like a gunshot in his chest.

You ran, but you stopped. You assumed, but you’re asking questions now. You’re allowing him to touch you, to hold you. The hope in him surges again. 

“I didn’t place a bet in this particular wager,” he manages through the unfamiliar feelings. “But if I had, the gamble would be my whole heart.”

“Does a man who has a dragon’s hoard of wealth, bought with the blood of the guilty and the innocent alike, have a heart?” you ask, finally looking up, your eyes hollow in a way that he doesn’t like.

Sylus is a terrible man. He has never lied to himself about this, or to you. He showed you the worst of himself, the day you met. He has to hope that the fact you’re still here, still asking him questions, means that he hasn’t lost you yet. An unpleasant feeling of doubt slithers through him. Is it the bet upsetting you, or something else?

“Even dragons have hearts, darling.”

You close your eyes. He wants you to open them again. He wants you to look at him. He never wants you to look away from him. Even if you’re looking at him with doubt, or hate, so long as you’re looking at him, that means you’re not leaving him.

“What do you want?” he asks.

You open your eyes again. He is terribly tempted to use his aether core on you, because for once, he can’t read how you’re feeling.

“You offered me time.”

He leans forward, rests his forehead against yours. “And I will give you time.”

“I want to see your favorite part of the greenhouse.”

“And I will show you my favorite part of the greenhouse,” he whispers, breathing, breathing. He can’t tell how you’re feeling, but you smell like home, a door at the end of a long road. The hope grows.

“I want to see Luke and Kieran and Noah play the remake of Silent Hill 2.”

The hope shifts, dissipates. There is no need for hope, once it is fulfilled. You want to stay, for now. He can work with that. Whatever damage learning about the bet caused, he can work with your willingness to stay. If that look in your eyes isn’t about the bet, he has more time to dismantle your walls, to pull it out of you. Just two nights ago, you were running barefoot through the dark. Tonight, you stopped yourself and waited for him to find you. “You’re in luck. They’re still playing.”

You watch him, as if you’re weighing something behind your hollow eyes. “Will you watch with me?”

Of course, he thinks. Of course. You could ask for so much more, and the answer would be the same. “Do you want me to watch with you?”

“I want you to want to watch with me.”

He smiles, his mouth a breath away from yours. You smell like popcorn. He wants to throw a piece in the air, catch it in his mouth, feed it to you. “Again, you bring me luck. We have a win-win deal.”

He stands. Carries you out of his gem vault.

“Why do you have so many jewels?” you ask, quietly.

“In case the authorities freeze my accounts, physical currency will be useful. A sort of insurance.”

You gaze at his face, and he wonders what you see when you look at him. “You’ll escape with a truck full of precious stones?”

“Something like that,” he says.

“No other reason?”

He tells the truth. “I’ve always been fond of shiny things.”

“Do you have a favorite stone?”

He laughs softly. “Whatever stone you’re wearing.”

Instead of looking at him with suspicion, a helpless look crosses your face. Like you’re in pain from his admission. He doesn’t like it. But then you lean forward, press your face into his neck. He tells himself that he has time. He’ll figure out what’s bothering you, and he’ll fix it.

Outside the theater room, he pauses. Looks down at the pieces of shattered sculpture. "If you didn't like it, darling, you could have just said so."

You just mumble that you're sorry.

"We've talked about your apologies," he says, frowning down at you in his arms.

You huff. "Fine. I'm not sorry. That sculpture was edgy and ugly. You should replace it with something beautiful."

"Deal. But only if you come with me to choose something," he says.

"Deal," you say softly, and he still can't tell what's going through your head.

When you enter the theater room, Luke pauses the game. “We’re really sorry for hurting your feelings and shit. The bet was about boss’s rizz, not about you. Please don’t leave.”

Kieran nods in approval, as if he had helped Luke compose this little speech.

Noah just looks at you, face unreadable, as you rest your head on Sylus’s shoulder.

“I had planned to give you a lot of shit. But I think I would’ve lost anyway,” she says, not looking apologetic at all. “It’s only been two days and you’re practically merging into one person.”

Sylus carries you to a loveseat next to the twins, with Noah on their other side.

“Thanks,” you say. “No worries.”

Everyone is awkwardly silent for a moment after your brief response. You seem to notice, and smile a little. “Can we hang out while you play?”

“Fuck yeah,” Luke says, and Kieran groans as the game is unpaused.

After a while, you, Luke, and Noah start discussing the difference between the remake and the original. What everyone likes, what they don’t. Sylus leans back, draws you onto his chest. His relief remains intense as you let him. The discussion moves on to which Silent Hill games are the best in the franchise, which are the worst. Luke and Noah have a good-natured clash about Silent Hill 4: the Room, with only a few insults flung at each other. You and Kieran share your admiration for Bloober Team's Layers of Fear, which Kieran liked because he didn't think it was scary, and which Luke hated, because he thought it was boring. Sylus doesn't give a shit about video games, and certainly not horror games. Life itself is already horrific enough, he doesn't have the patience for manufactured terror. He just listens, feeling your heartbeat against his chest, breathing in your comforting scent.

A feeling of wholeness settles in him, as unfamiliar as hope. As unfamiliar as the happiness from your movie night, just last night. You, Luke, and Noah have moved on to animatedly arguing about some character’s outfit changes between the original and the remake.

He feels like he’s been standing, left behind in the dark for so long, and he’s finally being allowed home. Whatever is bothering you, he’ll fix it. He’ll destroy the world if he has to, to preserve the scene in front of him, so that he can offer you this, so that he can experience this with you, again, and again, and again. His gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.

End notes: I had planned shenanigans for the twins and Noah to increase their odds in winning the bet, but this story is already out of control with how long it is, and some of the things I thought of were really manipulative and fucked up even if I personally thought they were hilarious, but my brain is craving a softer vibe for this story I guess (lmao if this can be considered soft), so I hope this isn't too much of a let down for the resolution of the bet subplot. I've given up hinting at what's coming next because it turns out I'm very bad at guessing what's next.

[bougiebutchbinch]

I’m back to talk about transfemme Wade (who I think would refuse to go by Wanda bc “we already have one of them, don’t wanna confuse the fans!”) but in an embarrassing amount of thought so anon-

I feel like she has so many wigs that sit along the wall of their room, one for every occasion (Logan talked her out of getting a massive Miku length one bc she would never take care of it Well enough-), her favorite is the Barbie of just a cute blonde ponytail that sometimes she’d clip colorful strips into. Sometimes she showers wearing a wig for the Euphoria of her bf being pissed there’s a bunch of plastic in the drain- she goes through so many phases of what style she likes, their living room was full of amazon boxes at some point and Logan was ‘forced’ to sit through a fashion show and give his opinions, and while he doesn’t know the difference between Lolita (THE STYLE THE STYLE!!!!) and Harijuku, all he knows is his girl is beaming and rambling a mile a minute and he can’t make himself veto any outfit she shows off. Unfortunately his real favorite look of hers involves the same t shirts and boxers she wore before coming out, no makeup, no wig, face mushed into his chest and just Content as can be. He doesn’t care about her putting on a big effort to look femme (though will always lovingly praise looks so the RSD doesn’t trigger), as long as she’s happy and safe, he’s so lucky to have her 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷 anyways I go ESPLODE NOW thinking of my self ship with her-

WAILS AND RUBS MY FACE ALL OVER THIS LIKE A HAPPY CAT

AWHHHHHHH

she is everything to me. EVERYTHINGGGGG

[UNDER A CUT for discussions of bottom dysphoria - as well as related self-inflicted violence, but in a Poolverine way where violence is consensual and sexy and fun for everyone involved!]

I need her to be happy and to find joy and to have a million wigs and for Logan to love her just as much with them as without them, while bitching something rotten while he pulls the gross wads of plastic faux-hair out the drain

I need her to drape herself over Logan's lap like a happy housecat only Logan's the one who starts (embarrassedly) purring as he strokes her because he's so delighted and comfortable in his life right now~ And Wade is just being VIBRATED by the very loud proof of her boyfriend's love of her.... And she is smiling the GOOFIEST grin while Logan turns bright red!

I need her to turn to Logan after a long day of murder and they start pulling voraciously at each other's clothes - only Logan freezes STARSTRUCK because. Damn. And Wade's kinda confused and a bit self conscious, but tries to hide it under jokes until Logan says in this gruff, choked voice - "You look so fucking good in red" and she looks down to see where she's pulling off her costume and she's just fucking covered in this glossy red satin dress of her own blood ❤️

(And Logan maybe buys her a long red evening dress that she's probably never gonna have occasion to wear, but he's flushing so much when he presents it that he almost matches the colour, and he wants to see her in it so bad, and whenever Wade wears it around the house just casually, she gets picked up and fucked against the nearest wall lmao)

I need Logan dipping her effortlessly in a kiss, and she feels so fucking weightless in his arms ❤️

I need them baking together before Laura comes around and they both keep burning shit but they're laughing and having a good time and there's a smudge of flour on Wade's nose and Logan is imploding internally over how cute she is

I also need her to casually say to Logan one day when the Bottom Dysphoria is particularly bad, 'hey can you chop off my dick while fucking me and then just keep chopping it off whenever it tries to grow back??' and Logan is like 'what the fuck babe' and 'I have a vague sense that I shouldn't enable this' and 'babe are you fucking sure' and Wade is like 'yeah I get off on pain and that would make me very very happy, plus it will do no lasting damage <3' and Logan is like 'OOKAY I GUESS' and then they have fun horrific bloody mutilation sex that would look absolutely awful to anyone else but is actually very tender and affirming and cute

[jeanbie]

Can you do headcannons for Levi x reader where he finds out his s/o is pregnant and how he is finding out, and during the pregnancy and birth? Thank you!

EXPECTING FATHER! LEVI ★ masterlist.

warnings: season 4 spoilers, read at your own risk

⏤ help i'm weak.....need dad levi pls.....

i think levi’s reactions to pregnancy would be super different depending on which timeframe we’re in

if it’s pre season 4, i can imagine levi being really anxious about the pregnancy due to the nature of his work (and if his partner is also a soldier, then everything becomes more complicated and scary) ((this au is pre season 4, because i feel like post season 4, he'll just be like any other relieved expecting father))

levi tries his best at work but there’s never a guarantee that he will make it back alive

and pregnancy is scary too, he’s worried that things might go wrong during the birth, and he’s not exactly in the best position to raise a child alone

he doesn’t want his future kids to have an upbringing the same way he did, without parents who can put in 100%

he misses his mom a lot and wished that he had a dad, so it’s important to him that his kid has a good childhood and grows up knowing that they’re loved

because levi would never even be unsafe during sex with someone he didn’t love truly, he’s comfortable going forward with the pregnancy with his partner and just doing his best with extreme caution and preparation

his reaction is pretty neutral, although inside there’s a lot going on, but voicing any of it wouldn’t be helpful for his partner, who is probably just as freaked out, as i can’t imagine either levi or the partner being toooo happy about the pregnancy since the timing is awful

but still, they will try because it happened, and they love each other

(also i doubt that abortion is safe in this period of time, and even if it was common and unsafe, i can’t see either of them wanting to take the risk of death?)

if his partner is a soldier, then it doesn’t matter who they were or what rank they had, they would absolutely be withdrawn from their duties beyond the wall

he might somehow get it cleared that they’re allowed to do in-wall duties like office work or overseeing recruits, doing the admin or counselling work, just keeping it down to earth with the recruits and lower ranks, but doing field work is pretty much forbidden for his partner

levi will pour himself into his office work for a while as a distraction, and he realises he can’t be too reckless beyond the wall, no matter how good he knows he can be

i’ve never thought that levi, outside of the field, is an unkind person, and actually he’s very gentle just with difficulties voicing his feelings due to never being told it was an ok thing to do as a child

that being said, he’s very attentive to his partner and will do anything if it means enabling them a smooth pregnancy experience

there’s no doctors that can do like scans or anything, so he always feels nervous that something might be wrong that they don’t know about

and now that dr yeager is gone and the military doctors aren’t exactly prepared or well versed on childbirth, everything just feels scary

i can see him going to experienced soldiers who have families and asking for advice, and for once is very appreciative of hange’s intrusiveness as they are always a second helping hand should his partner need anything that he can’t easily give

the scouts are a family and they all understand the fragileness of this pregnancy, so they know to be careful and kind and thoughtful, and generally they are

but i can see levi bringing his emotions home sometimes and that can be bad for the pregnancy, so he’s not a perfect partner 100% of the time

he can close off when his partner needs him because he’s so stressed and overwhelmed, but doesn’t want to negatively impact his relationship (but in closing off, he does this to himself)

but in general, i can’t see levi being unloving or unkind, and actually even the other soldiers have said that this pregnancy has made levi a tad bit kinder to the other soldiers

not that he’s ever mean, because he’s just direct which can sometimes be read as mean, but now he’s a lot more careful with what he says and he’s always inquisitive where it can get him help and info

when his partner goes into labour, he’s lucky that it’s early hours of a random week and not a week where they’re beyond the wall doing field work

he had thought a lot about labour and for a while didn’t know if he wanted to be in the room

what if his son or daughter comes out and doesn’t make it? what if his partner doesn’t make it? what if they BOTH don’t make it?

erwin told him to think about what if they both made it and he missed everything, and eventually he decided to be present in the room

he also asked for erwin to be there, which is partner didn’t seem to mind, because if things did go sour, he’d need that brother figure or else he’d die too

as expected though, everything goes fine

he’s very surprised by the amount of blood and fluids and just how intense everything is

he already respected his partner but watching them give birth just kind of transcends his respect for them

i can see him being the father who doesn’t want to leave the room ever

he always wants to be near his partner and baby, wants to hold them, wants to watch them sleep and eat and wriggle around

he definitely won’t feel comfortable with his partner returning to field work after delivery, so if they were a soldier, then they’re unfortunately being retired exclusively to the HQ to do admin work

when all of this is over, he wants to retire and live in a little cottage with trees and flowers 

(unfortunately there will be bumps in the road to get there, but even in his wheelchair and aged bones, he can still have his cottage with his child, partner and adopted murder warriors)

[saintsenara]

☯️ 🕯️ for the writer asks!

thank you for the ask, anon!

🕯️ was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

i was expecting when writing everlasting ink that it would make me think differently about harry and ginny - i wrote it because i was growing increasingly irritated by a tendency in some of the fandom spaces i inhabit to act like writing things outside of your usual preferences is particularly difficult, when my personal opinion is that this is something all of us should actively do, since it helps to make our characters more well-rounded if we have to examine the aspects of them which fans of other ships/eras/genres etc. tend to emphasise - but i wasn’t expecting it to make me think so much about molly weasley.

i’ve always backed molly - and, in particular, i’ll die on the hill that she’s in the right in the argument with sirius in order of the phoenix - but i didn’t really stop to think until i wrote everlasting ink about how lonely she must be, and how her loneliness is directly connected to how she’s set up within the narrative of the harry potter series as a pretty ideal mother. the impact of grief on that loneliness must be astonishing, but - as @whinlatter notes - virtually nobody in the fandom cares about molly’s grief. there is such a tendency to have her get back to hustling and bustling after the war - and, in particular, a tendency for her relationship with harry to be taken as subsuming her horror at the loss of fred. having thought about this for everlasting ink, molly’s post-war life certainly now looks very different in my mind, and i am ready to fight her haters.

☯️ how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? how do you deal with that if you're not a social person/experience social anxiety?

i am a very social person, so i can’t speak to the latter part of the question, but i think that a reciprocity in fandom is important because it’s the best example to all of us that this is a hobby. i’ve said a lot elsewhere that i think one of the most crucial things we can all do is have a little bit of perspective about the fact that this is something we do for fun - if you’re regularly in tears over comments, or if meeting your upload schedule is making you ill, or if you’re writing the stories you think you should write rather than the ones you want to, that’s not good.

the act of screaming with other people about fictional characters should be enjoyable - that’s what fandom spaces like tumblr and discord provide, and that’s what writing and publishing fics enables. we should all work hard to keep that lightness-of-touch to our fandom life - which, crucially, doesn’t mean that we have to only engage with ‘light’ topics or discussions, it just means that we have to recognise that this is a leisure activity rather than something life-or-death.

how? be nice to the people whose work you comment on. be nice to the people who comment on your work (the vast majority of ‘mean’ comments are just things which are poorly-phrased, and if you give commenters the benefit of the doubt you will often find that you can end up having a productive discussion). block and move on when someone is genuinely out of line - arguing will solve nothing. kill the cop in your head and don’t police people’s work - just don’t engage if you don’t like it. step outside of your comfort zone whenever you feel you can. don’t obsess over your stats. get a grip on yourself if you feel yourself becoming convinced you’re some sort of celebrity just because people read your harry potter fan-fiction. have a sense of humour. log off when you need to. and write exactly what you want because you want to, critics be damned!

[the-travelling-witch]

Hi Holly! How are you hun?

For the self ship game 💕 and 💔 for you and Belphie (Obey Me) and Xiao (Genshin)

i’m doing okay, trying not to get life get to me, so same old really; what about you? <3

💕: Who’s the clingier one in the relationship?

Xiao

[answered here]

Is it a surprise to anyone if I say Belphie? No, it’s not? Well there’s your answer haha. But for real, Belphie’s one hell of a clingy demon, his sin and being the youngest of his brothers enabling him; not that I mind though, I’m welcoming the physical affection with open arms literally

Most of the time, he’s asleep; I know, another shocker. Even if we start up awake, just cuddling while watching a movie or talking, it’s never too long until he drifts off. He really fights it at times, trying desperately to stay awake and not succumb to the pull of sloth but he’s fighting a losing battle. With me running my fingers through his hair, the rhythmic rise and fall of my chest and my steady heartbeat as a lullaby, Belphie is out like a light before you can say pillow. (“Do I look like a body pillow to you?” - “Mhm, the comfiest one.”). But it’s okay, he’s really cute dozing off like that and being all comfy with him usually sends me right into a much needed nap as well (Belphie, the weighted blanket demon ^^).

“You really need to sleep more. Come here and nap with me.”

“Sure sure, I’ll be right there.”

But his clinginess doesn’t just pertain to cuddling and napping. Belphie has the tendency to just lean on me (and drape his entire weight onto me) when we’re standing somewhere or sit as close to me as possible when given the chance. If we’re out and about he’s also prone to wrapping his arm around my waist, leaning his head on my shoulder, hugging me from behind or holding hands.

“You’re pretty big on pda, I was really surprised. Any reason for that?”

“No reason” *glares at a demon over my shoulder*

[this is where we proceed into jealous! belphie territory]

💔: Is it hard being away from each other?

Well it’s said that absence makes the heart grow fonder but my heart is already plenty fond, so no absence please >///<

I do think it depends on the kind of absence it is; could we come see each other when we want to or are we separated not by choice? Because I think getting a bit of distance every now and then and giving each other space regularly is important; i wouldn’t want to suffocate my partner after all <3 But if it’s not up to us, it’s a different story—

Xiao is used to being alone and so am I tbh, so you might think we’d do well being apart from one another and to a certain degree we are. But now that we have had a taste of affection and all the (physical) comfort that comes from it, being denied that is like being thrown into cold water. So while we’re okay on a surface level, we still feel like something’s missing. At least, we have to know that the other is doing okay, if nothing else.

“Today I found a wild glaze lily blooming near the inn. I wish I could have shown it to you.”

“Let’s check it out once I’m back.”

Belphie… is playing the role of the youngest brother once more. If asked about it, he’s not going to reveal his full annoyance about me being back in the human realm but he’s huffing every other second and pouting basically all the time. On more than one night he’s sent me messages about how he can’t fall asleep without me and I’m always there to reply right away because I can’t either; once you get used to a deadweight lying on you, there’s no going to sleep without it. But talking on the phone helps lessen the heartache a little (I don’t want to count how often we fell asleep on call and I woke up to my phone being dead). But being a witch and all, a summoning spell solves a lot of problems.~

“Next time warn me before summoning me out of the blue.”

“You literally just whined my ear off about how you can’t sleep; we both know you’re super pleased with this situation.”

[self-ship ask game]

[jdgo51]

Practicing Boundaries: Love vs Enabling

Today's inspiration comes from:

Boundaries

by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend

"We all want to care and help those in need. But how do you know when you are being loving with someone, or are actually enabling them? When you are faced with a request for your time, energy or money, how do you know if the right response is to say “yes” and provide it, or “no” and decline?

The Bible teaches, over and over again, that we are to help others:

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. — Hebrews 13:16

We are designed to love others in word and deed. Also, for most of us, it’s much easier to say “yes” than “no”, for a number of reasons:

We feel compassion for the person’s struggle We remember our own difficult situations We don’t want them to feel disappointed and discouraged We wonder if God has placed us in their life for this situation We think we may be the only solution for them

At the same time, however, our provision for someone can actually make the situation worse for them, because we may be preventing them from experiencing some consequence for their behaviors, and not learning to change how they operate in life. This is the process of God’s disciplining us, so that we grow up and mature:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. — Hebrews 12:7

The process of experiencing consequences is key:

A child in a 5-minute time out begs to get out in 3 minutes A teen asks not to be grounded for bad grades A friend who has had several failing jobs asks for a loan A spouse with a drinking problem asks their spouse to give them one more chance before requiring counseling In all of these examples, it’s unsure what the right thing to do might be. There is just not enough information here. So back to the question: how to tell if you’re being loving, or if you’re enabling? Here are 5 questions to ask yourself as a sort of filter, and you will find the answer to the issue when you engage with them. You will probably answer some as a “yes” and some as a “no”, and don’t worry that the answers for all agree. You’ll see the balance to help your decision.

#1. Are they unable?

We are called to have compassion and help those who have not, and also can not. They simply do not have the capability or resources to solve their problem. For example, a tribe in a developing country has no water wells. Or a homeless man has nowhere to sleep but under a freeway. Or a young businesswoman needs a mentor to help her grow in her leadership. We all are to be mindful to carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. — Galatians 6:2

However, to be unable is very different than to be unwilling. Something may be difficult or inconvenient, and that’s just life. For example, a young adult who is living at home and doesn’t want to work, go to school, or do house chores, is more unwilling than unable.

How do you know when you are being loving with someone, or are actually enabling them?

#2. Are you resourced:

Do you possess what the person is asking for? That might include the finances, or the time, or energy required. So often, I see people giving what they can’t afford to give, and then not being able to meet the demands of their lives. I have had to work with pastors whose families suffered because while Dad was helping everyone in the church, he wasn’t around to be a parent and husband. Here are some sobering words:

Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. — 1 Timothy 5:8

We need to make sure we are resourcing ourselves for the priorities we have been tasked to do.

There is certainly always a case for sacrificial giving, as in the example of the woman who gave her last two coins (Mark 12:41-44). So pray, and make sure you consider if the sacrifice is one that God has surely called you to do.

#3. Do they have skin in the game?

In other words, are they also putting significant effort into solving the problem? This might involve going to job interviews, starting one’s own microbusiness, putting a small percentage of money into an initiative and doing homework after a coaching session:

The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat. — 2 Thessalonians 3:10

When a person who is struggling simply receives that help passively, it tends to foster increased passivity and what psychologists call “learned helplessness.” Learned helplessness is a sense that we don’t have choices that matter, so we simply give up and don’t take initiative or agency to solve our challenges. But when our efforts are part of the solution, we are strengthened and grow.

#4. Will you feel cheerful or will you feel reluctant or under compulsion?

This question is based on Paul’s words about giving:

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. — 2 Corinthians 9:7

Our emotions provide information for us. If we feel cheerful, then that’s a sign that you are happy you made a good choice. If we feel reluctant (grudging) or under compulsion (guilt-ridden), that’s a sign that you might need to rethink all of this.

#5. Is the outcome gratitude and autonomy, or entitlement and dependency?

This last question is based on your history with the person. What have been the results of your providing for them? Are they thankful and able to bear their burdens more? That’s a good thing, and a positive sign that you may be doing the right thing. Or do they become entitled and demanding for more of your resource, and is their dependency on you increased? Not a good sign. Pay attention to the outcomes, or the fruit:

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. — Matthew 7:18

If you have no giving history with the person, ask others who know them for their feedback.

Use these questions to clarify what the loving, but not enabling, path should be for yourself in your situation. Be sure to pray and ask safe friends what they think.

Finally, finally finally: if, after you have used this system, it’s still murky, and you’re unsure, then it might be best, in this particular situation, to default to grace. It’s always the best place to be."'

Written for Devotionals Daily by Dr. John Townsend, author with Henry Cloud of Boundaries.

[aossimusings]

Saw this and I wanted to tag onto this because I see so much about how Kevin was/is in love with Andrew and vice versa, and from my several reads of the series, that never came to me?

Perhaps an unpopular opinion but I don’t think Andrew and Kevin work, not for the reason above, but because I just think there’s too much trauma in their relationship.

Andrew and Neil spent two books teasing each other. They came into each others lives at a somewhat stable point in them, and were intriguing to the other. They had the space to have a flirtation, a tease, and then they were invested when shit hit the fan.

Andrew is the person that Kevin had behind him when he got out of Evermore, hand broken, bridges burning. Andrew’s main function in Kevin’s life is like…his emotional support guard dog. Andrew helped Kevin feel safe. And honestly, this probably filled a need for Andrew. He’s protective. As someone who was an unprotected kid, it’s made very obvious in the series how much protection for those who need it and the enforcement of boundaries is important to him.

And in many ways, Andrew enforces Kevin’s boundaries (because quite frankly, he’s dealing with people who will trample over them, even if Kevin doesn’t already have a trauma response to cross his own boundaries to appease the abusers in his life.)

And that’s why I think Kevin and Andrew don’t work. Not because they’re not close, or because Andrew is supposed to push Kevin, but because I think so much of their function in each others lives was to enable them to be stronger, more developed, more whole people. Kevin is the first close relationship Andrew had outside his family. Andrew is the first person to enforce Kevin’s boundaries and to make it clear that that’s what he deserves, to have them be respected. And maybe that’s why other people think they have chemistry, but for me personally, there’s something so raw and so fundamental about that that I can’t imagine them being together. Probably because in my mind, that makes their relationship one of codependency, rather than one of … essentially relearning how to engage with other people after abusive and/or isolating relationships/living arrangements.

I think they’re incredibly important figures in each others lives. Their relationship is so much about growing as people. But I don’t think everything is romantic, and I also think it lacks the intimacy that Andrew’s and Neil’s has. Like, Kevin and Andrew’s relationship always felt a little impersonal to me? But in the way that long lasting friendships are where you go months without texting but you still care about each other on a fundamental level. There’s so much care there. But there’s also something so…nascent to it, because their each others first “outside” friends, and scarred, because so much of that relationship was structured around Kevin’s PTSD and very real danger he was in. At the point in time when their relationship was built and was strongest (ie, before Neil complicated everything) I don’t think romance was ever and option because neither of them were ever at a point in time emotionally and personally that they could open themselves up to a relationship.

my hot take (that no one has to agree w its just my onion) is that kevin and andrew don't work bc kevin's role in andrew's life is to push his boundaries and not listen to a no. I obviously dont mean that in any sort of threat way re abuse etc, but i don't think it works romantically. So much love to kandreil + co shippers, but thats just my thought process

(i love you)

Kevin 100% listens to Andrew's "No"s. this is a huge point in the book. he even tells Neil that they can't force Andrew to play with them during night practice, and that he has to play "on his own volition". If he's not going to force him to play exy, he definitely won't force him to do anything else. In fact I can't remember a single point in the books where he pushes Andrew's no. like ever. I've spoke on this before but i can't really remember all that I said. it was something close to this i think

(this person was brave enough to not post anonymously. i stg if ANY of you are mean to them I will block you. idc if you've been my mutual for 20 years. do Not be rude.)

love you and thanks for the hot take !

[monstermaster13]

Corey and Oats in..

Search For The Ideal Sitter.

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When it comes to helping others the microbes know just what to do, especially Corey and Oats, they always had an arrangement with Zara and that arrangement enabled Corey to have a purpose, and that was to look after the others and take care of some of Zara’s friends but sometimes Zara altered that arrangement and twisted words around to make it seem like she acted like she didn’t want to do this, and the whole other issue was Zara’s mother, this woman very much was only okay with some things but held such a tight grip on Zara that she controlled her and made her obey every little thing she said, like she was a puppet on a string and a parrot who only repeated what she was told.

This was concerning to Corey and Oats especially because they wanted her to be independent too like the helpers but she was stuck under the tyrannical clutches of her mother. One afternoon Corey and Oats ran over to her mom. ‘Something is very wrong here, you tell us that your mother doesn’t let you babysit my friends yet we didn’t get a confirmation from this. Is she trying to alter the agreement?’ ‘Well uh…my mom says that.’ ‘Do you have to do everything that woman says?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘But she is cruel, dictator-ian and controlling, she loves you, yes but she wants to make sure you and Mel are as far as away from each-other as possible.’

“But she is my mom and I must obey her.”

‘Oh you use that as your excuse for everything, remember when you threw that horse at me?’ Corey added. ‘Does your mother tell you to act whiny or are you just always grouchy because you need medication?’ ‘I am not grumpy, it’s just Mel never listens.’ ‘And why should Mel listen to you just because you think she should listen to what you think your mom said to you?’

“Because…”

‘You cannot think of a good response? I am sorry but admit it, you are a parrot that repeats everything your mother says, it’s cute when you try to mimic what I say but it’s sad when your parrot is your mother like that.’ ‘Huh?’ Just as Corey said that, Zara started growing feathers all over her body as she grew a pair of feathery wings of different colors as her feet shifted to become bird-like talons.

“What is happening?”

“Welcome to our world, Zara. Whenever you act a certain way your form will change to teach you a lesson.”

‘So i’m turning into a bird?’ ‘Yes…a parrot to be precise.’ Zara squirmed a little bit as her facial features fused and hardened, roughening and turning into a beak like that of a bird, she could still talk though and didn’t lose her teeth and tongue. ‘Because you parrot what your mother tells you.’

“What? No, i’m just doing as she says.”

‘Like a good parrot, that’s what you are.’ Corey didn’t like having to tell off and tease anyone, true…he was a microbe leader who had his own set of rules. He looked over at Zara as a huge sign that said ‘Momma’s Girl’ popped up behind her, followed by taunt and jeers, she finally decided on not listening to her mother anymore. ‘You know what? You’re right, I am sorry for acting like this, can you accept my apology?’

‘Fine…we accept your apology, but we need to find another alternative to having someone look after our friends in the house since you claim your mother won’t let them sleepover in that bedroom of yours.’ ‘Well I don’t know, it’s my mom.’

“I can help with that…”

Corey picked up Zara’s phone and disguised his voice, he called up Zara’s mother and asked her to change the arrangement back to what it was before. ‘Now did you actually say that she couldn’t have my friends in her room or that she couldn’t babysit them in general?’ ‘Well I said the lounge or the table but not her bedroom.’ ‘So she lied to us?’ ‘Yes, she did.’ ‘And you didn’t pick up on the fact she was lying?’ ‘Well I am sorry, it’s just I am not good at picking up when she is lying and when she is not.’

He turned the phone off and sighed…’So what do we do?’ ‘We can’t just leave our friends unprotected at the house,what if someone tries to rob the house?’ ‘But we cannot leave them with Zara anymore, we can’t trust her, she is too aggressive and volatile.’ ‘Well what do we do? We need a new babysitter.’

“Like what? Do you know where on earth we could find new babysitters?”

“Maybe..Mel, would you mind helping?”

‘Of course not..’ Mel showed Corey and Oats to the bedroom where she showed them a magical portal which took them to a special application room. In the application room the duo and Mel sat down and auditioned several people and creatures for babysitter material.

The first babysitter they auditioned was a demon horse, but she terrified Oats. ‘I don’t like this one, she’s scary.’ The second babysitter was a koala which Mel liked, but she worried that she wouldn’t be able to do tasks. The third babysitter was a robot babysitter programmed to love unconditionally, which went well until she saw a mess on the floor and short circuited.

They went through several baby-sitters until they found they liked…she was just as loving as the others, and she was even able to be all sorts of creatures. ‘Let’s hire this one.’ ‘Good idea.’ So they hired the shapeshifter babysitter.

The next step was finding a place to drop their friends off, they couldn’t pick Zara’s room anymore so they had to find other places, the first place they tried was a futuristic playroom, but the sounds of the Daleks rolling down the hallway yelling their trademark yells of ‘EXTERMINATE’ scared the unicorns. The second place they tried to drop them off in a forest playhouse, which they liked…up until it got dark, then Prince Whinius whinnied in fear when he saw the eyes that were seemingly following him.

The third place they tried was an underwater cave, but the unicorns Prince Whinnius and Fantasmo didn’t find it comfortable because they couldn’t breathe underwater. ‘What are we going to do? None of these places are the right place to drop off our friends.’ ‘I know, let’s get back to the bedroom, then we’ll think of something.’

“That’s a good idea.”

The duo and Mel along with the unicorns headed back through the portal and arrived back at Nile Road, once there they arrived at the bedroom and began to formulate a plan. ‘Hmmm..where can we drop our equine friends off?’ ‘I don’t know…we cannot leave them on their own.’ ‘Hmmm…I know, maybe there’s a place we can go.’

That’s when Corey got an idea…’The staff room, the bedroom there is perfect and they can have their own bedtime adventures while in there, and it’s not like the toybox isn’t an option either.’ ‘Yeah, the lounge is totally not off-limits so Zara won’t have to be involved until we work around a solution for this problem.’

“That’s a smart idea.”

Corey and Oats raced off to the staff-room, taking Fantasmo, Melby the koala, Prince Whinnius, and Trump Cat with them and dropping them off in the staff-room. ‘Alright guys, I know this isn’t ideal for you and I know Zara is your favorite babysitter but we cannot get her to do it anymore so you will have to live here while we are gone, be on your best behavior now.’ ‘We will, thank you.’

“That was a rather smart solution to the problem.”

‘Yeah, we didn’t have to resort to punishing Zara’s mother or anything. I mean we could have told her to stop controlling her daughter and to stop badgering her, but you know she probably just heard that from where she was and probably is..well you know.’ Which was true…Zara’s mother was still on the phone trying to contact Corey back to make an apology for her demanding behavior when she started turning into a humanoid badger.

“Don’t worry, you both can turn back to normal.”

A couple of seconds later Zara and her mother turned back to normal form, and they both apologized. Zara had fully realized that she didn’t need to always do what her mom said, and Zara’s mother realized that she didn’t need to order around her daughter so much. And thus with that the duo smiled as they went back to their own bedroom before setting things up.

It was Friday after all and their owner ‘Jill’ was going to pick them up after dinner and they all rallied up all the microbes and their friends from their home and got them to hop in the green bag as they had a good time.

They made amends with Zara and finally decided to re-hire her as their babysitter, as they dropped off their friends and Trump-cat in Zara’s room. And thus on that note, their little search had come to an end.

Even though this adventure has ended, there are more to come, stay tuned for ‘Corey and Oats’s Galactic Journey’ ‘Cinnamon: Princess of the Flowery Forest’ several new specials, and ‘Return to Weta Workshop’.

[sirowsky]

Chapter 7 - A Monster is Born

Description: In your final moments as a human, you find answers about yourself and your kind that only the fire that you've been holding back almost all your life, can reveal. (Dual perspectives)

OBSERVE! Creator chooses NOT to include warnings on this series. Read at your own risk! Be aware that this story will include violence and is not suitable for minors! 18+ONLY.

Word Count: 2770 Masterlist (This Story) Author’s Masterlist

Link to Chapter 8

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   You don’t know when it happened. When he went from being the human you feared more than any other in the galaxy, to the one most important person in your life.    But he is.    Seeing him fall breaks parts of you that you never knew existed. So, when the flame roars to life, it isn’t the feeling you know anymore. It’s not the Burn, or at least, not any embodiment of it that you’ve felt before.

   Pain and sorrow are tearing through you with a forcefulness that scares you, but nowhere near as much as the thought of this kind and warm-hearted man dying, scares you.    Because this isn’t rage. Not one ounce of it. It’s all fear and agony and you can’t stop it.

   The pain of the transformation is lost in the heartache, but you can still feel it happen. How your organs completely burn through this time, melting to join the churning mass that is every demon’s lifeblood.    How your skin is suddenly just gone, and the fire is finally set free, burning so hot that even your bones are turned soft and pliant.

   You feel how your spine shifts and stretches, forcing you down onto your arms and changing the angle of your shoulders so that they’re more suitable for legs.    Your hands grow and thicken, turning into paws and your nails to claws. Your ears melted away with your skin but are reformed as bony protrusions when your skull changes shape, elongating to accommodate a much bigger mouth and teeth.

   And all through these changes, your mind is dying.    Each millisecond erases more and more of Pan, until you can’t even remember where the nickname comes from, and then not even the name itself.

   But in the midst of all this, something inside yourself is sparking to life. Something that was always there but never within your conscious reach.    Other memories, from a life that isn’t yours.    You can see the battles of the past as if you were among those fighting. You remember places where you’ve never been, people you’ve never met, cities that burned ages ago.

   What you see is your mother. The few images that had somehow made it through the barrier between you and the demon aren’t what you thought.    You never watched your mother die, those memories belonged to her. It was she who watched her mother die at the hands of men.

   Then more recent things become visible to you. You can see her struggle on her own, frightened by shadows as though every evil in the world was after her.    But despite her fear, you can see the painstakingly slow process as she taught herself to dampen her flame so that her body wouldn’t glow, enabling her to sneak into the city to hide you.

   It was her. She was alive thirty years ago, but the only one that saw her was Alio.    The old woman was trapped under the small bridge where your mother meant to leave you, so badly wounded that she couldn’t even speak, probably only minutes from death.    But using the flame in her heart, your mother somehow managed to heal the woman’s injuries, and in return, Alio offered to take you.

   That was how she knew all along what you are. She knew what she risked unleashing by giving you a life among the last humans on this planet, but she took that risk willingly, because your mother showed her that violence isn’t the only thing your kind is capable of.    You have always remembered your real name, but you never knew that it actually means something more.

   Your mother gave you the name Somniera, an ancient human word for peacefulness, because she was trying to unite the people, to end the war, once and for all.    She left you in the hands of a woman she had only just met, in the blind hope that you would be spared. Then she snuck out of the city and died shortly after, from an unknown illness that sometimes afflicts your kind.

   Through her memories, you know that she lived through each of the five wars of Pagwu, but refused to take part in the final massacre.    She was strong and brave, and it pains you to only learn this now, moments before your own mind is lost.

   You still remember him, though. The man that has so deeply affected your heart that it doesn’t matter what happens to your brain. You don’t know his name, but you feel his body being consumed by your flame, and you won’t allow it to harm him.    Whatever it is that you’re becoming, however monstrous your beast is, you need to believe that you can still exist, somewhere in the depths of that being.

   Otherwise, what was the point of being born human in the first place? What is the purpose of this evolution, if not to build a connection?    You want to believe that it’s possible. And that’s the last thought that you are aware of having, before Pan fades away, and the flame erupts.

<><><><><><><> 

   The sound is immense. So loud that it pushes against his chest as the fire surges up through the keep in seemingly endless amounts.    The light is so bright that it hurts his eyes even though they’re pinched shut behind a shielding visor. And the heat seems to sear his very bones.    But the only pain that bothers him is the one inside his heart, knowing that this is you. That all this fire has somehow been inside you your entire life.

   He doesn’t know if he’s still in one piece. Everything hurts, which would suggest that he hasn’t melted at least, but he tries not to think about that.    There’s a red hot, sharp pain in his side where Bakol stabbed him, as though the flames are reaching in through his skin. And given that there are two holes into his body, that is actually entirely possible. But it doesn’t matter much.

   When everything suddenly stops, the silence becomes frightening, because it feels like he’s gone deaf. And the darkness is so thick that he could just as easily be blind.    He never felt himself move or be moved, but now that the fire has subsided, he can feel a wall pressed against his back, and it’s tremendously reassuring. Even if his sight and hearing really is lost, reality still hasn’t gone anywhere, at least.

   Then it occurs to him that it might just be the visor on his helmet that is damaged, causing the total darkness, so he pulls it off. It’s still very dark, but he can distinguish shifts in the nuances of the rocks, and when he tilts his head back to look up at the mouth of the well, there is still light up there.    He’s going to have to try and find a way up, but the lift is just a melted block of metal now, and his jetpack is still locked inside the ship.

   He gets up to see if he can find anything useful around, but then stops himself when he discovers that the movement causes him no pain at all. Not anywhere, not even in his lung.    Confused, he tries poking himself on the spots where the knife had punctured his body, only to feel no discomfort at all, nor does he find any fresh blood.    It’s as if the damage never happened.

   He shouldn’t be alive. Not when so much fire has flooded the small space at the bottom of the keep, and especially when everything else seems to have been destroyed.    But his thoughts are brought to an abrupt halt when something moves to his left, at the centre of the bottom floor. Where you stood chained before.    Slowly, he turns his head, already knowing what he’ll find, but needing to see it anyway.

   It glows so faintly that he can only just make it out, but there’s no mistaking it.    Hunched, trembling from tip to toe, and breathing deeply enough that Din can finally be certain that he’s not deaf, the demon stands atop the melted iron that was Pan’s shackles.    He has never seen one with his own eyes before, but now he understands why people have and always will fear these beings above all others.

   It’s hard to tell if it’s made of bone or flesh or perhaps rock. Everything about its structure seems impossible.    The skeleton appears to sit on the outside, but not to hold the softer, more fragile organs safe. Instead, it’s as though the insides have pushed the bones out, to keep them from melting within the heated chest, creating a thing that just looks… wrong.

   It has no skin, just a black crust that clings to the bones and what little flesh remains on its legs. There’s no tongue between its powerful jaws and large teeth, as heat is all that comes from its throat.    The claws are black, glinting against the mild radiance from the creature’s chest as if they were polished, each one easily longer than his fingers.  

   While he watches it, the demon seems to recover its strength. It stops trembling and raises its head, looking around with dimly glowing eyes, unusually large for a predator.    He tries to stay perfectly still, but it locates him instantly, and a low rumbling sound comes from somewhere deep in its chest.

   He has no weapons, although the beskar knife the King had attempted to make him use might still be intact, if he can find it. Otherwise, only his armour will serve as any aid to help him survive.    It’s not that the creature’s skin is especially tough, really, but more that it can melt pretty much all other weapons on impact, including bullets and pulse-charges. Also, it can very effectively heal itself from almost any injury.

   But even though he knows how much danger he’s in, he doesn’t move, and it’s not fear that holds him in place.    It’s hope. Even now.    He watches and studies as the demon starts coming towards him, looking for any sign that the human might still be in there.

   It can see much better than him down here, when he can’t use his helmet, and it is many times faster than him, so in truth, whether he moves or not won’t make any difference.    Slowly, the beast advances, its eyes locked on him as its jaws open wider, spilling more heat onto the ground under its feet, stoking its own flame until it begins to glow brighter, giving Din a better view of their surroundings.

   And seeing the charred stones once more makes him baffle at the realization that he’s still alive. Because there is no trace at all of the other humans that were down there with him. Not the King or his guards.    Every cell has been reduced to dust, and yet, the Mandalorian, the sworn enemy of these beings, is unharmed. Even healed, if his sloppy examination earlier is anything to go by.

   The demon is only a few feet from him now, but he still doesn’t move. His heart is racing at the mere sight of the creature, as his body responds to the knowledge that he’s in danger, even though his mind is calm.    It stops just inches away, standing taller than him, but not by much, and holding its head low, ready to strike.

   But it doesn’t.    Din stares into its eyes, seeing nothing but red lights as it stares right back.    And then it’s gone.

   From a standstill, it leaps up onto the wall, jumping from side to side to propel itself up, until all he can see is a small red dot, and then just the normal light that shines down from the opening, as it climbs out at the top.    The moment it left, the air around him went cold, but the walls are still warm from the Burn, so he won’t freeze.

   However, he will need to get out anyway if he wants to survive. And he’s barely even finished that thought when a sound reaches him from above.    He looks up, squinting to try and make out whether he’s actually seeing something moving down towards him, or if it’s his own eyes playing tricks on him.

   A sense of calm settles into his being when he recognizes the jetpack slowing in and landing a few yards in front of him. As though an old friend has come to see him.    Not bothering to wonder how it got out of the ship, he puts it on and wastes no time in getting himself up to the surface.    Once there, though, it all becomes clear.

   He emerges from the keep located at the heart of the palace, thinking that the building would’ve surely suffered damage from all the fire that was pushed up through the well, but being shocked to see that the entire palace is just gone.    And so is everything else.    He lands where the gates to the Royal home used to be, sitting a little higher than the rest of the city, which gives him a panoramic view.

   But there is nothing left. Not one house, shack, road or vehicle. Everything has been consumed by heat and light, until only pebbles and dust remains.    There’s no sign of the demon, and now that he sees the destruction, Din suddenly hopes that you’re no longer there. That you’re no longer aware of anything that happens, because he believes it unlikely that you would ever forgive yourself for this.

   The port has also been annihilated, which is how the jetpack could come and find him. Kept intact by the shielding beskar hull, it’s likely the only thing that survived.      But the obliteration of his and all other ships means that he has no way off the planet, and with no food or water, he won’t survive this place for long.    But he still has cause to hope, because when the smugglers were loading children onto a speeder, it wasn’t facing the city.

   They must’ve had their own landing site, far enough away from Ig’wu that not even Ellom’s keen eyes had been able to spot any transports coming or going. It would explain how they managed to operate right under her nose without leaving any obvious clues.    If he’s lucky, there might be a ship available, or at least communication equipment that still works there.

   Finding it will be a different matter, though. He could try and find the tunnels, hoping that the third one leads to the site, but there’s every chance it only leads to another cache or more likely that the entrance is caved in.    So he’s probably better off searching from the air, even if it will be like looking for a pebble in an ocean.

   The only problem with that is that the jetpack only has a range of about 5 kilometres, and that won’t get him nearly close enough, as he assumes that any hidden landing area will have to be at least ten times as far away. Anything closer than that would’ve left them at risk of being spotted by incoming or departing aircraft from the city.

   All of this is why he now sets off on foot, heading west along the edge of the badlands, hoping that the smugglers will have continued to make good use of the local population’s fear of the treacherous land.

   He must climb down from the rubble left behind by the flame, and occasionally set off little cave-ins where air-pockets have survived underneath a structure.    Here and there, a piece of bone has escaped the most extreme heat, being uncovered when he causes the ground to shift. Those are the only signs left to suggest that this was ever something more than a small mountain of rocks.

   A hundred thousand people, all dead in a single flash.    Even for a demon, that’s destruction of extreme proportions. Din has never heard of any lone monster managing something like that, and certainly not from the bottom of a well, half a mile underground.

   You were remarkably strong even as a human, so it shouldn’t really be that surprising, but it is. It’s astonishing… and devastating.    He knows that your demon is still somewhere in the desert that he now heads into, and he can only hope that if your paths cross again, the beast will still choose not to harm him.    He still believes that you’re not completely lost, and a part of him wishes that he hasn’t seen the last of you.

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Link to Chapter 8

Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging, I’d greatly appreciate it <3

@idreamofboobear @tanzthompson @winter-fox-queen @tiffanyleen @shsoba05 @toomanystoriessolittletime @nolanell @myfavpedrothings @harriedandharassed @bruxasolta @tintinn16 @pedrostories @littlemisspascal @sj-draws00 @gallowsjoker @spishsstuff @little-mrs-morales @bilibiche @gallowsjoker @insomniamamma @thelion-sroar

[edenmemes]

misc poetry sentence starters

❝  one gets so used to one’s own horrors, one forgets how they must seem to other people.  ❞ ❝  you remind me what love lives in this skin.  ❞ ❝  you are the most phantom-like of all; you are a mere dream.  ❞ ❝  i’m not telling you a story so much as a shipwreck—the places floating, finally legible.  ❞ ❝  the world was made so we can find each other in it.  ❞ ❝  the night isn’t dark; the world is dark. stay with me a little longer.  ❞ ❝  i want you desperately. i want your strength and your softness, your hands, all of you.  ❞ ❝  is that too much to expect? that i would name the stars for you?  ❞ ❝  against your cheek my hand is warm and full of tenderness.  ❞ ❝  the world grows green again when you smile.  ❞ ❝  your share of pains would fill a sea.  ❞ ❝  i’m so stuck on the ‘was’ of people.  ❞ ❝  what i love in you is your power of loving, a bit wild, a bit primitive, but absolute.  ❞ ❝  i like figuring you out. you are so human and puzzling.  ❞ ❝  the unwillingness to try is worse than any failure.  ❞ ❝  you wanted happiness. i can’t blame you for that.  ❞ ❝  i did violence to my own heart.  ❞ ❝  i don’t know how to stay tender with this much blood in my mouth.  ❞ ❝  like a magpie, i am a scavenger of shiny things: fairy tales and dead languages.  ❞ ❝  and here you come with a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue.  ❞ ❝  you kiss the back of my legs and i want to cry.    only the sun has come this close, only the sun.  ❞ ❝  sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof you’ve been ruined.  ❞ ❝  when will it cease, this monstrous rage of yours?  ❞ ❝  i will plant my hands in the garden. i will grow, i know, i know.  ❞ ❝  i had it all and i want it back again.  ❞ ❝  i don’t care about anyone, and the feeling is quite obviously mutual.  ❞ ❝  we are two reflections that cross swords with each other.  ❞ ❝  as for me, i am a watercolour. i wash off.  ❞ ❝  do you dare send me away as though you were were waiting for something better?  ❞ ❝  my dear, you are in danger of being burned by your own flame.  ❞ ❝  i am three oceans away from my soul.  ❞ ❝  you, occasionally, glimmer with a light i’ve never seen before. it frightens me.  ❞ ❝  i went to sleep last night so i could see you.  ❞ ❝  even the eyes of gods must adjust to light. even gods have gods.  ❞ ❝  how much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?  ❞ ❝  it does me no good to be good to me now.  ❞ ❝  i may look alright, but if you were to look more closely you wouldn’t find a single healthy bit in me.  ❞ ❝  i must clothe myself in other worlds.  ❞ ❝  suffering is the privilege of those who feel.  ❞ ❝  sorry about the blood in your mouth. i wish it was mine.  ❞ ❝  the vigor, the fire, that enables you to love and create. when you lose that, you’ve lost everything.  ❞ ❝  i can be bold, because i have you with me always.  ❞ ❝  you are shaking fists and trembling teeth. i know: you did not mean to be cruel. that does not mean you were kind.  ❞ ❝  not that i want to be a god or a hero, just to change into a tree,  grow for ages, not hurt anyone.  ❞ ❝  i laughed today. for a second i was unhaunted.  ❞ ❝  you are sunlight through a window, which i stand in, warmed.  ❞ ❝  there’s something electric in your blood.  ❞ ❝  you say you are broken,   but broken mirrors like you create the most beautiful patterns of light.  ❞ ❝  time doesn’t obey our commands.  ❞ ❝  i love you quite passionately, and with a touch of tragedy.  ❞ ❝  to feel anything deranges you. to be seen feeling anything strips you naked.  ❞ ❝  i love you --- like a storm bursts overhead --- i must confess it; all the more fiercely because you burn and bite.  ❞ ❝  and i have seen rivers, not unlike you, that failed to find their way back.  ❞ ❝  i am less a god now that you’ve touched me.  ❞ ❝  your words are gentle; but my blood runs cold to think what plots you may be nursing deep within your heart.  ❞ ❝  you said i killed you --- haunt me then.  ❞ ❝  your soul is frail and solemn, loyal and spring-like.  ❞ ❝  you look like you’ve eaten the sun, like you drank so much sunlight you’re drowning in it.  ❞ ❝  strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.  ❞ ❝  you will hear thunder and remember me.  ❞ ❝  ever think it’s possible for us to be happy?  ❞ ❝  and i would wonder across all the deserts of this world, even after death, to search for you.  ❞ ❝  since we’re bound to be something, why not together?  ❞ ❝  i am ashes were once i was fire.  ❞ ❝  this mouth will destroy you the moment you mistake it for something soft, for something that is yours.  ❞ ❝  it’s no easy thing to bear, the weight of sweetness.  ❞ ❝  kill the light! i’d rather wallow in the dark.  ❞ ❝  i have thought of you often since the darkness.  ❞ ❝  with your presence the sun becomes irrelevant.  ❞ ❝  there is no god left in this skin. there’s just the ash. just the ash.  ❞ ❝  open your eyes, look more sharply, see me as i am.  ❞ ❝  what the hell is tragedy? i am.  ❞ ❝  i’ve got a lot of feeling for you. you’re kind.  ❞ ❝  how beautiful it is, how beautiful, that glow before the stars break.  ❞ ❝  so much to do today: kill memory, kill pain, turn heart into a stone, and yet prepare to live again.  ❞ ❝  i am myself. that is not enough.  ❞ ❝  i may be mad, god-seized, but i will stand outside my madness.  ❞ ❝  my power, which to me is still a curse ---  ❞ ❝  ocean sea with its caressing swell; it has so often cooled my heart.  ❞ ❝  do you bathe in perfume, and dry yourself in light?  ❞ ❝  i like you; your eyes are full of language.  ❞ ❝  let me tell you what i do know.    i am more than one thing and not all of those things are good.  ❞ ❝  you are the cause and the cure --- both.  ❞ ❝  i have kisses for the back of your neck.  ❞ ❝  your beautiful glance is unbearably cruel.  ❞ ❝  we might meet again, someday between dreams at dawn.  ❞ ❝  suffering is a terrible fire; it either purifies or destroys.  ❞ ❝  lately it hurts more to imagine you are a stranger rather than a destroyer.  ❞ ❝  and i say to myself: a moon will rise from my darkness.  ❞ ❝  since you walked out on me, i’m getting lovelier by the hour. i glow like a corpse in the dark.  ❞ ❝  i will not whine. i will obey and be forever still.  ❞ ❝  you move like the moon.  ❞ ❝  my eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears.  ❞ ❝  in your eyes, the fires of twilight.  ❞ ❝  do not haunt my soul; i have done well forgetting you.  ❞ ❝  i am no one. i cannot love. it’s in my blood.  ❞ ❝  you’re wearing your armor to protect your heart. who can blame you? it only makes sense in a world like this one.  ❞ ❝  you are not real. you are a dream of a dream.  ❞ ❝  there are so many things i’m not allowed to tell you.  ❞ ❝  i am indeed a shameless, evil-minded and abominable creature.  ❞ ❝  come this evening --- i am eager for stars.  ❞ ❝  i am on fire with that soft sound you make, in uttering my name.  ❞ ❝  i want you mostly in the morning when my soul is weak from dreaming.  ❞ ❝  to me you are the desert and the sea; everything secretive.  ❞ ❝  i thought i was wounded to the core but i was only bruised.  ❞ ❝  it is a dead heart. it is inside of me. it is a stranger.  ❞ ❝  i live --- but i’m mutilated.  ❞ ❝  if there is a light then i am going to swallow it.    if there is a god then i’m going to make him cry.  ❞ ❝  i am condemned to be a saint or a monster: unable to be the one, unwilling to be the other.  ❞ ❝  you will open your wounds and make them a garden.  ❞ ❝  i come home --- and i feel like a ghost returning its haunt.  ❞ ❝  i planted roses, but without you they were thorns.  ❞ ❝  everything inside me is in revolt.  ❞ ❝  how this darkness soaks me through and through.  ❞ ❝  give me my robe, put on my crown; i have immortal longings in me.  ❞ ❝  say something dangerous like i love you.  ❞ ❝  listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?  ❞ ❝  in times of crisis, we must decide again and again whom we love.  ❞ ❝  breathe the scent of little, earthly things. let the twilight touch you.  ❞ ❝  my heart is just like the ocean, has storm and calm and tides.  ❞ ❝  you became for me a sacred being, not to be touched save in adoring thoughts.  ❞ ❝  gods are stubborn. so am i.  ❞ ❝  is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?  ❞ ❝  there’s something soft in me. i killed it and it’s rotting.  ❞ ❝  beware. beware. there is a tenderness.  ❞ ❝  half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. real gods require blood.  ❞ ❝  i’m alive. like a wound, a flower in the flesh, the path of aching blood is open within me.  ❞ ❝  you dangle on the leash of your own longing; your need grows teeth.  ❞ ❝  i have it in me...to scare myself with my own desert places.  ❞ ❝  my mouth still houses century-old magic.     in my ears i hear a ringing and singing and no god.  ❞ ❝  keep talking. i’ll keep walking toward the sound of your voice.  ❞ ❝  i’m full of poetry now. rot and poetry. rotten poetry.  ❞ ❝  this skin is sick with loneliness.  ❞ ❝  memories are sharp. they bite. i have spent most of my life trying to grow a thicker skin just to make sure i would not bleed out whenever i felt those teeth scrape up against me.  ❞ ❝  i wonder if i will ever find a language to speak of the things that haunt me the most.  ❞ ❝  after fury, what do you do with the remains?  ❞ ❝  come on, dance with me. the earth is spinning. we can’t just stand on it.  ❞ ❝  let’s admit, without apology, what we do together.  ❞ ❝  try to find the right place for yourself. if you can’t find it, at least dream of it.  ❞ ❝  it takes grace to remain kind in cruel situations.  ❞ ❝  i am too full of life to be half-loved.  ❞ ❝  today you want nothing because wanting comes too close to feeling.  ❞ ❝  there’s nothing more terrible, more alluring, more mysterious than love.  ❞ ❝  heavenly wine and roses seem to whisper to me when you smile.  ❞ ❝  my soul is devoutly and wholly under your spell.  ❞ ❝  will you see the human in my being?  ❞ ❝  if i had a flower for every time i thought of you…i could walk through my garden forever.  ❞ ❝  part broken part whole, you begin again.  ❞ ❝  i don’t know if love’s a feeling. sometimes i think it’s a matter of seeing. seeing you.  ❞ ❝  i wonder which will get you killed faster, your loyalty or your stubbornness?  ❞ ❝  whether you come as a lover or an exeutioner, i am ready to receive you.  ❞ ❝  i think i understand your longing. it looks so much like mine.  ❞ ❝  i’ve had so many knives stuck into me. when they hand me a flower, i can’t quite make out what it is.  ❞ ❝  i like the sea: we understand one another. it is always yearning, sighing for something it cannot have; so am i.  ❞ ❝  do i not live? badly, i know, but i live.  ❞ ❝  something of you stuck with me. a splinter.  ❞ ❝  i clung to your hands so that something human might exist in the chaos.  ❞ ❝  sometimes i shut my eyes, and shut my heart towards you, and try hard to forget you because you grieve me so, but you’ll never go away. oh you never will.  ❞ ❝  my golden love, if only you knew, what precious honey you are for me.  ❞ ❝  i had an old wound once, but it is healing.  ❞ ❝  always this in-betweenness, this almost, this it might be that...  ❞ ❝  when i close my eyes, i see you. when i open my eyes i want to see you.  ❞ ❝  dark as it is --- you see, that little flickering, is the light of my soul.  ❞ ❝  am i a monster or is this what it means to be a person?  ❞ ❝  i am talking about evil. it blooms. it eats. it grins.  ❞ ❝  sapphires are those eyes of yours, ravishingly sweet.  ❞

[charlotteoh]

junhorhee​:

It feels so incredibly hard to remain his normal, put-together self around her right now. Jun is no stranger to flirting, to close contact with someone he finds attractive, to being in a situation like this. But with her, everything feels different. It’s always felt different when it came to her. Two years later, he finds himself awestruck in her presence, drunk on her attention, addicted to her touch, and it’s as if nothing had changed. Jun tells himself to not think about yesterday or tomorrow, and for once to live in the moment. It isn’t all too hard, considering the only thing he finds himself fixated on in the moment is everything about her. “We’ll see then, won’t we?” Jun retorts playfully, raising an eyebrow at her confidence. He likes seeing her like this, the moments of her serious, often guarded nature fading away and it always brings a warmth to his body. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how many times you’ve stepped on my toes,” he adds jokingly, pulling her closer regardless of his own words. Even if he doesn’t realize it, Jun’s words are all too intentional, all too serious to be applied to something as simple as a nickname. Because his subconscious wants more right now, and each word he lets out only proves that. This feels far more than a dance, far more than a drunken moment they’d ignore tomorrow. Her agreement only makes him soften, makes Jun realize that that he truly doesn’t want her to stop. Whatever this is, he doesn’t want it to end just yet. “Good,” he adds just as softly, unsure if the words are even heard over the loud music that has long been lost on his own ears. He finds himself leaning closer in as she brings her arms to his shoulders, grip on her waist growing tighter and the hand on her back trailing upwards slightly. It all feels too much, and Jun can’t figure out if it’s the way their bodies are pressed against each others, or the feeling of her delicate touch on the back of his neck, and suddenly as his eyes scan her face, he finds himself stopping at her lips, gaze lingering for moment too long. Subtleties are thrown out the window with the drinks in his system, meeting her gaze again with darkened eyes, feeling as though their faces were mere centimeters apart. 

“We’ll see,” she agrees, nodding like all of this is so serious, when it’s just in jest. It feels like a breath of fresh air to be able to be like this with Jun again. There’s a very small number of people Charlotte’s been able to be truly herself around, and Jun had been one of them, so keeping her guard up, staying polite and professional around him is something she still struggles with, even two years post break up. Even though the alcohol is enabling her, this is something Charlotte wants, but wouldn’t admit or act on if she were sober. The way Jun’s eyes are focused down on her makes her feel like she’s the only person that matters to him right now, the only person he’s aware of. Jun is reciprocating her energy makes her jump to a similar conclusion, that he too wants this, and Charlotte will let herself get swept away by his presence and his energy. It’s so intoxicating and gripping and there’s an excitement and a giddiness in being unable to anticipate what’s coming next—especially when Charlotte’s usually someone who prefers to anticipate the future so she can prepare. She’s not prepared for any of what’s happening right now, and it doesn’t make her anxious, no, it makes her feel freer. “What?” Her jaw drops lightly at his words, reaching to poke his chest in jest. “I have never stepped on your toes.” Though she probably has, she doesn’t really remember. She’s hyper aware of him everywhere, how his grip on her waist tightens, how one hand trails up her back, how he leans down a little. Charlotte stands there, holding his eye contact, her lips parting only slightly and she starts to feel hot all over. The hand she just used to poke him trails back up his chest again, cupping the side of his neck for a bit before it cups his cheek, her eyes scanning his features, noting the way his eyes land on her lips. Are they even dancing anymore? Her thumb goes to trail his lower lip slowly, before she cups his face again. “Junho—” His name comes out a whisper out of her lips. She’s not sure what she wants to say even. She leans up just a little, the distance between their faces now actually torturous.

[quacka-quacka]

I mentioned Paul's strong resistance to being recognized as effeminate man or gay (here). Although he can hang out with gay guys, wear rainbow flag in public [yeah I definitely need to write that again in case someone didn't see it], being considered gay or "cute" is beyond endurance. I know someone love to interpret this as "don't want to his sexuality being mislabeled", which indeed looks sensible when it comes to the homosexuality, but this excuse can't be applied to the "cute" thing, right? You can't say being cute or feminine is the same thing as being gay, can you? Well, I can hear Paul's every single cell screaming O!M!G! Feminine! all the time. He doesn't want himself have anything to do with feminine, which, unfortunately can not be simply regarded as personal preference, it's indeed a despising of femininity, and femininity? Of course it's about female. Yes, "phallicism", the worship of masculine are still popular in today's society, but it doesn't mean it's right. I have to say Paul's thought is the product of this society, not to mention that he is an old man who grow up in a working-class family six decades ago, we can't demand him that much. His attitude towards women is the same thing.

PAUL: We were more amazed to see the [Japanese] women leaping up out of the seats for the promoter, because we'd never seen that in the West. The subservience of the women was amazing. They'd say, 'Oh God, I'm sorry - was I in your seat?' I remember us getting back to Britain and saying to our wives and girlfriends, 'I wouldn't want you to do that, but maybe it's a direction worth considering?' Promptly rejected.

— The Beatles Anthology

Although Paul seems to know that it's pretty cool for a woman to pursue her own career, like admitting Jane was famous before he was, allowing Linda to write a cookbook or have a photography exhibition, the androcentrism is too ingrained for him to forsake. He acknowledged Jane's achievements but still wanted her to give up work completely:

'I always wanted to beat Jane down,' says Paul. 'I wanted her to give up work completely.'

'I refused. I've been brought up to be always doing something. And I enjoy acting. I didn't want to give that up.'

— Hunter Davies, The Beatles

He allowed Linda to do her own thing, but they are not entirely hers - all those projects are belong to MPL, and do not forget Paul said this after Linda's death:

She never did anything on her own because we were together so much. 

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Chrissie Henderson for USA Week-end: Tears and laughter. (October 30, 1998)

That's so sweet to see Paul would support his wife any time, but on the other hand it also shows that Linda never get the chance to do something entirely on her own without Paul's interference after she got married. No wonder so many people from inner circle [including Linda, yeah] described Paul as "typical Northerner":

Linda confided that Paul was a ‘typical Northerner’ who believed women should stay at home while men worked.

— Bonnie Estridge, The Mail on Sunday. (March 20th, 2005)

Paul was raised the old-fashioned way. Men were the breadwinners; women stayed at home, had babies and tea on the table. He's still an old-fashioned guy, very careful with money.

— Ruth McCartney

Like the other Beatles, he [Paul] was essentially an old fashioned Liverpool man, who wanted his woman tucked away at home cooking the dinner and minding the kids.

— Cynthia Lennon, John

Jane was a serious actress and wanted to continue her career, but Paul had other ideas. That’s why Linda was so perfect for Paul; she was just what he wanted, an old-fashioned Liverpool wife who was completely devoted to her husband.

— Marianne Faithfull, Memories, Dreams and Reflections

I'd say Paul was not that old-fashioned, at least he allowed his wife to do other things besides being a full-time nanny, but everything she does must cater his needs. As Jane once mentioned, he always wants his girl to adore him like fans:

The trouble is, he wants the fans’ adulation and mine too. He’s so selfish; it’s his biggest fault. He can’t see that my feelings for him are real and that the fans’ are fantasy.

— Jane Asher, Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress by Michael Braun

I know some of the fans can't wait to jump up now and shout "Paul and Jane didn't have a mature relationship!" "He's much mature after he meet Linda!" "Paul and Linda had a very very very healthy relationship!" Ok, if you really did some research, you may know that he's never mature enough to know how to fully respect women, at least before the end of divorce with Heather Mills. I have seen the theory appears too many times that Paul and Linda's marriage is the result of careful consideration: Linda came along with a ready-made child and she's ready to marry again - well, I regret to tell you both Paul and Linda wouldn't agree with you.

I was a great disappointment to my family When I got married [to a geologist] and moved to Arizona, it was crazy. I had been pressured by men all my life. I rather liked being on my own, making my own decisions. I had actually sworn to myself that I would never get married again.

— Linda McCartney, interview for Playgirl: An intimate conversation with pop’s preeminent pair. (February, 1985)

As she says, she's quite enjoy her freedom and had absolutely no interest in marriage. What did Paul do? He "twisted her arm" to make her agree.

I persuaded Linda to come to London for a visit. Then I rang Heather in New York and said, ‘Heather, will you marry me?’ She was five. ‘No, don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I’m too young.’ ‘Well, I can wait,’ I said. So we went to New York and brought her back to London to live with us, and I twisted Linda’s arm and finally she agreed to marry me.

— Paul McCartney, interview for Playgirl: An intimate conversation with pop’s preeminent pair. (February, 1985)

Linda also said neither of them knew what they were doing when they got married:

LINDA: 'So instead of getting an agent I met Paul instead and got married. Or I was going through a transition then and didn't know quite what I was doing and he obviously didn't know quite what he was doing so we ended up marrying instead.'

— Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now

Again, I'm not saying Paul and Linda never loved each other or their marriage was completely made up for media, but I don't think his marriage with Linda enabled him to prioritize other's feelings [his status as one of the four head monsters doesn't help]. Linda's overmuch unilateral compromises certainty don't make him look mature. Let alone his excessive dependence on her.

------------------

Reply to all these who think feminize Paul/men is a bad thing:

You love to say that Paul doesn't want the cute title because people used to mock him by that. I understand it. But do you ever think about why being feminine is not taking him seriously? Do you ever think about this is the discrimination about femininity from the whole society? Why does a man must be despised when he has anything to do with femininity? And Paul's approach is denying his femininity, which is the same with those who mock it, like - a man being feminine is a shame because it means he can't be "respected" like other men. It's the recognition of this concept, which is outdated if you think about it.

P.S. Someone who reblogged my post doesn't seem to like the sentence "there must be many sweet moments between Paul and Linda". Ok, I delete it then.

[hamliet]

Dabi’s Missing Heart

So I’ve been seeing two main responses to Dabi’s character as portrayed in BNHA 292, both of which I feel touch on a very surface understanding of his character and role in the story despite seeming like opposite takes.  

Take #1: 

Dabi is an unfeeling monster created to show the redeemability of Shigaraki and Enji in contrast with his true eeeevil villainy! He will never be redeemed! 

Take #2: 

Dabi is a sweet softy who did nothing wrong! He will never be redeemed because of this chapter which is so out-of-character! 

Note how they both have the same endpoint. I’m not actually gonna address the redemption question much because I can’t fathom what this panel foreshadows if not Touya’s salvation (alive): 

I’m not looking to debate this either; I’m just putting it here because I know it’ll come up if I don’t.

Instead, I wanna address Dabi’s character. He’s my favorite, and I’ve been asked a few different times whether I enjoy him as a villain or as an uwu poor baby, and my answer is always both. 

Dabi is a villain. This chapter’s rampage is, in my opinion, not remotely out of character for him. But neither is it the summation of his character, and he surely is not meant to make Enji look good by comparison. 

So, who is Dabi? 

Dabi is kind of a flaming jerk, and that’s why I like him. He’s an abuse victim who gets to be angry and crass and sharp. He pushes people away because he doesn’t want to open up to them and get burned (heh). He’s just like Shouto in that, except with a dose of murder. 

Believe it or not, this is a very realistic response to abuse, and very common too. It’s good to see that representation. If the writing was indeed just “he’s bad get rid of him,” well, that would of course be a terrible representation. But seeing a mean victim get redeemed? Now that’s some good sh*t I’m here for. 

If you want a sweethearted, misunderstood soft victim, there is one in MHA, and that’s Shigaraki. Dabi is not these things, but that does not mean he’s not a victim or that he’s somehow an unfeeling monster.

You see, Shigaraki is a heart character. Dabi’s the mind. (Heart and mind characters are a literary pattern that is utilized in literature across the globe; it’s not an eastern/western cultural thing. It has its roots in alchemy.) The problem is that you can’t have a heart without a mind nor a mind without a heart. If you lack one, you’re missing half the picture, and you won’t accomplish anything. 

We see this with Shigaraki in his quest to look for ideals, something to believe in, purpose to justify/enable acting on his feelings/emotions. 

Dabi, in contrast, has conviction and ideals, but eschews any kind of personal connection and care. 

So, both Shigaraki and Dabi struggle to unite heart and mind--but they need to do precisely this. 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki expressly envisions both Dabi and Himiko when musing on what his purpose is. 

Yet Shigaraki is able to unite more easily with Himiko as opposed to Dabi because Himiko is also a heart character. She claims to be motivated by extreme empathy that warps around to become a lack thereof (wanting to be who she loves).

Shigaraki’s motivations are basically revenge for hero society not saving him--which encompasses both a deep internal and external (societal) need for empathy and a need for better ideals. Shigaraki needs Himiko and Dabi. They’re a trio, and all of them need each other to grow. But Himiko, being similarly driven expressly by emotions, is easier for Shigaraki to understand and work with. 

The irony is that Dabi is actually a very, very emotional character as well. But what he does (as is typical for a mind character) is repress them, compartmentalize, dissociate. He constantly pushes people away, yet admits privately, to himself, that he’s primarily (and paradoxically) motivated by family. This is emotional, yet Dabi claims he “overthought” and, according to other translations, “snapped” can be actually be read as “went crazy” as a result over overthinking (note: both are mind allusions). 

Dabi repressing who he is--Todoroki Touya--is symbolic of him repressing his emotional side, because again, family and emotions are tied together for his character. Now his identity is acknowledged, and Dabi claims to be losing his mind (again), claims that he can’t feel, and yet is completely consumed by emotions. Like, does anyone think he’s being methodical and calculating this chapter? 

It’s not just negative emotions (rage, hate) that drive Dabi in response to his family. His seeking belonging and emotional connection is present even in a chapter where he tries to murder two members of his family and laughs off the risk to the life of another. 

See, Dabi first asked Shouto to validate his pain:

But like, given the circumstances, of course Shouto doesn’t really respond well. How Shouto responds is this: 

Shouto’s words are triggering. And keep in mind I am not blaming Shouto: he’s in shock and he’s a kid. I’m merely trying to explain how it likely comes across to Dabi. 

You’re crazy. Your feelings don’t matter. You don’t really care about Natsuo! You’re a villain and that’s ALL you are. Not a brother or abuse survivor. Just a villain. 

So, uh, yeah, Dabi then retreats back to being unable to feel, dissociating as has always been his coping mechanism. But that’s not all: Dabi’s been repressing for so long that of course he’s gonna go a little insane in response to the dismissal of everything he’s trying to point out. Why wouldn’t he? His family dismissed his pain back then and now again, and so, without that heart, without those emotions, principle is all Dabi has. This has been present since long before Stain’s ideology came into his life: 

Now, he answers this question of existence through Stain’s ideology.  Purpose is all he has, and to him, Shouto and Best Jeanist are dismissing that too. Why are they dismissing it? Best Jeanist dismisses him for an ideal: the overall good of hero society. Shouto has a mixture of this ideal and also like, genuine shock and pain. 

Back to Dabi. Dabi’s summation of himself and his purpose is incorrect and harmful to himself and others. I’m not excusing him or justifying, just explaining. It’s a tragic reflection of what Endeavor raised both Touya and Shouto to be (and thereby ironic that BJ uses an ideal to dismiss him): 

Instead of being raised to be the symbol of hero society--as Endeavor intended--he exists to destroy it. The root is the same: Dabi assumes he exists for hero society, as a tool. He dehumanizes himself, hence why his quirk physically harms him (which also fits his almost religious zeal for Stain’s ideology). But it is not all Dabi is. He’s not a tool, he’s a person, but to acknowledge he’s a person involves acknowledging his heart/emotional desires, and that gets to my next point.

Dabi’s not a reliable narrator about himself. At all. I’ve written about Dabi and dissociation before. So let’s look at Dabi’s devotion to his ideals, the ideals he puts above people and claims he only cares about... because there are moments where Dabi goes against those ideals. 

For one example, Dabi’s gone against those ideals when he’s allowed his personal need for revenge (an emotional/heart motivation) to overcome his longterm plan. Like, he was fully about to get himself killed here, even though that would likely mean no one would know the corruption of the Todoroki family and hero society, just for the chance to prove to his father that he hurt him. 

In addition, I’ve talked before about how Dabi’s the only character in the entire damn manga to comment that maybe using child soldiers is not okay. While it’s not explicitly stated, it’s reasonable to conclude that Dabi considers the abuse of children in hero training a sin of hero society that ought to be purged (hence, part of his ideals). 

That said, I have also pointed out that Dabi has gone after children in the past when it benefits his mission (Bakugou would like a word). So let’s look at four examples of Dabi and his principles concerning kids--since, after all, he claims to be motivated by heroes who hurt kids. 

Firstly, Dabi’s “save the cat” when he spared Aoyama. 

Why did he spare Aoyama? We can only speculate, but it seems quite likely there are two reasons: 1) hurting Aoyama would not add anything to his overall goal of downing hero society, and 2) a terrified, cowering kid might just have been a teeny bit familiar to Dabi. Here, his ideals--destroying hero society--either take a backseat to a reflection of his personal pain (and)/or his ideal of not abusing kids directly contradicted his ideal of bringing down hero society. But the important part is that in this instance, Dabi chose mercy and the goal of bringing down hero society was jeopardized as a result. 

So then why did he attack Tokoyami, Nejire, and Shouto this arc? Well, Dabi does things he knows are wrong for the sake of accomplishing his overall purpose. He does things he knows hurt himself for this purpose. This isn’t new. If he can’t be acknowledged, can’t exist as a person with emotions, then he at least will ensure he still has a purpose.  

In addition, let’s look at what sets Dabi off in all of these instances. (Again, this isn’t me saying “well actually Dabi’s justified.” He’s not. I’m just pointing to what’s in the text to explain the machinations beyond “bad guy do bad.”)

Dabi tries to reason with Tokoyami, pointing out that Twice was doing essentially what Tokoyami is doing: trying to save his friend(s), but Tokoyami doesn’t listen (also again: not me saying Tokoyami should have listened--realistically, in this situation, it makes sense Tokoyami trusted his mentor!)

Only after his reasoning was rejected did Dabi go to flames mode. He could have just let Tokoyami save Hawks, but instead he really wanted to kill Hawks and that overrode his other principles. Was this just because of his furthering his goal--killing the #2 hero would help destroy hero society--or because of a sense of personal revenge for Twice? That’s open for interpretation (in my opinion, it’s likely a mixture, because again, it tends to intertwine more than Dabi likes to think it does). His principles and/or emotions are brushed aside, and Dabi Does Not Like That. 

Dabi does this again with Shouto this chapter, asking him where he stands on their family issues, and gets brushed aside, and then Shouto goes into his rage mode and Dabi responds. Again, not saying Shouto is rational here or that he should side with Dabi’s murderous plan, but like, his words really don’t come across well to Dabi. 

Dabi going after Shouto after explaining things, asking Shouto for help, and then having his pain dismissed is pretty much a repeat of Tokoyami. When Dabi’s pain is dismissed, he says fine, let’s aim for the highest principle possible: making Stain’s will a reality, and damn any emotional ties. 

Dabi’s obsession with ideals, you might say, is a smokescreen to cover his own pain. Far from feeling nothing, he feels very deeply. (I promise I’m getting to Nejire.) 

So what does this indicate? Well, that Dabi does have a heart and a conscience. But when he lets his heart act, when his heart reaches out, he gets burned. His heart jeopardizes his overall purpose, so he most often dissociates himself from it. But by pretending he doesn’t have a heart, he dehumanizes himself, and he projects that dehumanization onto others (see: seeing Shouto as an extension of Endeavor, when that’s actually the precise image Shouto is trying to shed). 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki has been unconscious during the entire confrontation with Endeavor, nor is it a coincidence that Himiko has been MIA. But, Shigaraki wakes up a bit this chapter not only when hearing Dabi spout about how hero society needs to burn, an ideal/the thing Shigaraki lacks, and through a less important but still-ideal-driven character in Spinner asking him to accomplish his supposed ideal of destruction, but when Dabi saves Shigaraki and Spinner. 

Dabi doesn’t burn Nejire for lols (not that this makes it better because it doesn’t) or even for ideals. He burns her to save Shigaraki and Spinner, because they are his links to full humanity right now. 

(Again, this is also dissociation and projection: Endeavor did this! No, Dabi, you did. You’re perpetuating violence against kids rather than stopping it.)

But anyways, when Dabi calls upon heart, Shigaraki wakes. He lends Gigantomachia and thereby Dabi and the league power. 

Dabi can only grow and actually accomplish anything related to his ideals (fixing hero society) through accepting a heart--even though that will likely mean some painful surgery to shift his ideals to accommodate said heart, because pure ideals don’t leave much room for humanity. He needs to feel to actually change anything, because right now he’s just making things worse (hence, the need for saving and redemption).

I know the League aren’t the protagonists of the serIes, but their complaints aren’t exactly incorrect either (if anything they’re almost a little too valid). But through growing together, Dabi, Shigaraki, and Himiko might actually be able to accomplish something, and get themselves in a place where they can be reached and saved by Shouto, Deku, and Ochaco. Because to be saved, the kids will have to acknowledge the villains’ pain and complaints, and do something about it. 

[gyusbambi]

red petals; kim sunwoo (1)

genre: angst, hanahaki disease, unrequited love, college au, introvert!reader

synopsis: with everyday you feel your love for him growing. so do the flowers in your lungs. and you can‘t do anything but discover a new flower each day.

warnings: angst, suicidal thoughts, disfunctional family

in which you are deeply in love with kim sunwoo, who happens to be interested in your friend.

daffodils are the first flowers you coughed up.

long, slender petals in a beautiful shade of yellow. inner ones formed into a trompet-shaped tube, the flower appears pretty to everyone. people don‘t seem to care about the symbolic meanings of each flower. instead, they are interested in the beauty of it. its color, shape, smell.

however, you dislike daffodils. the latin name for it is narcissus. the flower is named after a beautiful greek god, who was arrogant. he rejected all romantic advances and fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. however, he drowned trying to capture his reflection. therefore, the flowers on the riverbed are called after him: narcissus. apparently, the heads of daffodils can be compared to narcissus bending down to observe himself on the water.

needless to say, you make a lot of research of the flowers you cough up. finding out that daffodils can be symbolized as unrequited love, makes a lot of sense to you.

unrequited love is the reason for your hanahaki disease.

_

everything started in your second semester of college when your roommate kara decided to introduce her friend group to you, someone who appears quiet and shy.

although you’re an introverted person, you were able to open up to your new friend group. eric, mina, haknyeon and juyeon.

however not to kim sunwoo.

no matter how much you try to open up and talk to him, you fail every time.

blushing, shifting gaze, slightly trembling hands, dry mouth.

whenever the boy talks to you, you shrug, shake your head or nod an answer instead of actually speaking. sometimes you hesitantly offer an opinion or answer question to avoid awkwardness.

don’t get me wrong. it’s definitely not because you dislike kim sunwoo. quite the opposite! for some reason, you feel a little too attracted to the college student. just the sight of him makes your heart beat a little faster. now and then you have eye contact, which leads you to look away after only milliseconds, eyes looking for an object to focus on. wavy, dark hair slightly covering his beautiful round eyes makes you completely nervous. afraid that you’ll say or do something dumb or embarrassing, you usually keep silent. therefore, your bond with him isn’t as strong as the ones with the others.

on the other hand, you enjoy eric’s presence since the young boy is extremely energetic and really fun to be around with. eric made you open up by starting conversations with you when nobody else was giving their attention to you. as the others were laughing about something, the young boy noticed that you haven’t spoken a word and suddenly started talking to like you were his best friend.

little do you know, sunwoo wonders why you are comfortable around everyone besides him.

like how you are currently walking home after a long night of studying. the night sky is pitch-black, stars almost invisible. you feel the old air hit your face as you feel sunwoo’s warm hand slightly brush against yours. instantly your cold cheeks heat up due to the sudden contact of his skin with yours and you feel your hand tingle.

instead of looking up to observe his reaction, you don’t advert your gaze from the ground, too scared to look into his eyes. although you don’t even dare to take a quick glimpse, you know that he looks insanely good at that moment. his puffer jacket fading in the darkness, his other hand in his pocket, curls covering his forehead, tanned skin glowing under the moonlight. if only you had the guts to talk to him.

however, thankfully the boy himself moves his head to face you only to observe your small figure quietly walking next to him. sunwoo thinks you’re too engrossed into your own thoughts, not paying attention to your surroundings. not paying attention to the rest of the group walking in front of you, while the both of you walk in a slower path. indeed, the boy is anything but used to being alone with you. therefore, he takes this as an opportunity to talk to you.

“you good?”

his sudden deep voice brings you back to reality and you give him a short side glance before looking ahead of you again. sunwoo is surprised to actually hear your voice instead of getting a simple nod as a response.

“yeah. i’m just a little tired.”

in contrast to his, your voice sounds small and soft. attempting to meet your eyes, sunwoo nudges your side playfully with his elbow. “relax a little. you always study until you doze off.”

laughing at his statement, you finally meet his eyes and shrug before answering. “they only pick the best students for the bachelor specializations.”

when your eyes meet sunwoo’s he feels relief and comfort. the young boy is amazed by your shining eyes under the moonlight as he offers you a genuine smile, eyes still focused on yours.

“you already do well in everything, thought...”

you notice sunwoo trailing off and his eyes glancing around the park you’re passing by, before his gaze lands on you again.

“except botany.”

both of you say the same words at the same time causing you to laugh.

“i don’t know. it’s just not interesting to me?”

for some reason you seem a little less shy than usual today, which enables you to have a normal conversation with sunwoo.

“well, if you help me with microbio i could help you with botany.”

sunwoo shrugs, hands still in his jacket pockets. it is true that kim sunwoo has a deep interest for botany. everyone in your friend group knows that the young boy likes learning about several plants, whereas you find it boring and unnecessary. 

however, before you can agree to his suggestion, kara turns around swiftly to face both of you. gesturing to the dorms, the girl pouts lightly. “it’s time to separate our ways.”

“see you in the library tomorrow.” sunwoo mumbles when kara pulls him into a tight hug. 

rapidly you look away, eyes trying to focus on anything but your two friends next to you. eventually your gaze lands on eric, who’s already looking at you with an unreadable expression. soon enough he pats your shoulder as he chuckles. “sleep well. tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

“you too.” 

smiling, you wave at your friend before you turn your head to catch a glimpse of sunwoo glancing at you. thinking he won’t say anything anyway, your feet start moving towards kara, who’s saying goodbye to the others. 

“y/n!”

sunwoo calling your name makes you stop immediately, heart pounding a little faster than normal. with curious eyes you turn around and are met with sunwoo waving at you, a small smile forming on his lips. 

“rest well. and let’s talk more.”

suddenly your body feels like its frozen on spot, no single muscle able to move. it’s stupid how you can’t do anything but blink a few times, clearing your throat to give him a response. however, your throat feels dry and your nervousness makes it impossible for you to form actual words. instead, you nod shyly, waving at him one last time before your roommate grips your arm, pulling you towards the dorms. 

kara is already sleeping peacefully while you face your reflection in the bathroom, hand clasping your throat as you feel burning pain in your whole chest and throat area. frowning you reach for a glass of water, hoping that the pain would vanish. 

however, it only starts hurting more causing you to squat down on your spot. probing the pained area while wincing, you wonder what could be the cause for this horrible burning and itching. 

when you eventually feel like you’re going to throw up, you quickly grab an empty bucket. completely shocked by what came out of your mouth, your glassy eyes are now widen as you lean back, hand covering your mouth. in order to keep quiet, you try to avoid loud coughing. 

the empty bucket is now filled with countless yellow petals. 

flowers?

head tilting to the side, you open your mouth but can’t speak. the whole situation seems entirely absurd and confusing to you. maybe it’s a dream?

but you know it isn’t a dream when you google “coughing flowers” only to find out that it is an actual disease called “hanahaki”. 

and you suffer from it because of unrequited love.

_

to be continued.

[sabababa]

How easy is it to make the BNHA boys blush? Are they stone cold on the outside but internally screaming or are they as red as a tomato and a babbling mess? Also I hope you don’t mind making it so Reader is like the Dom in the relationship

How you make them blush headcanons

Hawks, Hitoshi Shinso, Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugou, Mirio Togata, Shota Aizawa, Tamaki Amajiki x GenderNeutral!Reader

Author’s Note: I tried to make the reader come off as a dom in these, so I hope it shows. I also imagine reader being tall since I’m like 5′11″ and there’s hardly any tall reader stuff, so some of the stuff in these could be preserved from a tall person POV      This is also the first time I’ve written for Shinso and Tamaki so I hope I represented them well!

Warnings: Some slight spice but not really, slight Dom!reader

Masterlist | Request Rules

(Art belongs to me, please do not repost)

Hawks

People like to imagine Hawks as a very suave guy, but that’s not the case

Of course, he has a public appearance to keep up

But oh boy, when he meets someone he actually likes he gets tongue tied

So when you two started dating it was fairly easy to get him to blush, but not so much it’d make his face red

Simple domestic acts were enough to dust his cheeks, or even some compliments

He never received genuine attention like that so he was unsure of how to react

He started to get used to it though, he may not blush anymore, but he still likes it

Now, a new thing you discovered a couple months into the relationship is that he has bird-like behaviors

And sometimes you like to take advantage of it

He likes to groom you by brushing your hair or trimming your nails, he’s actually very good at mani-pedis

So you’ll return the favor by brushing his hair or trimming his nails and it causes him to be a blushy mess because his heart is pounding and he can’t believe you want to groom him

You’ll even take it a step farther by cleaning or fixing his feathers

It’s a big deal in the bird world when two birds groom each other, it means they’re very close

Another thing is that he likes to feed you parts of his food from his plate

Even if you’re both eating the same thing, he still likes to hold food up to your mouth for you to eat

And once again, you’ll do it right back at him

In the bird world, it would mean that you accepted him as your mate

It makes him blush as he bites the food off and enjoys the flavor

Even when you eat the same thing, he swears it tastes better when you feed it to him

All in all, he gets real blushy when you indulge in his birdy antics

(Art belongs to me, please do not repost)

Hitoshi Shinso

Hitoshi doesn’t really blush

Whenever you say a compliment to him he just rubs the back of his neck, looks down, and has a grin on his face

He loves it when you comment on things he feels other people don’t like about him

His unkempt hair, his baggy eyes, his terrible sleeping habit

He’s never cared what other people think, but hearing you speak so positively about those things makes his heart soar

“Oh my god, your bed head is the cutest thing on this planet!”

“Awh, did I wake you? You look so adorable rubbing your eyes!”

“You have the sexiest voice ever, I swear, can you just never stop talking to me, please?”

He loves when you talk about his voice

It’s what really enables his quirk, so the fact that you’re not intimidated by him talking and love hearing him talk is refreshing to him

But on the inside, when you compliment him

He’s screaming and doing back flips

They like my voice?!

They want me to keep talking to them?!

WHAT DO I DO?!?!?!

But on the outside he acts like his regular cool self

He also really loves when you display affection to him around others

You’re not afraid of being associated with him or what other people think and he just absolutely loves it

Sometimes kids in the hallways will give him nasty looks and he’ll give one back

But you just pull him close to your side and hold his arm while giving the kid an intimidating look

Since you’re in separate classes you walk with him to his first

Before you leave you always put a little kiss on his cheek as you guys stand near the doorway for his classmates to see

He smirks when he catches a few staring, but once again, he is absolutely going crazy inside his head

(Art belongs to me, please do not repost)

Izuku Midoriya

THIS BOY

THE ABSOLUTE BLUSHIEST

Any compliment or flirt you say to him will have him blushing

Sometimes you’ll comment on his strength

Or how cute he is when he mumbles

Or how adorable his face looks when he’s concentrated

He face goes red every time and it makes him cover his head with his arms

And you compliment how cute he looks when he’s blushing, every time

What he loves the most though is when you show him off

“Everybody stop what you’re doing and look how adorable Izu is!”

“Look at his cute chubby cheeks and pretty freckles! *squeals*”

Some of your friends find it funny, but the others just cringe or roll their eyes (actually just Bakugou)

He loves it when you talk about his strength and have him show it off as well

You ask him to pick you up and he’ll have you sit on his arm while he flexes

This man carried around a hulked up Allmight for training, picking you up is a piece of cake

“Look how strong my baby boy is!” You gush

His face is so red, but he’s lowkey enjoying the attention

A thing you like to do is have him sit in your lap while you wrap your arms around him to trap him against you

You’ll do this when you guys are in the lounge and it makes him blush

You like to pepper his cheek in kisses while he sits on you and it makes him giggle

When you’re in private, you’ll have him straddle you on the bed

And of course the blush never leaves his face as you feel his body

You leave kisses on his forehead, his cheeks, his neck, even his collarbone if the collar of his shirt is deep enough (he’s bought a couple of v-necks for this occasion)

He loves it when you bring his hands up and kiss along his scars

You’re so slow and sensual about it, it makes his heart race and body heat up

And he wouldn’t trade that feeling for the world

(Art belongs to me, please do not repost)

Katsuki Bakugou

He won’t admit it, but he blushes

You would make him blush even before you two started dating

You were his biggest hype man- and still are

But whenever he would start roasting or chewing people out, you would be there in the background

“Yeah! Kick their ass, Bakugou!” You’d shout

He thought it was weird at first and brushed it off, but when he realized he started to like you it caused a small blush to pop up whenever you would cheer him on

And when you realized you started to like him you upped your game

Anytime you’d walk into a room with him in it you would say

“Where’s that handsome devil Bakugou?”

His face would be so red, but he looked so angry that everyone thought it was just from rage as he chewed you out for making a comment like that

Anytime you knew he was around and listening you would bring him up

“Damn, I have no idea how to make this. Maybe our resident hot chef Bakugou can make it?”

“Leave me alone or I’ll call the handsome devil Bakugou himself!”

“You really think you can beat pretty boy Bakugou?”

He won’t admit it, but he loves it when you call him your pretty boy

Especially after you two start dating

You’ll be sitting in the living area of the dorms with some friends playing some games

Bakugou wins and you congratulate him with a kiss on the cheek with

“That’s my pretty boy!”

He still blushes slightly but doesn’t get angry about it because after all, you’re dating, of course, you’re gonna compliment him

In private you’ll call him sexy if you want to tease him

But sometimes there are days where you just want to be affectionate and have him vulnerable beneath you

You’ll kiss him all over his face as his blush grows

You then compliment him when his face finally softens and shows a small smile

“You really are my pretty boy, Suki,”

(Art belongs to me, please do not repost)

Mirio Togata

Mirio is a boy who does blush, but not over the top and very rarely

You have to meet a special set of requirements if you want his blush to appear

And the way to do that is to compliment his body

Mirio is used to people talking about his body

I mean, with a quirk like his, he was constantly showing it off to everybody

He expected comments about it when it was shown

But when you two started dating you threw him for a loop

He was just casually talking to Nejire and Tamaki when you snuck up behind him and grabbed his pecs, giving them a squish

“Look at these big ol’ bara tiddies,” you said playfully as you groped him

Mirio was so stunned from the act that a blush appeared

He never expected it and Nejire laughed about the look on his face while Tamaki looked embarrassed for him

He eventually snapped back and let out a sheepish laugh, but he also sounded giddy because he lowkey liked you feeling him up

Another day he was doing some regular workouts with his friends

Once again he was talking to Nejire and Tamaki when you snuck up behind him

Instead this time you crawled under his legs and stuck your head between his thighs as you made him squish your cheeks

“This boy has thighs for days!” You said as you rubbed your hands up and down his thighs

Again, he was stunned and blushy

Nejire laughed and Tamaki hid his face

This other time happened when he was alone

You see, you had made such a habit of ogling him in front of others that he thought he was safe alone

Nope

He was in the dorm’s kitchen preparing a meal for himself when he saw you walking in

He greeted you with a big smile and offered to make you something

You came up behind him and smacked his ass and continued to squish it in your hand as you pressed your body against his, trapping him against the counter

“Maybe you could let me have a piece of that ass?”

Mirio.exe has stopped working

You laughed as you stood back and removed yourself from him to calm him down

His face was so red, he had no idea what to do

(Art belongs to me, please do not repost)

Shouta Aizawa

Aizawa THINKS he blushes, but doesn’t actually

He’ll pull his capture weapon up to cover his face more when you flirt with him

What makes him act this way is when you compliment his features or give some kind of sexy nickname to him

Aizawa thinks he’s an average looking man

He’s not insecure, he just honestly thinks that of himself

So sometimes you’ll come up to him and rub your face against his to feel his stubble scratch against your cheek

“Damn, I love your stubble, it’s so sexy!”

Cue him averting his eyes and covering his face with his scarf

Another thing you like to do is when you’re alone and lounging together on the couch

You’ll admire his features for a while before you give kisses all over his face

He’ll ask what that was for

“You’re just so handsome, Sho,” you say with a sweet smile

He’ll look away with a surprised grunt and cover his face with his hand

You like to tease him when he does that and tell him how cute he looks, which only makes it worse for him

Sometimes, out of the blue, you like to give him sexy nicknames

“How’s it going, stud?”

“Hey there, hot stuff!”

“Whatcha’ up to, sexy?”

You’ll even say stuff like that in front of his friends and co-workers, but you’re not seductive about it, just casual, so he doesn’t really get mad at you for it

But it does make him pull the scarf up

One of his favorite things you call him though is “hubby”

You’re not married yet, nor engaged, but it really makes his heart pound against his chest when you call him that, especially in front of strangers

“I guess I’ll have that. What do you want, hubby?”

“Awh, isn’t my hubby the best?”

He doesn’t mind that you refer to him as your “hubby”

He was planning on asking you soon anyway

(Art belongs to me, please do not repost)

Tamaki Amajiki

This boy blushes all the time when he’s around you

Even before you dated, of course

Just a simple “hello” and “how are you?” would make him blush and hide his face in the nearest wall

It took him a while to warm up to you, especially since he got a crush the first moment he saw you

You always tried your best to have him comfortable around you, you understood how anxiety could be

Eventually, he started hiding against your back whenever he got anxious

That was when you knew it was time to pop the question

“Tama, do you wanna go on a date with me?”

His face was completely red but he managed to stutter out an answer while furiously nodding

So when you guys started dating his blush reappeared whenever you’re around

But it wasn’t the type of “oh god I just wanna hide” blush

It was the “everything they do is amazing” blush

You’ll sometimes come up and give him a surprise kiss on the cheek

Or sometimes you’ll pick him up in a hug and spin him around

His face is flushed as he buries it in the crook of your neck with his arms wrapped around your shoulders

Other times, you’ll just hold his face in your hand and he leans into it with the sweetest smile

He loves it when you praise him

It makes him feel so much better after he does something he considers difficult, like ordering food or making an important phone call (me too, Tama)

His nerves are all jittery after it’s over and you’re there to soothe them by holding his hand or giving a small peck to his cheek

“That was so good, Tama! I’m proud!”

“You said all that without stuttering! Great job!”

“Wait, you did that all by yourself? My baby boy is growing up so fast!”

He really likes it when you call him your baby boy, it warms his face and his heart

Overall, he’s so happy to have someone so supportive

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Thanks for reading!