#they never met in person in life 1 and he's not even an afterthought in her mind at the moment | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

multifandombullshitbabes · 2 years ago

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i actually think a lot abt hangman's family, like my headcanons.

It's a big family, 2 parents happily married, 3 girls and 2 boys, and the grandma from the dad's side. They live a simple life, they have a farm, etc etc.

Jake is the youngest of them all. 2 older sisters, then an older brother, and then an older sister. Then Jake. That's the order. And even tho they always thought of having a big family, Jake's mom really just wanted to have babies. The fact that they grew into kids n then teenagers was something she kinda tried not to think abt too much.

So, she just kept having them, thinking she might lose her motherly touch if she never had a baby to coddle. That meant that was basically a year difference between the siblings, two years between baby number 3 and 4 because of some money complications.

After Jake was born, and he lived 1 glorious year of being coddled and babied (as he should ofc), an accident happened, and his mom got seriously hurt. It meant she had to be bedridden for a while, which meant no more making babies for a while.

His dad cared for his wife as much as he could juggling 5 kids and a whole ass farm. As the kids grew older and started going to kindergarten and having friends and getting personalities, the couple had to damage control, which meant putting a bunch of responsibilities on the eldest daughter, which they thought was a quick solution to their problem.

But she never took any of their shit. Their first born was the toughest kid they've ever met, and she never, no matter how much they screamed and punished her, let herself become a mother to her siblings. She was their oldest sister. That's it. And the most they would get from her is her help around the farm.

So the oldest kids started getting their chores while the mom healed. The second Jake could walk on his own, it was like a relief. "He can take care of himself now. I can rest." and Jake knew this.

Every time he went to his parents with anything, for help, for affection, for questions, they always had this air of resignation to them that lil Jake always picked up on. Like he was an afterthought.

The person that always advocated for him was his eldest sister, but even her grew up and had her own problems and life. Which led to Jake doing anything he could to get his parents attention. Anything.

At first he went for his own siblings, pulling the girls hair, destroying their toys, ripping drawings apart. But he always felt so guilty when they cried and ignored him. He was trying to get his parents attention, not his siblings hatred. So he started going after other kids when he got to school.

He'd annoy everyone, disrupt the classroom, anything to get the teachers to say they're gonna call his parents. He thought it was soooo funny how they only looked at him when he messed up. He started doing it out of spite, just to see them fume.

That is until his brother and him got into a fight. His brother always got cool stuff while Jake always got the scraps, and it led to Jake stealing things from him. They got into a serious scuffle that ended when one of their sisters saw Jake getting choked by his brother and started screaming. From then on, Jake knew that if push comes to shove, his family could just end him like that. They didnt love him, he was just there taking up space.

So he did a 180. He became quiet and withdrawn, but had fits of anger. They came with crying until he was 7 and the kids his age told him "boys dont cry" and he got so scared his parents would abandon him that he never cried in front of people after that.

A year later, when his sister was 13, she was caught kissing a girl by one of their neighbors.

There was a lot of screaming and sobbing, and for years to come, the eldest Seresin daughter refused to call their parents as such. She'd always call them by their names, and would ignore them all the time. The only time she was there was for her siblings, who might have their own thoughts on the matter, but they were still her siblings, and she'd never abandon them.

Things got quieter after this. It's like they were afraid to make noise, lest they anger their parents. So, the kids kept to their own. The parents just thought they had grown up quick and were leaving them more n more, becoming more independent, which was a good thing.

Except they all became their own versions of fucked up.

The eldest had her dream of becoming a horse riding teacher, and plans to do it all on her own. Secretly, shes afraid she'll never be loved and believes this fully. She thinks not having her parents support is better than having it. She ignores how much she misses having their love and approval, and knows she'll never have it. She never lets any of her siblings too close, shes just there to be useful and then shes gone. She assumes they like it that way but they all miss her.

The second oldest wants to be an actress, in theater specifically. Her parents dont approve, but she follows in her sister's footsteps, and rebels against them. She finds out rather early that she's not like other teenagers, in the sense that sex strongly grosses her out. She thinks its because of her being too religious, but secretly she knows she doesnt rly believe in god. It distances her from the rest of her family, since she thinks she's kinda of a freak. She ignores all pregnancy comments her mother throws her way. She compensates by dating a lot of people, but it never ends well since they always expect it to go further and she just cant do it.

The eldest son gets closer to his grandma, which had a love for tapestry. So while he stays on the farm, mostly to appease his parents, secretly he wants to pursue tapestry full time. Him and his grandma have secret tapestry meetings. He feels stuck, like he has to stay or else the whole family will fall apart. He never lets himself live his life lest it ends up being too divergent from what his parents want, and at this point he just wants peace.

The youngest daughter is more of a free spirit, and the older she gets the less she is home. She just thinks theres no point in doing anything grand when she can just stay at the farm with her parents, who r too busy with their trouble children to pay attention to her. She has no ambitions, and isnt interested in falling in love and starting a family. She just wants a place to fall back to if she needs it. She becomes a sort of ghost, there but forgotten. She thinks she likes it that way. She doesn't.

Jake grows up to be in denial over his sexuality. He knows what happens, and he prefers having his parents support than not. He becomes the quiet kid they can depend on when his brother is busy, and thats it. He goes to the navy just to do something, but do it well. In fact, do it so well its all his parents can talk about. Its also a great excuse to not be home all the time. He assumes if he doesnt do good in this thing he chose, he'll lose whatever respect his parents have for him. So he'll just play perfect son, perfect man, etc. etc. and ignores all marriage talk ever. Mostly ends with him saying that they'll have plenty of grandkids with his siblings, so dont bother him abt it.

Its with growing up that the siblings start to own up to the fact that 1) their parents fucked them up bad, and 2) they miss each other a lot.

So they become a strong squad of 5, the eldest sis caring for her queer siblings best she can, secretly emotional abt them confiding in her. The 2 brothers stop fighting, and Jake joins the tapestry meetings, much to his grandma's delight. She always saw right through him. They attend every performance of the second oldest, and shes amazing. The youngest sister judges everyones crushes whenever pics r sent to their groupchat. And its not perfect, but its amazing, and they're healing.

One day tho, they're all there for Christmas. They managed to convince the eldest to come, to surprise their parents. She hadnt been there ever since she got her own place at 21. It's very stilted at first but they manage, mostly because the siblings actually like each other now.

It comes crashing down when their grandma accidentally starts gushing abt the boys work with her, completely forgetting its supposed to be a secret. It gets tense, and then their father makes some comment abt it being smth girls do. And all hell breaks loose.

Because grandma scolds her son and his wife for all the shit they've done over the years. The kids watch as the 3 elders fight over the dinner table. Everyone thought, if somebody is ruining Christmas, then it would be the eldest daughter. She thought so as well.

Their mom is crying, saying how she did her best and all she ever wanted was a happy family, and smth just snaps in Jake. All that anger over never being thought of first, all those years of just not being seen as himself, but just their normal, charming, well adjusted son. And he's the one screaming at them, abt how they're all fucked up because of them, and jsut because they did their best doesnt mean it was enough. If they couldnt be there for their 5 kids, they shouldnt have had them. And that stuns them, and in their silence all of the kids talk over each other on how they've had to be each other parents over the years, while all they did was stay in their conservative little bubbles and never trying to get to know their kids.

The rest of the dinner is quiet, and the kids are the first to get up and leave the table, the brothers and their grandam doing their tapestry session in the living room for all to see, while the second oldest puts on her fav playlist and makes her younger sister dance and sing with her, much to the youngest dismay. The eldest quietly helps with the dishes and ignores any looks her parents throw her way, before joining her siblings and wanting to try tapestry as well. Their parents watch, not knowing where they fit.

The next morning, Jake wakes up first. He's always been an early bird, and the navy didn't help. He's 24 now, and he still has the same routine from when he was a kid. He's not expecting his mom to be awake.

That's when the family finally starts getting together. It starts with Jake and their mom and a very emotional conversation, where she watches her son cry for the first time since he was seven. He comes out to her. She says she will accept it, with time. And it's all she asks. Time.

After that, the kids try to include the parents on their things. The eldest sister reveals her girlfriend of 5 years, and asks her dad how he proposed to mom so she can do it himself. He's overcome with feelings because her girlfriend had asked for his blessing earlier to marry his daughter. The mom discovers that she really likes screen writing, and bonds with her second daughter over it. They talk abt theater and acting, and why she'll never conceive children in the traditional sense. She does want to adopt one day, when she finds her person (her mom doesnt miss the word "person"). The oldest brother reveals that he actually has a personality, which is a lot sassier than the parents thought. They also start receiving tapestry presents whenever he finishes one he likes. The youngest daughter reveals she and her friends want to open a cat cafe, and enthusiastically shows her plans to her parents, that choose to ignore the blunt shes smoking in lieu of asking what the fuck a cat cafe is. And Jake sends them letters, pictures and stories abt his time in the navy. He talks boys with his mom, assuming his dad wouldnt be very interested, but he has a thirst for gossip apparently after crashing one of their son-mom sessions, and now will be personally offended in Jake doesnt talk boys with him there. He's more judgey than Jake realized. No man is good enough for his little boy. Ever.

And its not perfect, but theyre trying, and its fucking bliss.

(names i've finally chosen for Jake's siblings, by order of oldest to youngest: Anneliese, Catherine, Corey, Mia, Jake. their parents names are: Grace and Harrison. their grandma's name is: Madeleine.)

#top gun maverick #jake seresin #jake hangman seresin #hangman top gun #top gun headcanons #come get yall headcanons #hey look i posted a thing #this is a long one #i apologize for nothing tho cuz this is very dear to my heart

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vrishchikawrites · 4 years ago

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Its a prompt! (And dont worry about it, absolutely love reading your writing XD) Okay so dimension travel, so we all agree in a world where WWX was raised in another sect (like Lan/Nie) That he would be absolutely adored by them and everyone, healthy relationships( even Jin Zixuan and Wei Wuxian wouldn't be on a bad term much because no WWX JYL interaction) so! Canon!WWX from post ssc timeline gets transmigrated/summoned to one of these worlds where hes raised by either Lan or Nie so 1/2

They're a bit confused seeing WWX in black clothes, and seeing his gaunt/tired appearance and him being so on guard around them (since he's usually open and loved) that they ask him why is it so? Does he not know Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue back from whicher place he came from, and Wei Wuxian goes 'Ive met them/we're not close' they ask 'sorry if its a bit personal but who were you raised by?' and WWX replies the Jiangs and cue everyone horrified cuz Jiangs areopen in their heavy dislike of WWX2/2

'It's my fault.' Nie Huaisang thinks as he frantically collects all the materials needed, 'It is my fault, I need to fix this.'

His er-ge was gone. His brother, Da-ge's pride and joy, the shining star of the Nie Clan.

Gone. Just like that.

One minute they're on an easy nighthunt and the next, Wei Wuxian is pushing him away to take an attack straight to his chest.

He knows his brother is gone. His body may be alive, but just barely. He's drowning in his own blood and there's nothing Nie Huaisang can do. There's no cognition in his eyes, that bright silver gaze is dull and blank.

He has to do something.

The ritual may not work. It came with so many warnings that Nie Huaisang lost the patience to read them all the way through. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong.

"Huaisang! What are you doing?!" Da-ge's voice is loud but Nie Huaisang doesn't pay any attention to it. The room is sealed and it would take da-ge some time to break through it.

"Nie Huaisang!"

Good, Lan Xichen is here. He'll take care of da-ge if something goes wrong.

"Huaisang!" There's a loud crash but he doesn't pay any attention to it, "Stop! Don't do something stupid."

"I need to save him. It is my fault, I need to save him!"

"Huaisang!"

There's a bright red flash and it drowns out everything.

---

Miraculously, he survives.

His fledgling Golden Core has shattered and melted into nothing, but he has survived.

And he has done it.

"Does your stupidity known no bounds?" Da-ge demands as Lan Wangji kneels by er-ge's bed and feeds him potent spiritual energy.

Wei Wuxian is alive. His cognition is intact and his Golden Core is stable but he's soaked in Resentful Energy.

"You destroyed your Golden Core, Huaisang! There's no recovering from it!"

"Wouldn't you do the same?" He demands, turning around to look at his oldest brother. He ignores Lan Xichen's alarmed voice and focuses on Nie Mingjue, "Is his life worth less than my Golden Core?"

Da-ge locks his jaw but doesn't reply. Of course, Wei Wuxian's life is worth more than a Golden Core.

"Huaisang," Lan Xichen sighs, "a-Xian wouldn't have wanted this."

"Look at Wangji-xiong and tell me that again." He says bluntly. He is tired and drained but no one can convince him that reviving er-ge wasn't the right choice.

Xichen-ge doesn't reply because no one can look at the devastated expression on Lan Wangji's face and say it wasn't worth it.

Huaisang doesn't feel the absence of the core as keenly as someone else might. He had only developed it during the Sunshot Campaign, after all.

He isn't like er-ge or Wangji-xiong, with their powerful cores and potent spiritual energy. The loss would've been devastating to them but is only an afterthought to him.

---

They realize something is off when Wei Wuxian opens his eyes and looks at them with distant wariness instead of familiar affection. He looks around and is instantly on guard, "Where... Why am I here?"

He looks directly at Wangji-xiong, "Lan Zhan? What are you... Have you brought me here?" He demanded, his expression shifting to something hostile, "Are we in Gusu?"

"Wei-gongzi," Xichen-ge calls for his attention, "I know you're very confused but please don't be alarmed. We're in your home at the Unclean Realm, not in Gusu."

Er-ge narrows his eyes and Huaisang recognizes that expression, even though it has never been directed towards them. A look of cool calculation as er-ge tries to decipher their motives. "My home?" He asks.

Wangji-xiong knows er-ge almost as well as they do. He reaches forward, "Wei Ying, let us explain, please."

It appears that this Wei Wuxian is just as vulnerable to Wangji-xiong as his brother had been because he softens immediately. His body is still tense but he seems to be willing to listen.

"You died in this world, saving Huaisang's life." Da-ge begins gruffly. Huaisang winces at the bluntness but er-ge seems to appreciate it, his sharp gaze focusing on their elder brother, "Yes, this world," Da-ge confirms, "Our didi decided he wouldn't tolerate it and decided to use one of our forbidden rituals to revive you. He didn't read things clearly. The ritual dragged your soul from another world and placed you in his body."

Er-ge's expression is skeptical, "Our didi..."

Wangji-xiong sucks in a sharp breath, "Wei Ying," His brother's gaze moves to his 'best friend', "You are Wei Wuxian, 23 years old, the Head Disciple of QingheNie Sect, the adopted younger brother of Nie Mingjue and older brother to Nie Huaisang. You were adopted by the former Nie-zongzhu when you were six years old."

Er-ge stares at Wangji-xiong in stunned disbelief but there's no denial in his expression.

No wonder, Wangji-xiong never lies. That must be true in his world as well.

"a-Xian," Er-ge winces and looks at Xichen-ge, "You need to rest and recover. Your Golden Core is stab-"

Er-ge gasps and immediately sits up, placing his hand on his chest. He closes his eyes and almost violently summons his spiritual energy.

"Wei Ying!" Wangji-xiong calls out in alarm but his brother doesn't pay any attention, his focus entirely inward.

"I have my Golden Core back..." Er-ge breathes, astonished but his skin goes white and he loses consciousness.

They exchange stunned glances before scrambling forward to check on him.

---

No one can deny Wei Wuxian has changed. It takes a month for his body to recover but his heart is still unsteady. He puts on every appearance of being alright, but Huaisang has grown up with this man. He knows something is off.

It is only when er-ge decides he needs to start training again that things start to become clear. Er-ge has trained all of his life to fight with a Dao. His movements are powerful and aggressive, designed to overwhelm the enemy.

Er-ge's mind, however, is accustomed to the traditional Jian. He seems to expect his movements to be lighter, faster. More agile and less powerful.

The dissonance makes him clumsy and he loses his first fight against Lan Wangji in a long time.

"Wei Ying?" Wangji-xiong frowns, "Your movements."

Da-ge has his concerned scowl on and he grabs Baxia, stepping into the training field, "With me, Wuxian."

This fight is faster and more brutal. Huaisang almost wants to protest but he can see er-ge adjust and adapt quickly.

His eyes gain a razor-sharp focus and his battle instincts come to the fore. "Good," Xichen-ge observes, "He's accepting his body."

Indeed, he is. Against da-ge's overwhelming force, there's nothing er-ge can do but react instinctively. They engage in several bouts and keep at it for over a shichen.

By the end of it, er-ge is exhausted but faintly triumphant.

"Lan Zhan, again!"

"Wei Ying, you need rest." Wangji-xiong says with a shake of his head, "Don't strain yourself."

"Why were you fighting like you wanted to wield a Jian, didi?" Da-ge asks sternly, "You were hesitant and weak in some strikes."

Er-ge grimaces and Xichen-ge steps forward. It has been over a month and though er-ge has seen how much they all care for him, he remains wary.

"a-Xian," Xichen-ge begins gently, "You weren't a part of the Nie Clan in the past, were you?"

Da-ge's scowl deepens at the thought of er-ge belonging to anyone else but them. They had suspected something like this, of course. But they had hoped that er-ge would've still been a part of the Nie Sect if not the Clan.

Er-ge remains wary but sighs, "No."

"Not the Lans," Xichen-ge observes astutely, "Not the Jins either. Were you a rogue cultivator? Or from a smaller sect?"

Er-ge studies him before shaking his head, "I was the Head Disciple of the Jiangs."

"What?" Wangji-xiong asks, his voice uncharacteristically sharp, "Jiangs?"

Da-ge looks furious and Xichen-ge seems pained. No wonder, given how... problematic the Jiang situation is. That family is entirely unsuitable for someone as loving and giving as his er-ge!

Jiang Wanyin is a complex mix of pride and insecurity. He lags behind all sect heirs, though Huaisang is fairly certain their batch of cultivators is particularly skilled. Er-ge and Wangji-xiong are exceptional in every way and Jin Zixuan is barely a few steps behind.

In the face of such competition, skilled but ordinary cultivators can't help but be overshadowed.

Jiang Fengmian, according to da-ge, is a meek little imitation of his former self. The man that pursued er-ge's mother had been strong and wise. He had the skill, political acumen, and grace to be an admirable Sect Leader.

His marriage to Yu Ziyuan ruined him.

And Yu Ziyuan is a nightmare. The one time she met Wei Wuxian, she had left such an impression that da-ge had cut all ties with the Jiang Sect until its Madam apologized to the Nie Sect Head Disciple.

That hadn't gone down well and the relationship between them is still sour.

"Do you want to return to them?" He blurts out, unable to help himself. If Jiangs are this Wei Wuxian's family then maybe-

"No."

They still because that's a very firm no. It is a complete and utter rejection of the very thought of it.

"No."

---

Getting the whole story out of er-ge is like pulling teeth but between Wangji-xiong's pleas, Xichen-ge's gentle questions, da-ge impassioned demands, and his own begging, they manage.

This Wei Wuxian doesn't love them yet but he sees their love for him clearly. That softens his heart and they get to hear every painful, excruciating aspect of his past life.

Wangji-xiong looks furious, da-ge paces, Xichen-ge is pale, but all of that doesn't matter.

He recognizes the look on er-ge's face. He has never seen it on him before, but he recognizes it.

Er-ge expects them to reject him. To abandon him for his 'sins'.

"Well, I don't have a Golden Core. Can you teach me Demonic Cultivation?"

"Huaisang!" Is yelled from almost every direction but he only has eyes for his older brother.

He sees those tired silver eyes study him for a moment before they soften completely, turning into the color of liquid moonlight. "You brat," Er-ge murmurs affectionately, "The thought of you wielding that power is nothing short of terrifying."

"But er-ge! Can you leave me defenseless, just like that? Don't you feel sorry for me-"

"Huaisang!" Da-ge snaps, "Stop trying to manipulate your brother!"

"Really, a-Sang, it isn't right for you to-"

Er-ge laughs. It's familiar, loud, and openly joyous. Silver eyes sparkle as he looks at them, "Don't worry, da-ge, he's a hundred years too early to manipulate me."

Wangji-xiong huffs, "Wei Ying."

"Lan Zhan," Er-ge teases, "How is that you manage to reprimand me by only saying my name? Shall I try it too? Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan!"

"And they're flirting again." He murmurs under his breath, drawing an amused look from Xichen-ge.

"Perhaps we really need to start betrothal negotiations," Xichen-ge says and da-ge scoffs.

"Not going to happen unless you're willing to part with your brother. Mine is my heir. He's not marrying into the Lans."

"Da-ge, be reasonable-"

Huaisang tunes them out and waves his fan in front of his face, his mind whirling.

He doesn't care about er-ge's marriage negotiations. He has bigger fish to fry.

Really, those Jins and Jiangs are getting too bold.

#short prompts #nie!wwx #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #lan wangji #lan xichen #nie mingjue #anti jiang cheng #anti jiang sect

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frogtanii · 4 years ago

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embarrassed ft. matsukawa issei

wc. 2.7k (???)

warnings. SMUT, not proofread lol, mutual pining (??), friends to lovers (???), cunnilingus lmao, no dom/sub dynamics, well actually dom&sub issei if you squint rlly hard hehe, kinda cute, embarrassed issei <3, also one (1) WAP reference

an. it’s 2:30 am and i have no idea why i wrote this and who for???? i got the idea from a 🦋😳🙈✨ audio and was immediately inspired idk, sorry if it’s bad i lichrally have no idea since i didn’t read it after it was done :p

( ˘ ³˘)♥︎

it wasn’t like matsukawa issei to be embarrassed.

he was handsome, intelligent, and funny, not to mention he never left women wanting after a night with him.

issei was the entire package and he knew it.

beyond superficiality though, he was happy with his life. he had a great group of friends, a nice apartment all to himself and a completely normal job.

yes, being a funeral home employee wasn’t the most glamorous career a person could have but he was happy. besides, it never deterred him from getting a warm body to sleep with which was a win in his book.

all in all? his life was great!

so why did he have to go and screw it all up?

issei blames makki and the dumb flyer for the reason his life went to shit. (maybe he’s being a little dramatic, but let him have his oikawa moment.)

he was minding his own business when his best friend (recently turned enemy) burst through his apartment door with a piece of paper in his hand and a fire in his eyes.

“dude, look at this!” issei rolled his eyes, putting down his casket catalogue and turning to meet takahiro’s gaze.

“why hello to you too. remind me why i gave you a key again?”

“because you love me and because i bring shit like this to you. look!” with another long and suspiciously tooru-like sigh, issei took the crumpled paper from makki and immediately stopped in his tracks.

“makki... what the fuck is this?”

written in large pink letters and a flowery, borderline illegible font was the name, coffee and cunnilingus. upon further inspection and careful reading, it revealed itself to be a little cafe opening up about 10 minutes from issei’s apartment complex who were looking to hire “young, attractive men who are proficient at eating pussy.”

issei could feel his eyes narrow and his mouth drop open in shock as he repeated his question. “the fuck is this?”

makki shook his head excitedly, tapping to another portion of the flyer that matsukawa had not yet read. “no, no dude, just look at how much they’re paying per hour.” issei begrudgingly obliged but the minute his eyes touched the (Massive™) number, he felt a little faint.

it was a lot of money. more than the funeral home was paying, that’s for sure. with that kind of money he could move out of this suddenly dingy seeming apartment and into a nice flat in the city were he’d always wanted to live. maybe he could buy himself a nice watch or even a high-end suit to replace the one from his highschool graduation (aka the only suit he owns). with that kind of money, he could erase his student debt 3 years ahead of schedule and get his mom into a nicer place.

it was these thoughts that clouded issei’s head as he found himself standing in front of a cute looking building, matching the address on the flyer. i’ll only be working part time, he thought as he pushed the door open to reveal an equally impressing interior with curtained booths and a wide variety of coffee on the menu. i’m only doing it for extra money, he thought as he shook the owner’s hand after he finished his successful interview. no one can ever know, he thought as he dressed himself in the uniform on his first day.

thus began issei’s super secret side hustle where he ate women out for cash.

sounds worse when you say it outright but it was just working. he was good at it, the women liked him, and he was making BANK. still, there were challenges. some women refused to bathe before coming and he would have to send them to the restroom to freshen up which absolutely ruined his chances for a good tip. some women would become heavily infatuated with him, believing that they were in some sort of forbidden romance. he learned to turn them down quick and easy to avoid conflict in the workplace which furthered his space as a boss favorite. but his hardest challenge by far was meeting you.

you were one of hanamaki’s friends, having met him at one of his brief stints in retail on his search for a job. he had gotten fired but you both stayed in touch after he left, becoming really close, really fast.

issei had met you first when takahiro had invited you to the biweekly seijoh third-years movie night. at first, he had been pissed as an “outsider” had never been invited before and he was worried you’d ruin the vibe, especially since it was the first time in months that oikawa would be able to join them. makki vouched for you through and through and the other boys were okay with it so you were in. the second he met you, all his fears of awkwardness and discomfort faded away.

you were great.

you were hilarious, pretty, and could keep up with makki’s harsh jokes, tooru’s diva attitude, iwa’s tendency to hit (hard), and issei’s original disdain. by the end of the night, he had completely forgotten why he didn’t want you there in the first place.

from then on, you were a staple in their little friend group. you were added to the groupchat where you balanced memes with spouts of deep wisdom and you were ever so reliable, always there if any of them needed it.

yeah, you were great. that’s where the problems started.

issei’s feelings for you quickly went from platonic to romantic, faster than you can say godzilla. he hadn’t even recognized that he was falling for you until it was way too late. normally, he wouldn’t have a problem confessing to you but because of his newly found ...occupation, he was too nervous. how would you take it that he was basically a glorified prostitute? ok, that wasn’t exactly what he did but still! you’d probably find him disgusting and horrible and leave the friend group forever. then he’d have to deal with oikawa’s senseless whining and makki’s subtle digs, blaming him for your departure. yeah, he wasn’t going to put himself through that so he decided to keep his mouth shut.

too bad he didn’t have any control over makki’s.

you and takahiro had been on a little friend-date at mcdonald’s after you’d had a long and frustrating shift. you just wanted to vent, expressing your general hate for your job and desperate need for stress relief.

that’s when makki opened his (big, stupid) mouth and suggested that you visit a little place called coffee and cunnilingus. you nearly choked on your fries at the title before quickly pressing him for details. thankfully, he had the decency not to expose that issei worked there but he had not done a good enough job convincing you not to go there. not that it would’ve mattered. your curiosity was peaked and your libido was high so why not try out the weird cafe where you let a complete stranger stick his tongue inside you?

it was settled. you were going to go and you were going to get eaten out and you were going to like it!

or at least that is what you repeated in your head as you walked to the address on your phone before taking a deep breath and walking inside.

“hello, welcome to coffee and cunnilingus, how might i pleasure you this afterno— yn?” issei’s eyes widened as they met your equally bewildered ones, the both of you staring at each other in shock.

“matsukawa-san, is everything alright?” a large hand rested on issei’s shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts and forcing him to break (horrified) eye contact with you and move it onto his boss who was now looking down on him menacingly.

“y-yes sir, everything is fine!” he squeaked out, hating the way his voice cracked on his first syllable. his boss looked at him suspiciously but thankfully didn’t press.

“well, since nothing is wrong, take this beautiful young woman to a booth where you will assist her!” the hand resting on issei’s shoulder slowly squeezed, making him wince in pain. the pain was only an afterthought though to the larger implication of his boss’ words. he’s going to assist you. assist as in pleasure. pleasure as in eat you out.

holy shit, you were going to pass out.

apparently, issei had the same thought process as you, his face whitening like a sheet. “m-me? but sir i-“

“do your job matsukawa-san!” his boss cut him off with a forced smile. all issei could do was nod and silently lead you off to a closed booth near the back or lose his job. you stayed close behind him but remained quiet, absolutely terrified of breaking the silence and ruining the bubble you had created.

you finally reached the booth in question. issei gently opened the curtain and motioned for you to get it, to which you obliged and he followed just behind.

the moment the curtain closed, you were enveloped in an awkward silence and tense atmosphere, neither of you speaking or looking at one another for fear of one of you running out. after what felt like hours, you opened your mouth to speak, not realizing issei had thought the same thing.

“so-“

“i-“

you finally made eye contact with him and burst into the laughter, the tension quickly broken. it took a full minute or two for the both of you to calm down, the absurdity of the entire situation finally catching up with you.

“you first,” issei said, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes while fixing you with an intense gaze swirled with an emotion you couldn’t quite place but it made butterflies bubble up in your stomach. you quickly turned your gaze to the comfortable seat beneath you, your fingers playing with the red stitching while you thought of what you had wanted to say.

“are you any good?” your hand flew up to cover your mouth as your cheeks filled with heat, the embarrassment of your words catching up to you. you hadn’t meant to say that but when you opened your mouth to apologize, you were stopped in your tracks by the lovely sound of issei’s full-bodied laughter filling the tiny booth.

you had heard it just moments earlier but without the sound of your own giggles drowning it out, you couldn’t help but think that he sounded beautiful. you basked in the sound as it slowly trailed off back into silence. now it was you doing the staring making issei look off with a red face and a heart threatening to pound out of his chest.

“y-yeah i’m pretty good. you want to try? me, i mean?” his words nearly leave you gasping, your brain working overtime to try and comprehend what he was saying to you.

“only if y-you want to? what do you want issei?” you whispered, suddenly unable to find your voice. you wanted this to be okay for him too; you didn’t want him to be uncomfortable even though you wanted him more than you could verbally express. despite the embarrassment and fear of rejection lingering under your skin, you stared at him, awaiting his answer. a tiny minuscule nod came from him and you internally shook your head. you needed to hear him.

“i need you to say it, issei.” your words, while quiet, were firm and issei felt himself hardening in his uniform slacks. he swallowed in his increasingly drying mouth before opening his mouth to respond.

“i want to eat your pussy. can i?”

shit.

your own voice was stolen by his words and all you could give him was a nod before he was on you.

issei didn’t waste any time falling to his knees, pulling your panties down, and hiking your skirt up to your stomach, revealing your glistening folds to his hungering eyes.

“fuck, you’re so wet,” is all the warning you get before he’s licking a long stripe up you from entrance to clit before he’s sucking the hard, sensitive nub into his mouth. your eyes immediately rolled back into your head, your hips instinctively bucking up into his mouth while a gasped moan of issei left your lips.

if he could bottle your moans and use them whenever he pleased, he would, the sound sending another pulse of arousal to his already hard cock. he was tempted to reach down and pull himself out of his trousers but he denied himself. this was about you; you and your wet ass pussy.

issei continued his ministrations on your clit, circling it with his tongue before pulling it into his mouth while his hand was ready to get busy. it crept up your thigh, sending shivers down your spine until it reached your sopping entrance, two of his fingers teasing the slit before delving in to the third knuckle.

the moan you let out is borderline animalistic as your body sends another wave of slick pulsing out over his hand. he groaned into your cunt at your tightness, his mind only imagining him deep within you while you squeeze him for all he’s got.

the amount of slick you produced made it easy for him to add a third finger, thrusting them in and out while also crooking them upwards in search for your special spot that would have you seeing stars. it took him a little prodding but he knew he found it when your back arched, your hand came down into his hair, and you whimpered out a string of curses.

“that’s it baby, cmon, you’re doing so well, wanna see you come apart for me,” he all but growled against your clit before delving back in with a higher intensity, his desperation for you to come winning out his desire to tease you and drag this out as long as possible.

with his incessant pressure on your g-spot and his lips suctioned around your clit, it wasn’t long before he got what he wanted.

“isseiisseiisseiissei, i’m coming, i’m coming-oh fuck!” you screamed as you clenched and gushed all over his fingers, your entire body caving in with the intensity of your orgasm. his fingers were practically forced from your spasming cunt but they quickly found a place rubbing your nub side to side as fast as possible. the overwhelming urge to pee came over you and you shook your head, trying to push his hand away.

“no, no, give it to me, i know you can,” issei groaned, his eyes locked on your dripping pussy. the pleasure he was giving came to a head at his words and you felt a clear liquid escape from your tired, overstimulated cunt, your mouth opening in a silent moan before collapsing back on the seat.

the sight proved to be too much for issei as he felt his body tense, his own orgasm washing over him as he emptied himself into his boxers. he fell back onto the ground, in shock of himself coming entirely untouched. he’d never done it before but of course it was you that would bring it out of him. a smile spread across his face at the thought, his head tilting back as he laughed, catching the attention of your worn body.

“what’re y’laughing at?” you slurred, cringing a little at how fucked out you sounded but issei didn’t seem to mind, his face glowing while covered in your slick and cum.

“nothing, nothing, but uh, i have a question.” you felt your heart leap to your chest, your mind already racing with the possibilities. he’s going to say this was a mistake, that we’re just better off as friends. oh god, what if he says i stunk? or the worst pussy he’s ever had? or what if—

“want to go and get a coffee?” he asked, the smile still plastered on his face but with an uncharacteristic hint of shyness. the butterflies were back in your stomach as you shyly nodded before allowing him to help clean you up and standing, not missing how he slipped your lacy underwear deep into one of his pockets.

issei’s hand found its way into yours as he said goodbye to his coworkers and boss before leading you out of the cafe, watching you tell an animated retelling of the bullshit that occurred at your job with a warm grin on his face and pink cheeks.

it might not be like matsukawa issei to be embarrassed but if it resulted in getting you by his side? he would do it again and again.

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therealvinelle · 4 years ago

Note

Are the Cullen's and Denali's even close? They sort of remind me of that movie character who has no friends at school but gets along with one (1) person and so consider them their best friend. Also, it's weird that both covens have characters who are basically the same personality trope just a slightly different version. Like Esme and Carmen, Eleazar and Carlisle, even Kate and Rosalie to an extent. And they've known the Cullen's for how many decades? And they were totally cool with letting them die because they weren't allowed to kill the wolves who were protecting Edward's (unmated, looking for love for the past century Edward!) human girlfriend/ proclaimed mate?

No, they’re not.

In Eclipse they had no problem leaving the Cullens to their miserable deaths. Carlisle wouldn’t let them butcher the shapeshifters (their motive for wanting this: the shapeshifters protected Edward’s mate from an attacking vampire. According to the Denali, this makes the vampire the victim, and he should be avenged), and Tanya said “then perish.”

Let it be known, before anyone tries to excuse this, that it wasn’t like Carlisle was asking them to die for him:

“We’re going to need help,” Jasper said. “Do you think Tanya’s family would be willing . . . ? Another five mature vampires would make an enormous difference. And then Kate and Eleazar would be especially advantageous on our side. It would be almost easy, with their aid.” (Eclipse, page 175)

They had two options, nothing to lose either way, and their choice was to leave the Cullens to their sorry fate.

(One can speculate that they in fact had something to gain. The Cullens made it clear they would stand in the way of Irina’s vengeance. Step aside. Let Victoria do her thing. Now there’s nothing in the way of Irina’s vengeance.

Not saying this is why the Denali didn’t help out, I don’t. I think their motivation was a simple, black-and-white “you don’t scratch our back, we won’t scratch yours.”

But assuming the Cullens did perish, would Irina have left the shapeshifters in peace?)

By comparison, Carlisle’s other friends (some of which he hadn’t seen in generations) came in Breaking Dawn to most likely die by his side. Some had selfish motivations, yes, but Siobhan’s coven, the Amazonian women, Alistair (the guy left his hermit cave for Carlisle, that’s huge. I can’t fault the guy for not wanting to be part of a suicide mission(and he still did more than the Denali in Eclipse!)), Benjamin and Tia, Garrett and Peter and Charlotte, all came because of their friendship to Carlisle/the Cullens. To them, that was enough.

I highlight this because these people appear to value their relation to the Cullens a lot higher than the Denali do. Some of Carlisle’s friends have his back, others don’t. As of Eclipse, the Denali have made it clear they’re in the latter category.

And yes, the Denali were there for the Breaking Dawn confrontation, but they were already involved. Their sister had gone to the Volturi and was the reason for all this, and they were worried crazy about her. This wasn’t situation they could ignore up in those Alaskan mountains. So, yes, they were there, but after Eclipse I just don’t buy that they would have been there otherwise.

Then we have other interesting facts, such as the scene where Eleazar realizes Bella has a gift. Eleazar is surprised to learn Edward can’t read Bella’s thoughts: this is news to him.

The guy was at their fucking wedding.

I’ll give that Eleazar and Carmen do seem to be afterthoughts in that coven. There’s the Denali sisters- and oh, that’s right, there’s those two as well.

But for no one to have brought up around Eleazar the fact that Edward can’t read Bella’s mind leaves us with two possible explanations. One, the Cullens and the Denali talk all the time, but they never brought up one of the major things about Edward’s new mate. It never came up. Eleazar is the resident gift expert, yet it simply never came up.

Two, the Cullens and the Denali don’t talk.

At some undated point the covens tried living together. I’m guessing in the 30′s or 40′s, since they met in the 30′s. However, they had to leave because there were too many of them, and they called attention to themselves.

Well, I think this was another case of someone in Eleazar’s life telling him their grandma died, so they can’t go to his party.

Which is to say that I think the size of the coven was the excuse, and the real reason was that the Denali are small dosage friends.

We have Eleazar, who’s insensitive, arrogant, and not very bright (meta for that last claim is in my draft, guys), the Denali sisters who quit the people diet for the worst reason, and the fact that they’re people who would let their so-called family die over the pettiest, most vile motivation I can imagine.

Edward pontificates about how the sisters are sad orphans who cling to the Cullens because they need family, and you know what, I’m sure he’s right. Because those are easy things to want and easy claims to make, but while the sisters may think the Cullens are well and good for playing house with every now and then, that’s apparently not the same as caring for them.

Carlisle also does some pontificating, in the form of “vegetarianism makes emotional ties deeper!” which, sure, Carlisle. There’s a river in Egypt you might want to look into. However, I think that very vegetarianism is what makes these two covens who don’t really get along, and at least on one side don’t care that much about the other, stick it out. It’s a big world out there, not a lot of vegetarian vampires in it, and that means these weird kids have to stick together. Your friendless kid in school analogy is spot on.

So, in that sense, yes vegetarianism deepens emotional ties because without it, these covens would have nothing tying them together.

As it is, they have a comfortable relationship in canon where the other coven represents a refuge, a change of scenery, when it’s needed for whatever reason. The Cullens during a dark period in New Moon, Edward when he had to flee Forks. However, I think the main reason why they’ve become this to one another is because of their similar lifestyles.

And, more damningly, we see countless examples of other vampires that appear much closer to members of the Cullen coven. (Carlisle and Aro, Carlisle and Siobhan, Carlisle and Zafrina (from what I recall of those two), Carlisle and Garrett, Jasper and Peter/Charlotte) These people are actual friends, who get along because of personality reasons, not simply because they were the kids in school who did the Naruto run through hallways and now they have to lunch at the dweeb table.

Edit: Turns out it wasn’t Carlisle who did that “vegetarianism makes emotional ties deeper!” pontificating at all. My due apologies to this fictional character who was in no way affected by my mistake.

#this one got far too long #but people seem to enjoy my rambles #denali #cullens #tanya #irina #kate #eleazar #carmen #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #bittemoi #ask #long post

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fanmoose12 · 3 years ago

Text

the devil you know

Сharacters: Hange Zoe, Levi, Moblit Berner, Zeke Yeagar, Armin Arlert

Genres: Action / Drama

Summary: Can you still miss a person, if everything you knew about them was a lie?

Сhapter 7/?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Сhapter 6

Life had never been particularly kind to Hange Zoe. Tragedies and heartbreaks followed her ever since the day she was born – kicking, screaming and nearly killing her own mother. Her mother never recovered from that blow, her health diminishing while vexation with her own child grew.

That day gave a start to Hange’s life – and to the endless stream of misfortunes she had to face.

Those misfortunes frequented, the amount of bad days increased as Hange was becoming older. But even as a child, driven solely by curiosity and fascination for the world, uncaring of the workings and the rules of the society around her, she had her fair share of frustrations. They usually appeared when her father was around – luckily, due to the nature of his work, he very rarely was. Hange didn’t know her father well, he was always absent, always somewhere else, doing something incredibly important, shaping the future of their country. He was many things - a leader, soldier, hero. But he was not a father. Hange had but a few memories of him, and after all these years she had forgotten the sound of his voice, couldn’t for the life of her remember if his hair was as brown as her own, or had she inherited that vivid color from her mother. But what Hange could never forget, what was etched into her memory for all eternity was the look in his eyes – full of incomprehension, bewilder, disappointment – that he always aimed at her. No matter what she did – excitedly gushed about her studies, showed him a shiny rock she found or urged to go and see the frog she caught, her father had the same reaction, always told her the same thing,

“I expected better from you, Hange.”

Those words were the first dagger that was buried in her chest. But it was far from being the only one.

Her father died before she reached her eleventh birthday. And despite the mourning clothes mother had forced her to wear, despite the endless eulogies she had to sit through, Hange didn’t feel the same sadness that everyone around her did, she didn’t – couldn’t – share their pain or understand their grief. Her father meant something for all those people, but to her he was just a stranger, an unpleasant one at that. When he died, a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Without him, it was so much easier to breathe.

But her sorrows, her frustrations— sadly, they didn’t end with her father’s death.

Once Hange finished her studies, completed her training, she was sent to the outside world, far away from Marley. And for a moment, for one fleeting moment, she was happy, excited to do what she always wanted – learn and explore. But she was not meant to busy herself with research, to familiarize herself with different cultures, she was sent to these distant lands as a soldier, a weapon of great Marleyan Empire. Instead of books and quills, she held a rifle and a knife. And the only thing she learnt was how much blood her motherland was spilling on the foreign soils.

Sleep was coming harder to her after that, her dreams were haunted by visions of red, by screams of pain and anguish. She had become a soldier, her hands made for creation were now covered in blood. Her brilliant mind was now broken by the horrors she had faced.

And so Hange decided to cover herself in thick armor, to hide behind a smile and false happiness. The bad days persisted, losses following after her like a shadow, chasing like an infatuated lover, but she didn’t let it break her, continued moving forward with her chin raised high and her lips curled up.

However, despite the positive attitude she had adopted, there were lots of days Hange considered bad, awful even – the day when she learned just how Titans were created, what price Eldians had to pay for that; the day when she realized that her teacher, brilliant Tom Ksaver was one of those so called shifters, that his days in this world would end abruptly; the day when she received her first wound and spent the night in infirmary, wallowing in pain; the day when she killed another human for the first time and saw the light fading from someone else’s eyes; the day when Wall Maria fell and she witnessed just how much destruction and devastation she helped to bring to this little island; the day when Mike and Nanaba died; the day when her squad perished; the day when she had to leave Paradis behind; the day when she was brought back.

There were lots of days Hange considered to be bad. But nothing – absolutely nothing – could compare to the fucking shit show that was waiting for her next.

___

This fateful day was off to a good, if only slightly weird, start. As always she was woken up by a knock on the door. However, this one was very different from Moblit’s – less rhythmic, and much louder. In fact, it didn’t sound like a knock at all, more like someone was kicking the door repeatedly.

Confused and still sleepy, Hange rolled from the bed and went to greet her guest, not bothering to put her glasses on. Behind the now opened door she found… a shape that could or could not belong to a human. She raised her hand, mumbled a quick ‘sorry’ and darted back inside the room, blindly searching for her glasses.

Once the specs took their rightful place on the bridge of her nose, Hange returned back to the shape that now took the form of a young, blonde man. She trailed her gaze down, to the tray he was holding. There were plates with pastries, omelet, sandwiches, sausages and a cup with brown liquid that had steam coming out of it.

“I’m sorry,” she spoke through her confusion, “But do I know you?”

“Not… yet?”

Hange couldn’t understand if his words were meant to be an affirmation or a question. Nevertheless, she took a step back, letting him in.

He went straight to setting up the table, humming under his breath as he did so. Hange watched him work, not knowing how to feel – puzzled or amused. She tried to catch the boy’s gaze and ask for his name, but, considering the amount of food he brought and how exquisitely delicious it looked, Hange already had a pretty solid guess about the persona of her visitor.

“Be my guest,” he gestured to the table after he finished setting it. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “My name is Niccolo.”

“I guessed it already,” Hange smiled, taking a seat. Her stomach growled, as the delicious smell of homemade food entered her nostrils, her mouth filling with saliva even before she took a fork in her hands. She forced herself to look away from the food, however, directing her eyes at the man who had prepared it all. “Thank you for the food, but may I ask what is the occasion?”

Niccolo didn’t answer right away. He took his time, dragging the chair to sit on the other side of the table, then absentmindedly fixing the napkin and pushing the plate closer to Hange.

She didn’t urge him, patiently waiting for him to start talking. She had a feeling that whatever he came here to tell her was going to be extremely interesting.

And Niccolo didn’t disappoint.

“I’ve spent most of my life hating Eldians. Like every good, conscious Marleyan, I believed them to be devils and abominations. When these people captured me I thought it’d be better to die than live among them. But then I’ve got to know them better, I cooked for them, I’ve talked with them, I… grew to like some of them.”

He took a pause, and Hange used this moment to push some food into her mouth. Just as she expected – it was finger-liking good. And it tasted even better, because she also had an intriguing story she could listen to while eating.

“And there is one person that I like most of all, more than anyone I had ever met. I’ve realized my feelings long ago - perhaps, they were born the moment that I set my eyes on her, perhaps, it was destiny that brought both of us together. And to think of it – a Marleyan and an Eldian. If someone had told me years ago that I’d fall for a devil from Paradis, I’d probably punch that person in the face, but look at me now…”

A Marleyan and an Eldian? Hange had heard that story before. Hopefully, Niccolo’s would have a happier ending.

“I wanted to confess to Sasha for a while now, but the time was never right, and I kept stalling… You know, I thought there was no reason to be hasty. but then Jean told me what happened during the attack on Liberio, how I almost lost Sasha and my chance to tell her how I truly feel, so…” Niccolo looked Hange in the eyes, his gaze shining with the love he had for Sasha. “I came to say thank you. For giving me another chance.”

Oh, what a sweetheart. Hange felt her chest warm at the sight of such devotion. She always was a sucker for a young, tender love.

“And?” she leaned over the table, eyes alight with curiosity. “What did Sasha say? She returned your feelings, right?”

“Um.” Niccolo brought a hand to his neck, rubbing the back of it. “I didn’t do it, didn’t, eh, confess. Yet.”

“And when—”

“Today,” he said, confidence returning to his voice. “I planned a dinner for Sasha, invited her family and friends. Actually… I wanted to invite you as well.”

Despite regret that spread through her, Hange curled her lips in a comforting, gentle smile. “Not the best idea, but I appreciate the thought. And,” she added, her smile turning into a cheeky grin. “I’ll be expecting another visit from you, where you’ll share all the details.”

Hange wished she could see it for herself – Niccolo standing before Sasha red in the face, stuttering his undoubtedly sweet confession, Sasha gasping, with her mouth opening in shock, their audience watching it all with a mix of mortification and amusement. Hange wished she could have the privilege of being the part of that audience, alongside a certain Captain, who would cringe horribly at the scene, unfolding before their eyes.

Hange wished— for many things. Alas…

“I’m sure your plan will work out perfectly, but just in case,” Hange winked, snickering, when she saw red spread through Niccolo’s cheeks. “Good luck.”

“Knowing Sasha’s friends… I’ll need all the luck I can get. But for now, I also need to get going, the dinner won’t prepare itself. So thank you once again.” Niccolo stood up, bowing his head. “For everything.”

“Make Sasha happy, that’s all the thanks I need.”

Niccolo nodded, showing her a smile. He headed to the door, and just before he left the room, Hange gave him thumbs up, wishing him luck once more.

As the door behind him closed, she slumped back in the chair and continued munching on her breakfast, a blissful expression appearing on her face.

So… not only a great cook, but also a romantic? Sasha was such a lucky girl.

___

Her next visitors were just as unexpected, and their conversation - a lot less pleasant. It was in that moment that Hange started to suspect that this day would take its rightful place in the collection of her awful ones. But she was far from knowing just how horrible it had the potential to become.

The moment that Armin tumbled inside the room without knocking, throwing the door open in his haste, and Mikasa trailed after him, her pace much slower but just as unsure, dread settled in Hange's stomach.

"Hange-san!" Armin was speaking in a quiet, but barely controlled voice. His chest moved rapidly, as he struggled to keep his breathing slow and even. Hange swallowed her worry, her thoughts running at a lighting speed. What could possibly have happened to make him so panicked? She chanced a look at Mikasa - the young girl wore the same guarded expression she always did, but her eyes kept shifting from side to side, hands clasped together tight enough to make her knuckles white. "We need to talk."

Hange gave them a cautious nod and stood up from the bed, the book she was reading moments ago all but forgotten now. Pieck's warning was loud in her mind, as her fear grew. Marley... they couldn't have attacked so swiftly, right?

Hange gestured for her guests to take their seats at the table that stood near the window. Absentmindedly, she wondered where Moblit was. He didn't show his face to her even once this day. What could he be so busy with?

"Your guard told us that you had a visitor today," Armin stiffly began. "Mind telling us who that was?"

Hange frowned, cocking her head to the side. If the guard told Armin about the visitor, didn't she also mention that it was Niccolo? The cooking boy had to be known around the barracks, if he was that close to Sasha.

"Niccolo came by, he wanted—"

"You mean, Marleyan came by." Armin corrected.

"Sasha's and your friend, if I understood properly," Hange protested.

"But he's Marleyan. Just like you."

So, Armin was accusing her. And not only her, but Niccolo too. Accusing them of conspiring, but for what purpose? By which means? Against who? Hange was so confused. Hange didn't understand. Armin was always so rational, so coolheaded. What could possibly make him so frantic? What drove him to such desperation, to such wild guesses?

"Armin..." any other time, with any other person who trusted her just a fraction more, Hange would have taken their hand in hers. She'd caress it gently, try to calm them down, but in Armin's state... Hange worried that it'd make matters even worse. "Armin," she repeated, lowering her voice ever so slightly, making it sound more trustworthy. "What happened?"

Armin didn't answer, lowering his eyes - in shame or indecisiveness, Hange couldn't guess. And so Mikasa took the word.

"Chief Zacklay is dead," she said. And if that wasn't mind-blowing enough, she added, "Eren escaped from the prison."

"Fuck."

What else was there to say? Everything was turned on its head - Paradis' biggest defender seemingly had gone completely off the rails. Hange wondered if the threat of Marley invasion was still the scariest crisis the island would have to face. The absence of the clear answer was… unnerving.

“We don’t know what to do, or where to look for Eren. That’s why… Armin hopes that you’ll shed some light on that.”

Armin hopes – an interesting choice of words. He didn’t think, didn’t speculate, didn’t hypothesize. He hoped – exhibited a desperate, illogical kind of feeling. So… it was that bad, huh?

“I know nothing about it.” Hange said truthfully. “As you’re aware I’m not even allowed to leave this room.”

“We know.” Mikasa agreed softly, pressing her hand to Armin’s. “But it’s hard to come to terms with it.”

“He is your friend.”

Hange didn’t understand what they were going through, she never had someone that close to her destroy the trust between them, but she knew it wasn’t easy. Eren had changed, Eren had already lied to them once, but he was their friend, they’ve spent years, believing him and in him. They couldn’t change their opinion of him in just one night, they couldn’t let a few mistakes kill what they had created over the course of their lives.

She couldn’t help but wonder if that’s how her friends felt. Was it just as hard to believe in her betrayal? Did Moblit and Levi feel just as lost and unsure? Were they just as desperate to come up with a reason for her behavior? Whatever they did, whatever they felt, Hange hoped she would never have to learn about it. She was miserable enough as it was.

But Eren knew what his friends were going through, had to be aware of the consequences of his actions, of what he was doing to his friends, how much he was hurting them. What drove him to his decision then? What happened to the boy with bright eyes and big heart?

“Do you have any idea what Eren is going to do?”

“I don’t think it’s Eren’s doing, Zeke is probably lying to him, but…” his eyes were still cast down, his finger weakly tracing some vague shapes, when Armin muttered, “Hange-san… do you by any chance know what rumbling is?”

Hange froze. Her throat constricted acutely, creating a quiet, choking sound. For one second, one terrifying second her heart stopped, ceasing its usual rhythm.

Rumbling? Did she hear correctly? Was Armin speaking the truth, did he mean what Hange was worried he meant?

Rumbling.

A short, but scary word. One that was mentioned in but a few frowned upon books. One that was only whispered amongst the members of Titan Society, too horrifying to speak it loud and clear. The word that meant death, the end of everything they knew about their world.

“We were meant to experiment with it,” Armin explained, wriggling his hands. “Nothing too serious, nothing too… devastating. Just a showcase of the power we yield, to keep the other nations on their toes. To keep them away from us. But ever since Zeke had appeared, Eren became so…”

Even since Zeke had appeared, Eren had decided to act on his own, distanced himself from his comrades and friends, joined forces with his brother. Hange would have believed, would have been convinced that the boy she once knew was incapable of such cruelty…

But Liberio, the heart of her homeland was standing in ruins. And it was Eren’s doing.

She narrowed her eyes, gave a scrutinizing look first to Armin, then to Mikasa. Hange really, really hoped that she was wrong. Against all sense, she hoped that they would drive away her doubts, that Eren’s closest friends knew him much more intimately than she ever could, that their opinion of him was right and just.

“Do you think he is capable of proceeding with it?”

“No,” Armin answered.

And the same time Mikasa said, “Yes.”

Yes, said the girl, who was in love with Eren, who was devoted to him above anything or anyone else. She said yes, spoke it quietly, in pained voice. But without a shadow of a doubt.

Hange shuddered.

She— they had to stop this. Somehow. Anyhow. Before it was too late.

"Eren can't activate the rumbling on his own," Hange mused out loud, biting at her thumb.

"Right," Armin confirmed. "He needs the bearer of the royal blood."

And that was good, that meant not all hope was lost. To go through with the rumbling, Eren had to find Zeke, and Zeke was out in the woods with Levi. He would never get away from Levi, and so the world was safe, but—

Zeke wasn't the only one with special blood. There was also—

Fuck.

"Historia, where is she?"

Armin's eyes widened, a gasp escaping him as he came to the same conclusion as Hange. "She arrived in the town... This morning."

And that was the morning Eren decided to make his escape. Hardly a coincidence.

"You don't think..." Armin began tentatively, his eyes pleading Hange to say that it was a joke, that she was wrong in her assumptions. She wished she could give him that reassurance.

"I don't know."

She didn't know what Eren's plan was, what was his goal, what was Zeke’s role in all of this. She didn't know what means Eren would use to ensure his success.

Would he go to his brother, would he trust him enough? Or would he go to Historia and risk hurting his friend?

And how Eren would get to them? Both Zeke and Historia were heavily guarded - Zeke as the hostage, Historia as a Queen and a future mother. But who was the easiest target?

With Levi being in charge of Zeke, Historia was an obvious choice, unless—

Hange swallowed heavily.

Unless Zeke was planning something too - some rouse, or a play, something that would fool Levi, make him lose his focus.

Make him lose Zeke.

And if that worked—

"Where is Historia?" Hange repeated that question. Hidden in the forest, theoretically, Levi was safe. He could hold his own in a fight against Zeke, Hange has seen him do just that in Liberio, even if some part of it was a spectacle. She also had seen Zeke after Shiganshina, personally tended to his wounds that refused to heal properly because of the amount of his injuries. Back then, every hiss of his was like a melody to Hange, a miniscule payback for the carnage he had born.

Zeke was far away from Eren, guarded by Levi. Hange had to trust him with that task. She had to hold onto hope that Levi would be safe. But Historia... Historia was another matter. She was here, close, and as good as her security was, they were not on par with humanity's strongest. They had to protect the Queen first.

"Historia chose this day to arrive because of Niccolo's invitation. She's probably in his restaurant, along with the others." Mikasa said.

So she wasn't alone, surrounded by soldiers and friends. Would that be enough to hold off Eren? Possibly, although, Hange wasn't sure.

But Eren was not alone, he had followers, the ones Moblit was so worried about. Would they be just as amicable? Would they not hurt the ones Eren cared so much about?

"Historia is our main priority. We have to go to the restaurant and make sure that—"

"We?" Armin interrupted.

Hange deflated. Of course, how could she forget? She wasn't their superior, their commander, their friend. There was no we. She was an outsider. She always were.

"I didn't mean to—"

"No." Mikasa curtly said. "We need you, Hange-san. We do," she repeated to Armin, who was already opening his mouth with a protest on his tongue. "We need all the help that we can get."

Armin studied Mikasa for a moment, then turned to face Hange, regarding her pensively. The intense look of his big blue eyes was unnerving, almost impossible to hold without flinching. There was a man Hange once knew with the same intent gaze. Oh, how she wished to see him again. He'd know what to do in a shitty ordeal they were facing right now.

"You're right," Armin sighed at last. "We might not have same goals or even enemies... but our concerns align. With you on our side, our chances are much higher. So, Hange Zoe," Armin offered his hand for a handshake. "Will you help us?"

An unlikely alliance then, huh? Hange could work with that.

She shook his hand with a smile.

___

Something was turning, twisting inside Hange on the way to the restaurant. Even the air seemed stiff, the landscape outside of the carriage bright, pretty but ominous all the same. Liberio - her city - looked just as lively before it got crushed.

And today, right now, she couldn't get that image out of her mind. The streets she walked through hundreds, thousands of times; bakeries she visited day after day; parks and playgrounds she admired from afar - everything was now gone, turned into debris, into nothing but broken stone and crushed glass.

And all of it - all the destruction, pain and blood and death - all of it was a courtesy of one Eren Yeager, the boy with bright eyes and passionate soul.

Would the same thing happen to another city? To all the cities in the world? To hundreds and millions of—

Hange took a deep breath, stopping herself before she screamed in fury, ripped something apart, overturned the carriage, or worse - started crying.

No. Nothing of the sort would happen to the other countries or their people. They would stop this— this catastrophe and Eren, and Zeke, and whoever else was involved. They would not allow another tragedy.

In the meanwhile, Hange did her damnest to focus on small, trivial things - the inside of the carriage, the bumps on the road, the subtle similarities between Mikasa and Levi, the sunbeam playing across Armin's face - anything to keep her mind from other, much scarier things. It didn’t really work.

"We are here," Armin announced, cutting through her morbid thoughts. He put a hand on her elbow - a tentative, but heartfelt gesture. Hange wondered just how disturbed she must have seemed to earn it.

"Let's go," she shook off all the worries, all of her fears. They weren't needed. They would slow her down, serve as a distraction, nuisance. And today, she had to be on her best. "We have no time to spare."

Mikasa and Armin seemed to be of the same opinion, and so the three of them left the carriage and started moving towards restaurant's entrance.

The place was much bigger than Hange had imagined it to be. She expected to see something small, but snug, something homely. But Niccolo's restaurant was grander than most buildings on Paradis. It didn't quite reach the luxurious and exquisite nature of restaurants in Marley, but— clearly, that was Niccolo's inspiration.

The restaurant - as big as it was - was packed, the merry sounds of laughter were heard even from the courtyard. People were celebrating, people came here to have some fun. Hange knew just how rare those instances were. And she hated being the one to put a stop to it. But she'd rather ruin someone's day and be wrong about her assumption or ruin someone's say and be right, than— Than not ruin someone's day, be right and waste precious time.

The three of them walked through the dark brown door, and instantly Niccolo stood in front of them, appearing seemingly out of thin air.

"Armin, Mikasa! I didn't think you'd make it! And you brought Hange with you!”

The happiness on his face was so endearing, so genuine. Hange was wrecked with sympathy for him. Niccolo was just a boy, who loved a girl, and decided that today of all days he'd make his feelings known. Unfortunately, the day he had picked turned out to be one of Hange's bad ones.

"Congratulations once again," Hange made sure to put on an extra gentle smile, in vain hope that it would soothe the effect of her next words. "But that's not why we are here."

"No?" the happiness was gone from Niccolo's face, suspicion overtaking it, but only for a second. Next came anger. "I thought we were over this," he leveled, glaring at Armin. "I thought we've already discussed everything you wanted. And I'm not going to deal with this bullshit again. Not today."

Niccolo whirled around, his leg raised to, no doubt, dramatically storm out. Mikasa's gravelly voice and a tight grip on his wrist stopped him. "If you don't want to ruin this day for Sasha, then take us to Queen Historia. Right now."

Oh. Even Hange felt shivers at that tone of voice, and the threat wasn't even directed at her. Was Levi teaching her his tricks? Or was every Ackerman just naturally good at being so scary?

Niccolo yanked his hand out of Mikasa's grasp, massaging it with a wounded expression. He didn't try to argue once again, though. And soon Hange, Armin and Mikasa were following after him to the banquet hall.

He took them through the lengthy hallway, past kitchen and washing room. At the edge of it, Hange could see two familiar figures - one tall, another short. They were standing next to a wooden cupboard, snickering quietly to each other. As they came closer, Hange realized that Jean and Connie were holding several bottles of wine, clearly having trouble choosing which one to open.

"Niccolo!" Connie yelled out, waving the bottles over his head. "Which one is better?"

"That's not for you, you idiots!" Niccolo snatched the bottles from their hands, his retort vicious— and more shaken than the situation truly called for. Any other day, Hange would have found it weird, would have paid more attention to it. Any day, but not during her bad day.

So she shrugged it off and after giving Jean and Connie a painfully awkward wave, continued following after Niccolo.

Once they were inside, Hange couldn't help but marvel at the amount of people gathered. There were lots of civilians, none of which Hange could recognize. And among them, there was a sea of green, representing the members of Survey Corps. Most of these faces were known to her. One of those faces in particular swiftly left the conversation he was having, gluing himself to her side.

"Hange-san? Armin? What is going on?"

Moblit had his mouth open, his eyes shifting between the three of them. Hange didn't know what he had seen there, what face she was making, but Moblit didn't ask another question, silently falling in step with them.

Sensing the change in the room, Jean and Connie hurried to do the same.

They all stopped in front of the table in the corner - one near the window and with a nice bouquet standing on it. The table was occupied by two - giggling Sasha, who was retelling some story in a rather animated fashion, and Historia, who listened to her friend with a joyful smile.

Looking at her, Hange couldn't help but be amazed. Last time she saw the girl, she had just become a Queen, still doubtful and unsure in her position. And, although, the woman before her eyes didn't look exactly royally – what, with her simple dress and long, loose hair - but Historia had certainly grown, become tougher, more confident in her abilities. However, she was still as pretty as a picture, and the motherhood had enhanced her beauty even further.

"Your Majesty," Hange was the first to take the word, but after that she faltered, not sure how to proceed further. Should she bow? Kneel before the Queen?

She was spared from making that decision. Because right in that moment, right when she was meaning to open her mouth and explain everything to Historia as curtly as was possible— her day turned from simply bad to straight up shitty.

"You!"

Familiar voice. The anger in it wasn't unusual too. Never before it was directed at her but—

Hange recognized the pride of Marley, the future Warrior right away. It was all she was allowed to do before getting promptly tackled to the ground.

"Traitor! Liar! How could you do that to us! How could you side with the devils?"

Gabi kicked and punched anything she could reach, accentuating her every word and accusation, but the blows were barely registered by Hange. She felt no pain, only huge amount of relief.

Gabi was furious, Gabi was loud. Gabi was alive and well.

A month, a whole month she spent worrying about these kids, only to have fate throw them back together in the most ludicrous way possible.

“Gabi,” despite her kicks, despite her loud shrieks, Hange smiled happily. She pulled the girl closer, wrapping one arm around her, while her other went to softly brush the girl’s hair. “Gabi, are you alright? You’re not hurt?”

“And why would you care?” Gabi suddenly sniffled, voice muffled by Hange’s shirt. “You never cared about us, did you? Only about those devils!”

“Gabi…” Hange sighed, finding herself at a loss of words. How could she explain something so complicated? Something she couldn’t understand herself?

Luckily, an unexpected help arrived.

"Don’t judge too harshly, child. You may not understand it yet, but humans' hearts are tricky things. No rules apply to them, they never listen to reason. They don't act like we want them to. They create emotions, make our lives brighter, and at the same time... So much more confusing. And accusing someone of caring for the wrong person… it’s just not right."

Hange looked up, surprised to see a middle-aged man standing before her. She was fairly sure that she had never met him before, but his eyes, his manner of speaking... Somehow, they were familiar.

Before she could connect the dots, however, her attention was ripped away once more, this time by Niccolo's deep voice.

"Eldians, Marleyans," he scoffed. "All of us are vile, devil is in each and every one of us. We're all imperfect, but all of us yearn to find the place where we belong, where we're loved. We don't choose who these people would be, we love others for what they are, not what they represent, or what side of the conflict they come from. And if loving my enemy is treason, I’ll gladly go down as a traitor."

Niccolo glanced back, meeting the eyes of the one he had dedicated this speech to. Hange caught Sasha’s bewildered, loving look and smiled, feeling her eyes go misty.

So, Marleyan and Eldian? Was a union like that even possible? Four years ago, on the dawn of the day when she left the one she loved the most behind, she'd say that it would never work out. But... times were changing, right? For the better, or so, at least, Hange hoped.

"Hange-san..." Moblit crouched beside her, painfully awkward. "Erm..."

Oh right. Only now, Hange realized that she was still lying on the floor. And that in on itself wasn't so unusual, but most of the times... she didn't have a ten or so pairs of eyes watching her.

Hange cleared her throat. Then, as absurdity of the situation caught up with her, snickered quietly.

"Hey, Gab," she stroked the girl's side. "Would you mind letting me get up?"

Gabi rose on her elbows, considering Hange. The frown on her face didn't vanish, but— her eyes weren't so full of rage anymore - clearly, the speeches had left an impression on her.

"I'm still mad at you," she said, lip stuck out petulantly. "But... I'm glad that you're here. Because it means they're coming for us, right? Commander Magath and Reiner— Reiner will save us, right? We just need to wait for a little longer, until they arrive."

They're already here, Hange wanted to say. If Pieck came, there was no way that Reiner would want to sit that one out— or be allowed to, anyway. Marley was coming, their guns blazing. But in the room full of members of the Survey Corps and Queen herself, Hange couldn’t say that, wasn’t yet ready to betray her country like that. She could only kiss Gabi's brow and promise, "You will be alright."

Reassured, Gabi nodded and let Hange get up. As soon as her feet had touched the ground, Hange found herself with someone once again wrapped around her. This time, however, the embrace was that much warmer and a lot less violent.

"Falco," she carded her fingers through his sandy blonde hair. "I take it you've missed me too?"

"You can't imagine," he spoke, his face pressed to her stomach. "Going on missions with Gabi is a torture! I could barely keep up with her!"

"You'll learn with time," Hange looked back, exchanging a look with Moblit. "It's not that hard to deal with annoying shits like us, right, Mob?"

He tugged at his collar, strategically evading her curious eyes. "Perhaps, after a very long while..." he reached out, patting Falco's shoulder. "And with the help of a good alcohol stash."

"Oi!" Hange slapped his arm. "He's only a kid!"

Moblit shrugged. "He has to know what is waiting for him."

"Don't listen to him," she gently consoled Falco. "He's joking."

Although... Hange had to agree with Moblit on that. If Falco continues running after Gabi like that, he'd have his first grey hair by the age of fifteen.

With the boy still clinging to her, Hange surveyed the room, swiping her gaze across Sasha and Niccolo, who stood side by side, wearing identical, enamored expressions, to Connie and Jean, who were whispering something to one another, and finally to Mikasa and Armin, who hid Historia behind their backs.

Right. She didn't come here for a cheerful reunion. The fate of the world was at stake. Hange pulled herself together and— pulled Falco away from her.

"Sorry, dear," she fondly ruffled his hair once again. "I need to go now, but I'll get back to you."

Could she do, though? Could she return to these kids, ask them to be placed under her care? Should she do it, considering that she didn't even know what was going to happen to her, where would she be one hour from now? Was it wise then to drag kids along with her? They were sharp and strong, more than capable, and they did survive on their own for so long— wait.

How did they manage to survive on a foreign soil, all by themselves? And why they were here today, in Niccolo's restaurant of all places?

"I guess these ducklings are yours?"

Oh. The familiar man that Hange had never seen was back, now standing in front of Hange, showing her a kind smile.

"We haven't been introduced, but it's hard to mistake you for someone else. Hange Zoe, right?"

"Right," Hange shook his warm, calloused hand. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Braus."

"The accent was a dead giveaway, huh?" he laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He had a nice laugh, Hange decided, deep, heartfelt and genuine. She liked Mr. Braus, just as much as she liked his daughter.

"I understand that you're the one who had taken care of my ducklings," Hange giggled, catching Gabi's very much unamused look. "Thank you for that."

"And thank you for saving my daughter's life. For that deed I could never repay you."

"That was... that was nothing. I did nothing, just happened to be in the right place, in the right time."

"It's only because of you that we're here, celebrating, instead of mourning. So," he gripped her shoulder tightly, his brown eyes staring into hers intently. "Let me express my gratitude, for that is the smallest thing that I can do."

"I think," Connie inserted himself between them, his mischievous smile lighting up the room. "This calls for a toast!"

No more than a second later, Jean had produced a bottle of wine, opening it swiftly and skillfully. Once the bottle was dealt with, he filled a glass with wine, thrusting it to the person standing closest to him. Which— happened to be Gabi.

She took all but a tentative sniff from the glass, before it was roughly yanked out of her hands. The drink splashed everywhere as Falco hurried to finish it, before Gabi caught up and took it away from him.

There was just as a couple of droplets left, everyone watched the scene in amusement, until—

Until Niccolo screamed.

He pounced from his place, wrestling the bottle out of Jean’s hands. “It’s not for you, morons! I told you not to touch it!”

Ice spread through Hange’s veins, as she heard the desperation in his voice. If her first thought was the right one… she had to make sure of it immediately.

“Who that wine was meant for?” she seethed, grabbing Niccolo by lapels of his shirt, suffocating him in her white-knuckled grip and currently not caring about it. Everyone in the room tensed, Sasha jumping closer to them, but Hange didn’t care, ignored all of them completely. “Who that wine was meant for?” she shouted, shaking the boy like a ragdoll.

“F-for the military officials! It’s the good stuff, expensive, it was meant only for them!”

The good stuff, the best one they got, Hange reasoned. The next question was pointless, she knew the answer already, was the one who came up with this idea in the first place, but— Niccolo was a good guy, a sweet boy in love with a kind girl. Hange wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“What’s wrong with the wine?”

And that was it. That’s all she had to do to get to the bottom of it. One short, simple question, and Niccolo crumbled. He didn’t try to fight her, made no attempts to protect himself. He hanged his head in shame, avoiding the dozen pairs of eyes that now were boring into him.

“They made me do it,” he whispered, his hands, his lips— his whole body shaking. “I had no choice, you wouldn’t understand—”

Oh, but Hange did understand. Better than Niccolo knew. She knew how it felt to be forced to follow the current, accept every cruel tide. She knew just how frustrating, how painful it was to lose control.

So yeah, Hange understood. But she could not excuse.

However, she had no place to judge as well, she herself was a reason for so many tragedies and disasters. She couldn’t judge, and she didn’t have the time for it. The deed was already done, now they had to try and undo it.

“Who gave you the orders?”

The spine fluid, injected into wine, came from Zeke, that Hange had no doubt about, but Zeke was far away, deep in the forest, under Levi’s watchful eyes. So who had redistributed the wine? Who was the betrayer, the real culprit?

“It’s—”

He didn’t get to finish. For only now Hange had realized what had happened moments prior. Falco drank the wine. Falco. Drank. The. Wine.

Her heart thumping, Hange pushed Niccolo away, grabbing Falco’s hand instead. Armin, Mikasa, the Queen, let someone else deal with that shit, for now she had to try and delay the inevitable. She looked around, her eyes wild, mind racing. “Where— where is the bathroom or— or a—”

“I’ll show you.”

It was Moblit’s quiet, reassuring voice. He gripped her elbow gently, taking her away. Hange let herself be led, rubbing soothing circles into Falco’s palm all the while. She didn’t know what do, wasn’t even sure that spinal fluid can be taken out of someone’s system, but she’d be damned if she wouldn’t at least try. Falco, sweet, smart Falco, he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to be turned into a Titan, a mindless creature with no loyalties and feelings. Hange wouldn’t allow it, she was ready to do the impossible and then more to save the little boy.

Once they reached the bathroom, Hange set out to work - took off her coat, rolled the sleeves of her shirt, sat Falco down on a stool, pushed his head under the faucet, instructed him to try and rinse all the wine out.

It was possibly entirely pointless, Hange was pretty sure of it— but. What else could she do? Sit tightly and wait for the young life to vanish?

"That thing in the wine..." Moblit spoke up - calmly, but defeated, as though he had already surrendered to whatever tragedy that would befall him. "It's bad, isn't it?"

Hange tensed. Hange jumped to her feet, fisting her hand into Moblit's shirt so desperately, the fabric creaked in protest.

"Moblit," she croaked, her voice shaking, broken, eyes begging him to say that he was joking, that his inquiry was simple curiosity. "Moblit, did you drink that wine?"

"It was served at every government meeting. I couldn't refuse."

No. No. Hange couldn't believe, didn't want to believe it, Moblit— not Moblit, she didn't want him to fall victim to this, become another casualty in her long, extremely bloody career. Anyone else, but not— not him.

"It's the same tactic we used in Ragako village," she explained numbly. "Back then it was gas, this time the fluid that turns people into Titans was added into wine. It activates after Zeke screams."

"Ah," Moblit shook his head, a faint smile on his lips. "If - when - I turn, you could experiment on me. Just— don't give me a stupid name like Sawney or Bean, I'd like, I think, I'd like to be called Moblit. If I'd still have some semblance of consciousness by that time, if not - you can call me whatever you—"

"Shut up." Hange choked, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She ignored them, glaring fiercely at him. "Shut the fuck up, Moblit, you will not turn into a Titan, I will not allow it, I'll do whatever I can—"

"Hange-san," he smiled, and it broke her heart. "It will be okay."

It won't. Because it was her damn creation, made to defeat faceless, unknown enemies. And now it was used against people she cared about.

She had to do something about it. With a start Hange realized that the solution was... fairly easy.

"Avoid Zeke at all costs." She told Moblit, urgency turning her speech more frantic. "Don't go near him, try— try to get away if he gets into city—"

But Zeke couldn't get into the city. Zeke couldn't get out of the forest at all, couldn't make a single move without Levi knowing it.

Levi was the solution. He would keep Zeke under his guard, he would keep Moblit, and the rest of them, safe. Hange finally could take a breath.

But the calm didn't last for long.

As soon as she returned to Falco's side to check on the boy's condition, a loud crash came from somewhere deep within the restaurant. Hange heard the sound of hurried footsteps, then a concerning scream.

She exchanged a look with Moblit. Both of them started running at the same moment.

When they tumbled inside the main room, they froze in shock.

Sasha's family, members of Survey Corps and among them— soldiers with rifles. Hange scanned the room once more, her eyes travelling further, to the table by the window. She breathed out in relief - Historia was guarded by Connie and Jean. At least, the Queen was safe.

But not the rest of them.

"Squad Leader Moblit," the ginger head took a step towards them, a too wide smile plastered on his face. Hange didn't like that man and his smile. And the gun in his hands. The gun that was now aimed at the ceiling but could be very well aimed at Moblit, or anyone else in that room. “You’re the one I need.”

Moblit inched closer too, his chin held high and eyes defiant. Hange didn’t miss the fact that his movement hid her behind his broad shoulders. Oh, loyal, caring Moblit. How could she leave him to his fate?

“I’m here,” he leveled to the redhead. “What do you need me for, Floch?”

If it wasn’t for the gun in his hands, or the smile on his face, the way Moblit spelled his name – the obvious aversion, unhidden contempt was enough for Hange to understand that this Floch guy wasn’t very nice. And, despite the Wings of Freedom on his back, he certainly wasn’t Moblit’s friend.

So. That was one of the famed Yeagerists? And the rest of them, the ones that held civilians on gunpoint were the part of the same group? Hange was so not impressed.

“You’re buddies with Captain Levi,” Floch continued. “That means you know exactly where he is hiding.”

“Perhaps.” Moblit nodded. “But what makes you think that I will tell you?”

Floch’s smile grew, and the gun that was held lazily in his hand, pointing at the empty air, moved. It was lowered down, its barrel now staring right at Moblit. But the gun didn’t stop there, it moved again, shifting just a little to the side. To where Hange was standing.

“Hange Zoe, right?” Floch tilted his head, so he could look straight at her. “I didn’t have the pleasure to make your acquaintance before, but I’m glad that life threw us all together. Especially now, for you see…” he lifted a hand, and a soldier took his place, his rifle raised, while Floch paced from side to side. “I’m not allowed to hurt them,” first he pointed at Jean and Connie. “Or her,” now at Historia. “I’m, however, allowed to do with the others whatever I want. And since hurting our dear Squad Leader Moblit wouldn’t bear the needed results…” he spread his arms, shrugging helplessly. “No one would miss a traitor, right?”

“Don’t you dare!” Moblit surged forward, shoulders shaking from the unbridled fury. But he made no more than a few steps, before he was immobilized, two soldiers coming from behind to grab his arms and twist them painfully. Moblit didn’t back up even then, continuing his fierce resistance. “Leave her out of this!”

“Ah, yes,” Floch chuckled to himself, observing Moblit’s struggling with morbid fascination. “The luck is surely on our side today. You will be useful after all, Hange Zoe. We will take you with us.”

No sooner than these words left his mouth, Hange felt a pair of hands around her, subduing and enabling to make a single move. She thrashed, she kicked, but to no avail.

“Floch—” Moblit grounded, pulling on his restraints.

“Don’t you worry,” Floch squeezed Moblit’s shoulder, showing him a look of feigned affection. “No one is going to get hurt, if you cooperate.”

No. They couldn’t cooperate. Cooperating meant leading Floch and his bunch to Zeke, and that meant leading them to Levi.

“Mob! Don’t listen to him! We can’t–” instinctively, momentarily forgetting about the arms that held her down, Hange reached out to him, trying to catch his eyes.

But Moblit turned his face to the other side, avoiding her gaze. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I can’t let you get hurt.”

Ah. Hange’s heart sunk, while Floch clasped his hands in delight.

“I’m glad you’ve made the right choice! And now,” he raised a finger, and Hange with Moblit were forced to move forward. “Let’s get going!”

___

Outside, the weather changed. The sun hid behind the heavy, grey clouds, the rain was now steadily falling down, creating puddles under their feet.

The gloomy weather further enhanced the trepidation inside Hange. The feeling, the certainty that something was going to get very wrong and very fast persisted, forcing her to grab the reins of the horse tighter, in vain hope of providing some miniscule outlet to her ever growing anxiety.

Despite the fear, Hange spurred her horse forward, doing her best to ignore the rifles pointed at her back. It was proving to be quite a vexing task, when the said rifles kept pushing her to move even faster but— it wasn’t the worst situation Hange had found herself in. That time when she and Zeke were captured by the enemy forces and put inside a fortified prison was so much worse. The prison had anti-Titan artillery surround the perimeter, they were alone and cut off from their allies. And still they managed to escape. Compared to that, a few Yeagerists were nothing.

Although, Hange had to admit – the stories did them no justice. In reality they were a lot more vile and disgusting.

But, apparently, Levi still trained some of them. And, boy, did he teach them well. One soldier behind Hange kept huffing, cursing the weather under his breath. Hange waited, and when he once again got distracted by the mud that splashed on his boot, she thanked Levi for his absurd obsession with cleanliness and acted, stealing that little moment for herself.

“Hey,” she leaned closer to Moblit who was riding right beside her, and whispered to him in a voice just slightly louder than the sound of the rain. “Remember that thing we did during Erwin’s coup-d'etat?”

Moblit winced, anxiety reflecting in his eyes. “When we punched people that were armed with rifles?”

Hange grinned. Atta boy, of course, he remembered. “I’ll give you a signal,” she nodded discreetly and returned to her previous position, now directing all of her attention on their fearless, redheaded leader.

“So Zeke is your main goal, right? You don’t actually need Historia?”

Floch scoffed, rising his nose up in distain. “The Queen is a back-up plan.” Wow, getting information out of them was that easy? Some devoted followers they were. Hange continued listening, eager to know what else Floch would reveal. “We’re not sure what exactly is going to happen, and Eren… doesn’t like hurting his friends.”

They weren’t sure what was going to happen. Only for these words Hange was ready to throttle each and one of them. What was going to happen? Mass destruction and death, a lot of unnecessary deaths.

But did these children care? Of course, they didn’t.

And would Zeke care about it? Hange wasn’t sure. Zeke was many things – cruel, violent, heartless, he never cared that much about other people. However, he was his father’s son, and, as much as he had loathed Grisha Yeager, Zeke still carried around the hero complex that his father fought so hard to plant inside him. Was it possible then that Zeke would be against the rumbling? Was it possible that he didn’t know of Eren’s true intention, that he blindly trusted his little brother?

Was it possible that their goals didn’t align? If so… then Zeke was a key player in this game of chess. He was a powerful figure they had to get on their side. If Hange could talk to him—

A loud sound, a crashing bang interrupted the flow of her thoughts, making her jump in the saddle.

That noise, it was similar to a thunder, but not quite. Hange knew that sound all too well, was the one who created the devise that was activated with the very same sound.

It couldn’t be— that noise couldn’t come from a thunder spear explosion. But… what other explanation was there?

“Let’s head there!” Floch commanded. “Something must have happened.”

Hange’s heart raced as they inched closer and closer to the place where the sound had come from. It wasn’t hard to find, the gory sight of the poor, wounded horse and the blasted cart was easy to spot.

They approached it slowly, and suddenly Hange froze, her eyes landing on something near the riverbank. Something that looked a lot like a body – a short one with strong stature and black hair—

“Moblit,” she whispered, begging him to clear her suspicions, to reassure her that she was mistaken.

But Moblit pursed his lips, and shook his head – brief, but resolute.

For a second, Hange froze, overcome with desperation and fear. Her heart stopped too, if just for a moment.

Levi, he couldn’t— but what if he did?

Ignoring the insistent shouts and strict orders to come back, Hange jumped off the horse, scrambling to get closer to the riverbank and to him.

She fell into the mud, uncaring of her clothes, of the mud she was splashing around. She felt nothing, the rain, the river, her captors, it all faded into background. She cared for nothing else, except the limp body in her hands.

Oh, please, please, please.

Her hands trembled as she turned the body to face her, careful as she could be. A bloody mess, her personal nightmare stared right back to her.

And in that moment— Hange felt her heart break, ripping, shuttering into thousands pieces. She thought she knew loss before, she thought she knew what pain was.

She was so wrong.

#i think it's the longest chapter of this fic for now?#so ummmmm enjoy!#levihan

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foradnama · 2 years ago

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M A E V E - W E S T

Name: Maeve Joanna West Nickname: Mae, MeeVee (by her father) Age: 34 Birthday: December 22nd Zodiac: Capricorn Occupation: Owner of TRANSCEND Gym Sexuality: Bisexual Relationship Status: Single

BIOGRAPHY

tw parentification, tw violence/gore, tw parental abuse

There is something to be said about thinking there is normalcy in sitting at the edge of a gym parking lot after spending the better half of the evening waiting for your father to pick you up from school. An afterthought; it’s a concept that has lingered, clinging through most of Maeve West’s life. From the time she was born as an accidental ‘I didn’t know I was pregnant’ baby between two people who should have never been together, to the mother who promised to take her out on playdates only to never answer her phone, she spent the better half of her youth taking care of not only herself, but her father.

Jeremiah had the dream of being a professional wrestler in the same universe as Hulk Hogan and Macho Man. Despite the fact that he wouldn’t get beyond the local gyms and the ‘you owe me’ substitutions, he followed his dream all the way to the proverbial grave. Maeve would attend every single practice, show, after show, and financial hardship — because there was nowhere else for her to go. Sometimes he would forget that she was at school. Sometimes she would give up a dance or seven in order to support his career — and his face, as the injuries were always grave and cheap.

Once she entered her teens, Maeve became a reckoning at school. Suspended, expelled, and suspended multiple times at the school a town over, she constantly found herself using her fists instead of her words to anyone who tried to say something about her faded clothes or matted hair. Jeremiah wouldn’t show at the disciplinary meetings, appointing Maeve her very own teacher to watch over her as a guardian. The closest to a normal parent she could ever have, she ditched high school and instead decided to get into fighting professional herself.

Not just for stage, but the real deal. Real knuckles, real blood, real consequence.

Fights brought in a decent amount of money. Way more money than her old man was making, which had unfortunately put them out of commission due to the fact that he nearly broke his spine by a planned spot gone horribly wrong. Eventually returning to school to get her GED, Maeve took business classes at a local community university while pushing herself into MMA-oriented fighting rings to make extra while trying to do it all.

Her father remarried a woman he met at a bar only eleven days prior and moved in with her, allowing Maeve the opportunity to stand on her own two legs without the threat of weight crushing her. She signed to become the owner of a gym, lovingly named TRANSCEND, and currently runs a small but tight ship. She still fights at the tournaments she hosts, unable to fully rid herself of old habits.

PERSONALITY

+ diligent, reliable - combative, cruel

FUN FACTS.

bisexual but doesn’t really identify as any set label openly as sexuality is more fluid in her eyes / not her main focus

her baseline threshold for bullshit tolerance is comically low

always sneezes five times in a row

compulsively cracks her knuckles from undiagnosed anxiety

wears the same seven outfits in her wardrobe

has broken twelve bones, her nose twice

WANTED CONNECTIONS

childhood friends who knew her while things were tough with her dad

wrestling fans who may know the local jeremiah west

people who have memberships to TRANSCEND / interested parties

staff of TRANSCEND or just sponsorship business owners who get a free membership from helping her out with the business

someone she owes money to / is indebted to as she has a lot of debts collected in that closet

enemies who can’t stand her, that’s totally cool w/me bc she can be obnoxious SKJDFKSDF come 1 v 1 fight her bro

a confidante, someone she allows herself to be slightly vulnerable to

a mentor

some spicy stuff

ANYTHING, THIS GIRL IS MEEEESSSYYYYY

#i; maeve #character bio #indie rp #fc: deborah ann woll #bc my blog isn't working with javascript rn oops

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thelordofdarkreunion · 4 years ago

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Magnificent Scoundrels- Of Humans and Demons

It had been quite a while since I’ve came out with a story. In this, we have the explanation of what is happening in two of the galaxies concerning the shenanigans bringing them all together, as well as the more supernatural side of all of them. As usual, I do not own anything except Thomas Drake and his universe. Enjoy the story.

“Speak softly and carry a big stick.” -Theodore Roosevelt

Empyrean Iris Galaxy

Rundi Homeworld, Seat of the Galactic Assembly

“Nervous?”

“Actually, no. Not really.”

“Figures. First human to make contact with extraterrestrial life, now the first person to meet the newcomers from these new galaxies. Nothing fazes you,” Admiral Kelly sighed. Admiral Vir, dressed in an immaculately pressed grey uniform, grinned.

“They said space was the final frontier. As it turns out, we’ve got eight new galaxies out there. Life just got a lot more complicated. But, honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. More fun! More exploring!” said Vir.

“It takes all kinds, I suppose. But you have to deal with briefing the Assembly,” replied Kelly. “And deal with their possible reactions to the fact that they might not be the top dogs anymore,” she added as an afterthought.

“True,” sighed Vir. “The worst part of the job, by far.” A younger human officer stepped into the small, well lit room outside the main council chambers and turned to the Admirals.

“Admiral Vir, sir. The Assembly is ready.” He clutched his hands together, nervous to be in the presence of a living legend.

“Thank you,” replied Vir politely. He strode forward, only to pause briefly and look back at Kelly with a grin. “Oh, by the way, Star Wars is real.”

“Wait...what?”

He walked into the council chambers, radiating an aura of careful calmness. He looked to the seats where the various delegates from all the different species in the galaxy sat, looking slightly wistfully at the human section, wishing he could be there instead of standing alone at the head of the council. But, like he had said earlier, it went with the job, and he was the only person to make contact with the denizens of the other galaxies. He reached the speaker’s podium, and, after the usual useless bureaucratic formalities were made, began.

“Esteemed members of the Galactic Assembly, I am sure you have noticed that we are no longer the only populated galaxy within this universe. Approximately a month ago, an extreme anomaly caused nine different galaxies, including our own, from nine separate universes to co-exist in one singular universe. I come before you today, having met with people from each of the galaxies to brief you on the various governments from these other galaxies, what they are like, and what you should expect.” He paused for a moment. Perhaps he had used the word ‘galaxy’ too much in that speech? No. He had to be extremely specific, even at the risk of sounding redundant. “It should be noted that, interestingly enough, humans exist in all of these realities.” That drew a round of nervous murmerings. Humans were one of the newest additions to the Assembly, and were by far one of the more powerful and dangerous member races. Come to think of it, I might be lucky if they don’t start a riot over this, he mused.

“It should also be noted that, coincidentally, several of these new realities share similarities with old human stories. Should you wish to know more, the appropriate media has been forwarded to you.”

��Now, on to the main briefing.” Several delegates leaned forward in their seats expectantly. Notepads, recording devices, or computers were taken from their holding places. Adam cleared his throat. “This is what we have deemed Galaxy One…”

And so the briefing went on. He told them of the people he’d met, gave them the anatomical reports on new species of aliens. And, most importantly, he told them of their counterparts. Told them of both the good and the worrying.

The Galactic Empire: a fracturing, militaristic pro-human superpower that used to rule Galaxy 1.

The New Republic: a pro-democratic group that opposed and overthrew the Empire from Galaxy 1.

The United Federation of Planets: a peaceful yet technologically powerful group where all species were equal in Galaxy 3.

The Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation: a massive, privately funded mega-corporation that effectively ruled Earth and humanity in Galaxy 7.

The Covenant: a theocratic coalition of aliens dedicated to activating a series of devastating WMD’s in the belief that it would cause their ascension in Galaxy 4.

The Imperium of Man: a theocratic, xenophobic, militaristic pro-human superpower fighting an endless war against all comers in Galaxy 6.

The list went on, and on, and on. As each different government was mentioned, a map of their territories, capabilities, species, and symbol flashed on a centrally located holographic projector.

“Now, the next part is this. We have received word from the Citadel Council, the reigning government in what we have dubbed Galaxy 5, asking us to come to their capital for peaceful negotiations. They seem to be extremely similar to our own government, in the sense that they are a galaxy-spanning federation including multiple species. While I am no diplomat; that would be your area of expertise, the information we have gathered has led us to believe that this government in particular, and two others are the most similar to us and would be the best to ally with.” The room filled with hushed murmurings. The Drev delegate spoke up.

“And what is to stop all you humans from ending up like this? Or this?” He tapped a button, and the six-spoked circle of the Galactic Empire and the double-headed golden eagle of the Imperium of Man flashed to life on the console. “As there are humans in all of these galaxies, you could band together and wipe the rest of us out. What’s to stop you?” Vir paused for a moment.

“Because, being human is all about individuality. We have no collective. Our societies change all the time throughout history. It is often not a story of unity. In the end, a human is whatever it wants to be. The humans of this new reality are probably just as different to each other as all the other species are. And, because we are an individualistic species, the chances of us uniting under one banner to conquer not only one but nine different galaxies is not going to happen.” He looked out at all the different delegates, all the different aliens he had come to appreciate over so long. “One other thing. Most humans have a great sense of right and wrong. Something that many of you have come to appreciate over the time we’ve been in the Assembly, I’m sure. We know that to take your land, to kill your people, is wrong. And, as I said before, humans are different. There are evil and bad humans in this reality; there always have been good ones as well. The same still applies. While some of these humans will want to take from you everything, humans like me will always be there to fight by your side against tyranny.” The room broke into applause. Sometimes good speeches weren't about grandiose words. Sometimes they were simply there to get a point across. And Admiral Adam Vir was a master at that type of speaking.

He sighed to himself. No bad. There wouldn’t be any riots. Probably. Hopefully. He went on with his briefing, pausing slightly to wonder if similar things were happening in the other galaxies...

“I want one simple thing: money. I will tell you what I want; everyone knows what I want. But the people you call saviors, the ones who you think will deliver you and raise you up, they want something else. They want complete and utter control over every aspect of your life. And when you naive fools put them into power, in a short time you will miss my kind. But I will be dead, and you will be damned, because you never thought through the consequences of your actions.” -Martin Crossgrow

Aboard the Apocalypse

Thomas Drake sat in his quarters. The room was an odd combination of styles, with austere and sleek metal plating contrasting with the rustic stonework of a large electric fireplace and the handsome woodwork of the furniture. He sat before a large video screen, barely the width of a piece of paper. His black hair was immaculate, as always, and his deep blue eyes stared from underneath a brow furrowed with concentration. His fingers flew across a holographic keyboard, inputting the correct security procedures. A mesh of invisible, interlocking and ever-changing computer algorithms flashed across the screen. Good. Even if someone were to try and break into his ship’s computers, they would not find records of what he was doing. They could not. He pressed a few more keys, then waited.

Waited for one person. His...sponsor. For lack of a better word. The head of the most powerful corporation in his galaxy. The head of the Guild of Merchants, the corporate oligarchy that ruled the space in between the Galactic Federation and the Empire of Prosium. Ultra-capitalists to a somewhat disturbing extent, it was they who controlled most of the galaxy’s comperce, built most of the products, and of course, paid the most.

A series of chimes, repeating the same notes, sounded. They sounded faster, quicker, humming together, until one long, high, note sang out. The computer screen flashed from black with lines of green coding to reveal a face.

It was that of a man, skin pale from never seeing the warm kiss of a sun, pale from never leaving building complexes. It was old, with receding white hair and skin starting to sag, but the face and the eyes did not betray this age. They burned with energy, arrogance and contempt. Not the misplaced arrogance and perceived invincibility of youth, or the kind energy of an honest worker. No. These eyes shone with an arrogance of age and assurity, the arrogance of a man who knew with absolute certainty he was better and more powerful than anyone else. These eyes now turned to Thomas Drake, and took on a new expression. That of a superior looking on at a trusted subordinate.

“Captain Drake. How are you?” spoke the calm voice of Martin Crossgrow.

“I’m doing well, Mr. Crossgrow,” replied Drake.

“Wonderful. Now, what do you have for me?”

“Information. As per usual. Stocks, governments, companies...entities. In some cases.” Crossgrow gave an appreciative nod.

“Excellent. Your usual fee will be transferred to your account when the information reaches me.”

“Good. I wanted to warn you, though. In some of these new realities, there are...things. Things of...supernatural power. I’m getting you as much information as I can on them, so as to be better prepared if and when confronted.” At this, Crossgrow laughed, a low, dry, chuckle.

“I’m not afraid of the supernatural. If it does exist in these new galaxies, then there are people who will know how to fight it in those galaxies. And every man has a price. So if the time comes, I merely must pay that price. It’s simple.” Drake said nothing. He knew it wouldn’t be quite that simple. But he also knew that disagreeing with the head of the most powerful corporation in the galaxy, and his highest paying employer, was not a wise decision.

“If that’s how you play it, then that’s how you play it. But I think I need more information. Places, organizations with knowledge, information. That’s what I must find.” Crossgrow made a harrumph noise in his throat.

“Well, in the meantime, tell me about the financial side to these new places.”

“Of course. The biggest threat to the Guild is probably the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation. Monopoly. Rules humanity in one of these other galaxies. Produces quite powerful and interesting war machines. I’ve got the schematics for one type.” This elicited a laugh.

“I’m reasonably sure that you stole that from one of your...what do you call them…” he paused for a moment, then snapped his fingers in realization. “Ah, Scoundrels! Didn’t you?” Drake shrugged.

“Of course. It’s being sent to you as we speak. I’ve also got…” he trailed off as he tapped several buttons on his wrist computer. “Schematics for…” He looked up and grinned. “Chainsaw swords, plasma swords, rechargeable laser weaponry, jetpack boots, laser weapons that run off of explosive gasses, contractible body armor, high-quality medical gel that heals wounds almost instantly, cybernetic super-soldier armor, three types of personal shields, teleporters, omnitools, so-called ‘phaser weaponry’, two types of power armor, and the blood readouts from biotics, pariahs, and SPARTANs.” He held up a hand to forestall Crossgrow’s confused look at the last three items on the list. “It’s all described in the report.”

“Ah, very good. Very good, indeed, Captain Drake.” A slightly amused look crossed Crossgrow’s face. “Although, won’t your compatriots be upset if they knew you were selling their secrets?” Drake smiled in response.

“If they ever found out.” HIs smile grew wider, and both he and Crossgrow repeated the mantra in perfect synchronization. “Besides, that’s just. Good. Business.”

“Forget everything you think you know.” -Karl Mordo, upon Dr. Strange’s arrival in Kamar-Taj

Marvel Galaxy

Earth

The New York Sanctum

Doctor Steven Strange was a wizard. Not “wizard” in the sense that he was extremely good at something, like “technological wizard” or “engineering wizard”, but a literal magic wizard. Once upon a time, he had been a prestigious surgeon, but that had all ended in the fires of a car crash. He had traveled the world, trying to heal his broken body, and stumbled on a place that taught actual, real, magic.

Through a strange series of events, he had mastered these “mystical arts” and become the head of Earth’s sorcerers. It was his job to defend the planet and all its inhabitants from any and all magic or extra-dimensional threats. This, of course, was now a particular problem, seeing as eight different realities from different dimensions now existed in the same material universe as his reality did. Now he had eight new galaxies to take care of, and possible threats from all of them to fight.

Wonderful.

He sighed to himself. Might as well get started. Get it done with. Hopefully he didn’t get eaten. He breathed in, breathed out, his mind calm, tranquil. His heavy red cloak billowed around him, lifting him in the air as he took a cross-legged position. One more deep breath. He drew upon his power, and allowed his mind to roam. Not freely, of course. Silently. His metal defenses were high. No entities, no beings, could tune onto the small signature he emitted. It took practice, hours upon hours of it, combined with an innate talent to disguise one’s mental signature so.

He floated, his mind calm. Thoughts, emotions, feelings… Interesting. They all flitted through his brain, caressing the edges of his mind. Nothing for now. He roamed higher. Opened his mind to beyond his Earth, beyond his reality...and was immediately assaulted, battered, his mind tossed around like a cork upon an ocean. Travesty, glory, tragedy, celebration, hatred, hope, love, rage… He wanted to scream. He did not. He merely steeled his mental defenses, clamping down on the sanity of his own brain.

He saw...darkness crashing against light. An eternal battle, observed by one. Something larger at play. Something he did not, could not comprehend. Time began, the beginning played out, a universe expanded. Light. Beginning. Emotion. Differences. It reminded him of the principle of yin-yang, but on a much larger scale. Strange watched the universe, as millions of stars were born and died. The light encompassed everything. Shadows, tendrils of darkness, battled it, fought it, sometimes snuffed it out. The light won when it came forward, burning away the darkness, but if the light failed, gave up, the darkness crept forward to take its place. The light was passive, in a way, upholding the rules with a code of honor. The dark was not. It surged, striking forward, defying the rules and logic itself. Interesting. Strange got the feeling that there was something more here at play, something he didn’t know yet. But it wasn’t a threat. Yet. It could wait. He moved to the next galaxy, the next reality that had been entwined with his.

Next. His mind reached out once more. Now this place...this one was interesting.

It has power. Not separated from the real world, not some ancient deities having eldritch chess games. No. This one had...something different. An energy field, created from the energy of all living things, surrounding them, binding them, letting some get a taste of its power. Most interesting indeed. He went further.

A field. A field of ghosts. Roughly divided in two. On one side, strength, power, hate, rage, passion. On the other, peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony. Two different sides, two different users and practitioners of this energy field. Different individuals. No gods. No demons. Only mortals. But powerful ones. Two in particular stood out. Both on the side of passion. A void, a hungry, hungry void encompassing an individual of massive power. Another, a crackling nimbus of darkness and selfishness. They did nothing. But should they break free from this field of ghosts...the consequences...hmmm. What was this place, even? A place of the dead? Reflections of the living?

Strange whirled around as he felt a presence behind him. Another shade. But not milling on the field with the others. This one stood alone. It was of both sides...but neither. Light and dark swirled within the figure in perfect harmony. It walked forward, towards him. Strange could sense it was, or once was, a human. It wore stylized armor and a mask under a black, heavy, hooded robe. It inclined its head in greeting to Strange.

“What...what are you, exactly?” asked Strange. The robed figure started out on the field of ghosts.

“I was once like you, sorcerer.” The voice was whispery, swirling, ghostly. Beneath Strange could hear the faint trace of the voice of a dead man. “A man with a destiny.”

“Why are you not with the others?” said Strange. The figure gave the phantom impression of a laugh, then a sigh.

“I do not walk in the light, for it robs me of the stars. I do not walk in the dark, for it robs me of my surroundings. I walk in the twilight, and while both are dulled, I can see the entire picture and walk in balance.” He turned towards Strange. “Some say it is between light and dark. It is not. You must have balance. You must have harmony between the two. There is a war coming, sorcerer. A war that you must win. Your power will be with you. Always. Remember that.” The ghost faded into oblivion, and the vision of the field ended. Odd. The vision was something to meditate on for another day. After he had the complete picture.

Next one. This one had a parallel universe. A shadowy reflection of the real world, ruled by...something. The ruler wasn’t human, wasn’t demon or god, it was...something else. A creature of the shadows. Formed by them. Made by them. This reality was odd, yes, but it had no place in the real world. It could not come to nor affect the realm he was sworn to protect. No threats here. Next.

No magic here. Science. More than anything else. Fine. Good, actually. Less work for him to do. He was about to turn and leave, when he felt a presence. Something different. An ancient being. Strange blinked, and suddenly found himself in a blank white room. What?

Staring at him, lounging in a comfortable white chair with a drink in hand, was a man (no, being, he corrected himself) wearing a ridiculous, outlandish, garb of an old school extremely wealthy Renaissance priest. Okay. That was a new one. Personally, he much preferred the man from the other galaxy with his armor and heavy robe. Whatever. He was getting sidetracked. The being grinned at him.

“Surprised?” it asked. Strange recovered quickly.

“No,” he replied. The being laughed uproariously.

“He he, yes you are!” It sipped its drink. “It is so rare to get guests!” He turned suddenly, looking around at things that were not there. “Hmm. My time is short. There is much work to be done in little time. The gods of humanity are outnumbered. A war is coming. Heh. I see someone already told you that. Yes. There are forces teaming up. The darkness is spreading.” The being leaned closer. “I usually am not so straight forward, but it is doubtful you’ll see me again, so I must tell you these things now. Anyway, be prepared. Have fun. Try not to die. That would be bad.” The being snapped its fingers, and the room disappeared, leaving Strange hovering over the universe once more. He shook his head. Usually massively powerful beings did not make odd jokes while inviting him for drinks. More things to remember, more things to meditate on. He had to move on.

In two other universes, nothing. No semblance of any sort of magic or higher beings. Good. Nothing to worry about there. Next.

No magic here. Nothing. But..something was off. The souls of the dead were...missing. Nothing here. Odd. No matter. No gods, no demons, no other eldritch beings. Fine. Mysteries could be solved on other days. He had more important things to do.

He turned his gaze to the last galaxy. Felt as his mind and spirit floated forward. Immediately, he recognized this galaxy as two dimensions in one. Strange. But today was a day for oddness. Warily, he crept forward, mentally entering the new galaxy.

Emotion. Hate. Rage. BLOOD. Apathy. Stagnation. ROT. Movement. Hope. CHANGE. Lust. Pain. EXCESS. So much. Too much. Conflicting ideas. Dead uncountable, screaming in torment from a sea of souls. A Great Game, a chess match between beings he didn’t even want to know existed. And endless war, for billions of years, between factions so powerful he felt as if he were a single grain of sand in an hourglass, a person of such small importance that he could do nothing to change the future that would doom everything.

He screamed as these emotions, as the chaos of this place engulfed him, clawed at him, threatened to drown him. He tried to break free, used all of his power to try and get as far away from this place as he could, away from the madness. He gritted his teeth and focused, focused harder than he ever had, focused harder than the time after the wreck where he could not get his hands from shaking. He felt as if he were trapped, unable to run as if in a terrible nightmare. He could feel as creatures, demonic inhabitants of this realm started to notice his presence, started to turn their hungry stares towards him as he struggled even harder, looking for any salvation.

A light. Faint, in the darkness. He rushed towards it, the souls of the damned clawing at his cloak, the demons closing in with the force of an unstoppable tide. He felt as if he were on a treadmill, unable to go anywhere, stuck in one spot, pursuers closing in. He felt their hot, foul breath on his back, felt their horrible talons and teeth…

Then, nothing. He spun. Nothing. No pursuers. No demons. He fell to his knees, breath coming in gasps. After he caught his breath, he came to his feet and looked at his surroundings. He was still in the sea of souls. Still in this odd, horrible dimension. But, this part was different. A blinding, golden light shot up as if from nowhere, keeping the darkness and terror at bay. What? How? He walked forward, surroundings bare, the great golden light making sure that no demons tread here. As he walked, he felt...something.

A single voice, screaming through the void. A soul slit, in utter agony, bruised, beaten, but unbowed. Strange felt the voice, using his powers to attune himself to it. It had been in pain for...millennia now. Pain was a constant companion. But it would not give into the pain. Never.

Strange looked forward. The beam was being produced by something...no. Wrong. Someone. He shuddered involuntarily. The sheer power required to produce such a thing, let alone to sustain it… No wonder the voice was in pain. Strange looked around again. He had seen enough. Knew enough. Time to go back. He leapt up, leaving this place, still keeping the light in sight...

When suddenly a being of unfathomable power and incalculable malevolence turned it’s gaze towards him. He shied away from it. Now was not the time to trifle with such a thing.

Time, space, and reality warped around him. Every color, yet no color swirled. The being came into focus in front of him. It was ever-changing, morphing from one form to the next with no pretext. He hid his eyes. To stare at it would be to go mad. It studied him. Looked at him with amusement, like a child studying insects under a microscope. Then, it spoke. Its voice was the worst thing Strange had ever heard. Constantly changing, echoing like a nightmare into the void around him.

“The Anathema's pathetic light cannot protect you for long, sorcerer.” Strange winched, and shielded his face even more.

“What are you?” he asked in response. The being laughed. Strange screamed. The laugh echoed around him, promising the bending of time and reality as he knew them.

“Do not ask which creature screams in the night. Do not question who waits for you in the shadow. It is my cry that wakes you in the night, and my body that crouches in the shadow. I am Tzeetch, and you are the puppet that dances to my tune…” Strange pulled back. This was out of his league. He made a motion, and activated his one, final, failsafe. The locket around his neck opened, and a stone within glowed green. The being, Tzeetch, grimaced, hissed, and launched at the same time.

“Oh, ho! Your pathetic trinket cannot keep you safe for long. Every time you use your power, every time anyone bends the laws of nature to their own whims, I will be waiting. Know that I will be watching you and guiding your fate, mortal.” Strange said nothing. He could do nothing against such a being. “Now, go pack to where you came from.” With a great, ringing, clap, Strange opened his eyes. He found himself back in New York. His cloak let him down with a thud on the hardwood floor. He winced, then stood. A meeting had to be called. He just hoped superheroes would be enough to stop whatever came next.

[Author’s note: For the curious, Tzeetch is pronounced zeen-ch]

I hope you liked it. While I didn’t want to give you the names of any of the people in Strange’s visions, preferring instead for you to guess for yourselves, the line “I am Tzeentch and you are the puppet that dances to my tune” was just too good to pass up. I also do hope that you could follow at least some of my ramblings there, but, if you couldn’t, feel free to ask me any questions you may have, along with any comments, criticisms, requests, or concerns. Wherever you are, I hope you have a great day.

#writing #my writing #fiction #crossover #crossover story #ulitmate crossover #fanfic #magnificent scoundrels

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maybedefinitely404 · 4 years ago

Text

Day 21: Prinxiety (pt 2)

@tsshipmonth2020

Day 21: Combine two soulmate prompts. (This will make sense soon, I promise.)

It’s the sequel you’ve all been waiting for! This is the second part to day 16 (read that first!!!!!), and y’all finally get to see what happened to Virgil! Please heed the trigger warnings below.

TRIGGER/content WARNINGS!! Anxiety, food mention, crappy foster system/group homes, implied past abuse, religious guilt/negative view of religion, homophobia, conversion therapy/abuse, starvation, sneaking medication (antipsychotics/side effects), electrocution, seizure, ambulance. I’m sorry.

Word count: 3.8k

Unlike most kids in the foster system, Virgil didn’t know his birthday. He knew it was sometime in December, but that didn’t do much. Technically, birthdays weren’t really a huge thing anyways, not when the group home he rarely left was awfully underfunded, and a party came second to little things like working sinks and clothes without holes. Even still, all the other kids at least got a little cupcake and a half hearted birthday song on their special day, and his festivities were pushed onto Christmas. He didn’t get a weak excuse for a celebration, because the other kids ‘found it unfair’ that he got that and Christmas in the same month. To prevent an upheaval, the workers told him that he’d just have to be happy with what he got.

But it wasn’t fair, because some kids got Easter and a birthday, or Halloween and a birthday, or New Years and a birthday, and poor Virgil didn’t. The fact of the matter was, they plain didn’t like him. The other kids didn’t like that he got extra free time because of his anxiety, or was allowed to leave the table when they weren’t, and they especially didn’t like he was the youngest of the bunch. The youngest had the highest chance of getting adopted, it was just facts, so they had seemingly decided that if his stay here would be the shortest, it would be the most tortured.

It wasn’t the shortest stay, though. With his barrage of anxiety related issues and group-home-toughened demeanor, no foster home wanted to deal with him. He was snarky, ran away, regularly got in fights with the biological children of the parents, and was promptly labeled a problem child. Eventually, it was deemed easier for him to just stay in a group home until he outgrew the system, since he seemed set to escape every other place. Virgil tried to pretend it didn’t hurt as much as it did; it was his fault, after all. As he watched all his older tormentors grow out of a crooked system, he resigned himself to the same fate. After all, he was almost sixteen now, and he knew his chances were out. So he stayed stuck in his group home, lashing out at his caretakers and therapists, refusing to eat unless it was alone in his room (technically, three kids slept in there, but he so rarely left it, and they wanted to avoid him, it was unofficially deemed his room), and listening to music on his phone.

He’d been given the phone on his fifteenth birthday, a gift from one of his caretakers. It was the cheapest piece of crap he’d ever seen, glitched out every other minute and needed to be charged at least three times a day, but it was a phone nonetheless. Granted, he had no one to text. But he had access to a computer, a totally one hundred percent legal music downloading website, and a strong sense of determination, so he’d soon filled the phone’s entire measly storage with all the music he could cram on the thing.

That’s what he was doing on the night of December 18th, listening to his “Emo Playlist” on a pair of $4 Dollar Store earbuds, laying on his bed and finding shapes in his popcorn ceiling as the moon shone through the window. In the bunk beds across the room from him, his two other roommates were fast asleep, but he couldn’t follow suit. It was sadly normal for Virgil to have sleepless nights where no matter what, his anxious brain just wouldn’t shut off, and it just felt like one of those nights. His hands shook and his eyelids flinched every few seconds for no reason, so he turned the music just a little bit louder and tried to calm his breathing.

It was just past 1 am when his life changed forever.

He was on the fourth cycle of his playlist, eyes no more heavy than hours before and just as flinchy. It was just entering the “existential crisis” time of the night where he started questioning reality, and he was about to give in and start letting his mind drift to darker places, when a song distinctly not his began to play in the midst of a song switch.

How can you miss someone you’ve never met?

Because I need you now but I don’t know you yet,

But can you find me soon, because I’m in my head,

Yeah, I need you now but I don’t know you yet.

He froze, eyes suddenly wide open, and yanked the earbuds out of his ears. The song continued; not in his headphones, but in his head. It didn’t take an idiot to realize that it was his soulmate, responding, and as an afterthought, Virgil suddenly identified that today was probably his birthday. Both amazing revelations, but one was slightly more time sensitive.

Desperately scrolling through his playlists as the song stopped after the chorus, he tried to find a song that would be an adequate introduction to this new person. When his eyes landed on a song from his Adele phase (he didn’t talk about that time) that he hadn’t had the energy to delete yet, he simultaneously groaned and grinned. Subtly meme-y, heartfelt like the song his soulmate had played, a decent greeting. He tapped play.

Hello,

It’s me.

He hoped his soulmate had the same sense of humor of him and had actually given a laugh, since he was trying to stifle laughter behind his sleeve to avoid waking the sleeping kids. He paused after the first verse, since he didn’t really want to remember that phase of his life more than he had to, and waited for the other to play the next song. Hopefully they could work out some sort of rhythm, play songs back and forth. He for sure wouldn’t be able to sleep now.

(The next song his soulmate played was an almost atrocious obviously-musical-theatre song that almost made Virgil hit his head against the wall, so he retaliated with a favorite of his, the most ear assaulting screamo he could find on his playlist.)

The clock had just passed four in the morning when there was a small pause in the routine, before his soulmate played a children’s lullaby. It definitely wasn’t something you’d listen to in everyday life, so Virgil could only assume it was the other’s way of indicating that they had to sleep. As if I’m going to let you go that easily, Virgil smirked, opening YouTube and begging that the video he’d chosen would play without an ad.

It did, filling his crackling, cheap earbuds with the opening chorus of Baby Shark. Fight fire with fire, he decided, chuckling to himself as he turned off the song just before the ‘mommy shark’ verse. Silence filled his head and he mentally wished the other a good night, turning onto his stomach and screaming into his pillow, grinning madly.

Eight months later, their new way of life was deeply imbedded into him; getting woken up at asscrack o’clock in the morning by a worker who wanted to be there as much as he did, and either playing his morning playlist to get himself slightly more ready to face another monotonous day or waiting in silence until his soulmate woke up and played their own music. He’d begrudgingly started to even enjoy the showtunes. Everyone around the home had noticed his gradual shift in attitude, and he couldn’t help the natural smiles that pulled at his cheeks when a new song played out of nowhere. It got to the point where his therapist noticed his lifted mood, and the other kids stopped avoiding him and, unknown to Virgil, his social workers decided that he was ready to try another foster home.

That’s why, eight months later, there was a knock on his bedroom door and his main worker poked in her head, asking him to come downstairs. He’d been playing music for his soulmate, so he silently apologized and joined her at the dining room table, giving her a half hearted smile.

“Virgil, we’ve found a new home for you. A foster home that specializes in… harder to place cases. They’ve opened their doors to you, and we’re hoping to get you into a trial period there within the next week.”

At first, Virgil vehemently refused. No. He didn’t want to go back to foster homes, not after… everything he went to in the first few. The ones that hurt him, the ones that were more densely crowded than group homes, the ones that turned him into the angry shell he was before he had met a sign of a possibly happy future. He didn’t want to lose the progress he’d made.

But Bev looked so hopeful, so pleadingly at him, that he gave in after three days of denying. He said goodbye to the kids he’d unfortunately grown attached to, threw his few belongings into a black garbage bag, and got into his worker’s car for the first time in years. Just rebuckling that seatbelt caused a shudder to run up his spine.

------1 month later------

“Virgil, what are you doing? Do you have earbuds in? We’ve made it abundantly clear that you are not to have technology at the table.”

Virgil fought every urge in his body to roll his eyes, flicking his hair behind his ears to show they were empty. It had gotten long and shaggy, just reaching his jaw in the back. “No earbuds. My soulmate’s listening to music, and it’s catchy.” Frankly, he was surprised he hadn’t been caught bopping along to silence before by the stiflers.

They were nice enough, a woman and a man and their two biological children, but they were too religious for Virgil’s liking. He’d never had qualms with religion before, but he had grown tired of spending Saturdays and Sundays (his only days off from their homeschool regime) in a church, surrounded by older people singing repetitive songs and being yelled at by a guy on the pulpit. Faking being sick only worked so many times before they refused to listen to his excuses. They also insisted he go to a specialized youth group on Tuesdays, but that was easy enough to escape. He just waved by and booked it to the closest 7/11 when they left, making sure he was back at the church by the time it was over and made up some bullshit about the gathering. Jameson, the attendant at the gas station, was becoming the closest friend he’d ever had.

“Your soulmate?” One of the children asked around a bite of toast, spitting a decent amount onto Virgil’s sleeve.

“Like daddy and I, Mariam.” The woman explained briefly, not bothering to chastise her about speaking with her mouth full.

“Yeah.” Unlike most of the kids at his old group home, he wasn’t warming up to theirs. They were too spoiled, too bratty. One had even bit him in his first week here and he was still bitter about it.

“When did you connect with yours, Virgil?” The question wasn’t asked kindly, more for the sake of being polite, and he assumed if he didn’t answer in an equally polite tone, they’d probably make him paint a fence or something.

He knew they cared about his bond about as much as he did about theirs. Which was approximately none. The mom took her children’s empty plates and placed them in the sink, Virgil quickly following suit. No use losing more computer time because he didn’t clean his plate.

“Last December. I didn’t even know it was my birthday, and they started playing music out of nowhere. It was pretty cool.” He finished rinsing off his plate and was confused at the sudden stillness in the room.

“‘They’?” The mom asked, giving her husband what she must have believed to be a subtle glance.

“Uhm… yeah?” Virgil said slowly, “I’m bisexual. So I’m not sure if my partner’s a guy or a girl or… something in between. So… they?”

He stared with rising anxiety as the two parents had a silent interaction over the kitchen island, before the dad stood up. “Kids, plates in the sink and then go get ready for church. Virgil, you too.”

There was minimal whining as the younger ones did as they were asked, racing each other up the stairs. Virgil followed, slower, listening to hushed beginnings of a conversation, unable to fight the feeling that he’d just royally fucked up.

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

“Virgil, may we speak with you for a moment?”

He froze, slowly turning from where he’d been half way up the stairs. They’d just wrapped up lessons for the day (Virgil never thought he’d miss an actual school building before, but alas) and the kids had been excused, leaving just him and the parents behind. It had been almost a week since the incident, and a part of him had been hoping they’d just drop it. There wasn’t much they could do, anyways; if their religion conflicted so badly with his sexuality, the worst they would do is send him back to the home anyways. In all honesty, he kind of hoped they would. He was sick of being here, and it was better for his record if he didn’t run.

Not that it mattered much anymore. He was almost aged out of the system anyways.

He took a cautious seat back at the dining room table, which they had just cleared from classes. The mom sat back in her chair, eyeing him carefully, as the dad began to speak.

“We spoke with our pastor the other day, and we think it would be best if we put you in therapy.”

“I don’t…” He’d stopped regular therapy at the group home almost a month before coming here, and he couldn’t imagine why he’d need to go back. He definitely wasn’t happy here, but he didn’t figure a grumpy mood was enough to warrant counseling. “I don’t understand.”

“After… what you told us? About your… urges-”

“Urges.” He couldn’t help his own disgusted tone. Of course they were homophobic.

“Yes. Our pastor suggested we try conversion therapy.”

Virgil scoffed, but he couldn’t ignore the way his heart started pounding, “Right. As if you could ever get my social workers to approve that. Ward of the state, remember?” He tapped his chest a couple times.

“Fortunately, we already talked to your social worker, Virgil. We had it approved just this morning.” The man finally stopped, as if waiting for a response.

Virgil’s eyes grew wide as he looked frantically between the two of them, the woman quickly avoiding eye contact. That wasn’t normal.

“There’s no way in hell that you-”

“Profanity, Virgil!” The man barked and Virgil shrank back in his chair, impulsively ducking to avoid a fist that didn’t come. They hadn’t hit him so far, but old habits die hard. “We’ve already signed you up. Your first session is tomorrow. First thing’s first-” He stood up, reaching a hand out to a still-shaking Virgil, “Hand over your phone.”

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

His hair was short now. Shorter than he could ever remember it being. He missed his bangs, he missed the tiny boosts of confidence it gave him when the rest of his appearance disgusted him. Now there was nothing for his hands to run through. There was no style to it, just an electric razor in the hands of his silent foster mother. He should have fought it, he really should have, but he was shaking far too much to try to move.

He didn’t like hands so near his throat.

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

Surely, his social worker didn’t approve of this. The only explanation Virgil could possibly rationalize was they’d lied about the purpose of the therapy, or the method, or something. But any type of change in a foster kid's life had to go through about a million different levels to get approved, so how the hell were they getting away with this?

It wasn’t too bad. A lot of it was using religious guilt, something Virgil did not have much of, saying he was immoral and inhumane. The rest of it was just his new therapist trying to dig into his supposed ‘trauma’ that made him ‘this way’, as if there was something that caused it. They talked a lot about his old foster homes, and his therapist seemed positive something there had to be the root to everything. It made his blood boil.

It didn’t help that they still hadn’t given his phone back, and they confined him to his room when he wasn’t doing school work at the kitchen table. He could hear the way his soulmate was losing morale, the longer he didn’t respond. The songs were darker, and were few and far between. They still refused to play songs on what he’d called ‘his days’.

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

His ‘therapy’ had ended hours ago, and yet he couldn’t stop twitching. Every time he closed his eyes in a vain attempt to sleep, it was like the electrodes were attached to him again. The images they’d shown him flashed before his eyes, of men kissing, holding hands, and were quickly followed by the sharp sting of electric shocks. He couldn’t close his eyes without flinching violently, no music to calm his nerves.

Virgil didn’t sleep that night.

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

He held to the music like an anchor, soaking in every rare song his soulmate played like a sponge. It was his only relief from the hunger pangs in his stomach, reminding him that he hadn’t been allowed to eat at all in the day leading up to another therapy session. Apparently they wanted to put him on some kind of medication, try to increase the intensity of his sessions. It was getting to the point where Virgil was tempted to pretend it was working just to make them stop.

He missed his soulmate.

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

No. He’d said no to the drugs. They wanted to put him on anti-psychotics, claiming he was severely mentally ill, and he’d downright refused. There was no way in hell he was going on anti-psychotics. Finally, after days of their demanding being met with stubbornness, they’d given in.

That had been a month ago. Maybe. Time had gotten kind of funny, like in that limbo between Christmas and New Years, or in the depths of summer break. It had been a while, for sure. They still fed him so rarely a growling stomach was more common than a full one, claiming it was part of his new therapy. He couldn’t help wonder why he was gaining weight, though. He’d been underweight for a majority of his life, thanks to a constantly overworking metabolism and genetics, along with the nasty food they served at group homes that he gladly avoided, but he was starting to fill out slightly. His ribs were barely showing.

That would be a symptom of being on antipsychotics, he knew from previous research. But he wasn’t on them, so why…?

He took another sip of his apple juice his foster mom had brought him, trying to focus on his homework. Had apple juice always tasted that bitter?

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

They’d gone too far this time, Virgil knew that much. Curse his stubbornness, his inability to just lie and go along with it. He could have just claimed the conversion therapy was working, ‘oh golly, I’m healed!’, and go on with his life, finally talk to his fucking social worker, but no. He wasn’t capable of that.

They’d shown him more pictures, shocking him more frequently, refusing to stop the session even as tears streamed down his face. It just hurt so bad. Then he remembered a shout (maybe his own?), blinding pain, and the next thing he knew, he was in his foster dad’s car. He said he’d had a seizure, but he was okay now, so they were heading home. A cup of water was forced down his throat and he was laid down in bed, commanded to rest. He was so confused, but also so tired, so he let his eyes drift shut.

Just before he lost consciousness for the second time that day, he heard a soft melody drift through his mind as his soulmate played another song. It had been so long since the last time he’d heard them play music… despite his exhaustion, he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

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

The days had been a bit of a blur since his seizure. It was probably because his brain had done the human equivalent to ‘Have you tried turning it off and back on again?’, but even that was hazy in his mind. All he wanted to do was sleep, to rest, to not have to do the school work that they were still shoving down his throat. From where he was laying motionless in his bed, he watched the slowly setting sun dip below the horizon.

There was a knock at the door downstairs. Virgil flinched from the noise, triggering a series of twitches down his spine and into his limbs. People were talking downstairs. He could distinctly hear the voice of his foster parents, but the others were unfamiliar. They were getting louder, near shouting, and there were pounding footsteps echoing up the stairs and down his hallway.

He couldn’t even find the energy to be scared as his door was thrown open and a man’s voice shouted, “He’s in here!”. A flurry of people stormed into the room, the ones in the lead dressed in blue.

Clambering, people shifting to make space, a woman holding his hand. She was asking him questions as they loaded him into a stretcher and he tried his best to answer, but he was just so tired. His name was said multiple times, as well as the names of his foster parents, but it was hazy, so hazy…

“We were just trying to help, I didn’t want this to happen, I don’t-”

“Quiet, woman!”

She raised her voice but it was growing farther away. Virgil realized with a start that he was looking at the sky, bumping along on the gravel path, the bright lights of an ambulance flashing across his vision.

The husband shouted again, trying to silence his wife. That was the last thing Virgil heard as the doors slammed shut, and he finally allowed his eyes to close.

Part 3 HERE

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#lywrites #tsshipmonth2020 #prinxiety #roman sanders #virgil sanders #abuse tw #conversion therapy tw #ts soulmate au #sanders sides fanfiction #sanderssides #sanderssidesfanfiction #sanderssidesau #sanders sides au #sanders sides

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flowercrown-bard · 4 years ago

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Poems for the Poet (1/ 5)

Pairing: Eskel/Jaskier

Summary: Unbeknownst to Jaskier, he inspires Eskel to try his hand at writing poetry. Eskel posts his poems anonymously to notice boards, not thinking that anyone would read them. Until he hears Jaskier's songs unmistakably referencing Eskel's poetry. (Eskel’s pov of The Way to a Poet’s heart)

Word count: ~2k

AO3

Content warnings: self-consciousness, self-doubt

Eskel could have been many things. He could have been handsome. At least he remembered his mother calling him such when he had still been a boy with a wide and toothy grin that he didn’t need to hide. He could have become a mage – his hill-folk blood had practically guaranteed him a place at Ban-Ard.

And maybe, as slim a chance as there had been, he could have become a poet. He remembered his mother singing to him about hens. It had been a silly song, but when he had undergone the Trials of the Grasses, the verses had been the last thing on his lips before the melody had turned into cries as fire raced through his blood.

That day, all dreams disappeared and turned into could-have-been’s that twisted Eskel’s stomach if he ever thought about them.

They didn’t matter anymore. Eskel was a witcher. One exceptionally skilled in magic, but a witcher nonetheless.

Perhaps he had even been handsome for a little while longer, but now there was not a hint of attractiveness left on him. It didn’t bother him. Couldn’t bother him.

At the very least he still had his poetry. No, not his. He had never written a verse in his life. If he had gone to Oxenfurt instead of being dragged to Kaer Morhen, he might have learned about metre and clever word-play. Now, he didn’t dare put a pen to paper. Too certain was the chance that his words would only be yet another disappointment. He’d rather keep the wish to write a might-be instead of a dreaded could-have-been. As long as he didn’t try and fail, he could still imagine that he might be able to become a poet one day. Until then, he would study his poetry collection and listen to the bards he came across in taverns, praying that their songs wouldn’t break off once they laid eyes on him.

It happened more often than Eskel would like to admit. Many times, he found himself lingering outside a tavern, just to get the chance of listening to the songs a little longer before they inevitably faded in discomfort when the bards noticed the witcher staring at them through the windows.

He would have done so today as well, if it weren’t for the long gash in his leg. It didn’t hurt too badly and it was already close to being healed, but he yearned to sit down and close his eyes for a little while, to eat and maybe, if he was lucky, to listen to some songs.

Even from outside the tavern he could hear that the bard singing a soaring ballad was talented.

So he pulled his hood up and pushed the door open. As he shuffled to a table at the corner, he tried to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible.

He knew he should have kept his eyes cast down. He knew he should have kept to himself.

Yet there was something in the bard’s verses that made Eskel’s insides sing. He didn’t know the words for what he heard. Perhaps it was alliteration or anaphor? Whatever the bard had done to give his words life, it stirred something in Eskel.

He looked up before he could think better of it; before he could remember all the reasons why he shouldn’t do such a thing.

For a blessed heartbeat he was allowed to just look at the bard. There was no denying his beauty. Clearly, many people in this room looked at the bard’s blue eyes or long fingers with adoration.

Eskel noticed those things merely as an afterthought. He was too distracted by the almost wistful expression on the bard’s face, the way he subtly swayed with his music as if he was a part of it and the meaning he put into every word as it fell from his lips.

Eskel’s chest clenched at the sight. Without meaning to, he leaned forward to see better. It must have been that movement that caught the singer’s attention, for his eyes wandered over to Eskel.

And his voice broke. Blue eyes widened and fingers had to strain not to fumble.

Abruptly, Eskel looked away, pulling his hood deeper into his face to hide his eyes and turning his scarred side towards the wall for good measure.

It was already too late. All hope that the bard might not have realised exactly what Eskel was burst when the song came to an overly hurried end.

A handful of patrons muttered disapprovingly and one even gave a shout, demanding his coin back if the bard wasn’t going to play a full set.

Out of all the people, Eskel knew he was the one most disappointed in the abrupt yet not unexpected end of the performance. He would have loved to hear more of this bard’s art, to listen for long enough to figure out just how he crafted his verses.

Yet another could-have-been.

Eskel should probably leave. Maybe if he did, the bard would pick up his song again and Eskel would be able to listen to it while he put distance between himself and the tavern. His leg ached at the thought of having to get up already, but if it meant getting to hear a little more of the bard, it would have been worth it. Eskel was just about to stand up when someone pulled out the chair opposite of him and let themselves fall onto it with little grace, but palpable excitement.

Long fingers drummed onto the table as if the person’s energy couldn’t be contained. Or as if they were waiting impatiently for Eskel to leave.

“Apologies,” Eskel said, doing his best to make his voice sound smoother than it was. “I’ll leave the table to you.”

Unexpectedly, a hand shot out and grabbed Eskel’s wrist, lightly enough to make clear this person wasn’t out for a fight, but insistent enough to make Eskel tense.

“That would be defeating the purpose of me coming here, wouldn’t it?” That voice. It was the bard’s voice. Unwillingly, Eskel’s eyes snapped up and his breath hitched when they met blue. The bard’s easy smile didn’t leave him, even as he took in Eskel’s inhuman eyes and mangled face. “After all, I came here specifically to talk to you.”

“Oh.” Eskel relaxed slightly. This he could do. “Do you have a contract for me?”

The bard let out a pearling laugh that crinkled the skin around his eyes. Eskel’s chest clenched. It was rare a human laughed in his presence. No, that wasn’t quite true. People laughed constantly, though mostly at him. They would snicker blatantly when they saw his face or snort cruelly when he said something that had been meant to sound gentle and diplomatic but evidently came out as a pitiful attempt of an oafish mutant to fit in where there was no place for him.

But never before had someone other than his family laughed in a way that made him think that perhaps he wasn’t the one being laughed at.

“Well, no. Not exactly.” The bard leaned forward with an eagerness that almost made Eskel draw back. No one leaned towards a witcher. Least of all Eskel with his disfigured face and hulking frame. “I was wondering if you were willing to let a humble bard accompany you on a hunt?”

Eskel blinked at him. “I- no. I just come from a hunt.” Absentmindedly, he shifted his leg beneath the table. “And it would be too-“

“Oh, don’t tell me it would be too dangerous.” The bard let go of Eskel’s wrist and waved it through the air dismissively. “Geralt tells me that all the time and I’m not dead yet, am I?”

Eskel’s brows would have drawn together, if he hadn’t trained himself to keep frowns off his face to stop it from becoming even more fearsome.

For a heartbeat he could only stare at the bard, trying desperately to connect the few things Geralt had told him about his bard to the man sitting in front of him now. A lot of the details – annoyingly talkative, a petty menace, dangerously ready to fall in love with anyone he met – weren’t things Eskel could ascertain from such a short time of talking to the man. But what had was most important was the way Geralt had talked about his bard. There had been a fondness to even his most exasperated words. A fondness that Eskel could imagine only too well being directed at someone like this bard. In fact, as the bard’s smile grew wider with every second that Eskel studied him and something warm and fuzzy spread through Eskel’s insides, he found himself feeling some of that fondness already.

He swallowed and tried to clear his throat as inconspicuously as possible. “Are you Jaskier?”

Jaskier’s eyes lit up with delight. “Geralt mentioned me? Didn’t think he would.”

“He had little choice in the matter.” Eskel’s lips would have twitched if he hadn’t feared that would make Jaskier recoil. “Lambert and I kept teasing him about the fact that there was a song about him.”

As soon as the words left him, he froze. His eyes widened and he scrambled for words to fix his mistake. “I don’t mean that as a bad thing, of course. It’s an honour to have you sing about witchers and the way you weave stories is incredible.”

A hint of red crept into Jaskier’s face that must have been a trick of the light. “Thank you,” he said almost sheepishly, but then his face brightened into something radiant and beautiful. “Wait, you are Eskel!”

Jaskier practically bounced in his chair in his eagerness to drag it even closer to the table. “Geralt told me so much about you!”

Eskel felt his throat grow tight. Far too often had Geralt found him in the library, leaning over a book of poetry and songs written by the very same man that sat before him now. How many times had Eskel drunk a little too much White Gull and told Geralt that he admired his bard?

“He did?” He asked hoarsely.

“Of course!” Jaskier let out a carefree laugh. “He always jokes that one day he would hand me over to you because you are the only witcher that wouldn’t go insane if he had to listen to me sing all day.”

Eskel’s lips twitched, though he turned his head just quickly enough to hide his smile. “I can imagine worse things than listening to your songs.”

Jaskier tilted his head to the side and gave Eskel a look of unashamed curiosity. “Why, my dear Eskel, is that a compliment?”

Eskel shook his head and hunched his shoulders. Before he could stop himself, his hand came up to paw at his scars uncomfortably.

“It…It was supposed to be teasing. I don’t- I’m sorry, I’m not good with that.” His eyes darted away and then quickly back to Jaskier. Putting as much sincerity as he could into his voice, he added, “I would enjoy listening to you sing some more. You have a beautiful voice and your song made me feel like I could almost see the images you were conjuring up.”

For a moment Jaskier only gaped at him and Eskel cursed himself. Of course he had messed this up again already. He shouldn’t have tried to fix his own mistakes. By now he should know that nothing good would ever come out of that. A poet such as Jaskier didn’t want a witcher’s clumsy attempts at complimenting his art, not when he undoubtedly was used to scholars’ and nobles’ praises.

But then Jaskier’s expression shifted and his eyes lit up with something almost like awe.

“That was one of the kindest things I’ve heard about my singing in years.” He ducked his head almost shyly. “Most people tend to criticise me. Rather coldly, might I add.”

“Nothing to criticise as far as I could see.” Eskel shrugged sheepishly. “As I said, I would love to hear more of your art.”

Jaskier contemplated him for a moment that made the warm feeling in Eskel’s chest burn brighter. For some reason he didn’t mind the staring when it was Jaskier’s eyes he could feel on him.

“Does that mean you wouldn’t mind if I wrote a song about you?”

Coming from anyone else, Eskel would have thought that those were just empty words. Eskel wasn’t song-worthy.

And yet, when Jaskier eventually invited him to share the room with him to save some coin, the bard was already humming a melody to a new song.

Neither of them slept much that night. The both of them stayed up until almost the early hours of the morning, discussing rhyme schemes and talking about how writing poetry helped putting meaning into bad experiences and immortalising beautiful ones. Softly, they recited their favourite poetry to each other.

Eskel was embarrassed to admit that he had memorised some of Jaskier’s poetry but the confession made Jaskier smile brighter than any human should smile in the presence of a witcher. And when Jaskier lamented that most of his favourite lines of poetry were merely fragments lost to time, Eskel perked up and filled in the gaps for him, promising to show him his collection of ancient poetry at Kaer Morhen one day.

It wasn’t something to be taken seriously; merely a suggestion made in the spur of the moment, but Jaskier looked at him as if he had hung the stars and the moon for him and Eskel found himself hoping that maybe someday he would know Jaskier well enough to be allowed to give him such gifts.

Eskel fully expected Jaskier to be gone in the morning, and his heart skipped a beat when instead Jaskier announced that he would stick around at least until he would get to see Eskel fight.

When Jaskier finally went his own way to meet up with Geralt again two weeks later, he left Eskel with a strange yearning in his chest and verses that had been written for no one but him.

And beneath it all, Jaskier left him with an itch in his fingers that urged him to buy a quill and ink. He didn’t put anything to paper just yet. But the might-be that had haunted him for decades got just a little closer to a could-be. Perhaps Eskel could become what he had always wanted to be after all.

Perhaps next time he saw Jaskier, he would be able to share his own verses with the poet.

#jaskel #eskel/jaskier #jaskier/eskel #witcher fic #witcher #fic #fanfic #Multichapter #my writing #eskel #jaskier #pining #insecure eskel #self doubt #self consciousness #please tell me if you want to get tagged when I update

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rizumary · 4 years ago

Text

Like A Soda Pop (part.1)

This was the highest peak of Hajime Iwaizumi’s delicate springtime of life—according to Tooru, who definitely didn’t have any say in Hajime’s love life. At all. (Or, the one where Iwaizumi got overwhelmed by a kouhai’s not-entirely-unwelcomed romantic advances and Oikawa did have any say in his love life, after all.) [Iwaizumi/OC; confession fic]

Writer: nutteu | AO3 version

[part 1] ー [part 2]

It wasn’t like Hajime was completely dense when it came to romantic adventures (“Iwa-chan, stop lying through your teeth, it’s not cute!”).

He had liked several people since he realized he got an abundance of hormones running through his course, and he had had people confessing to him too. But it was never often, and had never been a persistent recurrence in his life—both the liking and being liked thing. Of course he knew people liked him; his teammates respected him enough to listen to him (what happened with Tobio was—and would always be—a lesson on both sides), his classmates liked him enough to befriend him, his volleyball colleagues respected and acknowledged his skills, and his family had never failed in expressing their affections to him.

But it was starkly different than when someone liked you. A romantic type of like, the one with fast heartbeats and the unbearable urge to hold their hands, or spend time with them, or smiling when they talked excitedly about their passion. The type of like that became the spotlight of “our delicate springtime of life,” as Tooru had graciously reiterated over and over again to him. This type of like, Hajime was never subjected too much or too long under it.

He understood, though. He really did. He was just another high-schooler, who liked volleyballs, who joked around with his friends, who liked cooking more than he thought, who dreamed of holding the volleyball and standing on the court with his team in championships. But to people who weren’t familiar with him, he understood how he looked like, how he seemed to be.

Tall, but no more than his teammates. Looked okay, but frowned too much, looked like he was perpetually irked. Respectful, but distant. Nice, but awkward in relationships. Too serious, too obsessed with volleyballs to notice that his partner was getting further and further away from him. Too afraid to take the initiatives. Didn’t feel right, didn’t look right, wasn’t the right one.

So, no, Hajime wasn’t completely dense about romantic adventures. He might not be the most experienced lover out there, but he knew enough. Enough to think that it must have felt nice to have someone who liked you softly, comfortably, completely. Enough to know that the delicate springtime of life was not for him, after all.

(“You’re so stupid, Iwa-chan,” Tooru said, and sighed like Hajime had personally offended him.

“Die in fire,” he replied, and tried not to think about how earnest Tooru looked.)

The first time Hajime met Akeno Hana, all he could think about was just cotton candy. She looked it, too. Pale eyes, light hair, a small flower pin on the side of her bangs, and the way she had to look up, up, up, when Kyoutani introduced them. She couldn’t even reach his shoulders, and Hajime had an unexplainable urge to bundle her in blankets like a small child. Maybe he spent too much time teaching children, that he automatically had that protective instinct in the face of someone with small stature like her.

“N-nice to meet you, senpai! I’m Akeno Hana, first year, class 1, and—and I like chicken karaage!” she… squeaked. There was no other word, she looked tense, and her voice was notably in higher pitch than when she introduced herself to the other players. Not a moment after she said that, she covered her mouth, face reddening at alarming speed that Hajime was worried for a moment that she’d pass out.

Laughter erupted from around them; Tooru for some reason kept hitting Hajime’s shoulders as he laughed. He flicked the wandering hand away, ignoring the “How mean, Iwa-chan!” and smiled at her, trying to catch her eyes from their painfully acute height difference.

“Good to know that, Akeno. I’m Iwaizumi Hajime, second year, class 5, and I like agedashi tofu,” he said, trying to soothe the unnerved kouhai. It seemed to work out a little bit, as she finally stopped the process of turning herself into a perfect tomato imitation. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She looked like she was in disbelief for a second, and Hajime inwardly prevented himself from frowning. No need to scare the kouhai even more with his infamous resting bitch face. But then, she sparkled. Like, no joke, Hajime was at loss for words, because that was what she literally did. She sparkled; her eyes, her smile, her whole face just lighted up and she nodded enthusiastically. He just smiled back, albeit a little bit more stiff than before. He was unsure on how to proceed with how fast Akeno’s change in mood was.

“I’ll see you later, Iwaizumi-senpai!” she called out, and then, almost like an afterthought, “and the others too, it was really nice to meet you all!”

She waved at him excitedly, and he waved back as she turned to skip out of the gym—and promptly tripped on her own feet. Kyoutani groaned next to him, and grumbled something too low under his breath for Hajime to hear properly. Akeno, on the other hand, had stood up and looking like she wished desperately for the ground to swallow her whole.

He chuckled to himself, and shook his head. She was such a weird character, he thought, turning to resume his exercises and ignoring the obvious leer on Tooru’s face. If he could find mercy in himself, Tooru would only have to suffer through two volleyballs smashed directly on his annoying face. What was the leer about anyway? It didn’t matter, Hajime nodded to himself. Any day is as good as any to smash Tooru’s face with volleyballs.

At first, the cotton candy girl didn’t come too often to the club. She came once or twice in a week, usually with a grumbling Kyoutani in tow. She was a curious one, asking left and right about volleyballs, and whether Kyoutani was getting along fine with the others. Almost like an overbearing mother hen, Hajime thought absently one day. She reminded him of himself when he pestered the others about their well-being. She was a good friend, he decided.

Sometimes they talked, with Hajime patiently answering her questions about the technical side of the volleyball. When he asked whether she was interested in joining the girls’ volleyball club, she shook her head so fast he was afraid she’d gotten whiplash. “No, senpai!” she shouted, probably louder than she intended, because she looked embarrassed afterwards. “Uh, I mean, I’m just interested in knowing about it, you know? But I think I won’t be joining any club right now.”

He raised an eyebrow, wiping the sweat on the side of his face and watched as Akeno followed the movement of his hand, her mouth in a small ‘o’. He raised his eyebrows higher, a silent question to her. She looked surprised and chastised when she realized she’d been caught watching, and shook her head quickly again. Hajime chuckled, shaking his own head. Man, this girl was really something. She was probably surprised at how much he sweated. It was pretty normal for someone who just finished practice, though?

“But do you have something you’re really interested in? Might be a pointer for the clubs you can consider to join,” he suggested. He observed as her face lighted up when he asked.

“Yes! I like arts,” she told him, closing her eyes as if remembering the tender caress of something she held dear to her heart. “I’ve been interested in arts and making my own designs these past few years. I’m serious about it, too, senpai!” she scrunched her nose and eyebrows, as if to show him she was “serious”. It made her looked like a constipated child instead, and he tried not to laugh—afraid she’d misunderstood. “I dream about being an illustrator one day. I can show you my arts sometimes, if you want?”

Despite the comedic face she made just now, she did seem pretty serious about it. Hajime could see it in her eyes. He saw it in the eyes of his teammates, his volleyball colleagues, seen it in his own eyes in the mirror. He offered her an encouraging smile. “Yeah, I’d like to see it sometimes.”

“Me too! I want to see Hana-chan’s arts too!”

Akeno jumped in her place, eyes widening before she relaxed when she realized it was just Tooru. Weird. Tooru had been here the whole time, and she only noticed now? This girl might even be more of a scatterbrain than he thought.

“Oh, Oikawa-san,” she greeted him with a cheery smile, as per usual. “I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you were there.”

“Of course you won’t, I’m just old, boring Oikawa-san, after all,” Tooru whined, feigning hurt on his face. “I’m nothing compared to the great Iwa-chan.”

He slapped the back of the moron’s head. “Stop teasing her, shittykawa.”

Tooru wailed at him, and Akeno laughed at their banter. Things went on like that each time she came to the club. She’d greet him, they’d talk for a while, and then Tooru would swoop into the conversation like a vulture. Other than that, Hajime paid her no mind and focused on practices instead. He had to admit that talking to her wasn’t half bad, though.

Even if she had the habit of watching him do mundane things, got embarrassed when she got caught, and then forgot about it and got carried away in conversations she was interested in. Aside from that, it was quite fun seeing Tooru repeatedly being forgotten by Akeno and had to forcefully insert himself into the conversation.

Gradually, though, she came more and more often around the club, to the point that everyone recognized and remembered her as ‘Kyoutani’s only friend’ and ‘that clumsy girl’. It wasn’t without reason as well. She hit her head on the door jamb, slipped on the floor even if literally nothing was there, dropped her newly-opened sandwich, and numerous other small incidents that made Hajime think that either she really was that clumsy, or she just had terrible luck. This past two months alone, Hajime had to grab her five times to prevent her from slipping and hitting the floor.

She always thanked him profusely for that, and it wasn’t like Hajime mind helping her. It was just—she just—each time she thanked him, she sparkled again, like the first time they met and she flashed that sparkling smile and eyes at him. It made him awkward and unsure on how to respond because it was so painfully earnest and sweet. Hajime wasn’t used to this kind of response from people, and definitely wasn’t used getting this kind of response from people just from simple favors.

“You don’t have to thank me that much, you know,” he said one day, absentmindedly munching on his homemade bento. Recently, they ate lunch together. Sometimes Kyoutani was there, sometimes Hanamaki and Yahaba joined them. But most of the time, it was only the three of them—Hajime, Akeno, and Tooru. For some reason, Tooru always insisted on joining and refusing to bring his own lunch. He complained that no one at home cooked for him because everyone was busy, but didn’t want to buy lunch either because he “also wants to eat homemade bento! It’s not fair that only you guys eat homemade bentos, it’s like I’m not invited to the date!” he would whine, and for some reason, it made Akeno choke and cough. Hajime was worried she’d actually choke on her vegetables because her face looked horribly red afterwards. He should tell her to chew more thoroughly. In the end, though, Hajime relented and made him some as well.

“Um?” she replied intelligently, cheeks bulging from her food as she looked up questioningly at him, round eyes clueless and so akin to cotton candy that Hajime thought for a moment whether he had some cravings he wasn’t aware about.

He grinned at the funny sight, and slapped Tooru’s hand away from his squid. “By now everyone is aware you will trip on air, so no need to thank me like I saved the country every time I helped. I’m just glad you didn’t fall and hit your head,” he explained.

She gulped down her food, and seemed to consider his words. A moment later, she looked at him and smiled, “I thanked you like that, because I don’t just feel thankful that you saved me from kissing the floor, you know. But also because I’m reminded that you care enough to do it repeatedly. I’m glad that you pay attention to me, senpai.” she flashed him a small grin, and Hajime felt heats rose on his cheeks for unfathomable reason. This girl was quite blunt sometimes, despite being easily embarrassed.

“I see…” he mumbled, and looked away from the blinding grin. Unconsciously, he felt his lips forming a smile, too. “I’m glad we’re getting along well.”

“Yeah,” Tooru piped in. “I’m really glad we are getting along well.”

As per usual, Akeno jumped in her seat, and almost choked herself to death with her rice. She coughed violently, hitting her chest as her eyes watered and her small face reddened. Hajime reached out to help patting her back, and passed her a drink. She shot him a sweet smile in return, despite the tears, and heaved out a relieved sigh after the catastrophe was averted.

“Are you okay?” they both asked her, worried their young friend was going to die on the school ground.

“Oikawa-senpai!” she greeted cheerfully, albeit a little bit worse for the wear as she was still coughing a little. “I’m sorry, I was just surprised to see you. I didn’t notice you there, I’m sorry!” she half-bowed from her current position, and the sight was so awkward and funny that Hajime had to hide a laugh behind a fist.

“That’s okay, Hana-chan,” Tooru replied, then put on his best dramatic expression. “I’m used to not being noticed by you. Ah, to be so forgettable that I’m no more than mere air next to Iwa-chan…”

“I-it’s not like that, Oikawa-san!” she quickly refuted, both of her palms waving back and forth in quick succession. “I’m sorry! I’ll try to pay more attention!”

Tooru laughed then, hitting Hajime’s knees, and getting hit on the back of his head in return.

All in all, it wasn’t… bad, per se, to be acquainted and befriend Akeno Hana, despite her quirks and several things she did that he completely didn’t understand about.

Of course, Tooru had to ruin it.

“You smile more around her, you know?” he said one day, as they were lazing around in Hajime’s house. He was lying on Hajime’s bed, reading Hajime’s sport magazine, and acted like he owned the damned place. Sometimes he truly wondered why he even bothered keeping his friendship with this shitty bastard for years on end.

“Who?” he asked, because he didn’t get what Tooru was trying to say.

Tooru grinned, heaved himself up, and looked at him with mirth and nothing resembling goodness in his eyes. “Hana-chan. You two are so chummy-chummy these days, huh?”

He frowned. “We’re not, and stop using ‘chummy’, you sound like a disgusting old man.”

“I was about to give you advices because you’re too much of a blockhead about romance, and here I am, getting attacked,” he sighed, putting a hand over his heart. “Iwa-chan, I’m hurt.”

He didn’t even bother deigning him with a reply, just flipped him off and continued reading his notes. They had assignments due tomorrow, and he had been postponing it because of practices. He was pretty sure Tooru didn’t even remember they had an assignment in the first place, and would whine about it to him in the morning.

“No, for real though,” Tooru pushed on. Hajime sighed; he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus until Tooru finished whatever he wanted to say. “You seem to be more relaxed around her. She could be good for you, Hajime. Not to mention how much she adores you. It’s almost painful to see the blatant admiration in her eyes.”

“She is nice,” he conceded. “But don’t start spouting non-sense, she probably sticks to me because I’m the only one around who got the time explaining things she asked about. You guys spend too much time teasing her; Kyoutani is obviously out of the question. It would be a wonder if he ever got interested in anything long enough but to serve as aggressively as possible.”

Tooru sighed again, intentionally louder this time, as he flopped back on the mattress. “And you said you’re not dense,” he grumbled. “Whatever. If you ever ended up alone and brittle when you’re old, don’t come crying to me.”

Hajime grunted noncommittally, and stared back at his book. He still couldn’t focus, though, even long after Tooru had shut up. Akeno Hana was nice. She was cheerful, painfully earnest and terribly clumsy. She paid attention to him, and seemed to be sincere every time they talked. She also seemed to be interested in volleyball—as in, an actual interest instead of polite, meaningless inquiries or a passing interest, even if she claimed that she didn’t want to join the club—and that was good enough to be on Hajime’s good list.

Did he really seem to be more open around her, or was Tooru just bullshitting him as usual? Whatever, thinking about Tooru or Akeno Hana wouldn’t help him understand this theory. He could ponder about it any other day, if he didn’t completely forget.

He didn’t forget. It stuck with him, against all odd. He blamed Tooru entirely for this.

Akeno regularly came to the club around three to four times a week. Sometimes she stayed for long, sometimes she just came by to say hi. They ate their lunch together every day now, and the more she talked with that honest, excitable way of hers, Hajime found himself wondering more and more.

He did pay attention to her, and if he had to be honest he was genuinely interested to what she had to say. He found that his initial remark of her being a weird character, was slowly morphing into something endearing instead of raised-brow worthy. He got used to her clumsiness, and other forms of misfortune that seemed to surround her in abundance, despite the comedic timing of it. It had been some times now since he knew her, and he found that he actually cared about her to the point of remembering things she said; things she said she liked, things she thought were important to her, things she held dear to her heart.

“There was this bunny plushy, senpai,” she started one day, munching on her lunch. It was tuna sandwich this time; he reckoned she didn’t have time to prepare for bentos today. She always brought one, usually. “On this machine crane,” she said that as if it had personally offended her and her ancestors, “and it doesn’t matter how many times I tried, I keep failing! It’s really frustrating! But I really want it! Ah, what should I do?”

She finished her tirade with a dejected face, and Hajime blurted out, “We can try getting it sometimes, maybe two people’s luck is better than one.”

Her face brightened in an instant, and he suddenly had the urge to shield his eyes from how sunny her face was. He didn’t know what prompted him to say that, or why he even bothered to offer. Sure, he didn’t mind going to the arcade, it had been some time, after all. But to go out of his way specifically, just because she looked so sad about it, was not something he could reconcile with his usual self.

“I wanna join too!” Tooru exclaimed, head popping up on Hajime’s shoulder, and this time, he jumped along with Akeno. Huh. He was too caught up in Akeno’s rambling and his own thought to notice that Tooru was there.

“Oikawa-san, hello!” greeted the kouhai. “Um… I guess an apology won’t do anything, since I keep not noticing you there. But I’m sorry!”

The boy laughed and waved her off. He sent teasing glances at Hajime, and he closed his eyes, praying to whatever God was listening to give him strength and patience to face this asshole he called his best friend.

“Nah, I’m joking,” Tooru cajoled. “I have something to do today anyway. You two have fun!”

They did, have fun. They spent hours on the crane, and Hajime watched with increasing fascination and horror how the cheery, sweet Akeno turned into someone so different in the face of frustration. She kept feeding money to the machine without hesitation, and he briefly wondered if she kept bringing bentos because this was where all her pocket money went into. At the end, they finally gave up on the crane and decided to soothe their nerves (and wallet) by playing other games. Akeno went home with a big bag full of goods from the crane and other stuffs they won from the arcade, and Hajime went home feeling more happy and confused than he had ever felt in his entire life.

“It had been so long since I last eat chicken karaage,” Akeno said another day. She brought her own bento today, but she was chewing on her salmon with such dejected face that something in Hajime twinge and twitched with something he faintly recognized.

“Mhm,” he hummed absently, looking at the soccer field as Akeno apologized profusely to Tooru and Hanamaki for not noticing them earlier. “Must be nice to eat it once in a while.”

The next day, he stared at the big bowl of chicken karaage he made impulsively this morning. It was enough to feed the whole house for two days. He sighed, and got a second bento box from the shelf. It wouldn’t do to waste them, and he knew exactly who would appreciate some spontaneously made chicken karaage.

When he gave the box of bento to Akeno, there was something akin to wonder in her eyes. The same sparkle that he saw on the first day they met. When she opened it, however, the sparkle just went into a full-blown imitation of the damned sun. She just—she looked so happy that she almost vibrated with it. This was probably the happiest Hajime had ever seen someone to be when he gave them something.

“Thank—thank you senpai,” she said, lips wobbling and, to his horror, started crying. He tried, futilely, to calm her down, but the tears kept falling. “No, no, senpai. I-I’m just so happy that you gave me this, it’s—it’s my favorite food, and—and your chicken karaage is—so good—“

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed, smiling and rubbing the top of her head as she tried her best to stop the sniffle. “Thank you for the compliment, but I guess it would be better to eat it without crying. Might taste a little bit saltier with all those tears, you know?”

She gave a wet laugh, and hiccupped a little bit. But she still looked endearingly joyous about such a simple thing, and it warmed his heart to see it.

“Damn, Iwa-chan, I didn’t know your chicken karaage is that good,” Tooru hummed thoughtfully, startling Akeno and made her rub her face vigorously to erase any trace of tears. It didn’t do much, though. Her red-rimmed eyes, reddened cheeks and nose just gave it all away. “Did you give a different one to Hana-chan than the one you gave to me? I knew it! You are so unfair, Iwa-chan!”

“Shut the fuck up, asskawa, words come out of your mouth but they sound like garbage,” he deadpanned, face flat.

Akeno laughed, a little bit more cheerful than the last, and Tooru promptly faked crying. “Abuse! This is abuse! I’m hurt, Iwa-chan!”

Hajime laughed along with Akeno, and thought that maybe, just maybe, Tooru was right. This could be the peak of his delicate springtime in life. Maybe Tooru wasn’t so full of trash, after all.

(Though he wouldn’t admit it under the threat of torture. Some things were better kept as secrets from an amazingly annoying—and at times considerate—man like Tooru Oikawa, Hajime decided.)

The revelation didn’t start out like a bang for Hajime. Instead of the explosive realization, it felt much, much softer before building up into an exhilarating crescendo.

It started with this:

Akeno Hana’s favorite food was chicken karaage. She liked it extra crispy for some reason, and always looks like she was about to burst into tears whenever she ate it. She actually shed a tear when she ate Hajime’s karaage, and it made Hajime worried and felt an inexplicable joy in his chest.

He didn’t know her hometown, didn’t know her grades, didn’t know her exact height, didn’t know her favorite color, and didn’t know whether she liked her eggs scrambled or sunny side up in the morning. But he did know that she bled with her art, smiled like she could lit the whole town, and had an obsession with crane games that was bordering on unhealthy. She was terribly, laughably scared of ghosts; easily distracted, and easily entertained. She wore her heart on her sleeves, and would blindly give everything she had for the people she cared about.

She was—she was such a small, bundle of mess filled with joy and sincerity and Hajime—

Hajime felt like he finally came up for air after being held underwater for so long. The rush of relief and euphoria, the elation of this discovery that battled with creeping uncertainty. The first breath that warmed his lungs and it was hard to breathe for a moment, but he had never felt more alive than this moment.

He sat up, eyes wide, the tip of his fingers trembling as they gripped the sheets tight. I like her, he thought, and felt almost giddy with joy. I like her, he thought, and felt his stomach twisted with fear and anxiety.

“I like her,” he typed, and pressed send before his nerves could fail him. The embarrassment was creeping hard and fast all over him, and he tamped the urge to scream and forced himself to breathe.

“Took you long enough,” Oikawa replied a second later. “Congratulation, you’re officially a simp now.”

“Shut the fuck up trashykawa.”

The days afterwards were painfully awkward for Hajime, and he was pretty sure everyone was cringing at how stiff and jumpy he was around Akeno after that. Akeno didn’t seem to mind, though, albeit looking a little bit confused at his weird demeanor. Apparently, she just chalked it up to him suddenly contracting weird sickness.

“Are you sure you’re well enough for practice, senpai?” she asked the first time it happened. She looked worried, her hand hovering as if she wanted to check his temperature, but was probably too short to reach out for his forehead.

He lowered his shoulders without words, slumping so she could reach it and check for herself. She smiled at him and put her palm against her forehead, then frowned, looking adorably focused in deducting his non-existent sickness.

“Hmm,” she pondered, tapping her foot on the floorboard. “You don’t have fever, and you don’t seem like you’re sick either, honestly. But you’re so jumpy, senpai! Are you nervous about something? Is it the spring tournament? You still have time to practice more; it’s going to be alright. And I’m sure you’d be doing great, too. I believe in you, Iwaizumi-senpai.”

It wasn’t about the exams, of course, but Hajime nodded at her nonetheless, silently enjoying her fussing about his health and taking a few moments to himself to feel grateful that someone cared this much. He still didn’t know exactly what the protocol was after you realized you liked someone, but he was pretty sure that getting more and more enamored by said person was one of it. If he was wrong, well, Akeno Hana did bring several surprises in his life, he could do by following her example.

It got better, eventually. The stiffness and awkward interaction, but the heartbeats and the warmth in his face every time he found her doing something incredibly endearing didn’t exactly go away. But honestly, he thought, as Akeno laughed at something stupid Tooru said, her cheeks red and eyes full of mirth, he didn’t mind. He could get used to this delicate springtime of life.

#iwaizumi hajime #akeno hana #iwaizumi x oc #iwaizumi x reader #haha couple #iwaizumi fluff #iwaizumi fanfic

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linkspooky · 4 years ago

Note

Your thoughts on Mai and what her character development is going to be like?

Mai Zen’in is actually an interesting character because she’s actually a subversion of a lot of tropes. She’s not the “bad” twin to Maki’s “good” twin. She’s not defined in accordance to Maki, or how she foils Maki, but rather is a character allowed to have her own conflicts and point of view. When Maki and Mai fight, there’s no winner. Whenever they fight, neither of them are right.

If I were to define Mai’s goal in the story currently and the source of her conflict, I would say it’s all centered around understanding / wanting to be understood. More underneath the cut.

1. The Popular Mean Girl

So Mai puts on a facade of believing herself to be better than others. If you notice she sort of parrots a lot of the attitudes that she’s surrounded by and a lot of the more negative stigma of the Jujutsu world, which is what puts Nobara off of her, Mai reminds Nobara of the villagers who would all turn against Saori instead of thinking for herself.

At first glance it seems Mai not only just mindlessly believes that Yuji was a bad person for eating a cursed finger without even having met him, but that she also belittles her sister, and repeats the same abuse the rest of the Zen’in clan constantly hound Maki with. Rather that protect her sister she turns against her and joins in on the people abusing her.

The Zen’in clan have declared Maki worthless. Mai uses those same insults that Maki’s heard all her life to dig at her.

It looks like Mai is the bad sister for choosing to bully her sister, and repeat the clan’s abuse rather than protect Maki. In Nobara’s perspective it also looks like Mai mindlessly parrots the prejudgices of the jujutsu world without thinking things through or giving others a chance. That’s why she dismisses Yuji as just being a curse that needs to be elimtinated without having even met him. That’s why she looks down on her sister as weak.

However, we learn from Mai’s own perspective that Mai considers Maki to be much stronger than her. Mai never cared about strength, or even becoming a Jujutsu Sorcerer in the first place.

All of this, all of it, is to get at Maki, using the things Maki cares about. Maybe, if Mai is stronger than her, then Maki will notice her. Mai knows Maki at least well enough to know what hurts her, and if she can’t get any of Maki’s positive attention she settles for prodding her until she gets a reaction.

Mai’s feelings come from a place of being cut off emotionally from her sister, and not knowing any longer if her sister even cares about her, and having no clue how to communicate that. Maki and Mai have reacted in completely different ways, Mai conforms to the Zen’in Household and tries to disappear so she won’t get noticed and provoke abuse, whereas Maki actively rebels.

Which is why we see that the Mai displayed on the surface, bitchy mean girl, and the Mai we know who believes Maki to be much stronger than her, and her own self to be completely lacking are so different. As Momo said, Mai is intentionally playing to the expectations of everyone around her, because Mai seems to be the only valuable Zen’in heir present in the next generation. (The blood could be drying up like it did with Kamo, this would explain why they were even willing to buy Megumi from Toji).

Mai hides herself and tries to conform to the household’s desires in order to avoid criticism, this is given as the reason for her personality, bitchy on the outside, quiet, cowardly and intropsective on the inside.

Maki decided to leave the household, Mai stayed inside. However, Maki left without telling Mai, or even considering how she would react. Which is Mai’s problem to begin with, Maki has no understanding of her sister, and doesn’t really consider her in her actions.

Mai feels like an afterthought to Maki, who is her only real family. There’s a lot Maki doesn’t know about her sister, or even try to know. She’s surprised that Mai could have a friend like Miwa, because she thinks Mai is nasty and disagreeable. She doesn’t know anything at all about Mai’s cursed technique or her way of fighting.

Basically while it seems like Mai is the buly. Mai is actually far more invested in their relationship, and thinks about Maki far more than her sister thinks of her. It must be an incredibly lonely thing to not be understood by your only real family. They are both sort of awful to each other.

As to Mai’s future developemnt, I would say her greatest character flaw is her inability to communicate. She has a right to resent Maki for leaving her behind and not asking her to come with, but it’s clear Mai wants to have a sister, and resorting to bullying, and belitting her to get her attention is just going to push her away further ultimately.

In other words Mai’s attitude isn’t doing her any favors. Her empty lashing out is just serving to drive Mai farther and farther away and giving her the opposite of what she wants. The lashing out in the first place is an unhealthy behavior, and comes from another flaw of Mai’s.

Mai is ultimately a coward, which is why she lives with her head down. Maki confronts, Mai hides. I think part of her reason for spiting Maki so much for leaving is that she lost her person to hide behind. Of course, Mai isn’t going to overcome the abusive nature of the Zen’in household on her own even if she did directly confront her abuse. Mai’s timid nature is a direct reaction to abuse, and also an internalization of the idea that she is worthless because she has been living inside the Zen’in household and dealing with that treatment all her life.

Mai however doesn’t really fight for anything she wants. She always hides behind lies by denying what she really wants. She doesn’t want to become a Jujutsu Sorcerer, but she does it anyway. She thinks Maki is strong, but constantly belittles herself as weak anyway.

Mai is emotionally weak in the sense that she can’t be honest herself or her own emotoins. Her behavior of lashing out comes from a place of not being able to face her own vulnerability. Maki is like this too, to an extent, Maki just ignores her feelings of weakness by pushing them aside, Mai blames everyone else around her. It’s Maki’s fault that she’s weak, because Maki is better than her.

So, in a sense.

Mai is sort of resigned to being weak. She doesn’t really want to become a jujutsu sorcerer, but she’s pressured to become one because of the expectations of everyone around her, and she doesn’t even try that hard. To the point where, even if she’s serious at something like trying to beat Maki, she fails.

So basically to move forward as a character Mai would have to realize what she wants and fight for that. If she wants to not become a Jujutsu Sorcerer, then she has to genuinely quit. If she wants to repair her relationship with her sister, or air her grievances, she actually has to try to do that rather than relying on attention grabbing tactics and hoping Maki will just guess what’s wrong.

Mai’s main problem is because she’s pressured by the house around her into doing things she doesn’t really want to do, she kind of only puts a half-effort into everything she does.

Mai actually has an insanely powerful cursed ability, she can create something out of nothing. However, Mai is willfully weak. She doesn’t really want to try to get strong like Maki, so she’s not pushing herself to use this technique to the best of her ability.

However, Mai has the ability to form close relatoinships with others much like the rest of the Kyoto kids. This can be the impetus from her growth. After all now all of the Kyoto school are reeling from both the loss of Mechamaru, and also the reason he died. He dismissed all of them as weak, and tried to fight on his own instead.

This is a good push to make Mai realize what she wants. She thought she was okay with being looked down as weak if it meant she could keep her head down, live a normal life, and be spared the abuse of her household. However, i think Mai’s strong point is her introspective nature nd her ability to connect with others. (Unlike Mai who is distant from others, and kind of thick headed). Miwa gets along with Mai just fine, and Momo is even willing to fight a complete stranger to defend Mai’s point of view and try to get somebody else to understnad Mai. It’s clear Mai is close with these people in ways Maki is not.

I think Maki is going to realize soon that if she wants to stay close to these people, it’s something she’s going to have to fight for as well. That her attitude of just wishing Maki would fall with her is the wrong one, because they could have been fighting together instead.

#Anonymous #mai zein #maki zenin #zenin mai #zenin maki #nobara kugisaki #kugisaki nobara #jjk meta #metasks

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btsslowburnfic · 4 years ago

Text

Argument with Yoongi-part 2

Part 1 found HERE

Summary of part 1: you leave you and Yoongi's apartment after he can't say that he loves you anymore and he hasn't been home in weeks even though they are in town.

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

You had no idea where you were going to go. You weren't particularly close with any of the other members or their significant others since Yoongi really didn't socialize with them outside of work. You walked down the street with your backpack slung over your shoulders. Fuck, this sucked.

"Y/N!" you heard a voice call out. Seriously?

You kept walking. You were too old to have an argument out on the street. Despite your best efforts to ignore him, you ended up turning around and seeing Yoongi awkwardly jogging after you.

You stopped and glared at him.

"Where are you going?" he asked as he caught up to you.

You jerked your head to the side and walked down the nearest alley to have some semblance of privacy.

"Y/N please. Where are you going?" he asks again.

Alright. You guys were really going to have this argument out here? OK. You were so angry. You gave him a chance to talk to you and he wouldn't do it. "Why the fuck do you care? You said you don't love me. You're never home. You said you can never trust me again so why the hell are you out here following me?" you spat out.

Yoongi looked up at the sky like he wanted to scream. "I'm an idiot OK? Is that what you want to hear?"

You rolled your eyes. "No. What I wanted at a bare minimum was for you to tell me you loved me 15 minutes ago when I asked you and you couldn't even handle that."

Yoongi's eyes started to tear up; his deep voice began to crack, "I know I'm bad at stuff like this. Please. I can't do this alone."

You wanted so badly to just wrap your arms around him and forgive him. To take him home and tell him that of course you’ll stay, he’s the only person in the world for you. But you can’t. Things would just go back to how they have been and you two will just end up doing this to each other again. You scoffed. "What about me? I've been alone for months at a time. Literally alone in our apartment. While you won't come home because you say you don't want to see me even though you’re 5 minutes down the road. No." you shook your head. "I don't know where I'm going, but I know it's not with you." you turned and walked out of the alleyway and to the subway station.

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

A week passed by. You were homeless the first two nights, catching some power naps in an internet cafe, but then managed to find a cheaper hotel if you didn't mind the far walk to the station. Seoul was expensive. You sighed. Maybe it was time to move. Everywhere you turned you felt like BTS and Yoongi were being shoved in your face. You decide you're going to have to suck it up and go back to the apartment to get new clothes. You had packed the bag not actually thinking you were going to leave. Yoongi hadn't texted or called you. Which didn't surprise you given the fact he didn't do those things when you were together.

You assumed Yoongi wouldn't be at home considering he never was anyway. You unlocked the door and were immediately overwhelmed with the scent of booze and garbage. What the fuck.

You sat your backpack down and wandered inside. There, on the couch, was Yoongi. He looked so small and sad, curled up in a ball, passed out. There were several empty bottles of wine and whisky covering the coffee table. You pursed your lips together. Idiot.

You went to the laundry room and started a load of your dirty clothes. You started gathering bottles, rinsing them out, and placing them in the recycling bin. Sure, now he’s home. You found yourself thinking sarcastically.

You heard movement on the couch and you froze. You were counting on him being out of it for a while longer. You heard his groggy voice, "I told you to leave. I don't want to do this again."

You rolled your eyes. “I’ll be gone in a minute asshole. I just came to do my laundry. Also, trashing the apartment and skipping work aren’t going to make me come back.” you retorted as you continue to clean up the living room.

“I don’t care. They sent me home anyways.” he responded and rolled over, facing away from the couch now.

You sat a glass of water down on the table. “Is that so? Well I’m so glad you are home now that I’m gone. It’s really comforting to know that it was actually a choice to stay away from me.”

“Go away nightmare woman. Usually you leave when I open my eyes.”

“There’s no reason to be so mean Yoongi. I get it.” you sighed as you walked back to the laundry room to put your clothes in the dryer.

"She's gone but you keep coming back to me every time I close my eyes." you hear him whine on the couch. Does he think he’s dreaming?

“Oh yeah, your girlfriend left you?” you asked, taking a seat in the chair across from him.

“Yes.” he said sadly.

“Now why would she leave such a pretty face?” You had decided this was far too interesting not to play along.

“Because I’m a dick. I’m a bad boyfriend. I leave her for months at a time. I live in my head and forget to come home. I work all the time. And even though I think about her all the time it doesn’t matter because I’m never there for her.”

“Yeah. That does sound pretty dickish.”

“I just miss her so much.” he said quietly.

“Yeah. But even if she came back, you’d just do the same shit again.”

“No. I love her. I wouldn’t leave her alone again. They sent me home because I told them I was quitting.”

You froze. What in the everliving fuck did you just hear? You didn’t know what to say to that. You got up and walked into the bedroom, dialing one of the few BigHit contacts you had saved in your phone. You dialed Namjoon’s number. You’ve only met him like twice before and you knew they were super busy all the time so you were shocked when he actually answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey. This is [Y/N], Yoongi’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend.” you corrected yourself.

“Oh. Well, Yoongi’s not here. He got sent home 4 days ago.”

“Yeah. About that. Why did you send him home?”

“I don’t really feel like it’s my place to say. You should really ask him.”

“Yeah...I tried that and he’s like half out of his mind somewhere between sleepy, hungover, maybe still drunk, and slightly delusional so...yeah. I’m looking for some clarification.” you replied. You heard Namjoon sigh deeply. Ever the diplomat.

“He came in here a few days ago talking about how you had left him. He said he was going to quit because of it. He was...unpleasant to be around. He said he got tricked into joining the group anyway because all he had wanted to do was write music. Just you know. Angry Yoongi things.” he took a deep breath. “Anyways. We told him to go home and think about what he was saying. To cool off and come back after some time.”

“Ok. Thanks.” you said, heading back to the laundry room to check on your clothes.

“Sure. no problem. How’s he doing?”

“Bad.” you responded instantly.

“Are you two going to work things out?”

You checked the clothes. Still damp. “I don’t know. I’m not going to be with a ghost. So I guess if he’s serious about not working so much I would consider it. I don’t want him to quit; I know he loves writing and he also loves performing even if he acts like he doesn’t. I just feel like there should be some boundaries. You know?”

“I do. It’s something all of us are working on. We all talk about it a lot.”

“Yeah. Life is fucking weird.” you said, closing the dryer door. You heard Namjoon laugh.

“Well, I hope it works out. You two really do seem perfect for each other. But, if not, no hard feelings. We all have to walk our own path, yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks. Take care.”

“Bye.”

You put the phone in your back pocket and turned to walk back into the living room and you saw Yoongi standing in the laundry room door, looking like he was about to cry.

You stared at him, unsure what to do. He walked towards you and wrapped his arms around you. “You’re real.” You feel him shudder against you.

You let yourself relax into his embrace slightly. “I am real. And I’m still upset.”

“I know. Even if this is the last time, please let me have this.” He said sniffling, his lips ghosting the top of your head. “I meant it, you know? I’ll quit.” he pulled away to look at you. “There’s no point in working all the time if I don’t have you to come home to. I took for granted that you would always be here and I shouldn’t have.”

You placed your hand on his chest. “I never wanted you to quit. I just wanted to see you more often. Especially when you’re in the same city as me.”

“My music was all I had for so long. And then the other members. And then ARMY. And then finally, you. I just don’t know where all of it fits together.” He confessed.

“Maybe I don’t fit in there and that’s ok.” you said, your eyes becoming glossy.

“But I want you. I want you so badly.” He took your hands up to his mouth and gently kissed your knuckles. You felt your face growing red.

“I want you too. But not every few months. Not when maybe you remember to come home. Not like an afterthought. I either want you to be all in, or don’t bother.”

“Will you take me back if I say I’m all in?” he asked, running a hand through your hair.

“I would consider it. But I’m being serious. I can’t keep getting my heart broken and getting my hopes up. It hurts too much.” you said, tears streaming down your face.

“I’m all in. Please. Just come home. I’ll come home too. Every night that we’re in town I promise to come home to you. Even if it’s 3 in the morning. Just please. I need you.”

You let out a very soft, “Ok.” You see him flash the smallest gummy smile. The one that you love so much.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. I love you.” he kissed you.

You returned the kiss but crinkle your nose, “Ok, yeah. No more make-up kissing or other activities until you at least brush your teeth. And shower.”

He smiled, “Yeah ok.”

“And then go into work and beg them for your job back.”

“I thought you wanted me here more and now you’re already sending me back to work?” he pouted.

You rolled your eyes as you gently pushed him on his shoulders, guiding him to the bathroom. “At least call Namjoon and apologize.”

“Deal. But for today, I plan to begin making it up to you.” he snuck one more kiss.

“TEETH. Brush Em!” you giggled and playfully shoved him towards the sink; so glad to finally feel like the two of you were on the same wavelength again.

#bts angst #bts reactions #bts fanfic #bts fanfction #bts yoongi x reader #bts suga x you #bts scenarios #bts au fanfic #bts yoongi #bts suga #soft yoongi

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