#this feels like it ended kind of abruptly whoops but i just needed it to be done you know

[cuubism]

it's been a while since i've written something that could be described as "literally just hurt/comfort" but well. here it is. i guess XD

--

It amused Hob endlessly that Dream never seemed to sit on his throne. Perhaps he did when welcoming official delegations of visitors, or conducting official business, but Hob had never witnessed it. Every time he had been to Dream’s throne room, Dream had been sprawled on the stairs instead, long limbs all askew, coat flared out dramatically below him, like some kind of panther reclining on its tree branch. Moody, petulant, dramatic thing. Hob loved him so.

He pet up and down Dream’s side as he sat beside him, and Dream, panther-like indeed, purred, pressing his nose into Hob’s throat. He had been about to show Hob something, take him to some new corner of the Dreaming he had created, but as usual they had gotten distracted, necking on the steps like insatiable teenagers. And now they were just talking quietly, one of Hob’s legs slung over Dream’s, Dream’s arm around his waist as Hob kept stroking up and down his rib cage under his cloak.

“I did intend to show you the new gardens,” Dream murmured, but made no move to leave Hob’s side. “You will enjoy them.”

“I’m sure I will,” Hob said, pressing another kiss to his hair. “Enjoying this too, though.”

“Would you like to enjoy more?” Dream asked, suggestion in it now, and Hob laughed.

“If you’re feeling committed enough to get up and lead us to your quarters. I don’t think Lucienne deserves to get an eyeful.”

“I could close off the throne room and have you upon these here steps,” rumbled Dream, grip tightening on Hob’s hip.

“And I could have you over your throne, if we’re doing that,” Hob countered, and a shudder ran up Dream’s spine.

He managed to disentangle himself from Hob and stood, offering a hand. “Come. We will retreat— this time.”

Hob chuckled, letting Dream pull him up. “Not in an exhibitionist mood today?”

“I’d like you to myself.” So saying, he strode down the steps, already summoning a swirl of sand to take them away— back to the waking world, maybe—

when something struck him.

Only there was nothing there. But Dream lurched backward the way the soldiers of Hob’s youth would fall back when lanced through with an arrow on the battlefield—he stumbled on suddenly weak legs, clutching at his chest, and with a cry of pain just—

—dropped

just fell in the middle of his throne room, the very seat of his power. Landed on shaking arms that were already giving out, shoulders curved and head hanging.

It was fucking terrifying.

Hob rushed over to him, fell to his knees by his side. Hands hovering for a moment as he tried to decide if it was safe to touch him. Safe for Dream, that was. Hob hardly cared about what might happen to him. “Dream,” he said, but Dream didn’t respond. He seemed barely able to hold himself up. As Hob watched, blood trickled from his nose and dripped onto the marble floor.

Hob abandoned caution and took him into his arms. Dream wiped at the blood streaming faster from his nose with a limp hand, but only succeeded in smearing it everywhere. “Dream,” Hob said. “What’s happening, love?”

Dream just closed his eyes. “Something…” he murmured, the word slurred and nearly unintelligible, “terrible. Silence. And. Death.”

A tremor rushing through him like an electric shock, and the Dreaming… separated.

Hob felt the schism go through it, felt his own body separating from itself like an earthquake right through the center of existence, the very air trembling. He looked at his hands and saw them in double, looked at the throne room and saw its colors refracting outward in layered planes, and then Dream, in the center of it all, dense as a neutron star.

Then it all slammed back together.

The force of the impact flung Hob across the room, away from Dream. He hit the floor hard, struggling to catch his breath as he scrambled upright, dizzy. Everything seemed to have congealed back into one layer again, but the hall was shaking, and on the other side of the room Dream was trying to push himself up, and failing as his limbs kept giving out on him, blood puddling on the floor from his nose and mouth.

What could possibly make Dream bleed? In his own realm?

Hob raced back over to him, skidding to a stop and crouching by his side so fast he almost fell over. Dream was on his knees, eyes screwed shut, hands pressed to his temples. Hob laid his hands over Dream’s. “Hey. Can you hear me? Can you look at me?”

Dream just let out a pained whine. And then Hob was very glad he was holding onto him because the whole room spun.

Suddenly they were upside down, gravity reversed so down was up, up was down, and Hob was on the ceiling looking down at the endless void of space. They didn’t fall, though, and he wrenched his gaze back to Dream before the vertigo made him puke. And then the room swung upright again, but this time it took gravity with it— Hob grabbed a hold of Dream’s hand and just barely stayed in place but heard things crashing against the palace windows, trees and houses and god knew what else that had been uprooted in the spinning equilibrium.

“Dream,” he said, holding Dream’s face between his hands. “Can you focus? Come back to me, love.”

Dream finally looked at him. His eyes had lost their human veneer and gone starry, but one was utterly black edge-to-edge, like it was dilating wrong in its view of the universe. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but what came out instead was another gush of blood.

“Shit.” Hob hauled him upright, kept him in his arms as he choked and spasmed, blood coming up with each cough, streaming from his nose. The sky had shifted to a glaring red, the stars angry eyes against it, and screaming rose higher and higher from the distant woods outside the palace, a thousand animal voices rising in chorus. “Shit. Alright, it’s okay.” He pet Dream’s hair, kept his voice pitched low and soothing, though his heart was hammering under Dream’s ear pressed against his chest. It most definitely was not alright, but Hob didn’t know what else he could do, other than try to bring Dream back from wherever he was. There was no injury, there was nothing he could fix. “It’s alright, my darling. Come on.”

Dream whimpered in pain and jerked as a lightning bolt of energy raced through him, zapping each of his limbs. Blood had started streaming out of his ears now, too, and past the sleeves of his robe Hob could see bruising around his wrists and trailing up his arms. He yanked up the hem of Dream’s shirt, and found more on his torso, patternless marks of bleeding, and his stomach lurched.

“Alright, alright, let’s get you down,” he said, keeping his voice gentle despite the panic racing through his nervous system. He laid Dream down on the floor, taking off his own jacket and folding it as a makeshift pillow to put under his head. Dream immediately turned and curled up on his side, hands over his ears.

Hob leaned down to try to meet his gaze. “Dream. Hey.” He caressed Dream’s cheek. “Dream. Please. Anything you can tell me that will help. Come on, darling. Talk to me.”

After several long, painful seconds, Dream managed, each word a dragging, pained whisper, “It will pass. I prom—” this was cut off by a horrible scream, animalistic but all wrong, off-pitch, like he was being eviscerated by an electroshock probe.

Matthew careened into the throne room and landed at Hob’s side. “Holy shit, there you are. I thought he was dying in a ditch somewhere, the Dreaming’s going fucking haywire.” He prodded at Dream’s hair with his beak, hopping in distress. “Boss. Boss!”

Dream seemed totally lost to them now, clutching at his head and making an awful whining sound. Hob finally gave up on trying to get him to talk and just pulled him close, laying Dream’s head in his lap.

Matthew perched delicately on Dream’s hip. “Do you know what happened?”

Hob brushed Dream’s hair from his sweaty, feverish forehead. “Not a clue. He said it would pass?”

Matthew tittered nervously. “A whole wing of the library is burning.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Loosh can’t get the fire under control. And a whole mountain range fell into the sea. Is this the apocalypse?”

Hob let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But it this doesn’t get better soon I’m calling his sister for help myself.”

Dream sucked in a huge breath as if summoned back to life by Hob’s words and said, each word a heavy scrape, “She will be far too busy for that.”

Around them, the Dreaming seemed to stabilize, shivering back into place. Everything went quiet again. Hob’s exhale of relief shook his whole body. “Hey. Hey.” He took Dream’s face between his hands and tilted his head up to look at him. “Hey, love. Are you back with us?”

Dream nodded. He looked utterly exhausted, glassy-eyed and with tremors running up and down his frame, but no longer like he was being actively tortured. “That was. The worst of it.”

“The worst of what? Did somebody hurt you?”

“No.” He looked to Hob for help, and Hob didn’t like it but he hauled him upright and helped him sit, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and letting Dream lean against him. “I am,” his voice was hoarse, each word a struggle, “the sum. Of all living minds in this universe. And when so many of those lives are ended at once. I. Feel it. That part of myself. Dying.”

Hob looked around before remembering that he couldn’t exactly see anything from here. “Something happened back home?”

“Your planet is not the only one with life,” Dream said. Hob shook himself before his brain could latch onto that—it was too much to be confronted with in the middle of a crisis. “I do not know exactly what transpired. I will have to ask Death. Only, it was significant.”

“What, like thousands of people? Er, beings?” Matthew said.

Dream’s gaze slanted over to him. He looked horribly sad, underneath the exhaustion. “Trillions. Not only intelligent species dream. Smaller creatures. Insects. Some plants. All eradicated.”

“That’s why that happened to the library,” Hob realized. All the books of all those lives.

Dream’s eyes snapped to him. “What happened to the library?”

“Apparently it was on fire—”

Dream tore himself from Hob’s grasp and staggered to his feet, rushed through a door that hadn’t been there a moment before. He was listing violently to one side, stumbling off balance, but didn’t stop, and Hob and Matthew chased after him.

They tumbled through the door into an inferno, the towering library stacks crackling and popping in the incredible heat. A surprisingly modern sounding alarm was blaring overhead, lights flashing. Lucienne had found a fire extinguisher and was valiantly attempting to put out the blaze, but she could do nothing against the sheer scale of it.

Dream careened into a table, caught himself just before falling, then thrust out his hands. The room plummeted to freezing in an instant, and Hob’s breath caught as all of the oxygen—to whatever extent that even existed in the Dreaming—whooshed out of the room. His chest went tight, and he was pretty sure it was only the nature of the Dreaming that kept them all from suffocating.

Dream held them in stasis like that until all of the fires had sputtered out, starved of air. Then his arms fell heavily to his sides and he dropped sideways into a chair, panting. Air swung back into the room, and Hob sucked in a deep breath.

“Lucienne,” said Dream, breathing heavily, “what— what is— the damage?”

Lucienne sat down beside him. She looked rather more concerned about the state of Dream himself than the books—his skin was still absolutely covered in blood, his face gaunt and hollow, limbs shaking—but she said, “We’ve lost most of this wing, my lord. What happened?”

Dream squeezed his eyes shut in dismay. “Too many lives felled at once.”

Lucienne laid her hand over his, gave it a squeeze. Hob knelt beside him, laying a hand on his knee.

“My fault,” Dream murmured. “I should have conceived of some protection against this. Or recovered myself. Quicker.”

“No,” said Lucienne, even before Hob could. “I don’t think you could have stopped this, my lord.”

"You can't prevent people from dying," said Hob.

"I can certainly prevent their books from being wiped from the library," insisted Dream, and then slumped, leaning his face on his hand, brow pinched in pain. "Too much strain on the Dreaming at once," he murmured, mostly to himself. "This should not have happened."

Hob squeezed Dream’s knee. “I’m sorry, love. I’m really sorry.”

Dream’s frown didn’t soften, if anything, his shoulders slumped further.

“I’ll see what I can salvage,” Lucienne said, standing upright again. “You should rest.”

Dream didn’t seem to have the strength to oppose this. “Matthew, will you find out if any residents were injured in the destruction?”

“Yup, on it, boss.” He landed on Dream’s shoulder for a moment, preened his hair, then winged away again, out of the library.

Then it was just Dream and Hob.

“Hey,” Hob said quietly. Now that they were alone, Dream had gone nearly as limp as a doll. Hob took both of his hands. “Let’s go rest, yeah? You must be knackered.”

That barely scratched the surface, but bringing up Dream’s moments of weakness—as he would see it—was rarely helpful.

“I am not tired so much as…” he plucked each specific word individually from the ether— “Stripped. To the bone. Like carrion.”

Hob’s heart hurt, doubly so for Dream having actually admitted it. “Let’s go rest then, yeah?”

Dream shook his head. “I do not wish to simply return to my quarters. I do not wish to simply return to my quarters. That is not what the Dreaming deserves after this failure.”

“Somewhere else? You can’t just go and try to fix it all now, Dream. Please.”

“Somewhere else,” Dream agreed, at length. "For a time." He interlocked his fingers with Hob’s. Then the library was swirling out of view, and they reemerged in a familiar grassy dell, sitting in the long, soft grass. Fiddler’s Green, Hob thought. Of course.

Gilbert—for since learning that Fiddler’s Green was a he, Hob couldn’t help but call him the more human name he’d chosen—seemed unharmed by the damage that had plowed through the Dreaming. Dream sat cross-legged on the soft ground and brushed his fingertips through the grass, a self-soothing motion. A warm breeze tumbled through his hair, as if Gilbert was trying to comfort him.

Hob gathered Dream into his arms, and as he did a tree sprung up from the ground behind him, growing from a sapling to a massive oak in moments. Hob leaned back against it, holding Dream close. “You’re a gem, Gilbert.”

The leaves rustled in response.

“Has something like this happened before?” Hob asked quietly, lips brushing Dream’s hair, and Dream nodded.

“Yes. Hence why I should have been more prepared.”

“Not what I meant. I wanted to know how to help.”

“There is… little to be done,” Dream said. “In time, the Dreaming will integrate the loss. Any acute damage, I will fix. It simply requires some… patience.”

“And what about you?” Hob said.

This time, Dream didn’t say something about how the Dreaming was him. He just didn’t respond at all.

Hob held out a hand. “Do you want to help me out here, then, Dreaming?”

A soft, wet towel appeared in his hand. “Cheers.”

“Hob,” said Dream uncertainly, as Hob budged him up.

“Let me see your face.” He took Dream’s chin in one hand, and began scrubbing away the blood with the other, wiping clean his lips, and the corners of his eyes, his chin, his throat.

Dream watched him silently. Hob was still wiping clean the sharp hinge of his jaw when the first tear slipped from his eye. “So many dreamers,” he murmured.

Hob pulled him close and pressed Dream’s head to his shoulder. He still didn’t know exactly what had happened, in some far off corner of the universe. But Dream’s pain was plain enough. “I know, love. I’m sorry.”

“I am used,” Dream said, “to the normal cycle of life and death. I have never considered it a tragedy; it is the way of Time. Death herself is kind, but not all ends are, it is the way of things. But such sudden, and widespread destruction. This feels. Like a tragedy. Not only lives were lost. But whole species. Cultures. A history, too. And its remembrance.”

“And normally you’re the one that remembers it,” said Hob, and Dream nodded.

“Now… I can only remember fragments about those civilizations. Whatever survived in the library, or on the fringes of my realm. I can feel the loss in the fabric of dreaming—but I cannot see what was once there.”

Hob kissed the top of his head. “You care so much,” he said, as Dream’s tears wet his shoulder. “Oh, darling. I’m sorry.”

There was really nothing more to say; he couldn’t make it any better. He could only hold Dream while he processed and regained his strength. And so he did just that, leaning back against the tree in the warm, calming breeze of Fiddler’s Green, and kept Dream close to him. And when it came time for Dream to fix the damage done to the Dreaming, Hob would stick by him then, too.

[raemanzu]

Duel Nature

@zexalmonth

D - Duel

This little one-shot takes place basically during the last episode of the series, because I felt kind of cheated by how rushed the ending was.

Yuma wants to connect with Vector after all the Barians are revived, and what better way than a duel between friends? But Vector already has enough battles to fight.

----

            They materialized on the school roof, of all places. All of them at once, coming to on the ground, like they’d all been part of some bullshit revival meeting—ha, revival, literally—and only fainted, not straight-up died.

            For a moment, Vector thought to himself that this had to be some new form of hell. Perhaps the last dying gasp of his consciousness was playing tricks on him, or whatever fragment of him still remained within Don Thousand was being kept as a plaything—it would be fitting. But there was Astral, the smug glowing bastard, descending from the sky like the saint every one of his kind thought they were.  

            Wait. No, he wasn’t there, not fully. Vector couldn’t feel his presence like he normally could.

            “What the hell?” Nasch was standing up, in his stupidly teenage body holding his head of stupidly teenage hair in his hands and grimacing. “We’re alive?”

            We. Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.

            Vector reached out to create a portal, to get away from Nasch and the other emperors before they all inevitably turned their attention to him, the guy who’d stabbed every last one of them in the back, and—nothing happened.

            There was nothing there.

            Don’t panic. Vector affixed a manic grin onto his face and shoved his errant hands into the pockets of his pants, noting with relief that at least he hadn’t been revived in the idiotic school uniform. Instead his favorite black and white coat was a reassuring weight on his shoulders. Small mercies. Think.

            The last thing he remembered was the torrential wind, the rock crumbling under his fingers, getting sucked into… well…

            Vector felt as if that same invisible hand was squeezing his core again and sucked in a breath, arm twitching with the urge to cover his chest with one hand. Bright red eyes flashed in his memory, and his empty stomach twisted.

            No, there was something else. A sense of time passing, like he’d merely been asleep. And he’d felt Astral’s presence somewhere close, unmistakably. That unnervingly clear resonance, artificial, perfect.

            “I have used the numeron code to revive all of you,” Astral was saying, “because that is Yuma’s wish. These human bodies are yours to use as you desire, and will age and die the same as other humans’. Earth is your home now.”

            Nasch looked stunned by this, until Yuma leapt down from who-knows-where like a whooping cannonball. “Shark!! Alito! Shark sis! Ahh, Astral, it worked!!”

            The sound of his so-happy-I-could-cry voice shouting out the rest of their names was like razors in Vector’s chest.

            “It’s Rio,” Merag snapped. “Or Merag, pick one!”

            Yuma was too busy jumping Nasch, who honestly might have hit his head and lost all power of speech judging by the incoherent noises coming from his mouth.

            Vector took a step backward, unable to tear his eyes off the sight. Yuma, the last hand that had touched his, promising to—

            He turned abruptly for the door to the stairs, skin prickling with chills.

            His hand touched the knob. “Vector,” Mizael said, and that’s the push he needs to hurry up and yank it open, slipping through before anyone else can say a thing.   

            With the door closed, he couldn’t hear their voices anymore. Still not a whisper of resonance, either.

            Just humans, now? Forever? Until he dies again—what, of old age? The thought was so wrong Vector heard a breathless laugh escape him as he hurried down the stairs.

            The laugh quickly turned to an embarrassing squawk as a glowing yellow hand gripped his arm and threw him against the wall. Ow. Fuck.

            “Where are you sneaking off to?” Mizael’s pompous voice always made Vector fantasize about snipping off that stupid hair-wing (ear??) with a little concentrated chaos, and he wondered if it had that effect on anyone else. It had to, right?

            “Ohoh, Miza-chan, you already miss me that much?” Vector strained to keep a suave voice. That was the problem with human bodies. They had inconvenient things like lungs and throats and flight instincts. And were too easy to pin against walls by someone with a body of condensed energy and crystal.

            And why the hell was Mizael Barian anyway?!

            “Don’t bother to lie. You’re always up to something.”

            “Too bad, our private time is already getting interrupted~!” Vector hated the frayed edge of his own voice and forced his face into a foxlike grin as he saw the unmistakable burst of light and color heralding the arrival of several other Barians.

            One, two, three, four, five.

            And Astral, floating in through the ceiling.

            Vector realized with a bitter taste in his mouth that the only human heart pounding in this damn stairwell was his. And no matter how desperately he reached for that easy familiar power, it was gone.

            “Let him go, Mizael,” Nasch ordered calmly.

            Mizael made a reluctant noise. “And what? Let him slink off to scheme up even more ways to betray the rest of us?”

            Ugh, he could feel Nasch’s eyes on him. That much hadn’t changed. That pompous, benevolent stare, measuring him up, deciding just how much pre-emptive disapproval to dish out. Vector looked carelessly toward the ceiling instead, keeping everyone in his periphery, and sighed as if this was all just a minor annoyance.

            “The war for Barian world is over,” Nasch mutters. “We lost.”

            Vector thought he had no feeling left in him for Barian world. But something about the defeated voice Nasch just used really pissed him off.

            “Oh, Astral, you really wiped it all out?” A tiny hint of Shingetsu’s whiny voice broke through. “Then just took the seven of us back home to be your pets? I didn’t know you had such a taste for the exotic~”

            Right then the sound of Yuma’s feet pounding on the stairs above them made Vector’s stupid human heart literally skip a beat, and not in a cute way—in fact it made him wonder if it was trying to stop entirely. That would have been convenient.

            “Wait up, guys!” Yuma panted desperately.

            Mizael let go of Vector’s arm with a hmph, but Girag had moved his bulk to block the path going down, so all Vector could do was straighten up and think fast. Nasch turned human again first as Yuma approached, then the others, but not so fast that Yuma didn’t catch sight of the transformation as he rounded the corner, panting and rosy-cheeked.

            “W-what’re you all in such a hurry for?” Yuma laughed. “I mean, you can do whatever you want now that you’re alive again, but since the big fight is over, I was hoping we could all just be friends!”

            Awkward silence. Nasch and Alito started to talk at the same time, then stopped and gave each other looks.

            “To answer your question, Vector,” Astral said solemnly, “I did not destroy Barian world. It has been merged with Astral world, and all the souls that existed within each world now exist side by side.”

            “All except for us,” Durbe said thoughtfully, adjusting his glasses.

            Astral nodded once. “Yuma thought you all deserved a second chance, considering the way your human lives were cut short by Don Thousand’s manipulations.”

            Yuma’s presence was bad enough on its own. But Vector was going to be damned—well, he already was—if he gave the other former emperors time to realize just how short his end of the stick was this time. Assuming they didn’t already know, in which case he wasn’t going to give them time to rub it in his face either.

            “Yuma-kun~!” Vector cried out, just the slightest edge of Shingetsu still clinging on. “So you defeated Don Thousand after all?”

            “Yeah!” Yuma looks thrilled, though there is a flicker of something in his eyes that Vector instinctively turns away from. “You don’t have to worry anymore. Uh, any of you! So, how about it? We’re not enemies anymore, right?”

            “To exist in this world as humans means we will need some form of income,” Durbe said.

            Astral pointed to each of them in turn, somewhere near their pockets. “I took the liberty of giving you all a modest starting amount. Yuma reminded me that Shark has quite a lot of money and a rather large mansion as well.”

            Nasch makes an odd face with his shoulders tensed, like he’s suppressing his initial instinct to grimace. “Uh, yeah, you guys can crash there until you get your own places I guess.”

            “I’m sure it’s for the best if I get a start on looking right away,” Vector said, a sharp edge slipping through the sickening sweet of his voice. “So excuse me please, Girag~”

            Girag stepped aside at Nasch’s nod of permission, and with another prickle of feeling all their eyes on his neck, Vector hurried—but not too fast—down the stairs.

            “Hey, wait right here, okay guys? I’ll be right back!” Yuma’s cheerful voice was already faint enough Vector could only just hear it.

            Shit. Shit shit shit. He’d just been reaching into his pocket to see what Astral thought was a modest amount of cash. Vector looked for somewhere to hide. It would be so easy if he could just portal away like usual.

            But there was nowhere except the nearest exit from the stairwell. He rushed for it and was halfway down the hall when the door clacked back open behind him. Ugh. There was no helping it.

            At least the others weren’t watching.

            “Shinge—ah—Vect—ehh, what should I call you??” Yuma laughed awkwardly as he approached.

            “Vector,” Vector said in a low voice, not turning around.

            Those puppy-like footsteps stumbled to a halt a little ways behind him. “O-okay, Vector! Hey, I was just coming to say, if you don’t want to stay with the other guys, you can come stay with me!”

            This guy. Was he serious?

            Heat crept up Vector’s back. Not so strange, really. Yuma was like a human sun, burning into him even when his eyes were closed, and in front of Vector, all that existed was the black scar of his own shadow, distorting the hallway floor like another gateway to hell. Sweat trickled down his back. Ugh. Sweat. The smell of his own fear and human­-ness was already rising from inside his jacket. And his stomach felt hollow and cramped.

            He was going to have to eat soon. Sleep. Piss. Shower. Get a job… what a joke. Hilarious! Astral sure had a sadistic sense of humor. Either that or he was much more oblivious than Vector had thought, setting Vector up with the perfect excuse to tug on Yuma’s heart strings. It would be so easy.

            Pull out the waterworks. Turn around with tears in his eyes. Yuma-kun, I think I’m the only one who can’t access my Barian powers! The others are going to murder me in my sleep if I don’t stay with you. But I don’t want to cause any more trouble….

            And then. And then. He would be the fox invited into the hen-house. Curl up and play with the foolish little chick who thought he could be friends with someone who’d just as soon swallow him whole. Bat the dumb kid around a bit while he giggles, not even realizing he’s getting slowly crushed by this “game.” How could Vector do anything else? It was just his nature, like a cat chasing a mouse. And Yuma was such a good mouse.

            “Vector?” Yuma’s voice was a little breathless, and too close.            

            Vector turned sideways with half a glare out the window, still not looking directly at him. Yeah, like the sun… too dangerous to stare at for long.

            “Yuma… you’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

            Yuma laughed. Of course he did. A sheepish little laugh, scratching his head and waving his hands.

            “Everybody says that! But I’m just glad you’re okay now.”

            “Yeah….” Vector said distantly, a strange buzzing feeling beginning under his skin. Like an inverted sense of resonance, like a phantom limb, like the part of him that had been Barian had simply gone numb and was coming back as pins and needles. For a moment it excited him, but when there was still no response to his reach for power, he realized he was shivering. No, this wasn’t a sudden awakening. Maybe it was more like a premonition of an addict’s withdrawal.

            Yuma, to his credit, hadn’t touched him yet. He wasn’t even quite within arm’s reach. From the little Vector could see out of the corner of his eye, Yuma’s smile wavered for a moment, then burst back brighter.

            “What do you want, Yuma?” Vector asked, with false politeness.

            “I, uhhhh… I want to duel you!” Yuma burst out.

“Duel?” Vector let the incredulous slant to his voice stay. “You want me to duel you? Again? How long has it even been since you were last dueling for your life? Haven’t you had enough by now?” Something was seriously wrong with this kid. Maybe he really did get off on near-death experiences.

Yuma wasn’t intimidated, still laughing nervously. “But it’s the best way for me to know what you’re feeling right now so—!” He groped for his duel disk.

            Vector couldn’t help it. A sick laugh burst from him. “Yuma… What am I supposed to duel you with?” He spread his empty hands, indicating his lack of disk, d-gazer, or even deck. “And what for? To understand one another? I already understand you perfectly!”

            But how could he, when Yuma was so beyond logic. Was his will to save Vector actually unbreakable? All Vector knew was that he never, ever wanted to find out. No, there would be no more dueling with Yuma. If that shred of a conscience Yuma believed in really still existed, Vector would have to refrain from taking such bait.

            “Well, dueling is fun!” Yuma said stubbornly with a childish pout. “Can’t we just duel as friends for once?”

            “Maybe later,” Vector sighed airily, though his lungs felt like they were operating at half-capacity as it was. “I have things to take care of and youhave lots of other friends to catch up with, don’t you? So, I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Yuma-kun.”

            Yuma lit up at this reassurance, just as Vector hoped he would. “Yeah!! See you tomorrow, Shi—v-Vector! Ahaha!”

            He gave Vector a big thumbs-up and, though it cost him about five years of whatever his new human lifespan is, Vector gave him one back—barely restraining the impulse to cringe when Yuma taps knuckles with him—before turning to walk away.

            He didn’t hear Yuma’s footsteps withdraw, and so he didn’t look back over his shoulder until he’s turned the corner toward the building’s exit.

            The act was worth it. Even three more minutes of being in Yuma’s orbit might have destroyed his resolve. As it was, his mind still raced with the perverse impulse to think ahead, to anticipate another meeting, another chance to—what?

            No. He was going to stay far, far away from Yuma and all the other Barians. And do what? All his ambition, all his drive, it was just the restless energy of a rabid animal. He could duel (once he managed to build a deck, he thought bitterly), but it would have to be with enemies. Enemies or nobodies. People who didn’t matter, who didn’t know what he once was, and didn’t know what he was (what was he?) now. Vector chewed his thumbnail as his shoulders crept up toward his ears, the sun setting to his right as he set out on the nearest path to the waterfront. The water itself was blindingly glittering when he came within sight of it, the light breeze a bit warm. He wanted to close his eyes against it but couldn’t help staring at the dazzling brightness.

            It was going to be gone soon. The sun was setting.

            To his left, his shadow was so long it crept up a building on the opposite side of the street. And when he looked at it directly, the neon afterimage of the glittering light on the water swam and danced on the darkness of it like mosquito larvae in a pond, expanding and swelling into the reaching pale sickly hands of ghosts.

            He closed his eyes, but they were still there, even closer, behind his eyelids, the afterimage burning and burning until he was panting and all he could do was turn back toward the light in desperation.

            At a bench on the edge of the water, he sat, watching the sun go down. He let his eyes take in every last ray, knowing exactly what would be waiting for him in the shadows when it was gone.

[ladamedusoif]

Chimes at Midnight, or an EoY Ramble.

(divider by @saradika - thank you so much for your incredible work)

Who can cling to a ramblin’ Rose?

Good question. But cling to me for a few moments, as I ramble my way through an end of year post - of sorts. Personal shenans ahead.

I have no great wisdom to impart. No life lessons, no affirmations, just reflections and observations after a year where my entry into this fandom brought me much joy, kindness, love, and strength - and, unfortunately, some upset, hurt, and pain, too. 

But then, such is life, and while many of us use this space as an escape, the dynamics of just being human can’t help but filter through here, too.

I (and my 120k and counting words of fic - correction, my “ethical porn for nerdy types”) am here because of an alignment of events in early 2023. Here is my origin story:

I was stopped in my tracks one day by a friend’s Instagram story - or, specifically, by the twinkly-eyed, crinkly-eyed, smiley handsome man being interviewed in the video they’d shared. And something fired in my brain (bear in mind, a reaction like that is highly unusual for me).

Around the same time, my divorce process began. After a day of crying in my office and/or on the street, my sister sent me a message with some advice: You need something distracting and comforting. Watch The Mandalorian. You’ll like it.

(This is all her fault.)

I can only blame traumatised soon-to-be-divorcée brain for the fact that I didn’t quite immediately put the twinkly-eyed handsome smiling man together with the tin can dad with a voice like melted chocolate and an adorable green child that reminded me of my toddler niblings. Whoops. 

(Sorry, P. Divorcée brain!)

Long story short: it clicked, eventually, and with a hop, skip and a jump from “hey there, handsome” to “I love him a normal amount” via SNL, I ended up here. 

People often compare Tumblr and fandoms to the purest form of childhood friendship. Oh, you have a Bluey backpack? I like Bluey too. Let’s be friends? And it’s a perfect analogy. It was a joy and a comfort to realise that, after a lifetime of feeling like I had to hide and be ashamed of the things and people who made me happy, there were other people just like me who didn’t feel shame, and who helped me realise this was…normal? And good? And, though this might seem like a contradiction in terms, healthy?

I rediscovered the pure joy of shared fangirling (gn). I read other people’s beautiful fics and, overcoming my fears and anxieties, rediscovered the person I’d been until I went to college and only wrote academically/professionally - the person who always made up little stories for herself, who tapped out “novels” on her mother’s 1970s portable typewriter, who never went anywhere without a copybook for writing and drawing her stories, who dreamed of being a writer. I started to write Visiting, and people actually read it. 

And through that, and reading their words and talking/flailing in their DMs, I connected with people who in some cases became close friends. People who seemed to like me for me, for the me I was re-learning how to be after an incredibly traumatic period in my life. And that meant - and means - the world. 

(Not all of those connections or friendships were sustained, and I still don’t really understand what happened to end them - in some cases, abruptly and without explanation. All I can do is remind myself that people need different things at different times, wish them well, and allow myself to miss them.)

Gratitude sometimes gets a bad rap as a practice but it can be freeing and healing. So, putting aside the hurt and negative experiences and focusing on the good:

I am grateful for the affirming, kind, supportive relationships I’ve built through a mutual love of one (1) man. 

I am grateful for the way my presence in this community, however marginal and irrelevant I might feel, is kept going through mutual support and silliness. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to rediscover writing as creative practice and fun, rather than just something I have to do in my line of work (and which is bound up with anxiety in that respect).

I am grateful for the people who take the time not just to read but to respond to, share, and love on my work. (You’re amazing and I love you all!)

I am grateful for the people who showed and show me love even though they’ve never met me in person, and in myriad ways. (These ways include personalised birthday poems and fancams, sending me a copy of Esquire out of sheer kindness and surprising me - and my neighbour, who took in the package - with a talking Dinjamin figure. You all know who you are.)

I am grateful to my friend for her thirsty Instagram story and to my sister for her unwittingly consequential TV recommendation. 

And some general observations and reflections about my presence, experiences, and work here that I want to carry forward into 2024:

Popularity is definitely not a marker of quality.

You are entitled to have opinions and share them, even if they don’t follow the prevailing wind. Arguably, especially then.

Your feelings are valid.

Trust your gut.

It’s okay to want people to read and interact with your work, and to wonder why it doesn’t get picked up, no matter how many ‘write for you!’ posts you see from the Big Writers.

Speaking of which: if there’s room for everyone and everything, then there should be room for everyone and everything. Not just the chosen few and a handful of tropes.

Responsibility is a two-way street.

You’re worthy of love, kindness, and respect.

The love you take is equal to the love you make - or, in other words, give love and be receptive to it, whether in affirming messages, positive comments, or a simple flailing, excited reblog. 

Carry your little light, however fragile, into the new year.

With love, Rose. (And my Ben, below - print by the incredibly talented Alyssa Gonzalez)

[bestworstcase]

Bro I don’t think you meant for this to happen, but I think your analysis is making me reconsider my friendship with my BSF uh whoops

i mean sometimes you do just trip over something random that makes you go hey wow this thing that i’ve been coasting along with is not okay actually, it happens

and like, for what it’s worth and without knowing what’s going on with your particular situation, i think it’s virtually inevitable for there to come a point in a friendship—any close relationship really—where one or both of you abruptly realize that something is broken in how you are together, that maybe you’ve fallen into a rut of not treating each other very well or boundaries that should have been established weren’t or there’s a problem that has been left unspoken and allowed to scar over in a harmful way, or whatever it is; like, people are complicated, and for all that social connection is a deep intrinsic need it’s also, yknow, really fucking hard.

and—god knows this is easier said than done, lmao—really the only thing to do is have a conversation about it, like, here’s this problem i’ve become aware of, here’s how i feel, here’s what i need, here’s what i’m planning to do different from here on out. just… you know take the time you need to get your thoughts lined up and then lay it out, as calmly and clearly as you can. and see what comes of that.

(i think a degree of reflexive defensiveness is only to be expected—no one likes to hear they’ve been hurting someone they care about on accident—& the kind thing to do, imo, is to sort of, mentally build in the time and space for the other person to HAVE that emotional reaction without pressure to respond right away; like say your piece, then step back and let them process)

and it might be that it doesn’t go well but that’s. okay! it really is! because if you raise genuine concerns with a friend and they react by getting mad or stonewalling or trying to guilt trip you or whatever else, then you’ve learned that they’re totally okay with how things are and don’t care enough about your feelings to be willing to make any changes, which… is valuable information and you can walk away a lot more cleanly than letting stuff fester and rot until whatever you used to have has fallen completely apart. you can at least spare yourself the misery of losing a friendship through attrition and neglect, yeah?

but good people, genuine friends or partners or family members who really care about you—they’ll be happy to see you taking care of yourself, speaking up for yourself, being able to say “hey this is a problem and i’m not okay with it.” because it demonstrates that 1. you trust them and care enough to be vulnerable and honest with them, and 2. they can trust you to communicate if something’s not okay, which is a kind of trust that is so so important for the long term stability of any relationship. and then you can cooperatively solve whatever the problem is together.

and like you may on reflection decide that this friendship isn’t worth it—maybe it’s been wearing you down for so long that it’s better for you to just leave it behind altogether instead of devoting your time and mental energy to fixing whatever’s wrong, or maybe it was never an especially good friendship in the first place, or whatever—and like, that’s fine too. it’s fine to realize hey, this isn’t good for me and i don’t think it’s worth salvaging, so let’s just end it here; and if you don’t feel safe to have a discussion with the other person it’s absolutely fine to just quietly remove yourself from their life, ghosting people who are relentlessly shitty to you is Good Actually. no one else can make a meaningful judgment about this but you.

but yeah like—i know it’s a really sucky feeling to just out of nowhere get smacked by the realization that a close relationship isn’t actually as great as you thought, it’s scary, and god knows online spaces these days are often soaked in this very black and white mindset that sort of catastrophizes every interpersonal conflict into Red Flag Cut Them Out Of Your Life Right Now Immediately Before They Start Abusing You and that can be…not helpful rhetoric to be inundated by when you’re in the weeds of an interpersonal problem lmao but. i think most people are decent, most people want to be good, most people earnestly try to do right by their friends and family, and it’s just. it’s fucking hard, yeah? everyone makes mistakes, everyone’s got bad habits, everyone grew up swimming in the socially corrosive toxic soup of capitalism and we’re all just. trying our best.

nine times out of ten you can fix the problem by trusting that the other person is acting in good faith, and coming at the subject from a place of like, turning the lights on so they can see the thing they keep tripping over. it’s really okay

[roxannarambles]

For the ask game: 💻Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done? and 🖊Post a snippet from a current WIP. Also hiiii love your work, thank you for writing and sharing!!!

Hi there! I definitely research for my fics when needed. In the very least, I like to have my notes on the show's lore, folders full of reference photos, scripts of episodes, etc all sorted out and organized. My deepest dive for researching for a fic would probably be when I was working on a Dr. Who story I never ended up finishing or posting-- it was the 2nd Doctor's era and it involved some Scottish lore on mythical beasties. A shame I never finished that one.

Also, dunno if this really counts, since it wasn't for a specific fic, but I researched a lot on Victorian England when I was super into Sherlock Holmes. Like, I actually went to my local library and went into the stacks and pulled out dusty tomes for that stuff, haha. I remember making lots of photocopies of the books on the relevent sections I wanted. Good times.

Thank you for reading, anon! <3 Here's a snippet of my current WIP under the read more cut!

THEOWLLADY:

saw this weird bug demon and thought of you

Hunter stared at his scroll, exasperated.

Rulerzreachf4n:

why did it remind you of me??

THEOWLLADY:

I dunno, just. look at him.

THEOWLLADY:

he's just a little guy. a crechure.a silly little lad.

Rulerzreachf4n:

what

THEOWLLADY:

he's so skrunkly

Rulerzreachf4n:

stop. what. are you talking about

Rulerzreachf4n:

what is skrunkly

THEOWLLADY:

you are skrunkly

Rulerzreachf4n:

I have to go

He ended up getting busy the rest of the morning and didn't check his scroll again until his lunch break. Sitting alone at a table and casting a quick glance around to make sure others weren't watching, he pulled the scroll out.

Luz hadn't messaged him anything, but as he scrolled Penstagram he saw she had posted a new video. He clicked on it.

"You ready, King?"

The footage was a little wobbly as Luz aimed the camera down at the tiny demon.

"Yeah!"

She laughed and handed him the end of a rope.

"All right, just be sure to hold on tight! You're gonna be the first wakeboarding demon in the world!"

There was a bunch of scratchy noises from the wind as the camera began to lift into the air, showing that Luz was riding the Owl Lady's magic staff and carrying the other end of the rope along with her.

"OK, KING, GET INTO POSITION!"

The video stopped abruptly. Hunter scrolled up to see a second video that was posted a few minutes later. Feeling increasingly concerned, he hit 'play.'

The video was difficult to make out at first, as it kept bouncing around; Luz was hovering low above a small lake, which seemed to be in the woods around the Owl Lady's house, if Hunter recognized it correctly. At the other end of the rope, King was balancing on some kind of floating board in the water, the rope gripped tightly in his claws.

"YOU READY?"

The little demon shouted out,

"YEAH, GO AHEAD!"

Luz gave an excited whoop and began flying, pulling the rope along as she did so. It propelled the tiny demon along the water.

"FASTER, FASTER!"

"OK, HOLD TIGHT!"

The speed increased, Luz just barely skimming across the surface of the water with her staff, kicking up waves in her wake. Behind her, the demon squealed,

"I'M DOING IT!!"

Hunter's eyes widened. This was a terrible idea, they were going to get killed doing this.

King continued to holler in glee as he bounced over the surface of the waves, the board sometimes lifting right up into the air before crashing back down. Luz was laughing and the camera was bouncing all over the place, wildly unsteady. She began to call out to King again, but the camera suddenly jerked and rolled as Luz gave an awful scream, and the footage suddenly fell dead.

Wide-eyed, Hunter quickly scrolled through the rest of her Penstagram, but nothing else had been posted. Feeling his heart begin to pound in fear, he clicked into his DMs.

Rulerzreachf4n:

AREYOU OKAY

Rulerzreachf4n:

LUZ???

He was busy rewatching the first video and trying to calculate their exact location, while trying to decide how to best sneak away from his duties, when a message popped up for him.

THEOWLLADY:

hi!

THEOWLLADY:

yeah, I'm fine. what's up?

Confused, he rushed to type,

Rulerzreachf4n:

whatr happend??

THEOWLLADY:

what do you mean?

He made a frustrated growl.

Rulerzreachf4n:

youtrs stupiod video you poste,d  

Rulerzreachf4n:

at the lakew, it looke like youccrashed!

THEOWLLADY:

OH

THEOWLLADY:

oh, oh right

THEOWLLADY:

sorry, I guess that would look kinda bad with how it ended, I haven't posted the next video yet

THEOWLLADY:

I'm fine, I didn't crash. well, ok, technially i did but

THEOWLLADY:

umm it's ok! I have this new glyph that helps with that

THEOWLLADY:

so I only have a few scratches, no big deal

THEOWLLADY:

i swear that dumb tree wasnt there earlier...

He couldn't believe it.

[ghostietea]

Ok, I'm going to say it: Akito being paired off in the end and shoved into a "happy" het relationship is an egregiously bad writing choice. 

Akito's arc at the end of Fruits Basket is one of self discovery and breaking cycles of abuse, and it is one that she has recently started where we leave off. She is making an admirable effort, but also is very newly trying to learn how to fix things and have functional relationships after a lifetime of toxicity and indoctrination. No matter how hard she's trying Akito is still in a growing phase, and has a very long way to go. Additionally, after losing her entire worldview and support system, she would be in a pretty vulnerable state, and is trapped in a loop of immense self loathing. At this point in her journey, Akito needs to focus on building platonic relationships, especially considering that she has almost no experience in companionship outside of the context of the curse. Also consider that she has issues with dependance, especially with the zodiac, and a lot of her growth is about independence, doing things by herself, and not clinging on to old relationships. To put it simply, Akito is not in a position where she should be entering a romantic relationship and, in fact, it would make more sense for her arc to leave her single. And above all, the elephant in the room still stands: less then a month ago this character literally stabbed her ex in the back. Even ignoring other factors, this is in no way a person that should be dating anytime soon and it is truly baffling that she would be part of an endgame relationship. 

And it just gets worse when you consider the context of the relationship she's in. Akito and Shigure are undeniably incredibly toxic, to the point of being mutually abusive. Takaya obviously did this on purpose, which just makes what comes later even more confusing. Akito should not be in a relationship at all, and she should certainly not be in a relationship with a man who has been manipulating her for years on end as she has been manipulating him too and, may I remind you, slept with her abusive mom specifically to spite her. These characters are consistently shown to have a really twisted relationship, only to be abruptly flipped to "whoops, happy couple now" in the last volume. I'm not saying that relationships can't start out toxic and develop into something good, but you have to put a lot of time and growth into their story to sell it. Tossing two charachters from point a to b for the sake of a "happy" ending is just bad writing. Akito may have changed, but only recently; on such a rotten base it would be too easy to slip back into old habits and there was no stage shown of significant development in their relationship. Again, not showing the development is a fatal mistake in writing a relationship like this. Even if we give Akito the benefit of the doubt since she had a "redemption arc" (as I said above, this doesn't work) that's not even touching on the fact that Shigure did not really change in regards to her, no, he simply had no reason left to fight at the current moment because he got exactly what he wanted, which was having her all to himself (Concerning when combined with the fact that we know from Furubana that Akito will let people abuse her because, again, she absolutely hates herself. I'm not saying things would go like that but character that thinks they deserve mistreatment+character that mistreated them in the past is not a good look.). Shigure didn't magically have an epiphany about his treatment of Akito, he won. You can't even say this relationship is okay now since they both changed enough, because they didn't. This is not just Akito getting into a relationship in the wrong headspace, this is Akito getting into a relationship with a long history of mutual abuse, jealousy, and toxicity with a former zodiac and it being treated as something that's completely fine.

So you have this character. After spending the whole series being a toxic and horrendous person, she has the realization that has been coming since the beginning, and decides to change. A lot of her arc is about finding out who she is after tying her whole identity to a construct, and realizing that she has to be herself and live as a human instead of a God, has to learn how to find friends that want her around as a person from outside her weird cult. She is just starting to make a few friends, starts trying to figure out herself and how to be  independent and kind, and cuts off a centuries long cycle of abuse. This character is still working for her reformation, still figuring things out, still building new relationships from the ground up. Additionally, this character has severe trauma that she is in no way is recovered from on top of all of that and honestly needs to see a professional. It. Makes. No. Sense. To. Give. Her. An. Endgame. Ship. Was it not for the ship, Akito's ending, while still rushed, would be a million times stronger, and that's why it frustrates me so much. And I'm not saying that Akito shouldn't be shipped, or that I think she should never have romantic love, and especially not that she doesn't deserve to be loved at all as I've said already that that her having platonic relationships is important. I'm saying that it should have been left out of the cannon ending with the story as is. So, if the story would be better with this easy fix, why.

Well, I think this, as many other problems with the story, boils down to Natsuki Takaya's immense dedication to extreme heteronormativity. You can see this everywhere, by the end near everyone in paired off into neat little m/f sets. This goes for immensely queer coded characters like Yuki and characters such as Rin who should probably get to heal and build more friendships before rekindling her relationship. Oftentimes couples being paired up actively makes this story's arcs weaker, which sucks because characters are Furuba's main draw. So many issues could have been fixed if Takaya didn't need her happy hets. Akito's arc is, like many other characters, especially the women, held down because the author decided to hit her in the head with the het stick. (Which is extra bad considering her and her arc are heavily queercoded and Takaya tries to make her seem as het and gender conforming as she can post redemption which is, uhhh. But this is not the post about queercoding villains and arcs that should have been gay.) 

In the end, you can say or feel what you want, but the fact still stands: Akito Sohma being in an endgame relationship is bad writing at best and seriously concerning at worst.

[starilicious]

der lagi lekin (hunter x force-user!gn! reader + ep. 8 fix-it)

》 summary: tbb episode 8 fix-it featuring a force-user reader who used to be a jedi. reader is a part of tbb and in a relationship with hunter, but the squad–nor hunter–knows that reader is a force-user. (disclaimer: all of this was written before episode 9 was released! see a/n for an explanation ^_^) (another disclaimer: if you want just the hunter x reader comfort, please let me know and i'll finish it up and post it!)

》 word count: ~8k (yeah, it's a lot LOL)

click here to read on AO3

》 warnings: in-universe swearing, mental breakdown, some slight sensory overloads, pretty mild panic attack, light canon-typical violence, angst + some comfort, survivor's guilt from surviving order 66, no use of y/n, slightly plot heavy because i got way too carried away in writing (whoops?) [if i should add more warnings, please let me know!]

》 spoilers: major ones for tbb episode 8 "reunion"

》 a/n: okay look, i gotta confess: this wasn’t supposed to be an episode 8 fix-it. really. i’m actually glad cad bane won because we get to see that the clones don’t always win every fight... i think it makes for a better and more complex story. anyway, i started out writing just reader and hunter comfort after episode 8 ended. but i’m weak for omega because she reminds me so much of my younger siblings and i ended up writing a wholeass fix-it to save her (even tho cad bane is a downright badass). i kind of liked what i did with building up the plot so much that i might continue this story of force-user!reader with tbb. but that’s a tangent we can deal with later. if you would like a part two with the hunter x reader comfort this was originally intended to be, let me know!

as i said in the summary, i wrote all of this before episode 9 came out–just be aware of that. because it’s so long, it took me a while to edit, which is why i’m posting after ep. 9 was released. but without further ado, i hope you like it! <33

》 misc. notes:

• title of the fic is from the hindi song "der lagi lekin" from the film zindagi na milegi dobara. i linked the song in blue and linked the english translations in green in case you're curious! it's not necessary to listen or understand the song, but i thought it went well with the fic :)

“Everybody get down!” Wrecker yells. You and the squad immediately do as he instructs, diving towards the ground and covering your head. Stars, I hope this works.

The charges the six of you placed around the gigantic cone that surrounds the core cylinder explodes in a deafening blast. You curl into the tightest ball you can manage, breathing so hard that the HUD inside your helmet temporarily fogs up. Metal shards of the explosion rain down on you hard.

For a moment, it seems like nothing happened. But then you hear the telltale, ear-grinding creak of the durasteel and the squad is roughly catapulted forward from the force of the cone beginning to fall down.

You struggle to stand up as you lurch this way and that, trying to regain your balance and stabilize as Tech calls out, “Hold on!”

You quickly glance at the rest of the Bad Batch, trying to see if any of them were hurt. Other than the absolutely terrified look on Omega’s face, all is well considering the circumstances. The metal groans and begins its descent, taking your feeling of being grounded with it. The weightlessness is uncomfortably familiar to say the least, but you ignore it as the six of you scramble to hold on to the side of the cone. You certainly did your fair share of acrobatics back in the war, but feeling it hum around you...it’s too much. It’s too much. You elect to push it back into the depths of your brain. But it doesn’t leave.

It never really does.

Omega’s anxious whimpers come in faintly through your thick helmet and you whip around, frantically trying to find where she is. But before you can find her, the cone lands vertically on its head and the force is so violent that your stable hold on the durasteel is broken. Panicked, you quickly fire a grappling hook towards the ledge where you were previously hanging on. The hook catches and you stop abruptly, the jerky movement almost wrenching your arm out of its socket.

You look down to see Omega falling from someone’s grip and into Hunter’s arms. You can barely tell where anyone is thanks to the lack of light and the incessant motion.

The cone begins to topple onto its side and suddenly, your wire snaps from the tension. You let out a scream of surprise as you plummet downwards, wind rushing past your helmet. ForceIdon’twanttodieohmyMakerohno–

But you never hit the ground, instead being flung sideways as the cone tears into two. On trained instinct, you tuck yourself into a ball to try and roll in order to break your fall instead of using it. That time is long gone.

You land with a sickening thud and hiss in pain as your back hits the metal hard. You hear something crack, but whether it is your armor or something internal, you have absolutely no idea, and don’t have time to check before you black out.

✧✦✧

You jolt awake, a sound making its way into your consciousness. Finally, the damn place stopped moving. You take a few minutes to try and relieve the painful pressure in your chest, reaching up to rip your helmet off because you can’t breathe, you can’t breathe.

You tilt your head back as you struggle to take in air and let the adrenaline subside. You hear voices in the distance and you strain your ears to pick up on the sound as you quickly check yourself over. As far as you can tell, nothing major is broken, and at this point, that is all that matters. Though, your head is pounding, and for more reasons than one

“–nter.. port side... what… status?”

You can’t tell who is speaking, the message too far away for you to hear. But the bits and pieces are enough for you to know that it’s someone from the Bad Batch and that you weren’t unconscious for long. You stand up and dust yourself off before slowly walking to where you believe the origin of the sound is.

“–engine… got company.” A blaster sound and then an explosion rings through the quiet.

Your eyes widen and you quickly pick up the pace, getting your blaster ready as you pick your way through the sharp metal that is jutting out from the ground.

You click on your wrist comm. “Echo, you there?” A faint crackle before his voice comes through, but the signal is scratchy. You frown in frustration.

“–are you? Hunter is... port side,” Echo says and you smack your commlink to try and get the electronics to work, but it’s no use. The device is broken, most likely from the fall, you deduce.

“Meet… Marauder.”

You don’t bother to answer, knowing Echo would probably not even be able to hear what you had to say anyway. Without a signal booster or repeater, there’s no way you can get your transmission across the channel frequency.

It takes a few minutes, but you eventually find the night sky of Bracca blinking down at you at the end of the ripped off cone. You run out to find that you’re in the middle of where the cone broke in half. Okay, new plan. I need to find Hunter. Hunter will know what to do.

You scan your surroundings. The HUD isn’t picking up on any lifeforms near you, and you realize with sinking dread that you have no more options. Whichever piece you climbed through to get to your squadmates, it would take too long for you to search for them since you don’t know their coordinates and your comm isn’t working. Frankly, the Empire–Crosshair–would find you first. You have to use it.

You have to use the Force.

A wave of nausea overcomes you at the mere thought of it and you sway. In an attempt to ground yourself, you tear off your helmet to breathe some fresh air and end up keeling over as the bile rises in your throat. Nothing comes out. You can’t tell if that’s a positive or not.

You could have saved them. Someone. Anyone.

It itches at you in the back of your head, wishing to be let out of its cage. But you can’t. You can’t do it. What’s the use anyway? All you would be doing is saving yourself. The choice of surviving it all has haunted you ever since. Your head pounds in agony.

You saw it happen. You could have helped them. And you ran like a coward. Only ever concerned about yourself.

You inhale sharply as the scene flashes before your eyes, clones shooting at you and the other Jedi. The blaster fire. The confusion. The screams.

How pathetic.

The last statement, an echo of Crosshair’s words, bounces around in your brain. You clutch your head as you let out a heartbroken sob, knee deep in the dirt and metal and grief. Tears create clean tracks down your face as you finally break down, the flood of emotions bursting the dam open. At this point, you don’t know if the emotions are yours or the ones you previously felt through the Force, all of them swirling and blending into one. The bottled up anguish merged together when you attempted to cut yourself off from the Force after the clones–your friends–attacked.

The pain of their death is perhaps the worst of all. Horror courses through you as you finally process your friends and mentors dying around the galaxy, their deaths, their distress, their fear reverberating heavily throughout the Force. Each one cripples you further as you once again struggle to breathe.

It feels like light years pass when you finally calm down to a practically numb state of being. The scenes stop replaying behind your closed eyelids and the echoing shrieks die down to a faint, hollow whisper. You’re suddenly exhausted, limbs heavy and energy sapped. It was almost relieving to finally let the Force once again flow through your body, your nerves lightly tingling with potential despite how tired you feel. You collapse onto the ground and try to recenter yourself.

But despite finally acknowledging the loss, it doesn’t feel right. You didn’t get to say goodbye. You hadn’t been able to even think about them, much less honor them, too focused on going on the run to concentrate on anything beyond the next day’s survival. Even once you joined the Bad Batch, you were paranoid about their chips, about your friends turning on you at any moment. You were always extremely reluctant to engage in the Force, even at the worst of times.

With a start, you realize that you don’t need to worry about your squadmates. Their inhibitor chips are now gone. You… you are safe.

You let out a shocked laugh as it sinks in. A glimmer of hope, of peace. I’m safe.

You sit up then, criss-crossing your legs as you survey the broken landscape of Bracca. Despite the planet being a graveyard, you feel lucidly alive. Perhaps something died in you, that wretched day. But something else, slowly but surely, began growing in its place. It’s meek, but it’s there.

You let out a breath and close your eyes, reaching for the Force like it’s an old friend. It accepts your invitation with hesitation, joining hands with you as if you did not try beating it to death for days on end. You sink into the gentle lapping waves of the Force, extending into it and widening your scope.

There’s something that lurks beneath the surface, in the deep. Dark and sinister and so utterly painful. It calls to you, quiet and low. Enticing. Tempting. And something in you knows that it’s the reason for your previous life’s demise.

But you can feel Hunter’s–and Omega’s, you realize–presence near you in the Force. Even with your relatively damaged connection to the Force after Order 66, the Bad Batch’s Force auras were something you could always hone in on. You let yourself direct your focus to the duo, letting their emotions be your beacon to the acceptance of the Light side of the Force.

In a split second, you decide to not dive deeper into the Force. This isn’t the place nor the time to discover what is prowling in the endless yawning of the Force, to discover why everything happened. So you direct your concentration to the beings on the planet, feeling and breathing your way through the Life Force.

You freeze. There’s something here. No… someone. Your eyebrows furrow as you divert your attention away from your friends and other organisms to the peculiar source. Something about this person strikes you as familiar.

Your eyes snap open and you gasp. I’m not alone. A Force-sensitive. Someone survived. Giddy beyond belief, you snatch up your helmet and begin trekking your way across the wreckage in the opposite direction of Hunter and Omega before pausing. Whoever this person is doesn’t know about your presence on the planet.

And despite the fear you felt emanating off of them in the Force, you somehow knew they were safe, at least for now. And they would remain so if you have anything to say about it. Maker forbid anything that jeopardizes this person’s fragile safety. After all, you know best what it’s like to constantly flee scene after scene.

Staying away is the best thing to do. I’ll come back for you, whoever you are.

You double back and make quick work of getting across the debris as you focus your concentration on Hunter’s and Omega’s Force signatures. As you get closer to the port side, you hear Omega’s high voice. Through your HUD, you can see her small form. You grin. She disappears then, and on closer inspection, you figure she jumped through some broken cargo doors.

The entrance she and Hunter took is too high for you to jump up to, even with the aid of the Force. Combined with your wariness of probe droids, you decide to take a different route from the right side, climbing up the broken ship. The slick oil mixed with the water still present on the metal makes for a difficult trek, and you slip more times than you would like to admit.

Hunter’s gruff voice floats up towards you and you scramble the last few meters to the edge of a hole in the ceiling before pausing. The Force is itching at the back of your head. Something’s wrong.

You peek over the edge of the giant slab of durasteel that created the hole to see bodies in white armor littered everywhere–clones, you realize. Your heart pangs in sadness at the sight.

Slightly to your right, a blue figure and a techno-service droid stand in front of a ship and a frightened Omega stands behind a defensive Hunter. Your mouth drops open. Kriff.

Cad Bane.

A memory from near the beginning of the war hits you in full force. You and Anakin had taken some time on Coruscant to catch up with each other after you passed your trials and were promoted to Jedi Knight. He told you about a mission where he had to stop a bounty hunter who successfully stole a Jedi holocron. You remember how surprised you were when you heard the bitter disgust in Anakin’s voice. The ruthlessly cunning bounty hunter not only threatened to kill Ahsoka, but he murdered Master Ropal.

Judging by the looks of it, Hunter doesn’t know who he is. If the Anakin Skywalker had a difficult time with Cad Bane, there is no way in sithhell Hunter can take him on, even with his enhanced senses. Frankly, you seriously doubt you can either, especially with how rusty your Force skills are now. And that means this isn’t going to end well.

You watch carefully as you tune into the conversation.

“Ain’t you smart?” Bane smirks. “The kid’s got it all figured it out.”

“You’re in trouble now!” the droid exclaims, pointing at Hunter and Omega. You grit your teeth in annoyance.

“Who hired you?” Hunter asks. Stalling. Not a bad move, Hunter.

“Son,” Bane sighs, already done with the brief conversation. “That’s confidential information. Now hand her over.”

Omega stays behind Hunter, taking a knee as Hunter walks forward protectively. You bristle. How am I supposed to help from up here?

“She’s not going anywhere.”

Your eyes drift over the scene in a panic and you take in the fallen clones again. An idea pops into your head. It is desperate, but at this point, you don’t have much of a choice.

Bane mimics Hunter’s movement, walking forward and putting a hand near his belt. The tension is as thick as duracrete.

“That’s unfortunate… for you.”

You grab the long barrel piece from your belt, fitting it over your blaster hurriedly as the showdown begins. Out of the corner of your eye, you see them staring each other down and you can’t help but roll your eyes. Men.

During the war, Crosshair helped you re-engineer your weapon so you could put together various pieces in the field to make a blaster gun that loosely resembled his own sniper. Seeing the clones reminded you of him. A wave of sadness washes over you, but you shake your head. Now is not the time.

You screw on the telescopic sight and set up your makeshift sniper. You peer through the viewfinder and find Bane’s chest. Your finger tenses over the trigger.

You let yourself sink deep into the Force, let it guide your actions. Inhale. Exhale. I can do this. As you relax, the mellow warmth you missed so dearly washes over you, gently eroding the torment in your mind and heart, guiding your focus to the here and now. Trust in the Force.

Wait.

Wait.

Now.

You fire two bolts straight into your target the same exact moment Bane and Hunter shoot each other. Hunter’s shot hits the droid, breaking off its leg. Bane’s shot hits directly in Hunter’s chest, as yours did Bane. Both men immediately fall backwards and slam into the ground.

“My booster!” Oh. So not a leg. Got it.

“Hunter!”

Kriff kriff kriff. You jump down nimbly from your hiding spot in the ceiling and immediately sprint towards the duo. Is he dead? You would unapologetically release sithhell on Bane if he killed the man you love.

Omega panics as she tries to wake Hunter up, continuously calling his name before taking a glimpse of her surroundings. Before you can react, she grabs her bow and pulls it taut, aiming at you. She looks petrified.

“Whoa! Omega, it’s me!” you exclaim, holding your hands up in surrender. She takes a moment to actually look at you before sagging in relief. Suddenly, the droid comes speeding out of nowhere and Omega shoots, the energy bolt whizzing past your waist and straight into the droid before it can attack you from behind.

The shot rings true and the grumpy robot falls. You turn around to grab at its exposed parts under its head and yank them out to make sure it can’t power on again.

“Thanks, Omega. I owe you one,” you say and Omega gives you a proud smile.

You place a comforting hand on her shoulder before kneeling down to shake Hunter awake, but it doesn’t work. You take a moment to analyse Hunter’s Life Force. It’s a bit dimmer, but it’s constant, meaning he’s out cold and doesn’t have the life draining out of him. You let out a sigh of relief. He’s alive. You glance back to see Bane still not moving. Good.

“What’re we gonna do?” Omega whispers as you both peer down at Hunter. His armor is smoking from Bane’s blaster shot and you exhale through your teeth, trying to come up with a plan. You slip off a glove to check Hunter’s pulse–it’s strong. You don’t want to leave Omega alone, even if Bane is unconscious, but you aren’t sure you have a choice.

“Well we can’t carry him to safety, neither of us are strong enough for that,” you think aloud, gears churning in your head. You would have to wait for help, even if you were sitting ducks.

Briefly, you entertain the thought of taking Bane’s ship. The only problem is you don’t know what trackers or other gadgets are in there–it’s too costly of a risk and a price you weren’t willing to pay. You sigh, resigned.

“Omega, you try to comm the others and see if you can wake Hunter up. I’m going to go inside this guy’s ship and see if I can find something that can help us. We have to get out of here before the bounty hunter wakes up,” you instruct and Omega nods, youthful determination flooding back into her eyes.

You leave her to it, walking cautiously towards Bane’s ship. You look down at him. His armor is smoking in two places from the shots you fired. Based on what you see, he’s still unconscious, and his Life Force reflects the same conclusion. How long that would remain, you don’t know. Which means you need to work fast.

You board the ship while you remove the sniper attachments from your blaster and clip them back onto your belt. You keep your guard up as you look around. No droids. Guess that techno-service droid is his one and only.

In an effort to slowly re-familiarize yourself with the Force, you send out a quick pulse through it to see if there are any lifeforms aboard the ship, relaxing when you find none. You rummage through all the cabinets that you discover, looking high and low as you try to locate something of use. The secret compartment in the cockpit proves to be the fruitful reward to your search. With a wave of your hand, you unlock it with ease. Bingo.

Credits. Bags of them. And they’re unmarked creds, which make your score even better. Hopefully, it would be enough to pay off your debt to Cid and give the Havoc Marauder some much-needed upgrades.

Usually, you would feel bad about stealing from someone, but considering this was a bounty hunter – Cad Bane, no less – you figure you can risk treading the grey area of your moral code.

You grab as many bags as you’re able, stuffing them inside your backpack and clipping the rest onto your belt. At this moment, you’re incredibly grateful to Tech and Echo for designing a sturdy utility belt that fits you well. The standard ones were for clones and you definitely were not a clone.

You exit the cockpit and head to the second level of the ship to see if there’s anything else you can find. A stack of crates sits in the corner across from what you assume to be a prison. You scrunch your nose in disgust as you open one to find medical supplies. Bacta patches and gel, vitapaste, rations, water, gloves, sanitary napkins–it was all there. Delighted, you close the crate and click the repulsor to make it levitate. Oh how you love technology.

You turn around and walk back up the stairs to leave the ship. You freeze at the exit ramp. You have got to be karking kidding me.

“Sorry lil’ lady.”

Cad Bane stuns Omega in front of your eyes before rounding on you and immediately fires. In a desperate attempt to save yourself, you throw your hands up and the honeyed power of the Force rushes through every fibre of your being. The blaster bolts slow down to a snail-like crawl and your eyes widen. How did I…?

Never mind how you argue with yourself. Time to get out of here!

You tiptoe around each bolt, the effort of keeping them in stasis becoming more difficult with each passing moment. You grit your teeth as your arms shake, but you keep going until you are finally off the ramp. You lower your arms and the energy hits the inside of the ship, spazzing out the blinking controls inside.

Bane turns to you in surprise, astonished at how you’re suddenly in front of him. You don’t give him the luxury of processing the event and immediately punch him in the face with as much strength as you can muster. Bane pitches backwards and collapses onto the ground, just as he did the first time. You grab your stun blaster and shoot him as extra assurance. You really did not want this to repeat again. Hopefully he never wakes up with a memory of what I just did...

“Now stay down,” you mutter to a knocked out Bane, cradling your now injured hand. You have no idea how Wrecker ever does this because wow your hand is killing you.

You have to say, you’re pretty proud of yourself for being able to render him unconscious not once, but two times. You wish you could tell Anakin–the thought saddens you. He’s probably dead too.

With that vividly cheery thought, you stagger back from the ramp in exhaustion, weary from the sudden surge of the Force still ebbing and coursing through your body.

None of the Bad Batch knew you used to be a Jedi–not even Hunter. It was something only a few of your closest Jedi friends and the Jedi Council knew about.

But after what happened today, with Rex helping your squadmates get their inhibitor chips out, with you finally letting the Force in… maybe it is time to tell them. The secrecy wouldn’t be needed anymore now that you were sure you were safe around your friends. But clearly, the universe wanted to throw a nasty vibroblade in your plans by knocking Hunter and Omega unconscious and having the best kriffing bounty hunter in the galaxy be hot on your heels.

You take a few seconds to get your breath back and regain your mental energy. You aren’t out of the woods yet. You run inside Bane’s ship to grab the crate of medical supplies before sprinting back out towards Hunter and Omega.

You lean down and pat Omega’s cheek gently, trying to wake her up, but she’s out cold. Why is everyone around me unconscious? Frankly, you’re equally amused and terrified by the situation laid out in front of you.

You sigh, looking around to see if you can find some cover. There’s a giant sheet of durasteel to your left, big enough to act as a barrier in case trouble comes knocking. You bend down and pick Omega up before placing her down cautiously, leaning her small body against the metal. You repeat the action with the crate you found.

The third time proves to be much more difficult. Hunter certainly isn’t as muscular as Wrecker, but he sure as sithhell isn’t as light as Omega. You tap your foot nervously, trying to figure out a way for you to lift him. Yes, you could use the Force, but you don’t want to alert the other Force-sensitive on the planet. If they knew about your existence, it could put them in danger, and that was the last thing you wanted.

Giving up, you place your hands underneath Hunter’s armpits and effectively drag him all the way over, propping him up as you did Omega. You cringe at the sound of his armor grating the floor. There are sure to be dirty scuff marks on it now. Sorry Hunter.

Just as you’re about to sit down next to him, heaving deep breaths from the exertion, you pause. A warning is practically blaring in the Force and you tense, urgently trying to figure out the cause.

“Not again,” you mumble under your breath. You can’t handle any more action today. With Hunter and Omega both down, and your extreme fatigue from engaging in the Force, you don’t know how much of a fight you can put up. Not to mention you never trained as a soldier. There was a reason why you left the military planning strategies to the Bad Batch.

You hold your blaster close to your chest as you scan the environment. Bane is immobile and so is the dismantled techno-service droid. So what’s wrong?

Ten nerve-wracking seconds pass before you get your answer. Clone voices waft up to your hiding spot and you bite your cheek in frustration as your head continues to pound. Your headache still hasn’t stopped.

There is no way you can fight them all off, especially if Crosshair is with them. They are too far away for you to get a read on how many there are, and frankly, you’re much too scared to even peek around the durasteel to count.

One of Tech’s previous statements floats through your mind. About three attack shuttles worth.

You can feel your heart thumping wildly in your chest, blood rushing through your ears as anxiety ties your stomach into knots. I can’t do this, I can’t do this, Ican’tdothis.

You take deep breaths, doing your best to clear your mind and focus. You had to do this. There is no other option other than surrendering or dying. No, damnit, you would go down fighting until the Life Force left you.

You peer just past the edge of the metal to see at least twenty clones heading your way. Certainly not ideal, but you bide your time. If you started shooting now, you couldn’t use the element of surprise to your advantage and they would easily overwhelm you. But once they’re close enough, you hope you can at least take a couple out before having to resort to using the Force. It isn’t ideal, but it’s all you have.

Honestly, you don’t know if you could get out of this one alive, much less protect Hunter and Omega too. Maker help me.

It throws you off when they finally come into sight–you see how plain the clones’ armor looked without paint. You never really noticed it before since you were always running for your life in those circumstances. But now that you think about it, you are so used to seeing bright blue or green or yellow that the alabaster white just seems so… odd.

“Looks like a big fight happened here.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. All these men are dead.”

Now.

You whip your body around the metal and immediately begin shooting as fast as you can pull the trigger, trying to make every shot count. The troopers hesitate for just a moment, most likely due to their surprise of you being there. But that second is all you need.

You take out the three men closest to you before jumping back behind the metal as their barrage of fire rains down on you. You do your best to shoot back and manage to take out one more clone, but they’re beginning to gain too much ground too fast. I can do this. I have to do this.

As far as you can tell, Crosshair isn’t with the clones attacking you, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t set up shop somewhere nearby, waiting to shoot you.

You shudder. It’s a chilling thought.

You grab one of your last detonators from your belt and hurl it as far as you can. The rapid beeping rises quickly in pitch before the charge explodes. Anguished cries reverberate throughout the area, and you briefly feel sorry for having to take such drastic measures as you feel their Force signatures dim swiftly. But you don’t have a choice.

Peeking around the corner, you count around eight to ten clones down. Not bad considering the circumstances.

You continue shooting as much as you can but now the troopers are much too close for comfort and you’re feeling overwhelmed. The durasteel you are using for cover isn’t meant to take this kind of damage, and the integrity of your shield is quickly waning as told by the constant creaks and groans. You don’t know what to do. Will we make it?

In your haste of shooting first and panicking later, you don’t notice Hunter groaning, finally waking up. And before you have time to even glance at him, the familiar hum of the Havoc Marauder and its lights shine down on you. Your sag in relief. Looks like Omega was able to comm them after all. Never before have you been so glad to see the beat-up hunk of junk. (You would never say that to Tech though–the Marauder is his baby, his pride and joy.)

Echo, Wrecker, and Tech all race off the ship, guns ablazing. Wrecker and Tech stand guard, serving as cover fire while Echo bends down to help you out.

“Hunter, wake up!” Echo hisses and smacks his helmet lightly. Hunter mumbles in pain as he starts to move, trying to look around as his HUD boots back up. Seriously? Now you wake up? you think sarcastically. But you’re much more relieved at the fact that he has actually woken up.

“What happened? Where’s Omega?” Wrecker bellows, worried.

“She’s right here, I’ve got her!” you shout back at the same time Echo says, “He was shot in the chest plate.”

You pocket your blaster and gather the young girl in your arms with every last bit of strength you have left. You aren’t strong enough to hold her in one arm and shoot with the other. That is much more up Wrecker’s alley.

“We have to get him on board!” Tech exclaims as he helps Echo support Hunter. You pick Omega up in both arms and bolt for the ship as fast as you can while yelling at Tech to grab the crate of supplies.

“Incoming!” Wrecker calls out as a fresh wave of troopers advance towards the six of you. You grunt as you deposit Omega in a chair near the controls before pulling out your blaster and helping Wrecker shoot down the men racing towards you.

“Got him. Tech, fly us out of here!” Echo commands while Wrecker makes a gesture for them to get on the ship faster. Hunter stumbles as he does his best to upright himself.

“Go go go!” Wrecker exclaims. Tech shoves the crate next to Omega’s seat and makes a beeline for the cockpit as you continue shooting, moving to the side to make space for Echo and Hunter to come on board. Wrecker quickly climbs in right after them and the ramp closes shut.

Tech immediately pilots the Havoc Marauder up and away from the scene. You vaguely hear the sound of blaster fire hitting the bottom of the ship while you drop your blaster on the ground and wrench Hunter’s helmet off in a panic. You take his face in your hands as you scan him quickly, trying to figure out if he’s hurt or not.

Hunter bats your hands away. “He... he took Omega,” he says and you shake your head. Wrecker pipes up from behind you to respond.

“Who? Crosshair?”

“The bounty hunter,” Hunter mutters as he rubs a hand over his face. Before Wrecker can answer again, you step in.

“No, he didn’t. I took him down. And no, he’s not dead,” you tack on quickly when you see Echo open his mouth. Echo shakes his head fondly and you just grin at him.

“She’s right here,” Echo says instead, pointing to Omega’s sleeping figure. Hunter turns in surprise to see that his brother is indeed telling the truth.

“How...?” Hunter’s voice trails off. Echo and Wrecker look at you expectantly, and Hunter follows suit. You sigh and take off your helmet, setting it down on the ledge next to the controls. You don’t look at them.

“It’s a long story.”

You don’t have a chance to elaborate any further because Tech walks in, interrupting the conversation.

“I’ve made the jump to hyperspace. There was a cruiser in the atmosphere, but I was able to quietly go past them by disguising our ship as a bounty hunter’s. They didn’t interfere. I put in the coordinates for Ord Mantell. I estimate our time of arrival to be five hours and thirty two minutes,” Tech reports and Hunter nods while you voice your thanks.

“Looks like we got time!” Wrecker says cheerily, pulling out an extra chair. Tech looks to you in confusion.

“Did I miss something significant?” Tech asks, concerned about the information he did not receive as he adjusts his goggles. You shake your head but now, all eyes are back on you.

“She was just about to tell us how she saved Omega,” Hunter supplies helpfully and Tech nods in understanding. He grabs a chair as well and sits down, interested in hearing what you have to say.

You look around the room, realizing you can’t get out of it. You are exhausted and just want to sleep but based on the looks you are getting from the boys, there is no way you can leave without giving a sufficient answer.

You sit down on a chair in between Omega and Echo and begin explaining.

“When the cone fell, it separated. I got knocked out when I hit the ground, but I don’t think I broke anything,” you quickly reassure as Tech grabs a datapad to scan your vitals.

“After I came to, I tried comming Echo, but my commlink was broken – I could only hear bits and pieces of what he said. There were some voices near me so I just followed them and–” you pause, not sure if you should tell them what happened. What you experienced, what you found out. “–I saw Hunter and Omega. The ledge I found was way too high for me to jump to, so I climbed up the side of the wreckage to see them and the bounty hunter facing off,” you say, choosing to leave the detail out. It was too personal. You still needed time.

All of them are listening intently, hanging on to every word you’re saying. Hunter’s gaze on you is heavy and loaded with questions. Tech is still tapping away on the datapad, but you know you have his full attention. Multitasking may not be possible for regular humans, but it definitely was for Tech.

“When I saw the bounty hunter, I knew Hunter wasn’t going to win,” you mumble sheepishly, rubbing the back of your neck. Hunter winces at your statement and you rush to explain why.

“Hunter, you have to trust that I genuinely don’t doubt your abilities. You are much more of a soldier than I will ever be. But this bounty hunter is one of the best, if not the best in the entire galaxy. He’s gone against the Jedi, and won. Based on what Anakin told me at the beginning of the war, Cad Bane is ruthless. He tortured Master Ropal and killed him. Believe it or not, I think he tried to abduct Chancellor Palpatine. Even Anakin had a difficult time fighting him.”

A tense quiet settles over you all as you mentally revisit your conversation with Anakin, and later with Ahsoka. She told you how it was one of the first times she was genuinely afraid that she was going to die, or at least get hurt very severely.

Echo’s rough voice shakes you out of your reverie. “How do–did you know General Skywalker?” he asks, clearly confused at how you referred to him on a first-name basis. You mentally facepalm yourself. How did I forget he served as part of the 501st? You feel incredibly stupid.

You could make up a lie, of course, but it wouldn’t be worth it. Hunter’s enhanced senses and Tech’s vitals scan could probably pick up on your biological signs, not to mention you would feel terribly guilty about not being honest. I promised myself I would tell them…

You blow out a nervous breath, deciding to at least give them something. They deserved that much.

“I’m–well, I was a Jedi,” you admit, staring down at your feet. You can’t bring yourself to look at them, feeling almost… ashamed.

The boys are shocked into silence and you cringe. There was probably a much better way for you to say that, but now it was out there. Yet the pressure that had been weighing down on you since you let the Force back in didn’t lessen.

“What?” Wrecker questions, thrown completely for a loop. “You’re a Jedi?”

Before you can answer, Tech pipes up. “When I reviewed your medical data, there was no note about an elevated midi-chlorian count or any sort of connection to the Force. Additionally, there is no documentation of you serving as a General or a Commander during the war in the Republic military records. How were you a Jedi? And why aren’t you one now? You used past tense in your sentence,” Tech adjusts his goggles as he attempts to register this new information that conflicted with his previous knowledge.

You sigh, drumming your fingers on your thigh. “I left the Jedi Order before the war ended. I promise I’ll explain everything in detail later, but for now, you have to understand that I’m just a Force-user. I trained as a Jedi, but I’m not a Jedi, not anymore,” you clarify, lifting your head up to make eye contact with each of them.

“Aw man, that’s so cool. You have to show us your cool mind tricks sometime!” Wrecker smiles and you agree to his request. It warms your heart to see him so excited.

“It makes sense. You must have seen the regs turn on the Jedi but didn’t know why. When you started traveling with us, you didn’t know if we would turn on you too, even though we’re not regs,” Hunter realizes, and you nod in affirmation. You’re secretly relieved by the fact that he doesn’t seem angry, just… just thoughtful.

“And then when I saw what happened to Crosshair, I knew I couldn’t risk ever telling any of you. But when Rex told us about the chips…” you trail off.

Echo picks up your sentence quickly. “You figured out you would be safe with us if we got our chips removed. No wonder you were so insistent on following what Rex said.”

You smile at the last part, a bit embarrassed. He wasn’t wrong. You were probably even more insistent than Rex was on telling them to get their inhibitor chips out. Better to be safe than sorry you told them. Though at the time, you hadn’t even thought about how removing their chips would impact you and your abilities. You were too focused on keeping the Force out of your body to entertain that thought.

Wrecker suddenly gets up and gathers you in a bone-crushing hug. “Well you don’t have to worry now! We got those stupid chips out of our heads, which means I promise we won’t kill you!” he says cheerfully and you can’t help but laugh as you hug him back, the knot in your chest beginning to unravel. You could always count on Wrecker’s wonderfully big heart to raise your spirits.

“You’re right, big guy. It’s honestly a relief. One less thing I have to worry about.”

Wrecker lets go of you and you pick up where you left off. “As I was saying, Cad Bane isn’t a bounty hunter we can take lightly. Crosshair helped me re-engineer my blaster to turn it into a pseudo sniper with attachable parts during the war. Because I was so high up, I could get a clear shot of Bane. From that vantage point, I shot him at the same time Hunter and Bane shot each other.”

Echo’s mouth drops open. “Damn.”

“What I didn’t expect was for Hunter to be rendered completely unconscious. So I told Omega to try to comm you guys while I went on Bane’s ship to see if I could find anything. And I did.” You pull off your backpack and dump out the contents. Bags of credits come tumbling out. You unhook the few bags on your belt and toss them into the pile.

“Bane had a secret compartment with a lot of credits. So I took them and that crate I yelled at Tech to get,” you explain as you reach into the bag to show off the Imperial credits.

Tech’s eyes widen as he lifts up a bag to inspect it. “I will have to calculate how much you took and mark it in the inventory, but based on my initial deduction, this may be enough for us to upgrade the Marauder and provide sustenance for at least a few months.”

“Nice one!” Wrecker compliments and you grin in response. “What’s in the crate?” he asks, walking over to lift up the top.

“Medical supplies. We barely had any left so I figured I might as well take that too,” you shrug as Hunter gets up to join Wrecker to peer at the contents.

“What happened after that? You said you told Omega to comm the others, which means she was awake. Did she get hurt while I was out? Is that why you look so exhausted?” Hunter inquires, astute as ever.

You bite your lower lip. “When I was getting off his ship with the goods, he had woken up again. Before I could do anything, he stunned Omega and then immediately shot at me,” you pause, wondering if you should elaborate on how you got out of the situation. You decide to come clean on this part.

“I… I don’t know how, but I was able to stop the blaster bolts and keep them – and Bane – in stasis with the Force. The problem was that it took a lot out of me. After not really using the Force for so long, my energy reserves were pretty much gone,” you sigh, absentmindedly rubbing your arms. Your muscles are still sore from the event.

“After that, I punched him and knocked him out again. I dragged you and Omega away from the ship so that I could protect you, and I ended up using that giant piece of durasteel as cover to fight off those clones. Then you guys came and rescued us and that’s that,” you finish, suddenly fatigued from the conversation. You slump back into your chair, perfect posture be damned.

“Wow,” is all Echo says, surprised by your strength. It took some serious stamina to be able to withstand so much for so long. Echo remembered seeing Commander Tano and General Skywalker be exhausted after some especially intense missions where they constantly had to use the Force.

“Yeah,” you mutter, massaging your dominant hand. It is still throbbing from the mean hook you threw at Bane. You don’t have any regrets. You glance at Omega’s sleeping figure and soften. The things I would do for this girl.

“Looks like I taught you well!” Wrecker laughs and you smile. When you first met the Bad Batch, Wrecker took it upon himself to teach you basic self-defense and how to overtake an opponent intelligently. Even though you already learned how to fight as part of your Jedi and military training, you couldn’t say no to him when he looked so excited. But it paid off because he’s right. Wrecker did teach you well.

“You did. You basically saved my ass out there with your amazing teaching skills,” you chuckle, glancing down at your hand. You think you’ll probably have to cover it in bacta gel to speed up the healing process before having yet another realization. (You seem to be having a lot of those today.)

I can just Force-heal. Before, you couldn’t Force-heal because it would look suspicious if something healed too fast. But now that they know, you don’t have to solely depend on medical supplies anymore.

Tech, as always, is right on cue. “Is your hand alright? For you to render Bane unconscious must have been no easy feat. Not to mention that according to the medscan I just took, you have a mild concussion, most likely due to your fall. I can run a medical diagnostic test to start and then run more specific tests to combat your pain...” Tech mutters the last part to himself, brain running light years faster than his mouth as his fingers fly over the datapad.

You debate it for a moment before nodding. “That would be great, Tech–thanks. But right now, I’m exhausted, so I’m going to go and crash in my bunk. Wake me up if I need to punch someone again,” you joke before shuffling away from your squadmates. You ruffle Omega’s hair affectionately as you pass by her and pick up your blaster from the ground before climbing down the ladder. You don’t notice Hunter’s troubled gaze or how his Force signature sours a bit as you leave.

You quickly clean up and throw on some bacta patches on a few nasty bruises. You sit down on your bed and pull the privacy curtain before deciding to open up your secret compartment next to your mattress. You stare down at the objects, the only things you have left as a reminder of the past. You reach down for one of them, about to touch it when you stop.

You shake your head and shut the drawer. Deciding to finally, finally hit the hay, you’re out like a light as soon as your head hits the pillow. Dealing with the Force and healing yourself could be done later. Not even your constant pain and crippling worry about your family friends could keep you up any longer.

please consider reblogging! it really helps me and is super encouraging ^_^

[newtonsheffield]

Spicy Sunday 🌶🌶 one month anniversary Anthony’s reaction to the lingerie 😍

Ahhh I knew someone was gonna ask for this and I'll admit, I left the bait in there, and was kind of already planning it!

Ahhh Anthony, just going about his day, no idea what's in store for him. Just bought his girl flowers, not expecting anything in return. Bless him.

Let's take a look, shall we!

Kate had nearly lost her nerve a hundred times since she'd walked into the store and walked out with the lingerie she'd worn to work this morning in her bag. The sales girl had smiled a little benignly, as though she saw this sort of thing all the time and said "Special occasion?" Kate's cheeks had burned as she ground out "It's my anniversary today. My boyfriend surprised me so..." The sales girl had nodded again, a smirk on her face as she said "Lucky Boy."

And really, Kate knew that Anthony had a very... strong reaction to the lingerie she wore on a daily basis. His eyes darkening when she told him she liked how confident and powerful she felt when she wore it, how good it made her feel. And normally, she shied away from doing anything in any way performative for her partners, especially this, but there was something about the way Anthony looked at her. As though he worshipped her, almost as though he'd never seen anything as beautiful in his entire life and yet he never asked her to wear anything for him, Harry had certainly wasted no time asking her to wear any number of things for him. Anthony had groaned in her ear just a few nights ago I know it's not for me, but you look beautiful, and that more than anything made her want to do something for him.

So she took a deep breath at the end of the day and leaned against the door frame of his office watching him for a second as he flitted around. "I had an odd little delivery today." He spun around at the sound of her voice, his face breaking out in a bright smile. "Apparently I've been in a relationship for a whole month." His eyes were shining at her "Did you like them?" His voice a little nervous suddenly as though she would so no, they were horrible Anthony. Kate rolled her eyes, biting her lip to hold back her smile. "They are beautiful. And they create a very effective shield between my desk and the door." She stepped towards him, perching herself on the edge of his desk, delighting a little at the way his eyes seemed glued to her legs. He cleared his throat.

"I couldn't help but notice nothing has crossed my desk today." His lips ticking upwards in a little smirk that Kate thought she would very much like to wipe off his face with her own lips. She forced a breathy chuckled from her chest. "Well, that's a lie." She said gesturing to herself a little dramatically, her fingers undoing the top buttons of her blouse until the edge of emerald green lace was visible against her skin. Anthony's eyes darkened, his fingers twitching. "Is that new?" His voice sounded a little strangled, though he was attempting nonchalance. Kate smiled a little victoriously. "It is. I thought you might like to unwrap your gift in private." Anthony sat still for several seconds, as though he couldn't decide what he wanted to do first and then, his face shining with childlike delight, he stood abruptly, lifted Kate firmly by the waist and flung her over his shoulder, darting through the office quickly. Kate had several seconds of uncomfortable eye contact with a very startled Hermione still tidying the reception desk as they waited for the lift.

Surprisingly though, Anthony had largely kept his hands to himself in the car, one hand tightly on her upper thigh tracing little patterns there, but refusing to duck under her skirt no matter how much he practically vibrated with excitement, the odd chasteness of the situation compounding the tension between them as they stepped from the car to his house. His hands fumbling a little with the keys to his front door, as Kate's own hands tucked under his jacket, untucking his shirt, fingers kneading against the firm muscle of his back, a shiver running down his spine as he finally unlocked the door. And then suddenly, when they were inside, notorious playboy Anthony Bridgerton seemed to have no idea what to do and it emboldened Kate even further. "Come upstairs." She said softly, taking his hand and tugging him forwards up his staircase, she could hear his feet stumbling a little behind her.

Tension thick between them as she sat him on the edge of his bed, her fingers tugging at his tie, sliding it from his collar as she stood between his legs, pushing is shirt from his shoulders before stepping back. "Now, You've been a very good boy this month, Mr. Bridgerton. So I think you deserve a treat." Her voice rough but commanding, the way his eyes were burning into hers making her feel even more confident than she already did as she slowly shed her own clothing. Anthony's mouth dropped open in surprise, his hands tightening into fists in the sheets either side of him, a soft whine escaping him as Kate settled herself on his lap again, her teeth grazing his ear. "Do you like your present, Anthony?" his head nodded immediately, his eyes a little glazed, the muscles of his stomach twitching under her fingertips as they trailed over him. "Then I think I'll show you what I'd like to do in your office." Another whine as she slid from his lap, kneeling in front of him, his eyes wide as she pulled at his belt buckle, his trousers joining his shirt in the pile.

"Kate, you don't have to." His voice suddenly firm again, as he tilted her chin upwards, the room ringing with the truth of his lack of expectation. And again, she felt emboldened as she smiled, a slow, sure kind of smile as she moved his hand to her hair. "I know. But I really really want to." Another whine as her mouth moved over him, his bedroom filling with the sounds wrenched from his chest heat pooling low in Kate's own stomach, the power she held over him a little intoxicating as endless praise fell from his lips Fuck Kate you're amazing. So good. Perfect. His breathing laboured and then he was pushing her away, tugging her to her feet again, his eyes nearly black. "Together. Please." His voice like gravel, his lips suddenly hot against hers as she relaxed into him, her hips already moving against him, seeking friction her own need a little unbearable.

"Watch Kate." He said firmly in her ear as she tugged her to sit on his lap, her back pressed against his chest as their hips started a slow rhythm grinding together despite the urgency she felt. Her eyes drawn to the mirror across from his bed, his eyes burning into hers through it. Heat building between them as her moans filling the room as he started talking again, low in her ear. "I love when you're this confident, Kate. Look how beautiful you are. I wanted you for so long I thought I'd die. When we argued all I could think was Fuck she's so hot. I thought of you when I touched myself and I tried to stop but I couldn't." His voice unrelenting his arms tight around her, his gentle admissions forcing her to climb higher and higher, and then she watched in the mirror as she fell apart around him, his arms holding her tightly even as he shuddered her name falling from his lips like a prayer as he fell as well.

After several seconds of fighting for breath Kate stood, her legs a little weak, turning to face her boyfriend properly, a dopey grin on his face, his hair falling over his sweaty brow. She straddled him again, pushing lightly on his chest until her fell back against the mattress. "Happy anniversary?" Her voice tilting upwards as though it were a question, suddenly a little nervous again. Anthony's breathless laughter filled the room, his lips finding hers again. "Yeah, happy fucking anniversary to me." His eyes burning into hers again despite their slightly glazed expression. "I know it's not for me, but fuck Kate, when you're that empowered it's really fucking hot." Kate smiled lazily, "I'll let you in on a little secret: I did buy this for you." And Anthonys soft little Whoop! Stole something from her chest.

This was very long, And I'm very sorry about it

[getyouasenju]

Stop Signs

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: Angst, profanity, Suggestive, thats it <3

There are two other parts to this fic, but this can be a standalone, the other parts could be as well!

Part 1: “Drivers License”

Part 2: “Red Lights”

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – :

"So, you two are... just friends now?"

Hinata hesitantly asked, quickly glancing back and forth between myself and the man sitting beside me. We all sat at the usual hang out spot, our favorite ice cream shop. Tucked away sitting at an adorable table by the window, with a new guest joining us of course, Shikamaru. I happily dig my spoon into my ice cream before replying, "Yep," popping the 'p' at the end. "We were friends before we dated, what's the difference now?" shoving the spoon into my mouth and shrugging my shoulders. I hear Shikamaru sigh beside me and I throw him a questioning glance. 

"Oh give me a break! You two just friends? Oh please." Sakura laughs out, Hinata and Ino holding their own back snickers. I glance away from my ice cream, raising my brow at my friend. "Didn't Rock Lee have a crush on you? and aren't you two still friends though?" I tease back at her, pointing my spoon in her direction. Her eyes widen as she scrunches her nose, her face turning a slight shade of pink. "Well yeah- but it was one sided, we never dated! You guys were in love, and you two would basically make out in front of the whole village!” My eyes widened as I felt my cheeks warm up, Shikamaru let out an annoyed groan from beside me.

"W-what? no we didn't! right Shikamaru? we kept our intimate mome-" He cuts me off with a harsh glare as he speaks up, "Must we speak about these kinds of things with such an audience? It's so embarrassing.." He sighs out. I rolled my eyes, "Hey! I was just saying!" I defended, turning towards him while grabbing a napkin from the middle of the table. Ino quickly examines the both of us before speaking, "So- this is what you two agreed on? Just being friends again? This is what you guys want?" She questioned. I finish wiping my mouth as I smiled before replying, 

"Yes" 

"No"

 My smile immediately drops as my head snaps to Shikamaru and I furrow my brows at him, but he refuses to look at me. I look down at my cup, suddenly my favorite ice cream didn't taste so good right now. I jumped as Shikamaru abruptly stood from the table. He pushed his chair back and exited the shop, the little bells on the door ringing on his way out. My heart dropped as I watched the door close, my mouth hanging open slightly. The table was silent at the outburst. I looked at the three girls before setting my cup down and rushing after him. I burst out the door, looking around until I spotted him leaning against the side of the building, cigarette in hand. I frowned as I walked up to him. "I thought you we trying to quit." I asked him quietly. He let out a humorless laugh and to be honest, I was a little afraid of where this was going. 

"Well I've had a lot of stress these days." He spits at me, taking a long drag of his cigarette, blowing out a big cloud. It almost felt as if he was doing it to spite me and I knew he was talking about me. I wave my hand by my face, annoyed at him. "Shikamaru, just stop it- please? I'm sorry If I embarrassed you in there, Sakura was just exaggerating back there- she didn’t mean any harm, you know that. I don't think we were that bad." I let out a nervous laugh as I peered up at him. He throws the cigarette bud on the ground, stomping it out as he shook his head scoffing. "Yeah, it was a drag listening to her commenting on something so private, but do you really think that's what I'm upset about?" I open and close my mouth several times and still nothing comes out. "Shikamaru I'm sorry I-" 

He shook his head at me, still refusing eye contact with me, and I immediately stopped speaking. He turns to me, "You know what (Y/N)? I'm the one that’s sorry. I'm so fucking sorry that It's not as easy for me, as it is for you to just be friends. God, I'm so fucking in love with you that I'd do anything to just be close to you for two seconds and it's killing me." He lets out a scoff, “And you know what? I’ll keep coming back to you every single time- it’s pathetic really.” I looked at him in disgust. Easy for me?, oh no- he doesn’t get to say that to me. "So everything is just my fault? Okay, I'm willing to take the blame, but i’m not willing to have the same argument with you every week. I tried to be cordial, I tried to go back to being friends." Finally catching his eyes I continued, "I miss my best friend." I whispered. He made eye contact with me, slightly glaring down at me. “And I miss my girlfriend.”

 I exhaled loudly through my mouth. “So what? You’re gonna pick a fight with me everyday until we get back together?” I questioned him, “Because that’s healthy right? That’s what exactly I want in a relationship, huh Shikamaru? You can’t bully me into getting back together!” He rolled his eyes, digging around in his pocket for what I assumed was another cigarette. I reach out and to touch his hand as he snatches it back. I let out a huff of air, “What do you want from me!” I shout at the hard-headed man. Is being his friend not enough for him? How fucking selfish could he be. He looked taken back at my shouting, but quickly recovers taking a step towards me.“I want you to trust yourself for one fucking time.” I dropped my shoulders in confusion. “Shikamaru..” I start, but he swiftly cuts me off stepping forward to reach out for me. “What do I have to do to fix this? I can’t just be friends with you (Y/N). I have to fix this, let me fix this.” He desperately rushes out. As I allowed him to embrace me, I was silent while I was still stuck on his previous statement as I sat there wrapped in his warmth. Trust yourself... for once in your life.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – :

“Is your arm numb yet?”

I giggled as I let the question slip out my mouth. We laid in a grass field, he absolutely whooped me in Shogi so we spent the day his way, cloud watching of course. We laid on our backs, my head resting on his arm, the other behind his head as we relaxed. It was a warm day with just the right amount of wind. “Hmmm?...” He slowly lets out, eyes still close. Aren’t we supposed to be watching the clouds? It’d been a week since the incident at the ice cream shop, and as of right now- we were still just friends much to his dismay. His words still repeated through my mind every single day... and the fact that he still owes me a scoop of ice cream from his dramatic exit.. 

Suddenly He rolls his body to face me, bringing one had to my waist, the one behind my head curling up to stroke my cheek. I closed my eyes, basking in his touch. “Friends don’t do this, Shikamaru.” I warned. He smirked at me, “Really? Must be such a drag for the friends that miss out on doing this.” He leans in and connects our lips, and my hands finding the way to his hair. It almost was like a reflex for me, muscle memory, and I allowed him to take control without a second question. He pulls back with that look in his eyes. “Absolutely not, Nara.” I fuss at him. He gave me a sly smile, “Of course not, at least not out here.” My cheeks flushed as I swatted him away from me. ”Maybe Sakura was right about us.” I let out with a groan. “Us?” He slickly asked. I wanted to wipe that shit eating grin off his face. “You know what I meant.” I waved him off, but he grabs my hand and intertwined our fingers. Leaning back, attempting to pull me back down with him again, but I resisted.

He raised a brow at me, releasing me and bringing both arms to the back of his head, letting out a sigh. “What’s wrong now?” He sincerely asks. I huff, looking down at my hands, my mind killing me. “Shikamaru?” I let out quietly. He sat back up, groaning at the movement but becoming completely serious at my tone. “You can tell me anything (Y/N).” I could feel his eyes on the side of my head. I pick at my nail beds as my question boiled over in my mind.

“What happens when I get insecure?”

I said it so quietly that I feared I’d have to repeat it again. It was silent for a little before he spoke to me again. “What.. what do you mean?” He says, seemingly confused at the statement. “You said you want to be together- right? That I’m an easy choice for you, but am I really that easy?” I bring my hands to my face. “So what happens when I get insecure? When I think I’m not good enough for you, or that you’re better off without me, huh? We just break up again?” I frantically turn my head to him, anxiously searching for an answer. He was silent and that was enough for me. “See? This is why we can’t work Shikamaru.” I move to stand up, wanting to get away from the conversation when he reached out and placed a hand on my knee, halting my actions.

“Don’t run from me, It’d be troublesome for me to have to run after you- but I will.” I stiffened, nervous to be in under his touch. We sat in this position for what seemed like forever. “Then you tell me, and we work through it.” He says softly, turning to meet my eyes. I furrow my brows, a bit confused, “What?” He moves his hand to grab mine. “You said what happens if you get insecure. If somehow you think you aren’t good enough for me, or If you godforsaken- thought that I would ever be better off without you.” He shakes his head at the thought of me ever thinking those things. “(Y/N), you see- we do work, but we have to work together. You can’t hide these things- these feeling from me. You have to trust me- trust yourself. You can tell me anything, there is nothing that I am not willing to do for you- for this relationship. You just need to be honest with me- give me the chance to help you. If I ever make you feel that way, you need to tell me.” He brings his hand up to hold my face.

“Promise me that you’ll tell me when you feel this way. We can make this work. I promise, let me in.”

“I wanted to tell you, I just.. I thought that one day you just woke up and realized you didn’t want to be with someone like me, and I didn’t blame you for it.” I whispered, looking at him through my lashes. He looked at me, heartbroken to hear my thoughts as he shook his head, moving closer to me. “Who wouldn’t want to be with someone like you? I wish you could see yourself the way I see you, I wanna spend the rest of my life showing you that you deserve everything

I place both my hand over the one he had on my cheek, melting into his embrace. “Okay.” I whispered with a smile. “Okay? Like, we’re back together ‘okay’?” Shikamaru asks me, I could hear the smirk in his voice. “I wanna hear you say it.” I rolled my eyes. “Geez, if anything I should make you ask me out again for wasting my ice cream the other day...” I start, not being serious when he quickly spoke out to me, “(Y/N), will you be my girlfriend again? Emphasis on the relationship aspect, not the friend part.” He teases me. I blushed as I was the one reaching for his face this time. “I was always yours.” He gave me that famous smirk again before crashing his lips onto mine again. After kissing me until I saw stars instead of clouds, we pull apart both smiling hard. “Well.. want to go have our ‘intimate moments’ back at my place?” He winks at me, teasing me for my words last week.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.. after you replace my ice cream, loser.”

“Of course.” He smiled wildly at me, wrapping his arm around me and promptly pulling me back into the grass. “You know, my parent have been pestering when they’d see you again, especially my mother.” He mumbles out the last bit. My face scrunches up in response and I deadpanned when It hit me. “You didn’t tell them we were broken up did you?” He sighed and looked at me sheepishly, “It would have been so troublesome to explain that- besides, I never planned on letting you go in the first place. It would’ve just been too confusing and not worth the nagging.” He plainly stated. “Oh, so you were so sure we were gonna get back together, huh?” I teased the Nara. He lets out a short chuckle,

“Yeah... I’ll be stuck to you like your shadow.” 

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – :

This was the final addition the my “Drivers License” Fic! It was so hard to finish because for a week tumblr wouldn’t let me type of this doc!!!! I’m so happy to finish it, I wish it was out quicker- but it was out of my control. I’ve had this draft for two weeks!!!! anyways, Love ya! also feel free to let me know if there are any grammar issues! :)

Masterlist

Until Next Time! xxo (▰∀◕)ﾉ

[babyybitchhh]

Ace x Reader 18+

Rating: Explicit/R-18+

Words: 3,201

Warnings: oral sex, cunnilingus, semi established relationship, first time

A/N: Wrote this for my editor in chief, who just got to the climax of Marineford and is very upset about ... you know. She gave the okay to post it, so please enjoy! : )

♥♥♥♥

You were halfway through the motion of lifting the overstuffed laundry basket so you could hand it off to Marco when you suddenly caught movement at the corner of your eye. Distracted from the task at hand, you swivel around only to find Ace leaning through the doorway, beckoning you over with a wave and a big mischievous grin. You eagerly start to smile back, excited to see him, but the sound of Marco expectantly clearing his throat stops you from bolting.

Sheepishly, you turn back around to glance at the blond who offers you a droll look in response. “Don’t even think about it, missy … you’ve been shucking your laundry duty off on other people for weeks now. Do you really think I’ll just let you take off like that?”

Your mouth pulls in a frown, dejected, and Ace not-so-helpfully chimes in with a grumble of ‘no fun!’ Brow arching wryly, Marco shoots him a quick look of warning, putting a stopper on any further commentary before turning his attention to you again.

“Sorry,” you murmur, holding out the basket in resignation. Whatever Ace wanted would just have to wait until the chores were finished.

Silently, Marco takes the laundry from you, studying the dispirited droop of your shoulders for a long beat until, at last, he heaves a yielding sigh. “Go.”

Your head immediately comes up. “What? Really?”

“Yes, really.” He says, trying not to smile when Ace loudly whoops from his spot at the door. “But you owe me. Both of you do, so you’ll take turns filling in for me on the chore rotation, got it?”

“For how long?” You ask, not exactly trusting his generosity at face value. But Ace was already dashing across the room to grab your wrist and unceremoniously yank you towards the doorway, making you squeak and stumble after him.

“A month!” You hear Marco shout after you, just barely, over the racket of Ace’s heavy boots on the plank floorboards.

He doesn’t even give you a chance to respond, clearly making the decision for you as he drags you down the hall like a clumsy toddler until you get your feet situated under you. Laughing, you pick up the pace to jog alongside him with your heart in your throat, cheeks flushed and warm. He was laughing as well, his howling chortle much louder than yours, as his grip adjusts to your fingers so he can swing your arm back and forth between the two of you.

“Where are we going?” You giggle, struggling to breathe around the happy flutter in your chest.

“You’ll see! I’ve got a surprise for you!”

That gives you pause - or at least it would have, if he hadn’t been steering you down the winding corridors of the Moby Dick at an excitable pace. You were completely at his mercy now that he had you in his clutches and all you could do was go along with it, tittering the whole while.

You’re a little surprised, though, when he pulls you right up to the door of his cabin a few moments later, but Ace doesn’t so much as pause. Swinging the door open, he storms inside and slams it shut again before yanking you towards the cot.

“Sit.”

You do, but not without shooting him an inquisitive look.

“Now close your eyes.”

You do this, too, with butterflies in your stomach. Ace was a kind soul, certainly, but he was also prone to making impulsive, sometimes questionable decisions so you weren’t really sure what to expect while you listened to him move about in the small room. It was really anyone’s guess at this point, and you start slightly when you feel him slide something into your lap.

“Okay,” he says, plopping his butt on the mattress to sit beside you. “Open them.”

Obediently, you do just that only to find yourself blinking down at a ribbon wrapped box. It wasn’t very big at all, so likely not anything too extreme, but you could tell the bow on top wasn’t messy enough to be his doing, and you shoot him a questioning glance.

Ace’s grin only widens though; big and boyish, and so frustratingly charming that it makes your heart twist. You still couldn’t believe the effect he had on you, sometimes. “Go on, take a look. I think you’ll like it.”

Certain you would like it, you take the end of the ribbon in hand and tug. It comes loose with a slither and you feel for the seam with your fingertips, quickly finding it and working the top off so you can peer inside.

“Ace …” you warble after a prolonged moment of surprised quiet, eyes wide and glossy. “You shouldn’t have.”

He snickers as he leans close to your shoulder, proudly joining you in regarding the small, personal sized tiramisu sitting within. “It’s your favorite, right? I knew I had to get you something when I saw the bakery in town and I hurried back to the ship as fast as I could so it wouldn’t get all soggy. I hope it still tastes okay.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, trying valiantly to fight back the happy, reflexive tears that threaten to spill over your lashes. “You really shouldn’t have, but thank you. That was so sweet of you.”

His smile falters slightly when he looks up at your face and sees the misty quality of your eyes, fluster quickly creeping into his expression. “Hey, hey! It’s nothing to cry about!” He huffs, suddenly awkward, as he reaches over to drag his index finger through a corner of the cake. “Here, give it a taste. Tell me if it’s any good.”

Your mouth opens, wanting to tell him you’re sure it’s delicious, but he slips the cream covered digit past your lips before you can get so much as a word out. Cheeks warming, you noise around the intrusion and turn a plaintive look up at him even as you shyly clean the tip of his finger with soft little kitten licks. That seems to please him a great deal, his grin returning at full force in just a matter of seconds.

“Yummy?” He prompts, withdrawing his finger.

“Yummy …” you agree as your hand comes up to timidly touch at your mouth. “It’s really good, actually. Thank you.”

“No problem. You know I’m always looking out for you!”

Mouth tugging into a smile, you watch as Ace leans back with his hands braced on the cot, face tilted up at the ceiling. He seemed so content and happy just to share his space with you, lightly humming a faint tune under his breath while he kicks his feet back and forth over the edge of the bed. In so many ways, he reminded you of a little boy when he was like this. Carefree and easy. Untroubled. It wasn’t a side of him that many got to see and, feeling quite fortunate, you start to reach for the cake.

“Here, you have some too.”

“Mmmm. No thanks. I’m good.”

Blinking, you curiously glance over at him. “Oh? You liked it the last time, though.”

“Yeah, but … I’m not really in the mood for dessert right now.” Neck turning, Ace drops his cheek to his shoulder and casually sends a meaningful glance down the length of your body to settle on the spot between your thighs. A sharp thrill immediately races through you, face warming alarmingly quick. He laughs at your reaction, all good natured humor and charming as he starts to tip his head back again. “I’m just teasing ya’, don’t worry. I wouldn’t want to - -“

“I don’t mind.”

His laughter abruptly cuts off with a sputter. “What?”

Face growing even hotter, you nervously shuffle your feet against the floor. “I said I don’t mind. If you really want to, that is. It’s okay if you were just joking - -“

Ace jumps up from the cot so fast you’d think he accidentally set it on fire if you didn’t know any better.

Eyes widening, you let him snatch the cake box from your slack hands and watch as he urgently sets it aside with quick, jerky motions. His expression is suddenly dark when he leans down to hook broad, calloused hands under your knees and pull up, flipping you onto your back.

“Ah - Ace!”

“Were you serious just now?” He asks, not stopping long enough to hear the answer before sinking down to the floor and sending you a hopeful puppy dog look from where he was now knelt between your legs.

“Y - yes,” you tell him truthfully. “I was. But you don’t have to though, I just - -“

He abruptly drops his face into the meat of your thighs, startling a squawk out of you. Embarrassed, your grasping fingers shoot down to tangle in his wavy hair as he inhales a deep, stuttering breath that makes his shoulders rise dramatically like some sort of hunching beast.

“God, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do this.” He practically growls against you.

“You should have said something then …”

Ace’s only response is a low, rumbling groan to accompany the tight squeeze of his fingers on your hips. You tense and shudder for him as he drags those big hands of his further down to take hold of your thighs and ease them apart. The breath catches in your throat when he promptly nuzzles into you, rubbing his face against your tingling cunt as if he were a cat marking its territory. You struggle not to screw your eyes shut at the sensation of him so intimately close to your core, smelling you and basking in the warmth bleeding through your clothes, but you force yourself to keep watching.

To bear witness to the way he presses in so tight his nose wrinkles up, brows furrowed in unconcealed pleasure. To see how the wavy strands of his hair rest along the curve of your thighs and then cling to the fabric of your skirt when he impatiently shoves it up out of his way. To appreciatively drink in the sight of him, all dark eyed and freckled, staring hungrily at the pudgy seam that runs down the center of your panties just as a starving man might look at a bountiful harvest.

He was easily the most beautiful man you’d ever seen and, based on the way he was looking at you, that feeling was apparently mutual.

“You’re sure?” It’s a soft question, but it rings loud in the quiet cabin.

“I … I’m positive, Ace. You don’t need to hesitate.”

Loudly exhaling the breath he’d been holding, he snags his fingers into the waistband of your panties and tugs. Your throat constricts as you twist on top of the bed, helping him work the cotton down over your legs. He tosses them without a second thought as soon as they’re loose, quickly diving back in to shove his face into your bare pussy, making you jolt.

You have to bite down on your lower lip to keep quiet when you spread your legs further apart for him, delighting in the way he eagerly nuzzles against you without another thought to the matter. His lips purse against your slit and he kisses you, just as passionately as he does your mouth when no one’s looking. A whimper promptly claws up the back of your throat, high strung and needy, and Ace responds in kind with a rumbling sigh of his own.

Blunt fingers knead into the doughy soft flesh of your thighs as he tilts his head so he can better work your labia apart. You shiver at the sensation of warm spit gathering along the crease of your body, slowly dribbling down your skin and mixing with sticky slick to leave you feeling obscenely damp. The realization that he was excitedly drooling all over your pussy, panting and faintly moaning into you as if you two had been at this for hours, has your toes curling in premature ecstasy.

His rough lips were the perfect contrast on your delicate folds, sending intense shockwaves of friction through you that felt like something akin to fireworks. You heave, spine arching off the bed when Ace finally dips the plushy swell of his tongue inside to truly taste you and tease at your clit. Fingers scrabbling across his broad shoulders, you latch onto him with your nails, fighting to keep yourself grounded rather than let the heat of the moment swallow you up.

It was the middle of the day on a heavily manned ship, after all, and there was no lock on the cabin door. If someone came calling on him for one reason or another they probably wouldn’t hesitate to barge in unannounced. This was Ace you were talking about here. He wasn’t someone that often concerned himself with pleasant niceties such as knocking so why would they show him that courtesy?

It would be over in an instant and you’d both be caught red handed, no questions asked. Word of this incident would spread fast, no doubt, depending on who found the two of you like this, but everyone on board will have certainly heard about it by sundown. You just couldn’t afford to get carried away right now, for your sake as much as his - but it was so hard not to cry out in pleasure when he was languidly dragging his tongue up and down the length of your slit to gather all the accumulated fluid and swallow it down in one big gulp.

Seething, you finally give in to the urge and squeeze your eyes shut as your head tips back against the haphazardly strewn sheets, the smell of him swarming your senses all over again. “Ace … please …!”

“Mmmm, yes, baby,” he murmurs against you, muffled by the meat of your cunt. “Say it again. For me?”

“Ah! A - Ace! Please … pleeeaaase!”

It’s hard to keep your voice down but, somehow, you manage to hush your desperate pleas to a mere whisper, strained and cracking. He responds in kind, moaning softly as he nuzzles deeper, making your pliant pussy lips mold against his face. Hooded obsidian eyes rove up to regard you as he does it, watching your expression twist in pleasure with nothing short of a fierce, almost predatory interest reflecting in his dark irises.

Ace was hungry for you in a way you never would have anticipated, his lips and his tongue voraciously laving you in warm, wet attention, quickly winding the spring inside you tighter and tighter. Your sensitive cunt was already throbbing for him, threatening to burst at a moment's notice if he wasn’t careful. You could hardly breathe through it, so heavy and gratifying, as his insatiable, relentless mouthing continued to work you over until you were half delirious with it.

Despite wanting to savor this, you knew, instinctively, that you weren’t going to last much longer.

“Ace … I - I’m gonna’ …”

The sound he makes in response is very nearly a snarl, bordering on animalistic and feral. His fingers come up to press into your labia and spread them, finally - finally! Exposing your clit fully to his mouth. You suck in a haggard gasp of air and try to brace for it, but still jolt as if you’d been electrocuted when he drags the flat of his tongue over that pulsating little bud tucked away inside silken folds. Your vision whites out for a split second, entirely overwhelmed, nails clawing at his shoulder blades with an almost savage sort of desperation. A scream rises in the back of your throat, choking you when you refuse to give it voice.

Embarrassingly, all it takes is three quick swipes of his tongue to send you into a fit of convulsions, fresh tears instantly welling up in your eyes. This time, however, they track freely down the sides of your face while you struggle to keep yourself in check even as you twist and writhe underneath him, mewling as quietly as you can. You sound like something broken, an injured calf in its death throes, and Ace the ravenous wolf drinking your lifeblood as if it were sacrament.

He doesn’t let up for what feels like a small eternity, persistently lapping at your sensitized clit until you finally issue a wounded, half stifled shriek that seems to echo against the cabin walls. Coming up off you with a wet, wheezing gasp, he watches the way you slap a hand to your mouth and quake through the lingering tremors of your orgasm from under the fall of messy, sweat slicked bangs. So obviously entranced by the sight of you even as his bare chest contracts with quick, heavy breaths that give away the true extent of his tense arousal.

“You look so good like this ..” he murmurs, comfortingly dragging his hands across your trembling thighs as you start to ease down from your high. “Coming apart just for me. How’d I ever get so lucky, huh?”

Whimpering, you reach for him with shaking fingers and Ace attentively obliges, climbing up onto the cot and settling over you with his knees bracketing your hips. He swoops down to catch your mouth with his, and you moan at the taste of yourself as you languorously stretch out beneath him. The buzz of your afterglow was potently intoxicating, making your head spin long after the pulses had finally stopped, leaving you warm and comfortable. Satiated.

Sighing pleasantly into the kiss, you card your hand through his hair, working out a few errant knots here or there before tilting your head back to look up at him. “I think I’m the lucky one, actually … I’ve never felt so good in all my life, Ace.”

He chuckles when he leans down to adoringly press his forehead to yours, eyes locking from just a scant few inches away. “Guess we’re both lucky then, baby girl. I couldn’t ask for anything else, you know that?”

“That makes me happy,” you warble, feeling like you could just burst all over again.

“Me too.” Sighing contentedly, Ace snuggles somehow even closer to you and tries to get comfortable, but the prodding weight pressed into your thigh seems to give him a bit of trouble. He shifts awkwardly, looking for a position that will ease the strain on his cock, but it doesn’t appear as though one is very forthcoming in his current predicament.

You hesitate to do it but, quickly making up your mind, you reach down and shyly grasp at him through his pants. It’s his turn to jolt as if he’d just been shocked, and his attention whips around to practically gape at you. It probably would’ve been rather funny, the flabbergasted look on his face, if only your pussy wasn’t still soaking wet and silently begging to be stretched.

“I want to.” You tell him quietly.

Ace visibly gulps, swallowing his nerves. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I know for a fact that there isn’t a single soul in this world I would rather have. Please …?”

Luckily, you don’t have to ask him twice.

[darter-blue]

So- I’ve been going through your blog for a few weeks now and reading your fics, but I just watched Endgame. I watched it yesterday and I need some comfort fics where it’s soft and the boys are in love because I feel attacked by the Russos and extremely disappointed 🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 any fics you can recommend for a poor lost soul????

Hey there gorgeous Nonnie,

Oh, endgame will leave you in a nasty place for sure, but yes honey, I have a few fics that will put you right.

Here is a little list of fluffy fun for you, read and get your happy stucky vibes back. And let's pretend that other nonsense never existed, shall we? Good bub.

Becs fluffy recs:

they're gonna send us to prison for jerks by napricot

This is mostly inspired by this tumblr post and Sebastian Stan's hilarious look for I, Tonya in general. This was supposed to be a short lolzy undercover/mistaken identity type thing, but whoops. Now it's 24k of lolz and feelings!

Effects of Obliteration by geneticallydead

I wanted to write a Winter Soldier recovery fic, but with some kind of spin where there isn't the inherent angst of the Soldier, you know, trying to flat out murder Steve on several occasions.

So um, ta da?

*throws fic at you and runs*

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail by MusingsOnBuckyBarnes, owlet

The mission resets abruptly, from objective: kill to objective: protect

(Always rec this fic for comfort reading)

Sweater Weather by odetteandodile

hi all, i was in the mood for some lighthearted fall-themed shrunkyclunks and here's where we ended up!

enjoy some awkward flirting, banter, puppy-eyes, and fluffs.

The Right Wrong Number by giselleslash

Steve's one night stand blows him off with a wrong number, which just happens to be Bucky's number...

Steve Rogers. Cheerfully Slutty. by relenafanel

Steve Rogers. Cheerfully Slutty. But not going to take your shit about it.

Bucky Barnes. Voted most likely to fall in love first.

Red Carpet Rescue Mission by darter_blue

Just in case you, like me, are in the mood for adorable stucky shenanigans, I present this little bit of fun, based on the cutest anecdote I've heard in forever:

Irish presenter, Angela Scanlon, doesn't recognise Steven Spielberg at the BAFTA's

Subliminal Advertising by Kalee60

Hello and welcome to this absolute ridiculous story 

This came about from an actual visit to the supermarket when I not so proudly caught myself staring at a very nice looking man who may have had a wonderful shoulder to waist ratio that made me think of Steve... 

Love in Aisle Four by ixalit

When Bucky needs to swing by the supermarket after a long, hard day of work, the last thing he expects is to meet a cute grocery clerk named Steve…

When you say nothing at all by becassine

Sometimes the best conversations are never spoken aloud.

aka Bucky remembers some of his & Steve's more memorable kisses throughout their years.

Compatible - A Romantic Science Fiction Thriller in Four Parts by the1918

This fic was born into the world as a disgusting, smutty PWP plot bunny full of every a/b/o trope in the book. Then I watched it accidentally grow a plot and even sprout some world building. I apologize for what I have created.

night by the_gods_wife

Ch. 1: Steve and Bucky have to work together to neutralize a threat.

Ch. 2: Bucky is forced to defuse a tense situation

Stucky Tumblr Drabbles by TrekChik

A collection of Stucky drabbles, really a series of Meet-Cutes with an occasional high-context relationship, all about 1000 words or less.

Crash and Burn by HaniTrash

When you're the most feared assassin in the international spy world, who happens to also be an Omega, it's not exactly easy to scrounge up a willing partner. After all, everyone assumes you're an Alpha based on your size and generally grumpy nature. The website is an online matching service that seemed doubtful to his skeptical mind, but all he's looking for is a cock to ride out his heats with instead of doing all the work himself. Should be simple enough, right?

💗💗💗

There you go nonnie, lots of juicy fun fluff and smut for you to sink your teeth into. As always, mind the ao3 tags and ratings and enjoy!!!

[owl-with-a-pen]

We didn’t get much insight on nias breakup with brainy, like how nia was feeling through the whole thing! It was pretty upsetting. So how about an almost rewrite of reality bytes where Yvette takes nia out to a party to loosen her up, she gets drunk, and brainy comes to the rescue? Like takes her home, stays with her when she gets sick and takes care of her kinda thing. Thanks!

- Okay the word count speaks for itself but this one really got away from me. But I had to throw in all the angst I possibly could. Thank you for the prompt! x

Working under the oppressive eye of Lex Luthor grew worse by the day.

Brainy had always been a master at multitasking, and so he had never assumed it would be exactly there that he would struggle the most.

And yet, here he was. Trying his hardest to focus on Lex’s latest tedious task to keep him in check. After all, Lex Luthor may have very well believed Brainy’s impassive charade, but that did not buy trust. Only time and a one hundred per cent success rate would accomplish that.

To achieve it, distractions had to be eradicated. He had already made his excuses time and time again for not attending one of Kara’s famed game nights, and despite Alex’s insistence, he had not given in to any other form of group activity, either – especially those involving Al’s Bar. He needed to maintain a clear head, to do as his doppelganger had instructed; to protect his friends and their future, he had to rid his mind of them. All of them. It was imperative to success.

And yet, the moment his phone buzzed with an incoming call, Brainy’s heart leapt into his throat.

It was Nia’s name that popped up on his screen. Nia’s face. So jovial, so care-free. In the photograph, her arm was wrapped around Brainy’s shoulders where she had pulled him in for a last-minute selfie. She’d kissed his cheek just seconds after it had been taken, insisting it’d be an awesome couple photo.

He had meant to change that. Why had he not…?

He swallowed hard, focusing instead on his computer screens, relaying information back and forth between them. It was without passion, meaningless data that could be shifted anywhere whilst maintaining the same result. But, it still served a purpose, keeping him from his intestinal inclination, that gut instinct to reach for his phone and answer without a moment’s hesitation.

When was the last time he had heard her voice?

He had been keeping his distance where he could, maintaining a professional formality with her whenever he caught her in the field as Dreamer. He knew it hurt her, every time it hurt her, but he could not avoid his duties in as much the same way she could not avoid hers.

They were in effect destined to bump into each other. The only way Brainy could lessen that hurt was by avoiding conversation as much as possible, throwing up every wall he could think of, even if he had to stumble over his words to do so.

When Nia’s face disappeared, Brainy released the breath he’d been holding, letting it dust across his screens.

Then, his phone buzzed twice more.

Voicemail.

Nia never left voicemails. Not since he had ended things with her so abruptly, walking out of her apartment, refusing to elaborate, to offer her any kind of closure.

It was a calculated hurt powerful enough for her to abstain from asking questions; a necessary evil, and one Brainy would never forgive himself for causing.

He shouldn’t be doing this, his mind warned, but his thoughts were racing, derailing from all twelve tracks at once.

His hand was already poised over his phone. Before he could think better of it, Brainy snatched it up, connecting to his most recent voice message. He pressed it to his ear, pursing his lips in anticipation.

“You suck, you know that?”

Brainy flinched, the phone nearly slipping right from his hand. Nia’s voice was harsh, anger tinged with upset, but it was her voice. It could have been filled with all the fury in the world and Brainy would have still listened just as eagerly, if only for the chance to hear her again.

As the voicemail continued to play, Brainy realised that Nia’s words were slightly obscured by the heavy beats of music playing in the background, not to mention the loud chatting and whooping of people he certainly did not recognise. Brainy frowned. She must have been at some kind of party. Although, none of the voices present sounded as though they were talking to her specifically.

A nightclub, perhaps?

Nia wasn’t usually one for clubbing. So, why would she-?

“And y’know what?” Nia’s voicemail continued out just as harshly, cutting off Brainy’s train of thought. “Yvette’s so right, I deserve better than some guy who’s gonna leave me hanging, who leaves with zero explanation, and I- oh crap, sorry-” There was a scuffle, one caused by Nia knocking into a fellow patron if her apology was anything to go by. The slur in her voice was very evident, which led Brainy to conclude that she had been drinking heavily that night, enough to pick up the courage to call him.

His stomach lurched when he heard another voice in the background.

“Girl, what are you doing?” It was Yvette. Of course Yvette would have been the mastermind behind this apparent night out, likely with the well-minded intent of assisting with Nia’s mood.

Yvette’s voice grew louder as she came closer. “What are you- wait, are you calling him? No, no, you get off the phone right now, that’s messy as hell!”

Brainy was inclined to agree. Nia, however, seemed to have other ideas.

“It’s fine,” she insisted. “I-”

Before Brainy could hear anything more, the message cut off.

Brainy squeezed his eyes shut, clenching and unclenching his jaw methodically.

He shouldn’t do it. He shouldn’t be giving into gut instinct, not now, not-not ever. Not with so much at stake. He was supposed to be monitoring Lex’s movements, doing everything he could to keep a step ahead of whatever he was planning. So far, he had failed at that. And, if he continued to lose sight of his objective, he would only slip further still.

But, if there was one thing he could count on now more than ever, it was the Big Brain. Perhaps it was not that his skill at multitasking had been limited as of late, but more-so that he was not utilising it to its fullest extent. He could easily keep a thought track open for any updates on Lex’s data entry, could even continue development on the bug he was planning to slip into Lex’s private servers. For the moment, they were obstructed by a firewall even he was having difficulty breaching. But, with time…

Brainy’s fingers curled together, winding tightly around his phone. He had the room to deviate from his plans for one night. Besides, it would take mere seconds to get a lock on Nia’s GPS…

He had been trying so hard to keep out of her private business these last few weeks. The little he did know were only of her recent exploits as Dreamer that had been plastered all over the news. But, even knowing what she’d accomplished in such a short time, how capable she had become as a hero, it could not stop the worry that clogged so suddenly inside his throat.

He just had to know where she was, he rationalised. He just had to know that she was safe.

The moment her co-ordinates flashed in his mind, Brainy’s chest caught, lips parting. She was close-by, an estimated three minutes by flight from his current location.

He shouldn’t be doing this.

Brainy’s eyes scanned empty air, but beyond that he saw everything. The security for the club was rudimentary at best, and far too easy to hack. Nia’s most recent location had pointed her somewhere near to the club doors, which was only confirmed when Brainy linked up to the cameras out front, pinpointing her almost immediately.

Yvette was with her, holding up her weight as Nia slumped precariously into her side, nearly tripping down the club’s steps in an effort to remain upright. If it hadn’t been for Yvette’s guiding hand, she likely would have.

Brainy gritted his teeth. Just how much had she had to drink? He had never known Nia to drink so excessively, especially with how rigorously she had been training as of late. This was new behaviour for her, but not unpredictable. Brainy was more than aware of the many coping mechanisms one might find themselves adopting in times of emotional distress.

He had caused this.

He could fix this…

But he couldn’t, couldn’t - no matter how much his heart insisted otherwise, he could not give in. Nia wanted nothing to do with him, that much was clear from her message. And… Yvette was with her. Yvette would get her home safely.

But Yvette had clearly been drinking, also. What if something were to occur between the club and their apartment? Nia was disorientated, vulnerable, and with alcohol marring her judgement, her reaction timing would never match that of a clear-minded foe.

Brainy stood from his desk all at once, nearly toppling his chair in his haste. Fortunately, he was in a private office. Another upgrade from Lex. He swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth; at least he could use this particular gift to his advantage.

He needed to get to Nia undetected. Immediately.

Brainy’s calculations had been - as expected - totally correct. He reached the club in no less than three minutes, giving himself ample distance to land so that no drunk bystanders might notice his arrival. Not that their likelihood of remembering any of this come morning was very high, but it was best not to push those odds.

The moment he saw her, Brainy’s world stopped moving.

Nia and Yvette were sat together on the club’s steps. It appeared Yvette had not been successful getting Nia all the way down them. Now, she was stubbornly trying to encourage Nia to drink from a water bottle she’d had stashed in her bag. Nia only turned away from her with a grimace, pushing her face firmly into her hands. Her cheeks were rosy from alcohol consumption, her dark hair beginning to thicken and frizz from the humidity of the club. The dress she wore danced with row upon row of sequins, glinting in purple and pink tones beneath the streetlight.

She was so beautiful it nearly caused a physical ache inside of Brainy’s chest.

Never had he wanted to go to her so ardently, to scoop her into his arms, hold her close and never let go.

But, he couldn’t. He was bound by his decision and, what’s more, he was the very cause for this entire situation in the first place. Nia was only in this position because of what he had put her through, and he couldn’t take that back. So long as Leviathan was a threat, he could not give up this ruse, he could not tell her the truth.

Even if he did… the acidic tone in Nia’s voicemail told him all he needed to know. That he may have well lost her for good by doing this. And he could barely stand to think it.

Again, a distant part of his mind queried why he was even here? Was this not already traipsing on incredibly dangerous territory? If Lex found any reason to distrust him, this logical and distant image Brainy had been parading would’ve all been for naught, and his Earth would meet the same fate as his female doppelganger’s.

No, no. Regardless of his decisions, the side he had been forced to take, he was still himself. In which case, there was nothing wrong with helping those that required his assistance, even if they hadn’t exactly asked for it. In that way, he could at least be there for Nia. If she would even allow it at all.

He hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but when Yvette recognised him from halfway across the club grounds, the look she gave him was practically poisonous.

“You,” Yvette sneered, wrapping an arm protectively around Nia’s shoulders. Nia only groaned, digging her fingers against her face. Yvette’s eyes narrowed distrustfully. “Voicemail didn’t cut it, hm? You know you broke her heart, right?”

“I’m… aware,” Brainy said tightly, trying his hardest to maintain the same collected calm he’d been offering the rest of his friends. Any slip-ups now could be the end of this ruse once and for all.

Nia had yet to lift her head, and so Brainy took that as his opportunity to remove his phone from his pocket, very clearly displaying the Uber app on his screen, making his intentions clear. “I can help get her home.”

Yvette snorted derisively, tightening her hold around Nia. “Uh-uh, there is no way I’m leaving Nia alone with your cheating ass.”

Brainy’s face fell. Cheating? Was that what Nia had told her? Or… or had that been Yvette’s own assumption of events? “I didn’t cheat on her,” he said, a little defensively.

“Please,” Yvette scoffed. “No one’s feelings magically change overnight unless there’s another woman involved.” She gave him a snide once-over. “She can do better than you.”

Brainy’s stomach sank, his eyes flickering to Nia, capturing every inch of her. “I… I have no doubt.”

It took some back and forth, but eventually, Yvette agreed to his help on the condition she came back to the apartment with them. Brainy understood that she hadn’t wanted to cut her own night short, but Nia’s health came first. At least on that, they could both agree.

Regardless, it was a very awkward Uber journey back to the apartment.

Nia didn’t speak the whole car ride, and Brainy began to wonder if she was lucid enough to understand her surroundings at all. She didn’t look up from her hands, and more than once Brainy considered that she might be doing it purposely, far too aware of who she was currently sharing a car with.

Although, the steadily worsening pallor of her skin pointed towards another, far likelier, possibility.

Which was confirmed the second they got into the apartment’s elevator.

The juddering motions of the small space was all it took for Nia to break her silence, cupping a hand desperately over her mouth.

“I feel sick,” she murmured into her palm.

“Hold off,” Yvette said gently, rubbing Nia’s shoulders. “We’ll be home any second.”

Brainy wished it could be him to offer Nia comfort like that, but he’d practically backed himself into the furthest corner of the elevator, acting as nothing more than a passive shadow to the night’s unfolding events. He dug his hands into his pockets, clenching them tightly to keep from reaching out to her, watching with worried eyes as Nia grabbed suddenly for the elevator’s rail with her free hand, swallowing thickly.

The moment the doors opened, Nia stumbled out, nearly tripping in her haste to exit. Brainy maintained his distance while Yvette helped Nia down the hallway, waiting awkwardly with his arms folded as she fumbled with the keys to the door. He hovered hesitantly outside the doorway when Nia broke from Yvette, rushing into the bathroom, although he noticed that Yvette was wary to follow her in.

When he caught her eye, Yvette grimaced, shaking her head. “I- I can’t, I’m a sympathetic vomiter,” she explained weakly. “If she hurls, I hurl.”

Brainy nodded his understanding, reviewing the door’s entrance as though it might swallow him whole. After a long moment, he ducked his head, stepping inside. “I can stay with her, if you would like,” he offered, quirking a brow. “After all, you are in need of rest as well.”

Yvette pulled a face, staring at him suspiciously. “You really don’t quit, do you?”

Brainy only shrugged.

“I’m keeping my eye on you,” Yvette said, which at first Brainy didn’t understand as an invitation. That was, until, she stepped aside, waving her hand in the direction of the apartment’s bathroom.

Brainy didn’t waste any time. He barely managed a breathy thank you before he headed the way Nia had disappeared.

Nia was curled around the toilet when Brainy pushed the door open, her hands pressed firmly against the rim. She hadn't appeared to have thrown up yet, but she was pale and shivering, her jaw clenched tight with discomfort.

The moment he was close enough, Brainy dropped to his knees, reaching out a hand hesitantly towards her, gauging her reaction. When none came, Brainy carefully rested the flat of his palm across her back. She didn’t try to move away from his touch; instead, with a shaky sigh, she relaxed against him, eyes fluttering shut.

And so, Brainy continued, boldly enough to massage his fingers gently and precisely around her spine, quickly finding a pattern that she seemed to appreciate. He rubbed her back in large, repetitive circles, filling the silence with the quiet crunch of sequins as they rolled lethargically beneath his palm.

It wasn’t long before Nia’s shoulders tensed up. Her chest convulsed and she groaned out, throwing her head over the toilet just in time before she vomited into the bowl. As expected, the contents of her stomach appeared to mostly be liquid, which certainly explained the dangerous level of her intoxication. Brainy remained exactly where he was, holding her back steady with one hand whilst studiously bunching Nia’s hair behind her shoulders with the other, tugging away loose strands that had caught across her lips. No sooner had he done so, Nia gagged again, squeezing her eyes shut as round two commenced.

Brainy continued to rub her back, murmuring soft comforts at her side, slipping between both English and Coluan. Nia had certainly picked up some of his native language in the months they had been together, but not enough for her to realise in that moment the weight of what he was telling her. Or, rather, what he wished he could be telling her - in a language she might recognise.

When Nia was reduced to dry heaving over the bowl, Brainy realised that her mascara had begun to run, bleeding black streaks down her face. The strain of vomiting could certainly cause such a reaction, but something in his heart told him that this was more than that.

He wished he could brush those tears away as tenderly as he once had, that he could reassure her that everything would be okay.

But how could he when he knew the probability of their relationship rekindling once the dust had cleared? How could he when said relationship was already in shambles, pushing them apart even while they were sat so closely together on the bathroom tile?

“Here.”

Brainy blinked out of his thoughts, turning his head to find Yvette stood in the doorway, trying very hard to keep her eyes away from Nia’s current condition. She held a glass of water outstretched towards him.

Brainy took it gratefully, lowering his head into a sincere bow. “Thank you.”

“You’re still so weird,” Yvette said, although for just a moment, he thought he caught a fondness in her tone. Then, she cleared her throat. “This doesn’t mean I like you,” she said quickly, heading back out into the hall. “Remember, I am one room over. You try anything, and I’ll-”

Her words were cut off by the slam of her door, but Brainy understood well enough the threat she had posed. He nearly smiled. If anything, he was glad Nia had a friend and roommate as protective as Yvette. She had been there for Nia in a way that Brainy had not been able to for far too long, offering her a shoulder to cry on, and a party to draw her mind away from the pain, if only for an evening.

Perhaps it hadn’t worked as Yvette had wanted, but Brainy hoped that even for a little while, Nia might have experienced something other than heartache that night.

When there was nothing but bile left in Nia’s stomach, Brainy took her shoulder, offering the water glass out to her. “Nia,” he said gently. “You must try to drink this. It’ll help-”

Before he could finish, Nia shot to life, slapping away his hand so hard that the glass’s contents sloshed down Brainy’s arm, drenching his sleeve.

“No!” Nia cried out weakly. “No, get off me, you jerk!”

Brainy let go of her immediately, shuffling away from her forlornly. He watched instead as Nia folded her arms angrily across the toilet bowl, pressing her forehead against the rim.

For a while, only her harsh breathing echoed around the small space. Then, Nia stopped, arms clenching as she squeezed her hands into fists. “Why’re you even here?” she croaked.

“You… called.”

Nia snorted. “That’s never stopped you from ignoring me before.”

Brainy’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. “You were in need of assistance,” he said instead, trying his hardest to keep his voice from crackling.

“What is this, Brainy?” Nia asked exhaustedly. She lifted her head, dark hair curtaining her face, but Brainy could see that her eyes were trained downwards, seeing nothing. “Why’re you doing this to me?”

“Nia—”

“No, no, you go radio silent on me for weeks. You don’t give me any explanation, you don’t talk to me, you act like I don’t exist. And you think you can just turn up now and- what? What do you want?”

Brainy’s eyes were beginning to burn. He blinked quickly, doubling down on the same toneless voice he’d perfected over the last few weeks. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Nia laughed, although it sounded more like a sob. She spat into the toilet, lips twisting sourly. “Well,” she muttered darkly. “I’m not. You broke my heart. And you can’t fix that.”

Brainy’s own heart felt as though it might shatter in his chest. He opened his mouth, only to close it again when he realised there was nothing he could say that might absolve him. He didn’t want to be absolved. Nia was right. No matter what he said, even if he folded and told her everything right that second, wouldn’t fix what he had already broken.

He didn’t try to touch her again. Instead, he simply knelt there, watching as she picked up the water he’d left out for her, drinking the half that hadn’t spilt over his sleeve.

When Nia didn’t appear to be in danger of vomiting again, Brainy walked her to the bedroom. He stayed a respectable distance from her the whole while, enough that he could steady her should she decide to fall. At the last few steps before her door, she did stumble slightly, and Brainy held his arm out to her on reflex. Begrudgingly, Nia took it, staggering the final distance down the hall.

Nia let go of him the moment her bed was in sight, practically falling against the mattress, uncaring of the uncomfortable and clearly not bedroom-appropriate attire she was still wearing. Instead, she curled up quickly beneath the comforter, hugging her knees close to her stomach.

Silently, Brainy set about placing a fresh glass of water on her nightstand, as well as retrieving a trash can from the bathroom, tucking it within easy reaching distance of the bed. When he was done, he stood there a moment, watching the steady rise and fall of Nia’s back, wondering briefly if she may have fallen asleep.

“You know the way out.”

Her voice was devoid of any care, and yet it was still sharp enough to cut a hole through his heart. She sounded so empty and drained, exhausted by the night’s events.

But, worse yet, she had been exhausted by him.

Brainy closed his eyes, a million and one apologies budding on his tongue, desperate to leave him in a fierce burst, to explain everything, to beg for her forgiveness in every language he knew.

But as always, logic won out. No matter how much he wished he could tell her, he couldn’t. Not unless he wanted to put his family’s lives in mortal danger.

And so, it was upon Nia’s instruction that he left her without another word.

It wasn’t until he was out the front door, halfway back towards the elevator, that Brainy’s chest hitched, his breathing jerking harshly outside of his control. He stumbled into the wall, baring his teeth as the first of his tears began to flow.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured to nothing. To no one. After all, he knew in his heart that those words would never be enough; no words would ever be enough.

The longer he kept this up, the more he knew with one hundred per cent certainty that Nia would never forgive him.

And that hurt more profoundly than any words she left on his voicemail ever could.

[robinrequiems]

mmm more clishes.... Idk reverse background or personality kind of au? :/

ill do you one better 1 of my favorite mutual, reverse & personality au, they’re the same age bc I have a tiny idea *shy hands*

this is uh. a really long one thay started to lag my phone too

• oh god guys I got vivid memories of ra’s being a good grandfather and I can’t get it out of my head

• i hate it ur honor

• but ok. krypton didn’t get blown up, instead, they all migrated to earth, more specifically kansas.

• the kryptonians are angry and enraged, they are treated as if they are monsters when they arrived peacefully. they tried to kill them.

• so in return, the aliens killed the humans.

• they created a secret underground. that secret underground is to help aliens or meta humans and kill humans.

• all of them hated aliens and sought to destroy them. until kal el found a reporter trying to help aliens who were injured due to an explosion the government did to take out one of their bases.

• kal el.. fell in love with her. lois lane, she is an reporter fighting for alien rights.

• he met with her. in secret. and they.. had formed a connection. an amazing one.

• and then they had a baby.

• at the alien base, but.. she was human and people did not like that. so they wiped her mind and made her believe that they never had a kid. like the last few months.. wasnt real. she had gone missing those months since the aliens didn’t want her trying to hide the baby, they made her believe the last few months was spent in a coma and kal had found her and taken her to a hospital.

• he couldn’t see her anymore. he mourned for her lost presence, but they would have killed her if she stayed.

• but now they had precious jon el. he would be the highlight of their cause.

• they noticed his powers came in faster than kal’s, so they perfected his powers.

• he was going to bring humanity down on order of his grandfather, jor el

• kal saw his son break slowly. loses that childhood innocence that kal tried to maintain.

• his sons amazing bright blue eyes dulling, loses the spark that he cherished.

• kal was going to get him out of there, try to refuge the remaining childhood he had. even if it killed him.

—

• damian wayne! the bright bubbly and prodigal son of bruce and talia wayne ( b & t are married, suck my— ). the press loved him, he was just.. him. he was the baby and was cute, the cutest ever

• he was an expert in martial arts due to the training his grandfather, father, mother, & so much more gave him

• ra’s owns a farm. he’s.. sorry all i get is farm ra’s vibes due to.. something:) think endgame thanos, yk?

• he was the baby robin, one that you never messed with due to the herd of heroes who would come save him

—

• kalel left jon with Lois, a brief note explaining the current situation

• it was weird, jon was ten and was meeting lois for the first time

“Hi, honey.. I’m lois.”

“I know.. Dad told me about you.”

“Oh.. right. What do you want for dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat.”

“No! I’m not hungry!”

• an explosive, superpower alien. Lois is way out of her head.

• he had outbursts, a lot of them. it was hard, really hard for Lois; she took some time off from the planet and focused on jon

• he broke a lot of stuff. he sometimes could not control his strength, but she was working with him

• but then one night he ran away, or flew away. he felt remorse for making Lois cry. she saw this as a win, but she lost her kid

• but then a little robin found him

“Um. Are you okay?”

“Huh-what- what do you want? Why are you talking to me?”

“Because you look sad? Yknow - hugs make people feel better. My ahki ( brother ) hugs me when I’m upset and it makes me feel better.”

“Don’t touch me.”

*Damian walked to him, smiling softly* “cmon, i won’t hurt you, silly. I’m robin.”

“A bird?”

“Haha- no, a vigilante- i sorta snuck out. My family can be a bit overbearing- and I sorta embarrassed myself at this theater thing.. some person—“

“Did I ask?”

“No.. sorry.”

“Hey— what are you doing - !”

“Hugging you.”

Jon won’t admit that he likes it, it’s different and weird, like this traffic cone in front of him. Jon pushed him off though, making himself stumble and fall on his ass.

“Ow..”

“Don’t touch me.” With rhat, Jon flew off into the night. Damian didn’t know who this boy was. But he intended on finding out. Even if it killed him. ( maybe not that extreme, but- )

• look damian was smart, right? smarter than average, and smarter than everyone in his school. teachers included ( ha ha )

• so he had to find this boy! so he started looking into aliens. until his family put an end to it

“Damian, this is dangerous.”

“But baba ( dad )”

“No. Go to your room.”

“Ugh!”

• he did slam his door shut if you were wondering

• he will find the mysterious alien boy, okay? he will!

• his brothers teased him and said he had a crush

• no he didn’t! the boy was really mean, he pushed damian- why would he do that? whatta jerk!

• but damian did find him again when he ventured off to metropolis to visit an old friend, colin.

“Alien boy!”

“That’s not my name, bird boy.”

“And that’s not mine. You didn’t tell me yours!”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s safer for you.”

“I can defend myself. You sound so silly, please tell me your name?”

“No.”

“‘Least the first initial?”

“Fine. J.”

“J it is.”

“Yours?”

“Wha- what? I told you my code named.”

“It’s only fair.”

“.. Okay. D.”

“D. Okay.”

• damian talked to him for a bit before jon did fly off when damian was talking about the stars, damian knew he was getting closer to him

• but he got grounded. whoops. he wasn’t supposed to go out

“Give me your phone, Damian.”

“What if I go out? I need a phone, baba.”

“I.. Your computer”

“School work.”

“Switch.”

“What! No- but-!”

“Damian.”

• yeah damian was very mad, but what made him madder was that apparently, his family was listening to the secret conversations between J and him. but d didn’t know that yet..

• his family needed to track down J, they didn’t care if people were aliens, the JL had aliens.. but they had no idea who this boy was, and the way damian was looking into the underground alien sanctuary, that worried rhem. Damian was smart and cunning, but he is able to portray an innocent persona, they all had the habit of undermining his intellect, so if damian began looking into this, it was for a reason

—

• jon found that D rambled. A lot. Even when jon didn’t respond. Jon doesn’t even know how D always found where he was. It’s so weird.

• but Lois noticed a change in jon.. he was. calmer. she didn’t know how, but when he went out, he came back calmer.

“I have to go to Gotham for a gala hosted by Bruce Wayne, would you.. like to come?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I’d like you to, but you don’t have to.”

“.. Fine.”

—

• lois walked to bruce with Jon in tow.

• “bruce.” “Lois, looking lovely as always.. who is this?” “Jon, my son. Say hi, Jon.” “Hi..” “He can hang around one of my sons— Damian, if you want? I’m sure him and his friends would love to have Jon around.” “What do you say Jon? Would you like that?” “Not really..” “I assume you, Damian doesn’t bite. Not anymore. And he’s pretty accepting.” “.. Fine.”

• damian was called over by his father and he did a double take. J. Was here. In front of him. Damian just internally shrugged and held a hand out, “Hi! I’m Damian! Wanna go play with my friends! there’s a game room so we don’t have to be with the gross adults.. you can also just.. sit there. My friends are pretty.. Loud?” “Okay.”

• jon had to take his hand back from damian since damian began eagerly tugging him.

“Damian seems to be accepting him pretty easily.” “I hope they can be friends, Jon.. doesn’t have any. I have only recently got him from his.. father.” “Odd, does he go to school?” “No, not yet, I’m still trying to get him adjusted.” “Ah.. Damian goes to West-Reeves. Maybe he could go there?” “That private school? Bruce.. I cannot afford that- not all of us are millionaires.” “Mhm.. I could pay.” “I can’t let you do that.” “He could get a scholarship.” “In what?” “Academics or athletics.” “Ill.. Talk to him about it. “ “well, ms lane, I just go talk with potential partners, I’ll see you later.”

—

• j got accepted into west reeves under a athletic thingy.

• that was cool. they became best friends!

• sorta

• flashforward 5 years to 15, their dynamic only grew. Damian told Jon his identity, jon didn’t become a hero, but did learn how to stitch damian up because tje idiot showed up bleeding a lot.

• everything was going great

On the phone, Damian: J! J! Guess what’

J: you’re so loud, D, what?

D: I got the lead! In the play!

J: no fucking way?

D: way!

J: Good j—— *crash*

D: J-?

D: J- Jonathan?

D: oh no.

• the call was ended abruptly. Jon always finished his sentences. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong.

• so damian called Lois quickly and ran downstairs to the batcave, lois wasn’t picking up either, she normally always picked up or at least sent a text. She did neither

“Baba!”

“Damian? You should be asleep.”

“Something’s wrong! Somethings really wrong!”

“Jon and Lois- Jon- I heard a crash- and- and”

“Habibi.”

“Mama?”

“Breathe; tell me what’s wrong.”

“I was on a call with Jon.. I told him about the play since I wanted him to go and stuff. Then I heard a crash. And then the line went dead. I’m scared— what if something happened!”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, what happened with Lois?”

“She didn’t pick up the phone— she normally does! Or she texts me and says she will call back!”

“Maybe she is asleep.”

“No! You need to believe me!”

“Damian, calm down, I do, we will go to see if they’re okay, you get back to bed.”

“No. I’m coming with.”

“No you arent.”

“But!”

“Listen to your father.”

• okay fine. He’ll listen, damian went back up to his room for half an hour before calling his friends to do a rescue mission. He had an extra suit in his room, he can do this.

• with his team, it consisted of shazam, abuse, nobody, and green lantern, himself too, of course.

• captain marvel picked him up once he was ready and they met up with the other 3.

Maya: you said he’s in trouble?

Dami: Yes.

Colin: than let’s go save him!

• they went and saved the bestie, nearly got killed too

• oh and now damians sorta probably grounded when batman shows up 🤡

J:You came for me..?

D:We all did.. why are you so surprised?

J: * wraps his arms around damian * thank you

D: i- yeah.. anytime. what’re friends for?

• friends. Jon liked that. Jon also liked the way Damian’s cheeks went red when jon hugged him

• jon knew he chuckled before Damian’s arms wrapped around him. hard. Damian was a hard hugger

• jon became a superhero at 16. Damian had even more of a reason to sneak into his window every night now! Lois had began thinking the two were dating

D: Us? Dating? Please! He is way too good for me!

J:

L: awwww, gosh, how haven’t you been swept off your feet yet?

J: he has, but he has rejected them all

D: what can I say? I’m a gay theater kid ( this is a /j i promise a big big joke ) so they gotta be dramatic enough to put up with me, AND they need to do something big and bold to actually catch my eye

L: *laughs* take notes, jon

J: mom!

• jon has gone to a few of Damian’s plays and to dress rehearsals

• he was also there to watch damian wreck a car during his drivers test

D: there was a fricking squirrel there, J!

J: are you sure? maybe you’re just a shitty driver?

D: you’re a shitty driver!

J: cmon don’t pout

D: ‘m not!

• he was pouting. oopsie. jon did get him ice cream after

• jon goes by abnormal, because he’s an alien and because I don’t have any other ideas

J: this girl asked me out

M: oh? who! tell us!

D: ..what?

J: yeah, in my physics class

T: ooh! get it, jonno

M: give us a name, coward!

J: her name is Charlotte— but she goes by charlie. she’s.. different. red head. pretty freckles—

M: pretty freckles? does Jonny have a crush?! Oh my gosh, our sons growing up, Tai!

T: im about to start sobbing

J: fuck offff— D?

D: huh?

J: you’re being quiet, you plotting??

D: uh. yeah! duh- *he nudged jons shoulder with his, forcing a grin* figuring out ways to embarrass you in front of your girlfriend.

J: sucha brat- * jon ended up putting Damian into a playfully chokehold *

• damian just played along. he just smiled and watched as jon began walking with her instead of their friend group

M: hey- kid- you alright?

D: I’m onto a year younger than you Maya.

M: tou didn’t answer the question

D: I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be? You’re silly.

• tai ended up pulling him aside

T: when are you going to tell him?

D: how am I supposed to when he basically has a girlfriend now?

T: are you just gonna sit there and pine all day??

D: yes, thank you for understanding

• he’s a stubborn little shit and will absolutely not confess, his best friend is happy, who is he to ruin that?

T: he’s totally jealous.

J: so- do you- do you think it’ll work? That he’ll be surprised?

T: totally

J: thank you for lending me your girlfriend, Maya

M: anytime- not literally- you aren’t having her again

• this was all a trick, sorry, d.. jon does like you

• ( hope you all saw that foreshadowing earlier :) )

• damian needed big and dramatic. jon was gonna do that. even if he was uh. sorta aloof and shy.

• he learned how to sing and play the guitar for Damian. maya and tai were gonna scatter flower petals onto the floor for Damian to follow ( they will tell him too too )

• the whole school will probably watch as Damian finally gets a big dramatic proposal

• damian will love it

M: just follow the petals!

D: I’m confused

M: trust us

• damian did and followed the petals and low and behold, jon kent with a guitar and small smile

D: j-jon?

J: hey. I wrote you a song

D: no you didn’t

J: shut up and listen dumbass

*after that amazing song of how Jon asked damian out to homecoming*

D: that was amazing

J: dramatic enough for you?

D: YES! ( damian went and sprinted to jon, hugging him so tightly before leaning in to kiss him ) we are boyfriends now right

J: yeah, idiot

D: ur the idiot

• I can’t add anymore because myphones really laggy, I hope you enjot

[hisfavoritecherry]

right place, right time

summary: harry decides to take a trip to japan in an attempt to take his mind off of some things; that is, until one of the things finds its way back to him. 

warning: sadness, degredation, smut, all that good stuff

word count: 3.2k+

January 6, 2019; Tokyo, Japan. 

Harry would have never expected to find himself here. Well, he did at some points, but the ideas were never conclusive and he had never actually envisioned himself booking a flight, taking the plane, and arriving in the city that one of his most treasured books was based off of. The trip was obviously an irrational decision and after tour, there was no place he would’ve rather been (other than home, but even that didn’t feel like the right choice at the moment). He needed a new area, a new location, a new setting; to put it simply, a new place to miss you. 

You and Harry had broken things off just shortly before he went away for work, explaining that you just couldn’t handle him being away for that long and that maybe, just maybe, it was for the best. You were starting your new job as a journalist for the New York Times and it was a big step in your career for you, and you knew that there should be absolutely nothing that would prevent you from achieving it. Even him. 

He agreed, obviously, as he’s always respected you and your aspirations and he knew that he didn’t want to be the one thing that was holding you back. He’s encouraged you to do everything you can to do what you want to do as you’ve encouraged him to do the same, and even if it broke his heart, you deserved it more than anyone he’s ever known in his twenty-four years of life. You stayed friends and would call every now and then, updating him on gossip in the office or just things happening in your everyday life. You’d ask him about events happening around him as well and he would say the same thing every time. That it’s the same-old, that he’s okay, that he misses you. A smile would creep upon your lips as you knew you felt the same way, but nothing would change, no matter how much you both wanted it to. 

The only remaining problem was that you stayed on his mind the whole time after you had split, and regardless of how many times he tried to stray away from you, the thought of you always spilled back into his mind like ink on paper; you were his familiarity and he was yours.

He would see someone in the crowd who looked like you; there you were. He went on runs when he managed to get days away from the stage and put his playlist on shuffle, hearing the song you both claimed and danced together to in his kitchen that one time; there you were. He visited a random corner cafe and got your order just to see what all the fuss was about but ended up frowning and hating it deeply because it was too sweet; there you were. Every goddamn chance he got, there you were. 

Harry had expected things to change as he disembarked the outing, suggesting that perhaps if he had different people surrounding him, his conceptions would change as well. 

They didn’t. It worsened, in fact, and he ended up seeing you more wherever he went. Every face, every place, every name, it brought him back to you and he eventually accepted that you would never go away, or at least would go away in slivers at a time. So to take his mind off of the idea of you for the meanwhile, he used most of his days and nights to go out with friends and find new individuals to satisfy his cravings for the ghost of you. Not sex, or anything else, he simply just found new things to fill the void and help him ignore the pain he was so evidently feeling.

It’s currently February 1. The day he was dreading, his now second birthday without you next to him. Harry decided to spend today at Sarutahiko Coffee, a cozy cafe just a few blocks down from where he was staying. Partying and going out to karaoke with his friends was fun, hell, sometimes he thought about dropping everything and moving here just to be able to live this lifestyle, but it did get tiring at some points, and there is nothing else he’d rather be doing than perching up against a corner in the shop and reading his book right now.

The work of choice held tightly in his grip is The People Look Like Flowers at Last by Charles Bukowski, reading the poems flowing from the creme-colored pages and writing thoughts in a journal kept close to him about things that stood out the most. 

 “A love like that was a serious illness, an illness from which you never entirely recover.”

What a load of donkey shit, Harry thought to himself. Love was nothing but heavy unfair baggage to him now, and he no longer believed in it. Not if he didn’t get to have you.

He chuckles to himself softly at the notion, jotting it down onto the paper and crossing it out immediately after.

It’s pathetic to Harry. How he was acting this way towards your relationship with him, how looked at the situation so negatively and sourly. He loved you so much that everytime he saw you, his breath hitched and he felt as if his heart would pump out of his chest. That every step you took closer to him, it would land him closer to a casket or his deathbed.

The bell tolls and he doesn’t bother tilting his head to see if it’s a customer coming in or leaving, as it’s been occurring all day and he just doesn’t pay mind to the action anymore. He continues to let his eyes touch every word on the page but abruptly stops when he recognizes a tone of voice. 

“Hi, how are you?”

It’s not her. Can’t be. Wouldn’t be. She’s not even in Tokyo.

Nonetheless, he looks up in the most subtle form of curiosity beaming from his aura. 

There you were. Your head cocking to the side, smiling at the cashier taking your order as you speak broken Japanese in an hasty endeavor to communicate with them. You’re dressed in a flowy white dress covered in tiny pink flowers attached to green leaves, hugging your waist in all the right places and a nude bag clutched around your shoulder. Around your back and arms is the baby pink cardigan Harry gave to you for your twenty-first birthday, the one he was so strangely excited to give to you because secretly, he knew he would be able to take the material off of you once the party was over and everyone had gone home.

He’s stunned and stopped in place now, his eyes wide open as he had no clue what to do at this point.

As if the stars had aligned in place at the perfect time, you’re standing in front of him and it feels like he can’t move.

He had only ever spoken to you through calls, not getting the chance to Facetime because he never had the time to while he was away, and you look different. A good different. Your hair is a little longer than he last saw you and tinted lighter, and it’s apparent that your skin is glowing now. Not a pregnancy glow, he hopes.

He snaps out of his trance as you grab your latte off of the counter, turning to find a seat around the cafe and freezing as you both make eye contact. Your heart stops at the sight of him. Him. The person you missed so goddamn dearly and the person you’ve been yearning for since the day you broke up. The person who’s kissed you when you were nervous, who held you when you were scared. The person you’re still in love with to this day, no matter the lengthy amount of time you’ve spent apart. 

A few seconds pass and you start to make your way to the area he’s sitting alone at. You’re praying in this time that he isn’t here with someone else, but in return, he smiles at you. The kind of smile you love, when his dimple pops out and his pearly brights show through. He’s the sun.

“Harry,” you breathe softly, lips curling into a grin. The sound of his name erupting from your mouth makes your lungs skip a beat as you haven’t said it at all in what? A year now?

“Y/N,” he says in return.

“Mind if I sit?” 

He purses his lips and hastily moves all of his belongings over, making space for your arrival. 

“Be my guest.” 

Your perfume dials into his brain as you sit and he smiles at the easily recognized scent. The silence between the two of you now is deafening and to be frank, annoying. You wish you could hold him in your arms again and tell him you missed him and you love him and that this whole time, all you’ve ever wanted to do was call him and find your way back to him, but you don’t. You can’t. Not here, at least. 

“So-”

“You-” You both start speaking at once.

“Whoops, my bad. You go first,” you say softly, pressing your lips into a line which makes him laugh gently.

“I was going to say, y’ look good, Y/N.” 

Your heart stops once more and everything comes rushing back to you.

The first time he kissed you, the first time he held your hand, the first time you made love, the first time you fucked, the last time you kissed, the last time he held your hand, the last time you made love, the last time you fucked.

“Thank you,” you look down out of pure nervousness as you don’t want to mess it up. “You do too, I’ve missed you.”

A moment of stillness is shared between you two and you instantly regret saying it, God knows if he feels the same way and if he could be missing someone else who isn’t you.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, forget I said that, please.”

“No, s’ all good, was just registering into my brain that you actually said that,” he pauses, running his hands through the chestnut locks held atop his head. You never noticed but his hair has grown a large amount, almost touching his neck now. He’s wearing a light brown cardigan around a white tee shirt, sunglasses hanging off of the edge of the material. His eyes are duller and he looks more tired, worrying you, but you don’t want to fuss just yet about why that is.

“I missed you too.”

You both smile and nod together, almost as if in sync and you observe that although it’s awkward now, it’s a comforting kind of awkward and you know that he’s finally here in front of you, with a blatantly inviting heart and the softest smile to grant you access to it. 

“So what are you doing in Tokyo?” he asks, taking a sip from the mug filling to the brim with black coffee that seems like he didn’t bother touching since the moment he arrived. 

“I could ask you the same thing. But I’m here just to visit, work’s been on my ass and I just needed a way to escape. I worked my ass off everyday since my first day on the job and I never slacked. Not once. But it gets tiring, y’ know, so I was like, Japan seems like a cool option. So I used up my savings and booked a flight. Been here for a few days. Weird that we ended up at the same time, though, I guess,” you giggle delicately and it sounds like music to Harry’s ears, a melody he hasn’t heard in what feels like forever. He stays silent in response as he puzzles together in his mind how this could have happened. How you managed to come to the same cafe as him, at the same time, in the same city. Right place, right time, he suggests to himself.

“And you?”

You like that about Harry. You like that you’re able to spill your heart out to him and he would accept all of it with open arms, listening as closely as he possibly can and registering every spoken word into his brain. 

“After tour ended, I was weighing all the possible options on where I could spend the time writing the next record and getting my mind off of some other shit, an’ I guess we had the same idea of randomly choosing Japan.”

“Yeah? Where are you staying?” you ask quietly, tiny hands curling around the cup of your liquid of choice. You realize that maybe it was a bit of a reach to ask, but you’re curious and you’re almost positive he’s the same. 

“I can show you if y’ want,” Harry taps his fingers against the wooden table dividing the two of you and you nod in response, and him mentally breathing out in relief that it didn’t backfire onto him. You had no plans for the rest of today, anyways, other than exploring the city a bit more, and it wouldn’t hurt to check the place out for a few minutes or so. You both grab your belongings, heading towards the exit and smiling at the workers who do the same in return. 

You walk a mere five minutes in silence before arriving at a tall brick-built building. You assume it’s an apartment complex and he unlocks the main entrance, heading towards a set of doors that end up being an elevator. You both pile into the lifting device and he clicks the number 10.

“S’ nice,” you say softly, tugging at the hem of your dress-skirt. He nods in response and folds his arms together. 

Harry’s heart is racing faster than he can think and it feels like time is going slower than usual. It’s never normal for him to be anxious or nervous like this around you, you’re his sense of calmness and the only person he feels like he can totally know himself with.

But he can’t wait any longer. He doesn’t want to lose you again, not like this. 

Harry steps in front of you, eyes peering down and his hands tuck around the back of your neck. Your hands absentmindedly wrap around his waist, and you know what’s going to happen next but honestly, you’re so grateful for it.

“If you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it?”

He smiles at you once more before cocking his head to the side and stroking your cheek with his thumb.

“You’ll have to see for yourself.” You don’t let another moment pass before eagerly smashing your lips against his, him pressing you up against the elevator wall and wrapping your leg around his middle. He tastes like mint and forgotten love, the sweet tang of the person you’ve missed so fucking much. You can feel him hardening against your center as your lips move together in sync, releasing from each other’s embrace as Harry moves down to your neck and leaves soft pecks around the area. He moves up to the spot right behind your ear that he knows makes you go crazy, which makes your cunt ache for him and only him.

The elevator dings above your frames and he pulls off of you immediately, the both of you moving to the side of one another as an elderly lady enters. You look up to see Harry smirking to himself with his lips pressed into a line and you nudge his side while rolling your eyes, him chuckling in return.

It doesn’t take long before you arrive at his floor, his fingers intertwining with yours as he leads you to the exit and towards his door. He fumbles with his keys for a moment as you lean up to suck the nape of his neck fervidly, leaving marks as you go and him groaning tacitly.

“And don’t think I forgot that it’s your birthday,” you whisper against his ear, giggling and kissing against it as he’s finally able to get it unlocked. He pushes the door open to reveal a large penthouse that you don’t get a second to look around before you’ve dropped down to your knees, trembling as you unbuckle the belt around his waist. You don’t want to admit it but this is the first time you’ve both ever gotten laid since you ended things and you never would have guessed that this would’ve been with each other. Harry throws the stack of books previously held in his clutch onto the couch nearby and helps you tug down his jeans, his black briefs now in vision and erection planted directly in front of you. You stroke him through the material and leave kisses across it, making your way to the tip of it and pulling the briefs down with your teeth. He hisses at the teasing action with glistening eyes and you can’t help but smirk to yourself at the sight of it, grabbing him between your fingers and using them to move down his shaft. You’re looking up at him now and his head is thrown back, moaning at the feeling of pent-up deprivation finally being taken care of. 

You use your tongue to swirl around the tip, catching any of the precum dribbling from his cock in the swells of your mouth and he grabs a handful of your hair to guide you through it.

“Fuck, jus’ like that,” he pauses, using his strength to bob your head up and down but making sure it’s only the amount of him you’re able to take. “I’ve missed you, baby,”

Tears begin to gather at the crease of your eyelids before he releases his grip each time, and it doesn’t take long before he’s picking you up and carrying you to his bedroom. You whine in irritation and make rebuttals for him to put you down and he pats your ass, placing you down softly onto the mattress and continuing to work his way around your heart-shaped lips. He pulls up the material around your body and throws it to the other side of the room to reveal that surprisingly, you aren’t wearing any bra or panties, and his breath hitches before taking a moment to himself and placing his hands onto you once more. It’s obvious that he’s trying to be as delicate as he possibly can with you but to be honest, that is the last thing you want right now.  

“Harry,” you breathe out, cursing to yourself as he kisses tenderly down your torso. He tilts his head in reaction; you’ve always been very vocal with each other about affection and sex and how you wanna go about it so it wouldn’t hurt to be that way now too.

“Please,” you breathe out. “Be rough with me, I need you so much,” you beg, him humming as a silent notion of ‘are you sure?’ and you nod in return. Harry’s finger dips through your soaked folds, digit swirling over your sensitive nub and using his other hand to hold your hips down as they buck up against him. Propping yourself up onto your elbows to watch him work, you whine his name over and over as his mouth is now attached to your heat, him moaning from enjoyment in response as well. He pulls away and you can’t help but want to scream at him for it, eyebrows furrowing together in confusion. As much as he wants you, he wants to know that you’re just as needy and eager for his entrance. 

“What do y’ want, princess? Hm?” He taunts, pushing his thumb against your clit harder. 

“I want-” He presses harder, which makes you cry out louder.

“I want you to fuck me, Harry,” you mumble quietly and he halts his movements completely, making you squirm and wrap your fingers around his arm in a poor attempt to reattach his touch back to you. 

“What was that?” You know he heard you the first time but needs to hear you beg for him once more.

“I want you to fuck me Harry, make me c-cum, please,” you tremble and it doesn’t take another second for him to pull his weight up before wrapping his hand around his cock firmly and hooking his other onto your thigh. He doesn’t give you time to re-adjust before sinking himself into you and letting out a groan, the moan coming from your lips sounding like a symphony to his perception.

“Shit, you’re so wet, all f’ me,” he wants to let you adapt to his length again but instead, decides to start moving himself in and out of you hastily, head dropping to your neck and you use his nape to leave your traces up against. He never expected to end up here, fucking you like this in his bedroom, but that was the last thing on his mind, the first being to make you cum. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Harry,” you plea. “You feel so fucking good,” you cry out for him, sobs being jagged and covered with lust as you move your fingers into his sweat-immersed hair. His face is tinted a bright shade of pink and moisture is leaking down the sides of his face.

“Harder, please, daddy,” the accentuating whines coming from your lips almost mask the nickname you’ve bestowed upon him for the first time since you last made love, but it makes his stomach riddle with butterflies and he follows your request. Harry pushes himself into you harder each time, his fingers trailing down to your center and pinching the skin surrounding your nub. The only noises throughout his whole apartment now is a combination of your moans and the bed softly creaking against the hardwood floor. He knows that you’re close and he is as well, but he wants to make it last longer for your first time together again.

“Y/N,” he groans out, brown curls falling in front of his face. “‘m not going to last long, baby, gonna cum for me? Gonna let me fill you up like the dirty slut you are? Is that what you want?” 

You can only nod in response due to the dryness in your throat from crying out seemingly louder than you ever have and you feel yourself release and clench onto his dick, pinching your eyes shut and seeing fireworks glow against them. A moment passes and Harry loosens the grip from your thigh, stuttering and becoming more sloppy with his thrusts, but soon emptying himself into you and pounding into you one last time, sending chills throughout both of your bodies.

He waits for a while in order to recollect himself and give you a chance to as well, collapsing at your side as you feel his contents spill out of you. You know he’s about to grab something to clean you up with when he begins to move to the edge of the bed but you tug him back, nodding and pouting.

“Don’t leave, not yet,” you say, still out of breath and Harry chuckles quietly before pulling himself back and wrapping his arms around your waist, pecking up against the sweet spot near your neck once more and letting out a sigh. 

“I’m not leaving you ever again, not after what just happened.” You lean over and swat his arm, giggling and pressing your lips against his again. You’re both finally in the place that you’ve been dying to be in for the past year and you realize that maybe the time you spent apart was all worth it if it meant you got to be back here with him, in his arms, in his presence, in his bedroom, in Japan.  

[feareth-who]

I'm sorry it's so long but I hope you enjoy!! 😊

Two Braids Is All It Takes

Remus was always there. Whenever Sirius needed him, his Moony was always there.

Of all the things in the sob story that was Sirius’ life, Remus had been a consistent source of comfort. The lingering scent of chocolate and fresh parchment had been -is- one just as much.

This particular full moon had been horrendous. The toll it had taken on Remus’ body had had him prone in bed for two whole days. To top it all off, Sirius had received a howler from his mother this morning.

Sirius had been brooding the rest of the day, berating himself for being so pathetic that he couldn’t even get himself to comfort Moony. He hadn’t even responded to James’ words of comfort.

“James,” Sirius began, voice still thick with tears, “You should go-“

“No, Siri-“

“James.”

Prongs shut his eyes, steadying himself, and bowed his head.

He looked up after a few seconds, having made a decision.

"You’ll be okay right?” His tone was anxious, “I’ll send for Wormtail, wait-“

“Prongs,” Sirius put a hand on his shoulder, cutting him off, “Just leave me be. I’ll be fine. You should go to Moons, I’ll try to come by later.”

The couch cushions shifted as James got to his feet and moved to the door. He turned back to give Sirius one last look-over before offering him a small smile. Sirius returned it rather weakly.

Sirius screwed his eyes shut. Now James was gone too. Had his mother been right? Would he always be this alone? His miserable thoughts gave way to new tears. He bit his lip hard, choking on a sob. He took deep breaths but they only seemed to start the sobs anew.

Today was the evening of third day, and Remus insisted that he was better. Madam Pomfrey spent nearly an hour confirming it, and after bettering his remaining daylight hours with one last sticky, sour potion, left him to his own devices.

James told him of Sirius’ condition then, and Remus asked to meet him, despite James’ protests that he should return to the dorms to rest. Ultimately, Prongs gave out a resigned sigh and got Remus to the Gryffindor Common Room with Wormtail’s help

The three padded softly into the place, Remus looking just as anxious to check on Sirius as was James. The man in question, however, was so out of it that he didn’t even register their entry.

Peter sighed in long-sufferance. He whispered, “I think it’ll be better if we leave him with you, Rem.”

“Moony, I think you’re the only one who can get through to him right now,” James murmured, “He refused to say a word when I tried”

“I’ll try,” Remus paused, still staring at Sirius’ pitiful form. He smiled at his friends, “You guys should go get some sleep, you must be exhausted from all the running.”

The two helped Remus as he limped to the couch. Once he managed to stand with the support of the couch’s backrest, he waved them away and listened to the sound of their footsteps fading up the staircase followed by that of a door creaking shut.

Remus accio’d a nearby chair and sat down heavily. His eyes moved to Sirius, and before he knew it, his hands were carding through Sirius’ tangled, knotted hair. There was a jolt as Sirius startled himself out of Remus’ grasp, and relaxed evidently once he realized whose smiling face it was.

He looks so pretty like this, was all Remus could think, I don’t deserve him.

He lifted himself off the chair with great effort, moving to the front of the couch, settling down next to Sirius. He placed his left foot on the ground and stretched his right leg across the couch onto Sirius’ lap, leaning against the armrest. Sirius tracked his movements with an absent look in his eyes.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sirius said abruptly, eyes coming back into focus.

“That isn’t for you to decide,” Remus replied casually, “I feel better, because everything feels better when you’re around”

Remus suspected it was a mixture of the late hour and mild relief from three days of agony that was allowing him to say and do things he’d regret later, but retrospect can’t hurt in the moment, can it?

Sirius froze for a second, a blush creeping across his face as he processed the statement.

Remus whooped internally, he’d provoked a rare moment of uncertainty from Sirius, even though the context he would have to give to James to explain his achievement would be wildly embarrassing.

Clearing his throat, Sirius shifted towards where his face lay on the couch, “Is your leg better?”

"Yeah, much better.” Remus hesitated, thinking vaguely of consequences, though it was kind of hard to do while he was distracted by Sirius’ moonlit, godly face, the firelight throwing his freckles and scars into aggravating focus.

“Lay down” Remus said finally.

“I’m not your dog,” Sirius growled, earning a chuckle from the other man.

“Merlin, Pads….” Remus sat up himself, a small distance away from Padfoot.

“Okay, sit down here.” He says, nodding to the place on the floor where his sock-clad feet are resting.

Sirius eyed the floor dubiously.

“Just humour me, will you?”

Sirius still looked puzzled, but complied nonetheless. Leaning cautiously against the werewolf’s legs, he crumpled the letter held in his hand, his clouded gaze staring vacantly at the dying flames in the heart.

Remus smiled minutely, and brought his hands up to Sirius’ hair, tugging gently at the strands like his mother used to do to soothe him. He continued to do so as Sirius’ body starts loosening up.

After a while, Remus probed, "You wanna talk about it?" Sirius hummed before answering with a small smile,"Same old crap." Remus let out a light chuckle and shifted his hands to massage Sirius' head.

Sirius moved himself to lie on Remus' chest. He felt home, a home he'd never felt in the house of the Blacks. It smelled like home, it felt like home. To him, it was always home and it would always be so.

The silence continued, until Remus stopped with his actions. Sirius, who was almost asleep let out a groan before opening his eyes. "Moons," he said with a sleepy voice. Getting up from his chest, Sirius looked at a frozen Remus. Panicking he asked, "Moony..Moony! You alright?" Snapping out of his thoughts, Remus looked at Sirius and smiled.

"Moons?" Sirius questioned again.

"Can I braid your hair?" Remus posed casually.

This was the second time Sirius had frozen with a flushed face that night. Remus couldn't believe it, but he smirked at the effect he had on the man.

"Can I braid your hair, Pads?" Remus asked again.

The idea of braiding, Lily and Marlene had suggested it and even offered to do so but he had refused it. The only thing going through his head at the moment was- moons wants to braid my hair!!

"Ahem, Pads?" Remus said bringing Padfoot back to earth from his heaven. "Ah, yes... sorry, I was just a little surprised... ofcourse please go ahead," he rambled. He mentally cursed himself for doing so and turning away he placed his now red face in his hands. He could feel himself burning up because Merlin, Moony is going to braid his hair.

He straightened himself and sat in anticipation. Moony brought his hands to Sirius' hair and played with it while deciding which braid to do. Remus combed Sirius' hair with his fingers and the tension in his body eased out. He started to breathe evenly as Remus began parting his hair and pulling his strands into what felt like curls around one another.

French tails, that's what Remus ended up with two small, cute little french plaits. Five minutes ago, he couldn't decide what to do since the idea had struck him so suddenly. Playing with Sirius' hair had reminded him of his mother. Hope had taught Remus baking, cooking, knitting and plaiting his mother's hair. She was the only person he did it for.

But now, in front of him sat the man he loved, in two French plaits, the first braided hair his mum taught him. In front of him, sat a man staring at himself in a mirror he ran to pick up from across the room, which probably belonged to Marlene but it didn't matter. Sirius was smiling, that was all Remus would ever need.

Remus looked down and grinned. He felt proud but more ecstatic than anything. Sirius got up and jumped, laughed and said things which Remus didn't care to hear because oh merlin he's so handsome.

He was fighting the urge to get up and kiss him, confess to him and tell him that he loved him, he truly did.

On the other hand, Sirius jumped up and down looking at his Moony and shouted, "These are amazing Moons! You are amazing!" Sirius could've sworn that he almost thought leaping at Remus and kissing him but no.. this would be enough.

He smiled brightly at him once again, as Remus now regained consciousness from his thoughts. "I'm glad you like it," he said clearing his throat. He slowly got up and raised his hand to caress Sirius' hair but accidentally tripped. Sirius instantly grabbed the man by his waist and smiled," Woah, careful there Moons." "I keep falling for you, I can't help it you idiot," Remus said arbitrarily.

Again, Sirius thought, it's the third time this night moons please. His hands moved from the man's waist to his neck. Sirius lunged forward causing his and Remus' lips to crash. The kiss lasted a good minute before Sirius pulled away.

"I like you.." they said together and broke into giggles.

"Thank God you do," Remus said blushing.

"Ofcourse I do, boyfriend," Sirius teased making Remus more flustered.

And now all Sirius had to think about was, getting Moony to braid his hair because oh merlin there was nothing better than- Moony, his Moony.

And now the two lied curled up on the couch with Remus thinking, two braids is all it takes.

Ok please I'm not amazing or anything but I hope you enjoyed it!!

Thank you @alex-tries for helping me correct my silly mistakes

Tagging: @star-dust-2317 here! Hope u like it

[anothertimdrakestan]

Totally F*ckabke

Tim Drake x Reader

(SFW don't worry haha)

Words: 1.8k

Requested? Yes! From a lovely anon!

“Hi! Can I request 20 with civilian fem reader and Tim?” (20. well fuck me. "gladly")

LINK TO PROMPTS  -> REQUESTS ARE STILL OPEN!

Ok so I don’t know who you want to say what and I believe with every ounce of my being that it could 1000% go either way and it’s totally cute so I decided why not write both! Thank you for the inspo!

Reader -> Tim

Public speaking was never your strong suit. You’d like to meet a person who doesn’t get sweaty, jittery, and just a complete nervous wreck during presentations. It didn’t help that this was one of those shitty presentations where the class got graded on paying attention so all eyes really were on you and you were the last presentation of the day. With note cards shaking in your sweaty hands you slowly walked to the front of the room, looking at your classmates who looked bored out of their mind.

Making your way to the front of the room you stopped when your teacher screeched “Timothy! No sleeping in class! What is this? The fourth time I’ve caught you this week?” Glancing up you watched as the school genius rolled his eyes, lazily sauntering to the front of the class slumping into a front row seat. With a yawn Tim propped his head up on his arm mumbling something about the irrelevance of this class for someone of his intellect. While you couldn’t help but agree, you needed to ace this presentation to secure your grade for the semester.

Finally done with the situation, the class’s attention turned to you. Taking a deep breath you began, hoping you wouldn’t run out of time before the bell; trying not to look at the notecards was easy for the first few slides, but nearing the end you needed to be reminded of a key fact to your presentation. Looking down at your notecards you realize you’d smudged almost all the words with your shaking, sweaty hands. So frustrated with yourself you just let slip “Well fuck me” with a groan. While this may have shocked any normal class it was what Tim said next that shook the world.

“Gladly” With that your high school classroom descended into chaos. Your teacher continuously switched between yelling at you for cursing and Tim for even worse while some people in the class whooped and patted Tim on the back and certain girls glared at you for drawing Tim’s attention. Standing in front of the class, a blushing mess, you wanted to melt into the floor and die in one of the cracks in the floor.

Suddenly the bell rang, the majority of the students in your class stood up as you froze, realizing you probably just flunked this class. Deciding you needed to stay back and beg for the teacher’s forgiveness you pressed yourself to the wall and watched students filter out, some winking at you, some glaring, and some making wildly inappropriate gestures.

After begging for another chance and explaining your outburst your teacher let you off, clearly more upset with Tim, who had already left the classroom. As a student who normally worked really hard she let you go, but you had to make a whole new presentation as punishment. More work, but not a flunk so it was a win. Thanking her profusely you practically skipped out of the class, all had not been lost!

Abruptly turning towards the exit you missed a certain classmate waiting outside the classroom for you. “Y/n- wait up!” recognizing the voice you rolled your eyes and kept walking, but you couldn’t help a little smirk at the idea of Tim - Mr. Future Wayne Enterprises CEO waiting for you. As you opened one of the double exit doors he sprung out the other jumping in front of you, looking a little regretful and surprisingly nervous. Stopping in your tracks you crossed your arms and waited for him to talk.

“So, um, I just wanted to say sorry cuz I, um, I just kinda blurted it out and I’m really sleep deprived - like all the time, I practically live off coffee you don’t even know - that’s not the point, basically totally my bad, but like: can you blame me you’re really pretty and very nice plus I think you’re smart even though you don’t show it off but what I mean is, uh, please accept my apology. Plus I heard you get to do the presentation again so that’s good!” Finally he paused to breathe, you took a moment letting it all sink in and somehow finding his exasperation cute. Tim looked up at you with expectant eyes. With a sigh you decided it was fine. Smiling up at him you nodded. “It’s okay, plus pretty boy you’re not so un-fuckable yourself” watching his face flush was payback enough.

“Well if you think so, maybe I can... make it up to you? I can help you with the second presentation?” you agreed, liking the idea of getting to know the sleep deprived, fast-talking, genius coffee monster. “It’s a date!” you smiled, exchanging numbers before you walked off, unable to wipe a grin off your face. What you didn’t notice was Tim behind you grinning punching a fist in the air mouthing “YES” as you walked away.  

Tim -> Reader

With a yawn you cursed yourself for covering the late shift for y/b/f at Big Belly Burger, especially after a long day of school. No one ever came in but the store was open 24/7 so for the night it was just a chef who was surfing the internet with earbuds in and you, trying not to sleep on the cash register. When the clock hit 3am you decided it was time for your shift drink, black coffee. 

While you were in the back grabbing a coffee mug you could’ve sworn you heard the entrance bell jingle, but it was probably just your imagination. Stretching your arms you made your way back towards the coffee pot and saw four boys sitting at the bar. Every single one looked different, the tallest looked bored, like he didn’t want to be there while the second tallest looked expectant, constantly messing with the shortest, ruffling his hair, pinching his cheeks, and just constantly mothering the young boy who looked about ready to fight anyone who messed with him again. In the back of the group was a lean looking boy, he yawned and looked intently at the coffee pot you had begun brewing, he pushed his slightly messy hair back and you couldn’t help but trail your eyes down to the skin showing when he raised his hand... 

“Hey princess a little help over here?” the tallest boy raised an eyebrow at you, snapping you out of your moment as you rushed up to the counter with a smile. “Yeah, sorry, long night. No one usually comes in this late but what can I get for ya?” putting on your best smile you couldn’t help but steal glances at the yawning boy, while the other two older looking guys were good looking, he was the only one who radiated kindness and a lack of the overconfidence the other three carried themselves with, he reminded you of yourself. 

Taking their order you had to shake the chef awake, but he began preparing the food. Walking out you noticed the boys had stayed at the bar, clearly waiting to order drinks from you. “Alright what do we want? Milkshake, coffee, soda pop, or water?” the tallest answered first, “Chocolate milkshake!” while the kid looked up at the once motherly figure as he replied, “I’ll do a vanilla and Damian, uh the kid, will take a water. What about you Tim?” mentally logging the two youngest’s names you and Tim made eye contact for the first time, looking directly at you he lost all form of language. Trying to cover for him you asked, “saw you looking at the coffee pot earlier, can I get you some?” he nodded, looking down as one of the boys started laughing. “Jay stop please” came from Tim. 

Trying to break some tension you said “So little fella here is Damian, tall and brooding is Jay, english major is Tim, and the one who paid is Dick” you waited for confirmation. Slightly impressed the boys nodded, adding that they were brothers. Chatting while you prepared and blended their shakes you realized they were the Wayne brothers, but you didn’t want to embarrass them. You were so tired, your brain holding no self control, wanting to learn more about the boys, especially Tim. Learning that Dick demanded they bond every other week and this was tonight’s chosen activity you understood the different boy’s emotions. 

While handing each boy their drink you held on to the handle in hopes you’d touch Tim’s hand. “Uh it’s hot here, grab the handle then I’ll let go” feeling his hand wrap around yours made the both of you blush and clearly distracted Tim as he dropped the mug of coffee. “Well fuck me” Tim groaned, he jumped up glaring at his brothers as the laughed, the two of you began wiping up the mess. Tim hopped over the bar to help you clean on your side where the majority of the coffee was spilled, you couldn’t help but be impressed with his agility. While both of you bent down below the bar you decided to be brave, whispering in his ear, “you said ‘fuck me’ and I just want you to know I would gladly” he completely flushed and you popped up, throwing out paper towels. 

Tim eventually rose from behind the bar, still blushing uncontrollably and smiling. “Shit lemme get behind that bar I want what Drake’s having princess” Jason began to get up with a smirk before he was pulled down by Dick. “Sorry buddy she’s clearly going for Timbers.” Dick smiled approvingly while the youngest Wayne rolled his eyes, tired with the flirting. “TT y/n I believe it is, I can see our food is ready but please take all the time you need trying to get with my brother but can I please eat while the two of you idiots make eyes at each other.” a wildly embarrassed Tim leaped over the bar again, this time going for Damian. 

Spinning on your heels you grabbed the food and placed it in front of each boy. As they ate you chatted with them. Damian and Jason were clearly bored with the small talk while Dick couldn’t stop grinning. Before leaving Tim tried to hype himself up to get your number. As the other boys walked out he stayed with hopeful eyes. Not having to say anything you knew what he wanted. “Would you like a receipt?” you asked with a wink, again unable to form coherent words he nodded. Handing him your number on a folded piece of paper, you kissed his cheek over the bar and waved goodbye. Watching him walk away unable to wipe a grin off his face as his brothers patted him on the back you felt like you could actually see a future with Tim.