#tried to keep blood to a minimum there are children watching

[katballesteros]

Hey kids, I heard y’all like angst

is what I gathered from the reactions of my previous post

here you go

[running-with-kn1ves]

Can you do a yandere killer clown that has been following you all night on Halloween

A/N:I wrote this a long time ago and hated it at the time but it really wasn't as bad as I thought! Hope you all are having a wonderful 2024 :>

Synopsis: A suspicious "killer clown" has been stalking you on Halloween to your dismay. Is it really just a costume?

CW: murderous clown, clownery, slight in-depth stabbing(death), stalking, intimidation, general fear 

Word count: 2.7k

“Nice costume, man!” The echoed memory rang hollow inside your bobbing head. “I bet the black helps hide all the blood, huh?” 

At the time you mischievously brought a hand to your mouth, shielding it from the eyes of curious and terrified children who mersmerisingly watched you joke to the killer clown. The masked figure hovered in front of you, staring blankly from behind the blur of white and red. The figure didn’t move, didn’t alter to his dominant hand with the bloody knife that rested in his palm. 

You were met with silence as your comment passed; dark, invisible eyes watched you through the small eye-slits of the clown’s mask. Its elaborate makeup donned diamonds under and above each eye hole, a spongy red nose covering the mask’s nostrils. Though, you could still hear whoever was underneath, breathing-- the air pushing against the silicone. Painted black lips covered the faint outline on the masks mouth, detailed to almost look feminine. However, the broad shoulders underneath the harlequin patterned suit made you think otherwise. 

You gave an amused smile, letting the figure keep in-character as he watched you slowly pass. A whiff of reeking gore and thick blood came across you as you walked away; a thought of ‘maybe you should have honked the clown’s nose for good measure’ crossed your mind, but the smell made you think otherwise. If he was dedicated enough to cover himself in pigs blood, who knew what else he’d do to you to stay in character.

Your mind ran in circles as the heels of your feet ached, your subconscious desperate to know what you said that made it all go wrong, or what made it go too right with this costumed killer clown. 

Because here you were, walking down your neighborhood’s sidewalk with flickering light posts barely brightening the road in front of you as you sped passed your front door for the third time. With a dirty hand mirror gripped in your sweaty palm, you faced it slightly below your shoulder, hoping it was low enough that the shadow behind you couldn’t see it. You caught a glimpse of the red-speckled plastic mask and dazzling crimson hair of the clown behind you. Shutting the pocket mirror immediately, you picked up your pace again for whatever time again that night-- you've lost count. But it didn’t matter, the masked freak always seemed to be just a lamp post away, gradually getting closer with a joyful pep in his step.

After your first interaction with him at a lame Halloween festival, you then saw him again at the gas station right across your friends’ street, and once more at that same friend's costume party. You thought it must've been a coincidence to see him inside the gas station, only witnessing the back of his crazy dyed hair that looked too attached to be a wig; talk about being dedicated to the bit. Maybe he gets paid for being a scare actor? You didn't know, you didn't get the chance to ask before he ran out at the sight of a police officer perusing the candy aisle. Too bad for him, it was only a prominent gay dressed up in a sexy uniform. 

But there he was again that night, peeking behind your friend's bedroom window that you sat across from. Seeing him there nearly made you shriek, jumping up enough to spill your drink all over the guy next to you. When you tried to explain, the clown had disappeared, only to show up mere minutes later from the bathroom window while you tried to rub beer out of your costume. 

Seeing him the second time was nearly as startling, but you managed to keep your reaction to a minimum, merely glaring at the bloodied clown from behind dark glass. You threw your cup at the window, hoping to scare him off or show that you weren’t worth fucking around with, but he… didn’t move. Through the tiny hole in the mouth of the mask, breath came through, just slightly fogging up the glass. How the hell did he get up here in the first place, weren’t you on the second floor?? 

You turned away, hoping to just turn the light off and that’d be the last you’d see of him; but a thump on the glass told you otherwise. Another thump, this time almost with a clinking crack. Your hand still resting on the lightswitch; you nonchalantly looked back to see a familiar knife jabbed against the window pane, small cracks growing as he twisted it further into the window. Your hope of giving an apathetic reaction to deter him did nothing, gloved hands coming up to squeakily draw a dark red line on the window. 

A threat? Maybe he's trying to apologize? What was he going to write-- you wondered if it was worth even sticking around for. But instead of words, the red line was finished with another, creating a small, dripping misshapen heart on the bathroom window. You slammed down on the lightswitch and shut the door quickly at the sight, making your way down the stairs. 

He had to be one of your friend’s frat-guy pals, someone who went out of their way to terrorize on the nights of halloween in unassuming grocery stores or parties like this one. Someone here at this party who was just fucking with you-- that’s just what it was. 

But now, hours later on the dark pavement of a street that looked so unfamiliar at night, you were starting to second guess yourself. The sweet whistling of what could only be from the clown behind you grew louder, squeaky shoes mimicking your steps and seeming to pick up in pace. You did the same, nearly jogging as you saw something moving in the distance. It was oddly pale and hunched over, going faster than you could run. 

It was a biker! Some random fucking guy on his bike at 2 in the morning! You assumed this was what people meant when miracles roamed the earth, waiting to be found. 

“Hey!” You shouted, running towards the speedy white demon as you blocked the middle of the sidewalk, hoping the guy would see you waving at him. But his stare was blank, not focusing on you nor the sidewalk in front of him. All he did, was bike. 

“HEY! Can you please help me--” a pair of white wireless earbuds were nestled deep in his ears, immune to your shouting. Once he came cycling up close, almost too close, you realized he wasn’t stopping. His eyes completely looked past you, swatting you away with a sweaty arm as you stumbled into the street after narrowly avoiding his bike.

“What the fuck!” You yelled, watching him ride away as you threw your hands in frustration. You stopped to watch as the clown stepped to the side to give the incoming biker a clear path. This guy was just going to go past like everything was fine, not paying attention to the person in distress right in front of him, OR the creepy ass harlequin clown he was approaching. You gave a heavy, exasperated sigh and turned around, beginning to walk again as you hoped maybe the new distraction would stop your bloody walking partner. 

But a sudden thud against the sidewalk caught you off guard. 

Did he really ride into the clown?

 No, from behind you, the man’s bike laid twisted with spinning wheels in front of your hunched clown stalker. The man was grasping his side with one arm, having fallen on top of his bike as his hand shielded from above. 

Well, that's kind of what he gets for biking at the witching hour. And for not helping someone in distress! Karma's a bitch. 

You hadn't noticed where the gore-striken clown's weapon had landed during the whole ordeal, not even thinking of it until a wet 'shlink!' and violent howl was released. The biker held his raised wrist with a shaking cradle, looking up at the knife that was just pulled out of him.

And just as the knife was removed, it was slammed back in with great inertia and skilled positioning on the clown's part. A wretched sound left the biker's throat, along with the odd crunching that came with him being pushed farther down onto his minimalistic bike. 

A great red gash split onto his forehead, leading to the knife's metal stem that seemed to make peace with its new home inside the biker's skull. One of his earbuds popped out, crashing onto the sidewalk as blood flecked into his left eye. He seemed to look at the fallen earpiece, no longer acknowledging the knife now pushed as far as it could stab.  

The clown seemed to stand back, watching the creation of his short few motions. He let out a whistle similar to an animated sigh. Comically, he wiped invisible sweat from his brow, looking over at you. 

Your feet began to shuffle backward, grating against the rubble on the road as your hands flew to your mouth with an intensity that made you lose breath. 

The mask seemed to look at you with no emotion, blankly watching with a sad smile as the clown stood simply. With the silence of the street, the stillness of the wind, you could hear faint breaths from across the street. They were soon replaced by a muffled whistle beneath the plastic, the clown's eyes dark and unseeable behind it. But the tiniest speck of light, a teensy reflection from the streetlight showed the human eyes of someone…unpredictable. 

He stopped, only to give a high-pitched whistle as he pulled his steel weapon out of its created hole and rammed the knife back into the cowering biker, this time his chest receiving the treatment. The clown pulled it out again, only to prepare in the same position, raking up the bikers chest with the blade once more. Each time, he whistled and heightened it to mimic the sound of the knife flying through the air, only to crash down into a body of meat. He stopped once the knife made a connection to the skin, only to begin again. 

You stood in grotesque awe, mouth ajar as you tripped over the sidewalk's curb. If it wasnt clear already to your record-broken mind, you needed to leave, now. You knew the guy was a creep, someone wayy to into the “murderous killer clown” trope but now, shit was a little too real. You began to run, making your way around the rest of the block without a care of whether or not he chased after you, finding your home. You needed to get inside, somewhere with locked doors that would be a barrier too thick for him to cut down. 

Sweat and tears blinded you as black road filled your vision, along with your dim phone screen. you pressed the all too familiar three numbers on your phone. A nine, and two ones. 

You waited for the shrill gurgles and distant whistling to stop from behind you, to hear a human voice pickup from the screen against your ear; which thankfully came after about two consecutive rings. 

“Hello!?” You unknowingly interrupted, hearing the end of an “your emergency?” 

“Hi-- uh, some freak has been following me and,” You were cut off by a grating voice, one slightly deadened and distant. 

"Now that's just being mean." 

Your heart jumped as you ran, dread settling inside you as the voice hummed in disappointment.

In the distance you could see the familiar front porch of your home, only about five houses down.

"You've got..to be…kidding," you huffed out of breath, elongating your stride to look like a wild runner as you sprinted to your driveway. 

"Clowns are universally beloved; maybe you're the freak; considering you picked me I'd say you already had questionable taste."

"How'd you-- but I called--" You huffed, yet the clown cut you off. 

"You really shouldn't leave your phone unattended in a room full of people…who knows when a devious comic of a murderer might strike! Especially one so handy in manipulating technology." You could practically hear the animated pose he struck along with the words. "So, having fun yet?"

You didn't answer, or rather couldn't from the lack of oxygen in your throat. All you could do was focus on running; but that's alright, because the freakshow on the other side talked enough for the both of you. 

"We'll I hope so; in fact, you know I've chosen you to be my last man standing. My final girl," He paused for dramatic effect "My, surviving victim of tonight's excursion… you'll be a grand commemorating prize to bring back home, to be sure. You're just lucky that buddy boy back here took your place-- if he hadn't, I can't say I'd have been able to restrain myself enough to keep you alive until we got back home."

What the fuck was he going on about? What did it matter anyway, your sides were cramping so twistedly that it and your upcoming mailbox were all you could manage to concentrate on.

An infectious laugh cracked over the line, running from one ear through the other as you ran with your phone gripped tight. Looking down at your smudged screen, the caller ID read a simple “Unknown number.” You tried pressing the end call button, only for your screen to remain frozen. The caller screen almost looked like a screenshot, holding your phone captive as none of the buttons managed to work. The on/off button clicked and clicked, not altering the white screen. 

“Ahh I can still see you running down there… trying to hang up on me while sprinting is hard, huh? Just make this easier and stop where you are, save me the trouble of having to play this hide and seek game for tonight. I promise if you make me play, I'll win."

You stop for a moment to catch your breath, turning around to see neon red hair in the distance and a black outline, the red diamonds on the clown's suit blending in.  He still stood next to the fallen biker, holding something to his ear. 

You wheezed out a laugh, throat beginning to close up.

"Oh yeah?... I'm halfway down the road, bitch! Once I get inside it's.. gonna be over for you. I don't, I don't know what the fuck this is-- but you're not gettin away with--with anything!" You held onto your knees, heaving into the phone as your chest burned. The silence on the other line was hardly noticeable as the sound of blood rushing through your ears and your heartbeat drowned everything else out. 

"...Don't say I didn't warn you, doll."

The phone without warning went dark, line cutting off as the caller screen went missing.

Through blurry eyes you saw the clown lower his hand that was once at his ear. With a short moment of stillness, he stared at you. That stillness, morphed almost automatically into a full-on run. The pitter patter of squeaky rubber shoes on the gravel was adrenaline-inducing, filling the silence of the dark street besides the heaving of yours and the clown's breath. 

"Oh fuck…" you murmured, turning around to begin your sprint once more. 

As long as you could reach the house first, open the door with your keys in time, lock the door-- you'd be fine. You didn't have another phone in the house, but you'd be fine-- you'd just, at least be safe. From him.

 But speaking of keys, where were yours?

You ran your hands over and over the pockets in your clothes, feeling nothing but the scraps of empty candy wrappers in your pockets. Where the fuck were your keys?!?

Finally, the grace of your front door made its way directly in front of you, your exhausted legs running up the short porch steps. You hadn't given even one second to looking back at your fellow runner, panic of losing your keys and the upcoming door occupying your mind. You jiggled the door handle, banging against the door with your shoulder as you let out a panicked exhale. 

You could hear him getting closer, hear the labored breathing and chaotic deep giggling muffled by silicone. 

The sound of heavy shrill footsteps stopped-- but beside your rapid heaving, hot breath covered the side of your shoulder. Wet red locks touched your ear, a deep inhale came to grace the top of your matted hair.

Four fingers covered in a frilly, harlequin-patterned glove were thrusted in front of your face, jingling your precious keys in their grip. 

"Looking for these?"

[littlest-w01f]

Hurt

Eris x Secret Mate!OC

ERIS MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

Summary: Eris tried his best to protect her from his father. Beron brings home his hunt

Cw: angst, Angst, ANGST, Mentions of mutilation, Clipping, Character death

Eris couldn't breathe, not as he looked over the table where his father had just slammed a slab of bleeding meat, not just bleeding meat, he felt sick looking at the large sensitive wings his mate had, butterfly wings, attached to the skin and muscle of it, still bleeding on the table.

"Do you like what I caught, son?" Beron smiled, eyes on his eldest as the rest of his children congratulated him on the hunt, hunting season, he should've told her to stay in, his heart sank when he couldn't feel her, feel his mate. He felt bile rising in his throat as he looked at the birthmark she had on her back on the skin his father had cut out, almost all of her back.

Perhaps his sickened face was too visible, his mask dropped as his brother, joyfully patted his shoulder, "Don't be so upset, brother, maybe you can still catch one of these parasites."

His mask was back on in a second, his brother had called her a parasite. "I am above these silly games, Arlin." He hissed at the second oldest, shrugging his hand off his shoulders.

"Like you did last year?" Beron smirked, watching his reaction as if he knew something he didn't.

Last year, when he had met her, his mate, Celastrina, while it was his turn to go out hunting, his precious butterfly, a unique lesser Fae, the kind in Faelore befriended lonely children, in his case, the Fae lord human parents told their children not to tell their true names to. She had been a curious thing when they met, quite agile and absolutely lovely.

He excused himself to his room, not caring if it might arouse suspicion, the second he was in his room, he dropped to his knees, tears falling freely from his amber eyes, he couldn't feel her, her side of the bond felt like it didn't exist, he curled into himself, trying to keep any sounds to the minimum, feeling nothing short of pure pain.

He instantly stopped crying when there was a knock on his door, wiping his tears away he opened the door, his mother stood in front of him with a pained look in his eyes, his mother, the only other person he had told about her, he crumbled in her arms, let her drag him to his bed, his face buried in her lap, letting his tears flow to her gown.

"Momma, Momma she's gone..." He cried, holding onto his mother as he curled into her in a way he hadn't since he was just a little faeling, "I can't feel her... I can't feel her anymore, Ma. I couldn't keep her safe."

"My fire, I know..." Lady Autumn held her son close to her, letting him cry onto her chest as she used her powers to stroke his back soothingly. She had seen it, the wings and the parts of his mate's back, laid out on a table for anyone to see, and she had rushed to see her son, claiming to Beron that the sight of blood and skin had made her nauseous, "I'm sorry, Eris... I'm sorry."

"I failed her, I failed my promise to her." Eris sobbed in the comfort of his mother.

Holding her son close, she kissed his temple, her own tears falling as she tried to comfort him, "Oh, my baby..."

Suddenly a wave of pain hit Eris, she had opened up her side of the bond to him again and a mix of emotions, relief that she was alive, sorrow that she would probably not live long with how much pain she had just shot down their bond. He turned to look at his mother and she gave him a sharp nod to go.

He was outside her little open cottage instantly, banging hard on the door, calling her name.

Celastrina's father opened the doors, a glare on his face, "Why are you here? Haven't you failed enough?" He roared, seeing Eris at his door, his own wings closing around their door to keep him from looking inside, to where his suffering mate was, "You had her facinanted with the outside near your land!" The male didn't care as he saw Eris' heart break through his eyes, he shut the door behind him and walked out, "This is your fault she was out that far, especially at this time of year."

Eris' eyes were downcast in shame, shuddering slightly as he felt wave after wave of her pain, "I'm sorry... Please... Please I need to see her."

The male who had loved Eris for his daughter, now looked at him in distante, "It was the High Lord, who hurt her, but why should it matter to me," He almost spat in anger, "All you Autumn High Fae look and are the same."

Eris looked away, hating his resemblance to his father, once it had made it easy for him to put on his mask but now he couldn't help but grow nauseous at the thought. The thought that Cela probably came out at the thought that it was him waiting for her, with how he was his father, with his mother's hair.

He looked up at the male he had begun to admire in the time he had been with his mate, the male who had loved him in such a short time more than his father had, "Please, let me be near my mate, let me heal her."

"You foolish male..." He sighed looking away, "She doesn't wish to live, our people rarely do when Fae like you take our wings to sell or keep as a trophy."

He looked at Eris' form, withdrawn, broken, when he opened the door again, "Get in, she would want both of us there if she opened up her bond again."

Celastrina lay on her bed, her head in her mother's lap, her back completely cut up as she sobbed in pain, her mother kept pressing in a tonic to soothe her pains, "I want Eris, mama, I don't wanna go without him."

Her mother looked up from her when she sensed two males in the room, smiling softly at Eris, "Well, he's here now..."

Celastrina gasped turning to her side, "Er..." She breathed seeing her mate, who dropped to his knees in front of her, "You came, you're here." A few tears fell from her eyes and he wiped them away instantly.

"Of course, I'm here, I winnowed the instant I felt you pain through the bond." Eris looked up at her mother, the two nodded in greeting and gently switched places, trying not to move Celastrina too much. Eris held her close to him, the tonic now in his hands as her parents let the two mates be.

"I didn't want you to feel it... Not while you were there," Celastrina admitted, "I didn't wish for you to lose your mask or make them suspect anything."

"I didn't want for you to see me die, Er..." She sniffed softly, holding onto her mate, "But I don't want to be without you, so I shilded the bond."

Eris groaned in another wave of her pain, her breathing laboured, she seemed relaxed, ready to be at peace, "Cela...? Butterfly...?"

"You're so warm, Er..." She smiled, holding onto him, feeling her warm body as she sighed, her breathing soft.

Eris gave a bittersweet smile, "Do I feel good?"

"You've always been good to me..." She hummed, her eyes closing softly, she was a fighter, had been, but in his arms, she was ready to stop fighting, "This is not how I imagined out first year anniversary to be like..."

"It's been two weeks since then, Cela." Eris teased, stroking her hair. "I got you my favourite cakes, remember."

Cela hummed, shaking her head 'yes', "Oh, yeah, that." She had a faint smile on her face.

"I think I'm ready" She sighed and Eris held her tighter. Kissing over her head. "I'm ready with you."

Her parents were watching, holding each other trying to find comfort in the arms of their mate as they let Eris be closer to her, hold his mate one last time.

Eris stroked the base of her back, the only piece of skin there, "Would you like to sleep, my flame?"

"Yeah..." She snuggled up in his arms, "... Sleep."

"Will you be there when I wake up?" She asked hopefully.

"Of course, I'll be with you." Eris frowned when she couldn't see, knowing she would not wake up, "I'll hold you through it, alright?"

"I love you, Eris..." She sighed softly.

Eris smiled, his eyes brimming with tears, "I love you too, Cela..."

With that, Celastrina slept, a relaxed breath going out, not taking another in, limp in her mate's arms.

"I love you, Celastrina." Eris whispered one final time, holding her close, finally letting the dam break again as he cried in her hair, inhaling the last of her scent. "I love you."

{General Taglist: @nox-ceur @sonics-atelier}

{Eris Taglist- @fxckmiup @amygdtjhddzvb @slut4acotar}

[treatian]

The Chronicles of the Dark One: Domestic Battles

Chapter 36: Dinner and a Discussion

Belle was upset, but he was able to get her to sit down on the cot finally. Suddenly feeling a determination to do better than he had been doing in the last few weeks, he sat down beside her, held her hand, and let her cry on his shoulder as she worked through the news the paper hadn't seen fit to print.

This morning, Ruby had come over to the library to give her a gift in celebration of the library opening. She'd arrived with David in tow and explained that since Ruby had done Belle a favor, Belle had to do Ruby a favor. He felt his blood rise with that language. Favors were not deals, though they could be seen as such. Belle should have known better than to engage in such behavior as favor exchanging. However, fortunately for her, the favor Ruby had asked of his wife wasn't life-shattering. David was looking for a babysitter for tonight. Apparently, post-pregnancy and magical mayoral election, Mary Margaret needed a break. Ordinarily, Ruby would step in to fill that gap, but she couldn't because "she was gone."

Ruby was gone. But she wasn't dead, as he'd first assumed, and she hadn't been kidnapped or taken by Ingrid as he'd then expected. The truth of it was less than he'd feared for Belle's sake and yet greater than he ever could have anticipated.

He was shocked to discover that Ruby was in possession of a magic bean. Remarkable. Cora had destroyed the last field of beans he'd known about. But apparently, since the new Curse had taken effect, Ruby had been working in the fields with a giant, and now she had one and was ready to use it. To go where? Belle didn't know. He only understood that the wolf was feeling lost and lonely lately. She planned to use the bean to go and find more like her in another realm.

He had a number of opinions on the subject of Ruby's departure. First, of course, was the idea that there were still beans in Stoyrbrooke somewhere. He'd already dealt more times than he'd like to with the kinds of problems that those could cause, and he wasn't exactly keen on doing it all over again.

And then there was the fact that even when Ruby was playing a role behind the scenes, she'd been critical to the Charming Family in several ways. She'd helped them keep Henry safe, gathered information, sniffed out various suspects, and even done some babysitting for them. Her departure was going to leave a hole in the Charming Family, and he was less than thrilled that, at the first trial, it was falling to Belle to fill that role. He worried that going to babysit tonight would turn into a habit, and while the act of her watching someone else's children didn't bother him, the idea that she might be the one to fill Ruby's shoes for them did. It was only going to pull her closer to the people he wanted to keep hidden from at the moment and would only make things more complicated for him.

But…

Belle, sitting in his arms bawling because Ruby had sent her a final text message goodbye, wasn't about his problems. He was the Dark One. And while part of him wanted to go after Ruby and take the bean, question the town about where the harvest was hidden so he could use it for himself…he was also a husband. His work with the hat was important. It would serve to make him a better husband one day. But if he couldn't hold on to his marriage because he neglected it, his work with the hat wouldn't matter.

So, he stayed there on that cot for as long as Belle needed him to. He kept his comments about her babysitting to a minimum. And he held her. He tried to be helpful. He tried to insist that she return to the house and rest, cancel the babysitting for the night, but she wouldn't hear it. After lunch, she'd finally kissed him goodbye and returned to the library.

He watched her shuffle across the street, pull out her keys, and wipe her face once more before entering the library. For a moment, he stared, his mind analyzing every option and opportunity before him. He took into account the hat and the beans, the dagger and Emma, and even the thief that had broken into the library, then shook his head and went into the back room.

Fuck it. Fuck it all. Just for today.

It was a delicate balance that he had to keep on the situation at hand, and though one side of it felt stable and perfect, he was reminded that all magic came with a price. Once upon a time, he'd managed a delicate balance like this. He'd spun many plates and done it by micromanaging each one, even those that hadn't required him, careful to make sure they spun on and on, never stopping, never dropping. Now, he'd been careless. He'd been paying too much attention to one plate, and the cost was that the others were starting to wobble dangerously, threatening to lose their balance and crash. He had to do better.

Just before sunset Belle left the library for the Charming residence. She didn't think she'd be gone long, just enough to give Mary Margaret a break. The second that she left, he departed the shop. He went home, shucked off his jacket and shoes, ditched the vest and the tie, then got to work.

Babies were deceptive. They were more work than they appeared at first sight. When she got home, she would likely be tired, and while that saddened him because it decreased the chances of their evening honeymooning, he was happy it gave him the opportunity to serve her in a different way, a way they needed. They needed to talk. About nothing and everything. They needed to get back on the same page again. He felt like they'd been struggling with that since before Zelena, and now he feared that if they didn't get back on solid ground once more, they might end up paying for it in the worst way. He should know; he'd been through it before.

He baked chicken parmesan, a favorite of Lacey's, though he hoped Belle would like it just the same. Then, he looked over some of the paperwork Belle had filled out when he wasn't looking and put it on file in his office. He was tinkering with a broken lock on a door upstairs when he heard her come home and walk right into the kitchen, which was where he found her standing over the casserole dish, fork in hand, chewing on a bite she'd had to eat. That was good, seeing as how dinner had been abandoned the last few nights for other, more carnal activities.

"I figured you'd be hungry," he explained.

She jumped at the sound of his voice but then quickly put the fork aside, sighed in relief, and launched herself into his arms. "I love you," she groaned appreciatively.

He laughed, even though the comment made him feel more accomplished than anything. He'd set out to restore balance, and so he was. "Your adventures in babysitting not what you thought?"

"Babies are exhausting," she sighed again, turning to retrieve her plate so she could sit at the table.

"They certainly are deceptively harder than they look," he replied, fetching a plate and fork for himself to join her. He couldn't remember the last time they'd both sat down to dinner at this table. Hell, it might have been before she'd walked out on him after her return, and that was all he needed to commit to doing this more often.

"Looking at them, you think they only want to sleep all day, and Gideon…he did want to sleep, but Neal just kept screaming! I thought he had to get tired eventually, but he just wouldn't settle!"

"It seems babies sleep only when it's convenient for them, I'm afraid. I take it little Neal is much more work than big Neal was."

"Big Neal could at least tell me what he needed and wanted. He had favorite meals and we had discussions and habits! I knew what to do when he was upset! Little Neal…"

The sound of Belle's voice disappeared. For a second, he thought it was him. He thought when he'd asked the question that he was prepared in expecting a yes or no answer, perhaps a few extra details, but then…

She'd gone and rubbed salt in a wound he sometimes forgot was still open. Jealousy surged. Neal had favorite things to eat. He didn't know what they were. But Belle did. Neal had habits and traditions when he interacted with Belle. Opportunities he'd never get to take hold of. There were things that could be done to calm him when he was upset, discussions he'd never gotten to have, an entire life he wanted to know about, and yet…it stung to think about it. It made envy erupt in his chest. And he feared that Belle knew.

"I'm…I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"Belle," he interrupted, reaching over and forcing himself to grab her hand. Too tight. He'd grabbed it too tight. It wasn't just his pain in the room. He had to remember that she was grieving, too. And to ask her to ignore everything she'd experienced with his son in his absence was wrong. "I want to know what you know about him," he stated. "I want to hear everything the two of you did together while I was-"

"Dead."

"I was going to say 'away,' but if you want to be blunt about it…"

The room was quiet save for the hammering of her heart. And when he risked a glance up, he saw that she was smiling. There were tears in her eyes as she looked him over, assessing him just as he was assessing her. And then she sighed, drew in a breath, and opened her mouth.

When he wanted to catch up on what he'd missed while he was away, he hadn't imagined that the stories she would tell of his son might be included. At least he hadn't imagined it for tonight. But he listened. He listened even as each one made him smile and simultaneously cut him right down to the bone.

She ate as she talked, going through the story from her own point of view, one he hadn't glimpsed in his son's memories, though every now and then, an image, a memory of one of Bae's memories, would spark. Their arrival in the Enchanted Forest. Neal looking after her as she'd felt hallow, protecting her from Zelena and the others, the very people she'd just babysat for this evening when he moved her out of Regina's castle. He was amazed at the word that the hovel still stood. Embarrassed to think of her living in the same house he'd once lived with his first wife in. And as she wove the tale of how she and Bae had snuck away to go revive him he hung on her every word, shocked and flabbergasted at their cunning and skill, at their ability to work together and get each other through.

And as she talked of the life she'd crafted with his son, suddenly, a new thought dawned on him. One that he'd had long ago in passing but put away because it wasn't in the same context as it was now.

Children…

When he'd had the Seer in his head, she'd once shown him visions of the life he might lead with her, visions he'd been convinced were lies because he couldn't see how they could possibly be true. But now he remembered them. And now that he'd seen Belle in the exact white outfit she'd worn when they were married, the exact same outfit from his vision, he began to wonder which of the others might be true as well. One in particular stood out. It was the image of Belle with a baby in her arms.

The details of that image he'd had were blurry; he'd only gotten a flash of it, and he'd been so focused on Belle in the moment he hadn't paid attention to her surroundings, but now…was that the upstairs room she'd been sitting in? Was the baby he'd seen one she was caring for? Baby Neal, for example, or someone else's child she'd end up looking after. Or, could it be…

He'd never asked her about children. They'd talked about what her life would have looked like if she'd stayed in her father's kingdom, that she would have been expected to bear children, as many as possible, and he knew that she held a deep contempt for that. But now that he thought about it, he was almost certain that the contempt she felt for it wasn't over the children specifically but rather that life and the fact that she would have been forced into it without a choice. Hell, he felt contempt for it for her! But thinking of that image of her with the baby in her arms did leave him thinking…if she did have a choice in the matter, if the child she bore didn't belong to a man she hated but one she loved, was that a choice that she'd make?

Was it a choice he would make?

Fuck, he was an idiot.

No! He wasn't ready for a child now, not this soon after Baelfire. And yet they'd been careless, behaving like teenagers every night they went to bed. When she'd first come back to him, they'd been meticulous at checking her calendar, making sure the possibility of a pregnancy was small, but they hadn't been as careful since he'd returned from Neverland. Hell, they hadn't been careful at all! If she was pregnant now…

She wasn't. He could sense that easily enough in women, and Belle didn't have the smell of pregnancy or the extra heartbeat he'd be able to detect. But if she had been…he'd be happy. He wasn't ready for a child now, but he knew he'd be happy if she was pregnant. He'd always wanted to be a father. He still wanted to be a father. And he knew he always would, in some sappy sort of way. Bae's death didn't take away the fact that he'd always be Bae's father. But to have another child, not with a woman he detested but one he loved…it would be different. He might not be ready for it, but he'd make himself ready. He'd enjoy it. And as for Belle…

"Rumple, what…what is it?" she smiled, suddenly bringing her hand back into his.

Her voice called his attention out of his thoughts and back to her. He had said he wanted dinner and a discussion. He might not have planned on this particular discussion, but…it was important, wasn't it? It was important to know. If nothing else, it was important to know so that he could remind them both that there was a schedule to keep. Wasn't it?

Her eyes bore into him, and he let out a sigh. "I want to ask you something. But I don't know what you'll think about it. And I don't want you to feel pressured."

"Pressured?" she questioned, concern lacing her voice.

It was enough to make him want to stop the conversation, but now that he'd put that much out there…

"What exactly do you want to ask me about?"

"The future…our future…maybe…"

"Maybe? Rumple, whatever this is…you can ask me, you know you can!"

Yes, he did. He could ask, and she could answer. He just wasn't sure if he was ready for that answer yet. But if he didn't ask…

He twisted his hand, lacing her fingers through his own and rubbing circles nervously into the back of her hand. "Belle…I don't suppose…have you ever thought about the possibility of…children?"

There it was. He'd done it. Now it was out there in the world, and he held his breath as she sat there with it. For a moment, she was still. For a moment, she just sat there, but then he heard the sound of her heartbeat speeding up. Her eyes darted from one end of the table to another, looking like a deer caught in headlights, and he felt her panic begin to grow.

It had been a bad idea, the wrong time to ask her.

"Never mind," he urged with a small laugh. "It was a fleeting thought. Forget that I mentioned it."

"No!" she exclaimed, her grip on his hand tightening before he could walk away. His chest tightened. No. Her answer was no? "No, it's not that!" she cried suddenly, meeting his gaze and realizing what she'd said. "It's just…you…you just caught me off guard."

He'd caught himself off guard when he'd thought of it. Hell, he'd caught himself off guard when he'd asked it. But now that he had…

"Well? Have you?"

"You know I have. I've had to think about having children since I was one, but it wasn't something I had a choice about," she explained, her mind going exactly to the place he'd thought it would go. "It was something that was expected of me. It's the first thing that I learned a Queen did…give birth to future kings."

"But you don't have to live that life anymore. You can be my Queen and no one else's. Is it something that you would consider now? With me?"

She swallowed hard. And he noted how her hand was beginning to tremble as she held his own. "I uh…I haven't thought about it since I left my father's castle. Not since we met."

To be precise, she hadn't thought about it since they met because she'd been freed of the idea. He'd always known that talking about that period in her life could be touchy. She didn't like to admit it, but it was a traumatic upbringing. And this conversation was getting far too close to that for comfort.

"What, um…what about you? Have you thought about it? Before now? After Neal…"

Outside of a few moments ago...

"No, not recently, not since Neverland, before Bae…" The thought of other children before he'd found Baelfire had always felt blasphemous, but he'd thought of it. On a couple of occasions in his life, he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he'd thought about it. He was always glad it didn't happen.

"And what do you think? When you think about it, what do you think?"

"I honestly don't know." He was lying. But this lie, it wasn't like the others. He wasn't keeping it from her because she wasn't ready but rather because he was genuinely fearful that his answer might sway her own. If she didn't want children, then he didn't want her to feel forced or pressured into it and if he confessed that it wasn't an idea he hated then she most certainly would feel those things.

"You wanted another child at least once before," she pushed. "With Cora-"

"I did, but it would have been a mistake. Cora…Cora would have been a terrible mistake." Fuck, sometimes he forgot just how much of his life he'd shared with her.

"What about now?" she poked again, trying to catch him all over again, only this time…this time he couldn't lie.

"You and I wouldn't be a mistake," he insisted quickly, knowing full well that if they didn't start being at least a little bit more careful, then there was every possibility they might make a kind of mistake. But not one that he couldn't live with.

"That wasn't what I meant," Belle breathed, a smile stretching across her face as she glanced over at him, her eyes softening. "Do you want a child now, or ever again, for that matter?"

She was being direct, making it more and more difficult to sidestep the question.

"Would you ever consider it?"

She let out a long sigh. One that contained just as much frustration as it did stress. But she was thinking about it again. She was leaning back in her chair, her eyes flickering around the kitchen as if she wasn't really seeing it but rather her own brain, searching for the answer there. He remained quiet, letting her think and explore, letting her consider.

And then he saw it—the small hint of a smile that started at the corner of her mouth and began to curl at both ends. It was gentle and kind. It was almost amused. He felt the hand that he held soften suddenly as the panic in her body began to fade into something else, something new.

"Yes," she whispered excitedly.

"Yes?" he repeated, trying to make sure she meant what he thought she did, and this wasn't a misinterpretation. Yes?!

"Yes," she confirmed, looking over at him and moving her hand to his cheek so she could meet his gaze. "When the time is right, I would want to have a baby with you…a child of our own."

"When the time was right,"…her yes came with a stipulation, one that he couldn't see the harm in. But still…

"Yes?" he asked again, hearing the amazement in his own voice.

"Yes."

[howlsconstantyearning]

Recently I was asked “why do you watch that stuff if you know it effects you like this “ (I was visibly upset & blubbering while watching the live stream of a Palestinian man who streams on TikTok to make money to help with his daughters medical expenses during the genocide being executed by Israel, the occupying forces of Palestine)

How could you not watch it? If you feel helpless because maybe you don’t have enough money to give away, maybe you aren’t a nurse or doctor that can fly over and provide help with Doctors Without Borders, maybe you aren’t feeling creative and can’t get any art completed for the Artists Against Apartheid call to action that’s happening currently, so what can you do… you can watch

When the concentration camps were finally liberated and the prisoners in their emaciated, twisted state that their bodies were in, we documented what was seen so generations after who hadn’t personally felt the anguish of the rise of fascism and the Nazi party, would know and feel the weight of what had happened to those who had died in such horrific ways.

The bare minimum of what you can do is put your privilege in the drawer and stay informed.

You see my feed, I obviously have other posts going and other media I look at, but I consciously choose to stay informed, to not let myself become callous. I get the luxury of waking up, not to bombs and gunfire or the droning of war planes above me. I get to DECIDE when I see the atrocities being bombed and bled over Palestinians. It is a privilege, and it’s one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. We get to scroll, or go to a different app and escape their screams and the scent of blood and death. The Palestinian people don’t get to do that. They’re entrenched in the waftings of death all around while still having to try and find joy for their remaining little ones that haven’t been slaughtered, while trying to mourn with the pieces of those left after the bombings. Can you even fathom having to bury your children next to each other? With barely the pieces to make up the puzzle of the wonderful little one they were?

Could you keep searching for water and posting while the hem of your garments are stinking and stained with your blood, your neighbors’ , and only amplified by your remaining children needing you to be present while grieving your entire life that’s also been built on suffering.

Take breaks, it’s imperative for those pushing for social justice to do so, but recognize that it’s a privilege and don’t let anyone convince you this should be normal.

We decided we “don’t care” about ourselves,the immunocompromised, newborns, or the elderly when we disregarded Covid precautions even while a significant portion of the country is now left disabled post-initial outbreak-measures.

This is the breaking point of what we’re willing to accept as normal, and an intense call to action. You have to choose to care

If you can’t have empathy for anyone else, then use your selfishness to think about how you’d react if any of those 30 second clips you skip past, were your life, for even 20 minutes, could you have the resolve of the Palestinians?

These people aren’t superhuman, they’re people, who are being tortured, broken, bombed, and brutalized

Survival is their only option

The least we could do is give them the respect of being informed on what’s happening and escalating/demanding change before it’s our turn for the world to turn a blind eye.

If we sit idly by now, we deserve what’s coming to us

There are ways to help, if you think you can’t, you haven’t even tried.

[demonslayedher]

Things that went through my head while watching this episode:

--Kyogai is so not bothered by these demon slayers running around his mansion, it truly is way more annoying to him that the other demons sneaked in and let his prey get away. How far our former Lower Moon Six has fallen, to get his tsuzumi ripped out by the likes of those guys!!

--Kyogai is trying so hard, okay??? He used to be good at eating people, he used to have recognition, but he's fallen into a slump and lost his touch. He's got Eater's Block and is doing his best!!

--Sorry, Kamado Tanjiro, introduce yourself all you want (he really does keep announcing his name and declaring that he will defeat his enemies, I can't believe he keeps doing this all the way to his showdown with Akaza, dear sunshine god, this boy, I swear), but Kyogai has way bigger problems. Namely, he who shall not be named.

--Teruko's gotta be, like, five or six, I'm guessing. Inosuke seriously could had broken her!! Send him flying, Tanjiro, he deserves it!

--I love how Tanjiro and Zenitsu are respectively doing their best to take care of the children. Tanjiro knows how to adjust his tone and take little steps to reassure Teruko, and later Kiyoshi, and Zenitsu... well, he's trying, and it's endearing.

--And also hilarious, I truly love all Zenitsu and Shoichi's interactions, and it was thanks to Shoichi that i was able to start warming up to Zenitsu. On my first watching I just beginning to see Zenitsu's redeeming qualities, although he was still annoying as hell.

--And then THUNDER BREATH happened and i was like, "...oh."

--"That was cool."

--"I wanna see that again."

--Look, Ufotable was even like, "hey, you know what'll be cool when we totally change the atmosphere surrounding Zenitsu? LET'S ANIMATE DUST PARTICLES IN THE AIR."

--Plus, I had someone new to hate on. I could not stand Inosuke by this point. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. I could not had cared less about his Beast Breath.

--Nowadays I look at it, or rather, listen to it, and feel that Matsuoka-san is still getting the hang of Inosuke--he's got this totally unruly character who is going in all directions and the impression I get from some his interviews and commentary is that he's desperately holding the leash and trying to get him to behave whilst still showing off his qualities. He's like Inosuke's handler, and he went in expecting a behaved show dog and got handed this and pushed into the ring of the dog show. "Have fun, you're doing great, we trust you!" the producers cheer him on, but in his heart he's like, "I came here to audition for Zenitsu" as he gets yanked around on the leash and desperately tries to make it look like he has the Inosuke situation under control. We believe in you, Matsuoka-san.

--And Tanjiro believes in himself! This pep-talk is so cute.

--Tanjiro got the hang of Kyogai's blood technique pretty quick, at least in analyzing how it works so he can do the bear minimum to protect himself. Had Nezuko been in this fight, he'd probably have gotten herself diced to bits right away, for she doesn't have and self-preservation driven fear to keep her from closing in the gap on Kyogai.

--We continue to get the fine qualities of Water Breath spoon fed to us in this battle, with more Urokodaki flashbacks! (Totally aside, it hit me yesterday how Urokodaki stressed how not to break your blade, which is exactly what Sabito did in a critical moment. Now I'm sad, moving on.) It's kind of funny how we got to appreciate all the merits of Water Breath, and in fact, my anime-only friend who got me into this one had commented on how refreshing it was to have a main character with water powers instead of fire powers, and... well, oh.

--The animation on this fight with Tanjiro jostling around in response to the setting's movement was one of the things that made me very impressed with how far anime has come. Look at this. It's masterful. Amazing. Sorry, Nakime, your fortress may be bigger but Kyogai's techniques are cooler.

--Poor Tanjiro out-and-out declaring "I AM IN PAIN AND THIS SUCKS" is very refreshing.

--Also, in the midst of all this self-talk to psych himself out, he has to yell at Zenitsu to shut up. I love it. We've seen Tanjiro lose his temper on people before, like against Yushiro in defending Nezuko's honor, but outburst is purely because Zenitsu is annoying. It is such a talent to be purely annoying to Kamado Tanjiro.

--That speech Tanjiro gives about how he's done well so far and he won't succumb to his injuries? Had to have hit Kyogai in a weak spot, since the novel the fanbook says he was inspired by is an epic about epic heroes. He probably heard Tanjiro and took pause because something in him was probably like, "those are inspiring lines."

--But that same part of him was probably angry and jealous that he had never thought of lines like that himself.

--I LOVE YOU, KYOGAI

[hilary-amaya-starr]

Written 7 years ago. Annual reshare.

Still hope you see it someday.

Will NEVER forget you.

I will always be happy to hear from you no matter how long it takes❤️

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY SIBLINGS:

It took me years to ever come to the realization that any of this was abuse. I do not expect anyone in the middle of this mental game to see it or understand it clearly. But if you are ever looking for answers, If things just don't seem right, I have to write this letter with the other side of the story. If you ever need it you will be able to find it. If you ever feel guilty or like a traitor for thinking for yourself you need to know you are not.

For years I have not written this because I didn't want to appear to be bashing someone, or push you farther away. But I am not bashing anyone and it's time to speak. You need to know I didn't "Abandon you." and you are old enough to understand things are more complicated than they might first appear.

This is my personal experience, tactics change with each person and situation, we each experienced a different version of this but the game is the same.

Before, during and after our parents separation and the divorce there was very intentional conditioning, before this there was some weird stuff but it was buffered by dads presence and not as obvious or constant.

I was told to tell CPS if they came, that we were happy with mother and that Dad scared us and was mean. At Dr. appointments I was told not to say anything in small talk because it could be used to take my siblings away if I said the wrong thing. I was so stressed out at one such appointment the nurse was trying to find out why my blood pressure was so high and asking me questions, I just said I didn't know to everything she asked. Than mom was mad because I “Acted weird and suspicious.” and it would be my fault if CPS was called. I was never allowed alone with a doctor. After each incident like that where she thought I “Put us all in Danger” she would say she didn't know “what was wrong with me.” If friends or family came to the house I was to hide my siblings and keep them quiet, if the curtains had been open and they could see in we would stay under the bed or behind furniture until they left. If Dad or anyone called sometimes she would let me answer but would stand close enough to listen to every word they said and shake her head if i started to say the wrong thing. She was a bit less weird with Gabriel around.

Conditioning continued to get progressively more intense. I was made to believe my dad and older sister were extremely dangerous, that they would kill my whole family and kidnap Jeremiah. She had me watch documentaries about husbands killing their wives and children to drive her point in and would say Dad had tried all these different things to kill us. I was told if Dad or my sister ever came to the door to kill them and to hide my siblings. I was told anything good I thought or remembered about dad was "fake" so anything nice I remembered "didn't matter"

Each time I began to think I understood the rules they changed, what was ok one day was forbidden the next. So I began shut down communication to a minimum never knowing when we were allowed to do or say what or if it had changed. But than I wasn't talking enough so she would get angry and say l was hiding things since I wasn't offering information and there was "something wrong with me". There were constantly “Research” projects for me from spying on Dad to finding new places to live.

Every moment was Scheduled, bathroom use timed, toilet paper squares counted, food assigned and I could not eat extra, I was hungry a LOT and would take bits that I hoped were unnoticeable off multiple things so I didn’t get in trouble for “eating more than enough”. She also drove a wedge between me communicating with our older brother by suggesting he had told on me for things while she was fishing for information so I thought he was reporting to her and she would say things to make me believe he was going to endanger the other kids because he had done "evil" things like save pictures of him with his dad, she would say she was afraid he was going to get us all killed and ask me if I had seen him doing suspicious things. It was contradicting and confusing enough that you just learned you could not trust or talk to anyone.

Another example is when I fell asleep in a pile of papers I was supposed to be researching for her and she woke me up furious because I was “Unmotivated, Irresponsible and would get my siblings killed because of it as if I didn’t get it together we wouldn’t find a place to move in time and it would be my fault. It was 3:30 in the morning and I was “Lazy” for falling asleep....this was not an abnormal occurrence this was my normal day to day life. Sleeping was "lazy" eating was "selfish" speaking to people was "Dangerous".

Sleep deprivation, Undernourishment, Isolation, told to kill my family if they came to find us, and that if my siblings were murdered it would be because of me, and constantly changing rules. Each time we moved she would tell me she was sorry that “Because of someone else we have to keep living like this.” that she was “Forced to live like this.” It was never true and it is still not. NO ONE WAS FORCING HER TO LIVE LIKE THAT, it was and is a personal choice. THERE WAS AND IS NO THREAT to her or anyone's life.

I did began to find a sort of freedom in working. If I was working I could breath or go to the bathroom without her banging on the door asking why I was in there longer than two minutes. I worked like crazy as much as I could I would work for anyone who would hire me to do almost anything. But there was a new problem as you guys got a little older and I was working more. It became more and more clear she was not ok with me being around you without her. When you were little I was able to be with you alone, I was a mom to you and there was a time where even she admitted I was. But as you got older she began to police our interactions to a strange extent and loosing my relationship with you became a constant worry for me.

As I became more and more frustrated with the situation and the tense relationship between her and I she became more set against me ever having a place in you lives or being with you individually. At this point that all this was unnecessary and bizarre beyond reason hadn't completely sunk in for me yet so I told myself the problem was “Our personalities just clashed.” I told myself as soon as I was not in the same house it would ease the tension between us and I could maintain a relationship with you guys and continue to help financially but things only got worse.

Once I moved out the more careful I was the worse it got. I would rehearse what to say so she wouldn't be offended and carefully choose each word but she would just say I had said something I had not if she decided she wanted to change the meaning. One such example that stands out (as I was painstakingly careful to be clear about it) is when I stayed with you guys for a bit between starting a new job in Missoula, I was very careful and articulate in explaining to her that I would be staying in Missoula because I would not have enough gas to be driving back and forth each day. She acted completely fine with it and I was elated we seemed to be getting along. One week later she called me in a rage saying I had “Disappeared “ and “Abandoned my siblings.” That I had said I was staying there but I lied and had hurt you and she wasn't going to let me around anymore.

Another time I let her know I would not have access to a phone for a week and we had a seemingly normal conversation. A week later when I called she was furious that I “hadn't answered for a week and she was going to report me as a missing person” (I was an adult not a runaway and I had specifically let her know ahead of time the situation.). There was a time I had been working 16 hour days, had not had a day off, told her I would call in a couple days but had to get a couple hours sleep and she called me on the emergency work number because she was not ok with waiting and I almost got fired over it. Because of me being in pictures with a room mates child she told me she “saw the kid I replaced Jeremiah with” She found out me and Gabe went target shooting and was furious with me because “I was being selfish and taking food and money from you by doing frivolous things” I had one job which I would bring leftover food to you guys back from and when the company changed its policy and didn't allow employees to take leftovers anymore she said I made it up, lied about it and was keeping food from you on purpose. I was told I was selfish for spending money on a Dr. appointment, I was selfish for moving out of my car into an apartment in winter, I was wasteful for buying my own car. Gabe offered to help as well, we once figured out how we could move you all to the same town we were in, cover rent, utilities, everything other than food and gas we had figured out budget wise covered so all she would need was a part time job at a grocery store or something simple for that part of it and she was furious over the suggestion after she had been telling us she wanted to move there. She told me I was horrible and selfish to think of having her do something like work at a grocery store because she had business experience and couldn't believe such a thing would even be suggested as if it were some kind of insult. It was impossible to communicate with her reasonably but I kept trying, I hung on in any way I could because I could not let my siblings go.

Anytime something like that happened and I wasn’t responding to her as she wanted me to she would threaten that I was not going to see you guys anymore. I had been on the run with her hiding us from family since the divorce so I knew this was not an idle threat and began to see I was taking the place (in her mind) of the enemy she would be hiding you guys from. This was a constant battle, what to say, what not to say, what she would say I said if I said nothing, what she would make you guys believe about me, that I didn't love you, that I abandoned you, didn't care. When really I was doing all I could not to loose you but she held the cards and an ever changing rule book. In this book she is a martyr, a victim, a poor little lady doing the best she can while the world is mean to her. ITS NOT TRUE.

I never Abandoned or didn't care about you, I never replaced you, Neither did your brother, your dad or any other family and friends. We were all played in the same game. You have family that has been worried about you for decades now. People who cared about you since you were born and still do. You guys are an uncle and aunt who are welcome in the lives of your nieces, nephews, and all your family. We were pushed away and locked out, we were never and never will be a threat. We each experience a different version of this but the end game is the same:

You are to believe she is a Martyr, she is right, if you think what she does not want you to think you are a traitor, If you speak to someone she doesn’t like you have betrayed her. You must be who she wants, do what she wants , speak only to those she likes, marry who she wants, cut off who she wants, or she will make you history and tell others you left by choice.

There is nothing reasonable about it and you can speak to someone she doesn't like without betraying her. You can speak to two people who don’t like each other and have separate relationships with each. You should not feel guilty if your questioning it, you are not betraying or endangering anyone. You can love people someone else you love doesn't like.

I always have loved you

I always will love you. Your sister, Hilary

[lonely-lost-soul]

Daddy's Little Girl

Request 10: Dad!Schlatt angst with the reader trying to protect Tubbo because the reader is his older sibling?

Requested By: Anonymous

TW: Abuse

Do you want angst? I’ll give you angst. Never challenge me again. /J

ily /p

(Hints of Wilbur and Techno x reader if you squint)

Growing up with Schlatt as your father had its ups and downs, on one hand, he was hilarious and let you get away with anything you wanted, but on the other hand, he had a drinking problem. When you were a little girl his drinking wasn’t too bad, some days were worse than others but most of the time he was semi cognizant. However, when your baby brother Tubbo came along everything changed, for a while he was sober. He was clear-headed, held a stable job on the SMP, and even helped you with your homework, but alas all good things come to an end. As soon as Tubbo started school, and your mom left he started up again, you weren’t happy. Your horns had begun to curl around your head around that time and your baby brother was enamored. He would wrap his chubby hands around them to pull and trace his fingers over the ridges, Tubbo would declare his horns were going to be just as magnificent as yours one day. You would flush at the praise and ruffle his hair, and told him you could already feel his little nubs growing in, he was overjoyed at the news.

Before Tubbo, Schlatt would never lay a hand on anyone, but something inside him crumbled. You had a few close calls, Tubbo bothering your father a little too much and Schlatt raised a hand to the boy. Luckily, you were always there to diffuse the situation and direct your father’s attention away from your baby brother. You were old enough to know just how impulsive and uncaring drinking made him, you tried to keep Tubbo as occupied as you could while keeping up with your work.

When Tubbo was ten years old he made his first friend.

Tubbo told you the kid’s name was Tommy, and he shared all the new information about his friend. He informed you he had two older brothers named Wilbur and Technoblade, who were about a year or two older than you. Tubbo desperately wanted to introduce you to him, but with your dad to keep an eye on you had to decline, at least for the time being. Tubbo pouted at your response and gave you, your biggest weakness puppy dog eyes, you relented. Promising to go with Tubbo to Tommy’s house in a few days to meet the brothers and supervise his play date with Tommy.

You just hoped your dad would be alright.

The day finally rolled around for you to meet the elusive Tommy and his brothers, you informed your dad that you and Tubbo would be gone for the rest of the day, he said it was alright. You think he just wanted to excuse to drink more while both of his children were gone.

“Come on (Y/n), let’s go already!” Tubbo called with a groan, you hushed him softly,

“Put your jacket on first.”

He reluctantly slipped on his jacket and grabbed his bag, you followed him out the door. Tubbo was buzzing with excitement holding his bee plush close to his chest, going on and on about how great Tommy was and how much he hoped you’d like Wilbur and Techno. Eventually, the both of you came upon a small cabin in the middle of a clearing, it was surrounded by lush pine trees and a little boy in a red and white shirt stood by the front gate.

“Tubbo!” The boy you assumed was Tommy shouted rushing over to the gate,

“Tommy!” Tubbo shouted with a laugh, he looked like he wanted to run towards him but first, he looked up at you. You smiled softly and gave your brother a nod, his face lit up and he charged towards Tommy. They met in the middle and Tommy immediately tackled Tubbo to the ground, a young man with glasses opened the window and began to shout at the blonde. He picked his head up and spotted you in the distance, his entire face flushed red, you sent him a little wave. The boy adjusted his glasses slamming the window shut, you titled your head to the side before seeing him and a taller boy with pink hair. While Tommy and Tubbo wrestled in the dirt the older boys walked up to you, they introduced themselves as Wilbur and Technoblade. They both were hybrids like yourself, you immediately felt at home, no wonder Tubbo liked it here so much.

Through the power of conversation you found out Technoblade was a piglin hybrid and Wilbur was half nymph, Tommy was just a plain human. Either their dad got around or some of them were adopted, you’d ask Tubbo later, figuring it was rude to blatantly ask that question. You found out the entire family thrived off of bulling one another it was quite funny to watch Technoblade roast the ever-loving shit out of Wilbur, unknown to you whenever you let a giggle or two slip past your lips Wilbur would flush and Technoblade would smirk. The end of the playdate rolled around and you found yourself not wanting to leave your new friends, Wilbur offered for you and Tubbo to sleep over but you politely declined. Technoblade shot Wilbur a concerned look when with a smile you said your dad would have your ass if you and Tubbo stayed over.

A few years went by since your first meeting, Tubbo and Tommy became inseparable and honestly, you and his brothers were in the same situation. Although you couldn’t see Technoblade and Wilbur as much as Tubbo could see Tommy the three of you were attached at the hip. Wilbur would constantly write you letters, sometimes the handwriting would switch and you noticed Techno put his blunt opinions into the conversation. Tubbo found one of the letters once and insisted that both boys must have a crush on you, you denied that with a soft laugh, just like your father you were under the impression you were unlovable.

Speaking of your dad, he was rarely ever sober at this point, rather being numb than feeling anything significant. Luckily he could be slightly functional, but mostly it was you raising Tubbo and protecting him from your dad’s off days. Speaking of an off day you had just gotten back from a trip of visiting your favorite boys, it was late and Tubbo was asleep in your arms. He was scratched up a bandaid was on his nose, and a bandage wrapped around his arm, he had taken a particularly nasty fall while wrestling with Tommy. Luckily both you and Wilbur were skilled in patching up rambunctious little brothers and he was fixed up in no time flat. You noticed the light on in the living room and grew concerned, your dad was always passed out in his bed by this time of night, was he alright?

Tubbo mumbled something in your arms and you pulled him close to your chest as to not wake the boy. “Dad?” You called softly wandering into the living room, much to your surprise he was very much awake. Your nose scrunched up in displeasure he reeked of whiskey and cigarettes, so tonight was a bad night.

Noted.

“You reek.” You commented adjusting the sleeping Tubbo in your arms, your father shot you a dirty look.

“Where the fuck have you been with the brat?” He hissed baring his teeth at you, “Do you know how late it is? Do you know how worried I was!” You hated the way your stomach churned with guilt and relief, at least he noticed his children were gone. He shouldn’t be praised for the bare minimum, Technoblade would’ve told you gruffly if he knew the full extent of your relationship.

“Out with Tommy, Wilbur, and Technoblade. Phil’s kids remember?” You responded with a soft sigh and he sent a dirty look your way standing up from his recliner. You backed up a few steps, the man towering over you eyeing Tubbo who was beginning to stir in your arms. Hesitantly you placed a hand over the back of his head, keeping it pressed tightly against your neck and shoulder. It only seemed to make Schlatt’s face scrunch up more,

“He looks so much like your mother.”

“I know dad.”

“Why’s he beat to shit?” He slurred reaching his hands out towards Tubbo, “You let him get hurt?”

“Tommy and he were just wrestling. Just being kids. I patched him up, he’s just sleepy.”

“So you let him get beat?”

“Dad no did you not hear me-” He grabbed one of your horns roughly yanking them down. You yelped in pain dropping Tubbo in the process, he hit the ground with a hard thud crying out from the rude awakening. “Dad you’re hurting me-”

“(Y/n)? Dad?” He murmured groggily barely processing the situation unfolding in front of him.

“Tubbo go to your room.” Your dad hissed at him, spit flying everywhere, Tubbo looked terrified. He looked at you and nodded the best you could with your dad’s iron-like grip on your horn, he scurried away and you felt your eyes fill with tears. If only he was a little older, he’d maybe be able to help you, but he was a child and didn’t need to see what was going to happen. “You’ve been running around without a care in the world, you’ve been going free for way too long. You’ve been a bad girl and now your getting punished.” Your blood turned to ice as the gip on your horn tightened,

“Dad, please I’m so sorry. I’ll make sure we get home on time from now on, you’re drunk. Please don’t do this you’ll regret it come the morning.”

“Shut the fuck up (Y/n)!” He spat his tobacco spit flying all over your face, you grimaced trying not to choke in disgust. “You think you know everything about the world but you don’t, you’re a stupid naive child!” He slammed the side of your head against the brick wall of your house. You yelped in pain feeling something crack against the wall, but it wasn’t your skull, it was your right horn.

“Dad- Dad please stop my horn-” You pleaded as he dragged you back by the hair and slammed you into the wall again. Your horn cracked once more and you screamed in pure agony, blood began to stain the wall where your head it, and your horn began to crack. “DAD!” You sobbed out as your horn broke off falling on the ground with a thud. Blood began to drip down the side of your head, your sobbing seemed to snap Schlatt back to his senses as he let out a soft call of your name.

“Fuck. Fuck baby I’m so sorry.” His voice cracked pulling you into his chest, he pressed his hands against the stub of your horn. You whimpered in pain and Schlatt shushed you softly, “I’m so sorry baby girl. My little girl, I didn’t mean it.” His head pressed into the crook of your neck, just where Tubbo’s was moments prior. “I’m such a fuck up. I’d never hurt you...I can’t do this…”

“It’s okay…” Your voice cracked eyes wide and glassy, it wasn’t okay but you weren’t about to tell him that. “Can I go to bed now…”

“Lemme patch you up first. You might bleed out...scare Tubs.” Schlatt grumbled and you nodded numbly. He helped you to your feet and you swayed, your dad haphazardly bandaged the side of your head and cauterized your horn. That might’ve hurt even more than losing the horn on its own, you held back your whimpers as your dad apologized even more for the pain he caused. “Get some rest alright…I love you.”

“Love you to dad,” You gave him a soft kiss on the cheek, you waited until he slipped into his room before you made your way into Tubbo’s. The boy was downright sobbing under his blankets, you pulled back the covers to find him desperately clinging to his bee plush.

“(Y/n)?” He whimpered looking up at you with wide eyes,

“Hey, Tubs…” Your smile was tense and he frowned, “Mr. Bumbles protect you okay? Just like we talked about?” Tubbo nodded lip trembling, he reached his hand up to touch your bandages. You flinched at his touch,

“Where’s your horn.”

“Unimportant. Just got into a little scuffle with dad, nothing your big sister can’t handle. Tubbo why don’t we go see Mr. Phil.”

“But it’s so late?”

“It’s okay. Go pack up a bag, you’ll be there for a while.”

“What about you?”

You sent him another tight-lipped smile, “I can’t stay there with you, unfortunately.”

“Then I don’t want to go!” He huffed defensively, your smile was wiped off your face.

“Not a suggestion-”

“NO! I’m not leaving you!” You grunted feeling him slam into your middle wrapping you in a tight hug. “Not with him...I need you. Who’s gonna protect me? Or read me bedtime stories? Or kiss me goodnight!” He began to cry through his protests and you knelt in front of him, you placed your hand on his cheek.

“Technoblade and Phil can protect you just fine. Wilbur would love to read you and Tommy’s bedtime stories. You’re too old for goodnight kisses-”

“Am not!”

“I can’t protect you anymore, not from dad.” Your voice shook a little before swallowing thickly, Tubbo’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. He’s never seen you look so scared, you were serious. “You deserve to grow up normally and happily, with a good dad and family.”

“You're good family.” Tubbo insisted grabbing your bigger hand with his own, you let out a wet laugh and held your other hand to your mouth. Swallowing again before responding to Tubbo’s heartfelt compliment,

“I’ll always be your family and I’ll always be your big sister. But for now, you’ll temporarily be part of Tommy’s family. Just until I’m old enough to take you away from all of this.”

“Promise?” He held out his pinky,

“Promise.” You responded interlocking your pinky with his own, he seemed much more satisfied and willing to listen to you now. “Now go pack up alright? We gotta go before the morning,” Tubbo nodded at you and began to gather his things in his bag. Eventually, he was all packed up and you both snuck out towards Tommy’s home, the side of your head was throbbing and you felt completely off balance stumbling over your feet a few times. Tubbo grew concerned but never actually voiced said concern, the two of you came up on Phil’s doorstep. You loudly began to knock at the door and Technoblade answered sword drawn, glasses were haphazardly thrown on his nose,

“(Y/n)? Tubbo?” He blinked blearily, “it’s like three am what-” Adjusting the glasses he finally got a good look at the both of you, Tubbo was still in his footie pajamas and you had officially bled through your bandages. “Who did it.”

“Technoblade please-”

“Who. Hurt. You.”

“I’m so tired, please just go get your dad.” You pleaded locking your eyes with his own, they softened considerably before muttering under his breath.

“Fine. But I’m getting Wilbur to look at your horn.” He demanded marching away from the door, you gently urged Tubbo inside and you both sat down on their couch. Tubbo yawned sleepily and leaned against your side,

“You can go to sleep. You’re safe now Bumblebee.”

“But you’ll be gone when I wake up…” He held Mr. Bumble closer to his chest and you brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I want you to have Mr. Bumble!” Tubbo held the toy out to you, your lips dipped into a little frown.

“Tubs he’s your favorite-

“He protected me from dad. So I’m sure he’ll protect you too.” You wanted to sob as you took the bee from his hands, you were going to say something else when Phil and Wilbur walked into the room. Phil gave you a pitying smile, before calling Tubbo over to him.

“Hey mate. Let’s get you settled into the guest room for now yeah?” The older man smiled at your brother and he nodded sleepily walking over to Phil. He gave you a look that said we’ll talk later as Wilbur walked over to you, the frown on his face was rock solid.

“You gonna explain yourself?” He scolded you like a parental figure would, you bit your lip and shook your head. Wilbur sighed the bags under his eyes were dark and you murmured a soft apology. He reached out and took your cheek in his palm, he leaned close and you felt his breath on his lips. You felt your cheeks turn pink and he leaned in...to take a better look at your horn.

God, you were so stupid why did you think he was going to kiss you just now?

“Jesus Christ…” He murmured as he unwrapped your wound gently. “They fucked you up honey,” Wilbur said softly, his voice dripping with pure concern, “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m alright...It’ll get better.” You smiled a tight-lipped smile that only caused Wilbur’s eyes to flash with pure rage, “Seriously Will. Please just let it go.”

“I’ll never understand you.” He muttered grumpily, much like his brother did when he greeted you at the door. “How can you not want justice for what they did to you? I don’t understand-” Wilbur blinked a few moments pulling away from you, you refused to meet his eyes. “-Did your dad do this to you?” He saw the fear spark in your eyes, “that fucking piece of shit! TECHNO!”

“Wilbur please no- no please he didn’t mean too he was drunk!” You slapped your hands over your mouth and he looked at you with horror. “Wilbur please don’t do anything he didn’t mean to do it, I have to look out for him!” Your breathing got short and rapid, immediately Wilbur felt bad for being so aggressive, “He’ll die without me.”

“It’s not your job to look after your father.” Wilbur looked at you with pity,

“Yes, it is. He’s my family.”

“Family doesn’t do this to you.” He motioned to your missing horn, the motion now made you feel wildly self-conscious, “they don’t hurt you.” You bit the bottom of your lip so hard it began to bleed,

“Just don’t tell Technoblade. He’ll kill him. You know he will, I don’t want that.” Wilbur didn’t look happy about the situation but he agreed reluctantly, but only if you stayed the night alongside Tubbo. You told him you would,

But you’re a liar.

Phil came back into the room a little later and asked to talk to you privately. He asked you what was going on and you explained the entire situation to him, practically pleading for him to take your baby brother in while you got Schlatt under control. Phil of course agreed, but he was not happy about you going back to your dad, especially since you were already injured. You assured him all would be okay, your dad meant well and with Tubbo out of the house, you can put all your energy into fixing him.

Phil let you go that night, and he’d regret it for the rest of his life.

No one in the Minecraft household heard from you again after that night. You seemed to slip out of everyone's memory, Wilbur met Sally and she and his son consumed his life. Technoblade moved out of the house to spread his wings, and the only person who even seemed to care that you were missing was Tubbo. Yet, even so, you began to slip out of his memory too, barely remembering your face. It broke him to pieces that he couldn’t remember his sister, and when he asked Wilbur about you the man's memory was just as fuzzy. The only thing he had was the letters the both of you sent back and forth to one another, he’d gifted them to Tubbo after he discovered them again under his childhood bed. Tubbo thought that maybe, just maybe, word of their new nation would cause you to come out of hiding.

It didn’t.

Eventually, he had to leave his memory of you behind and focus on helping Tommy and Wilbur. He hoped wherever you were you were proud of him, you wouldn’t want him to be miserable and dwell on you, you’d want him to live.

When he saw his father upon the podium the day of the election all he wanted to do was confront him about you, but there were other things to worry about like the fact that Wilbur and Tommy had just gotten exiled. Schlatt died before he got to ask about you, then right after that Wilbur died by Phil’s hand and everything was blown to shit, he had Tommy and that was all he needed.

Wilbur woke up to the soft chirping of birds and an angel sitting on a hillside. He couldn’t feel the grass under his palms or his heartbeat, but he felt something warm flood through him when he saw the angel. She turned towards him, his memory of her was fuzzy but her name wasn’t, “(Y/n)?”

“Hi Wilby, long time no see.” You smiled softly, both horns were missing but your soft ears twitched eagerly.

“Where...are we?” Wilbur whispered walking over to you to sit by your side, “What happened to you?”

“I lost another horn being stupid. Died from an infection while dad was away on a trip.” You pulled your legs close towards your chest, “you’re dead Will. We’re dead. It’s been quiet here for so long.”

“Dead…” He breathed out the negative memories flooding into his brain; he squeezed his eyes shut tight. “Are we ghosts?” You shrugged your shoulders,

“I don’t know, never tried to...go back,” Wilbur watched as you ran your hand through the grass even though Wilbur knew you couldn’t feel it. “Tubbo would be disappointed in me. So upset I died, I’d rather he not know. Makes it easier on everyone I think.” You turned to him, hair falling in your eyes, they were empty and your skin was so pale, he couldn’t imagine what he looked like in comparison. “Are you going to go back?” You spoke again after a few moments of silence, there was a tense atmosphere that filled the room, you didn’t want to be lonely.

“If you’re here, that’s where I’m going to stay. At least for a little while.” Wilbur looked at you, your eyes wide with shock, a brilliant smile spread across your cheeks.

“Promise?”

“With all my heart honey.”

[mackeydoodledoo]

Demon or Human?

Pairing: Bela Dimitrescu x Demon (Fem!)Reader

Summary: A foreign invader comes into Castle Dimitrescu just as you were settling in with your new family. However, how far would you be willing to go to protect your newfound home and your newfound love?

Warning: Game spoilers (I’ll try to keep those at a minimum), Blood, Slight G0R3, uncontrollable demon rage, fluff at the end

A/N: In light of some Resident Evil Village spoilers... Let’s just say I WILL NOT HAVE IT! So, I guess this is another entry to my The Demon Amongst Vampires series! R is My Character: Hydrangea Dragonfold

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

1 Year..

You’ve been inhabiting Castle Dimitrescu for one year. Alcina had been able to persuade Mother Miranda to keep you in her care instead of letting you be hunted for sport. You’d probably survive it anyway, with your demon abilities. 

“I have to go to a meeting,” Alcina announces to you and her daughters, “Apparently Mother Miranda has found a foreigner man-thing in our village grounds.”

“A man?!” Daniela squeals of excitement

"A new plaything?!” Cassandra asks

“You must bring him here at once mother,” Bela says

She looks at her three children, almost looking like she is tired of their pleas. However, she recomposes herself

“I will have to persuade Mother Miranda as best as I can,” Alcina says, “I appoint Hydrangea on watch. Bela is in charge.”

You leave your mouth agape, hearing your name after while of Bela calling you “micul meu demon” or everyone else calling you demon.

“But mother-” Cassandra interrupts

“Why can’t it be either one of us?” Daniela motions to her and Cassandra

“Because I’m the oldest,” Bela flaunts her ‘eldest sibling title’

“There will be no complaints my daughters,” Alcina says, “Guard the castle well Hydrangea.”

“Of course My lady,” you say out of respect

“You have permission to call me Alcina Hydrangea,” She smiles

Alcina makes her exit. 

“I get the first bite on the man thing,” Daniela blurts out

“Not if I catch him first,” Cassandra interrupts

“Enough!” Both you and Bela scream

Your blue flames ignite slightly, almost setting the table on fire. However, you compose yourself. Thus, your flames ‘dieing’.

“We will wait for your mother to return,” You sigh, “Gosh you two are rowdy. No wonder why Bela is in charge.”

You ignite your flames once you stand, heading off towards the staircase. However, Bela follows you. You didn’t notice her presence until she grabs your wrist and pulls you into a room.

“Bela love what are you doing?” You ask

You try to get her to let go of you however, you stop fighting her as she doesn’t reply to you but only snakes her arms around your midsection, taking in your warmth that you were producing. Not only from your natural body heat, but your demon form as well. You were also sure that she was also listening to your racing heartbeat. The one thing you feared was giving too much heat, too much to the point where Bela and possibly everyone else you’ve come to love and care about they turn to ash because of your carelessness of your flames. 

“I... Love, I have to leave,” You sigh, placing your hand on her head and the other on her waist 

“No you don’t,” She counter argues

“I do my love,” You say, looking down at her, “I have to keep you three safe.”

“And you think we can’t protect ourselves?!” Bela asks

“That is not what I meant love,” You say, “It’s just... It’s just I’m not over what happened last time... If I hadn’t come when I did, you would have died... I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for that. I’d die if anything happened to you.”

Bela’s grip on you only tightens when you finish your sad ramble. This gets you in tears. You really couldn’t imagine the rest of your life without her.

“You’d die... For me?” She asks

“Of course I would love,” You smile, swooping her into your arms

Fortunately, your blue flames weren’t ignited enough to accidentally burn her. Your foreheads touch as you give her a kiss

“This is so much better,” Bela sighs in relief

“It really is,” You smile, “Thank you Bela.”

She kisses your forehead. You lay your head against her shoulder, hoping you could just stay like that for a little bit longer.

“Bela?” You ask, breaking the silence

“What is it my love?” She asks

“If this man... If this man scurries around the castle and hurts any of you,” You start, “What if I lose control of my demon form and I no longer see the human in me?”

“Simple, I‘ll get you out,” She answers

“What if you can’t?” You ask, worried now, “What if I’m the one who ends up hurting you?”

“Can you promise me one thing then?” She asks

You nod.

“The don’t use your full demon form,” She requests, “If you’re worried about hurting us, don’t use it. Should you though, I will pull you out.”

You had wished you were able to stay like that forever. However, you knew you had to begin your task. You and Bela give each other one last kiss before departing each others’ presence and embrace. Bela goes back down to the foyer to meet her sisters once more.

“You two okay?” Daniela asks, breaking the silence

“We are fine Daniela,” Bela answers

“Then when will the both of you just shut up and get married?!” Cassandra asks, clearly teasing Bela now

 “We are not-we don’t plan on that yet,” Bela says, “It’s never come up when we talk and we don’t need to yet.”

“Sure,” Daniela teases

As you were scouting the grounds of the castle, you already see Alcina returning to the castle.

“My lady!” You call out, “I’m assuming it didn’t go well?”

“Mother Miranda gave that man-thing to Heisenberg, of course I’m upset!” She groans in frustration, “I need a drink.”

You follow her back into the castle where her daughters immediately stand to greet her.

“Where’s the male foreigner?” Bela asks

“Mother Miranda gave him to Heisenberg that fool,” She groans

You all watch her walk up the stairs and disappear into the castle. You four seat back down into the couch, Bela leaning into your embrace. 

“How was scouting O-great demon king?” Daniela teases

“It was fine Dani,” you chuckle, “Are you just going to continuously make nicknames for me Dani?”

She nods as she leans back into the chair. However, before any of you could converse on, you could hear footsteps. You motion for the girls to stop talking.

“You guys hear that too?” You whisper

You motion for the three of them to follow you and once you get to the grand entrance of the castle, you see a man. 

“Looking for Rose?” Daniela calls out to him, taunting him

The three of them begin forming into their fly swarm and move toward him. You make the decision to tell Alcina herself that a man has entered the castle. 

“My lady, there is a man in the castle,” You sigh, “Your daughters are on the case. I’m not sure who he is- oh, speak of the devil, here they are.”

You hear the doors burst open along with struggled grunts. You look over and notice Cassandra and Bela dragging him in.

“Mother, I bring you fresh prey,” She says, trying to take the credit

“Oh, you are so kind to me daughters,” Alcina smiles, her daughters letting a slight giggle out of their mouths, “Now, let’s take a look at him.”

She stands up and faces him, “Well, well, Ethan Winters. You’ve escaped my little brothers’ idiot games did you? Let’s see how special you are.”

You watch Bela, Daniela and Alcina taste his blood. You stand next to Cassandra as you watch.

“Hey-Hey you, help me out!” Ethan pleas at you

You turn to look at him for a second. You feel your human willing to help him however, you end up turning your back to him, not willing to help him. If anything, you also hated men. 

“Starting to go a little stale,” Alcina says, “But, I must inform Mother Miranda. Later, there will be enough for everyone. Put him up.”

You watch again as Bela and Daniela hook his hands and Cassandra hoists him up. You hear him groan in pain as you all begin making your exit.

“Hey... Hey you!” He again calls for you, “Help me... Please...”

You stop in your tracks and look up at him. You only let out a low chuckle as Bela gently grabs your wrist and pulls you out from the room.

As you were finishing something with Cassandra you suddenly hear Bela’s grunts.

“Hey, I gotta go,” You say out of the blue

You follow Bela’s voice, rushing even further when you could hear her voice getting louder and louder.

“Bela! Bela!” You call out for her

You pass through the kitchen and notice Bela on top of Ethan. However, she doesn’t notice how he’s aiming his gun. Only you had noticed.

“Bela! The windows!” You scream, “He’s gonna shoot the windows!”

Believing that she didn’t hear you, you ignite your flames even more so than earlier. But, it’s concentrated to your palms. You begin melting the bars that had separated from you reaching Bela. However, just before the glass had gave way to the heavy damage, the bars melted enough for you to burst through. You hear Bela’s pained scream as the glass gave way to the heavy damage. 

“You- stupid man-thing!” Bela screams

You only pictured how she was the last time she was out in the cold. You let out an ear-piercing roar as you forcefully push Ethan out of the way to get to Bela. Igniting your flames ever so slightly, you pick Bela up and begin warming her up with your flames and your natural body heat. You go back into the dungeons and place her down gently, hoping you had warmed her enough.

“Are you okay?!” You ask, tears welling into your eyes

“I am now love,” She smiles, caressing your cheek

“Go!” You say, “Get your sisters an get somewhere safe! He knows! I’ll come find you.”

You watch Bela disappear into the dungeons, hopefully back into the castle to warn her sisters. You go back to where Ethan had shot the window. He was hoping you’d feel pain with the cold however, when you emerged from the cold wind, you came out, unphased.

“What the HELL ARE YOU?!” Ethan asks

“The one who will kill you,” You growl, taking in the cold, “My blood’s boiling...”

Your blue flame continue to ignite more than usual and you pounce onto him, snarling in his face. He tries to use his shotgun on you and he manages to graze the side of your head. He manages to wriggle himself out of your grip and shoots at you again, this time, in the shoulder. 

“Stay down kid,” He says mercilessly and runs into the direction you came

“Get back here you coward!” You scream, trying to stand

As your body began regenerating, you continuously crawled in the direction he was going in, beginning to track his scent. It was difficult as you were in the room where the wines are created. However, it didn’t stop you from continuing on the path. When you fully regenerated your shoulder, you get up nd try to track his scent as best as you could. However, when you only got back into the castle.

“Bela!” you call

You felt a hand on your wrist as you begin getting pulled into a room. A feeling of relief washes over you as you hug Bela tightly. You look over her shoulder and only see Cassandra with her.

“Where’s Daniela?” You ask, in a panicked state

“She ran off, hoping to take down the man herself,” Cassandra sighs

You hear the door burst open and it’s Alcina.

“That man will pay for what he’s done,” She growls, “My daughter are you hurt?”

“I was but- thanks to Hydrangea,” Bela sighs in relief, leaning into your shoulder to warm up some more

“Where’s Daniela?” Alcina asks

“She went to the library to take down the man mother, we tried to stop her,” Cassandra sighs

“You two stay with Hydrangea until I return with his head and Daniela,” Alcina orders before leaving again

She makes her leave. The three of you sit on the couch, Cassandra and Bela huddling against you for warmth. However, Bela practically seating herself into your lap.

“Do you have to be such a hog of the human furnace?” Cassandra looks at her older sister in annoyance

“I’m her girlfriend so buzz off,” Bela says

“She may be your girlfriend but I need some warmth too,” Cassandra growls

You could hear Daniela’s pained grunts and screaming. You stand up and place Bela down onto the couch next to her sister. You flick your finger and a small flame goes into the fire place, igniting the firewood.

“Alcina hasn’t found her yet,” You say, “I’ll go get Daniela the both of you stay here okay?”

Once you left the room you break into a run towards the library. You break through the door just as Ethan begins opening the roof to let in the cold air again.

“STOP!” You scream, grabbing onto Daniela

Sorry Bela... I have to do this... To protect all of you. You four accepted me almost instantly... I have to protect my home. I’m not letting anyone die here! The only one dying is him....

The ground around you became engulfed in blue flames, surrounding both you and Daniela

[A/n: not my gif]

“I got you Dani,” You say, the last time you heard your own voice

You look at Ethan completely deranged, more than Cassandra could ever look deranged at one of her “pets”. Ethan begins to walk backward however, tripping over an object.

“Let’s talk about this kid!” Ethan pleas, “From one human to another-”

“I’m not a human!” You spat, your demon voice overtaking your real voice, “I’m a demon! I protect my home and everyone in it!”

You let go of Daniela and leave her on the floor for Alcina to check on her. You throw Ethan out of the library. Alcina takes Daniela to where her other two daughters were. You throw him down a set of stairs. Coincidentally where Bela had opened the door.

You stand at the top of the stairs, looking down at Ethan, “You’ve overstayed your welcome... Time to say goodnight.”

“No-No please I beg you please I just wanted to find my daughter!” He screams

“All of this? For a child who isn’t even here?!” You mock him, “Your little baby could even be dead for all I care!”

Ethan draws his gun and pulls the trigger as a last resort to get you to stand down. However, you slice his arm off. You could hear his screams of pain as you now stand over him.

From the other room, Bela, Daniela, Alcina and Cassandra watch as you begin devouring his flesh. You stop after two bites out of his flesh you turn to the four women. Unable to feel your human, instead feeling your demon take full control over your body, you charge at Cassandra, Daniela, Alcina, even Bela. Alcina, being the protective mother she is, stands in front of her daughters, ready to slaughter you so if you lay a finger on her daughters like this. However, Bela runs past the three.

“Bela, get back here!” Alcina yells

Before you could lay a finger on them, Bela throws her arms around you, holding onto you tightly. As you flail your arms about, Bela still held onto you

“It’s me,” Bela says, calmly, “It’s okay now... I’m right here. Come back to me...”

You finally stopped flailing, your blue flames dissipating and your demon eye slits turning back into their round pupils.

“Be..la?” You call 

You gently place your hand on her head and the other around her. You sink into her touch and fall to your knees, Bela following your movements.

“It’s okay now,” She coos, “I’ve got you love. I’ve got you.”

You choke on your sobs as you hold onto Bela for dear life, sobbing into her shoulder.

“Bela did manage to get you out after all?” Alcina admires her oldest daughter, “And I thought I was going to have to kill her.”

Alcina sips her wine.

“Mother!” Bela growls

“I need to protect my prides and joys,” Alcina states

Bela was sitting in your lap as Daniela is huddled against your side and Cassandra on the floor facing you, Bela and Daniela.

“Do you really have to hog to the human furnace Bela? I’m the one who almost died,” Daniela growls

“She’s my girlfriend,” Bela draws the ‘girlfriend’ card for the millionth time

“How long do you intend on pulling that card against us Bela?” Cassandra asks

“As long as I want,” She smiles down at you

You smile back up at her, “Daniela, I also warmed you up in almost an instant with that amount of flames I emitted earlier. Did that not help?”

“Oh it did,” She smiles

“Then you don’t need to be complaining,” Bela scoffs

“By the way, I am digging the new look on you Hydrangea,” Cassandra says, smiling at you

Black horns with bright blue accents had remained from your blue flame horns or at least under them and a tail remained.

“Do you now Cass?” You smile, “I do too.”

Your tail unconsciously wraps itself around Bela’s waist. You could feel Bela’s fingertips playing with the fluff end of your tail, making your cheeks flush a faint pink.

“Awwww micul meu demon is blushing,” Bela teases

“Ssshut it,” You hiss

You weren’t sure how well you were going to do with that man-thing called Ethan Winters roaming around the castle. However, this was your home. You went to great lengths to protect it. Especially your new family and your girlfriend. Even if you would lose your human, you had Bela. You trust her enough to bring you back, should you lose sight of that human in you.

[cobrakaisb]

modern day romeo and juliet part 2

read part one here!

a/n: here is the largely anticpated part two of the imagine! after getting numerous asks begging for a part two, i decided to finally publish it. sorry it took me so long besties but school and softball have been kicking my ass lately. love you all!!! 

summary: you and hawk are going strong but your friendship with sam and demetri has fallen apart, or has it. (also warning: reader gets a bloddy nose in this imagine if that bothers you in anyway don’t read)

word count: 1,711

“so are you and hawk like together now?” moon asked as the two of you walked to the cafeteria. “yeah,” you answered, a light blush coating your cheeks. “oh my gosh yes! i’m so happy for you!” she shouted, wrapping her arms around your shoulders, squeezing tightly. “thanks moon,” you replied half-heartedly. moon immediately picked up on your sad demeanor, “what's wrong?” “nothing,” you answered, giving her a fake smile. moon was going to call your bluff, but she was interrupted by hawk. “hey guys,” he greeted, pulling you into a tight hug. 

“hi hawk,” you replied, arms wrapped around his waist as he swayed you back and forth. “are you sitting with us at lunch?” he asked, looking at you. “yeah probably. your friends won’t mind right?” you asked. hawk immediately shook his head no, the two of you just staring at each other intensely. “you guys are so cute! i’ll see you later y/n,” moon announced, walking away from you and hawk. the two of you pulled apart, hands intertwined as he led you over to the cobra kai table. 

“anything from sam?” hawk asked quietly. you gently shook your head, causing hawk to frown. he placed a gentle kiss on your forehead, “she’ll come around,” he assured. “i hope so,” you mumbled as the two of you sat down at the cobra kai table. your sad mood was immediately lifted however when doug and big red started throwing napkins at you. 

“i can’t believe she’s actually sitting with him,” demetri said, appalled at the fact that you were sitting with hawk at lunch. “why wouldn’t she be sitting with hawk? they’re together now,” moon said, a happy smile on her face as she watched you laugh from your spot next to him at the cobra kai table. “i still can’t believe that. how could y/n even like someone like him?” sam asked, angrily stabbing at her lunch with a fork. moon’s eyes widened as she watched sam. “aren’t you happy for her?” moon asked, confusion clear in her voice. 

sam scoffed at moon’s words. “why would i be happy that she’s fraternizing with the enemy?” sam asked. “the enemy? do you even hear yourself?” moon asked sam, and even demetri looked surprised by sam’s words. sam was silent, shooting a sad look your way. “you regret it don’t you?” demetri accused sam, but she just remained silent, looking down at her lunch. “regret what? what did you guys do?” moon asked. 

“when we caught y/n and hawk kissing at your party a while back, we may have kicked her out of miyagi-do,” demetri mumbled, feeling ashamed by their actions. “are you kidding me!” moon yelled, causing some heads to turn, but she just shooed them off with a wave of her hand. “that’s why y/n has been so down lately? because you kicked her out of karate?” moon asked, while demetri and sam just nodded. “you guys are the worst,” she continued. “thanks for reminding us,” sam mumbled, sparing a glance at you. 

you were laughing at something that doug had said. “that’s too funny,” you mumbled between laughs. the boys just laughed at how funny you found doug’s joke, when in reality it wasn’t meant to be that funny. “i can’t believe that you’re in miyagi-do y/n. you’re nothing like those dorks,” doug said. you tensed up at his words, and hawk took immediate notice. he glared at doug, ready to tell him off, but you beat him to it. “i’m actually not in miyagi-do any more. they kicked me out,” you said sadly. the boys all looked around in embarrassment. “but it’s whatever because i have a boyfriend and all the children we adopted now,” you joked, holding up peace signs.

“what kids did we adopt?” hawk asked, confusion clear in his voice. “literally everyone here. they are all out children,” you explained, gesturing to the table full of boys. the boys all burst into laughter while hawk just wrapped his arm around your shoulders, pulling you into his side. you rest your head on his shoulder, placing a small kiss on his neck. “ew! imagine having to watch your parents do that!” doug shouted jokingly, throwing a fruit snack your way. everyone laughed at him, and soon lunch was over.        

--

“hawk! wait for me!” you shouted, walking out of the locker room dressed for gym class. hawk immediately stopped walking, waiting for you to catch up to him. “hi!” you said, giggling as he peppered small kisses all over your face. “hawk let’s go!” one of his friends yelled from up ahead. hawk grabbed your hand, intertwining your fingers, as he pulled you towards the front of his squad. 

together the group of you walked onto the soccer field. of course the boys were being confident, walking with their heads held high. you just rolled your eyes at them and their cocky behavior. “alright let’s remember to keep the aggression to a minimum due to the school’s new policy,” the gym teacher shouted as she blew the whistle signaling the start of the soccer game. 

almost immediately, sam and the other miyagi-do students were blatantly going for the cobra kai boys. you noticed that doug was about to retaliate but hawk held him back, mumbling something, which clearly calmed him down. the game continued, and hawk scored a goal. you cheered loudly for him, and he just winked at you, causing you to blush. the game went on, and each dojo was getting progressively more aggressive. you were running down the field when someone called you name, causing you to turn around. the next thing you knew, the soccer ball was flying towards your face. you didn’t have anytime to cover your face, and so you got hit in the face with the ball. 

“what the fuck!”  you shouted, hands flying up to your nose which was now gushing blood. “y/n!” hawk called from across the field, running over to you. “baby let me see it,” he demanded, pulling your hands away from your face. he removed your hands, and tilted your head back to help stop the flow of blood. “who did this?” hawk asked loudly, glaring at everyone around him. when nobody answered he shouted even louder, “who did it?” this time sam stepped forwards. “it was an accident, i swear,” she rushed, looking nervously between you and hawk. 

hawk rolled his eyes at sam, his jaw and fists clenching. “yeah i’m sure it was,” he growled, taking a threatening step towards her. “hawk!” you shouted, but he ignored you. “i-” sam started but she was cut off by hawk. “what? kicking her out of karate wasn’t enough? i get it that you guys don’t like me, but just because we’re together doesn’t mean that you should punish her for it. especially since we’re happy. don’t come near her again!” he finished, and you couldn’t help but swoon. he’s defending my honor. that’s so hot, you thought.  

after his conversation with sam, hawk took you to the nurse’s office. she just gave you an ice pack and some paper towels, before sending you back to class. you and hawk were walking to your next class when sam and demetri approached the two of you. “i thought i told you to stay away from her,” hawk said, stepping forward but you stopped him by placing your hand on his chest. hawk huffed, but stayed quiet. it was silent between the four of you, all of you just staring at each other. “was there something you guys needed?” you asked. 

demetri cleared his throat. “yeah we were hoping to talk to you. preferably without your boyfriend,” he said and hawk tried to step forward but you stopped him once again. “yeah that’s fine. i’ll see you in class babe,” you answered, kissing hawk’s cheek before shooing him away. once he walked down the hall, and was far enough away from you, you looked towards demetri and sam. “what was it that you wanted to talk about?” you asked, crossing your arms. 

“we wanted to invite you back to miyagi-do. it was wrong of us to kick you out,” sam said, not making eye contact with you. you scoffed at her words. “why should i even come back? you guys made it pretty clear that you didn’t want me there,” you said. “that’s because you’re dating hawk of all people!” sam shouted at you, and you glared at her. “sam! we came to make amends not cause more problems!” demetri interjected, glaring at the larusso girl. 

“look y/n, i’m sorry, for everything. i know that you really like hawk, and that the two of you are happy together. and,” demetri started, taking a deep breath, “if you’re happy then i’m happy for you. i understand if you don’t want to come back to miyagi-do or even be our friend, but i just want you to know that i’m sorry for everything, nose included.” you smiled at demetri’s apology. “thanks demetri, that means a lot. i don’t think that i’ll come back to karate, but i’d love it if we could try and fix our friendship,” you said, looking at him. “yeah, i’d like that,” demetri answered, a big smile on his face. 

the two of you turned to face sam, who remained silent the whole time. “i’m sorry too y/n. i never should’ve kicked you out of miyagi-do for being with hawk, especially since you guys are great together. and i’m sorry for your nose. i’ve been such a bitch to you, and i understand if you don’t accept my apology, but i would like to be friends again,” sam apologized, looking at you shyly. you smiled softly at the girl, “i’d like that.” sam smiled back at you. you all knew that things were going to be different now, and this isn’t something that you were just going to forgive and forget, but you were all willing to make amends and that’s all that matters. 

you walked into your next class, taking your seat next to hawk, with a smile on your face. “everything okay?” he asked, looking you over. “everything’s perfect,” you answered, kissing him softly.  

[broiunno]

License to Steal - Act IV

License to Steal

ACT IV

Act I // Act II // Act III // Act IV

---

summary: Min Yoongi is your new protection detail upon your return to your father's side after being sent away during a bloody gang war. Now the dust has settled, you've been called back to your old controlled life, and leaving you an unwilling participant in your family's plans. You don't know what they are but you are no longer willing to be the obedient, protected daughter. You don't really care in the least of it makes Yoongi's new assignment hell on earth- So you'll carve your own life out back home on your own terms.

-rating: 18+

-pairing: min yoongi x reader

-word count: 5.8k

-warnings: swearing, gang activities includes drug mention and eventual drug use, the slowest of burns, organized crime, toxic af family dynamics, BEWARE IN THIS ACT: graphic family abuse (father initiated verbal and physical assault- does not fade to black), violence, blood, graphic descriptions of torture, and graphic sex scenes will be included in this work.

-authors note: @chelsea-chee leading the au as usual. I love her the appreciate her as my love, writer, and my beta. Her works are *chefs kiss* Thank you again beautiful <3 PLEASE NOTE: I AM REALLY NOT EXCITED TO POST THE NEXT FEW ACTS. They deal with heavy subject matter and I don't fade to black at any point so please note my works are for mature audiences, warnings are there for a reason and in bold. You are an adult if you are reading this work (per the warnings) and you are responsible for the content you consume. Thank you. ILY all and I love asks about the characters. And that's all I have to say about that...I'm sorry for the wait. I've had covid. I'm back on a better schedule now.

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

You fumbled with your hair as you tried to rip your fingers through the still damp strands to assemble it back into a semi-presentable pony tail as the door slid open to your father’s office. You really did wish that you had been able to go upstairs and shower. Or at least change your clothes from the workout gear you currently felt sticking to your skin from the cooling sweat. As a breeze drifted from the vent as the air kicked on, you shivered violently, shaking your head and shooting a hateful stare in Yoongi’s direction as you stepped into the office. Appearances were everything in your family. They were the first level of protection to ensure threats stayed at a minimum. A show of strength and cohesiveness discouraged any hair-brained ideas from a weaker or less organized opposition.

Your father raised a dark, thick brow, turning from the man was speaking quietly to, his expression unreadable as you inclined your head slightly in greeting. “You asked to see me?” you said quietly, keeping your eyes downcast. Since Yoongi had mentioned your father was summoning you, you knew it couldn’t be anything positive. This soon after your arrival? Nothing good would come of this. You had just grabbed onto the distraction of Yoongi until you both stood in the office, feeling stripped bare, awaiting whatever admonishment was about to be delivered.

“You couldn’t make it a full forty-eight hours without causing me a migraine,” your father said sharply and you kept your eyes trained on the floor, as you replayed yesterday in your mind.

“Father, I don’t know what you-”

“Y/N, you weren’t even back a day and you spent how much?” he said, aggravation lacing his tone. “I had to call in Kim to look at your accounts immediately. You’re a fucking hassle.” He huffed and your eyes finally lifted to the stranger that stood next to your father, noting that he stepped away from your father and bowed quickly.

“Nice to meet you, miss. I’m Kim Namjoon. I’ve been handling your accounts and will continue to do so.” You felt your lips part in a soft ‘oh’ as you studied the broad planes of his face, full lips and intense eyes. You felt like he was picking you apart in that moment as you took your time to absorb his ash blond hair in a relaxed, but carefully crafted style. His skin tone was golden; a contrast to Yoongi’s milk-like skin. He glowed, and you couldn’t tell if it from his melanin or the fact that he was radiating intelligence.

“N-Nice to meet you too,” you stammered and managed to close your mouth as he pushed up the rolled sleeves of his white button-down shirt. You swallowed hard and tried to claw through the mental fog that had overcome you. With the teasing from both Jungkook and Yoongi, being presented with another god-like man was the last thing you needed. “I will admit I’m a little confused; my spending was never a problem when I was away? I mean, it’s not like I bought a car.”

Your father barked a laugh and threw up his hands. “You have no grasp on what I do to make this money that you just piss away Y/N! And you COULD have bought a car with the amount you spent yesterday! Like I said: a god damn burden!” he hissed and you flushed slightly, taking a step back unconsciously as you watched his neck flush. Yoongi hadn’t said a word, but you knew you could still sense his dark presence in the corner of the room, not looking at him to notice his eyes narrowed slightly as the scene unfolded.

“Y/N, I’ve had an idea. You’re a daughter. I can’t do much with you. Your brother who I could actually have used is dead. Your mother-” He stopped as he watched your eyes bulge and he shook his head. “I can’t have more children. I’d consider it disrespectful to her memory,” he mused, a hand running along his chin and you couldn’t help the scoff that escaped you, but your jaw snapped shut audibly as your teeth clacked together after the noise passed your lips.

Your father’s eyes flared to life in challenge and he glanced at Namjoon, lip curling. “Did you calculate her estimated cost of living and monthly expenditures? Do you have solid numbers?” he said shortly and Namjoon just nodded, eyes flicking between the family members silently. “And did you adjust for a profit at the margin we discussed?”

“Yes sir,” came the deep steady voice, Namjoon’s eyes traveling your figure, his gaze not heavy with lust or desire, but full of curiosity. “The monthly amount that you should request for that profit is in the proposal if you would like to review it.” He finished and cleared his throat. “I can return if you want me to look over the contract,” he said softly, clearing fishing for a dismissal and your father granted it, offering his hand and you felt your mouth tighten in confusion.

“What contract?”

Namjoon grabbed a briefcase and inclined his head to you stiffly in farewell before his long legs carried him out the doorway. Your father’s gaze didn’t leave your eyes as he spoke. “Yoongi, see him out.” Yoongi nodded and started after the tall man in silence, not sparing you a second glance on his way out.

“I asked you what contract?” you said softly, struggling to keep your voice even as your father stepped closer to you.

“Well, you went out. Spent a lot of money that you’ve done nothing to earn, and caught someone’s eye in the process. Someone worth a lot of money and who would be an asset to have closer to the family at this point in his career.” Your father clasped his hands behind his back as he continued to close the distance between you, each step he made, you felt your heart plummet further.

“Father… what exactly are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything, Y/N. I’m telling you. Someone’s made a bid for your hand, and it’s the only thing you’ll be good for at this point. The shopping sprees, your lifestyle. I can maintain them, but if someone else is willing to do so, and the marriage benefits me in my business, I’d be stupid not to pursue it. Do you think I’m stupid, Y/N?” he said, voice getting dangerously quiet as he reached out to tuck a piece of hair that had escaped the rapidly put-up ponytail behind your ear.

“You can’t sell me off like fucking cattle!-” you said, flinching away from his touch, and his large, calloused hand shot out to grab your chin tightly. He forced your face back towards his as you tried to jerk away, squeezing hard enough to make your eyes begin to water. Your heart thudded out a dangerous irregular rhythm as you breathed hard through your nose.

“I can’t? Y/N, you seem to be under the delusion that you are free from the responsibilities that come with being in this family. I suppose that may be my fault. I was too soft on you, pitied the losses I caused you to have. I always had your brother anyway; there was no harm in indulging you. But now, you’re the only one with my blood in your veins. You’re home to do a service for this family. Everyone else has given their lives in some way. Did you think you were special?” His words were measured and cold as he studied you, grip not loosening on your face. You would be bruised tomorrow as you felt the throb set in from the pressure he was applying.

“You may order me to do it, but I don’t have to go along with this,” you hissed, barely able to open your jaw, but clenching your teeth to get your words out, rage licking up and down your body. He had taken your entire life as a child, as an adolescent. Did he really think giving you a few years of freedom put you back in his debt so far that you owed him the rest of your life?!

No sooner than the words were out of your mouth you heard the sharp crack, and felt yourself stumbling backwards into the wall. You blinked quickly as you registered the pain in your head, immediately starting to pound as the metallic taste of blood filled your mouth. You barely had time to regain a semblance of your bearings before your father was upon you again, face chillingly blank as his ringed fingers gripped the base of your ponytail, ripping your head back at an awkward angle, a scream breaching your bloody lips. The noise was cut short by another blow, snapping your head to the side before he jerked your face back to center.

“Who do you think you are, you little bitch?” he said with a lilt to his tone as you choked out a sob, unable to keep it from escaping your lips. “You really thought you weren’t going to do shit to replace that money you spent?” When he finished speaking he gave your head a violent shake, as if to scramble your thoughts further. It was completely unnecessary, as your head felt as if it was splitting with the pain he had rocked through you with his blows and harsh grip. You felt the start of a purely hysterical giggle break through, spitting out the fresh rush of blood that ran in your mouth due to the cuts in your cheek from your teeth. You noticed a piece of the skin from inside your mouth flapping loosely that made you nauseated if you dwelled on it.

The laugh was probably the worst response you could have had.

You heard a soft hiss, and your father stepped into your space further, hands darting from your head to wrap themselves around your throat and squeezing. As your hands scrambled to scratch at his hand, his arm, his face, anything, you wished you were surprised at this. You wished you were hurt because you were shocked, but you weren’t. There was blood in the water and he was a shark. He built his life this way.

“You don’t have to go along with this…” he said softly, voice void of emotion, “but you also don’t have to keep living here either. How long will you make it without this family? You’d never make it out of the city.” He mused and continued to squeeze, your vision starting to spot as you tried to draw in any bit of air within the hold he had, the choking heaves under the weight of him making the blood that had pooled in your mouth from his blows spill over your chin grotesquely as it began to stream onto his hand. “So will you behave for once in your fucking life?”

You were hyper aware of the tears streaming down your face as you managed the smallest of nods. You supposed he was right; you had never imagined you would be used in the family in any way. Your entire life had been lonely, and even though you hated it, you had resigned yourself to it. His hands unwrapped themselves from your neck, letting you inhale a burning gasp of air as you slid down the wall, and onto the floor. You coughed and rocked forward onto all fours as the shaking of your body didn’t allow for much more than consciousness.

Your father pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the crimson of your blood off his hand before tossing it to you on the floor. You could barely recognize the quick but unhurried footsteps coming back down the hallway to the office before they stopped short.

“Yoongi, take her upstairs.”

==

The flush from hustling back to his boss’s office drained from Yoongi’s face as his eyes widened at your figure hunched forward onto your elbows on the floor. He watched you hack as your body tried to clear your airway. Yoongi stayed silent as he reached down, crouching next to you and attempting to offer you a hand so you could stand on your own, for which you were thankful. You felt the physical pain, but no emotions as your mind sluggishly screamed at you to just accept his hand and stand. You needed to walk out of here on your own. You knew you wouldn’t make it all the way to your room after the assault, but you didn’t need to. Just to the elevator.

You reached out your hand, shaking hard, as you clasped at his large palm and hoisted yourself up, letting him pull lightly as he stood with you, noting that he was still silent. You tried to ignore how your vision swam before you, willing your knees not to buckle. You couldn’t pinpoint if the unsteadiness was from the blows to your face, the lack of oxygen, or the tears that had thankfully stopped streaming down your face but still filled your eyes.

Yoongi seemed to read your mind, shifting his grip from your hand to your upper arm, nestling in your underarm and gently steered you to the door, but let you support most of your weight on the way out. You walked in silence as he didn’t rush you down the hallway, both of your eyes trained on the lift door as he typed in the code. As you waited for the door to open you felt your shaking legs betray you and start to bend. You glanced away from him, the movement of your eyes causing a piercing pain to shoot through your head. “Please,” was all you rasped wetly as you put more weight and started to sink, but the pressure holding you up immediately doubled, Yoongi’s support forcing you upright, even if it made your shoulder raise. It would be almost imperceptible from your father’s office if he was still looking in your direction, but you doubted he would. He had already received your submission; he didn’t need you for anything else.

Yoongi didn’t seem to want to take the chance that he was still watching, stepping into the elevator and continuing to only hold you in one place. His grip was still disguised as if he was walking you out in the same way he may escort an associate who was no longer welcome - in such a manner that would deter any further escalation. No one would be able to tell he was the only thing keeping you upright.

As the door slid shut to the elevator the facade crumbled, you lurching forward and gasping out a sob of pain, tilting your head down to let the blood that had been collecting in your mouth pour out onto the floor. You forgot how much mouth wounds bled. Yoongi was not bothered with the grotesque display as he swiftly adjusted his grip to wrap around your shoulders, his other arm sweeping at your feet as he lifted you with apparent ease. You shut your eyes as the tears began to flow once more, unable to restrain the moans and whimpers of pain that escaped between gasps as you cried. He still hadn’t said a word, even as you turned your face into his suit jacket, inhaling jaggedly as you tried to focus on the scent permeating from him, trying to place it through your snot-filled nose. The only thing you could recognize was the warm, woodsy scent of patchouli as you reached a shaking hand up to hold onto his jacket tightly. You knew he wouldn’t drop you, but it grounded you all the same.

You tried to slow your breathing, but failed as the elevator door opened and Yoongi strode quickly to your bedroom door, bending at the knees and somehow using his crook of his elbow and his body to turn the door knob, the only change in your positioning being that you tilted slightly as he spun it. He kicked the door with his foot gently as he stepped in, by-passing your bed as he carried you into your bathroom, carefully getting on his knees as he lowered you into your large bathtub as he placed you there. You continued to breath quickly, your gasps becoming sharper as your gentle shaking soon became uncontrollable. You released his jacket as he stood and you pulled your knees to your chest, shutting your eyes finally as you heard the tap briefly run before a cool rag brushed your chin, eyes flying open as you flinched away.

“Shh, I need to see your face. I have to get the blood off,” Yoongi whispered, and you finally looked at him, noting his face was still paler than normal. “Princess, I need you to take a slow, deep breath okay? Can you do that? Your lips are turning blue; you’re hyperventilating. You’re safe,” he murmured, brows pinching together in a pained expression you had never seen on his face as you tried to nod, attempting to take a long breath in but ended up gulping in air multiple times on the way, the blurring of your vision worsening as Yoongi grimaced, your breathing speeding up again, your shoulders shrugging with the effort to take in air. The last thing you heard was Yoongi’s tense exclamation of “Shit!” before you blacked out.

==

When you awoke, you were under the covers of your large bed. You sat up quickly before groaning from the ache in your head, then realizing that opening your mouth made you want to scream from pain. Between the squeeze on your jaw and the cuts inside your mouth, it was safe to say you would be saying very little for a while. You glanced towards the window, noting it was inky black outside.

“How long has he hit you?” came a cool voice from beside your bedside and you turned to face the source, seeing a figure standing beside the small table, casting a shadow with the aid of a lamp. Had he even left? Yoongi had shed his stained suit jacket, but still wore the white shirt and same suit pants. You only knew it was the same shirt due to the blood stain from where your mouth must have painted him. Instead of attempting to speak, you shrugged in an attempt to get his gaze off of you. It was piercing and unnerving. You felt as if this was the beginning of an interrogation, and you didn’t fail to notice the color had still not returned to his normally pale face. Now that your mind was a bit clearer you were able to recognize why it registered so deeply with you. He was the embodiment of white with fury. “How. Long?” he said again with such harshness you swallowed hard, ignoring the fire that licked down your throat as you did so.

“That’s a joke right? He’s always been like that. I just normally am better at avoiding it,” you forced out; your words were almost incoherent as you tried to move your jaw as little as possible as you spoke. That was bearable. Good. Not that you had expected it to be, but at least your jaw wasn’t broken; that would have been a pain in the ass. “What time is it?”

“It’s three am,” Yoongi hissed as his eyes glimmered in the near darkness, pushing off the wall and grabbing a glass of water off the table and sweeping a few pills into his hand. “Take these.” You took his offering and a small sip of the water before carefully throwing the pills to the back of your throat and washing them down, sighing softly. “They’re pain pills. They’ll help and you’ll be able to go back to sleep in a bit.”

You didn’t answer but pulled back the cover of your bed and slid out, noting that your bloody shirt had been changed but you still had on your sports bra and leggings. And your ponytail had been taken down, which was probably a good thing since your scalp was still aching from the hold your father had you in.

“Y/N… don’t.” Came Yoongi’s voice, still unemotional but a bit gentler than his earlier tone. You didn’t turn back to him but stopped your path to your vanity, obviously trying to look at your reflection in the mirror to assess the damage.

“Is it that bad?” you grumbled, turning to him and you watched him shrug.

“It’s not good. Don’t worry about it tonight. No bones are broken from what I can tell. I wiped you down the best I could. Just change once I leave and get back into bed.”

You let out a deep breath but finally stepped towards your closet instead to grab an oversized t-shirt. You could work the bra off under it and slip your pants off once you had it on. “Why did you even stay?” you said softly as you set to work, your muscles aching as you attempted to change modestly. You don’t know why it even mattered, but in this moment it did.

“I needed to know if he had done this before. I needed to know if this was the first time. When we were kids, you weren’t around all the time. Sometimes, I’d go months without seeing you. I didn’t know if this was a part of it,” he spat out, visibly tensing as he took a loud steadying breath.

You shrugged as you pulled off your leggings, successful in stripping your bra off under the shirt, and padded back to your bed. “There were a few reasons he kept me separated from everyone. It wasn’t all because he thought I was too precious to see any of this.” You climbed back into bed and tried to settle back into the plushness. Yoongi took a step closer to you, his mouth slightly open as he watched you try to get comfortable, seemingly unable to stop himself.

“Y/N…” he said softly and reached a hand towards you and you stiffened, eyes narrowing, and he took note, dropping his hand slowly.

“Yoongi, I never asked for your fucking pity.”

“I know, and it makes me want to help you even more.”

You blinked and tried to register what he was implying. “Help me?” you repeated, shaking your head as you felt the same hysterical laugh bubble up that had made your assault that much worse in your father’s office. “No one can help me!” You laughed, eyes widening as the smile twisted your features. “This is my life, this is what I was born into. This is what all those shiny things cost, Yoongi! I always knew it but I forgot.” You watched as the pained expression from earlier slid back over his features, and you raised your eyebrows in response. “I appreciate it, but unless you’re willing to put a bullet in my fucking head there’s no saving anything.”

“Who says it has to be your head, Princess?” he said gently and you swear you felt the world stop.

“Don’t say shit like that Min,” you hissed, baring your teeth and shaking your head. “Even if we don’t always get along, I don’t want you dead too.”

“Whatever you say Princess,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips as he cocked his head to the side. “Are you alright to sleep? You don’t feel like you’re going to vomit?” he asked seriously, watching as you shook your head.

“I don’t have a concussion,” you grumbled but as you watched him smirk and go to grab his jacket you felt your heart speed up. “Yoongi- w-wait.” He immediately stopped, as if he was anticipating your words. “Can you stay here the rest of the night? I know he won’t do anything but I-”

“Let me go change my clothes. Is that okay Princess?”

“Yeah… I just don’t want to be-”

“It’s fine Y/N. I’ll be right back.” You stayed sitting up, watching him as he dismissed your attempts at explanations and justification as he walked out.

You sighed, leaning against the leather headboard and let your breathing even out, even as your heart still raced. The pain began to slowly ebb as the medication took effect; what had you even taken? It had to be something strong as a comfortable fog began to cloud your thoughts.

You didn’t know why you felt the need to have him here. Did you even need to explain? He was technically your bodyguard. You had known each other most of your lives. You had just suffered through an assault; staying with you was reasonable. Even if the assailant wasn’t unknown, nor were the motives. At the end of the day, Yoongi’s presence made breathing a bit easier. His presence made you feel safe.

The door opened again and you sucked in a breath as Yoongi re-entered your bedroom, one hand carrying his gun and holster, the other a hanger with a clean pressed suit. “I’ll wake up before you,” was all he said in response to your surprised expression as he studied you. He mistook the shock on your face as being accredited to the suit. He was an idiot if he thought you cared about the fact he would dress here. You were too busy drinking in the sight of his lean figure in low-slung grey sweatpants. You tried to rip your gaze back to his face but you got caught on the black ribbed tank top and the swirling black tattoos covering his shoulder and chest before disappearing under the material.

“I didn’t know you had tattoos,” you choked out, feeling your face flush and mentally slapping yourself. He may look like sex on legs, but you looked like you just had the shit beat out of you. Which to be fair to yourself, you actually just had the shit beat out of you.

“Oh, I forgot,” he said, a small smirk tilting his lip up but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He draped his suit over the chair to your vanity and carried his gun with him towards the plush armchair in the corner of the room.

“The bed is big enough Min. I won’t touch you,” you said breathlessly, trying to force away the blush that was deepening across your face. He seemed to freeze and take a few steadying breaths.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Princess.” His voice was controlled but quiet.

“Please Yoongi…” you said just as quietly. “It’s just for tonight. I won’t feel safe if you’re all the way over there.”

It was definitely an over exaggeration. You hadn’t really expected him to even agree to stay in your room with you. The chair was the reasonable option. You knew you were pushing it.

“Princess, I-” He breathed, the airiness of his tone making your belly somersault and it gave you a tiny shiver.

“Yoongi, please. I need you next to me. Just tonight.” You shouldn’t be so worried about getting this man into bed with you, but now that he was here in front of you and it was so close to happening, you felt you might cry if he denied you.

You watched his back muscles rippled as he tensed and tried to relax. He turned wordlessly and walked to the opposite side of the bed, setting his holster down and climbing into the king-sized bed with you. “Go to sleep Princess.”

The drugs had to be prescriptions, not that you really expected a member of an organized crime family to just take a regular aspirin when they were in pain. “Is the oxy working yet? It should start soon if it hasn’t.” You hummed your assent as you squirmed down into the bed and tried to keep the smile from your face as you reached over and turned out the lamp. You took a deep breath and shut your eyes, savoring the heat that quickly built from having two bodies under the covers of your bed, ignoring the slightly annoyed sigh from the other side of the bed.

“Be quiet Min, I’m trying to rest,” you said softly and a soft dry chuckle cut through the silence as you let sleep take you.

==

Yoongi’s POV

Yoongi listened to the soft sounds of your breathing as they lengthened and deepened, the pain pills having done their job perfectly. If only he could have done his job in such a manner. He had been given a job: to keep you safe, and he took it seriously. Even if the one assigning his work was an abusive piece of shit. Yoongi let out a sigh, glancing over at your figure in the dark to make sure his huff hadn’t disturbed your slumber. It didn’t. You were still laying there, eyes closed and unaware, your face turned towards him to afford him a view of what exactly your father had done in his absence.

He felt his teeth grind against each other as even in the dark, he could make out the near black bruises covering your neck in the clear shape of hands, a bloom crossing your smooth cheek as well. Even your chin and jaw were dark from bruising; evidence that your father had held your face to force submission. It had worked. He opened his mouth and stretched his own jaw to try and stop himself from continuing to grind his molars down to nothing in rage. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to forget how you looked and how he felt when he entered the office, watching the blood drip onto the floor. How he wanted nothing more than to simply pull out his gun and lodge a bullet into your father’s knee before proceeding to swing the butt of his gun down onto him until he shattered every bone in the pig’s disgusting face.

Until he begged him to stop. Until he begged his daughter to tell Yoongi to stop.

The daydream made Yoongi smile a full gummy smile and chuckle for the first time today. He would stop when you told him to. If you told him to. Now that he knew your father had put his hands on you before this, he wondered if you would just let him continue until his mania at seeing what had been done to you was sated. He knew it wouldn’t be until he heard your father’s death rattle, knowing it had been at his own hands.

You stirred slightly to readjust in your sleep, drawing his attention back to the present as you moved closer to him in the bed and he sucked in a breath. Even beaten and bruised you affected him. Even carrying you in that elevator down the hall as you clutched onto him. He had been spiraling down into violence but as soon as you grabbed his jacket, he knew you wouldn’t withstand even him raising his voice to anyone without shattering. You were normally so fierce and seeing you broken made him want to tear apart this entire society you both lived in, even if it was all either of you had ever known.

It was then he had decided he would be what you were asking of him with your sobs and how you clutched onto him; he would be as gentle as could be and give you whatever you needed tonight. Tomorrow he would begin the undertaking of dismantling your father piece by fucking piece.

He had watched over you after you passed out; you had woken up briefly for him to get you to take pain medicine once before you actually were able to speak to him. Before you asked him to stay with you. He wanted to pretend it didn’t make his icy heart crack, the way you tried to explain and justify his presence. He would never ask you to in this kind of situation. When Yoongi returned to his room, he attempted to steel himself for a night of sitting in that uncomfortable chair, and a sleepless day tomorrow. He had gone more than twenty-four hours without sleep before.

But when your eyes, even if they had started to become glossy and dilated from the drugs, began to run over him, he had to try and think of every unsexy thing he could fathom. You had just been fucking violated and just with one look he felt the blood travel away from his brain and pool below his waist. Why did he think he would be able to wear sweatpants while staying with you? You destroyed every semblance of self control he had. He still hadn’t forgotten your teasing in the elevator prior to this shit show.

Then your soft drowsy voice had called out to him just as he had regained his mental fortitude and continued to the chair. You would be the fucking death of him and he didn’t think he would really mind. Now, as he laid here in bed with you trying to ignore the fact that you were shifting closer to him in your sleep, seeking his warmth, he closed his eyes. He had anticipated the pure fury of tonight keeping him awake, but instead it was the fact that he could feel your breath on his neck, that if he turned his head back to you he could still make out your absolutely gorgeous feminine form from under the blankets. The dip in your waist and the curve of your hips, sloping into your soft thigh. Yoongi’s eyes shot open as he let out a soft hiss as he felt his member stiffen in his sweats, one large hand reaching down to palm himself, and he willed his hard-on to disappear.

He dropped his eyes again, confident he would get his bulge to go down without waking you, and as he tended to it, a soft small hand reached across his middle, making his forehead furrow. He tried to take a steadying breath, and tried to not imagine that the events of last night weren’t the reason he was in your bed. That you had just invited him to bed because you wanted him there, not for security but because you wanted him as a man to share your bed and body. That he could roll over to face you, slip his own hand up that oversized shirt and rub soft circles into your skin before slipping his hand down in-between your thighs.

Yoongi felt his cock twitch and himself harden further, forcing another deep breath in and out as he circled back to try and think of grotesque things to make his longing subside. You at least had stopped wriggling in the bed in an attempt to get closer; he was thankful for that. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and tried to calm his heart and regulate his breath to make it possible for him to drift off.

This was going to be a long night.

[robininthelabyrinth]

what do you think would happen in a role swap where wei wuxian is the one with an arranged marriage, yanli becomes sect leader, and jiang cheng runs away with the remnants of the wen clan?

“It’s impossible,” Wen Qing said, her voice flat and eyes icy. “Literally impossible. It would kill you both.”

“But –”

“If you don’t care about your own life, at least care about his,” she said, and Wei Wuxian fell silent; she’d hit him right where it hurt the most, and he turned and stormed away.

Wen Qing waited, watching as Wen Ning ran after him, distressed by his distress, and when he was finally out of earshot, she said, “You may regret that, one day.”

Behind her there was a rusty bark of laughter, if that horrible twisted sound, low and grating and rasping at the throat until it bled, could be called a laugh.

“I won’t,” Jiang Cheng said. She’d removed the needles that kept him asleep the day before, though he’d played limp any time Wei Wuxian had come around, and Wei Wuxian had been so excited by his idea that he hadn’t noticed. “Thank you for lying to him.”

“My family killed yours,” she said with a sigh. “The least I can do is save one.”

“If you regret it so much, you can abandon your office and surrender yourself,” Jiang Cheng said, and turned away from her. He hadn’t forgiven her, that much was obvious. “You lead a Supervisory Office. That isn’t a neutral position.”

“I have to keep my brother, and the others, safe,” she said. “You understand that.”

“I understand it. I just think you’re wrong.”

“How am I wrong? Your Jiang sect is gone,” she said, twisting the knife cruelly. “Wen Ruohan has over half the cultivation world under his grip – how are the rest of you going to overcome that?”

“I didn’t say we would win,” Jiang Cheng said. “I said you were wrong.”

Wen Qing opened her mouth and found she had nothing to say. That wasn’t a condition that came naturally to her, so she scowled and changed the subject. “What are you going to do next?”

“Rebuild the Jiang sect.”

“The Jiang sect? But – how…?”

He turned back to look at her. “My golden core is gone, and I’m a good-for-nothing,” he said flatly. “That much is true. But you forget – I still have a sister.”

Jiang Yanli wasn’t a fighter; this much was true. She wept bitter tears when Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian finally found their way to her side, horrified by what Jiang Cheng had suffered, what had happened to him. But fighter or no fighter, she knew her duty.

The Jiang Sect had its first mistress. She could not lead them in war – Wei Wuxian did that – but she tended their wounds and sat in all the strategy meetings, giving her thoughts and making the final decision with her brothers’ advice; those who became sect disciples did not feel that their gentle lady, who they came to worship as Guanyin reborn in human form, was anything less than the rest.

“We need more help,” Jiang Cheng, who had become one of his sister’s advisors and learned through painful experience how to ignore (but never not notice) all of the pitying stares that came his way, said. “We’re not doing as much in the war as the other Sects – if we don’t establish a strong alliance with one of them, and soon, we will very soon lose the right to call ourselves a Great Sect.”

“A marriage,” Jiang Yanli said, understanding at once. “But I can’t…”

She was Sect Leader, now. She could not marry the heir of another sect – she would only be able to accept a man who married in, who would agree that his children be named Jiang.

The Jiang sect had to come first.

Whatever dreams she had once had about Jin Zixuan were gone now, burned to ashes in a way that not even a broken engagement could.

“Not you,” Jiang Cheng said. “Wei Wuxian.”

Wei Wuxian looked up sharply. “You want to marry me off?” he asked. “Are you serious?”

Jiang Cheng laughed harshly. It still didn’t sound like a laugh, not even after all these months. “What,” he said mockingly, his bitter voice eerily reminiscent of his mother’s at her most furious. “You expect a cultivator to marry me?”

Wei Wuxian fell silent. It was not that cultivators didn’t marry regular people – it happened quite often. But an arranged marriage, for the purposes of building an alliance?

Even if no children could be expected from the match – it would have to be a cutsleeve marriage, given the lack of daughters among the Four Great Sect, but such things were not uncommon if the real purpose was a political alliance – the minimum requirement for making such an offer was a cultivation base sufficient for dual cultivation. Anything less would be an insult – the same as sentencing the cultivator to a dead end.

The same dead end that Jiang Cheng faced every day.

“Who were you thinking?” Wei Wuxian finally asked. “If you even dare suggest the peacock –”

“Lan Wangji.”

“What?! But he hates me!”

“He’s the best available option,” Jiang Cheng said. “He’s strict in terms of etiquette; regardless of his feelings, he won’t mistreat you. Jin Zixuan is obviously out – even if you didn’t hate him, his parents would never agree to a match with no chance of legitimate descendants, and we’d never accept one of Jin Guangshan’s bastards; it would leave us with no face at all.”

“What about Nie Huaisang?”

“No influence,” Jiang Cheng said simply, and Wei Wuxian grimaced, conceding the point. Even if Nie Mingjue could be coaxed into an agreement, no one in the cultivation world would ever think that the wife of his little brother had any impact on his decisions, and that would defeat the whole purpose of this endeavor. Nie Mingjue was too straightforward, too rigid – marrying Nie Huaisang would be as good as throwing Wei Wuxian’s life away for no purpose.

And that left – Lan Wangji.

“Well, whatever he thinks of me, I always rather liked him,” Wei Wuxian said, not looking at Jiang Cheng – the memories of the accusations tossed around after the Xuanwu’s cave, why did you have to stand up for him, still lingered in his ear. “Gloomy and humorless as he may be. Do you think he’ll agree?”

“I’ll take one of the guards to go find out,” Jiang Cheng said. He ignored their involuntary wince at the reminder that he couldn’t go himself – weak, helpless, vulnerable, not to mention unable to fly on a sword by himself – and took his leave.

He came back with an agreement, and just like that Wei Wuxian found himself engaged.

It didn’t change anything, though the Jiang Sect partnered more and more often with the Lan sect on missions – Wei Wuxian found that he enjoyed fighting back to back with Lan Wangji, and enjoyed teasing him even more – and the war dragged on for a long time, the tides turning against Wen Ruohan only very slowly, battle by battle, inch by hard-won inch.

But in the end, they won.

They won, and stood together at Phoenix Mountain to celebrate their victory.

Wei Wuxian allowed himself to breath a sigh of relief, and shared smiles with Jiang Yanli. Jiang Cheng didn’t smile, he didn’t do that anymore, his brow always creased in anger, but he nodded and allowed Wei Wuxian to wrap an arm around both their shoulders.

The three of them together – broken, damaged, but together.

If Wei Wuxian had known that that would be the last time they’d stand together, the three of them together the way they’d promised they would be, he would have cherished it more.

But who would have thought that within three days of Phoenix Mountain, Jiang Cheng – ordinary Jiang Cheng, with no golden core, with nothing but angry determination – would accuse the Jin Sect of horrific abuses, and then, when he got no satisfactory answer, kidnap an entire set of war prisoners from the Wen sect out from right under the Jin Sect’s nose?

Everyone demanded to know where he’d taken them, and didn’t believe them when they said they didn’t know.

Lan Wangji didn’t even ask, merely leaned his shoulder against Wei Wuxian’s, and Wei Wuxian’s heart softened, thankful.

He’d be less thankful when he found out that Lan Wangji had helped Jiang Cheng do what he did and then refused to share where he’d gone, citing a solemn oath that he’d taken, but at that moment he found himself thinking – at least I have you.

They had some fights when the truth came out – Lan Wangji confessed – but it ended up being something he could forgive, especially when it turned out that Wen Qing had been the one to ask, and Wen Ning very nearly killed by the indifferent guards; it had been the right thing to do.

Jiang Cheng hadn’t even known what the Wens had done for him. He’d only known what it felt like to have nothing, to suffer endlessly, and he’d done the right thing.

Just as it was the right thing for Jiang Yanli to break ties with her brother, to cast him out of the sect that he had once been the heir of, her eyes full of tears even as she did it; anything else would have opened her sect up to reprisals it couldn’t afford, weakened as it was. Until Wei Wuxian’s marriage was finalized, they lacked the strength to defend him.

Unsurprisingly, their very next move was to set the date for the wedding.

Wei Wuxian spent the entire two months leading up to it biting his fingers until blood flowed, hoping against hope, and his faith was rewarded when Jiang Cheng, abhorred by the entire cultivation world, ignored all common sense to come to visit him the day before the ceremony.

“You make a terrible bride,” Jiang Cheng said, voice gruff, and Wei Wuxian forgot himself and tried to tackle him the way he used to; it was only Lan Wangji catching him and holding him back that reminded him that he couldn’t do that anymore, that Jiang Cheng wasn’t a cultivator, that his body had grown weak for lack of spiritual energy. “Really, look at you – who told you red was your color?”

“Red has always been my color,” Wei Wuxian shot back, grinning. “It’s not my fault it clashes with purple.”

He didn’t comment on Jiang Cheng’s clothing, the dull colors of a rogue cultivator.

“I’m glad you came,” he said instead. “I came up with something for you.”

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be bringing gifts,” Jiang Cheng grumbled. “And now you’re going to blow them all out of the water by comparison, since it’s not like we have any money…what is it?”

Wei Wuxian handed him the book he’d written.

“Cultivation of resentful energy?” Jiang Cheng read, and scowled at him. “Did Hanguang-jun tell you were I’m living?”

“He said it had the worst feng shui he’d ever seen, but nothing more than that,” Wei Wuxian said, a little annoyed but not very: he’d gotten Lan Wangji to promise that he would tell him once they were wed, since spouses shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. He’d gotten Lan Wangji to promise quite a lot of things, actually; it turned out the man actually liked him, and not just a little – who knew when that had happened? Luckily for them both, Wei Wuxian liked him back just as much. “It’s as orthodox as Lan Wangji and I could get it, given that it’s intrinsically, well, not. Every possible precaution against it turning into – uh –”

“Demonic cultivation.”

“…yes. That. Any type of cultivation that uses resentful energy damages the temperament, body and heart, but there are more orthodox ways to go about it that minimize the impact. We borrowed quite a bit from the Nie sect, prepare yourself, but anyway, you’re already so pissy, who would even notice if you got angry more often?”

The Nie clan’s cultivation gave them immense power but short lives – but not as short as a regular person who didn’t cultivate at all.

“Get lost!”

“It’s worth a try, okay?”

Jiang Cheng didn’t look convinced, so Wei Wuxian pulled out his trump card. “If it works, you could use Zidian again.”

Years later, Wei Wuxian would wonder about what he unleashed into the world that day, but right then there was nothing more than the longing in Jiang Cheng’s eyes, the first spark of purple lightning in years, and the first smile Wei Wuxian had seen on Jiang Cheng’s face since even longer.

No matter how it turned out – it was all worth it.

[kaitycole]

dopamine and epinephrine, just don’t mix

Summary: Kuroo thinks back on his relationship with Y/N. How will those memories hold up to reality? 

Pairing: Kuroo x fem!reader, Bokuto x fem!reader (platonic)

Word Count: 5351

Warnings: Angst. Toxic behaviors. Cheating allegations. Adult language.

A/N: A special thank you to @twilightwrites​ for this prompt.

Side note: I know the drinking age in Japan is 20, I realized as I was writing the last paragraph of this that I messed up, so we are just gonna let it slide because my head hurts lol

September – 2013

“Kuroo-san, do you understand what I’ve just explained?” He just nods, the meaning of the words is known, it’s just the weight of them that just hasn’t hit him yet. It not until he’s walking across campus, his feet dragging against the sidewalk, that the weight of his advisor’s words land on his shoulders.

You failed to maintain proper grades to continue not just in this department, but in this university. Your enrollment has been terminated.

Kuroo shakes his head, how exactly would he explain this to his grandmother? She was so proud of him for getting into university in the first place. He really was great at disappointing those he cared for lately.

*                      * The sidewalks are busier than he’s used to, he was always in class at this time and he ends up brushing against a few people as he maneuvers his way to the nearest convenience store. The dinging of the welcome bell draws him from the jumble of thoughts he was having. The cool air from the refrigerated unit, grabbing several cans of lemon flavored chūhai. It was cheap, didn’t taste all that great, but he didn’t care.

There are three empty cans piled next to his foot, his hand tightens around the fourth one, it caves under his fingertips. The blend of alcohol on an empty stomach has Kuroo on the verge of tipsiness.

He hears a soft laugh and feels himself stiffen when he sees (h/c) hair as his mind blanks. It’s been almost a year since he’s seen her, a flash of the malice words exchanged and the sound the door made as it was slammed crosses his mind.

Suddenly he’s self-conscious of how he looks, quickly running his fingers through his unruly hair (not that that would help) and scrabbles to pick the cans up and cram them into his bag. He doesn’t fully hear the name, but enough to know it wasn’t her, making him feel a bit ridiculous.

Dopamine: hormone and neurotransmitter that's an important part of your brain's reward system; associated with happiness and pleasure.

June – 2010

“Can you tell me where Ko-chan is?”

Kuroo turned to see an unfamiliar face staring back up at him. She tucked a stray piece of her (h/c) hair behind her ear, nervously biting her bottom lip, and Kuroo instantly thought she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. So much, that instead of answering her, he just stood there, staring.

“Bokuto-san is this way, L/N-san.” Akaashi said as he walked up behind her.

She smiled at Kuroo, apologizing for bothering him before following Akaashi over to where the rowdy ace of Fukurōdani was. Once Bokuto’s eyes fell onto the girl, he ran towards her, wrapping her into a tight hug, thanking her repeatedly for bringing his extra gym bag all the way to the training camp.

Kuroo waited until Bokuto was alone before he made his way over, trying to figure out how to work in his question. “Bokuto, who is that?” Bo looked over to Akaashi who was talking to this mystery girl before looking back at Kuroo with a sloppy grin on his face. “Why? Interested?”

Kuroo felt his head getting fuzzy, like when he held it over the edge of his bed for too long, “I was…uhm…just wondering.”

“That’s Y/N. We grew up together, but in fifth grade she moved away, just recently moved back.”

That explained why Kuroo didn’t know her even though her and Bo came off extremely close.

“She’s single.”

Kuroo felt his face start to burn, embarrassment covering it as he tried to speak, but all that came out were broken parts of a sentence. “Oh, well…I don’t…bother…just…yeah.”

** Y/N was standing in the doorway of the gym, watching as Bokuto hit down each practice set Akaashi sent his way, he truly had gotten even more powerful since they were children. She rubbed her hands against her arms, trying to warm up, she tensed when she felt a slight bit of weight on her shoulders.

She turned around to see a messy raven-haired boy standing behind her, his oversized red jacket draped over her shoulders. “Rooster boy!”

“Huh?” Kuroo raised an eyebrow, unsure of how to really respond.

“Ko-chan told me to call you that.” She smiled up innocently at Kuroo and he felt himself get weak in the knees.

He mumbled something to the effect of ‘horned owl bastard’ underneath his breath which seemed to make her laugh just a little bit. He ran his fingers through his hair, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious about the state of his hair.

She turned back around, eyes wide in awe as Bokuto slammed another ball onto the other side of the court, Kuroo couldn’t help but wonder what it’d be like if she looked at him like that, but blocking wasn’t as flashy as spikes were and he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. He turned around on his heel, getting ready to head back to where the rest of his team is.

“Are you trying to play hard to get?” “Huh?” He looked back at her, she had spun around, a devilish smirk on her smirk.

“You gave me your jacket even though you only have a t-shirt on, but you don’t tell me your name or ask if I want go somewhere to talk.”

“Oh, I thought you wanted to watch Bo play, I…uh…didn’t want to bother you.”

She slipped her arms into his jacket, zipping it up, “nah, I can see Bo play at school.”

“Did you want to go talk somewhere?” “I don’t go places with strangers.” She tilted her head, giving him a knowing look.

He shook his head, “I’m Kuroo Tetsurō, nice to meet you…?” “L/N F/N. Likewise Tetsu-chan!” She grabbed his hand, “c’mon, let’s go!”

He felt the blood rush to his cheeks as his feet moved on their own, following this mystery girl and he already knew that he was gonna have his hands full, not that he really cared.

*                      * December – 2010

“Y/N?”

The two of them were in Kuroo’s room, something they did often on the weekends, sometimes working on school work, other times just enjoying each other’s company. She’s flipping through a magazine, her chin rested on her palms as she looked over her shoulder at the middle blocker, a smile on her face. Kuroo was leaning against his headboard and couldn’t help but forget what he was about to say.

“Tetsu-chan?”

“Are you a carbon sample?” He smirked when she gave him a puzzled look, “because I want to date you.” Her face lit up as she pushed herself up, sitting up while crossing her legs as she faced Kuroo. “Oh! Oh! Oh! I have one too!” She clapped her hands in excitement, “you look sweeter than 3.14!”

He laughed before he shook his head, “no, Y/N, I’m asking you out.”

“You’re asking me out using a science pun?” His face went completely red, cheek burned as he rubbed the back of his head. “…yeah.”

“You’re such a dork!” She started laughing, falling over to the side as her giggles filled the now empty room. When she finally composed her, wiping the tears that had fallen down her cheeks, she smiled up at him, “but I guess that means you’re my dork.” “That a yes?” Kuroo held his breath, worried that she was about to reject him because looking back on it, it was kinda lame, even for him.

She crawled up to Kuroo side, leaning into it as he wrapped his arm around her waist, “it’s a proton positive?”

*                      * September – 2013

Kuroo staggers up the stairs, thankful that he only lives on the second floor of his apartment building. He drops his bag near the door while he kicks off his shoes as he makes his way to the closet in his room.

The apartment is pretty bare for someone to be living there. The furniture that’s there is just what’s needed, the bare minimum through the apartment. A bed and night stand in the bedroom, couch and TV in the living room area and the only reason he had a TV stand was because Kenma almost had a heart attack when he saw Kuroo had it sitting on the floor.

Y/N was supposed to decorate it, that had been their deal when the subject of moving in together came up. The plan was to get an apartment between the universities they had planned to attend and she could decorate it however she wanted, all Kuroo cared about was getting to come home to her. But it was obvious that day never happened, they didn’t even make it searching for apartments together before things fell apart and Kuroo picked an apartment closest to his school.

He’s rummaging through the bedroom closet before pulling out an old tin box, the kind that trading cards come in. Wiping off the thin layer of dust that has accumulated on the top, he slowly opens it, a flood of emotions washes over him.

*                      * March – 2011

“Y/N seems really happy.” Bo said, the three of them had all met up to see a movie that recently released.

Kuroo was happy that his girlfriend and best friend were also close, it made things a lot easier and he didn’t have to worry about them getting along, even if they had technically known each other longer. “I hope she is, I’d do anything for her.”

“What are you two whispering about?” She snuck up behind them, popcorn in hand, placing her chin on Kuroo’s shoulder.

“Guy stuff.”

“Laaame!” She shook her head, walking towards the theatre where their movie was playing, “we’re gonna miss the trailers!”

** “Where to next?” She looked between the boys, eager to keep their night going. 

“I should probably head back, I don’t want to worry my grandparents.” Kuroo glanced at the time on his phone, he knew the movie might run late but he didn’t think they’d be out this late. He felt bad as he watched her face drop, clearly not the answer she was expecting.

“Yeah, it is getting a bit late.” Bokuto agreed with a slight shrug.

Y/N dragged her feet along the sidewalk, her shoulder dropped which caused both boys to share a look.

“Is this about what we talked about earlier?” Bokuto asked, pulling her into a side hug.

Kuroo looked between them, curiosity filling him as he tries to think if she told him anything that was bothering her, but he can’t. “What did you two talk about?” She shook her head, “it’s nothing.” She looked up at him, giving him a small straight smile.

Part of him wanted to ask her again, to get her to open up and talk to him about it because it was bothering her then it bothers him, but he didn’t. He tried to find comfort in the fact that at least she could tell Bo about it, at least she had someone, but it still hurt that that someone wasn’t him.

*                      * May – 2011

It had bothered Kuroo for weeks now that it seemed Y/N was confiding more and more into Bokuto that she was him. He was her boyfriend, he was the one she should be going to, right? Then why was she continuously going to their friend?

His irritation started to splinter into other aspects of his life, tests that he should’ve passed he didn’t, blocks he should’ve made he missed, but the boiling point came when Fukurōdani played Nekoma and she came decked out in Fukurōdani colors, cheerfully talking to Bo and his team. He knew it shouldn’t bug him like it was, she attended that school, but what still pissed him off were the comments he heard as they walked by the team.

Comments from other team members and what seemed like potential classmates of theirs repeatedly saying different variations of how cute her and Bo looked together, what a great couple they’d make and the way that she would hang onto Bo’s side.

The game was long, Kuroo spend half the game lost in his anger and the other half moving on auto-pilot as his body seemed to move on its own. Somehow Nekoma ended up winning, but that didn’t change the way he felt as he practically stormed off the court towards the locker room. He understood how important Bo was to her, that they were best friends and had been for longer than he knew either of them, but that didn’t alleviate the anger that radiated off of his shoulders nor did it stop him from slamming the doors he walked through.

“Tetsu-chan!”

He didn’t stop, just continued to walk down the hallway and toward the main entrance, acting as though he’s the only one there.

“Tetsu-chan!” She reached out, pulling his duffle bag’s strap back towards her.

He refused to turn around, having a feeling that he’d lash out and he didn’t want to do that. He needed space, time to cool down, he didn’t want to give her the ultimatum of him or Bo and he had a feeling if he opened his mouth, that’s what he’d say.

She looked at his back, unsure of why he was so upset, his team had just won, shouldn’t he be more excited? “For someone who just won, you’re acting like emo Bo.”

Kuroo’s eye twitched, just hearing her compare him to Bo so effortlessly was painful and caused his thoughts to spiral. Did she want to be with him? Would she rather be with Bo? He clenched his fist, hating the way he felt and hating himself more for feeling that way. He hated the ugly jealousy that wrapped around his chest, weaving around his lung, making it harder to breathe as it tightened. He yanked his bag strap away from her, leaving her standing there as he stormed out.

** A few weeks went by and communication between Kuroo and Y/N was awkward and basic, simple “hello’s” and “yeah, you?” filled most of their exchanges. It all came down to Bo inviting both of them over to his place and essentially locking them in his room, forcing them to talk to each other.

“Tetsu-chan.” She bit down on her lip, tears filled her eyes, the reality of how distant they had grown weighed down the atmosphere, “are we breaking up?” “What?” His head snapped up, finally looking her. He didn’t want to break-up, he wasn’t even mad anymore, he just didn’t know how to get back to where they were. It felt weird to just try to just back in as if nothing had ever happened.

She wrapped her arms tightly around herself as if creating a wall between them, an attempt to brace herself from the pain that seemed to be coming. She tried her hardest to keep her lip from quivering. “’Cause this is a very shitty way of doing that. You could’ve just called.”

He wasn’t sure what was going on, she didn’t look like she wanted to break up, but she sounded like she was ready for one. What sense did that make? The room almost felt hostile, “so I look like the guy that’d break up over the phone, is that what you think of me?” “Did I say that? No. But it’d be better than dumping me in Bo’s room!”

“I didn’t say I wanted to break up!”

“Then why have you been avoiding me?”

“You hurt my feelings!” Kuroo voice raised a bit louder than it had been, both of them pausing in their spot. The tension immediately disappeared and she slowly walked up to him, an adorable pout on her face.

She threw her arms around him, sobbing into his chest, “I’m so sorry!” “It’s fine, it’s stupid anyways.” He rubbed circles on her back, pulling her in closer to him.

She protested, claiming anything that bothered him couldn’t be stupid and demanded that he tell her and he did. That he knew it was rather silly to be jealous of her supporting her school, but it made him wonder if she was embarrassed to say she was with him. That he knew it was important for her to have friends and he was glad Bo was one, but she wanted her to see him as someone she could go to in the same she could to Bo because as lame as it sounded, he didn’t like feeling like the odd man out.

She reassured him that it was nothing like that and told him that she saw where he was coming from. She told him that if the roles had been reversed, she would’ve definitely felt the same way that he had and that they both needed to work on their communication skills because they both agreed neither of them wanted what they had to end.

They walked out of the room together, holding hands and Bo looked excited to see they worked things out, wrapping them both in a huge hug. Kuroo thought he felt confident in what she said to him, but then he saw how she seemed to just naturally gravitate towards Bo even when he was there and that sinking feeling he had weeks ago at their game came back, this time plowing into him like a wrecking ball.

*                      * September – 2013

Kuroo accidentally kicks the box as he staggers to stand up, the memories proving to be a bit too much for him. But something in him made him want to see the task through, to see everything that he was holding on to, but to do that he needed alcohol.

His phone starts to vibrate in his pocket, he takes it out immediately pressing the button on the side to silence it then presses it again to send it to voice mail. Kuroo knows who it is, it’s the only person who would be calling him: Kenma.

He opens the fridge, pulling out what few cans of beer he has before shuffling back to his room, flopping down in the stop that’s still warm from him sitting there just moments ago. He puts his phone on floor near him, glancing at the screen as it lights up from a text notification.

Kenma: Missed Call (4) Text Message (15)

Technically he had no reason to avoid his best friend, but he didn’t feel like he deserved Kenma’s kindness because all he had done lately was mess things up. He didn’t want Kenma to tell him everyone messes up and he can fix things since he knew that it was too late to do any of that now.

He pulls out a small pile of printed photographs, some printed out on the mini polaroid paper from the camera she wanted for her birthday. She was his first serious relationship, between school and volleyball he never really gave dating much thought, but it was different with her. She kept him on his toes, made him want to be better, he really could see a future with her, but he screwed it up and now all he had were these pictures.

Pictures that ranged from dates to study sessions, from volleyball games to random adventures through Tokyo. Looking at them made him wonder if she kept the matching ones? Did she have a box too?

A bit of beer splatters when he cracks open the tab and he frantically wiped the picture across his thigh, drying it but smearing the liquid across the photo. He wanted to believe that he tried hard enough to make things work, that he gave it his all, but when he thought back to that night, her words told him differently.

Epinephrine: surges at panic/emergency; provokes stress response— brings out arousal of extreme emotions like fear and anger.

January— 2012

“It’s really not that big of a deal!” She said for the fourth time within the last five minutes, but Kuroo wasn’t listening.

“It is!” He shook his head, pacing her bedroom, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to control what he said if he sat down, he needed to walk this anger out of him.

“He was the first person I saw, Tetsu.” She really didn’t mean anything by telling Bokuto she had been accepted into her top two choices for college, he literally happened to be the first person she saw after getting the news. They’d been dating for two years and he still got jealous when it came to Bo and she wasn’t sure why.

“You just don’t get it.” He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to even out his breathing, he really didn’t want to fight with her.

“You’re right, I don’t. I don’t get why my boyfriend gets so upset when I tell my best friend things.”

“Because you told him first! I should know first!”

She snorted, “this is stupid. I mean honestly you sound like a child.”

“A child, nice.” He grabbed his jacket from her desk chair, shoving passed her as he walked down the hall before slipping on his shoes and going right out the front door.

She followed him, yelling at him to stop, yanking on his arm when she finally catches up. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything at first, just stood there as she repeatedly apologized, tightly wrapping her arms around his torso.

“I don’t know why I get so jealous.” He sounded defeated and he was, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t place why he felt so threatened by Bo. Maybe it was because he knew her longer, knew parts of her that he didn’t or maybe it’s because deep down he just didn’t feel like he deserved her.

“I know.” She buried her face into his chest, still hugging him. She believed that he didn’t know why he felt that way, but she was still tired of dealing with it, regardless of how much she loved him.

*                      * April – 2012

It was the weird time between graduation and university getting ready to start, Y/N was over at Kuroo’s, his room now filled with boxes. Things didn’t bounce back to normal the way it did before when she thought they were breaking up, after their latest fight things were kinda awkward. They still hung out, but it was mostly just them sitting in the same room both engaged in something alone.

Kuroo looked over when he heard her giggle, raising an eyebrow before humming.

“Yukie sent the group chat some pictures from graduation.” She handed her phone to him, scooting a bit closer so they could look together.

Most of them were harmless, to be fair they were all harmless, but Kuroo started to question them as they went through them. There were ones of Y/N with Yukie and Kaori and some with various team members. Then they got to ones with Bo and both of them stiffened, neither had mentioned him unless they had to since their last fight. There were ones with Bo hanging on an unamused looking Akaashi, but the one that Kuroo hated was one of Bo next to Y/N, his hand “too low” on her hip for his liking.

He pushed himself off his bed, trying to calm down, but he knew this time he wouldn’t be able to.

“Tetsu, it was just a picture.”

He made an annoyed sound, something between a scoff and a laugh, as he shook his head. “He didn’t have to put his hand on your hip like that.”

She rolled her eyes, “it’s just a stupid pose. Everyone does it!” She flipped through the pictures, zooming in on Yukie’s arm that was wrapped around her waist, “see! Look! Her arm is around me, that make you mad too?” “It’d be different if you weren’t practically begging Bo to fuck you!”

The words hung heavy between them, for Kuroo it was a weight of his shoulders to get the words out but for Y/N, it knocked the wind out of her lungs. They were supposed to look at apartments today, find one to live in together while going to college, but a fight like this wasn’t in the plans. At least not for her, she was hoping that they could mend things and start over since they’d be moving away from Bo.

“W-w-what?” Her face was scrunched up in disbelief, the words still not being fully processed.

“I mean the way you flaunt yourself in front of him in that skirt!”

“Skirt?” Her face went deadpan, “you mean my fucking school uniform?”

28 months, they’d been together for over two years and she couldn’t he said that to her, couldn’t believe that he felt that way. Tears started to fill her eyes, for months she walked on pins and needles, carefully edited her words around him and now she had to hear the person she loved the most say the worse kind of words to her.

“You know what I mean! Don’t twist my words!”

“I’m not and I can’t believe you!” She wiped the tears from her face aggressively, “I have done nothing to cause you to feel this way!”

“I’m just making it up? It’s just in my head?” “YES! Bo is our best friend. Friends, that’s all we have ever been!” She started to look around the room, trying to find the sweatshirt she brought with her, she couldn’t have this fight again.

“Friends don’t act like you two do.”

“Boyfriends don’t act like you do!” She took three steps towards Kuroo to grab her sweatshirt before she turned and walked towards his door. She hesitated, thinking Kuroo would call out to her, but he doesn’t, instead he just let her leave.

*                      * July – 2012

They didn’t get a shared apartment like they had planned to. Kuroo stayed in Tokyo while YN moved to Kyoto, choosing a completely different university than she originally intended. For most of their first semester in university they barely spoke at all, neither really making it a point to reach out. Ironically, if it wasn’t Bokuto they wouldn’t have known how the other was doing, how the other was dealing with the upgrade from high school to college.

Then Bokuto mentioned a Fukurōdani vs Nekoma game, invited both of them and both eagerly accepted. Which lead to a very awkward game, each sitting on the opposite side of Bokuto, who was far too busy cheering on his old team to notice. Bokuto ran off after the game, Akaashi had called, leaving the two to awkwardly walk home.

They get close to her house, both lingering on the sidewalk, kicking imaginary rocks to act as if they had something keeping them outside.

“Y/N, I’m –“

“I think we should break up.”

“Y/N, I –”

“No. I don’t want to hear any excuses anymore. I tried so hard to make this work, but what you said to me hurt Kuroo, it really hurt.”

Kuroo. When was the last time she called him that?

“I never did anything to make you think those things, I wouldn’t do that. I really did love you, but I can’t keep doing this. It’s not healthy.”

*                      * September – 2013

It had been over a year and he stilled kicked himself for not saying anything to her that night, for letting her walk away without even trying to hold onto their relationship. But that night he discovered that everything he thought about them was a lie. He thought that he had been trying to keep them together, that he had been trying his hardest to be a good boyfriend, but he was the one who tore them apart. He was the one who got it in his head that she was acting a way that he knew she wasn’t, he knew that Bo was just her friend and what made it even worse was after their break-up, Bo and Akaashi announced their relationship.

Not only did he lose his girlfriend, the only girl he’d ever loved, but she eventually told Akaashi what happened and when Bo found out, he was livid. Even Akaashi hadn’t seem Bo as mad as he was when he called and told off Kuroo for ever thinking that about him and Y/N. Maybe all of this was what he deserved, he had been truly awful as a boyfriend and a friend, but even with that awareness, he still missed her. Still wanted her back, wanted to truly be able to fix things with her because he knew he could be better given one more chance.

*                      * October – 2013

Being back at home isn’t as bad as Kuroo built it up in his head to be. His grandparents weren’t thrilled that he wasn’t going to finish up this semester, but he promised them after some time, after he could clear his head, he would go back.

He picked up a part-time job at a convenient shop, just needing something to force him out of his thoughts because somehow being back at home was even worse than being alone in his apartment. Even though he knew she was hours away, it didn’t stop him from almost breaking his neck to see if every girl passing with (h/c) was her. He hadn’t seen her up close since their breakup, so he didn’t know if she had long, short, buzzed hair, hell he didn’t even know if she had colored it differently.

“You didn’t forget my (favorite flavor) tea, did you?”

Kuroo stops in the middle of ringing up a customer at the sound of a familiar voice. Over the last year and a half, he swore he had heard it several times, but this time he is positive that it’s her. He looks up just in time to see her smiling at someone that the aisle is preventing him from seeing and he feels his heart thump into his chest.

He wants to step away from the register, to tell them to just give him a moment, that’s all he needs with her to try to get her to just hear him out, but there’s a pretty long line and she disappears deeper into the store.

“Kuroo?”

He looks up from ringing up the few items that were placed on the counter and it was her. Her in person, not in his dreams or random memories that flooded his mind when was alone. He wanted to ask her to wait for him, to give him just a few minutes to talk to him, but the person next to her wrapped his arm around her and his heart sank.

“Are you on break from school?” She tilts her head to the side.

“Just thought I’d take some time off, clear my head.” He told them the total price, the mystery man handing him the amount. “What about you?” She clears her throat, shifting a bit awkwardly which isn’t missed on either man. “Bo invited us to celebrate him signing to a pro team.” “Ah. So this is…” The man quickly introduces himself, Kuroo doesn’t bother to catch his name, but the title he gives himself sticks in his mind: boyfriend. He wants to be mad, how could she just move on like that? How could she just forget everything they had and start over with this…guy?

“We should get going, Y/N.”

“It was nice seeing you.” She gives him a small polite smile, taking the man’s hand as they walked out of the store. But she pauses before going through the door and for a brief moment Kuroo holds his breath, hoping she’ll tell him she wants to talk. She doesn’t, instead she shakes her head with a small laugh and follows her boyfriend outside.

That’s the moment Kuroo realizes that he no longer has a place in her life to go back to, that no matter how hard and tightly he holds onto the memories they made, he would never get her back. And that realization shook Kuroo to his core.

Likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated.

Interested in more? --> Masterlist

[wisteriashouse]

goodnight.

pairing: rengoku kyoujurou x reader

genre: angst

word count: 1876

remarks: why do i do this why do i make myself suffer

In hindsight, you should have known the second you saw the site of the train wreck with your own eyes.

“Kyoujurou!” You call, doing your best to keep your breathing and emotions in check as your eyes sweep the place. You’ve been running desperately, following the railway tracks along the route that you know the Infinity Train to have taken — hoping, begging, that you wouldn’t find any casualties along the way.

Your kasugai crow, which you use more to keep in contact with Kyoujurou than anything else, had informed you of Upper Moon Three’s appearance when you’d just finished clearing a forest of demons, much to your horror. You know the Flame Pillar is strong, incredibly so, but to face an upper ranked demon right after dealing with Lower Moon One is an impossible task.

If anyone can do the impossible, though, it’s Kyoujurou. You have to believe in him.

The closer you get to the wreckage, your seasoned senses can already pick out smaller details of the battle from the night before — the acrid smell of burning ash that still lingers in the air, the dented metal of the toppled train carriages. Although your lungs burn from exertion, you push yourself onwards, frantic to confirm with your own eyes that Kyoujurou is still alright.

Nothing is going to happen to him, you chant to yourself in your mind, over and over. Kyoujurou is going to be alright. He has to be.

You barely spare the casualties at the side of the tracks a glance as you leap onto the wreckage of the carriages, eyes desperately scanning around you for a glimpse of that familiar flame emblazoned haori. Most of them seem to be only suffering from flesh wounds, which means that Kyoujurou and the three that joined him have been successful at keeping civilian losses to a minimum. You allow yourself to cling to hope for a brief moment. They’re alright, so Kyoujurou must be as well–

You see him.

Or rather, you see the back of him as he kneels on the ground next to the wreckage, a boy in a green checkered haori sobbing in front of him. Your breath hitches, and then you’re running, shouting his name. 

“Kyoujurou!”

The boy glances up in shock at your voice, his eyes and cheeks wet with tears, but you hardly pay him any heed as you come to a stop in front of your best friend, nearly falling over from how fast you’re going. “Kyoujurou, the crow told me that you encountered Upper Moon Three, I couldn’t reach fast enough to provide backup, are you...” Your words die into a strangled sound in your throat. “...alright...”

Kyoujurou looks up at you and your panic only grows when you see the red staining his smile, the familiar one that is only reserved for you and Senjurou. His remaining eye fixes on you, slightly wavering, so gentle you want to cry in anguish. 

“I didn’t think you’d run all the way here just because I haven’t replied your last letter.” He says, but his words are nothing but white noise in your ears, your gaze transfixed on the blood that just keeps seeping from the hole in his torso. His voice is so strained, so weak. “I was going to tell you that sweet potatoes were better than yam, but–”

His words are cut off into a pained gasp as you tear the haori off your shoulders and press it to the wound on his stomach, praying that he hasn’t lost enough blood to put him in the grave. “What are the lot of you doing standing around and crying for?” You bellow at the two junior demon slayers, who flinch back at the volume of your voice. “Earring boy, help me staunch the bleeding from the back with your haori! Or have you learnt nothing but swinging swords from your trainer?”

Kyoujurou’s bloodstained hand rests on your trembling ones as you apply pressure to the wound, while the other brushes tears that you didn’t even know were falling from your eyes. “It’s alright–”

Something in you snaps.

“Shut up!” You scream at him, so fiercely that Kyoujurou actually recoils, his expression one of shock. He’s never seen you lose your composure like this, not after hearing about the deaths of your comrades, not even after the passing of your father whose haori you’re currently pressing to his wound. “Shut up, Kyoujurou, just... shut up! You’re bleeding out in front of me! It’s alright? It’s alright? Are you fucking with me?”

“That’s not what I meant-”

“You’re asking me to watch you die!” You snarl, fingers tightening so hard in the fabric of your haori there’s the sound of ripping fabric. “It might be alright with you, but don’t you dare think that I’m going to be okay with you dying in front of me! Use total concentration breathing to slow your blood flow! Don’t make me watch you die!”

Kyoujurou blinks up at you slowly, watching as tears flow down your cheeks uncontrollably, the way your shoulders tremble with barely repressed emotion. He’s so exhausted, and his body is in so much pain that he just wants this to be over so that he can join his mother in rest, but you’re crying.

You’re crying, and it’s because of him.

And because it’s you, he parts his lips and forces himself to breathe.

Deep, measured breaths, just like he was teaching the Kamado boy a few moments ago. There are too many injuries to concentrate on, so he focuses on slowing his circulation so you won’t have to see his blood on your hands. Gritting his teeth, he takes one more deep breath to steel himself and forces the blood vessel to stop the bleeding.

Pain rips through him, clawing at his abdomen and a choked, soundless scream escapes Kyoujurou before he can swallow it. White flashes in his vision and he so damn badly wants to give up, but then your fingers are suddenly there, stroking his cheeks and begging him to stay with you. He clings to your voice even as waves of pain rock through him, as if you’re his lifeline and he’s a man drowning. You need him. He can’t go just yet.

When the blinding agony finally subsides just slightly, he finds himself lying on his back, tear tracks running down the sides of his face and his throat raw from screaming. You brush his tears away with the sleeve of your uniform, pressing your lips to his hairline. “You’re doing so well, Kyoujurou.” You tell him. His entire body feels sluggish, completely drained. There’s a light smack on his cheek. “Come on, talk to me. I’ve already called for a surgeon in the area, so you have to wait until he’s here. Don’t go to sleep just yet. You still haven’t told me why sweet potatoes are better than yam.”

Your voice is trembling.

“Sweet potatoes...” He forces his remaining eye to focus on your face, trying to remember your every feature. “I like the ones you and Senjurou make for me the most. The ones we make together on the first day of autumn. They’re always so warm and good.” The blood tastes like iron in his mouth, and suddenly he’s standing next to a pile of burning leaves in the yard of the Rengoku family home, poking at them with a long stick.

There’s a tap on his shoulder, and he turns to see you standing there in a thick kimono decorated with russet and crimson maple leaves for autumn, Senjurou clinging to your sleeve. He tells you that you look beautiful and your cheeks turn a hint crimson, mumbling your thanks shyly. Senjurou chatters excitedly about the roasted sweet potatoes in the fire, while his own face warms at your response, heart throbbing in his chest.

We’ve been making roasted sweet potatoes since we were children, Kyoujurou. You still can’t tell when they’re cooked or not?

He never tells you that he doesn’t want to learn, so that he can keep inviting you to his home year after year to make them together. 

The sweet potatoes the three of you shared always taste the best. No matter how simple they are, nothing can compare to them in the way they warm his heart.

“Mm, we used to make them so that you would give Kanroji a break from training.” You slap his cheek again, a little harder this time. Kyoujurou blinks blearily in realization that his eyes were slipping shut, instantly feeling guilty, but he’s just so tired. “Don’t sleep yet, Kyoujurou. Senjurou was telling me about how his broom broke yesterday, and he’s waiting for you to get back from this mission so that we can get a new one from the market together.”

“A new... broom? Ahh, I just fixed the old one before I left, it mustn’t have been enough.” Kyoujurou’s head spins, and his breathing comes out shallow. He tries to breathe right, he really does, but he’s losing strength with each passing second. “He was telling me about a new vendor in the market selling konpeito, so he wants to try making some. It’s simple, so Senjurou said I could try making some and giving it to you as a gift.”

“That sounds nice.” You hum, your voice trembling slightly, although Kyoujurou doesn’t know why. His entire body feels heavy, and his head rests in the softness of your lap. It’s warm and comforting and familiar. Kyoujurou used to do this after a long session of training, before the two of you had become Pillars with your own missions, your own paths taking you apart. Simpler, happier times, a long, long time ago. “When we go home, let’s make a fire and roast sweet potatoes together again, alright?”

“It’s not autumn yet, though... There won’t be enough fallen leaves.” Your hand finds Kyoujurou’s, and he squeezes it weakly. So warm. “I’m really tired... could I nap... for just a bit?”

Kyoujurou faintly hears a choked sob, feels your fingers stroking through his hair and your lips against his forehead. “Okay.” You finally whisper after a heartbeat, your voice cracking at the edges. “You’ve done wonderfully, Kyoujurou. I’m so, so proud of you.”

He feels the corners of his mouth lift in joy at your praise. “Will you still be here... when I wake up?”

“Of course.” You kiss his eyelid, the tip of his nose, then his cheek. “I’ll always be with you, Kyoujurou. We promised each other since we were kids, am I right?”

“Okay.” He murmurs. Relief settles deep into his weary bones, and he allows himself to stop fighting the exhaustion dragging him under. You’ll be there when he opens his eyes again. “When I wake up... I have something important... I wanted to tell you...”

You wait for him to continue, but Rengoku Kyoujurou falls silent and still – and stays that way. His warm smile remains on his face, and you fight back your tears to press a featherlight kiss against his brow, so that you don’t disturb his peaceful slumber.

“I love you too.” You whisper back, your voice hushed with unshed tears. Your hand, stained with his blood, cups his cheek gently. “Goodnight and sweet dreams, Kyoujurou.”

[kyle-valenti]

burnout only feels like burning

2.7k / Summary: kyle valenti doesn't have the same quarantine as his friends; an exploration of kyle's trauma during covid as a doctor. (tw depression & other triggers you’d imagine with this subject)

read & comment/ ao3

A little like the virus itself, Kyle’s relationship with his mask begins with worry, annoyance, and then pain. He’s more than happy to have the proper N-95 mask as they begin to get their first case at Roswell General but then a couple more patients trickle in and within a few days his skin is irritated and itching. Maybe it’s the news, maybe it’s the texts from his friends that he’s increasingly missing, but when the Regiment starts spouting off about how COVID is a joke he thinks it might be affecting his nerves too. By week three his former red mark left by the mask has become a permanent feature to his face and by week five it’s not a mark but a bruise instead. Blisters and cracks in his skin litter his hands from over-washing. His feet become so overused the pads of his feet feel numb and bruised and he wears through an entire pair of shoes.

Positivity has fled from his life by week seven and now he’s inside of a survival mode he’s never experienced. He thought after last year he’d be used to anything the world (or universe, rather, given all these aliens) could throw at him. Now what feels foolish, he had believed that there was nothing that could be worse than the previous pain of losing a patient or finding out his father had experimented on people’s lives. 

When he’s out of ventilators and CPAP machines because Albuquerque needs them more and he has to choose whether or not to save the life of an eighty five year old or a thirty two year old he remembers from high school, he breaks.

 Guilt is one thing, grief is another, but the pure rage he feels knowing that Max Evans is out on the town patrolling as some fucking cop and not someone who could heal most of this hospital makes him want to commit actual murder. Maybe trading the blood of an alien on his hands would feel less heart-wrenching. But no. Max had brought back Rosa and had paid the price. Quelling his anger, he went back to work.

 He slept at the hospital most nights in the height of it. Sure the couch was rough, but it was better than the other on-call doctor beds down the hall. Three twelve hour ER shifts of a usual work week doubled to five days of thirteen hour shifts. Soon there’s a week where he pulls double shifts for an entire week when one of his nurses is urgently hospitalized herself. Hospital directors had left them with no PPE except contaminated masks to reuse. Maria, Isobel, and Rosa are in the forefront of a drive to make and donate masks to his hospital after some social media posts that he doesn’t even see until the cloth masks arrive and his medical assistants give him their handwritten note. It makes him smile, but smiling feels so foreign that he almost wants to break from that.

 Visitors are no longer allowed which means Kyle isn’t allowed to use his bedside manner to comfort the family of patients. He has to facetime mothers, spouses, and children and hold the phone over a patient who can’t breathe without machine assistance and pretend that everything is fine and that there’s still hope despite the hypoxia and lack of rising vitals. Ignore that if the patient goes into cardiac arrest more than once, the kindest thing to do given prognosis is to let the patient pass. Resuscitation and DNR (a patient’s begging request to not be resuscitated) becomes a word he uses in his daily work and not simply for intense surgeries.

 Exhaustion isn’t a deep enough adjective to describe the fugue state he goes into. File to file, room to room, ventilator to next… he isn’t surprised when his body starts to wear down. When he no longer feels hunger and instead feels all too hot and dizzy. Telling himself it’s just because of how much he’s exerting his body while covered in layers and layers of protective clothing doesn’t help the fact that he’s starting to have more trouble breathing as he walks the hallways at a fast pace. When he begins to cough, he does what he promised himself he wouldn’t do and drives out post-shift to the desert cabin of Max Evans.

 Part of him is too desperately tired to knock, but when he arrives on the property with the cop car idle and the house dark and at peace for the night, his fury greets him with the embrace of a long-lost friend. Knuckles pound at the wood and Max answers the door with surprise and a general look of defense, and Kyle tries not to immediately punch him in the face at the fact he looks like he had woken up from a comfortable sleep.

 “Heal me.” Kyle manages to spit out.

 “I—what’s wrong?”

 “Beginning stages of respiratory distress, fever, nausea—what do you fucking think?”

 “Kyle—,” Max starts to say, the hesitation deepening, and that does it.

 “No. I have not asked you for anything in all of this, Evans. Anything!” He shouts, voice hoarse. “Not when people got sick, not when they started dying, not even when we started having to let people die on purpose. And you know what? I wasn’t going to even come and ask you now, but I can’t get sick when I’m the one here fucking saving lives out of the two of us and you’re just cruising the streets handing out goddamn traffic tickets.”

 Max’s face isn’t stony like it usually is when Kyle’s yelling at him; this time it’s crushed and guilty but not nearly enough. “What kind of hours you work this week, Evans? A nice 8 to 4? Did you get facetime with Isobel or your mom, maybe binge through a few books and movies after you’re home? Did you sit down and eat a nice dinner and or go over to drink a few beers with Guerin since you can’t get sick? Even get a nice eight hours of sleep in your own bed in your nice quiet home?”

 No response.

 “I am not asking to sequence your DNA like Liz. All I am asking is for you to let me heal people since you don’t want to.”

 A night breeze is all that makes noise for a moment as Kyle catches his breath and glares at Max, who stands quietly but is staring down at his boots before he finally looks up and nods. Max steps forward then, and Kyle sees that his eyes are actually filled with tears. Temper deflating, but still not subsiding entirely, given that not much else is able to be done; Kyle lets Max place a hand on his shoulder and feels the extremely weird feeling spread throughout his body. Something more electric than anything else, which God knew made a lot more sense concerning his powers and how the body operated with electrical nerve impulses, but that is a train of thought better left for another day. He wants to just walk away, and he almost does, but he still mutters a “thank you” before he does so.

When his nurse dies a few days later and he watches as the staff double bag her body to take to the morgue, he escapes to his office and crashes on his couch with sobs. There’s no one here to support him. He can’t go to his mother’s home and collapse into one of her comforting embraces without risking infecting her. He can’t get wasted at the Wild Pony with Maria when it’s closed. He can’t visit Rosa or Arturo at the Crashdown. Keeping his friends and family safe meant keeping them away from him. Keeping them safe meant he needed to stop pushing his head into his hands to try and control the sound of his crying and get back to work at saving the lives around them.

He gets put on leave by the hospital administrator when he’s almost arrested for decking Wyatt Long in the hospital parking lot as the idiot stood outside with a sign rallying Regiment members to make sure the hospital was told it was killing people on purpose for the election. If Jenna hadn’t been the officer on duty he would have been cuffed and put on record, jeopardizing his license, but there was some self-preserving part of him that desperately wished for his practice to be over anyway. He’s not even sure how Jenna handles it, honestly, all he remembers is her dropping him off at his house from her patrol car like she had been nothing but an uber. No matter how angry and adamant he gets, his boss refuses to bend, saying it’s for his own good given the connections the Long’s have in the town and how Kyle has worked almost 74 of the past 76 days.

Alex is the first to visit him, unannounced. When the doorbell rings Kyle is mindlessly pretending to watch some tv show in his living room that’ll distract him from his consuming thoughts about patients, so he doesn’t get up to answer. He checks his silent phone to see if he was forewarned of a visitor but sees nothing. Unsure if it’s his boss or a patient’s family, he forces himself up onto his sore feet and opens the door after grabbing a regular mask off the coffee table. Black face mask on and standing further out from the door on the porch is Alex, the usual gruff hello turned into something soft. “Hey.”

Kyle heaves a sigh. He had wondered when the pity visits would begin. “Hey. You really shouldn’t be around me, you know.”

“I’m clearly a minimum of eight feet away in an open space while masked.” Alex smarts back. “Either way, I’m worried about you.”

Scoffing, he shakes his head. “Don’t fucking worry about me. Worry about getting sick, because if I have to see another person I care about die, I--,”

“Kyle.” the other says too kindly, the sort of pacifying voice Alex reserved for only the most dire situations. “I have no idea what you’re dealing with in specifics, but my experiences do overlap with yours in some places.”

“And?”

Maybe it came out a little too rude, because Alex raises a brow, but then sighs instead. “And I’m just checking in to make sure you know people care about you.”

“Thanks, Manes.” Kyle huffs in return, managing not to roll his eyes because focusing on being blunt and abrasive was so much easier.

“Just be careful.” Alex interjects before Kyle could close the door and turn back to his show. “Dealing with the trauma of what you’re dealing with gets dark very quickly.”

“Because I punched Wyatt Long?” he spits back sarcastically.

“No, because the suicide rates for healthcare professionals are drastically increasing along with the rates of PTSD diagnoses.” Alex says flatly, ever one to be unfazed by sarcasm. “And I’ve lost more active duty members to suicide than I have combat.”

Kyle pauses, caught. Maybe Alex had known he would be, because there isn’t some way he can give a smile and reassuring wave with him like he could his mother or Liz. While Kyle hadn’t actively thought of a plan, he couldn’t pretend he had noticed signs of depression the second he was alone in his house. 

“The quiet is the worst part, right?” Alex says, all but reading his mind. “Not always because of the flashbacks, although those are horrible, but because if things are quiet then--,”

“--people are dying.” Kyle finishes, his voice raspier by the end of the three words. “Yeah, well, mine still are.”

“They’re going to.” Is what felt like a cold response, but somehow gave Kyle the understanding he’s been craving. “They’re going to die and because of your profession you’re going to be able to save some of them. Which will make you think you’re responsible to save all of them and because you’re a good person you’re going to feel guilty in ways that no one will understand for being human and failing to.”

“Failing is all I do lately.” Kyle replies. “Usually the wins feel higher than the losses as a doctor, but with this-- and no one outside of it cares. They go outside and yell about how this is about a fucking election and when it’s not the patients, it’s the hospital pretending they don’t have enough money to buy us proper protection. Or the government saying this will all go away and that it’s just a light cold.”

Alex gives a small nod. “I know. I also know telling you the same advice that you’d give another doctor of trying not to burn out and instead taking a small rest is useless. So I’m just going to drop off these dvd’s and make you report back to me the difference when you’re done.”

Star Trek and Star Wars. Kyle finds a smile tug on his lips. Alex leaves with one on his as well.

When he gives a response to Alex a few days later on how Star Wars is better not more than a few minutes later Deluca is texting him with recommendations on joining her Buffy the Vampire Slayer rewatch. There’s something sweet about the fact that people have been clearly talking about him, even if definitely borderline creepy with how nosy his circle of friends can be, but he sighs and lets Maria add him to the group chat she has with Rosa and Liz where they review each episode after the fact and even chimes in every now and then. Isobel gets added not long after due to an Instagram story Maria shares and then the group has moved onto Friends after everyone shoots down Liz for suggesting Grey’s Anatomy on behalf of Kyle. Alex is also in there, even if it’s rare he chimes in with an opinion, but once they start Friends his commentary about how much he hates Ross that gets the entire group riled up does tend to make him laugh. Even Kyle agrees with Forest-- whose opinion had been shared by Alex-- that Chandler had all too many queer-coded scenes with Joey.

His mother facetimes him daily, which given how they both don’t exactly go out much starts to become monotonous, until she begins to give in and talk about memories she has of their father. Tidbits she never would have shared with him about their adult life when he was a child or teenager. He in turn facetimes Rosa and shares some of the memories of their father as well, which as much as she tries to pretend she doesn’t want for Arturo’s sake she clearly does with the million questions she asks every single time and the small smile she gives him at the end of their calls.

Liz updates him on her work which is a nice reprieve from everyone’s normalcy and lack of medical jargon sometimes, especially when she gives him inside info on covid vaccine studies not yet published to the general public yet. Everything in him wants this more than anything else in the world right now and he texts her almost every day asking if she’s heard more news even when he knows things take time. She’s a good sport about everything, even when he shares in a very angry rant about Max Evans and how they could have helped so many more people so much more quickly with his DNA-- however selfish that might have been.

When he goes back to work, he feels refreshed, even when it makes things hit like a freight train once more. Lost in a sea of inadequacy, his feelings extend past the pandemic. Even when things return to a level of normalcy and the cases subside he gets alien medical drama thrown in his face once more, and he starts to wonder if he’ll ever recover. If he was wrong to choose this calling. If the fact he can’t help Max or Maria is a sign from above or his father that it’s time to make some career move or change location like his mother and Liz. But, like he tells Michael Guerin. He can’t think he can face his future children and say he walked away from this. Or let people die by quitting, just like Rosa warns. And so he stays and tries to heal both other people and himself.

[unohanadaydreams]

I was working on requests but then I was like y’know what I should do? Flesh out and write down my Mayuri headcanons because I can not bear the weight of this obsession alone.

Mayuri Kurotsuchi Origin Headcanons (incomplete but long)

features: uuuuh not overly disturbing. One instance of suicide, experimentation on a fetus.

The woman who raised him was elegant, ambitious, and dutiful. But she was not a mother. The care she gave Mayuri was toward his talent for sewing—he had an eye for detail and a competitive nature that compelled her to pinch his cheek and smile at his handiwork. Always, she smiled at the fabric. Never at him.

When he was very young, they worked for the local theaters. His mother—she told him over and over she wasn’t his mother, but Mayuri wanted her to be so badly that, in the secret of his mind, he called her that—was sought after enough to be choosy. They followed the actors before pay. She taught him that money was fleeting, but talent was everlasting.

She gave him books on educational odds and ends. Some were not to keep, on loan from someone who owed her a favor. Others were his, taken from those steeped in debt but unwilling to strip his mother’s wonderful kimono from their back. His favorite were of the natural sciences. He so wanted to keep a book on Reishi that he tossed it in the fire pit when his mother demanded it back, not wanting anyone to have it if he couldn’t have his way. She smacked his head against the wall until he bled.

His mother loved to be obeyed. Conditions were what she valued over coin. It was as close to power as could be gotten by someone with so little to begin with. She watched rehearsals, was ‘gifted’ favored seats, and was given a voice when it came time to pick the next play.

He was urged to nurture his curiosity; it would suit him when his mother sent him off to be a soul reaper. She always said she would, even when his entire face became a wrinkle at the thought of fighting on and on for nothing he cared about. At least the actors had grace, built up by makeup, masks, and finery.

Mayuri wasn’t fond of the actors as a rule. Their egos and posturing annoyed him. In opposition, his mother’s eyes followed them endlessly. The exceptions to his ire tended to moonlight as jesters; they came and bid him ask his mother to dye their kimonos or to copy the latest en vogue brocade—but better. That was her specialty—brocades.

He was often bored and lonesome, so when the actors spoke to him, he spoke back despite the cool facade he gave them when with his mother, which was often. The room in which he wove and dyed fabric was often filled with his chatter, to himself. But silent when his mother was there, which was often.

Mayuri pushed limits like all children do, but with himself. How far could he poke a needle into his skin before it became unbearable? If he sewed an eye shut, would it fuse together? His mother seemed very occupied and payed him little attention, until she noticed that his eye was, indeed, fusing shut.

She had a real son by an actor most beloved for his roles as heroines and not long after they were called for by a 1st rukongai theater, where the actor could not follow. His mother accepted, gave her conditions, and stayed for a few last shows. Playing a woman determined to follow her lover in death, he gave a long, wailing speech and did not get back up after twisting the knife to his gut. His mother smiled, looking satisfied that he had done it as the audience leapt from the pits to crowd the dying body.

Thereafter, he seemed to leave his mother’s side for good. Even if his little brother was too young to weave and was bland to everyone including Mayuri, he had an eye for color. His mother wove, aided his brother with dyeing fabric, and told Mayuri it was time for him to do more. “You think it’s only fighting, but my sister became a soul reaper. And now she lives in the clouds, doing as she pleases. No-no, not dead. Just dead to me.”

Mayuri left for the academy before he could watch a 1st rukongai production, his spiritual pressure growing well under instruction. But he hated the large emphasis on battle. Strategy interested him, but his questions soured many teacher’s attitudes toward him.

So used to his hands always being at work at weaving, Mayuri began to tinker on things during class simply to help him think. He sat in the back as a thin courtesy, but was known to dissect animals during lectures. His row was often empty but for himself.

Reishi, again, became a large focal point for him and Mayuri had more than a single book at his disposal. Texts both aged and modern were poured through with hunger. If all living things contain Reishi, then could some form of reishi revive the dead? Could life be made of reishi not through natural processes? Could the essence of the soul exist if pried from the shell, would there be enough reishi to support that?

He understood the concern behind the meetings meant to discourage his questions and lines of study, but he resented them all and burned his theories for show, every wondering word fresh in his mind. His logic was sound, his questions legitimate, and his ability up to the task. How could a soul reaper do as they please in such an environment?

Mayuri went to his mother when he neared graduation, pausing his education, years having past with much frustration, at her call. She sought opportunities for him, now that she served nobles, and he hurried back at the illusion of freedom.

His brother still wore an expression as blank as unmarked paper, but he hugged Mayuri round the legs whenever he entered the room. His mother scolded him for it.

It was here that he once again turned his wondering in on himself. Skin opened and tested for the conditions that would allow regeneration. Could healing Kido be broken down into a liquid or pill? Was there an alternative to healing Kido? With few tools or funding, Mayuri found his conclusions compromised. His skin became scarred, but healed well enough under his skilled needlework to cause no harm.

Not that Mayuri was afraid of harm. It hurt immensely to experiment on himself, but he was greater than the academy would let him be and beneath the pain would be the glory of discovery. At times, he had his little brother do what he could physically not. It worked well—though young, his brother seemed largely unaffected and his needlework had improved enough that Mayuri did not scold him about it. Which was praise enough.

While serving the Shihōin family, his mother made sly introductions to several of the clansmen and one who was not. A soul reaper named Kisuke Urahara, a dear friend of the Shihōin princess , who seemed impressed with Mayuri’s work, but only enough to praise it. He was two faced and annoying and worst of all brilliant. Mayuri wanted the praise he got as much as he hated the man. He was too touchy, always patting his back or hair or shoulder.

Urahara’s words gave confidence to the clansmen, who worked out arrangements with his mother. Instead of paying in full for expensive kimonos and debt-inducing brocade, Mayuri would have funding and permissions. It was all unofficial, under the table, and unknown the clan head. The only ones on the line were he and his mother and Mayuri knew that meant he would take the blame, alone, if relations soured.

The work the two nobles loved best in the beginning were that of regeneration, which suited Mayuri enough since they also gave him freedom to do more. He, too, wished to complete his work in that area. It was, once again, when he wandered back into questions of artificial life—the limits of reishi and the ways to change reishi to break those limits—that he was warned by Urahara. “Any good mind wonders about life and death, Mayuri. But you’re not cute enough to break the rules! Maybe if you looked like your mom ❤️ Instead of an angry burlap dolly~! Good thing you’re a little genius in the making, huh?”

Begrudgingly, Mayuri took the condescending advice and kept his work that did not suit the nobles at a minimum and extremely private. His notes were few, coded, and progressing badly without workable experimentation. What the nobles wanted were likewise becoming more petty; looking to outdo the humans on this or best another clan on that. Unbearable, demeaning work considering the fewer freedoms they gave him—the funding was running out.

He became more restless. More reckless. The Shihōin family and his mother parted ways. Mayuri’s freedoms were gone. He stuck holes in his little brother’s forehead until his face was covered in blood. Made horns. Tore off his own ears. Made better ones. Dug out his own fingernails. Tried to carve himself into something better—someone above these circumstances. His mother sewed his skin shut wordlessly one night, the one he’d rid himself of his ears, and pinched his cheek like he was a toddler again.

So too did his approach to his appearance change. Like the actors and jesters of his earliest memories, he painted his skin white. Covered his eyes in a strip of black. Set his blue hair stiff and neat like a wig. Unique to him were the metal improvements that replaced his ears.

His little brother began to follow him everywhere after he was given horns, his mother once again occupied. One day, they found their mother dead together, murdered body tangled in a weaving loom.

Mad, for sure, Mayuri took her body to his lab, determined to find out as much as he could before discovered. His mother was unsalvageable, but the fetus within her could be something extraordinary. A third sibling. A first sister. A wonderful dream. Someone to take his mother’s place, but better. Always better—always striving to be more than before.

The data was invaluable even if it was coated in failure. Not that he had truly expected to breath life on the first try, but he had wished to not be caught. The Shihōin were famed for their leadership of the secret police, though, and caught he was. Even his most ingenious traps could not stop an entire force.

Unlawful tampering of a soul, theft of Shihōin funds and equipment, unlawful creation, and the murder of secret police, mother, and unborn sister. He was sentenced to the maggot’s nest, no access to anything but a cell. Too valuable of mind to be die, but too dangerous to be free.

Too valuable of mind to die. He always knew he was. It was nice to hear it, though.