#used friends spool again !!!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hatsukeii · 5 months ago

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think fast / childhood bsf!tsukshima kei x reader

genre(s): childhood best friends x soulmates???? past lives and normal people by sally rooney coded im a sally rooney MEATRIDER!! angsty, gut-wrenching longing, bittersweet / hopeful ending so it's not all bad!! nostalgia is going to carry this fic so hard it's going to be a fun, fun time...

warning(s): eventual smut!! all characters are aged up to 21!!MDNI (at least up until the observatory)!! unprotected sex here remember to wrap it before you tap it!! (sorry kids), female leaning anatomy because smut but pronouns are gn all throughout and honestly you could read it as gn anyways:)) dead dad warning (my dad is NOT dead this was just convenient to kick off the thing), i fw the timeline of the world??? pretend flip phones were still in use in like 2012 or something idk

wc: ~6.3k

tldr; time has a way of reminding Kei of its presence, and its escape. you are the reminder it has been sending to him for six years.

Fate: A power believed to cause and control all events, so that one cannot change or determine the way things will happen.

It is a sunny afternoon when you step foot into Sendai, Miyagi. A beautiful day of golden warmth beaming onto petals of pink, red, and white, wrapped in coffee-stained newspapers and tied together with a spool of twine. The bouquet lies on browning grass, a contemptible reminder of the time that has passed since your last appearance here, six years ago, and you crouch down to the ground. Now face to face with the engraving of a full name on a slab of polished granite, you hesitate. Your father lived in a language that you can no longer speak, died in a country you no longer call your home. When you whisper blessings and apologies at the gravestone in broken Japanese and slurred syllables, you sound like a stranger. A stranger who sits in a graveyard at noon, with nothing but a bouquet from the nearby florist in hand, and a promise, stuttered out in half-decent Japanese, to return again the next year.

When a second bouquet falls to the ground behind you, and you turn around, Tsukishima Kei thinks this is what English speakers like you would call fate. He’s a little taller now, and bulkier too, and you have to crane your head higher than you remember just to meet his eyes. You don’t recognise the glasses he dons anymore, the black rectangles from his teenage years swapped out for rounded squares and silver frames. But he has a towel in his hand, a towel that has his initials poorly stitched into the corner with red string. You wonder if the matching one he made you, eleven years ago, is collecting dust somewhere in your dormitory, halfway across the world.

“You’re back.”

“It’s been a while, Kei.”

You can no longer differentiate Japanese syllables clearly, and your statement jumbles into nonsense in your head. Kei hears the English woven into your accent in the way you roll your tongue like foreigners do, and in the odd intonations that don’t exist in your mother tongue. You don’t even remember your father’s dislike for white flowers. London has truly done a number on you.

“Why? Why now?”

You bite your nail, a persistent habit that Kei frowns at. He picks up his flowers, and steps towards the gravestone, just close enough for your knee to brush against him for a moment. The bouquet in his hand is wrapped in plastic and filled with red and pink, the white from your own sticking out like a sore thumb when he places his flowers gently on the grass beside yours. He tosses the towel in his hand, opening it up against his palm, and you take it from him. If you cannot get the language right, or the flowers, this is the least you can do. Cobwebs stick to the fabric as you sweep at the granite slab, watching soot and dust fall to the grass. The curves and dips of the gravestone are familiar once again, and you dig the towel into every nook and cranny. You feel Kei’s body shift, before his knee is touching yours and his face is finally level with your peripheral vision. He glances at you, waiting. His knees bounce in anticipation.

“Never had the chance, college has been a lot.”

Your phone rings as you finish cleaning. The ringtone is familiar, unchanged from when you used to have a flip phone, in fact. Kei hums along to the jingle for the four seconds that the call is left unanswered, before it cuts off into a flurry of English. He catches something about research, and a thesis, his shabby English unable to fill in any more than that. He’s never known you were interested in research, let alone what it is that you’re researching. All he’s known is your aspiration of becoming a librarian when you were six, and his promise to borrow books from you for the museum that he swore he would one day work at. Now, he works at the museum, sorts antique scripts and yellowed books into cabinets and display shelves. He does not borrow books from you. Now, you talk, but nothing makes sense to him.

You end the call, mumbling foreign curses as you shove your phone back into your pocket. Clicking your tongue, you turn to Kei, who stares at the flowers on the ground. He pushes his glasses up when they slide down his nose, and you resist the familiar urge to nag him about buying the right frames for his face.

“Yeah, college has been mostly phone calls like that.”

He nods, a half-hearted chuckle huffing from his nose. He’s forgotten what it’s like to sit at a graveyard with somebody else, the annual reminder of a lonely death replaced by another this year as you dust off his towel, and drop it onto his thigh. He swipes it from his leg, folding it into quarters and sliding it into his pocket.

“So you choose to come now, without a word? Not even a heads up? Six years after leaving?” Kei’s voice rises at each question, the same way it did six years ago when you broke the news of leaving Japan to him. This hurts him to ask, that much you can still recognise.

“I would have come sooner if I had the chance. I’ve missed everyone so much.”

You pluck a petal from a white flower in your bouquet, then another, until all that remains is the naked bulb, and scatter them onto the ground beside you. Perhaps the next person that’s been buried under six feet of dirt used to have a liking for them. Kei remains unmoving, throat bobbing as he swallows thickly. His knee stops bouncing.

“How long will you stay for?”

“Today, then Friday and Saturday too. Flight back is Sunday night.”

Six years of waiting, and this is what it amounts to. A weekend and a bit. Despite that, Kei still thinks this must be fate, in all the languages that it exists in. Six years of life, and love, and hurt, all to be condensed into four measly days. Yet as Kei pushes himself off the ground, dusting his trousers off, he still thinks that this unlikely, yet conveniently timed visit must be the answer to his pleas for your return. That this must be some heavenly reward, good karma for visiting your father’s grave annually on your behalf. You watch him turn to leave, and he calls out to you as he walks away from your father’s grave.

“Everyone’s at Hinata’s old place tomorrow. You should come by if you can.”

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Change: to replace (something) with something else, especially something of the same kind that is newer or better; substitute one thing for (another).

All it takes is one coincidental exchange of panicked glances at the first throw up of the night for you and Kei to leave together. Hinata slurs a drunken farewell, tries to embrace you as you slip your sneakers on at the door, and you make a note to yourself that you really do not miss most of the people here, spare for the volleyball team. Kei waits at the door, holding it open for when you finally shake Hinata off of your back, and step through. The night is chilly, the warmth in your skin from the indoor heating system emanating into the midnight air. You kick rocks along the pavement as you walk, scattering pigeons that remain awake and active at this time, and Kei smiles at your antics. You still hate birds, and you still remember the trick he taught you when you were nine for chasing away pigeons that flocked around you for food.

“Who are you staying with?”

“My mom’s.”

The road leads the two of you to a high school. Kei has not come back to Karasuno since graduation. You squint in the dark, scanning the school, and you don’t recognise the new building that stands in place of the old auditorium. He watches you crouch at the plaque next to the front gate, tracing the letters engraved on it with the pad of your thumb. Some part of him blames Karasuno for being a bad place to you, the other parts blame himself for not being good enough to outweigh it.

“It’s changed.”

“Everything has.”

You rattle the locked entrance, the chain and padlock hitting against cold metal. It won’t open, so you look up through the gap of the gate. Six years ago, on that rooftop, was where you stood over a cold lunch box and emptied convenience store drinks, back against the wire fence, saying to Kei, I’m leaving tomorrow. On that day, you had packed yakisoba for his lunch, and nothing for yourself. He could barely respond to your announcement, only dropping his chopsticks and asking you, why? You told him something along the lines of being an expat, and a better school for what you wanted, all in the fluent Japanese you once spoke. Nothing made sense to him anyways.

When you turn back to him, his hands are in the pockets of his jacket, and his nose is red from the cold air. You stand beside him, staring aimlessly at Karasuno from outside its barriers.

“Do you still play volleyball?”

“Yeah, Sendai Frogs.”

You hum, and then wonder why you only asked tonight, and why you’re surprised. He shrugs, clouds of white puffing from his mouth when he breathes out. He tries to blow a wisp of hair away from his face, and you suddenly realise that his hair has grown too, along with his height. It fails, and he tries again. You reach up to swipe at his bangs, before running your fingers backwards through his hair. It parts itself as you lift your hands from his head, and falls into place neatly. A cold breeze whizzes by, and undoes your work, sending strands of gold into his face once again. You snicker a little.

“You know, you could ask my mom to trim it for you like she used to.”

“Nah, I prefer this.”

It isn’t until you turn to look at him properly that you see how much time has passed. He likes his hair longer these days, the choppy hairdo of his teenage years now nothing but an old preference, and you wonder if he is still a loyal customer of your mother’s salon. When he pulls his hands from his pockets and blows hot air into them, calluses line the bases of his fingers, the blisters of his high school years hardened by trials of time and effort. There are bags under his eyes, eyes that are now a little rounder, and softer too. When he speaks, monotone and tired, you realise his snarkiness has dissipated into general frustration. You stare until his eyes dart to you, and turn away quickly, ashamed. Leaving Karasuno has taken your hand and led you to a purpose that you never knew you were capable of. You wonder what the hell it has done to Tsukishima Kei.

“It looks good.”

He breathes in sharply, then exhales with a huff, shoulders relaxing as he stuffs his hands back into his pockets. You suddenly realise that your fingers have gone numb from the cold of the night, fingertips tingling like a million frost-bitten needles poking into your skin. You also stuff your hands into your pockets, rubbing your fingers against each other to generate some heat. Then, Kei’s looping his arm around yours, and pulling you away from Karasuno High School. He keeps on his straight path, and you stumble along behind his leaping steps. When you round a corner, the night breeze grows into something less imperturbable, and more vicious, pushing the two of you forward from behind in slashes of cold. The sea is near.

“Is this the beach we used to go to?”

“You still remember it.”

He drags you down a flight of stairs to Fukanuma Beach, and the misty sea air rushes to your head. When he leads you to the shoreline, you hesitate. The sea has been off limits since the two of you were five, a regulation put in place in remembrance of the Great Sendai Earthquake. An earthquake that saw Kei and yourself hunched beneath the same table in the middle of class, huddled next to each other as you cried for your parents. Now, in your final years of college, as the water slips beneath the soles of his shoes, pushing and receding in layers of aqua and bubbles of white, it seems that time has slipped by just as easily too. Time, that saw the fading of the earthquake’s devastation, despite the loss of thousands, including your father. Time, that frayed the string connecting yourself to Kei as you moved through life halfway across the world from Japan. Time, that passes through you like sand spilling between your fingers on a beach you once thought you knew, but has changed like the unprohibited water that seems to push further up into the shore at each tidal wave.

“They lifted the ban?”

“A few months ago, yeah.”

You step into the next wave that fizzles into foam, and the water crashes into the toe of your shoes. Crouching, you push mounds of wet sand into a cylinder, flattening the top and pushing divots in equal intervals. Kei joins, moulding shorter ones beside your own and drawing windows into the side. You finish, and he stands, smiling at the creation. You cover the top, afraid he will stomp on it, a trademark of Kei’s whenever you built sandcastles with him in childhood. Instead, he laughs, and walks further into the water. When you get up to join him, the hems of his trousers are soaked, shoes also covered in a sheen of wetness. You hop over the castle, and the next wave that comes sends its foundations crumbling back into the sea.

“We used to do that. You’d destroy it every time.”

Kei chuckles, and looks back to see the half destroyed castle. Clicking his tongue, he returns to the rubble, and you watch his hands push mounds of sand towards what is left standing.

“I’d always build a better one for you afterwards though.”

He dusts his hands off when he finishes, and the waves fizzle out just before they hit the two-tiered sandcastle. You sniff, holding your arms close to your chest. When Kei looks up, he feels like the summer of being seven years old again, smiling at you with his missing front tooth when you sniffle and laugh at the improved castle he’s put together for you. Now, it is winter. He only grins with the corners of his lips. You only sniff because it’s cold.

“Kei.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s really been a while. How have you been?”

He steps over the castle towards you, careful not to break it. Your hair blows in your face from the beach breeze and your eyes squint from the sand that flies into the air, and Kei takes it all in when you’re face to face with him. When he opens his mouth, some selfish part of him thinks about casting his words into shackles of regret, so heavy that they weigh you down and keep you in Japan, in Sendai, on this beach, somewhere close to him.

“Do you want to stay the night? Like you used to?”

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

Nostalgia: A sentimental longing, or wistful yearning for a return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.

Kei does not take you to his family house. He leads you up stairs that make no sense, and hallways that stretch on forever, until you finally reach his flat. He wipes his shoes on the doormat, throws his keys into a glass bowl upon entry, and hangs his jacket on a hook mounted to his front door instead of the coathanger that used to stand beside it. You look around, searching for the shells you once collected in a jar for his tenth birthday. When your eyes land on a jar filled with conches and cowries, you let go of a breath you were unaware of holding. They sit on the top of his bookshelf, above textbooks and file organisers. A knot forms in your throat at the realisation that the jar sits alone in its compartment, with nothing beside it. You’ve done the same to the jazz vinyl Kei gifted you at the airport before your departure. You don’t realise that he’s disappeared somewhere as you stare at the shells, until a shirt and a pair of shorts are thrown into your chest. He stands at the entrance to a hallway, donning sweatpants and an old hoodie, one that’s clearly a size too small. The pocket is lousily sewn on, a result of a mishap that occurred when you had borrowed it once. He doesn’t know that you spent the night learning to sew fabric just to fix it.

“Change. It’ll be more comfortable.”

You scurry through the hallway to his bathroom, pulling the shirt and shorts on hastily, before balling up your clothes and returning to the living room. Kei sits at his couch, now bound in leather instead of fabric, and clicks at the television. You join beside him, legs splaying across his own subconsciously. He doesn’t move. He stops at a movie, one you’ve seen hundreds of times before at his old house. It drones on in the background as he watches in silence, his arms now draped over your knees. The first time he watched this movie, it was in his old home, cross-legged on the carpeted ground with you on the couch behind him. Your hands used to press into his shoulders from above, shake them whenever your favourite scenes came on, squeeze them when you laughed until tears rolled from your eyes. Now that his new flat lacks a rug, he’s willing to settle with your legs on his own. Flashing lights illuminate the dark room in sequences that you can still recall perfectly from memory. He watches the movie. You watch him.

“Have you been doing good, Kei?”

Turning to you, he pushes his glasses up into his hair, leaning further back. You shuffle closer, legs bending as your shoulder digs into the leather couch. A strand of blond falls into his face, and you lift his glasses to tuck it back, before smoothing your hands over his mess of hair, combing and pushing with your fingertips.The words from the television melt into gibberish when he hums in satisfaction, what is unspoken between you two is more glaring than ever.

“I’ve been okay.” He cuts off, then finds himself thinking of what to tell you first, amongst the recollections of life that rush through his head. “Started working at the museum a couple years ago.” He wishes that you still remember the building, where the marble floors squeaked beneath your slippers, and glass panels lined the walls, hiding away treasures and artefacts that have withstood centuries, maybe even eons of erosion and weathering.

You nod, mind filling with the many museum visits you had with him there. He’s always liked the dinosaurs more than the shells. When you breathe out a chuckle, he knows you’re recalling the time he almost pissed himself at a life-sized, moving tyrannosaurus rex model.

“What about you?”

“Research. I’ve been doing research about…” you sign in the air, searching for the Japanese words that have slipped from your mind. Surrendering, you whip your phone out, searching for a translation.

“Archaeology?”

“Yeah, that. No more librarian dreams for me. More dinosaurs, though.”

A smile finds its way onto Kei’s face, one that softens his cheeks and flattens his eyes into crescents. He wonders if amongst the silver plaques and digital displays, your work is engraved in there somewhere. If each time he explains something to some bright-eyed child, who scuttles around the museum as you and him once did, he is unknowingly speaking in your language, translated until he can decipher the thoughts that run through your mind in your research, your memories, your dreams too.

“Maybe it’s in the museum somewhere. I’m willing to bet.”

“I hope it is.”

Your conversation fizzles back into silence, and the characters on the television do too. The two on the screen sit in a field, mere inches apart. The two of you look at each other, your knees now leaned into Kei’s chest and one of his arms draped along the back of the couch. When he pulls his glasses back to his eyes, and studies you all over again, it hits him that you really haven’t changed all that much, even after your six year separation. Six years older, with the exhaustion of a functioning adult, but you still gnaw on your cheeks, and tilt your head as you ask questions. Six years apart, and you are still you, who taught him to build sandcastles, and introduced him to his favourite movie, and fixed his hair whenever it stuck up in stubborn peaks of gold. When you let your eyes close, and drop your head onto his shoulder, you wait for lost time to tick backwards, until you’re on the rooftop with him once again. In this version of time, you blush when you tell him that you’ve chosen to stay in Japan instead. Pushing your head further into the crook of his neck, Kei’s chin reaches over to rest on the top of your crown. The credits of the movie roll in the background, and you mumble into the skin of his pulse.

“Can you take me there? I’ve missed it.” Your words send vibrations down his spine, sending his head into a frenzy as he pushes his hands against the couch harder.

“The museum?” It will be closed for the weekend, but Kei nods anyway. He’s sure he can find his way in through the back. Maybe he’ll take you to the fossils again, let you run your fingers along smooth amber and stone engravings. Perhaps he could show you the new exhibitions, ones that you won’t miss this time, as you have for the past six years. For now, he thinks he will let you sleep on his shoulder, listen to your soft snores, tremble at every hot breath that fans onto his neck.

The credits roll to the end, and come to a stop. Kei removes his arm from the couch to grab the remote from his coffee table. He rewinds the movie to the start.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

思慕 [しぼ, shibo]: yearning; deep longing, especially when accompanied by tenderness or sadness.

On the final night of your stay, you learn that Kei still giggles when he breaks rules, as he drags you through the back entrance of the closed museum. He maneuvers through hallways of antique paintings and repurposed junk, slips into dark stairwells illuminated by the flashlight of his phone, traps your wrist between his fingers and chuckles to himself, shaking his head as he takes you higher, and higher, and higher. You’ve lost count of how many flights of stairs have gone by when he taps his keycard against a sensor by a backdoor, and pushes it open. The museum observatory, once a mess of bamboo scaffolding and green covers, now allows silver moonlight through its glass dome, boasting billions of iridescent stars nestled in a blanket of hazy midnight. A decade of your anticipation has resulted in a circular space, hundreds of plush recliners lining the circumference of the room, and you wonder how many eyes have watched the stars from those seats before you ever had the chance to. When Kei leads you further into the observatory, you step foot onto the north star plastered on the ground in the centre of the room, where nothing but a telescope remains in a ten-foot radius. He takes a spot on the ground, back pressed against the cushioned edge of a seat.

“I figured this is the best spot. Better than any of the seats, actually.” He plants his feet on the ground, bending his knees and spreading them just wide enough for you to sit in between. You cross your legs, wagging them up and down as your hands hold your shins, and he lowers his legs, stretching them out in front of him. Leaning back, your spine hits a spot between his ribs, the same way it did when you were thirteen, and fourteen, and fifteen, staring at stars from the grass of his backyard. You pity the visitors that have yet to discover the simplicity of stargazing from the ground, hands pushed into the ground for stability, dirt and moisture seeping into the fabric of clothing. Pushing further into him, his breathing is heavy against your back, chest rising in rhythmic ups and downs. For what feels like hours, you sit in silence, eyes trained on your fingers that pick and fiddle. At the realisation that you haven’t looked at the stars in years, something bubbles in your stomach, pervasive, relentless. When you finally loll your head backwards to fall on his shoulder, and the tip of Kei’s nose grazes your cheekbone, you wonder how long he has not looked at the stars for as well.

“Why’d you stop calling?” His sudden question sends a haze rushing into your head.

You swallow thickly. If the passage of time were a sin, you’d burden it with all your explanations. Telling him that now would seem like some lousy excuse.

“It stopped going to your line a year after I left.” You pause, searching for the right words to use amidst the sea of Japanese and English that you must now sort out. “I only stopped trying after another month, the voicemail just said your number was no longer in use.”

Kei wishes he could dig his fingers into his chest and rip his heart out. If only he hadn’t stupidly broken his phone that night, five years ago during volleyball practice. If only he had checked his pockets before entering the court, just as he has done hundreds of times before. If only he had this, if only he had that, he might just torment himself for the rest of his life. His breath hitches, shoulder freezing rigid. Time does not differentiate between the knowing and oblivious. It slips and leaks beneath the noses of all that it encompasses, and it is but the cautious few that know to grab it, and join in on its journey. He knows now that he is not one of them, not after he’s cursed at the passage of time over and over and over for his own blunder.

“I broke my phone in a game. Got a new one so the number changed as well, fuck me.”

You laugh dryly into the empty observatory. The occasional twinkling of the stars above do nothing to make his explanation any easier. You think you’ll blame it all on doomed fate that you’ve spent five years trying to find somebody that felt the same as Kei did, to no avail. Blame it on cursed luck that you’ve clawed and grabbed at anything familiar enough, archaeology, jazz vinyls, old DVDs of the movie shared between two, all to remind yourself that he too, was once within grasp. You say nothing, because you don’t see a reason to. Instead, you push your head into his neck, drown in the scent of his cologne, ease yourself into his now grown body. You don’t see him wipe a hand across his mouth, then rub his eyes with pinched fingers.

When Kei decides to speak again, it is what feels like another hour later. He’s readjusted his posture about fifty times by now, arms removed from the ground and draped over your shoulders. The sensation of your hair against his skin is suddenly more prominent than ever when your hands find his own, holding them closer to yourself.

“If I didn’t find you at the grave, would you have looked for me?” His question is heavy, weighing his chest down as the words leave his throat in a hesitant cluster. You turn to look at him, and your eyes linger on his own when you squeeze his hands once, twice, then a third time.

“I’ve been looking for five years. Nobody else could take me home.” Your heart rushes to your mouth at your confession, and the bob of Kei’s throat does not go unnoticed. One of his hands comes up to hold your shoulder, pushing it towards himself until your body twists, rubbing against his. You let go of him, pressing your fingers into the ground between his legs instead, and he breathes out shakily, his windpipe suddenly cleared of its uncertainty.

“You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Yes, I am.”

His fingers slide down to grab your wrist, before going numb completely. His unoccupied hand peels itself from the floor and settles on the side of your waist. Your mouth goes dry when Kei breathes, hot and heavy, his eyes travelling to every inch of you. A bout of heat rushes from his chest to his head, and his legs, and his arms too. The air between the two of you is thick, and it sends your head into a feverish blur. The ground collapses beneath your knees as they shift to press into the floor, and you come face to face with Tsukishima Kei, who prefers his hair parted in bangs on the sides of his face, and wears silver frames instead of black ones. Tsukishima Kei, who has been visiting your father’s grave on your behalf for six years, and still plays volleyball even in his adulthood. Tsukishima Kei, whose eyes are finally finished with their ventures across your figure, that is pushed up against him on the ground of an observatory, and is learning whatever he can about you when his fingers tighten around your wrists and he kisses you without a warning.

Once, at the young, innocent age of seven, Tsukishima Kei kissed you in this museum. You had run a little too fast, stepped on your loose laces and fallen onto the ground face first. You sulked at a bench facing some random painting of melting clocks, red dots scattered across a purple patch right beneath your eye. When he kneeled in front of you to grab your face, and pressed his lips onto the bruise for a fraction of a second, he must have kissed the pain away, mending the leaking capillaries beneath your skin as he separated from your cheeks with a pop. Now, he pulls against your wrists to push himself closer, traps you in the embrace of his legs around the back of your thighs, wheezes and stutters against your lips at the lack of oxygen in his lungs. His head is running in circles instead of straight paths, and everything is spinning. When your hands reach to grab at his shirt, and palm at his chest, he pulls away only to rip his glasses off and toss them to the ground. Beneath the glow of the moon from above, everything but your flushed cheeks and swollen lips is a blur. You take half a breath in, before it is interrupted by Kei’s palms pulling you in by the sides of your neck, and his mouth on yours again. At seven years old, he ripped bruising pain away from your face with a kiss. At twenty-one, he forces his pain, and grief, and regret rushing into your heart by pushing himself against you, fingers tangling themselves into your hair as he kisses you, desperate, almost distressed. Every tug at your lips is a confession left unspoken, every time Kei opens his mouth apologies spill out into you in choked groans and sighs. At the sensation of his hand leaving your neck, your arm searches for him aimlessly, before he’s palming at you through your pants. He swallows your sudden gasp, and your fingers grip his wrist until your knuckles go white.

“Did you ever like me?” You can do nothing but choke out a question against his lips, one you’ve pondered about, day in and day out, since your departure from Japan.

By the way that Kei nods frantically, you’re certain that this is what six years of separation has amounted to.

Sparing no time, your fingers tug at the hem of his boxers, pulling them down just enough to release himself from the fabric constraints. He does the same, hands roaming until they find the waistband of your pants to push them down, fingers tugging your underwear to the side with a flick. He grabs you by the waist beneath your shirt, yanks your body towards him until something feels right and he can’t help but let out a trembling sigh into your shoulder. And when you finally begin to sink yourself onto him, agonisingly slow, you wish that you had never left Japan in the first place. Your eyes roll to the back of your head, and you wish that you could spend the rest of your life in this observatory with Kei, your hands wrapped around the back of his sweat-slicked neck.

When he pulls you down to push further, more pervasively, you fall into him, head hanging over his shoulder and arms squeezing around his neck. His inexperienced hands rock you back and forth against his hips, pulling a flurry of gasps and moans from your throat. He lets himself learn how you taste when his teeth tug at the hem of your shirt, pulling it down to expose your bare shoulder. His lips latch onto your collarbone, biting and sucking a trail of red marks up to the side of your neck. You shudder at his advances, and he studies the way your walls flutter around him, the erratic pulses that draw stars around his head, how your nails dig into his shoulders, and send his mind into a senseless orbit.

When he pushes and pulls at you a little harder, you whimper his name into his ear, reduced to nothing but a babbling mess that nibbles at his neck and kisses up his jaw feverishly. First friend, first kiss, first love. The notion that this is another first that Tsukishima Kei has brought upon you sends your mind spiralling. He should have been your first prom date, first roommate, first dance too. If only you hadn’t left him first. You push your head off his shoulder, hands moving to hold his face instead. A wave of pleasure washes over you when his palm presses against your stomach, and you hang your head low again, a shaky sigh released from your chest.

When you look up, there are tears in Kei’s eyes. He rolls his head back onto the plush seat behind him, hands lifting you off himself fully, just to push you back onto him again. You collapse into his body, palms pressing against his heaving chest.

“I- fuck! I fucking loved you! I still do!” He speaks it into the glass ceiling as one hand reaches for his face. He wipes his palm across his eyes, only for more tears to form. They are uncontrollable, relentless as he turns his head away from you. He isn’t sure how he will live again tomorrow, not when he’s finally come to a reckoning with the pang in his chest at every thought of you. He thinks he could die the second you step onto that flight back to London, ripped away from him once again. The reality that he cannot stay buried inside you for any longer than the next couple of minutes haunts him to no end, the idea of being separated from you a second time unbearable to even imagine. When he turns back to see you, head on his chest and fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt, he decides that reality can wait until he’s finished with you.

“I love you too- shit, Kei! I never stopped!”

You rut against his hips senselessly now, chasing some unfamiliar high as your vision fades to black and you scream his name until your throat goes hoarse. Kei barely gives you time to breathe, before he’s coming undone from right beneath you, shuddering and groaning as you relax against his body and go limp. He holds you against him, one hand pushing your head against his chest and the other wrapped around your back. He tucks your damp hair behind your ears, places kisses along your temple so he can hear the hums of satisfaction that sound from your curled lips.

“Can you stay forever?” He mumbles into your hair, and you turn to press your ear against his chest. His heart pounds as he pushes his cheek into the crown of your head, and your hands crawl up his chest to wrap around his neck. When he looks up through the glass ceiling, the stars have not moved one bit.

“I’ll find you again, wherever you are.”

Time may slip away from Tsukishima Kei like petals that fall off the buds of flowers, water that seeps beneath the soles of his sneakers, stardust that hovers above the atmosphere. Yet he has learned that it has a way of always coming back to remind him of its presence, and its escape. You are the reminder that it has been sending to him for six years.

author's note:

ERM! never writing nsfw again that's for sure but this piece defs had some stuff that i was very, VERY proud of coming up with!! sorry to my minor moots who probably won't read this in its entirety bc of the big MDNI warning... but I honestly don't know how to feel about this piece as a whole... i was super excited to write it but i think i got a little impatient towards the end esp since im always writing at like 3am LOL but i hope you guys liked it anyways!!! i tried really hard to make the dynamic work and i hope it did!!!!!

also ps they exchange numbers again js a little extra bonus that i didn’t get to put into the actual thing

anyways tags!!

@staraxiaa @chuuya-brainrot @akaakeis @laughingfcx @writingsofanomnivore @t0rchknight @bailey-reeds @wyrcan @hiraethwa @fiannee @catsoupki @anonymity-222 @wishi-selfships @kuroppiii

ok love u guys thank u for being patient

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skele-doll · 14 days ago

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God i hate men who victimize and act oppressed. Tell me why i saw a bunch of butthurt men in the comments of this one video saying shit like "Opened up once.. never again." "And they wonder why we dont talk to them.." "This is why we dont talk about our emotions" like LMFAO WHATT For reference, the video was of this man sitting outside alone with a spool of wire, His wife said "What are you doing out here alone? I thought you were working?" and he said "This spool of wire has been with me for 40 years, and now its almost gone, look at what's left of it!.." and he was laughing and smiling. His wife had been filming him, confused on why he was sitting out there alone and concerned. In the end she said something along the lines of: "Oh, im sorry you feel that way, but im a little concerned because youre wearing your jetts hat and i thought they lost" and the man said "Goodbye" and rolled his eyes before getting up and leaving. There are MULTIPLE issues with this. The most prominent one here being the lack of communication on the mans end. She thought he was being happy because he was smiling, he didn't tell her he was out there because he was feeling sad or down, he just said something and she thought he was reminiscing. And because of this miscommunication, he got mad. He could've just said "No, i was out here because i feel like life has just been flying by recently. Can we sit here and chat?" and she would've listened, i mean, she came out there to check on him and was obviously concerned sooo..??

Also, people got pissy about her saying "i thought you were working".. LMAO?? She's just asking because she didnt expect to see him outside alone as its getting dark. The fact that she asked about his jetts hat as well makes me think he's done something irrational before when the jetts lost. I feel like men just can't communicate at all 🤷‍♀️ The men in the comments saying they'll never open up again over (1) issue is just sympathy seeking. They can literally find another person to talk to?? Think guys.. If you met someone who really messed you up, would you go looking for someone who acts just like them?? No. You'd avoid those types of people. So, it is EXTREEEMMELY easy for these men to just find new friends and people who will listen if they know who to watch for. 🤦‍♀️ This is so different from what women face, yet they find ways to compare us and see who has it worse despite the facts. Women run into evil people regardless of whether were looking for them or not. I was 15 when some 20 year old dude got into a relationship with me and groomed me. When i tried to leave, bro threatened to go back to the military and get himself killed. (He wasn't ever IN the military, he just wanted to make me feel guilty.) Little girls, young women, and mature women, will always have some asshole trying to get with them or some asshole trying to harass them. They cant simply walk away from that unlike men.

#gender abolition #gendercrit #radblr #radfeminism #radical feminism #radical feminist safe #radical feminist community #radical feminists do interact #terfblr #terfsafe

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mcr-themed-brain · 2 months ago

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Tutorial on how to make patches, because DIY should be accessible and inexpensive, and u shouldn't have to turn to fast fashion websites

Materials Required:

An idea

Fabric

Paint

Needle and thread

How do I procure these items?

Idea

You're in luck, ideas are very easy to have, at no monetary expense. If you don't know exactly what you want to put on a patch, you can type "punk patches" into tumblr/pinterest/google/etc and note down anything you like

Fabric

This is where most people start to worry - most of us don't sew and don't have an arsenal of fabric at our fingertips. But fear not! There are 2 options here

If you have money, you can buy squares of fabric from a craft store. Joanns Fabrics has bundles of quarter-yards for $10. Just one quarter yard can yield you dozens of patches

If you don't have money, don't be discouraged! You don't need to spend anything if you don't want to. Do you have an old shirt you don't wear? Pants? Bandana? Underwear? Bedsheets? That's usable fabric right there!!

Paint

The real bust of the list. Unfortunately, getting paint isn't as easy as fabric can be. You don't need anything fancy, mind you, any type of fabric or acrylic paint will work.

Small tubes of paint and paint pens can fit in your pockets. I bring this up for no reason at all...

Alternatively, if you go to school, consider asking an art teacher if you can borrow some. You could also ask friends and family who may paint.

Needle and thread

Once you make a patch, you need something to attach it with. Really, you can use anything -- glue, safety pins, etc -- but if you're attaching it to clothing, sewing is your best bet. Consider these methods of getting the needed items

Go to a craft store. Small starter sewing kits, packs of needles, or spools of thread are typically pretty cheap. If you can't spend money, though, consider that these items are also small, and can fit easily in pockets

Ask a grandma or other family member who may sew to borrow some supplies. Grandmas love it when younger people sew

Again, if you go to school, ask an art or theater teacher if you can borrow supplies

You can also use dental floss instead of thread, and it's actually recommended by some punks due to it being more durable than thread.

If you don't know how to sew, there are lots of online tutorials on how to do simple stitches!

But what if I'm not good at DIY?

Ever heard the phrase "practice makes perfect"? No one is good at anything the first time they try it. Don't let amateur-looking attempts stop you from trying.

Additionally, DIY isn't a contest. If you go to shows or alternative spaces irl, no one will care if you're obviously new to it.

Now go make patches and have fun!!!

#punk #diy #baby punk #punk patches #punk tips #diy or die #made this on a whim cuz ive been thinking about it

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bookshelfdreams · 6 months ago

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look at my new wheel

She was technically a christmas gift but for various reasons I couldn't pick her up until today. She's an antique; I have no idea how old she is, but I would be very surprised if it is under a hundred years. She is clearly handmade, and was almost intact! My father found her for me.

He had a friend of his make a new leg and new distaffs. I love how he made sure everything matches precisely.

She was clearly well-used by her previous owners. Look at that wear! She has some woodwork too but honestly that adds to the charm.

All the little details! Someone clearly put a lot of love and effort into making this wheel. She used to be painted as well, but unfortunately, there are only traces of that left.

She came with two spools and one still has a bit of yarn on it! There's a little bits of fibre still stuck on the flyer, too.

And she spins! There is a bit of a learning curve, my ankles miss the ball bearing, and as you can see, I'm having trouble getting enough twist into the yarn (I should probably have started out with an easier fibre than this merino/linen blend, too).

I love her, though. I bet she's so excited to do her job again <3

#crafts #handspinning #this is so. I'm putting my foot in an indent left by a woman who is probably long dead #I hope she had a happy life #I may never know her but I'm thankful her wheel came to me #I hope I'll make good use of it <3

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scary-grace · 2 months ago

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(secret) santa, baby - part 8 of a shigaraki x f!reader fic

Shigaraki doesn't want to participate in the office's Secret Santa exchange, but when Toga promises to make it easy on him, he gives in. But making it easy for him makes it a lot harder for you -- you're the one who got his list. Office AU, no quirks. A fic in 12 parts. Divider by @ wcnderlnds

part i part ii part iii part iv part v part vi part vii part viii part ix

part viii (gift-wrapping)

You don’t know what the last-minute staff meeting is for, but the email looked important, so you show up outside the building’s biggest conference room on the hour, as ordered. As soon as you set foot inside, though, you know this was one you could have skipped. There are piles of gift bags and rolls of wrapping paper on every table, as well as packets of tissue paper and spools of ribbon and actual jars of confetti with scoops in them. On the whiteboard at the front of the room, someone’s written REMEDIAL GIFT-WRAPPING.

You didn’t think your gifts were wrapped that badly. Tomura hasn’t complained. Then again, Tomura doesn’t know you’re the one leaving his gifts, so he wouldn’t know who to complain to if he had a problem. In spite of showing up on time, everybody else somehow got here before you, so you hesitate just inside the doorway, looking for an empty seat. Before you can find one, something moves in your peripheral vision, and you glance over to find Twice beckoning to you. He’s sitting with Spinner, Dabi, and Tomura, and they’ve got an empty seat nearby.

A few weeks ago, you’d have found somewhere else, but you’re much more comfortable with Tomura and his friends than you were before. Seeing them outside of work at Toga’s party probably helped. Seeing them the next morning, waking up with bedhead and low-grade hangovers that could only be cured with diner food, moved them firmly from the category of scary coworkers to people you could call friends. And waking up at one end of Toga’s couch to realize that you’d spent the entire night sharing it and a blanket with Tomura moved him from Secret Santa recipient to something else.

You’re not sure what else, exactly. You’ve been keeping a close eye on him since the Secret Santa thing started, just so you could figure out good times to sneak down to the basement and leave things on his desk, but for the past few days you’ve felt different about seeing him out and about. Instead of being relieved, and using your next free second to race downstairs and plant a gift, you’ve gone to talk to him. Or you’ve stayed put wherever you were and hoped he’d come talk to you. He’s different at work than he is out of it, but now that you’ve seen him the other way, you can’t fail to see that the person who slept on the couch with you is there when he’s here, too.

Work doesn’t bring out the best in him, and work-related holiday festivities are even worse. You can hear him complaining as you make your way over. “I don’t need to learn gift-wrapping. The stuff I leave is fine.”

“No. Spinner’s gifts are fine. Yours look like you’re dropping off a sperm sample,” Dabi says. He’s organizing the pile of gift-wrapping supplies and ignoring the way Tomura swears at him. “It’s not going to kill you.”

“With everybody else here, Toga’s probably not just picking on us,” Spinner says. He spots you coming over and waves. “Hey. You got an invite, too?”

“My gift-wrapping must be worse than I thought,” you say. You drop down into the chair between Twice and Tomura. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Tomura glances quickly at you, then goes back to screwing around with a mostly-empty roll of ribbon. “You have a gift in your mailbox. I saw it when I checked mine.”

You didn’t put a gift in his mailbox today – it’s on his desk again, waiting for him whenever he gets back. You dropped it off after you saw him walk back on the way to the conference room. “I’ll look after we’re done with this. Does this happen every year?”

“No. It’s new.” Tomura scowls. “It sucks.”

“Hi everybody!” Toga’s standing on a chair at the front of the room, waving to catch the room’s attention. “Thanks for stopping by. It’s come to my attention that some of you guys don’t know how to wrap a gift to save your lives, and even though it’s the gift that counts, the way it’s presented matters, too! So for the sake of your Secret Santa recipients, we’re going to go over the basics of gift-wrapping –”

“And we’re going to practice on these,” Midoriya announces, holding up a clear plastic bin that’s full to the brim. “The gifts from the toy drive. Which we need to wrap anyway.”

“I told you we weren’t in trouble,” Spinner says to the group at large.

“No, we’re just free labor.” Tomura’s scowling worse than before. “I can’t wait to count my papercuts afterwards.”

“To help with this,” Toga continues loudly, “every table has at least one person who knows what they’re doing. Compress and Yaoyorozu will go over the basics, and then your group’s expert will help you get going.”

Where’s your table’s expert? You glance around, only to find everyone else looking at you. “We need to work quickly,” Iida announces, even louder than Toga. “It’s imperative that we get these gifts mailed this afternoon. If they’re delayed by the storm, they won’t reach their recipients in time. Do you want to be the reason why needy children go without presents this year?”

“Hey! Iida! That’s kind of harsh,” Midoriya says hastily. Dabi is snickering. “Just do your best, everybody!”

There’s a bin of toys under the table. Compress and Yaoyorozu order everybody to start with something in a box, since they’re easier to work with, but you have a bad feeling you’re the expert, and the things that are weirdly shaped are going to take longer. You take out a plastic dinosaur toy and get to work, listening with half an ear to the instructions. You don’t want to contradict anything they’re saying. It’ll slow things down, and based on the size of the toy bin, you can’t afford that.

You overhear the other supposed experts at the other table, and they seem pretty comfortable giving instructions, but you decide to keep quiet unless somebody asks you something. And somebody does. “Are girls born knowing how to gift-wrap or something?” Spinner asks, staring at the dinosaur toy you’ve successfully mummified in candy-cane wrapping paper. “How did you do that?”

“Practice, I guess?” You don’t really remember somebody teaching you. “It was probably just watching my mom.”

“Maybe you should handle all the weird-shaped shit,” Dabi says. He abandons the box he’s wrapping and starts sorting the toys in the bin. “I want to get out of here sometime this year and that’s not going to happen if you put me in charge of that.”

You nod and pick up the grotesque-looking nutcracker at the top of the pile. To your surprise, everybody else settles down to work quickly – even Tomura, who’s still scowling, and handling the wrapping paper like it might take a bite out of him. The other tables are chattering, but everybody at yours is quiet. Focused. When Midoriya swings by to pick up any wrapped gifts, he has to make two trips to collect all of them from you.

It’s not until you’re starting on the second round of presents that Tomura speaks up. “This isn’t so bad,” he says, and you almost amputate your finger in shock. “I thought it was going to be like that movie.”

“Which –” Dabi interrupts himself, then makes a weird noise. “The one where the guy’s cheating on his wife?”

“And he’s trying to get the clerk to gift-wrap that ugly necklace he bought for his mistress before his wife gets back?” That scene made you cringe. There are lots of scenes in Love Actually that make you cringe, but that one stands out. “Did he actually cheat on his wife or was he just trying to cheat?”

“He’s cheating.” Dabi measures out a huge scoop of glitter and drops it on top of the present he’s wrapping before he tapes the wrapping paper down. “My dad pulls shit exactly like that. Except he was fucking my boyfriend, not his secretary.”

You almost choke on thin air. “He – what?”

“That was ages ago,” Twice says. “They didn’t talk for like – five years. Then Dabi’s sister made them go to family therapy and now Enji makes up for it by giving Dabi money whenever he asks.”

“And when he doesn’t,” Spinner says. Dabi is making a face. “You’re better off, dude.”

“You know how Shigaraki hates Christmas? That’s how Dabi feels about Valentine’s Day,” Twice says. You probably would, too, if your dad had hooked up with your boyfriend. “If you’re still around by then, you can hang out with us. We always celebrate by maxing Enji’s credit card.”

If you’re still around by then. What does that mean? “Sounds fun,” you say, watching as Dabi adds two scoops of glitter to his next present. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“It’s there. We’re supposed to use it,” Dabi says. “The kids will get a kick out of this shit.”

“Yeah, but their parents will hate it.”

Tomura takes a scoop of glitter and pours it in the gift bag he’s been screwing around with. “It’s not about them.”

You remember who the gifts are for all at once. Kids in foster care, whose parents probably suck as a rule. They deserve to have some fun, and you’ve never met a kid who wouldn’t go crazy over a glitter bomb. When you start wrapping your next present, you add some glitter to it, too.

At some point the department heads come looking for all their employees, which is how you find out that Toga didn’t clear the meeting with anybody before she called it. Most of your table takes the opportunity to flee – Dabi first, then Twice, and Spinner after a second’s hesitation. Tomura stops halfway out of his chair when he realizes you’re not getting up. “Aren’t you leaving?”

“My supervisor hasn’t come looking for me yet,” you say. “And there’s still a lot to do.”

You know there’s work waiting for you back at your desk, but it shouldn’t take too long, and Iida’s guilt-trip about the presents definitely got to you. You empty the rest of the toy bin onto the table and grab a box with a model train printed on the front. A chair scrapes next to you as Tomura sits back down, and he lifts the train box out of your hands. “Give me that. I can’t wrap the weird ones.”

You stare at him. You can’t help it. “What are you doing?”

“My supervisor hasn’t come looking for me, either.” Tomura shrugs. “It’ll be faster if I help.”

“You hate this stuff,” you say.

“I’m not going to be the reason needy kids don’t get presents this year.” Tomura’s Iida impersonation is pretty on point, especially when he adds in Iida’s trademark hand gestures. You laugh. “And I haven’t gotten a paper cut yet. Nobody will put up with my bitching next year if I don’t get at least one.”

He says that, and it sounds like him – but somehow you don’t buy it. He’s not making eye contact, and his ears are turning sort of red, and your heart kicks up a weird, fluttery jolt. “If you want to hang out, you can just say that,” you say. “You don’t have to do – I know you hate doing this.”

“This is what you’re doing,” Tomura interrupts you. “That’s the important part.”

That one’s hard for you to parse, so hard that Tomura manages to wrap the train and start on the next gift before you can get even sort of a handle on it. And once you do, you’re not sure you want one. Tomura hates Christmas. Every Christmas thing you’ve seen him do has been done under pressure or threat, and he just got a golden opportunity to escape. Why would he give it up to hang out with you?

There’s one answer. An obvious answer. One you’d believe if it was coming from anybody but him. “I can use the help,” you admit. “Thanks for keeping me company.”

“Yeah.” Tomura reaches for the wrapping paper at the same time as you do, and your hands collide. You thought he’d flinch. You thought you’d flinch. But your hands stay still, poised against one another, for a long moment before Tomura draws away, his fingertips skimming the back of your hand as he goes. “Any time.”

<- part vii part ix ->

#shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x you #tomura shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki x you #shigaraki tomura x reader #shigaraki tomura x you #x reader #reader insert #man door hand hook car door #secret santa au

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pitufitaispunk · 5 months ago

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Velvet Ring

Chapter One: Unforgiving Sun

Pairing: Riff x Latina!Reader (West Side Story 2021)

Velvet Ring Masterlist

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

June 3, 1957

I groan dramatically as I try to cool myself down with Anita's red folding fan, the flimsy lace hardly does anything to relieve me of the humid air. I squirm in my bed, the fuzzy fabric of my knitted blanket feels unbearable against my skin in this heat. Just as I toss the fan onto the floor, Anita twirls into my bedroom with a flourish. She has a bright smile on her face, the puffed skirt of her lavender dress swishes as she walks.

She begins rummaging through my drawers aimlessly, "Nena, voy a recoger- is that my fan?" She points down to the floor, her brow quirked at me. I confess that I almost always take Anita’s things without asking her and she gets annoyed with me for it, but she can’t stay mad at me for long. We’re a lot like blood sisters in that way.

I smile sheepishly and quickly sit up, watching as Anita snatches the fan off the floor, "Can you blame me for taking it? It's the hottest day of summer!" I exclaim, adjusting the straps of my white slip.

Anita rolls her eyes at me and slams the dresser drawer shut, "It's not even 100 degrees out. Get up and get dressed. I'm going out to buy some fabric." Now it's my turn to quirk my brow at her.

"What are you buying more fabric for?" I ask. Anita tilts her head and sighs, as if I should know the reason why.

"You do remember there's going to be a dance in a few weeks, yes?"

I toss myself face down onto the bed again and groan, burying my face in my pillow, "¡No quiero ir! Nardo will make me go with one of his friends and I hate dancing in front of people and it will be so crowded-" Anita forces me to sit up.

"You're young! You should be enjoying your life, not spending it locked away in your room. The only time you ever get out of this apartment is to work. You're going to the dance y eso es definitivo. You'll wear a beautiful dress — thanks to me, of course— and I'll make sure Bernardo picks a friend that is a good dancer to be your date." Anita grins and I know her word is final.

I roll my eyes and get up from my bed, "Está bien. I'll come with you to buy the fabric, just let me get dressed." I walk over to my dresser and grab a blouse and a skirt.

Anita squeals excitedly and runs into the kitchen to grab her coin purse, "Apúrate, I want to go before the morning rush!"

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

I always loved going to the market with Anita, even on sweltering days like this. The bustling crowds and constant chatter made me feel at home. When we lived in Puerto Rico, my mother used to take Bernardo and I with her when she went shopping. Bernardo always hated it, the old ladies that worked the stalls would pinch his cheeks and comment on how handsome he was getting. My mother and I laughed at how embarrassed he would get. So now, I appreciate when Anita lets me tag along with her to the market.

Anita tsks softly as she looks through the different rolls of fabric, "I think I will make my dress black..." She mutters to herself.

I turn my head and gasp as I notice a sleek red fabric. Anita huffs a laugh, "Mamita, you know your brother would never let me make you a dress from that fabric."

I pout, "Why does he treat me like I'm still a baby? I'm 18, a grown up! I should be able wear whatever color dress I want." I huff, crossing my arms over my chest.

Anita laughs, "Lo siento, Y/N, pero I'm making you a white dress... and if you want people to stop treating you like a baby, then stop pouting like one."

I scoff at her words. Deep down I know she’s right, but white is just so bland and boring. Who would notice the girl in the simple white dress? Nobody. It's like Bernardo wants me to be single all my life. That is if he doesn’t marry me off to one of his friends.

I sigh as Anita begins looking through the different spools of white fabric.

"I think you will look beautiful in this." She says with a smile, holding up a sheet of lacy white fabric.

I can't help the way my gaze softens as I imagine the delicate lace turned into a dress, "Maybe a white dress won't be so bad."

Anita pats my shoulder, grabbing a spool of black fabric for her dress and the lacy white fabric she picked for mine, "I'll go pay for these, you wait here." I nod, watching as Anita heads up to the vendor.

I hum softly to myself as I continue browsing the fabrics for fun as I wait for Anita to come back. Crash!

My head snaps up at the loud noise. I immediately see a group of white boys running away from knocked over crates of fruit a few stalls over. They laughed and whooped triumphantly as they made their escape, their pale sweaty skin glistening beneath the harsh sunlight. The Jets. I roll my eyes and am about to continue looking through the fabric when one boy catches my eye. I pinch my brows curiously as he picks up a mango from one of the knocked over crates and rubs it on his shirt, halfheartedly cleaning it before biting into it. The mango’s juice drips down his chin and onto his neck, I feel my cheeks heat up. I note that he’s a bit scrawny, he’s got slightly toned tattooed arms and a broad chest, but he’s still skinny enough where I wonder if this mango is the first ‘meal’ he’s had in a while. I slowly raise my gaze to his face again and realize he’s staring right at me. I’m frozen in place by his blue eyes. His lips quirk into a hint of a smirk before he hurries away to catch up with the other boys, tossing the bitten mango over his shoulder.

“Y/N!” Anita’s voice calls behind me, startling me just a bit. I turn and watch her walk over to me, a grin on her face and a brown paper bag in her hand. She shakes the bag slightly, making the fabrics inside rustle, “I got them. Let’s go home.” I nod and traipse behind Anita back to our apartment.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

Once Anita and I get home, we’re greeted by Bernardo and two other Sharks at the dining room table. I notice they all look a bit serious, Nardo was tending to the wounds on his fists, but as soon as he notices us, he smiles.

“Hey, where were you two?” Bernardo asks kindly, though his brows were still slightly furrowed in concern. Nardo always did that. Whenever he’s feeling worried or scared about something, he slaps on a fake smile and acts like nothing is bothering him. Usually his concern is revolving around the Jets, but he never brought that business home. Sometimes, I can hear him and Anita talking about it through the walls, but he’s never spoken directly to me about the whole gang rivalry with the Jets.

Anita smiles and walks over to him, “We were just picking up some things for our dresses.” She leans down and kisses his cheek, leaving a red lipstick stain. “¿Y ustedes? What were you doing?” Bernardo smiles broadly and guides Anita into his lap, “After we finished up at the gym, we talked about…” He looks up at me, his face hardening momentarily, “Things.” He gives her a tight lipped smile, Anita nods curtly in understanding.

I narrow my eyes at him suspiciously and take a seat across from him, “What kind of things, Bernardo?” He just chuckles at me, “Don’t worry about that, pollita.” I roll my eyes at the nickname. It was my family’s name for me as a child because my legs were skinny like a baby chick’s. Bernardo always called me pollita in front of his friends to embarrass me. I assume he’s using it now to shut me up, but it takes a lot more than a little name to get me to stop talking.

I sigh, “Nardo, no soy una bebé. I should know about the Jets y-“ He shakes his head vehemently.

“No, pollita. Es demasiado peligroso, I don’t want you getting mixed up in all this. Tienes que entender que el mundo de las pandillas no es para chiquillas como tú.”

I slump in my seat in defeat. I knew my brother was serious and although I still felt like arguing with him, I knew that wouldn’t help me in convincing him that I am a mature adult. I decide to drop the topic of the Jets for now, but I was going to learn more about them one way or another.

I check the time and realize I have to start heading to work.

“Ya tengo que irme.” I mutter, standing from my seat. For the past three months, I've been working at a flower shop, La Orquídea. My boss, Señora Rivera, is a little old woman with curly gray hair and a shorter stature. She always wears bright red lipstick and the frilly pink apron from our uniform over a frumpy dress— she’s also always napping on the job. I don’t mind working at the florería too much. However, I previously wanted to get a job at Doc’s because Valentina is a kind woman and I feel comfortable with her, but Nardo protested the idea. He claimed that too many Jets hung around Doc’s and that I should work somewhere that was deeper into Sharks territory. Obviously, I tried to reason with him, but when Nardo puts his foot down, he doesn’t budge.

Anita stands from Bernardo’s lap and hugs me, “Que tienes un buen día, nena.”

I smile at her then lean down to hug Nardo as well. He pats my back, “Ten cuidado.” He says softly, his expression serious as he points up at me.

I laugh, grabbing my purse and packed lunch from the kitchen counter, “I’m always careful.”

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

Next Chapter

#mike faist #west side story #riff lorton #riff lorton x reader #anita #bernardo #west side story 2021 #mike faist x reader #riff west side story

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toomuchracket · 1 year ago

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dearly beloved (ross x reader fluff)

the final valentine's week fic! remember this shy gf one where they decided to get married in gretna? well. this is that. enjoy <3

taking a tentative sip of your tea, you turn as the door to the cottage opens. your friend hurries in, a burst of cold air following her before she slams it shut. “what a beautiful morning it is,” she sighs, beaming at you as she takes her coat off. “perfect day for a wedding, i’d say.”

you beam over the edge of your mug, cheeks heating up at the thought of what you’re about to do. “yeah? how are the boys?”

“oh, yours is fine. he’s got a brew, he’s fully ready - he looks gorgeous, by the way, if you don’t mind me saying…”

“not at all,” you shake your head, smiling even wider. you wouldn’t expect anything less of ross, especially in a kilt.

“... and mine just cannot stop crying. keeps looking at ross and going ‘you’re getting married! i’m so happy’ and weeping,” she sighs. “like, tell that to your face, matthew, honestly.”

you giggle. “bless him. he’s a sweetie.”

“he is. my sweet little emo boy,” your friend grins. “i think ross is going to cry too when he sees you, though.”

“really?” you tug at your dress, slightly self-conscious.

she nods. “you’re radiant, babe. he’s going to love you even more than usual. and that’s saying something.”

smiling shyly, you turn to look in the mirror. you do look radiant, although you wonder how much that has to do with your gorgeous dress and pretty makeup than it does with the fact you’re marrying the man of your dreams within the hour.

within the hour. shit, you need to get a move on. you turn to your friend, currently shimmying her own dress on. “babe - oh, that’s pretty - when you get a second, would you help me put a bit of my hair up?”

“of course. that reminds me, actually,” she runs to her coat and digs through the pockets, pulling out a little box and placing it in your hand. “i was going to suggest we put that on the bouquet, but we could do something with it in your hair, if you’d like?”

you open the box, smiling at the pattern on the spool of ribbon inside. “macdonald tartan,” same as your husband-to-be’s kilt. “i love it. thank you so much, babe.”

“it was ross’s idea, actually,” she squeezes your shoulder. “needless to say, that set matty off again.”

“i know how he feels,” you smile, tears threatening to spill over your lashline at the tenderness of your man’s gesture. “only thing stopping me from crying is the fear of ruining my makeup, to be honest.”

she giggles. “sensible woman. alright,” she tugs her shoes on, and grabs a hairbrush. “have a seat, and i’ll do my best not to fuck up your hair on your wedding day.”

“my wedding day,” you laugh in slight disbelief, smoothing the skirt of your dress before sitting on one of the chairs by the window. the sun is bright on the scottish countryside, the cold ground glittering in its light; it’s stunning, and your heart soars at how lucky you are to have a setting and day like this for your most special one. “kind of insane that it’s… here. now. and it’s actually happening.”

“a bit, yeah,” your friend gently pulls some of your hair back. “you nervous?”

“nah.”

“really?”

“yeah,” you smile, eyes closing in contentment as your hair is manipulated. “always thought i’d be shitting bricks on the day i got married, if it ever happened, but i’m actually okay. dunno if it’s because i haven’t really had the time to stress about it, or if the gravitas of it all hasn’t just sunk in yet, but, to be honest, i don’t think that’ll actually happen,” you smile to yourself, biting the inside of your cheek to keep from fully cheesing. “it’s just me and ross, after all. i love him. he loves me. and we have you and matty with us, two of the people we love most and who love us most in the world. and there’s no aisle for me to trip on while i walk - how could i be nervous?”

your friend laughs; once she finishes tying an elastic in your hair, she leans down to hug you, and a tear drips from her eye onto your bare shoulder. “god, you’ve got me crying now, too,” she giggles. “thank you for letting us be a part of your day. means the world - i love you and ross, so much. can’t wait to celebrate your love today.”

“nobody else i’d rather have with me,” you kiss her teary cheek. “ribbon time?”

“ribbon time. well, take a look at your hair first,” she hands you a mirror. “i tried my best.”

“it looks amazing!” you exclaim, turning to see the face-framing strands she left out of the pretty half-up. “seriously. you’re good.”

“thanks,” she looks up at you bashfully, nail scissors poised over the spool of ribbon. “it’s cos i sit and do matty’s hair when i’m bored.”

you blink at her for a second, then the two of you collapse into a fit of giggles. “i don’t know why i’m laughing, i braid ross’s like every night to get him to fall asleep.”

she giggles even harder, awwing as the laughs fade. “that’s so fucking cute,” she waves the ribbon at you. “and now you can put this in it and be all matchy-matchy.”

“oh, i don’t know if we’re one of those couples,” you wince, sitting still so she can tie the ribbon around the elastic. “but marriage might change us. you never know.”

“well, not long now until you find out, babe,” your friend hugs you again. “have we ticked off the checklist?”

you nod. “vintage dress, old. ribbon, new. handbag is yours - thank you, by the way - so, borrowed, and there’s sapphires in my earrings for the blue component.”

“fab,” she smiles at you really tenderly. “you know, you really are the most beautiful bride i’ve ever seen. he’s a lucky man.”

“oh, no,” you shake your head, taking a sneaky glance at yourself in the mirror while you do and blushing when you see your glamorous reflection. “i think i'm the lucky one.”

she reaches for your hand, squeezing it gently. “shall we go and meet the boys and find out which statement is true?”

you squeeze her hand back. “let's do it.”

after a few minutes of teaching her how to work your film camera and another few of having your picture taken (always a weird experience for you, so used to being on the other side), you leave the cottage and step out into the crisp december air. across the road, outside the old blacksmith's shop you chose as your venue, you can see ross and matty waiting with the man conducting the ceremony; at the sight of your husband-to-be, resplendent in his kilt and black shirt and jacket, you speed up your walking, desperate to be with him.

matty clocks you first, walking over to greet you. his eyes - red-rimmed enough as is - well up when he sees you and your bouquet, and his fiancée winces when he wipes them with the sleeve of his suit. “hi, darling,” he pulls you into a hug. “you look amazing,” he pats your shoulder before kissing your friend. “and you look alright.”

she slaps him on the shoulder, which makes you laugh. “charming.”

“i'm kidding! you look lovely, my girl,” he kisses her head. “now,” he extends an arm out to you - you take it, and take your friend's in the other. “let's go and get you married, mate.”

the three of you walk towards ross and the officiant, both of whom smile as you approach. the latter steps forward to shake your hand and compliment you, and then it's ross's turn; he brings your hand to his lips, then keeps a tight grasp on it, eyes teary. “hi, love. you look… perfect.”

“hi,” you breathe, also on the verge of tears. “you're gorgeous.”

loud sniffling behind you indicates matty is, once again, crying. ross turns towards him and smiles, shaking his head, before turning to the officiant. “shall we?”

“indeed,” the man leads you into the old building - surprisingly warm inside, for it being a stone structure from the 1700s and it being december in the scottish borders - and directs you and ross to stand in front of the anvil, flanked by your friends. once he's made sure you're both alright, he begins. “dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…”

you don't really take in a word the man says, to be honest, bless him - you're too busy looking into ross's eyes, those pools of warmth you've happily drowned in time and time again. but you hear ross when he confirms that you're going with traditional vows for the ceremony, throwing a loving dig at your friends and saying “we'll leave the writing to those muppets behind us” (most likely to get them both to laugh instead of cry), as well as matty's heartfelt “love you, guys” when he presents the rings at the appropriate moment. in all honesty, you're not sure how long you stand there and wait in excited anticipation to officially become ross's wife - time seems to bend in on itself, simultaneously running fast and slow, so it's impossible to be sure of numbers and minutes and seconds. all you're sure of is the feeling of ross's hands in your own and the way he's looking at you adoringly, and that's enough for you. forever.

and then, of course, once you've both said “i do” and slid the complimentary silver rings onto each other's left hands, you're sure of the feeling of his lips on yours; soft, warm, familiar. he pulls back, smiling, and the world opens up to you again - your friends cheering through their tears, matty snapping pictures on your camera, and the officiant clapping and congratulating you both too. but ross is still at the centre of all of it, hugging you, murmuring “my beautiful wife” against your hair.

once the hubbub dies down a little, the officiant gestures to your friend to step forward. “the first act of marriage - the quaich ceremony,” he says, as she places a lovely wooden box on top of the anvil and lifts the lid. you and ross peer in, as the man continues to talk. “husband and wife share a drink, to symbolise the blending of their families, to seal their union, and to represent the sharing of love and happiness throughout their marriage.”

you knew this ceremony was happening, but you didn't know about the ornate silver two-handled cup engraved with your and ross's names and the wedding date, nor the vintage bottle of macallan whisky next to it. wide-eyed, you stare at your friend, who winks. “wedding present from me and matty. surprise!”

ross laughs. “you two are mental. thank you, though.”

“anytime,” she grins. the officiant directs her to pour some whisky into the quaich for you and ross, and she does so enthusiastically. “oh, that’s too much. sorry.”

your husband (!!) scoffs. “no such thing.”

“typical,” she rolls her eyes, while everyone else laughs. “anyway, let me toast.

“strike hands with me, the glasses brim,

the dew is on the heather.

for love is good and life is long,

and two are best together.

bless the union of these two,

eager for marriage, eager for love.

may they begin life together,

live that life together

and come to the end together.”

ross takes a handle of the cup. “ladies first, yeah?”

you grin, taking the other side; together, you carefully lift the quaich to your lips, and let the whisky pass through. the amber liquid is warm as it flows down your throat, and you can’t help exclaiming in satisfaction. “oh, that’s bloody good stuff,” you smile, moving the cup to ross’s lips. “you’ll like this, darling.”

“yeah?” ross takes his requisite drink, and his eyes widen. “oh, absolutely. worth getting married just for that, i reckon.”

the officiant laughs. “and with that… congratulations, mr and mrs macdonald. if you’d like to follow me to this table, we’ll sign the marriage certificate.”

“of course. but first,” ross necks the rest of the whisky and kisses you quickly - matty cackles and cheers in the background, while you blush. “sorry. couldn’t resist.”

you laugh, kissing his hand as you walk. “i love you.”

“i know. you just married me,” ross grins as you roll your eyes, pulling your chair out for you and kissing your head as he sits down beside you. “i love you too. d’you want to sign first, my love?”

“alright,” you sign as directed by the officiant, and pose as directed by matty and the camera, then it’s ross’s turn. “look at that - legally stuck together forever.”

“nowhere else i’d rather be, love.”

#mads muses #mads does writing #valentine75 #shy gf #ross macdonald fanfic #ross macdonald fanfiction #ross macdonald fic #ross macdonald fluff #ross macdonald x reader #ross x reader

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centaurianthropology · 2 months ago

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Things I Will be Obnoxious About: Project Ghostlight

Hi all! Remember a few years ago (or maybe you don’t; maybe you’re new or maybe you have retrograde amnesia) when I spent a healthy while banging on about a Vampire: The Masquerade live-play series called ‘New York by Night’?

Yeah, I still love that show, but unfortunately for me and for the team that made it, the real world very much happened, and they weren’t able to continue the series as they had planned. That show is now on a more-or-less indefinite hiatus. From what I’ve gathered, the will is very much there in both the cast and crew to return to do season 3 (and fingers crossed, maybe more!), but not only are schedules hard to wrangle for four busy players, but the show was initially budgeted to have the first three seasons filmed over the course of a month, something which didn’t happen. So now spinning it up would necessarily require an increase in funding first just to get it off the ground again. So, yes, complications. Unfortunate, unavoidable complications.

Oh, and by the way, how did I know about that tidbit about funding?

I learned it from the very first large drop from ‘Project Ghostlight’. This is a now-forming new Vampire chronicle (a long-form game for folks who aren’t as up on the terminology specific to this series of TTRPGs) that formed when the cast of season 1 (my beloved) desperately wanted to keep playing together, but didn’t have a venue or the time to do so without making it a more formal thing than a get-together at someone’s house once a month. Named after the single light always left burning in a theatre when all other lights are out and the building is empty between performances, Ghostlight is four people who ended up being close friends just wanting to keep hanging out and making spooky things together. And they are bringing in friends!

We don’t know about setting, characters, or much of anything yet, as everything is still early days, but the cast and crew are currently as follows:

Alexander Ward – Storyteller (that’s GM to those folks in the D&D world)

Joey Rassool – Director and Producer (and hopefully also sometimes player?? I thought he was one of the big breakouts of season 1 NYbN, and was hugely impressed with his playstyle)

Aabria Iyengar - Player

Mayanna Berrin – Player

Xander Jeanneret – Player

Gina DeVivo – Player

Luis Carazo – Player

For those in the TTRPG space, I don’t need to tell you that cast is stacked, and it’s stacked with veterans of both NYbN and its predecessor LA by Night. These are the announced players so far, and it’s not clear (maybe not even to them) if they’ll bring in guests or keep to this main cast, but no matter what this is the sort of cast and crew that made me sit up and notice. This is a cast and crew made of some of my favorite people in the TTRPG scene, and clearly people selected for their ability to really lean into the terrible choices and darker tone of VtM.

And even before they’ve fully spooled their new chronicle up, we’re getting treats over on their Patreon. The first, which I have already watched through several times and makes me so very happy, is essentially a postmortem of season 1 (and a little 2) of New York by Night by all four players, moderated by season 2 player (and Ghostlight player) Xander Jeanneret. They clearly love the show and their characters, and clearly want to get back to it, but there also seems to be a not-unwarranted concern that season 3 simply might never happen.

So this panel gives us a LOT of information about their characters, motivations, plans, and behind the scenes peeks at how the players were going about the game in season 1. There are spoilers for a lot of stuff I had sort of suspected, and plenty of stuff I hadn’t, which was thrilling. I was definitely wrong about certain character motivations! What fun! It’s an hour and a half long, and such a lovely look at how these four met, became friends, made a lightning-in-a-bottle season of a TTRPG show, and never lost the itch to play again. It’s an immensely satisfying and somewhat bittersweet revisit of one of my favorite TTRPG projects. It’s so wonderful to see all four of them together again, and how well Xander meshes with the group.

So, yes, this is a warning that I’m going to very likely be obnoxious about this show once it goes up. This is also encouragement for those of you who enjoyed NYbN, Vampire: the Masquerade, spooks, goth shit, or even just TTRPGs and you’re interested in a new system, to throw a little bit of love toward the Patreon, and if you can’t do that, to stay tuned for Ghostlight and get hyped with me.

And maybe, if you haven’t, to check out New York by Night in the meantime. It may be on indefinite hiaitus, but it’s really fun. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I fully intend to rewatch season 1 of New York by Night with the information I now have about all the characters. I’m excited to see if I catch nuances I missed the first time through.

#Project Ghostlight #New York by Night #NYbN #alexander ward #joey rassool #aabria iyengar #mayanna berrin #xander jeanneret #gina devivo #luis carazo #so very excited about this #and yes #the Patreon is well worth it even just for access to the retrospective #support the creatives you enjoy

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evergreenalice · 2 years ago

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I'll never get over the fucking tunnel of love scene, it's just the best fucking scene I love it so much

first of all, it follows the objectively amazing scene between Homura and Sayaka

the song "Dream World" begins to play as the Clara Dolls chant "fort, da, fort, da" in the background, the meaning of this I'm too lazy to explain, and if you don't know why the words "fort" and "da" are important to Rebellion, just look it up, there are better explanations than I can give. What's important is that these words relate to Homura and Madoka, the Clara Dolls are an extension of Homura, and thus Homura is presumably thinking about Madoka

as we see Sayaka's cape flying away from their confrontation, Homura begins a monologue

we see Clara Dolls dancing on a pink spool, representative of Madoka (if you don't know why, once again, I request that you look up "fort da Madoka") so once more an indication of where Homura's thoughts currently are

we see two swans, generally a symbol of love (fun fact, because of this one scene the moment I see swans I instantly think of Madoka Magica)

we see Homura standing on the front of of the boat, one of her familiars standing in the boat, not doing anything notable, I bring this up to come back to it later, also it's just a good shot

the world shifts as Homura moves through it, remember, this is essentially her dream, the things that appear are from Homura's mind

we see a paper Kyoko standing on an arch asking us if we're enjoying the movie (thank you for asking Kyoko :) Indeed I am)

a tunnel rises from the ocean

Kyoko says this, displaying essentially the ideal life for Kyoko, her relationship with Mami is never soured, and they're still friends, and they're just doing good stuff, none of the darkness that exists in reality

we see Homura's annoyed, perhaps somewhat conflicted even, face

we enter the tunnel, and it's clearly meant to be a tunnel of love, remember, the things in this world are created from her thoughts, there is a reason for a tunnel of love being here and it has to do with Homura's thoughts, EVERYTHING in this tunnel is from Homura's mind, it existing, everything in it, and where it leads, are from HER thoughts, keep that fact in mind

Mami just outright states that everything is ideal

beautiful shot, nothing else to say

Sayaka outright asks if this is so bad. She has a very goofy face because Homura is annoyed with her, I love this detail "YOU'RE TOO LATE SAYAKA I'VE ALREADY DEPICTED YOU AS THE SOYJACK!"

Homura accidentally criticizing herself, however, once again, EVERYTHING HERE IS HOMURA, this is an argument with herself, she's not disagreeing with paper Sayaka, paper Mami, and paper Kyoko, because they don't exist, they're HER, everything they say are HER thoughts, SHE thinks that this is the ideal world, deep down she wants to stay here, and she hates herself for it, viewing it as weakness.

we cut to Homura kneeling beneath goddess Madoka, Homura views Madoka as a goddess, not just in a descriptive sense, but a prescriptive one. In her eyes Madoka is a perfect being deserving of reverence, her love for Madoka is yes, romantic, but also has undeniably religious elements to it

Homura reaching up towards the statue of goddess Madoka as she talks about her sacrifice, it's just, VERY religious, she's over here like "Madoka died for your despair, accept her into your heart as your lord and savior" and it's like, Homura, this is a really unhealthy way to view your crush

this flashes on screen "who is dreaming?" the reason these runes pop on screen at this point is because it's important to this scene specifically, Homura is essentially denouncing whoever is guilty of being, for lack of a better word, a sinner, so these runes prompt the question of who the "sinner" is, and of course, it is Homura

we cut to a boat on fire

we see little paper cutouts of people drowning, presumably the people who should be being saved right now but aren't

Homura caresses Madoka's legs very heterosexually, I will come back to this later

the Clara Dolls throw tomatoes at the statue and Homura while saying "god is dead" in German, this most obviously signifies the blasphemy of the sinner who created this world (Homura) it's also a Nietzsche quote (Nietzsche and Rebellion is a whole nother conversation though)

it's also worth pointing out that the Clara Dolls's antagonism towards Homura is likely symbolic of bullying, which considering the way Moemura acts, is almost definitely something she went through

remember that everything here is from Homura's mind, that tunnel of love didn't even exist a moment ago, it was created by Homura's mind, that includes where it led, Homura's mind created a tunnel of love while thinking about Madoka that led her to Madoka

Madoka jumps down and lands on Homura, she doesn't emote much, but we know for a fact that this caused A LOT of emotions in her. Remember that familiar I pointed out that wasn't doing much? Well once again, everything in here is part of Homura, representing a part of her mind

as Madoka sits up, we see the familiar excitedly dancing with sparklers, because well, gay

as I said I wanted to come back to the statue's legs later, this is why. Where Homura touched it is marked in inky black. Her devotion to Madoka, her love for her, represented by the caressing of her legs, has only dirtied the statue. She views her love as a dirtying force. And for a lesbian that canonically went to Catholic school, views herself as a demon, and her crush as a pure perfect goddess, that certainly has implications, internalized homophobia is only one possible reading of this scene, but it's the one I choose to go with.

that's the end, I hope you enjoyed!

#Madoka Magica #PMMM #puella magi madoka magica #madoka magica rebellion #madohomu #homumado #madoka kaname #Homura Akemi #analysis

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maskedemerald · 6 months ago

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Weaving Webs CH6

Here is chapter six of my Invisobang fic! The wonderful @pricklenettle did some fantastic art that you'll see embedded through out the fic! Love this chapter's art so much!

You can check out the fic here or on AO3!

If you like this consider dropping us both a follow!

Warnings: Body horror, manipulation, Spectra is her own content warning, Burns, Spider - for like 2 chapters then it goes away.

The Fenton parents were there when the accident happened, they saw Danny die in an act of sabotage. Now they’re just trying to go on with the strange ghost that is all that's left of Danny. While their old college friend is wondering where the subjects of his revenge are.

[First] [Previous] [Next]

Chapter Six

Cupboard doors clattered open and closed. From where she was on the stairs and the early hour Jazz could only assume it was Danny attempting to amuse himself while they slept. She entered the kitchen fully prepared to try and explain to her little brother that humans needed to sleep and he should keep it down. If she was more awake she’d be more upset by the idea. She was trying hard to not let the fact that he was a ghost get to her. To treat him as normal but he wasn’t. Things like this were a reminder that Danny didn’t remember what it was like to be human. That hurt.

He was still Danny, worrying about all of them even when he was the one that had been hurt more than any of them but that was emotional. He seemed to get that but not the physical.

Now he was bored and a bored Danny could be a noisy one. She didn’t blame him. The remote bricked when he tried to use it himself. Though she wasn’t sure he actually knew how to use it. He’d just sort of waved it around.

What she found wasn’t Danny but her Mom searching the room frantically. A pot of coffee sitting cooling on the bench without a mug.

“Mom?” she asked confused

Her Mom startled, “Jazz? Oh sorry… I didn’t wake you did I?”

“No,” she shook her head.

“Nightmare?”

“Yeah… you?” Jazz had been trying not to think of the fading memory of the nightmare. Sleep hadn’t been easy.

“The same,” her Mom said with a tired sigh.

“What are you looking for? The mugs are in here,” Jazz said, opening the cupboard. It wasn’t as full as normal, the dishes having piled up a little, but there were still a few.

“I know… I know… but… Danny’s NASA mug… it's missing.”

“Have you checked his room? He probably used it before…” now he was never going to get to again. Ghosts didn’t need to. Did he even have a mouth? A face. She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“I haven’t… I didn’t see it before but…” she struggled with her words, “it's been hard, I… I didn’t go in. I just couldn’t.”

Jazz didn’t go back to bed. There wasn’t much point. For a while she and her Mom sat in the living room, away from the mugs and dirty dishes. They’d have to be dealt with eventually but now was not the time. She did, however nod off.

She was woken as the sofa beneath her shifted. She floundered a little as she sat up. Half the sofa in the air. Her Dad’s face appeared as he lowered it. A sheepish look on his face as he caught sight of her.

“Sorry Jazz, I was trying not to wake you.”

“By lifting the sofa? Dad what on earth are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking for my needlepoint, I just don’t remember where I had it last.”

He continued to frustratedly search. Lifting chairs and the coffee table. She scanned the room expecting to spot it being the less frustrated one. A single spool of thread lay on the floor where it had fallen when he lifted the coffee table but not the hoop.

Despite joining the search more actively they had no luck in actually finding the needlepoint. It was a disappointment. Her Dad hadn’t touched it since Danny’s incident and just like the rest of them he needed something normal to fall back on.

That night sleep wasn’t coming easily, she’d tossed and turned for hours with no luck. Exhaustion hadn’t come. Even if it did, the night would be filled with nightmares. She glanced round the dark room for something that would be a comfort. Bearbert was missing from his spot on her shelf. Maybe he was on her desk? She’d been relying on the bear a lot over the week. She flicked on her bedside light. The desk was empty aside from her laptop. She stumbled out of bed and checked under the bed and the desk using her phone as a torch. Still nothing.

Had she left it somewhere else about the house?

Jazz staggered tiredly out of her room headed for the living room. She’d had the bear down there recently. She didn’t remember where she’d last put him down. She reached the top of the stairs when she noticed the glow from Danny’s end of the corridor. A string of static noises hissing quietly from the tech in his room.

Maybe he had seen Bearbert.

It took a little deep breath to pick up the courage to go down the corridor, the chill dropping down her spine. He was always scarier in the dark. He’s still Danny, she reminded herself. Just a little different.

“Danny? Have you seen…” her sentence cut off as she caught sight of Danny as she came round the door frame.

He was floating near the wall of his room, above his bed. His eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights. Or like when he was younger being caught red handed at something he knew he wasn’t meant to be doing. Even with the black faceplate for a face she could still recognise that expression.

“What are you up to?” She questioned leaning to get a better look at what he was hiding behind the bulky Hazmat.

There half phased into his wall was Bearbert. Just the legs of her beloved bear were sticking out of the wall.

“Danny!” she snapped before even thinking about the late hour, “what are you doing?”

“Look after… goooood. Gooood thing, safe,” his speakers crackled.

Her Mom burst into the room, hair messy and frazzled. A pistol in hand. She froze and stared as Jazz lunged at Danny. Pulling on him and trying to get to Bearbert.

“Give him back Danny!”

Danny floated up holding the bear that came out of the wall as he did, “safe, keep safe. For Jazzt.”

He cackled, even if it came from across the room it was like a real laugh. She pouted, he was messing with her.

“Danny give it back. Please,” Jazz grabbed his ankle but it whisped away into a tail, “Danny!”

Jack staggered in, “what’s going on?”

“I… I’m not sure. Danny’s ghost stole Bearbert,” her mom replied.

“Okay, it's not like he didn’t do that before.”

“I guess, but still why? Why hide it in the wall?”

Her Dad shrugged as Jazz managed to get Bearbert back in her arms. He’d given it back, if he wanted to he could have played keep away for hours. It was as she held the bear that she noticed a needle caught on its fur, a thread leading back to the wall.

“Danny! Just how much have you been hiding!”

He crackled a laugh.

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#writing #fan fiction #danny phantom #eldritch danny #full ghost danny #invisobang 2024 #good parents fentons #hazmat au #invisobang #weaving webs fic #caught in the spiders web series

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dragoler · 1 day ago

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The Pale King's deal with Herrah was actually genius

I'm sure this question has crossed many people's minds when they've played Hollow Knight: why is Herrah a dreamer? Monomon and Lurien were both followers of the Pale King and probably volunteered eagerly for the position; Monomon to preserve the kingdom's diversity, and Lurien because he would do anything in service to his king, but Herrah? She is a foreign queen, furthermore, she did not volunteer willingly for the position, but had to be persuaded through a deal. Well to start with, let's look at Deepnest.

Deepnest is not a friendly place

The first sign of Hallownest's tumultuous relationship with Deepnest is the failed tramway. Granted, this project may have failed due to aggression from the region's wildlife and not the actions of the Distant Village, as we already know Hallownest had a deal in place with the Mantis village to keep those away:

The truce remains. Our vigil holds. The beasts are kept at bay.

- Mantis lore tablet

But it reflects well the attitude the Distant Village likely had about the expansionist empire at their door. To start with, those creepy puppets who tell you to rest on the bench in the Beast's Den. They look like upper-class Hallownest bugs, which is odd, because why would the denizens of Deepnest even know what they look like, given their isolation, and why would any bugs wearing these robes ever step foot in such a dangerous place? Here's my theory, they are the shells of real Hallownest bugs, as we can find the webbed remains of similar bugs who've been deceived by this ruse in the other building:

…Not friends…

Furthermore, they are the shells of diplomats sent by Hallownest to negotiate with the bugs of the Village, which would explain their upper-class fashion. That didn't turn out so well though, did it?

Even if they aren't the actual shells of Hallownest's representatives, the way they're used is already damning enough.

Ah, but the weavers are now infected, which is why they have become so aggressive. While it is true that the infection increases the aggression of its host, it isn't really known to make its hosts more clever, in fact, quite the opposite:

For quiet retreat did I climb up here, away from spitting creatures. Ormmph… Yes. High up. Away from simple minds, lost to light. Theirs is a different kind of unity. Rejection of the Wyrm's attempt at order. I resist the light's allure. Union it may offer, but also a mind bereft of thought… To instinct alone a bug is reduced…Hrrm…

- Bardoon

And that, was quite a clever trap. Probably too clever for an infected mind, especially given how clearly those puppets speak. Moreover, we do see an uninfected weaver in their hidden den, so we know not all of them have fallen to the infection.

If there needs to be more evidence that this is behavior we should expect from intelligent Deepnest bugs, we only need look to the Midwife. She is an uninfected servant of the Nest, who despite claiming to be a friend, will always try to eat the Knight at the end of her dialogue. This is probably how the Nest has acted for most of its existence, and again following Hallownest's fall, but something happened in-between…

Something changed

In the later months or years of Hallownest, bugs stopped using stone tablets:

In its declining age, this city switched from stone to parchment woven of spider's silk. It's a small tragedy, but the moisture in these towers has rendered most of those texts illegible.

- Relic Seeker Lemm

We can see spools of silk in the weaver's den, Deepnest stag station, and the hidden station at the palace grounds, so almost certainly this new silk came from the weavers.

Furthermore, we know the Nest worked alongside the Pale King with his vessel plan, as we can find a prototype of the seal that was used to bind the Hollow Knight within their hidden den.

So what changed? An acknowledgement of a shared threat, bringing both communities together? I don't think so. Before the Pale King arrived in what would become Hallownest, all tribes in the area seemed content to stay within their boundaries:

No bug has ever laid claim to this whole. Even the beasts knew their limits and bound their realm at Nest's edge.

And it is only upon pushing those boundaries that collapse becomes inevitable:

It is the ancient caste that made attempt at such vast rule. Hallownest's ruin reflects well those fared attempts.

- Both quotes from Mask Maker

The Radiance and the moth tribe coexisted with the other tribes and gods around them for an unknown period of time before Hallownest started expanding into their lands. Besides the Hive which shut its doors to the outside world, the Nest was the last frontier Hallownest really had left to conquer. Given their isolation from the kingdom, the Nest would have every reason to believe the Radiance was not their problem, and if she returned, Hallownest might fall but the Nest would keep going on all the same.

Although, if weavers were happening to become infected at this time, their general hostile and isolationist attitude would make it unlikely for them to seek or accept the aid of Hallownest of all places.

No, the reason Deepnest suddenly got friendly with Hallownest was because of The Bargain tm.

Why the bargain was genius

We don't have definitive proof of who came up with the deal. There is dialogue from Herrah which states that it was the Pale King, but because this dialogue is unused, it of course cannot be used as evidence:

Wyrm, your attempt may prove futile, but your offer I could not refuse.

That said, it was probably still the Pale King's idea. To start with, let's look at the Midwife's dialogue:

That village above here, home to a sad creature. Hers is a tale of tragic exchange. Cost her and her people greatly, though I suspect she bore no regret in making it.

This deal cost not only Herrah, but her people greatly as well. It was not a deal made lightly, but seemingly one she couldn't refuse. We know that she once had a husband, as the mushrooms mention him in one of their lore tablets:

This border bounds the twisting, scratching things. Their dead sire, once of honoured caste. Their sealed mother, but the common beast. No peace with them we make.

He was of "honoured caste", we don't know what this means, but as Herrah is a queen and yet still described as a "beast", he must have been a notable creature, likely a higher being of some sort.

Herrah it seems married well above her station, but as a now widowed mortal queen she was in need of an heir, and not just any heir, an heir of appropriate caste. In this deal she'd lose her autonomy, and never get to see her child grow up. What does the Pale King get?

He gets everything.

The Queen of the Nest is now out of action, and his own blood sits upon its throne, but as Hornet is too young to rule, the Nest is essentially leaderless. Furthermore his own queen is either raising Hornet, or at least has a strong influence on her, as she was close enough to the princess to develop a bond:

It faced the Gendered Child? She's a fierce foe, strong in mind and body, striking reflection of her mother, though the two were permitted little time together. I never begrudged the Wyrm's dalliance as bargain. In fact, I feel some affection for the creature birthed.

Hallownest now firmly has its claws in the Nest and its future, making the Nest a vassal of the kingdom, and this manifested in cooperation and trade.

So why did the Pale King chose Herrah and not one of his own subjects? Because it let him execute his plan to save Hallownest and conquer his final rival in a single move. Oh, and it would have been a perfect victory, if it wasn't for that dang impurity in the Vessel.

All images taken from hollowknight.wiki

#hollow knight #hollow knight lore #deepnest #herrah #pale king #hornet hollow knight

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those70scomics · 9 months ago

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A Jackie/Hyde Ficlet, in Honor of My Friend Dena's (@zenmasterlover's) Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Dena!

The digital alarm clock on Hyde's dresser read 12:11 a.m. That was eleven bright-red minutes too late. Jackie should've been in his room by now, in his cot, and wearing the set of pajamas she'd kept in his drawer the last six days. He'd had a hell of a time convincing her to sleep here instead of her huge, adult-less house. It would've been a hard sell to him, too. But her mom never returned from Mexico, left Jackie with no guardian and no safety.

He sat up on his cot, muscles tensing. In the darkness of his room, he searched for his jeans by touch. A pair was folded somewhere on his bureau. If someone had messed with his chick on her way here -- but a sliver of light peeked through the crack of his door. The Formans' lights-off-by-eleven rule applied to the basement on Sundays through Thursdays.

And today was Thursday. He remembered shutting off the lights an hour ago. Still, his pulse tightened as he got off his ass and went to the door. His short-term memory wasn't the most reliable, especially on circle nights.

His socked feet trod quietly on the basement's cement floor. But from the short corridor to the common area, his steps vibrated loudly through his body. Or maybe it was his heart beat. The stereo and TV were off. The outward silence only amped the volume in his skull.

Best-case scenario, Jackie stubbornly decided to stay in her house tonight. Worst-case scenario -- he scrubbed his hand over his face. The cosmos could fuck with him all it wanted. It wouldn't screw with her just because he ... because she was his girlfriend.

He reached the basement shower. It was used only for storage, and he exhaled a heavy breath. Jackie's backpack leaned against the sofa. Beside it were her wedge shoes. Jackie herself was curled on the sofa, asleep. Her biology textbook and notebook lay open on the spool table.

Freakin' late-night test-cramming. He'd become a bad influence on her.

The Formans couldn't spot her backpack, shoes, or school crap, or else the jig was up. So he took care of those things first and brought them to his room. Then, carefully, he slid his hands under Jackie's upper back and legs. She muttered an unintelligible sound near his neck. Her eyes remained closed, and the weight of her body in his arms was comforting.

His pulse finally relaxed when he lowered Jackie onto his cot. Awkwardly, he crawled behind her on the mattress. He pulled his blanket over both of them. She muttered again when he adjusted his legs to fit beside hers, but she hugged his arm to her chest.

"Endoplasmic reticulum," she said.

"I got it," he whispered by her ear. I got you, he said in his mind. And she had him.

#that 70s show #that '70s show #jackie x hyde #jackie burkhart #steven hyde #ficlet #birthday #zenmasterlover

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not-a-space-alien · 1 month ago

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Two Sides of the Same Coin: Chapter 6

Story Masterpost

On AO3

In this chapter: Time for a visit to Build-A-Bitch! Fun fact: this chapter introduces the concept that was the working title for this fic, which was: Dollstarion :)

This chapter also starts a run of chapters with heavy giant/tiny elements, so I am adding those tags now too :)

***

The portal from Avernus opened up in Gale’s workshop, and no sooner had Karlach stepped through it than the words came out of her mouth: “Tell me you have some good news!”

Wyll came out next. “It’s been barely sixteen hours, Karlach. Give the man some time to work.”

Gale had been sitting at his desk, amidst all his wizardly accoutrement, poring over a book. He looked up over his spectacles. “Ah! You put too little faith in me, my friend! I’ve already made some progress.”

“Really?” Karlach said, starry-eyed. “Gale, you’re the best!”

Gale closed his book. “I’ve been told a few times here and there.”

“We should probably let Astarion listen,” Wyll said. “Since it affects him most of all.”

“I broke your doohickey,” Karlach lamented. “Sorry.”

“Oh that’s no problem. It’s a simple charm quite easy to replicate. Here.” Gale spooled out some wire and started recreating all the inscriptions and sigils. “There we are, now we just need to pop him in there!”

Karlach put the coin in, and Astarion’s voice echoed out from it again. “Did we win?” he said frantically. “Are we still under attack?”

“We got ‘em good, Fangs,” Karlach said. “Don’t you worry. We’ve got you.”

Astarion sighed in relief. “Thank the gods.”

“Speaking of,” Gale said. He picked up another book and cracked it open. “I’ve found some evidence that a soul can be released from a soul coin with the simple use of a Remove Curse spell. Did you follow any gods in life, Astarion?”

“...what?”

“Well, once the soul is released, it’s, er, shuffled off to whatever afterlife is in store for it.”

“Gale, you bloody moron! What do you fucking think? None of the gods wanted me when I was alive, none of them wanted me as a spawn, and none of them sure as hell wants me as a bloody stupid soul coin!”

“Calm yourself, friend,” Wyll said. “Gale is the only reason you’re here speaking with us at all.”

“Ending up as a tormented sinner in the Hells is hardly a better option, don’t you think?”

“All right, Astarion,” Karlach broke in. “We’re just looking at what our options are right now. We’re not going to do anything that ends with you, er, being a lemure.”

Astarion huffed. “Then tell Gale to stop being such an idiot!”

The comment rolled off Gale. “Well, I have a second idea. I’ve been researching applications of necromancy magic–specifically spells like Magic Jar that allow for manipulation of the soul. Fascinating stuff. Deadly, if you’re not very careful. Not entirely the most respectable magic, but I’m tenured, so it’s not like the academy can fire me for it.”

“Sounds good to me,” Karlach said. “So what’s the plan?”

“I’ve been working on the effigy.”

“You’ve been… working on the effigy.”

Gale opened a drawer in his workbench and pulled out a doll. A doll that looked like Astarion. With white yarn for hair, red buttons for eyes, plump fabric for limbs. “The effigy of Astarion’s form in life! His soul can resonate with it. It’s how I found him in the first place. A few changes and I should be able to enhance the resonation. I added the eyes today!”

“Gale, it’s wonderful!” Karlach said, tail wagging with enthusiasm.

“Is it?” Astarion said, bewildered. “It is?”

“It’s a spitting image of your likeness,” Wyll offered.

“Well stop talking and put me in it, then! Or whatever you’re going to do!”

“Right away, then!” Gale disconnected the coin from the device and opened up the doll to reveal a series of glowing, magical wires inside. “This is still experimental, understand, but if my calculations are correct, Astarion’s soul will be able to resonate with this effigy and empower it with some semblance of life. His life force will make it able to move and talk, much like the coin has been powering this device.”

“Oh, this rules!” Karlach said, clapping. “You’re so smart, Gale!”

Gale stood and preened with one hand on his chest. “Well, I am the youngest professor to have tenure track at the university.” He slotted the coin into the chest of the doll, then set it down and fiddled with the wires. “If I can just–there!”

The coin started to glow softly. And all three watched in delight and amazement as the doll breathed, chest moving in with a violent contraction akin to taking a startled breath. Its limbs animated and its little stitched mouth opened, whole body twitching and little eyes moving in a disconcerting way.

“It’s working! It’s working!” Karlach leaned over. “Astarion, can you hear me?”

The doll writhed, then fell still as its head lolled. “Kar…lach?” said Astarion’s voice from the doll.

“Yes! Yes, it’s me! I’m here!”

“Wh…” His voice was foggy. The doll struggled to sit upright. Karlach put her hand behind it and pushed it into a sitting position.

The little magically animated Dollstarion looked up at her without much expression at all. Then, his little felt eyebrows furrowed. “Why are you all so huge?”

“We’re the same size,” Wyll offered. “The effigy is small.”

Astarion’s head snapped down to examine his doll body. “What the absolute Hells! Gale, you didn’t say the effigy was a fucking children’s toy!”

“Ah,” Gale said. “Yes. I didn’t. Hmm.”

“Gale, you bloody moron! What’s the meaning of this? Why would you-”

“All right,” Wyll cautioned, putting a hand to the tiny Astarion. “Gale is doing his best.”

“It’s much harder to make a faithful representation in the form of something larger,” Gale said. “It’s going to be significantly harder, but I could start working on an automaton. Like the kind we saw in that arcane tower in the Underdark. Fascinating stuff.”

Gale turned and started rifling through his books, deep in thought. Astarion looked on the verge of apoplexy, as much as he could while being made of felt and the size of Karlach’s hand. “He did this on purpose. To humiliate me.”

“I’d wager it’s still an improvement,” Wyll offered.

Astarion wilted. “That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it!”

“No, my friend, you don’t have to. But you could give it a try. You can see and talk and move around now. Your luck is starting to turn around.”

Astarion looked very grumpy, but he did look down at his little mitten hands all the same.

“How are you feeling?” Gale said, peering over at him. A little too close. “Tell me everything!”

“Am I some kind of science experiment to you?”

“Well, technically…”

“He’s just excited about his magic doohickey,” Karlach said. “But what do you feel?”

Astarion’s little doll body turned around experimentally, testing his footing. He felt the air from their arm movements whooshing around him, he felt the heat of their bodies–a lot of heat from Karlach–he could see and hear everything as though he had flesh and blood ears. He could feel the table underneath him. As far as he could tell he was, for all intents and purposes, a very small man made out of cloth. “Humiliated, is what I feel. Made this yourself, did you, Gale? The stitching on it could use some work.”

“Apologies,” Gale said cheerfully. He retrieved a small box full of sewing supplies, then took a needle out. “What needs some work?”

Astarion hadn’t expected Gale to offer to fix it. He struggled to think of something actually wrong with it. “Here, this part isn’t closed all the way. You can see the cotton in me!” Yeah, there was cotton in there. He tried not to think about it too hard.

“We’ll get that fixed right up!” Gale lifted Astarion, who suddenly looked less annoyed and a lot more nervous now that Gale could lift him bodily with a single hand.

Gale stuck the needle in to sew him up, and Astarion yelped in pain. Karlach let out a horrified noise and snatched Astarion from Gale’s hand. “You’re hurting him!”

“Sorry!” Gale said, flustered.

Karlach looked down and realized she was holding Astarion by the head, and his little legs were wiggling to try and free himself. She opened her hand, and he took in overheated breaths. “Gods dammit!”

“Sorry, little buddy,” Karlach said.

“I didn’t realize the effigy would feel pain like that,” Gale said, hand on his chin, seemingly more fascinated than truly sorry. “Apologies.”

“Well, it did!” Astarion said crankily. “And I’m not your gods-be-damned little buddy, you great ignoramus!”

Shame-faced, Karlach put him down on the table. “I’m sorry, Astarion. Sorry. I’m– Sorry.”

“I’m not your stupid bloody teddy bear, I’m not your pet project, I’m not your anything! I'm not yours!”

Karlach and Gale both looked away, shamefaced. Astarion seethed. Wyll’s hand came down and steadied Astarion. “Breathe, Astarion. You’re safe.”

“Safe? How am I ever going to be safe? I’m a doll, and that’s an improvement for me! Not to mention Cazador is still out there! And whose fault is that?”

“Astarion-”

“I helped you face down Gortash, break into the vaults in a wizard tower to steal a precious book, and slay a fucking undead dragon, and what have you done for me besides offer empty promises?”

“Astarion-”

“Cazador could come find me any minute now, and I’d be even more helpless to whatever he wants to do to me than when I was his actual slave!”

Karlach got down on one knee so she could be eye-to-eye with him. “Astarion, I’m going to keep you safe, I promise. I promise. If you trust me one more time, I won’t let you down again.” She held out her hand to him, palm-up. “Please give me another chance?”

Astarion’s anger faded into melancholy, and he sagged over and leaned on her fingers. “I don’t suppose I have many other options.”

Karlach managed a smile. “There we go. Just stay by me, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you. I–agh!”

This last part came as flames started to lick off her skin, heat surging from the ports in her shoulders. Astarion stumbled backwards, hair singed.

“Time to go, I think,” Wyll said. “Karlach’s clock is running out.”

He turned around and started to open the portal back to Avernus. Astarion’s head swung between him and Karlach. Karlach looked absolutely heartbroken. “I can still keep you safe. I promise, I won’t let you down. It’s the worst feeling in the world, when someone you trust lets you down–I won’t let it happen.”

“Karlach,” Gale said tactfully. “Avernus might not be the best place for a creature made of cloth and cotton stuffing, don’t you think?”

Karlach reached out for Astarion again. He stumbled backwards and fell to avoid her singeing hands.

“I’m sorry,” Karlach said. “Wyll. Wyll, please.”

Wyll stepped back as the portal opened. “Astarion, Karlach’s heart is in the right place-” Oh, a cruel thing to say, when Karlach’s heart was the reason she had to be in Avernus- “-but she has to go back to Avernus, or she’ll burn up.”

“He can stay here with me, of course,” Gale said. “He can help me start figuring out how to help these other soul coins.”

“Those are my options?” Astarion cried. “Either go to Avernus, or stay here and be Gale’s science project where Cazador could find me at any moment?”

Wyll held his hand out. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

Karlach hissed in pain and stumbled towards the portal to Avernus. A few of Gale’s nearby parchments caught fire. Astarion looked indecisively between them.

Well, no way Cazador would bother going all the way down to the Hells. He stepped into Wyll’s hand.

“I’m sure you’ll be hearing from us soon,” Wyll said to Gale. He stepped into the portal back into the Hells.

***

Taglist:

@whumpsday @appelsiinilight @thatonegothlady

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 fanfic #Gale #Karlach #Wyll #Astarion #angst #giant/tiny #gt #gianttiny

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