#well nothings at all close to finalized so……ill need to develop things a lot more

[postgameroutesix]

where

another VERY short little musing practice piece on my oc dante <33 introducing the house thats one of the main settings in the story

It’s fond of peaches, this house.

The sand outside bears their color, the wallpaper inside bears their likeness. Dante gazes at where the peach-print tears, laying on their left side, eyes half-lidded.

Perhaps when they wake it’ll serve them peaches for dinner (breakfast?). They’d refuse. Naturally, eating offered food binds you.

They roll onto their back and stuff an arm behind their head—springs of the sofa groaning beneath them. They’re unsure what material the sofa’s made of, but they’re sure if they could feel it they’d hate it. It looks smooth, a little soft. They tense at the thought, grimacing.

A raven caws. Faint (distant?).

In houses so big, there’s a bigger chance there won’t be much to do. Dante hasn’t ever been in a house big as this, so maybe that observation is limited, but going by all those grotesquely enormous houses owned by people obsessed with minimalism, they stand by it. Even this room is grotesquely enormous, a house enough on its own, so they see no reason to leave. Leave. They should, they know not their business here. They have work in the morning (now?) and must catch the bus. Leave…

If they don’t know how they got here, how can they leave? Yes, that’s sound logic enough. To stay. Lying here with the house and its peaches they’ll refuse to take, undisturbed forever…

Their eyes slip shut. They can’t release a breath, though if they could, they would.

The last thing they remember is a crash (the bus?) before waking on a peachy-sand beach. A house, towering and thickly dark, had leered over them. They remember staggering to their feet and forwards only to pass out once more and come to in this room—this room which they have not attempted to move from, nor can they convince their body to try, its rare quiet lulling them to a kind of somnambulant state. Cold, though. That keeps them from succumbing completely.

Leaving. An eye cracks open, looks through smudged glasses to the overhead chandelier glinting like yesterday’s (right?) white lavender sun. Dante heaves themself upright, instantly slammed with a lightheaded sensation. Trembling. Their eyes find their hands trembling.

They hate peaches, really. A taste so overpowering they itch to punch a wall.

These walls, past the wallpaper, look soft. Tissue-like.

Their head thumps (hear it, not feel it) and they wonder if the wall’s interior thumps also.

[indigoipsum]

OKAY OKAY I have to finally express my thoughts about Kuro II after the rewatch

Me and Null agreed that episode 1 is just... a lot better than a lot of the characterization going forward. Despite the eye gouging (I cannot defend this. Alois is very mentally ill and needs to take it out on someone and I think he has misogynistic tendencies and self-hatred for his own femininity that he decides to hurt Hannah because of it) Claude was written more how he should have been the rest of the series-- stoic, annoyed, but ultimately showing glimpses of care or something adjacent for Alois.

Delete the filler episodes and add more Trancy house development in general.

Alois is a lot less malicious than I remember. Before the duel happens he's literally just going to show Ciel to the bathroom. He only tries to hurt Ciel when his life is on the line, and even then, he begs Ciel to try to understand him as he's dying.

NONE OF THE REVENGE STUFF MAKES SENSE!! WHY WOULD AN 11-YEAR-OLD ORDER THE DEATH OF THE PHANTOMHIVE FAMILY! Ciel is smarter than this! I know demons are charming but Ciel is an extremely smart kid and literally solves crimes every day. When Alois starts explaining things, you'd think that after the duel Ciel would actually try to process it before all the torture stuff happens. Also, why would that "arsonist" allegedly hired by Alois confess to it? Was Sebastian paying him off? We know none of this actually happened!

GOD Ciel's characterization is horrendous. He kills the alleged arsonist without remorse and then is prepared to kill Alois then, later on, is like "ugh I could never kill that easily" YOU JUST DID??????? Also, when he becomes a demon, he completely leaves his servants without any regard for their well-being despite them caring for him for three years. Even though he's a demon and such now, he's not going to change his personality like that. Sebastian was under orders by Ciel to find new staff, and instead of just hiring a really good cook, maid, and gardener who had defense experience or whatever, he took in three people who had nothing left but their abilities and showed them genuine kindness. It's debatable how much of the kindness was really Sebastian's but it stands that Ciel would not abandon his servants. At the very least, not Tanaka, who he's known all his life. He wouldn't do that to Lizzie or Soma or Agni either! He cares about all these people. So he and Sebastian are just wandering around flower fields forever? Why don't they just go back to Hell where Sebastian will still be his servant?

Another point with the demon thing: I fully believe that it was just done to pander to Sebac1el shippers (censoring so this doesn't come up in a search for the ship because that is the opposite of the goal here).

I forgot how creepy Claude was in the later episodes. There were parallels between him and previous Earl Trancy that should have served a stronger narrative purpose but just made it look like he was sexualizing the two boys.

There's only one scene that actually intends to make Alois' CSA feel disturbing, and it's when he's laying motionless in bed and saying how Trancy looks at him with hunger in a different way than Claude does. They were so close to the point! Also, one of the maze questions is about Alois pretending his trauma didn't happen so why do people insist he enjoyed his abuse?

When summoning Claude, why was none of the contract about getting away from Trancy???? "I don't care about that old pervert" YOU ARE BEING BRUTALLY ASSAULTED?? Sorry Alois would have def ordered Claude to kill him in my mind.

Every scene with Hannah, no matter how serious, portrays her in a sexual light and I HATE it.

WHY WOULD SCOTLAND YARD THINK THAT CIEL IS ALOIS. THEY HAVE WORKED WITH CIEL FOR YEARS.

The maze idea was cool but, again, executed poorly.

Grelle's characterization is better than Season 1 in terms of showing her skill.

The Hannah contract was still confusing after multiple watches and idk what was going on in that writer's room.

I think that's it for now but dear god. This series is so much. If all of Kuro II Tumblr was hired to write it then it would have been genuinely good

[seashellcosmos]

dammit….. kokichi’s worse nightmare being about rantaro.. I dont think people are doing what they should be doing with that information.

them in your au makes me physically ILL, i cant, they make me so sick. do you hav any fluffy/angsty headcanons about them i can consume- i mean read like a normal person? its fine if you dont btw!! I just want them to be happy, man…

Oh heh someone caught that little detail heh heh…. I wonder what exactly his nightmare was about? It is a mystery…

I can give you some stuff on them in the AU though!

I think the relationship came about completely accidentally, they were both focused on other things and Rantaro was pretty severely injured when they met, neither of them were thinking about even really being friends it all just sorta…. Happened.

Kokichi as a person is so… messy. That’s really the only good word for it. I think it’s a serious testament to Rantaro’s patience that he was able to take the time to break through to the Real Kokichi™️ at all.

But anyway, cute headcanon time:

They’ve definitely painted each other’s nails at least once. Rantaro had a lot of free time during recovery and he needed something to do heh heh. Kokichi’s nails looked perfect (though they didn’t last long at all) and when Kokichi tried to do Rantaro’s he got a little distracted and they ended up being smeared, but Rantaro still liked them a lot.

Kokichi kept Rantaro’s ring in his pocket because he was always afraid he’d accidentally melt it, he’d only ever wear it on occasions where he knew with 100% certainty that he wouldn’t have any reason for his power to get a little overactive. (So… anytime he was around Rantaro, because that avocado can calm him down just by being standing the same room as him now)

The actual conversation of them deciding they were on fact dating was probably unbearable tbh. It would be like an hour of Kokichi avoiding giving any concrete answer and Rantaro just… waiting for an actual response. He’s the most patient guy on the planet, he’ll wait an hour and half for Kokichi to finally work his way around to saying “yeah let’s do that- hold my hand now actually”

Kokichi is very obnoxious about giving affection, will climb up on Rantaro’s shoulders to kiss his cheek, very loudly announce that he’s about to kiss or hug him, hold his hand and swing it around so much it sort of looks like he might dislocate his own arm in the process- but he is a MESS when Rantaro’s the one to initiate romantic gestures first. Even if it’s something small like… Rantaro kissing his hand or something, Kokichi’s face goes red and he has to try and joke his way out of having an Actual Feeling or he’ll melt into a little puddle right then and there

Rantaro’s an older sibling- to many many younger ones- so he’s more used to helping out for others than having other people do things for him, Kokichi absolutely tries to rectify this as often as he can. He pays very close attention to everything from Rantaro’s favorite soda to which music style he prefers listening to on the radio and Kokichi will make sure Rantaro gets things he enjoys too. He also tries to stop Rantaro from always overexerting himself for other people but…. Well you see how that worked out.

And to end things on a sadder note, since I am feeling evil today: Rantaro forgetting him completely hurt Kokichi more than he’d ever want to admit. It sort of took this tentative new hopeful worldview he was developing and shattered it into a million pieces. He really just… can’t have good things. No matter what. Nothing ever works out okay. (But we’ll learn more about all that later in the fic, heh heh)

[viewmonster-deactivated20230122]

🌹✂️👑🔫🔧 pick who you want and go to town my friend. smile

(rubbing my hands together evilly) you SHOULDNT have

ok im gonna do a under the cut thing so it doesnt get super long... oc emoji asks are here just so the link is above the cut LOL. ill be randomly generating an oc for each of these ^_^

🌹 ROSE - do they like valentines day? have they been confessed to before? have they confessed to anyone before?

for this one i got kazim! so lets talk about him. i think he would like valentines day because he considers himself something of a romantic... ever since he picked up guitar he's probably fantasized about serenading someone beautifully on valentine's because he is that kind of guy LOL. despite this though i think he has been confessed to before but hes rejected a lot of people because he is very dead set on finding ~The One~... but perhaps maybe one day he will confess to benji instead of being a bit of an idiot about it........

also obligatory valentinos day joke. lol

✂️ SCISSORS - what is the "last straw" for them to cut someone out of their life? how easily do they let go of people?

for this one iiits sun! hmm. i think for sun he's the type of person who tries really really hard to see the good in everybody. it'd probably take someone a reeally long time for them to reach the point at which he'd cut them out of his life completely. this isnt to say that he is against the idea of cutting people out-- he just very rarely does it or wants to do it... i think the final straw would be a sort of "straw that broke the camels back" situation, where hes finally had enough of trying to see the good in somebody, or he'd be urged by someone close to him to cut someone else out as it's probably the best course of action. as a result he's not very good at letting go of people easily. he sees all of his relationships as really important no matter how inconsequential, and he looks back on even the worst of people fondly.

👑 CROWN - what does your oc want to be remembered as? why?

for this one weve got mariam... hm. i think she's unsure as to what she does want to be remembered as, but she knows well that she doesn't want to just be remembered as simply a smart person. for a lot of her life people (especially her family) have rarely looked into her other qualities that arent her intelligence, and despite her being passionate about things that would be considered "smart" she resents purely being represented as someone whos just that and nothing else. i'd say she wants to be remembered more as a caring and passionate person than anything else.

🔫 PISTOL - do they trust people easily? how easily will they turn their back to someone? have they been backstabbed before? will they betray someone if given an ultimatum?

for this question we have valentino! ohoho. valentino is not someone who trusts easily in the slightest. he keeps his guard way up around new people-- being in a business like his its only natural i suppose. anastagio and the rest of la banda di fiori are really the only people who have fully earned his trust, and thats taken a very long time for them. i think its easier for him to betray somebody than it is for him to make friends quite frankly-- the only person hes sure he wouldnt ever betray the trust of is anastagio i think. he is... not a very easily trusting person to put it lightly LOL

🔧 WRENCH - are they good at fixing relationships? or do they tend to avoid doing so?

and last but not least we have connie! i think connie is not someone who notices very much if there is something that needs fixing in a relationship.... which she is trying to get better at because she knows communication is important. in the past, though, she was punished and outright ignored by her parents when she tried to bring up how she wanted to have a better connection with them, which left her unable to develop such skills very well. she obliviously let lots of things slide and has trouble being assertive in the past, but nowadays she works to fix things when they go wrong.

thank you for the ask! enjoy your fucking essay FJKHDGJF

[stardewtales]

Your shane x reader are some of the first I read when i got into sdv, and they still hold a li special place in my heart <3 I love the way you wrote shane, jas, and the farmer (you kept the farmer rather neutral, but you still gave her moments of personality, rlly great stuff!), anyway, I'd love any shane related stuff you would do, but if your looking for a request, the reader teaching him abt farming/gardening (planting hot peppers together eee) i think would be rlly cute-ok bye lysm!!!

A/N: hey lovely!! If you're still around, thank you so much for this. I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to get to your request, but here it is! Hope it lives up to your expectations xx

Shane can feel you hovering behind him.

"What is it," he groans, not bothering to turn around.

"Sorry," he hears you say. "Just, be careful with the roots, please? I don't want all your work to be for nothing."

Well, he can't exactly fault you for that. If anything, he's ashamed because he was distracted while you showed him the whole thing about the roots.

He turns to look at you. "Would you, uh... mind showing me again?"

His stomach twists as you smile at him, thoroughly amused. "Sure thing. Here, let me get in there..."

You kneel beside him, knees firmly planted in the dirt beside his. You proceed to show him how to dig around the roots instead of into them for a second time that afternoon. For a second time, he finds it hard to focus with you so close, but he fights that a little harder this time.

"Here," you hand him back the trowel, "give it another shot."

He can't miss the way the look you give him is so damn encouraging. You've given him plenty of variations on that look by now, with various degrees of concern thrown into the mix. He proceeds to try digging up the pepper plant again, the sun boring down on the back of his neck as he does it.

"Am I getting it right, now?" he asks, glancing up at you quickly.

"Couldn't do it better myself," you nod exaggeratedly, and he fakes throwing dirt at you in retaliation.

It gets a laugh out of you, clear and joyful. It stirs something inside him, the feeling that's been nagging at him sort of often these days. It hits him like a ton of bricks in that moment that this is the feeling he used to chase all the way down the bottles, the sort of rush he used to think would make up for everything else.

He must've made a face when he realized it, because your brows furrow in concern.

"Are you o-" you start, but you're cut off short by a girlish squeal further down the field.

Him and you both shoot up, surveying the surroundings.

"Jas?" you half-shout, concerned.

"I think I need some help," her voice pipes up sheepishly, and the two of you finally spot her, fallen on her butt among the sunflowers.

You huff, relieved, and tell him you've got it with a brief touch on his arm before you leave in Jas's direction. Now that he knows she's not hurt, he can go back to making sense of his thoughts, yet he barely registers the lingering feeling of your fingers on his forearm.

He kneels and gets back to work, distraught. His first instinct is to worry. The therapist Harvey connected him with cautioned him pretty early on about the way some addicts replaced one addiction with another, and that all good things should perhaps be enjoyed in moderation while he was on the road to recovery.

You're the best thing in his life by far, but he failed to keep you at arm's length a long time ago now. He's not dense enough to be unaware that he's developed some pretty strong feelings for you. But this particular feeling is new-ish, and he doesn't quite know what to make of it. As his fingers dig up the pepper plant out of the ground and he gently removes chunks of dirt from the roots, Shane hopes really hard this doesn't mean he's allowed himself to veer all the way of the right path he's been trying so hard to stick to.

He hates to think about it, but maybe he needs to cool off on seeing you so often so he can at least get a grip. He can't even recall the last time he went a day without seeing you. Sometime in the spring, probably? It's the very end of summer now.

After he's transferred the plant to the wheelbarrow, Shane stands up and looks around. You're still helping Jas uproot some sunflowers, even though her initial job was just to collect the stray seeds. Officially, he and her were there to help you wrap up the summer crops so you could transfer some to your greenhouse. In reality, he was helping you; Jas was causing more trouble than she was helping, but you didn't seem to mind at all, more than happy to show her over and over how to handle things properly.

He didn't know how you did it. It's like you had an endless well of patience, and he knew he ought to have reached the pit of it by now. And yet, he had not. There were depths to your kindness that reached far enough that even after dealing with him through his recovery, you still had plenty left for Jas in all her fumblings and ill-advised adventures.

For the rest of the afternoon Shane managed to clear his mind and just keep working somewhat efficiently. Marnie came around just before dinnertime to get Jas, who was too exhausted from running around by then to protest. Marnie had also let him know she'd save him a portion of dinner for when he came home, but to take his time, which he'd made sure to thank her for.

It wasn't long until Jas left before you and him moved on to replanting the uprooted plants into the greenhouse. He liked that part more than the digging up; liked the hazy warmth of the greenhouse more than the blaring heat of the field. The two of you worked mostly in silence, both exhausted, him perhaps more than you.

After you planted the last of yours and he was halfway through his own last plant, he heard you clap your hands together to shake the dirt off your gloves, before you fully shrieked.

"What's wrong?" he quickly turned towards you.

"Your neck!" you replied, walking over to him. "Did you not put on sunscreen like I told you to?"

Shane instinctively reaches for the back of his neck, and while the sunburn doesn't hurt yet, he can feel the tell-tale heat coming off of it.

"Ah, shit. Think I missed a spot."

You tut at him, shooing his hand off so you can take a better look.

"You big idiot," you chastise him affectionately. "You're lucky I have an infinite amount of aloe in the house from last summer."

**************

As Shane steps out of the shower and into your steam-filled bathroom, he can already tell he'll be sore from all this work. He doesn't know how you do this every day. He tries to get a look at himself in the mirror, but it's too fogged up. Probably better that way, he thinks.

He's used your shower plenty of times before, and he's glad that at the very least it doesn't feel as awkward as it used to. While he was still in the pits of getting sober, you'd graciously let him stay over on your couch so Jas didn't have to see him struggle when it got too hard. He still doesn't know why you did that, or how to repay you for it.

After putting on his clothes, he steps out into your living room, where you're waiting for him with a huge tub of the goo you intend to smear on his sunburn. You've showered too, and made him do it after you because otherwise you claimed he'd just wash off the aloe later, which was probably right.

"C'mere," you beckon him over to sit on the arm of your couch.

He chuckles. It's funny to him, how bossy you get when you're trying to take care of him. Nevertheless, he does as he's told and dutifully sits down like you instruct him. And waits.

Nothing happens.

"You okay back there?" he asks, looking over his shoulder.

You raise a brow. "Aren't you gonna take off your shirt? How am I supposed to get this on you otherwise?"

He feels a bubble of panic rush up. He's in better shape than he used to be, but he's still not much to look at, and he doesn't like the idea of you finding that out like this. "Is that really necessary?"

You sigh, and he knows there will be no convincing you. He feels the tips of his ears burn as he lifts his shirt over his head, dropping it at his feet and taking precious care not to look back at you. "Happy?" he mumbles.

"Hmhm," you hum quietly behind him.

You bring your aloe-coated fingers to his burning skin, and instantly he feels consumed by ice-cold flames. He was not prepared for you to touch him quite so gently, to work the gel into his skin in tiny, careful circles. His throat runs dry as he's reminded of his earlier conclusion that he needs to take some time away from you, for both of your sakes. If the way his body is reacting to this isn't proof, he doesn't know what would be.

You let him know you're done, and he promptly puts his shirt back on. He wishes he hadn't when the stickiness gets a hold of the collar.

"So, just a heads up," you start, screwing the jar of aloe vera shut, "I'm gonna be really busy tomorrow I think. So maybe hanging out in the evening when I'm done would be better?"

He's taken aback by the way this is coming up faster than he anticipated. Still, No time like the present I guess, he thinks to himself.

"About that," he clears his throat, "I think it might be better if I spend some alone time for a while."

He watches you still. You look up at him slowly, visibly confused. "Have I done something wrong?" you ask, and it kills him. "I'm sorry if I have, I know I can be a little overbearing sometimes," you start to ramble, but he cuts you off.

"No, no, none of that," he tries to reassure you. "It's just, uh, how do I say this," he scratches at his head, genuinely at a loss. "Remember how I told you my therapist said I should, like, maybe be careful about things I enjoy a lot? And about... strong emotions?"

You nod, but he can tell from your slight frown you're still confused.

"Well, it's kinda like that. I feel really good when I'm with you. Maybe a little too good. Strong stuff. But I don't wanna depend on you to feel... good. I wanna keep this healthy, yeah?"

You ponder his words, and he can tell he hasn't really gotten his point across. "I mean, I think I get where you're coming from, maybe? But Shane, I think it's okay for you to have a support system. Is it really so bad if being with a friend makes you feel good? I think that's how most people feel."

He shakes his head, huffing. "No, it's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

His eyes meet yours, and he feels weak. "Please don't make me say it," he whispers.

"Shane," you reach out to touch his shoulder, "You're worrying me."

He swallows. Before he knows it, it tumbles out of him. "I have feelings for you. I have for a while. And lately it's gotten a little out of control. So I need some time away from you to get over it, okay? I don't want things to be weird. I need you too much to have things be weird. So I need to figure it out before it gets there."

You stare at him, and he sees so many emotions run across your face that he gets dizzy.

"You... what?" you say quietly after a while.

He feels heat rise from his chest all the way to his ears, like some twisted type of nausea. "Forget it, alright? That's not the point I'm trying to make. I just..." he breathes, "I'll see you in a few days, yeah?"

He doesn't wait for a response. He goes for the door right away, in a real hurry to leave this place where everything is so blatantly yours, down to the smell of your lotion lingering in the air from your bare legs.

But you don't let him leave. He feels your hand on his arm, a real grip this time, and the next thing he knows you're reaching for his neck and bringing his mouth to meet yours. Shane thinks he's forgotten how to make his blood run, how to make his lungs breathe, how to make his limbs move. You're pressing your lips on his with a fervor he didn't even know you had in you. Then, with an instinct of its own, his body kicks back into gear, and he feels himself wrapping his arms around you, bringing you closer yet as he pours all the energy he has left into kissing you back.

It's desperation that compels him, because he never imagined this would ever happen outside of his mind, outside of his daydreams. He's not even convinced he'll ever get to do it again, so he's making this one count.

He genuinely has no idea how much time has passed when you break away from him, panting. You're not saying anything, just searching his eyes with yours.

"Please say something," he eventually breathes.

He watches as you swallow, then exhale loudly. "I don't want to see you in a few days only. I wanna see you now and in the middle of the night and every moment of every day. I don't want you to go and get over me, because I don't think I'll be able to get over you if you do, Shane. So don't leave me. Stay. Please."

Your words fluster him a great deal more than he already is. "Okay," he nods, in a half-daze.

"Yeah?" you make sure, still catching your breath.

"Yeah," he confirms. "Anything for you. Of course."

[bottoms-movie]

SAMBUCKY FIC RECS

so a lot of people seemed interested this so here it is! if ya’ll like this, i can make more parts! this is split into three categories: based on tfatws, canon divergence, and au. all fics are on ao3. all of the fics are complete. some fics do include smut, but i included the ratings, so make sure to check for that based on preferences!

also, feel free to send me asks on your thoughts on any fics or if you’re interested in another sambucky fic rec post!

BASED ON TFATWS

Fill the Hole in my Heart | Not Rated | 4,848 words

Bucky dives into the world of online dating. The girls are nice, but there seems to be something missing. When he goes to Louisiana to meet Sam and his family, he realizes what that something was.

Skip, Reverse | Explicit | 7,945 words

Sam stood in the middle of their local Target with a throw pillow in each hand. The one in his left hand was butter-soft and matched the drapes in the living room, but Bucky had walked by five seconds ago and declared the one on the right “absolutely fucking hideous,” and so now Sam kind of wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything.

Sometimes romance is just bickering with your superhero partner/roommate at several different Target locations.

just won’t do right | General | 7,524 words

Sam's eyebrows go up, impressed, and he reaches over to squeeze Torres' shoulder, "This is amazing, kid. Thanks, really."

Bucky sits and watches in utter horror as the pink darkens on Torres' cheeks.

Oh, he realizes. Oh. Fuck.

body language will do the trick | Explicit | 12,598 words

“There’s no way you’re going to win this,” Bucky tells Sam. “I am going to love language the shit out of you.”

Sam gives him a considering look. “You do seem like you’d be really good at that.”

Bucky’s cheeks flush with heat. “Thanks, pal, I—”

Sam smirks, and Bucky’s eyes narrow. He shoves his elbow into Sam’s side and stalks off, leaving Sam cackling behind him.

“Your ass looks great today!” Sam yells.

Bucky reaches up to flip Sam the bird, and he definitely does not feel grateful that he wore his good jeans today. Bucky’s ass looks great every day.

checklist | General | 4,716 words

Bucky Barnes keeps a mental checklist of things he knows to be true at any given moment. Sometimes the checklist changes, because he's learned something else about himself. It changes, for example, when he starts realizing that maybe he would like to kiss Sam Wilson. Maybe.

best laid plans | 3 parts | 26,808 words

part 1: baby you’re the wave and I’m ready for the crash | Explicit | 6,616 words

Nah, my plan’s better,” Sam declares, before clapping Bucky on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, what plan? Was that a plan? It didn’t sound like a plan to me, it sounded like a vague intention,” says Bucky, still scowling, and Sam grins.

“We’re winging it, the plan is a work in progress! Now c’mon, we gotta make some wardrobe adjustments if we’re gonna get into that club.”

Sam and Bucky have some unorthodox methods of going undercover in a club.

He Doesn’t Deserve You! | Teen | 5,154 words

Sam and Bucky have an argument that results in Bucky being left at the bar. A group of drunk strangers assumes Bucky just got dumped and quickly adopt him for the night to make him feel better.

Reconstitution | Not Rated | 10,228 words

“I didn’t back Steve on the Sokovia Accords,” Sam says unprompted one day. They’re so close to apprehending the Flagsmashers and wrapping up this ridiculous saga.

“I don’t follow,” Bucky says.

“I was the one who refused to sign it first. Not Steve.”

Sam says it so softly that Bucky has to strain to hear him. Sam is loud and chatty and half the time he keeps up a constant stream of chatter just to get on Bucky’s nerves, but Bucky’s coming to realize that when he really wants to make himself heard, he’s soft spoken and mild. Bucky doesn’t entirely follow his train of thought, though.

Or: a breaking down, remaking, and coming back stronger than ever before

Stuck On You (You Suez, You Luez) | Explicit | 10,136 words

Sam and Bucky’s mission was simple: stowaway on a ship suspected of weapons-smuggling in the Suez, gather enough intel to report back, and hop off again in Port Said. Something gets in the way, and a day-long recon session turns into a week of chess, bickering, semi-successful movie references, and trying not to go slowly insane.

His Touch | Mature | 1,006 words

When Baron Zemo touched Bucky’s face, Sam Wilson saw red.

Bucky just wants Sam to comfort him.

rusted | Teen | 2,358 words

Bucky doesn’t grace him with a sound of acknowledgement. He’s been quiet, ever since that night with Zemo. Well. Quieter. It’s almost like. Every time he opens his mouth, he’s half-expecting the Winter Soldier to come out.

He hasn’t, yet. Won’t, ever again. Not unbidden. Sam’s sure of that. Bucky, not so much.

‘You busy?’

‘’m scouring the—’

‘Good,’ Sam cuts the idiot off, ‘I need you to help me shave.’

advanced therapy methods for large adult men | 2 parts | 11,717 words

part 1: The Gottman Method for Dealing with Conflict | Mature | 4,187 words

Bucky and Dr. Raynor have a follow-up session and two entirely different conversations about his relationship status.

Or: Let's do more couples therapy, James.

it’s always Bucky’s Fault | 3 parts | 20,089 words

part 1: Did you see it? | Explicit | 3,905 words

In which there's supposedly a viral video of the Winter Soldier on his knees sucking off Captain America.

Everything is, like always, completely Bucky's fault.

CANON DIVERGENCE

Even in the Present (I Am Living in the Past) | Teen | 16,977 words

Sometimes Sam still questions everything about his ability to shoulder the 80-year legacy he now bears. His history, and the history of his loss, sticks with him and even in healing he doubts whether or not he is able to fulfil his purpose, and whether he may find lasting peace and happiness.

Told in fluid-fragments, the story moves between his therapy sessions after his return from active duty and the post-Endgame present.

You never forget your first | Teen | 3,650 words

The story of Bucky and Sam getting together in a series of firsts.

leftovers | Mature | 19,249 words

With the New Avengers up and running, Sam finally has time to start dating again. Unfortunately, it's not going as well as he'd hoped.

Partners | Explicit | 7,235 words

Sam's not sure if he can be Captain America. He's not a supersoldier. He can't throw the shield. He's just a dude.

And Bucky Barnes is just a nuisance, albeit a pretty good-looking one.

I’ll explain everything to the geese | Explicit | 50,949 words

Bucky is so competent that it hurts my feelings is not a rational complaint to have about a person, and yet, after a year of being Captain America and partnering up with Bucky for the new and improved, post-Blip Avengers, that’s kinda how Sam’s feeling.

It’s not great. It maybe leads to Sam making some rash, ill-advised decisions like claiming he has a previously undisclosed superpower, and then getting caught in a web of lies when he ends up actually developing that surprisingly inconvenient superpower. Talking to birds had seemed like a harmless superpower, but it turns out that birds have a lot of opinions, and they don’t hesitate to tell Sam about them, especially when it comes to his supposedly subpar courting skills. Which is ridiculous, because Sam isn’t courting Bucky. Right?

Night Swimming | Teen | 2,056 words

“Come on. The princess has a new arm for you and I gotta see if there’s a barber around here willing to tackle your…” Sam waved a hand at Bucky’s face.

“I don’t want a new arm,” Bucky immediately bit out.

And then -

“I can cut my own damn hair.”

Sam just raised both eyebrows. Crossed his arms over his chest again.

Dared Bucky to prove him wrong.

AU

Cpvert Coffee & Flirtation Specialist | General | 5,542 words

The reporter says "—for Captain America to—"

And Bucky rolls his eyes. "Oh, here we go."

Sam looks at him then tips his head sideways, got a weird grin on his face. "Not a fan?"

"Not that. Just… the guy seems too good to be true, right? Wings and a shield?? Come on."

"Uh, is that why your eyes are like glued to the screen whenever he's on?" Kate says. "Is that why you call him Captain Tight Ass?"

"He's a goddamn show-off, and you know it. Tight ass or not."

Just then Sam snorts, real loud, grabs his coffee and suffers a horribly controlled laugh on his way out the door.

Stolen Moments | Teen | 98,767 words

“No,” Sam said, chuckling. “I don’t cheat,” he swept his gaze up and down James’ body, “even with guys who look like you. But, I’m bored and a little pissed, so if you wanna sit here and shoot the shit ‘til my man shows back up, I’m game.”

Never one to back to back down from a challenge - especially a challenge who looked like Sam Wilson - Bucky took another swig from his bottle and replied, “Sure, doll. I’ve got nothing but time.”

Steve has Sam. Bucky wants Sam. Sam wasn’t expecting any of this.

Such a Whirlwind Since I Saw You | Teen | 10,871 words

The Men of Letters turned Bucky Barnes into a weapon. Hunters Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov are determined to save him, but they're going to need Sam Wilson's help.

“So you want me to ditch work, drive across America with you until you find your friend, who you thought was dead - all while avoiding some high-tech hunters who are out for blood?” Sam is asking.

Steve shrugs a shoulder, looking a little sheepish. Natasha almost laughs at the dry tone of Sam’s voice, but he's not wrong.

You Got What I Need? | Explicit | 37,588 words

Sam and Bucky are both in a bind, professionally. Nat points out a solution that neither men like. To save their careers they play along or rather, stop playing all together.

[therealvinelle]

Hi, I was reading a post here in Tumblr about how Edward has two gifts, he can hear thoughts and is super fast, so I wonder what is your opinion about this topic?.

Furthermore, what others power might the Volturi's leaders and guards might have?

Edward has one gift, and it’s telepathy. Being fast isn’t a gift.

Strength, speed and even senses is varied among vampires. Some, like Emmett, are on the extreme end, but that doesn’t make Emmett gifted, nor does it mean that the rest are at an equal level. The Cullens have clear variations between them.

Physique appears to play a dominant role in how these variations play out: Alice, who was malnourished and never made it past 4′10″, is the physically weakest of the coven, while Emmett at 6′5″ and a mountain of muscles is the strongest. This is made very clear during the baseball game:

“Emmett was hovering close to third (base), knowing that Alice didn’t have the muscle to outstrip Rosalie’s fielding." (Midnight Sun, chapter The Game)

There’s also the fact that it’s taken for granted that Emmett would be intimidating to other vampires, and he is dismayed when James is more worried about Jasper, who is lean.

I suspect this disparity exists simply because a large frame means more tissue to have blood in. Newborns, animal, and human-eating vampires all having a difference in terms of strength is proof that blood has the final say in a vampire’s prowess, so Emmett being able to contain more of it than Alice and therefore being stronger makes sense to me.

This isn’t the meta for me to get into that, but I don’t think vampires have muscles in the sense we do. Or rather, we can’t know that they do. Renesmée is proof that Edward retains his human DNA, or she would be a clone of Bella. Nahuel is proof that Joham retains a Y-chromosome. Does this mean that vampires have different cell types? Does a vampire’s stone-like skin still contain human DNA? One would think yes - except, if you rip a vampire apart, you get rubble. The parts are all solid. There’s also Carlisle theorizing that vampires digest blood by absorbing it through porous tissue, which makes me wonder why he dismissed his digestive system (my guess: vivisection fun times with Aro in Volterra. Carlisle couldn’t have done it on his own, and Aro is the only one mad and curious enough to be down for that). I’m getting off-topic - what I’m saying is, we don’t know how vampires work, meaning I can’t build this meta off of the assumption that they have muscles. I simply can’t know for sure that they do.

The important thing is that a vampire’s physique is a deciding factor in how strong they are.

There’s also Laurent’s warning about James, that he has “unparalleled senses”, meaning some vampires are better at sight, hearing, and smell than others. I can believe that, because we have canon examples of vampires being bad at tracking.

There’s Edward in Port Angeles, who couldn’t track Bella’s, his singer, scent to her location, and (I admit this one is conjecture but it’s so probable that I say it goes) Carlisle’s creator, who after taking care of the mob must have realized he’d bitten one of the humans, meaning a newborn would soon be loose in London. This is punishable by death by the Volturi. The fact that he didn’t return to finish Carlisle off means that he was unable to find him. I remind the audience that Carlisle was bleeding and suffering the effects by a venom intended to paralyze the victim. To put it this way, Carlisle wouldn’t have survived James, or anybody with a trace of tracking competence. By comparison, Carlisle was able to locate a dying Rosalie by the smell of her blood, even though there wouldn’t have been a trail for him to follow, as her body had not been moved.

When it comes to these disparities in strength and speed among the Volturi, I imagine Jane and Alec are the physically weakest members of the guard, and among the slowest. They’re prepubescent, meaning no muscle for them, and their height (a humble 4′8″ and 4′10″) implies very short legs. They’re simply not going to get as far as an adult would, not in the same number of steps. Renata at 5′0″ is another tiny vampire lady who likely isn’t very strong or fast.

That’s not to say I think these physically weaker members of the Volturi guard are necessarily useless in hand-to-hand combat, Alec at least is a boy stuck in a playful age, and the males around him are trained warriors. He’s probably picked up a few things over the years.

As for the others, Aro is described as frail-looking, which hints at him being quite thin. I don’t think he’s weak, if he couldn’t win a fight he wouldn’t be around, but I do think he’s probably below average in terms of strength. Caius I picture as a Harrison Ford type, so of course I’m gonna think he’s a bit burly, but this is me headcanoning and not actually hinted at in canon. Marcus is 19, so I imagine he can only be so strong.

Back to Edward’s speed.

He’s a 6′2″ teen, that’s code for “very long legs”, though I’m actually going to go ahead and posit that he’s not actually that fast. Strap in for this next part:

The guy was a teenager who lay dying for an undisclosed amount of time. The fact that Carlisle had the time to get to know his mother points to a few weeks, at least. And Edward was very ill:

Elizabeth worried obsessively over her son. She hurt her own chances of survival trying to nurse him from her sickbed. I expected that he would go first, he was so much worse off than she was. (New Moon, page 21)

Muscles atrophy quickly, never more so than when you’re a teen ravaged by fever, on your deathbed. And as I’ve explained above, I think your physique in life ties directly into your vampiric prowess.

I think Edward is certainly the physically weakest of the male Cullens, quite likely weaker than Rosalie as well, maybe even Esme.

Now, speed is not the same as strength. However, for humans, the two are connected. It’s the muscle fibers in our legs that determine our speed. Basically, type I fibers make an enduring runner, type II fibers make a speed runner. So, assuming that vampires retain their human musculature, one could argue that Edward had a lot of type II in life. However, Carlisle when he was human was able to outrun the mob he was with:

He ran through the streets, and Carlisle — he was twenty-three and very fast — was in the lead of the pursuit. (Twilight, page 158)

Carlisle clearly had a lot of type II fibers, and unlike Edward he was in peak physical condition when he died. He was also an adult who’d had more time to develop musculature, while Edward was a seventeen-year-old. If musculature was a deciding factor, one would think they would at the very least be of equal speed, though realistically Edward should be slower.

So, if it’s not muscles, what is it that makes Edward faster than the others?

It could be a matter of technique. Except, the way Bella describes movement when she wakes up as a vampire, it’s all very automated. Her body knows exactly how to do everything, and executes it without much input from her:

After that first frozen second of shock, my body responded to the unfamiliar touch in a way that shocked me even more.

Air hissed up my throat, spitting through my clenched teeth with a low, menacing sound like a swarm of bees. Before the sound was out, my muscles bunched and arched, twisting away from the unknown. I flipped off my back in a spin so fast it should have turned the room into an incomprehensible blur—but it did not. I saw every dust mote, every splinter in the wood-paneled walls, every loose thread in microscopic detail as my eyes whirled past them.

So by the time I found myself crouched against the wall defensively—about a sixteenth of a second later—I already understood what had startled me, and that I had overreacted. (Breaking Dawn, page 251-252)

Growling, crouching - those are all distinctly vampiric, non-human ways to act. Bella didn’t learn this, her body knew it of its own accord. When she later runs, she explains it as happening the same way - she just does it.

The way Bella experiences it, vampiric movement is like a package she downloaded, and that executes her instinctual commands with no need for her to actually know how to do any of this. Her grace is another example of this - Bella Swan may be in charge of her own consciousness, but the venom is entirely in control of her body.

Given these facts, I don’t think it’s technique that makes Edward a better runner than others. His technique is likely similar to everyone else’s. If it isn’t, if technique is what makes the difference, then who is and isn’t fast is an arbitrary process.

With that, we get to my controversial theory about why Edward is the fastest Cullen: he’s not.

Running and being fast is the only thing about vampirism that Edward enjoys. This is for another meta, but Edward is extremely depressed about every single other bit of it. Every aspect of being a vampire torments him.

Except the running. He enjoys all of it, especially being the fastest, so much. And as a newborn, he would have been faster than Carlisle.

But after that, when his newborn strength faded…

I honestly think that Carlisle decided to just slow down a bit when running with him, let Edward have this. It’s no skin of his back, and it makes Edward happy, so why not.

Esme joins the family, and of course she would be down for this. Nothing is more parental, more maternal, than losing at checkers to make your child happy, after all. Could also be she’s not very fast herself, but even if she were then she would downplay it to make Edward feel like Jesse Owens.

Enter Rosalie, who would think it’s completely ridiculous, yes, but she would also recognize this excellent opportunity to call in a big favor from Carlisle later on. There’s also the fact that I think Carlisle has a gift (yes, yes, meta is coming, people) that makes him very persuasive people. And also that for all that Rose gets a lot of bad rep, she is very generous and loves her family, if being fast makes Edward happy then alright.

Emmett is an easy-going guy, he goes along with things. Alice adores Edward and would go along with it. She also has tiny matchstick legs and couldn’t outrun him if she tried. Jasper could not care less.

Bella does get outrun by Edward after waking up, but she also did zero exercise in life (listing this in case musculature matter), had Renesmée devour her from within rendering her emaciated, and then died like a slasher movie murder victim. There’s not a lot of blood in her, and what little blood there is doesn’t have a lot to work with. She does defeat Emmett at arm wrestling, so I’ll concede that. However, there are enough extenuating circumstances surrounding Bella that I think my “Edward isn’t that fast” theory survives his ability to outrun her.

So, I believe Edward is the fast Cullen because Carlisle told a white lie in 1919, no one ever corrected that, and now it’s too late.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Crimson Ties (Bela Dimitrescu/Reader, Soulmate AU) Pt. 2

Fandom: Resident Evil: Village

Rating: T for language and mild medical drama

Warnings: Typical Vampire shenanigans

Genre: Hurt + comfort

Summary: Bela is somewhat unprepared to deal with a soulmate who has no clue about her condition, her family, or any of the village's secrets. Thankfully, her sister Cassandra is more than willing to be a bad example. Also there's some fluff.

Notes: For reference, each of my soulmate stories take place in their own contained timeline, since they each involve different types of soulmates. So in this one, Cass doesn't currently have a soulmate.

Previous Chapters: 1: Stem the Flow

2: Tangled Strands

A gentle humming fills the space around you, as fingers slowly run through your hair. As far as you can tell you had fallen back asleep, for several hours, and you were just now waking back up. No longer holding you down, your soulmate is curled up next to you. There’s still a needle in your arm, much to your irritation, but now you can finally see what it’s connected to: An IV for a transfusion. Explains why I’m feeling so much better than before, you think. Then you’re turning your head to the other side, eager to finally get a good look at your soulmate. Instantly you’re blushing, tongue tying itself into a knot, because wow are you lucky.

“Feeling any better?” She asked, as soon as your gaze met hers. You try to stutter out a confirmation, but you’re too distracted by the soft curve of her smile to speak, and barely even manage a nod. That beautiful smile grows wider in response. “Good. I couldn’t stand the thought of you suffering more, after what you’ve already been through.” Now her smile fades, and she looks away for a few moments. Watching it makes your heart ache. So you swallow the lump in your throat, willing yourself to relax, before trying a little comforting of your own.

“I am safe now, am I not? Moreso, we have too much to talk about for us to dwell on the ill circumstances of our introduction. Let us cherish this time, in respite, with our hearts open wide to one another,” you said, donning your softest smile. Somehow your words fulfill their purpose, and your soulmate is once again grinning. Slowly she leans forward to rest her forehead against yours. Then she’s speaking, voice as smooth as the sheets you lay on.

“You are right, of course. I simply wish I could have saved you sooner,” she replied, tone betraying the sadness that her expression otherwise hid. Before you can protest, she continues talking, and you soon forget all about your qualms. “To think I don’t even know your name yet… nor you mine, I suppose. Let’s remedy that, yes? I am Bela Dimitrescu.” Something about her last name feels familiar to you, but not to the point of clear recognition. Instead of inquiring, you return her favor, giving her your own name. She repeats it back a few times, letting the syllables roll off her tongue, and you feel your heart skip a few beats. “A lovely name for a lovely soul, perfectly paired.”

A pause, followed by Bela reaching out to examine your IV. Following her gaze, you turn to the metal hook adjacent to the bed, where a blood bag hangs. Only a few drops remain inside. Just as when you first awoke, Bela gives a soft hum, then rises into a sitting position. Your first instinct is to copy the motion, and you’re relieved when (this time) she doesn’t push you back down. Both of you quietly inch your hands closer until they’re laid on top of each other.

“I wish I knew more about medicine, but unfortunately my family is more experienced in the creation of wounds than the treatment of them,” Bela said, scowling. Confused, you tilt your head at a slight angle, watching her with interest. Am I supposed to know who she’s referring to? My memories of the past couple days are still hazy, you think. “Do… do you remember how you ended up in the dungeon? I know you wanted to speak of happier things, and we can, soon. It’s just… Knowing how you arrived here may help me deal with the consequences of freeing you. Mother will be dreadfully upset that I’ve interrupted a draining, even if we are soulmates.”

“Wait, are you saying…? The intimidating giantess who strung me up and attempted to bleed me dry… is your mother?” You asked, jaw nearly dropping to the floor. This was an unexpected development, for sure.

“You didn’t know?” Bela replied, eyes going wide for a moment. Clearly she wouldn’t have said anything if she realized you weren’t already aware. Suddenly the tension in the room is palpable, with an uncomfortable silence overtaking the two of you. In the moment, you cannot even bring yourself to look at Bela, too stunned by this new knowledge. Eventually she breaks the silence, voice sounding unsure for once. “I realize that this is a lot to take in, if you need time to process it, I… I can go. But you need to understand that our situation is far more complicated than it might appear. We cannot survive without the blood of others- it is what sustains us when nothing else can.”

Now you’re staring at her like she’s crazy, and she’s standing up, moving to the other side of the room. She draws back a curtain, gazing out into the snow covered hills. Every muscle in your body is urging you to run while she’s distracted. Thread of fate be damned, this went far beyond anything you had ever imagined having to deal with. You come so close to ripping the IV right out of your arm. But a gentle tug on your soul string makes you pause, remembering all the times this bond gave you hope in dark times. Had she felt the same way, all these years? What had she gone through, in this absurd castle, on the very edges of civilization? You pull on the red thread, feeling a wave of composure wash over you.

“It appears there is much I need to learn. But is that not the very nature of our connection? We know, simply, that we are bound to each other, though we know not what shapes our souls take so that we might put them together, nor even what roles we must play. I cannot say that I understand your plight, my dear, but I will try, as is my obligation, and my honor,” you said, wishing you could hold her, and cursing your IV. As soon as the first word leaves your mouth, Bela is turning around, watching you with a bittersweet expression. Once you’re done she’s moving closer, as if reading your mind, extending a hand to cup your cheek. Then she leans forward to press a brief kiss to your forehead. “Oh, how I have longed for this- to be with you, to get to know you.”

“As did I,” she murmured. You can’t help but lean into her touch, closing your eyes and enjoying the moment. “Perhaps I should introduce you to my family? I imagine you’ll be needing breakfast anyway, and bringing human food back to my quarters would raise more suspicion than I’d like.” Well, the moment couldn’t last forever, could it?

“Only if you promise that your mother won’t suspend me by my wrists again. Or by any other part of me. Shall we simply put suspension off the table altogether?” You asked, half teasing. To be entirely honest, you were equally worried about Bela’s sisters. Well, the people you had heard other prisoners whispering about, who were the daughters of the giantess, and by connecting a few dots were also, presumably, Bela’s sisters. Apparently they preferred to play with their food. Unless, of course, Bela was one of the daughters you had heard about, and would have easily torn into you if not for your connection. Let’s not dwell on that concept, you think, glad to be distracted by your soulmate.

“I will not let anyone harm you anymore, my beloved. My mother would not stand so firmly in the way of my happiness,” Bela reassured, though you detected a hint of uncertainty in her tone. Still, there wasn’t much you could do other than trust her. “Now, let me take care of your bandages, then we’ll head downstairs…”

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

“Who the fuck is this?” An unfamiliar voice asked, as you meandered down the corridor, arm around Bela for support. As soon as she hears the person speak, your soulmate is freezing in place, casting a worried glance over her shoulder. When you turn as well, you spot someone dressed almost identically to Bela. However, the woman wears a yellow pendant, as opposed to a red one, and her hair is a dark brown. It feels safe to assume that she’s one of the sisters you’ve heard about. Which understandably makes you nervous, to the point where you almost want to hide behind Bela. Instead, you stand tall, attempting to seem unfazed by either her presence or her vulgarity.

“Mind your manners, Cassandra,” Bela hissed, taking more of an aggressive stance than you had anticipated. “This, dear sister, is my soulmate. And if you even think about harming them, or getting in our way, I will tear you apart.” While you’re downright shocked at the intensity of Bela’s statement, her sister doesn’t look at all impressed, and eyes you with minimal interest. Better than looking at you with hatred, right? Apparently not, as Bela moves to stand between the two of you, eyes narrowed. There’s a clear stiffness in her posture that leaves you anxious. Cassandra seems to notice it as well, and laughs, before taking a few steps in your direction. Then your soulmate mimics the movement, forcing you to do so as well.

“They’re human,” Cassandra snapped, pausing to sniff the air and scowl. “Here I thought your soulmate would have to be special, if they’re to compare to your ego. You’re disappointed, aren’t you? Having to settle for this.” With that she shifts, flesh writhing, making your stomach churn as you watch her disintegrate into a cloud of… flies? What the hell is wrong with this family? Can Bela do that too? I hope not, you think. Soon you’re pulled from your thoughts, however, as the swarm circles around you, single insects occasionally surging forward to cut at your skin. But Bela is grabbing you by the sleeve and tugging you to her chest, moving against a wall so that her body shielded your own. Your eyes clamp shut as you shake in her arms. When the buzzing stops, it is quickly replaced with cruel laughter. “That fragile, hmm? I can’t wait to see what mother thinks. See you at breakfast, sister!”

Then the two of you are alone, still pressed against the wall, staying still until the sound of footsteps fade. You’re stunned, unsure of how to react. The fact that a few drops of blood roll down your cheek only makes things worse. Still, Bela managed to prevent you from getting too hurt, and the few wounds on your body are negligible. Ever filled with gratitude, you hold her close as you try to stutter out a few sentences.

“Is she always this hostile, or am I truly not what you had expected? No, pay me no mind, it hardly matters. Thank you for protecting me,” you whispered. In response, Bela gives you a little squeeze, then pulls back enough to wipe the blood from your face. There’s a hint of something odd in her expression, which you interpret to be related to her apparent ‘need for blood’. Thankfully, she is in perfect control, and does not frenzy the same way you had read about fictional vampires doing. But she does hesitate, words dying on her tongue, like there are a thousand things she wants to say, and no words to say them with. “It’s alright, my dear. Let’s just go to breakfast, like we planned, and hope your sister behaves better when supervised.”

Bela nods, quickly, before taking your hand in her own. Whatever awaited you in the dining room, the two of you would be ready. Hopefully.

[theimprobabledreamersworld]

Let Me Show You Who You Really Are.

I’ve been very burnt out from writing, but I once again saw a dialogue on Tik Tok and I came up with this! I might make this into a longer story, who knows!

Remus and Logan :)

Writing taglist: @red-imeanblue @lost-in-thought-20 @psychedelicships @the-duke-of-nuts @diamondwind99

No warnings except for swearing :)

Let Me Show You Who You Really Are

The city of Embercrest was built on the banks of a carefully crafted harbor and was truly an evergrowing urban phenomenon. Its beauty was matched by the backdrop of clear blue skies which had helped shape the city to what it was today.

The skyline was littered with various skyscrapers. Parks and gardens were flourishing in Embercrest and it had attracted a lot of attention. What historically was a city of monotony had grown into a fusion of everything and it's this that united everyone to this day.

Everyone except two clearly rival companies that sat mere meters away from one another. Both constantly promoting themselves and desperately trying to shame the other. Despite their grievances, they were the main reason behind the prosperity of the city. Azure-Tech focused on energy, creating affordable and powerful energy to power the city and advance it well beyond its years. The Knight Corporation concentrated on technology, developing new ways to heal illnesses and support the practical needs of the city.

Azure-Tech had received word of a new and supposedly impressive technology coming from The Knight Corporation that could potentially put them out business. As Remus stood outside the majestic Knight Corporation skyscraper, he sighed and cursed his father under his breath for forcing him to come and spy on the competition. He didn’t give a shit about the business, he wanted to develop his own technology. He ran a hand through his spiked green hair and took his first step through the already open glass doors.

Remus gave his name, well his fake name, and was immediately ushered around. He had to try and not look bewildered when the girl gave him a map and sent him on his way. Do they have no fucking concept of security?? His father would go bat-shit crazy if random strangers were allowed to roam his company unsupervised. He was confused though, does this mean that they had nothing to hide?

He walked around all of the corridors and marvelled at all of the gadgets being tested. Each piece of technology was more glamorous and adventurous than the previous one. At least Remus finally understood what his father was banging on about when it came to him constantly talking about the approval ratings not falling in their favour. Remus shook his head, knowing that he was getting distracted. As he walked up yet another flight of stairs, he noticed that this floor was a lot quieter, almost peaceful.

The large oak doors were closed, but Remus still rattled the doors anyway just to see if any of them would kindly open for him. In his frustration, he kicked one of them with his chunky black boots before noticing that one door at the very end of the corridor was cracked open ever so slightly. With a small smirk, he walked cockily to the door and pushed it open, hoping to find the elusive technology they were working on. Remus scowled in disappointment when it was a plain, well organised office.

He hurriedly searched around, desperately looking on the table and in the drawers to see if there was any information he could take back to his father, but the only thing that really caught his eye with the large whiteboard.

The complex equation took a hold of the entire board; letters, numbers and symbols written in different colours consumed the space, and it seemed to be incomplete. Remus studied it carefully before he took a pen stored under the board and scoffed as he finished the equation off.

‘Fucking amateurs…’ He thought to himself as he wrote. He was so consumed with what he was doing that he didn’t notice another man leaning against the doorframe until he heard a soft cough from behind him. Remus jumped and clutched his chest as the other man chuckled.

“Oh. I do hope I’m not interrupting.” Remus recognised him immediately as Logan Knight, the CEO. He backed away as Logan stepped closer. The tin pin on Logan’s freshly pressed three-piece suit glinted in the sunlight, he held his hand out for Remus to shake. As Remus hesitated before shaking it back, he noticed that Logan was far too interested in the sight behind Remus.

An awkward silence filled the room as Logan stared at the large board. Remus watched as Logan’s eyes widened in shock as the equation had been neatly answered. His eyes darted between Remus and the board before he finally spoke.

“How did you do that?” He enquired with curiosity dancing in his tone.

“What?” Remus looked around trying to look confused at Logan’s question. Logan raised an eyebrow in return.

“How did you solve that equation in the thirty seconds that I was out of the room?” Remus shrugged, desperately trying not to be proud of the fact that he had impressed the head of his rival company, his father always just dismissed him.

“I don’t know… I just did.” Remus retorted in a dismissive tone, that equation was incredibly easy after all.

“You just… did it?” Logan remarked sarcastically as Remus nodded, trying so hard to not show how proud he was to be noticed.

“What were your test results? From the mandatory aptitude tests?” Remus was caught off guard, he watched as Logan examined the equation and followed the notes made in a book on his desk. The impressed look never leaving his face until he looked at Remus again, he had forgotten that he had been asked a question.

“I didn’t… pass.” Remus muttered, even he wasn’t convinced by that lie.

“I don’t think so.” Logan replied, not missing a beat.

“What?” Remus asked yet again, the nerves starting to sweep into his voice as Logan slowly put the notebook down and took sweeping steps towards Remus.

“I think you’re lying to me, Remus Azure,” Logan spoke in a hushed voice, leaning slightly closer to Remus, “and you should come and work for me.” His tone combined with the burning fire in his eyes made Remus gulp before he scurried out of the room without a word, listening to Logan chuckle once more as he made his escape. As he reached the outside of the building, Remus took some deep breaths as he realised that Logan knew who he was immediately, before he headed back to his father with everything he was able to uncover, one thought stayed in his mind.

Logan’s offer was sounding far too tempting for Remus’ liking.

[glattandblade]

hanahaki fic with any character?

Sure thing! Thank you for your request <3 I’ve never written Hanahaki before, so I hope I did it justice :D Thank you again!

By Author Blade <3

Title: Hanahaki (C!Schlatt x GN!Reader)

Summary: You’ve developed Hanahaki disease. And the cure seems out of reach.

Warnings: Angst (with a happy ending!), lots of mentions of death, also lots of mentions of vomiting & coughing (related to flowers), cursing

Word Count: 1212

Recently, your illness has been getting worse.

What started as coughing up a few petals every couple of days has gradually grown into choking on full bouquets. 

Your doctor had told you it was Hanahaki, the disease of unrequited love. Your face had paled at that. The only way to cure Hanahaki was to have your beloved return your feelings. And God knows that wasn’t going to happen, on account of your “beloved” being kind of a dick.

Schlatt’s a self centered, rude, annoying, fucking dick.

But all the same, you loved him. 

It’s gross.

The flowers started forming when you began working for him. It was hard moving and starting a new life, but you found yourself very close to your boss- the President. He was kind to you… sometimes. Being his secretary, you had the power to fuck him over a bit, so he usually leaned on your good side.

That doesn’t mean you were free from his teasing and overall cockiness.

As the disease progressed, you started to wonder why you were in love with someone like him. Why go through all this pain for him? What’s the fucking point if nothing is going to come out of it? You’d be leaning over the toilet, choking on your third rose, wishing you could just Get. Over. Him.

But then he’d gently knock at the door, ask if you were okay, and your heart would squeeze. You’d quickly flush away the flowers, tell him you were fine, and hope to God that he didn’t see it as important enough to prod.

It worked for a while, but then it became a daily occurrence. 

You’d have to slip away from your duties after a terrible coughing fit to go get it all out of your system in the bathroom. At first, Schlatt was angry that you’d leave your desk or skip out on meetings, but then he noticed the pattern. He never pushed you further than asking if you were alright through a closed door whenever he passed by and heard the coughing. He did feel like his secretary’s health was something he should know about, though. He just never knew how to approach you about it.

Caring would look vulnerable, and he’s got a fucking country to run. He was never good with feelings in the first place anyway, so he just stuck to the sidelines, making mental notes on your health for the day. Maybe one day you’d tell him and he wouldn’t have to deal with it. Or you’d die and he would know the answer.

What he didn’t know was that thoughts like those were what was killing you.

After a particularly hard day, you spent the whole night over the toilet. He had touched you. A light graze of the fingers, sure, but it was enough to send the flowers into overdrive. You called in the next day, hoping everyone would assume that you were just overworked and needed the day off, but Schlatt was more aware of the situation than that, to your dismay.

He had showed up at your house. You could feel the flowers building up your throat. You held them down as much as you could as he talked to you, but it was hard.

You could barely register what he was saying as you started to cough so hard that you fell to your knees. He reached out and caught you, but that just made it worse. You couldn’t hold them back anymore, and the flowers started to fly out, all over the floor and all over him.

He stared at them with curious concern. He held you in a gentle way he didn’t think possible, taking one of the flowers between his fingers. 

Hanahaki.

Of course, he’s heard about it. Who hasn’t? The death rate for Hanahaki’s way too high.

The two of you moved to the bathroom where you finished your fit.

His voice was uncharacteristically quiet when he spoke, breaking the silence, “Who is it?” You almost didn’t hear him.

“It.. it doesn’t matter, Schlatt.” Your voice was hoarse, it hurt to talk. You could feel the flowers fighting to come back up as he got closer to you, sitting down on the floor next  to you. You coughed hard before continuing, “I-I’ll be okay.”

“Well I really fuckin’ doubt that, sweetheart. You just threw up my dead Grandma’s bouquet.” Usually, that would make you laugh, at least a little, but you could feel the flowers pushing at your throat and squeezing your lungs from just how close he was to you.

“Just tell me, (Y/N). Maybe I can help.”

You smiled at him, though it was sad. Those words only made it worse. He didn’t realize that the kindness he was showing you was only feeding the flowers.

“You aren’t going to be… mad? Or laugh?” It felt silly, but you needed the reassurance right now.

“We’re not fucking 12, (Y/N).”

“Right.”

You cleared your throat, hoping to suck down any stray flowers so you could speak. Your brain found it hard to find the right words, so you just went with the shortest, simplest thing you could think of. Something he’d understand immediately and you wouldn't have to repeat yourself. 

“I love you.”

He paused, then looked at you, eyes wide and mouth open a bit.

“You what?”

Okay, not the best reaction, but he didn’t seem mad, at least.

“Schlatt don’t make me repeat myself, my throat hurts as it is.” A tease, a joke. Lighthearted enough to distract yourself from the fact that if he doesn’t reciprocate, you’re dead.

“No, no. I get it. I’m sexy as fuck- I’m the president, for God’s sake. And any one knows that everyone and their mom wanted to fuck Obama-”

He rambled on for a bit like that, inflating his ego a little in the process. You stared at him blankly, waiting for him to finish to give you a proper answer.

“You’re my secretary, though! Isn’t that kind of weird? Actually it’s kind of hot-”

You rolled your eyes.

“But if people found out? My name would be smeared. Then again, you’re really pretty. Have I told you that? Oh fuck, maybe now isn’t the right time-”

“Schlatt?”

He turned to you, having looked away during his rant, “Yeah?”

“Are you going to kiss me? Or just ramble like an idiot?”

“I’m not an idiot. Maybe a fool, but I’m not an idiot.”

“So are you going to kiss-” And before you could finish, he leaned forward, cutting you off with a kiss.

And it was a damn good kiss at that, for this kiss was enough to seal that he did, in fact, give a shit about you. You felt a weight lift off your lungs, your throat cleared up, and for the first time in months, you felt happy.

His hands on your hips, your arms around his neck, the way he had to bend down to reach your lips and you had to push yourself up to reach his... It was uncomfortable, actually. You’re on the bathroom floor for Christ’s sake, but you wouldn’t trade this kiss for the world.

You were finally free of that wretched disease, and now you could kiss him whenever you wanted.

Masterlist

[beclynn-herondale]

Similarities that I see between Jace and Céline

(these are just my thoughts. Press read more to see them.)

↑ this chaotic energy. You think he got it from Stephen? Nah.

Her anxiety reminds me of Jace's. And like their thought process was similar in ways.

They both struggled with belonging.

Céline corrected Robert when he said "Just like a warlock. Always for sale."

And Céline was like "Always on sale."

Again Jace energy.

Céline knew Amatis, Stephen's wife. At least, she knew enough. Amatis was sharp-tongued and stuck up. She was opinionated, argumentative, stubborn, and not even that pretty. There were also rumors that she still secretly associated with her werewolf brother. Céline didn't much care about that—she had nothing against Downworlders. But she had plenty against Amatis, who obviously didn't appreciate what she had. Stephen needed someone who would admire him, agree with him, support him. Someone like Céline. If only she could make him see that for himself.

_

Jace's smile was as bland as buttered toast. "Go on, go after him. Pat his head and tell him he's still your super special little guy. Isn't that what you want to do?"

But he couldn't look at Simon without wanting to kill someone.

“And even back then, in that stupid coffee shop. When I saw you sitting on the couch with Simon, even then that felt wrong to me—i should have been the one sitting with you. The one that made you laugh like that. I couldn't get rid of that feeling. That it should have been me.”

↑ Their bitterness, anger, jealousy, and envy towards the person who had the person they wanted and in general has the same energy in my opinion.

They both were angry and jealous of people who had it better or they considered to be good—Like, that was why Jace hated Simon so much at first, because Simon was everything Jace thought he'd never get to be, he just didn't realize it.—And Céline was angry of the kids in the academy who had loving parents and good childhoods, and weren't damaged like she was—they both were angry because somebody was someone or had something they thought they'd never get to be or have. (In Céline's case she never actually got it, not really.)

They both like to wander around when upset.

They both aren't too fond of the Silent Brothers. And I think that has to do with their head being full of certain things they don't want others to know, and the Silent Brothers speak in your mind, almost like they're reading your thoughts.

They're both observant, which could be from growing up in abusive and toxic environments but could also just be they're observant people.

They both can tell when someone is off. We see this when Céline sees through Valentine's mask. Jace often saw through the lies of people in TMI and still does.

And the both hate being pitied. Like it angers them when people pity them, we see that with Jace quite often in TMI, but we see it when Dominique says this: “Every Downworlder in Paris knows about poor Céline Montclaire, wandering the city like a murderous little Éponine. We all feel a little sorry for you.”

And then Céline thought this: Céline lived with a steady, secret simmer of rage, but now she felt it boiling over.

↑ Again, the above reminds me of Jace. He lived with anger that he kept under control but would boil over when triggered.

They're both sensitive. And get hurt easily.

“I wish I could be more like you,” she admitted.

In what sense?

“You know, just shut off my feelings? Feel nothing. For anybody.”

There was a long pause, and she wondered if she had offended him. Was that even possible? Finally, his cool, steady voice spoke.

This is a wish you should dispense with. Feeling is what makes us human. Even the most difficult feelings. Perhaps especially those. Love, loss, longing—this is what it means to truly be alive.

__

“I think—my father was sorry he had a parabatai,” he said. “Now I have to go live with a man my father was sorry about. I don't want to be weak, I don't want to be sorry. I want to be the best.”

If you pretend to feel nothing, the pretense may become true, said Jem. That would be a pity.

↑ They both wished to feel nothing, and had Jem tell them that wasn't as great as they thought. But they both still desperately wanted to not feel.

When she was a child, her parents had often refused her iratzes after training sessions, especially when her injuries were caused by her own mistakes. Let the pain remind you to do better next time, they told her. All these years later she was still making the same mistakes.

_

“No! it's better for your parents not to know it happened at all. It was just bad luck that one of them got me. I'm a good fighter,” Jonathan protested sharply.

“It's my fault I got hurt,” said Jonathan. “I know excuses are for incompetents. It won't happen again.”

↑ this bit on making mistakes, or when getting hurt.

Céline always carried a misericord blade.

↑ Reminds me of someone else who always carries blades.

They both were aware of the consequences of putting a rune on someone that they weren't 100% sure were Nephilim, and it was different circumstances but they did it anyway. Jace gave Clary her first rune and Céline gave Rosemary her first rune (I think).

More furious at her own instinct for mercy. After all, her parents had never shown any to her. Her parents had done their best to teach her that mercy was weakness, and cruelty was strength.

_

Jonathan said the word "weakness" with horror. Jem wondered what a man who had drilled a boy to fight like that might have considered weakness.

↑ Mercy, kindness, gentleness, etc. Was taught as weakness to them both growing up.

They both hate being predictable. Kinda like when Rosemary knew Céline would keep her secret. Céline hated that she knew that. Remember in CoA when everyone was guessing that Jace said no to Valentine, and he hated it.

They both never really felt like they were ever a kid. Because again, the environment they grew up in forced them to grow up faster than they should have. Which is why Jace didn't think of himself as one when he threw himself into battle.

like Jace I don't think Céline liked to upset the balance of things, meaning they don't pry and don't pressure. Which often gets them labeled as "not too bright" or "unobservant" they're both observant, they just don't say it out-loud. Jace is definitely like this, but I see Céline as this too. Stephen said she always needed to be told what to do, but I don't think it was that exactly, I think she just didn't like to upset things. Which growing up in an abusive and toxic environment does that. But I think it's also just part of who they are.

That sweet and obedient daughter of the provençal countryside. They knew how devoted she was to her parents. Such a dutiful daughter.

↑ Valentine often called Jace his obedient son. I see Jace in this part as well. Sebastian called him Valentine's "sweet boy."

She could close the door on the past, start again. She could choose a life without pain, without suffering or fear.

But who would she be without pain?

This also reminds me of Jace. Obviously he did end up choosing to walk away from Valentine. But there are times he doubted, because in reality he himself didn't know who he was without the pain he'd experienced, without his past with Valentine. And they both believed that the pain and suffering had made them stronger. Jace later knows that isn't true, but I see the similarity there.

They're both said to have vulnerability about them that made you wan to protect them. To keep them safe. Jocelyn said you couldn't really hate Céline, and I think it's kinda the same with Jace.

Both of them refused to ask for help. Thinking they could do it all on their own.

Céline could tell how much it hurt—and how determined the woman was to reveal no pain. She knelt by her side. Rosemary flinched away. “Let me see—I can help."

_

“Tell me what happened first.” She tried to yank her wrist back, but his grip was incredibly strong. ��I can help you.” — this is in Clary's pov.

↑ Their willingness to help the pretty stranger they didn't know.

They both often felt they didn't have a choice in some things.

They both felt achingly alone at some point. And very much misunderstood.

The thought of losing the only family they ever had scared them, and they were willing to do anything to keep them. Even if in Céline's case hers wasn't that real.

They were both said to be beautiful, and breakable. Fragile almost. These were Jocelyn's words. That beautiful things were easily broken.

They both grew up denied of love and care.

Céline had low self esteem in a lot of areas. We often see Jace as the confident character who doesn't have insecurities or low self-esteem. but he does. Jace didn't like himself, his looks don't play a part here, he didn't like himself. He actually didn't feel good enough or worth much, that's why he made so many superiority jokes, because he truly didn't feel good enough but had to make everyone believe he did. Céline didn't feel good enough either, but she tried not to let it show.

Their childhood gave them bad coping mechanisms and suicidal tendencies. They both self harmed in ways, believing that pain made you stronger is one of them.

We often look over the fact that while some of Jace's mental struggles did come from the trauma of his childhood and growing up around war, that he was already at a high risk with a mother who experienced similar things. Because if you have a parent who has mental illness the offspring are at higher risk of developing one. And his childhood didn't help with that.

And we know what they both truly wanted was to be loved and safe. Really. Jace always thought he wanted to fight all the time, but by the end of tmi he realized he just truly wanted to be happy and left alone, he just wanted Clary and his family. Céline wanted that too, but she never got it.

You all realize they would understand each other, right? Like if Cassie ever did something where they somehow met, Céline would understand Jace and he would understand her.

Céline would have never raised Jace with anything but love and care. She would have made sure he never knew a childhood like hers. But he did. He ended up knowing what that was like. And it would have broken her even more to know that.

But she would probably stab Valentine in the face, which I'd like to see.

Friendly reminder that Jace looks like her around the eyes (no I won't shut up about this.)

There's probably more but until we learn more we won't know. Just remember he may be a Herondale but Céline is also there.

@khaleesiofalicante I tagged you 😎

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Touch it for Real, Part 8

Genre: Humor / Fluff / Angst / (Eventual) Smut 18+

Warnings: OMG they were roommates / slice of life / slow burn / mutual pining / crude humor / cursing / virgin!baek / idiots to lovers / unresolved sexual tension

Characters: Baekhyun X You/Female Reader

Description: You teach Baekhyun how to date. (Basically the Get You Alone M/V)

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8  , Part 9

Love was agony.

Sleep was an evasive bastard. When the power finally came back on you’d been shivering under your bed covers in complete silence for an hour— since you left his bed and his warmth.

If the dark silent cold in your bedroom didn’t kill you, you would have certainly died from sexual frustration.

And what could you do? You felt much too guilty to be able to chase a solo release at the thought of him like that, in the state that he had been in; drunk as he was and well out of control of his own body; when he very clearly hadn’t wanted to be doing what he was doing — with that heat and desire you felt him push between your parted thighs, so heavily influenced by the cold temperature of his body and by the alcohol in his blood that lowered every single inhibition he’d had in him.

The guilt came from just how badly you wanted to go back in there and take full advantage of what he had seemed to offer with his body; while his words protested at the very thought of a drunken mistake with you.

It would have been a mistake.

You rubbed your hands over your arms slowly; telling yourself again and again that you had done the right thing.

Eventually, when the lights came back on and the gentle hum of electronics that came to life in your home turned back on and brought your hazy mind back to reality; a light switch also flickered on inside of your mind and you felt the spell of the storm and the weak neediness that had bewitched you so completely, snuffed out.

He hadn’t wanted it. Not really; not like that and maybe even, not with you.

You felt ill.

Your body felt flushed and your limbs ached.

Your stomach churned and the back of your throat was dry.

The longer you laid awake in your bed the more your memory played tricks on you.

You began to see things you weren't sure had been there. A flash of lucidity in his eyes as he looked into yours. The purposeful action of his lips as he kissed the tips of your wandering fingertips and you were sure, you were sure he looked into your face seeing exactly who you were as he directed those kisses at you; they were for you.

You shook your head. This was a dangerous train of thought.

Perhaps a shower would help get rid of the flash-burned image of him down on his knees before your naked body with a look of definite longing in his eyes and a pulsing heaving in his chest as he feasted on the unobstructed view of all of you bare before him.

You wanted to cry. If not from confusion then from pure frustration.

You didn’t know what he wanted. It was making you crazy. Not the wacky & harmless, granola-eating kind of crazy, but the dangerous kind of crazy that made you want to run out of this shower right now with shampoo bubbles still in your hair; skin bare, wet, and dripping all over the wooden floors to demand answers from the man to questions you would never in a million years have the courage to ask him.

Questions like:

Did he want you as badly as you wanted him?

Did his chest also ache whenever he watched you silently from across the room?

Did he also want to spend the rest of his life making you laugh?

Did he love you? Did he love you? Did he love you and was it worth ruining everything for?

You weren't scared of the love. You’d been living with it for long enough to know you could handle it well enough. You could take it. You could push it down and withstand denying your own selfish pleasures if it meant you could stay by his side and support him in anything he wanted to do with his life.

You were scared of losing him. Losing this life you had with him, this amazing friendship and companionship you’d nurtured and enjoyed. You were scared of not being able to pay him back for all of the help he’d given you.

Yes, you relied on him for a lot. For too much. You’d kept detailed records of everything he’d ever paid for, for every single month of missed rent you owed him and even for the difference in what you’d originally agreed to pay to live here minus to what you’d finally bullied him into accepting when you finally found another job.

You felt a deep rooted apprehension inside of you. Something was changing and it was terrifying. You did not understand it and you could not just stand by and continue to live your life as you had been, taking so much from him and never giving back anything.

Maybe this was part of the reason you’d been so proactive about helping him with his anxiety about women. Maybe this was how you could pay him back. Whether or not things worked out with Mia, you were struck with the undeniable knowledge that you simply could not allow yourself to rely on this beautiful human being; to use him so willfully without any sort of regard for what was right and proper. Maybe what you both needed was something to even things out between you both. Maybe you could continue being his best friend and confidant and #1 supporter if you at least knew that if something did happen to develop between the two of you and things didn't end up working out you wouldn't be completely destitute and out on the street alone.

You’d been trying; since you started feeling the guilt about his generosity, you’d been saving as much as you could and as you checked your accounts you found that you actually had a pretty decent sized savings now. Much more actually than you even realized you’d have. Much more. You might even be able to settle your debts to him.

You couldn't help yourself, in the wee hours of the morning when you’d usually be stumbling half asleep into his bedroom to watch him — well you couldn't do that now, you absolutely could not face him yet — instead you browsed through various apartments and rentals in the area. Small units mostly. Nothing as wonderful as this place, but a single studio in a dorm style tower a few blocks away was surprisingly affordable. Sure you’d have to share a kitchen with other flat mates but honestly it didn't sound like the worst place to live and it was still close enough to his place that you could come over and see him any time you felt like.

Maybe if you kept things cordial with him after...after — maybe you could come over and wash your laundry on the weekends.

You printed the brochure for the building, feeling an odd peace wash over you at whatever might happen between you and Baekhyun now that you had a solid plan for the worst case scenario. It felt a little bit like taking out an insurance policy. You hoped nothing terrible would happen, but you wouldn't be caught unprepared if it did.

You would survive at least; whatever happened.

Whatever he wanted to do, or didn't want to do...whatever he felt in his heart when he looked at you and whatever emotions might be behind the confusing and heart fluttering moments that filled your most recent memories with him...anything could happen, right?

Maybe.

Maybe he felt the same as you did.

When you finally emerged from your room you heard the sounds of life in the kitchen. Baekhyun was up. Baekhyun was chopping vegetables and the steady clack clack clack on the wooden cutting board did not slow or stagger as you made your way into the kitchen.

“Morning, Peanut,” you called out as casually as you could manage and his eyes remained down on the several hundred tiny cubes of carrots he was working on. He had piles of them, not just orange in color but you saw white and green cubes, all identical size and shapes piled up on a tray next to his cutting board. It was an early morning frenzy.

“Morning, Bug,” he said softly amid the loud chopping sounds that nearly drowned his voice out entirely.  

“What are you making?” Your feet did not slow as you walked past him and you tried your absolute best to keep from looking too closely at the lovely curve of his spine that flowed into his long neck with his strong shoulders and arms with the obvious muscles that flexed with each noisy hit of the blade against the wood. The vegetables never stood a chance.

“Nobody’s favorite fried rice,” he said with a quick pause in chops to look at your face for a second. As quickly as he looked at you his eyes dropped back down to his work and he did not look at you again as you made your way to grab your brochure from the printer at the far end of the kitchen.

You quickly folded your sheet and stuck it in your pocket before he had a mind to notice and inquire about what you had printed. The last thing you wanted to do was explain your exit plan should the dramatic, whirlwind romance you’d planned for later turn sour and he kicked you out on the street with your suitcase full of overcoats in one hand and your Deluxe Toastmaster Supreme in the other.

You pulled open the fridge and removed the bottles of sauces he always used for fried rice, placing them on the countertop beside the stove, you then grabbed two eggs to fry for the top.

He would be done with his mountains of vegetables soon and maybe then he would look at you. Maybe he would soften out this odd roughness and smile at you like he usually did in the mornings. Maybe he would brush his warmth against where you stood and bump your elbow to his elbow as he cooked.

He didn’t though. When he was finished with the chopping he turned to the stove to begin frying everything up and even when you handed him the bowls to serve the rice he looked at you so sparingly and only when absolutely necessary for the purpose of handing you a bowl and not dropping it right on the floor at your feet.

You were staring at him.

He was avoiding you and you were beginning to feel a sting from it inside your chest.

He was seated across from you at the table and you’d watched him shovel bite after bite of rice into his mouth without looking up at you once since he’d started eating. He was eating fast. You’d expected some sort of choking sounds to happen, with as quickly as he shoveled and when the first scrapes of the metal spoon against the ceramic bowl sounded out you watched him struggle with barely held together lips and his cheeks stuffed absolutely full of food. He winced when he swallowed it all down.

He would get a stomachache from this. He would feel awful later for sure.

You’d eaten a few bites in the time it took him to finish and you began to bargain and beg with the heavens that he had just been ravenously hungry this morning and his scary silence had nothing to do with extreme regrets about what had nearly happened between you and him in his bed last night.

What he didn't want to happen; not drunk and not with you.

The sick hope you’d fooled yourself into encouraging all morning long was beginning to ache in your belly. You had to stop eating. You put your spoon down and drank water, hoping for the ache to just be some stuck food that needed some help going down.

“I’m sorry,” his voice broke through your swallowing and you looked up to find his face lifted up from the table at last and a glimpse of his brown eyes touched yours briefly before he closed them and inhaled a deep breath, “for how I acted last night...”

His eyes were down on the table again and his lips were still parted as if he had more to say. His mood had been so quiet and strange you didn't dare interject despite the screaming that was happening inside your head. You couldn’t make yourself speak. You could only shake your head back and forth. An impotent and useless no, no, no yelling out again and again inside your mind.

“I’m sorry and I promise I won’t ever do that again. I don't want you to misunderstand or feel uncomfortable in your own home because I acted like that.”

The yelling inside your head stopped. You were still staring at his face but your focus had drifted the longer you looked at him and listened to the words he was telling you; his apology that came out swiftly once he’d gotten started.

He…

He didn’t want that...with you. Your silly heart had run away with your mind.

You were right to stop it last night when you did. You were right to stop him from making a mistake that he would regret forever.

You lifted your water glass to drink and the liquid went down in a painful ball. You should have eaten your fill of breakfast when he was shoveling his down. If you had known this was coming…

The three bites would have to do.

You felt ill.

Baekhyun was looking at you; no he was staring at you and as desperate as you’d been for his attention all morning you couldn't help but scorn your own foolish desire for this attention now that you sat under the scrutiny of his watchful gaze.

Would he know? Would he see how closely you had come to ruining the friendship you both relied so heavily on?

“Baekhyun,” your voice sounded weak despite the incredible effort it took to speak right now, “you don't have to apologize. You didn’t do anything to be sorry for.”

He didn’t want...you. Not like that, it seemed.

The rejection burned. Your throat felt obstructed and you tried to swallow down the awkward lump. The realizations were coming back to you. The memory of your fresh-as-spring crush on him that hit you so easily when you first got to know him. The knowledge that nothing could come of it. The struggles you fought to push it down; to bury it deep so it would never see the light of day. And now, what? Look at what you had let happen. You felt so stupid.

“You know I would never do anything to hurt you, right?” His eyes were still on you but you had to look down. There was so much warmth in them as he looked at you, you could hardly stand to feel that incredible warmth that did absolutely nothing to help the lump in your throat go down.

Your silence stretched and you closed your eyes well into it. Your chest ached and your fingertips rubbed along the metal handle of your abandoned spoon.

You felt him then. The back of your hand was covered, coated by him and the heat of his soft skin made your eyes open and you looked down to see what you felt happening.

“LoveBug?” His slim fingertips moved over your hand, wrapping around your palm, encasing your hand with a firm purposeful grasp and you looked up into his face.

His eyes held many things. Concern, worry, and enough affection to warrant such deep emotions. The worry marred his pretty features and turned his smile down into a fierce pout. You saw a furrow in his brows and a tremble in his bottom lip. His eyes looked glassy and you felt an urge to combat this expression he had grown on his face because of you.  

You pushed again. Pushed it down, pushed it far away, grabbed every bit of disappointment and sadness, anguish and misery that had crested up inside of you and you shoved with all of your might.

For all of your efforts you managed a meager movement in your face.

A smile. It was a small smile, but you pushed it up to your eyes. You felt the tremble in your lips as you did it.

You would survive this. You could handle this much to spare him the pain of believing that he had caused you any harm.

You turned your hand over, pushing your own fingertips up and around his to grip his hand tightly and you pushed your smile to convincing widths.

“You forgive me?” His question was punctuated with the smallest melancholy grin on his face and a half blink of his eyes.

You nodded your head and reached for your spoon with your free hand to force down some more bites of your breakfast. “Of course...and always, Peanut,” you said between big bites, “there is nothing be forgiven for. But if it makes you feel better for me to say it, then, yes.”

You’d expected a relieved sigh. The crumbling of the tension that sat in his shoulders as he dropped his chin and let out a deep breath that he had been holding. You expected the brightness of his eyes and wide gorgeous smile to fill his pretty face.

Baekhyun sat across from the table and the tightness with which he held your hand did not lessen any bit. His lips had flattened and his eyebrows evened out; the disarming pout was long gone and his eyes stared into your eyes. The relief you’d been waiting for never manifested on his face.

You could not hold your cheerful smile forever. Surely that delicate bubble would settle any second now and pop. Still you worked through it, chewing your food and swallowing without tasting. Still you faked a happy face long enough for his thoughtful, careful observation of your face to pass and long enough for Baekhyun’s phone to buzz in his pocket.

“Hey, what’s your day like today?”

You’d been pounding a fist discretely over your chest, willing your breakfast to settle when he spoke up with his phone in his hand.

You shrugged lightly, “just work,” you said. It was the end of a work week and you had been slacking a lot lately. You knew you’d have a lot to get through before you were done today and unfortunately that meant it would take probably the entire 8 hours you would be billing them for.

“I kind of have a lot to do,” you added, feeling a bit of disappointed at the thought of missing out on whatever he needed your help with just because you had a stupid, yet real job to do.

“How much is a lot? Do you have time to help out a few of my friends? You know, like you’re helping me? They would pay you, of course.”

“You mean like...help them with dating?” You’d eaten all you could and your curiosity was thoroughly piqued. Maybe you could just rush through the day. Perhaps a sloppy half-assed job was better than an unfinished job.

Baekhyun nodded and stood when you did, grabbing the breakfast dishes and helping you clean up the table as he asked more questions about your workload for the day and then even more questions about what sorts of dating apps you needed access to and what kind of information you would need from his friends.

As you both got to talking he mentioned something about writing a program for you to quickly get your data entry tasks completed and out of the way, and then he was talking about another idea he had for an app to allow you to access your new client’s dating profiles, approve profile pictures, and provide them with study materials as you had done for him, monitor their progress and offer feedback as necessary. The more he talked, the more you began to grow excited about this. Was Baekhyun actually serious about making an app for you? Were you about to embark on an exciting new profession? Was this really something you could pull off?

The man was amazing.

After he’d spent all of 20 minutes creating what he called “a kind of boring, super basic cheat” which, yes, boring given the nature of the work, and upon hearing his confusing jumble of words explaining what he did, did not seem basic in any way at all, but did seem very, very cheaty. Your entire day’s work was reduced to a few clicks on some keys and you blinked as fields were populated on their own and you didn’t even have to worry about typos or sore wrists.

Honestly, after seeing first hand what he was capable of doing to help you through the work, you felt as if you’d been scammed for a whole year. You leaned back in your computer chair and threw your head back to complain.

“I can't believe you’ve been watching me suffer for a year and you could make something like this the whole time.”

Your complaints were met with an indifferent shrug from him.

“A little suffering never hurt anybody,” he said in an infuriating pompous monotone and you frowned in disgust at this sentiment of his.

The sight of your misery brought a wide smile to his face and you frowned even further.

“Besides, look at how fast you type now. What are you pulling, like 120-130 wpm and 99% accuracy? Ugh. It’s so goddamn sexy, Bug...”

You knew he was teasing you. You could see in the over the top lecherous look he shot you and you hated how easily you felt the blush rise up to your cheeks at his playful words.

He wasn’t even accurate about your stats. An urge to correct his misinformation surged and you leaned in closer to where he sat at your desk in the fancy gaming chair he’d wheeled across the apartment into your bedroom so he could work his magic in the ‘kind of comfort he deserved’ or so he said. You leaned in very close to him to set him straight.

“150 words and 99.8% accuracy, Peanut,” the smugness in your own voice coupled with the heat you felt lingering all over your body sent words out of your mouth an octave lower than you might have intended and the slight widening of his eyes as he took his focus off of whatever he’d been typing on your screen and looked into your eyes made your breath catch in your throat. You caught a tremble in his eyebrow, it bounced once above his eye and his nose scrunched lightly as he looked at your face and shook his head once.

“Shit, 150?” He mouthed and pulled his lips wide, baring his teeth. You grinned and bit down on your lip, the smallest nod of your head with a genuinely flirtatious slow blink of your eyes to answer his question.

What was wrong with you? Your heart was racing from the close proximity. You couldn’t help the way your eyes found his lips as he spoke. If this was anyone else other than Baekhyun you would have been sure he was flirting back.

“Girl of my fucking dreams,” Baekhyun said in a low tone and it took a second of him looking into your face for the playful smile he wore to flatten out entirely and for the rapid racing of your heartbeat to alert you that perhaps your own reaction might not be as inconspicuous as you thought.

Your triumphant smile had vanished and you ticked your head back as if your body was pulled by marionette strings being controlled by your overly cautious sense of self-preservation. You straightened your shoulders and spine and put some distance between your eyes and his pretty lips and you put some distance between both of your faces and the fading memory of the taste of his lips.

Your quick movement made him spring into action and he leaned away from you and turned to face the screen as if he’d just been caught doing something forbidden.

“Sorry,” he said and he cleared his throat and shook his head as he bit down on his bottom lip and lasered his focus on the lines of scary looking text you saw flying across the screen.

His ears were pink and he chewed on his lip and occasionally lifted his left hand to chew on his fingertip. Again and again your eyes zeroed in on his mouth. How could you get through working this closely with him on this project if you couldn't even manage to stop looking at his lips? You forced your focus away and found more interest in the rapid apology that flew out of his mouth just now.

Why would he be so quick to apologize? Weren’t you the one who had been flirting with him? Weren’t you the one sitting too close to him and looking at his lips as he said these playful things to you.

The longer you watched him in silence and more confused you felt about this entire thing. Last night — the look you saw in his eyes that really did not feel as if he’d lost control of himself due to the alcohol; even the night of the fake date and after everything, the way he stayed at your door long after the game was over just to pull you into his lips for a passionate goodnight kiss. A kiss that felt very real at the time.

Had that really all been in your head? Was this whole thing really one-sided?

Your thoughts raced about his behavior this morning and how strange it felt to see him draw that line and call it a drunken mistake. He felt like a riddle that you’d been trying to solve for too long and every time you thought you had come close to solving it, the clues would change and you’d be thrown right back to step one.

The mood quickly shifted as he began showing you samples screens of your new dating coach app.

You were amazed at how quickly it came together. Baekhyun said some nonsense about repurposing something he had already built last year but you still watched him with stars in your eyes like he was made of pure magic.

You had given your approvals on the visual designs and layouts of various functions and suggested the name First Base Coach.

He looked at you curiously when you’d suggested the name and after a second of thoughtful pause he opened a search window to look up detailed definitions of the different bases of dating.

“So first base would be kissing, and you’ll be helping up until they get to first base,” he said as he read out loud from the search results, “second base is manual stimulation, like...over the clothes stuff, uhh below the waist.”

“I think it’s called heavy petting,” you added and you listened to him with as passive an expression as you could force on your face. It wasn't that you were uncomfortable hearing him speak about these things. It was just hard to keep your mind from playing visuals as an example of the different things he read out loud. Unfortunately the visuals all seemed to involve him acting them out.

“Third base is oral sex, and uhhh...penetrative sex is a home run.” Baekhyun’s face was pink. You knew he wasn’t very comfortable talking so frankly about sex, but since you’d begun helping him with his love life you noticed he started to speak more freely with you about things like this.

It wasn’t helping your crush on him at all. You had enough daydreams already, you didn't need more plot points for them.

“Does that mean you and I have been to first base with each other?” His question took you off guard and your eyes were wide when you turned to look at him.

Was he seriously asking you this right now? After he said the words penetrative sex out loud with his own mouth?

“No,” you said on impulse and he closed his open mouth quickly as he looked back at the computer screen with a raised pointing finger.

“Kissing,” he said with fiery eyes and you shook your head.

“But we aren’t dating, so it doesn't count.” It felt so weak. You grasped at the flimsiest excuse and held on tight as hell and he was looking at you closely with a challenging squint in his eyes.

“So are you telling me, that because you and I aren’t dating, I could kiss you again right now and it still wouldn't be first base.”

Baekhyun was a logical man. He was an expert at making sense out of any situation and a side effect of his excellent logical brain was his ability to sniff out your bullshit from a mile away.

He also knew you well enough to know how stubborn you were when you were trying to prove your argument against him.

He watched your face for longer than you thought you could stand and when he finally turned away from you he was grabbing your cell phone and unlocking it, swiping a few times and plugging the thing into the cable that came out of the computer.

You quietly exhaled the breath that had stuck in your lungs so he wouldn't notice your struggle to breathe like a normal person.

He hadn’t said anything as he worked and you replayed his last statement again and again in your head, knowing that you hadn’t at all begun to answer him.

What was the big deal? So you’d been to first base with your roommate Byun Baekhyun who you were in love with and who was opening this line of questioning with you after rejecting the hell out of you this morning with his simpering apologies and excuses about drunken mistakes that would absolutely never happen again.

You grabbed the phone when he handed it to you and moved away from where he leaned back in his chair to sit on your bed.

“Try it out. Click everything. Try and break it,” he said in a flat voice.

You opened your sparkly new app and did as you were told. You clicked everywhere, opening and closing the different functions, impressed at how smooth and quickly everything seemed to be working. The app seemed to be compatible with a variety of different dating platforms and you wondered how in the world he pulled this off. It was intuitive and so easy to maneuver. He was looking down at his own phone as he typed and you saw a message pop up on your screen that said you had a new client.

It was Baekhyun’s dating profile that you now had access to and you could see the entire thing. More than just seeing it, you had editing powers and the ability to send or delete messages to his contacts. You could send him your own private messages as well and he’d even added a section with course materials and your very own grading system.

It was incredible. The man was the most incredible human being you’d ever known and he was just sitting here looking at you as you laid down on your bed with your phone in your face and an enormously proud smile taking you over completely.

You’d rolled over on your bed, turning away from him, fully engrossed in the content you had on your phone. You noticed that he had many, many unread messages from different girls and you scrolled through them catching the odd gem of a woman who, had it not been for your confidence in Mia, you might actually look into pursuing in his name. It had been a while since you’d looked through his matches and as you were drawn in you felt the bed beside you dip as the warmth of his body laying down beside you coated your back from head to toe.

He was behind you on your bed. Your smile faltered when you felt him there and his arm came into your line of sight as he reached a hand forward to touch the screen of your phone with his fingertips.

He was speaking, saying something about the features he’d added for photo editing and how he’d even put a video call function so you could connect with your clients face to face to discuss their dating goals and you would interview them to get a better idea of their personalities and what they might be looking for in a date.

He was talking shop. He was fully engrossed in the technical features he had packed into this app and his fingers had taken over the scrolling as you merely held the phone up so he could see the screen as he peaked over your shoulder.

You did your best to pay attention, hoping he wouldn't quiz you on this later because honestly his breath smelled nice and he was so close you’d just felt the softness of his cheek brush against your cheek and he was so soft and warm you had to close your eyes to deal with it. His arm was rested over your shoulder and you swore you could smell that cologne he had worn the night of the date.

You inhaled deeply and slowly, hoping the fragrance would linger for a long time in your nose for the entire time you kept breathing.

He’d said something. It was a question.

You had missed it.

You turned your head toward the sound of his voice and opened your eyes, feeling the movement in his face as he turned to look down at you and he pulled his face back enough so he could see you.

It wasn’t much, but he was very close and your head swam. You were blinking quickly, trying to get your mind to sharpen and remember what he had asked you but it was no use. His face was so close and his lips were pink and within kissing distance.

“Hmm?” You finally asked by way of a single questioning hum from the back of your throat and you caught the shift of his eyes over your face and the sound of him swallowing the moisture in his mouth.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” His question was a whisper and you pulled your focus up from his lips to look into his soft brown eyes.

You shook your head back and forth. Despite the burning flames happening inside of your body you hated the idea of him moving and losing the warmth and connection you were feeling with him right now. Maybe it really had been too long since anyone had touched you. You felt like you needed this and maybe he did too.

“I don't want to make you uncomfortable,” he said and his jaw clenched down hard enough for the muscles to pop.

“No, this is nice,” you said and you leaned your head back against him, enjoying the resistance of having someone so solid at your back. “You feel so nice and warm.”

“So do you,” he replied after a while and you felt his exhaled breath warm the back of your neck. After a moment you felt the tension in his muscles give and he relaxed behind you as you relaxed your own body and let yourself lean against him.

You gave into it fully and let your eyes close sinking in the incredible comfort of him when your quiet calm was interrupted by a soft giggle from his chest.

His chest which was right up against your own so that his small laugh vibrated against your back and pulled you out of the peace.

“I cannot believe how stubborn you are,” he said and lifted his head. You could tell by the height that he was propped on his arm bent at the elbow and from the direction of his voice his head was just hovering above yours.

You shifted upon hearing the amusement on his voice and turned to look at him once more, angling your shoulders and your neck so you could see his face much more clearly.

His eyes followed your motion and he looked down at you. “Just admit it. You and I kissed, so that’s first base, Bug. Your argument is so flawed.”

This again. The man was as stubborn as he was brilliant. You rolled your eyes as a response and tried your best to keep the defeated smile from your lips.

“So by your, extremely flawed and fucking fake logic, if you and I slept together — sorry, I mean, if we had ‘penetrative sex,’ last night,” he lifted his free hand and made a single air quote with his fingers and you physically winced at the gross words he said out loud, “that would not have been a home run.”

You lifted a highly offended hand with a single finger raised.

“Okay. One —“ you listed in clear and concise pronunciation without a single bit of red hot embarrassment present on your tongue, “we would not have slept together—”

“Penetrative sex,” he said, interrupting you much too confidently and you choked down a laugh.

“And two: we aren’t dating each other. So the bases of dating do not apply to you and me.”

Baekhyun tossed his head back and let out a frustrated laugh into the air above him and when he returned there was absolutely no sign on his face that he bought what you were selling.

“Just say it’s first base, Bug. Just admit that you are wrong. It’s not like it even matters. These are inconsequential words here. I win.”

At this point who was right and who was wrong did not matter. Your most pressing problem right now was how very annoyed you were at the very idea of admitting that he was right.

You can admit that it wasn’t the smartest move you could have made. You hadn't even realized that you’d done it until halfway through when you closed the distance between your faces and when you felt the warm softness of his lips mold under your own, the immediate sensation was the sweet sinking of his lips as you pressed your own against them. You kissed him — your lips on his lips. Softness to softness. Warmth to warmth.

The second sensation was the surprised puff of air that came from his nose when he’d realized what you had done and yet the most satisfying sensation was the sound of his absolute stunned silence. That was unparalleled in this entire world.

You’d shut him up. That was for damn sure.

Your kiss was short. You pulled away nearly as soon as it happened and you pulled your eyes open with a smug smirk on your face and you tried your absolute best to ignore the deafening pounding of your heart that echoed against your eardrums.

“See,” you said, “not first base.” Your own eyebrow danced over your eye and his vision sharpened as he inhaled a new breath of air and he looked through his half closed eyelids down at you, not saying a word to declare you the victor in this silly argument that didn't mean a damn thing to the winner or the loser.

Your little victory was short lived. Baekhyun moved again; his hand first. You felt the tips of his thumb and index finger land just over your chin. You felt just enough pressure applied to grip your chin and move your face closer to his, just enough to tilt your face into his and the view of him blurred out of focus.

You felt too stunned to move or to say anything and your smile had certainly fallen. He was moving closer but before you felt anything you felt his thumb again, brushing lightly over the softness of your bottom lip. It was too much. You were too affected by this simple touch from his thumb that you gasped; call it surprise if you want, or a single breath of desire to be precise and your lips parted with the intake of air.  

He moved then and he lowered his face to kiss you. You felt his lips slip between your parted ones and you felt the suction of his mouth as his lips closed over yours and he pulled your bottom lip into his mouth. You were lost. You felt him move and you opened your mouth, letting him in; wanting him in. You felt his tongue brush along yours and the slight pressure as his teeth bit down before he pulled away and broke the wet contact.

With that one kiss you felt destroyed. His lips were still parted; hovering just over yours yet he did not move in to kiss you again as you craved so desperately. Instead you opened your eyes to find his eyes open and watching your face so closely. Your breathing felt too heavy, your chest visibly heaved up and down with the efforts and you felt the light tap of his index finger over your chin that he still gripped with his hand.

“Admit it,” his voice came out as a low husky groan and you could feel every warm puff of air from his lungs blow past your wet tongue. He tasted as good as he felt. “You and I have been to first base.”

“I thought I would only help up to first base, Baekhyun,” your own voice sounded so much more affected than you thought possible and yet you pushed the words out, trying to ignore the absolute chaos happening all over your body, “if we’ve been to first base then I guess you don't need me to help you on our double date tomorrow.”

“Do you really think you’re ready to do it alone?”

You were a coward. A stubborn coward with messed up priorities, but at least, at least reminding him about the date tomorrow got him to remove his hand from your chin and it got him to close his lips up and remember that his goal of this whole thing, what he really actually had taken this so seriously for, was Mia.

He’d only begun to give a damn about dating when he first chatted with her. He’d only really given it his all when he got to know her and found out that there could be someone out there who shared all of the same interests as him and who matched him in professional achievements, in intelligence, in skills, and in income as well.

If he thought he could be so reckless with his lips and his touches and so liberal with his rejections; that he would have the gall to call it first base with you while he was still pursuing her...you were burning alive at the thought.

“Well?” You prodded when he sat up on the bed and rotated to set his feet down on your floor.

“I mean, okay. Let’s say it’s first base...but that means you are done and I will stop helping you date girls, without ever even going out with Mia. I mean if you don't really want to go out with her, I guess I’ll just have to focus on helping my other clients now.”

“I forgot about the date,” his hands were fisted in front of his face and you could see the slow and careful tap of his fist against his parted lips as his unfocused eyes searched the room in front of him.

“Unless you just want to cancel it completely,” you’d said it softly. Flippantly. Hopefully. With an iron cage carefully placed over your heart, just in case his reaction was painful, “the date with Mia. I mean you don't really have to go if you don't want to. You don't have to go, Baekhyun.”

He was looking ahead as you talked and his hands did not stop the tapping as his mind was very obviously occupied with what was coming tomorrow.

You held your breath after you’d put the idea out there. The idea that he didn’t really have to go out with her. The idea that maybe, maybe what he was looking for wasn't really out there at all.

“No, I’ll go.” He said the words so easily. As easily as he’d kissed you minutes earlier.

The words ripped at your throat and made your chest burn.

“I’ll go out with her. I want to. I think it— it would be good for me.”

You sat up on your bed and curled your legs up, wrapping your arms around your bent up knees and you rested your chin over the top of them. You hated being right about this. She would be good for him. He knew it, and you knew it. She wouldn't be a drain on his talents. She would make her own career launching apps. Not nearly as good as his but still. You couldn't even come close.

“You win,” he looked into your eyes and he lied to you; you hadn’t won anything at all. “It wasn’t first base because you and I aren’t dating each other. I guess last night too...would have been just…”

A mistake. 

You heard and you understood the undertones. Last night, sleeping with you, would have been a mistake. He didn’t want you to stop helping him because that was his goal. Dating someone else was his goal.

He inhaled a deep breath and used the energy built to push his legs up into a standing position and you watched him walk across your room toward your bedroom door.

At the door he paused and turned back to look at you.

“No, I guess it wouldn’t have been anything because it wouldn't have happened at all. You’re stronger than I am, Bug.” You hadn’t quite expected the pause and you’d already let your smile falter and slip.

You didn’t feel strong at all. When he looked at you, you hoped he didn't notice how useless and dumb you felt inside. You felt like a fraud.

“Thank you again...for helping me,” he said with a soft smile on his lips before lifting a finger to point at the phone abandoned on the bed beside you. His finger seemed to have a slight tremor as he lifted it but he steadied out some when he furrowed his eyebrows in your direction. “You’ll get some new clients tonight. I’m sending them the app. Don't be nervous, you’re so good at this.”

He turned to leave the room again, quickly adding one more thing before he was gone.

“But don't date any of them either. They’re all fucking idiots.”

He left your room and you felt the chill of his absence all the way down to your bones as soon as the door clicked closed behind him.

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8  , Part 9

Tag list: @j-pping  @blahblahblah-boo  @his-mochi-cheeks  @amyeonzing@littleflowercrown13  @baekinmylife  @insta1010  @nana-banana  @f4ncyvelvet@bbhbeth  @totallynerdstuff  @byunbabybaek @maijinki @bbyunz@theclawofaraven @kingkushdealer  @uhobob @baekswifey​ 

[saberstars]

I'm Here

Pairing: Gender Neutral Y/N & Loki

Fluff, angst, implied smut

Warnings: Mentions of depression/mental illness, epilepsy/seizures, mentions of sex, as always if I missed anything feel free to let me know

Summary: Loki & You have a pre-existing friendship with benefits & one night you have a seizure after some spiciness. He cares for you helping you afterwards & makes sure you rest easy & safe. Reader is portrayed to have seizures more so during changes in sleep phases, not awake. The wake seizures or more of a medium ish absence/ focal aware seizure that only occur on occasion & can be “fought” through.

Word Count: 1796

Notes: This was intended to be a gender neutral reader. I think I removed all he/she pronouns.

Additionally, I know that not everyone experiences seizures the same way, and that epilepsy can affect people differently. This is all written from my experiences with it, so I ask that you do not tell me I portrayed something wrong. I can and will accept constructive criticism, But I will not accept someone telling me blatantly that I am wrong with my experiences. Therefore please keep that in mind when reading. I genuinely hope this fic brings others comfort if you suffer from epilepsy or any disorder that causes seizures. Thank You <3

It’s been three years since you found out you suffered from epilepsy. A diagnosis that came late in your life to be fair. As a young child up until you reached adulthood, you suffered from eye shakes that would eventually turn into stuttering spells that made it difficult to breath or not breath properly at all. You never passed out though, you got close a few times, but you managed to stay awake and “fight it off.” You started to notice over time that you’d also get a strange taste in your mouth, almost like metal or as if you were sucking on a battery and it had that zing flavor. You knew that was a precursor and would panic on cue rightfully so. You hated when you had your mini stutter fests because all you could do was hope it didn’t happen.

Of course you complained to your parents as a child but they didn’t think it was anything. They said it was just a panic attack. So you took their word for it. That was until you started having grand mals in your sleep. At first you thought they were just a part of some strange dream, that wasn't real to you, not yet anyway. You would wake up exhausted, sore, sometimes unable to move properly, walk, open and close a fist, and you just overall couldn't stay conscious sometimes. Again you complained to your parents about it, but they said it was nothing. You probably had night terrors or some form of minor sleep paralysis. So you dumbly believed them.

When you moved out, You sought answers, and eventually got them. You were grateful. The medication they prescribed helped tremendously though, it did make you tired but it was worth not having your episodes. Thankfully your case wasn’t as severe as others and it was manageable so long as you took care of yourself and took your medications. Though you were warned, breakthroughs were common, and missing your dose can and would cause a seizure.

Despite having such a diagnosis, you kept it to yourself. You never really told anyone. It wasn’t until you started sleeping with a friend, that you finally divulged your secret too in the event that it ever happened whilst they were with you.

It was someone you randomly slept with on and off with. A friend with benefits, his name was Loki. You had met the god shortly after his father had passed and his home, destroyed. You found comfort with each other despite it being more of a sexual comfort. You both used sex as a way to fight your own demons, a distraction, a quick grab at serotonin. Despite the sex you both developed a very deep friendship. You’d read together on occasion, have very interesting debates on current events, history, as well as other nuances, and a lot of other things. You even met his brother and the avengers at one point.

You both slept soundly after spicy events had taken place 2 hours prior, Loki had come over desperate for attention of any kind. He didn’t say why, but you knew it was a rather serious topic he wished not to discuss and rather lessen the pain with ecstasy. Little did you know, on this day a few years ago he indirectly murdered his mother. He blamed himself dearly, he knew if he would have kept his mouth shut for once in his life she may be here today. So he needed a genuine distraction. One of any kind. Preferable you. Due to the spicy events that took place you missed your dose, due to falling asleep promptly after, which cost you dearly. Missing doses always caused this to happen no matter what.

You gasped for air like usual, your body contorting outwards first with a thrust. You were awake, conscious, and terrified for the few seconds you normally were given before blacking out. You began to stutter violently all the air leaving your lungs as it happened. Until no sounds were made and it was just you chattering. Loki woke immediately, with a completely calm exterior despite a raging mixture of emotions internally. He knew you never called an ambulance for these things because you were normally alone & unaware until you became conscious again. She made him promise to never call 911 unless it was over a certain time length, to save her medical expenses, or unless she stopped breathing for good.

Loki dare not touch you though as you shook and curled up. The last thing he wanted was his godly strength to crush you somehow or cause you more pain. Instead he watched and hovered until you finally stopped. It was a short 50 second one, which was under your time limit, but he still debated calling. It’s not like You would’ve known he lied.

His breathing hitched as he went to check your pulse and airway, ever so delicately, which were both clear and strong.

“Oh thank you.” he whispered

A few hours had slid by with still no response from you. Loki sat next to you, staring down at you, to the point where he would fight the urge to blink, waiting for a stir of some kind from you. He did give the courtesy of redressing you though, in a nightgown from a drawer after an hour slid past. He even went as far as ensuring that you were adequately covered by the blankets to avoid being chilled. It has been 3 ½ hours now, with no stir of any kind from you. He knew it would be awhile before you showed any signs of movement possibly but this worry tore him to his core. In the midst of waiting he refused to just idly go back to sleep next to you, he was determined to stay awake until you were conscious again, so that you knew, he stayed there waiting for you. Loki didn’t know when he found himself talking to you as if you were awake, but all he knew was that it made him feel a bit better, and he hoped that when you woke it would make you feel better too.

“You know, I’ve been reading this really dumb gothic romance novel. I think you’d like it because of how naive the girl is. I know you like to criticize and pick on how they make decisions.” he spoke with a chuckle in his voice thinking back to how you’d flail your arms and drop your book to scream about how dumb some main protagnist could be.

“I'll have to buy you a copy or give you mine when I’m done.” Loki shifted his weight from his right to his left brushing your bangs out of your eyes.

“I don’t know why you keep those so long, all they do is get in the way of your gorgeous eyes.”

It was in that moment you rustled, you shifted your neck ever so slightly, Your eyelids twitch. Loki leaned forward parting his lips as he watched with a heart of hope completely overwhelmed with joy when he saw the color of your iris’s. He exhaled a shaky breath cupping your cheeks which caused you to flinch sending a wave of shocks through your body. It was at that moment you knew. You knew what he saw, what he had gone through. Your heart sank and you immediately berated yourself internally despite your exhausted state.

“It’s ok you don’t have to say or do anything. I’ll stay, I’ll take care of you for as long as you need.” Loki assured you, wanting you to know that you didn’t have to go through this alone. You never really had anyone stay, let alone worry about you. Your eyes began to water as tears rolled down your face.

“I’ll go grab you some water, you’re probably parched. I’ll also grab you a banana. I read that potassium can help with the cramping.” Loki said leaving to yourself for a moment. He also grabbed tissues for your eyes and nose just in case. Upon returning her placed everything at your side offering help to sit up. “Do you need to use the bathroom or help sitting up?” He asked with a gentle tone.

You nodded trying to take a good deep breath so you could speak a bit. “I’m so sorry you had to see that… but thank you. Thank you for staying, for helping. I do need the bathroom and I would appreciate help. My legs are still...” you mustered out with all your might but after a point your tongue refused to work with you.

“Of course, I may be a monster but I’m not entirely cruel. If it helps… you can just think to yourself and I can listen that way. So that you're not struggling too much.” Loki admitted with a tone of self depreciation.

“You're not a monster just because you're different & have made mistakes.” you thought as Loki picked you up bridal style walking you to the bathroom. Of course he placed you down on the toilet and waited outside for you to do what you needed. Since he had only added a nightgown to your previously naked body it made things easier. It was exhausting to just sit up and do everything but you pushed through. You even pushed yourself up and limped to the sink best you could to wash your hands. Upon hearing the faucet though Loki came back in standing behind you offering support if needed.

“Catch me~” you thought before falling back into his arms with a snort.

“You're lucky I have godlike reflexes you minx.” He replied with a hint of flirtation. You had used more than you had in you to wash your hand. Loki caught you obviously and carried you back to the room placing you back on the bed. “No, more like I knew you were ready to catch me.” you slowly thought as exhaustion tugged at your consciousness again. Loki noticed the pill bottle on your dresser before prompting you to take it. Instinctively opening it and sliding one into his hand.

“You should probably take this before you fall asleep.” You took it mentally saying thanks drinking the glass of water with it.

“Yeah that would probably help avoid some added breakdancing.” You joked trying to use humor to lighten the situation. Loki stared plain faced trying not to entertain your joke though, despite finding it secretly witty. Maybe he’d laugh at it when you felt a bit better. Soon after you began to dance between awake and sleep. Loki took note based on how your thoughts jumbled around between multiple things, laughing to himself a bit before minor intrusive fears began picking at you. Loki immediately jumped into action in an attempt to squash them soothing you a bit.

“You can sleep soundly, please get some rest. You don’t have to force yourself to stay awake out of fear or guilt.” Loki spoke in the most caring and sweet tone he could muster up. Trying to convince you that it was going to be ok & it worked. Somehow you knew he was right & that you could trust him completely. You drifted back to sleep peacefully thinking about how for the first time in your life, you didn’t fear sleeping in your bed. You didn’t have intrusive thoughts about whether or not you’d wake up in the morning or not. Which honestly brought tears bubbling their way up and out of Loki's eyes. The amount of trust you had in him in your thoughts, at that moment completely took his breath away. And that was something he wasn’t going to break or ever lose.

[fgodestinyawakenings]

You know something ironic that I just realized?

The lostbelt arc is basically about stagnation, and the dangers of it. Every single lostbelt so far has seized to move forward and has stayed the same way for a long time, leading to great harm happening to the inhabitants of it. The irony is that Mash herself is stagnated, to the point that it is actively harming the one person she cares about the most, Guda.

Not only Mash, who wants to make her own lostbelt at this rate, the crypters as well if not most of their motive does their reflect their desire of stagnation

Post was too long and some could be wrong, so everything is fallen under the cut

LB1 Anastasia Lostbelt: Ivan who mixed humans with Demonic blood to become Yagas in this endless winter. Where they and Kadoc forever seeking strength to survive. Any signs of compassion are a suresign of weakness to bring out your own death flag

They failed to grow and realize strength is more than physical prowess, and takes all kinds of form. And to live isn't just survival in a prey-predator world they are in.

To Kadoc, in this land he believe he'll always have the upperhand against a muggle until it slams into face that Gudas found a different way to overwhelm him

LB2 Gotterdamung Lostbelt: Pretty sure the otome plot is not the theme of the stagnation. Though Koyan did mention her Sunday will never come because this LB just need to avoid Surtr from reappearing again. It's a forever Wednesday that she will never have to fear until when Surtr does appear... Ophelia finally confronted to defeat Surtr at the price of her life

LB3 SIN Lostbelt: Basically the whole Urobutcher's theme of eternal peace is this, where some considered this as underwhelming. Koyan who remarked the people lives are like animals are the worst stagnant thing to be seen. To live each life without knowing its real purpose but to serve only for their Emperor. And Qin thinks when the people attempt to learn Confuciaus is bad and ultimately an illness to kill, instead of letting his people grow and develop culture

Hinako aka Yu Meiren, her reason of this LB is simple. While it's not the same Xiang Yu due to her bad luck summoning, it didn't matter to either of them. They just want to stay in this moment forever after her 1000 years of loneliness in trying to reunite with him. It finally takes Qin to convince her to join him in the Throne of Heroes instead so that she can finally be with him once and for all (Hope you guys have them together in your chaldea!)

LB4 Yuga Khestra Lostbelt: The fixed Yuga cycle of this Lostbelt. A cycle that Arjuna Alter controls to see who decided to remain in his alive by his standard of perfection. A level of stagnant most of his people were forced to follow where they only watched and accept their close relatives disappeared because aren't qualified

Yet while we will never know what the world was like before Douman bitch messed things up, Pepe wants here because it feels like he don't think of his flaws. This place was his perfect world. But without our flaws as humans, we never grow to where we are if we think is perfect

LB5 Atlantis & Olympus: Humans had truly reach ultimate perfection like Wodime wanted. But we have two people who are unhappy, because once the eternity is reached, everything is stagnant. There's no room for growth.

That's why Wodime who fails to see the stagnant when he wants human to reach the level of God-like being. There was a reason why humans are who they are as person, why perfection will always be out of human reach so that they can always grow and move forward

LB5.5 Heian Lostbelt: Mostly for Douman who's forever grudge to his rival ends up realizing all he did are for nothing. The strength he achieved, the actions he played to mess every singularity, all of it were not even something to make Seimei bat an eye at him

LB6 Avalon le Fae Lostbelt: Quite a lot, Morgan's desperation to keep this lostbelt alive, Fairies selfish backstabbing tendencies, the first Six Fairies who started this bloody mess in forever wanting to do their selfish things and Beryl's obvious desire to remain the asshole he was....

You just add all of their own stagnant wish is the pile of sins that cause Oberon-Vortigern to have his wish come true to get rid of this shit hole

LB6.5 Tunguska Sanctuary: While it's only Chaldea who did managed to come in, Koyan building this place was the animals desire. The utopia where no humans would step to kill their family, a paradise of their own food chain and life & death cycle all within Koyan's Reality Marble.

It's everyone desire above where they want some things remain the same, because that was their happiest moment. Yet... Stagnant and too much peace can also bring as much disaster as too much chaos

We still have no idea what's Beast VII intention to raise all these pruned timelines that only ends with the inevitable stagnant. But, that may be what Goetia feared the most of humanity will forcibly turned into?

[wizkiddx]

unusable faces

i have exams hence why i needed to write something exceptionally cringe :)

PSA: this is completely inspired from one of my fave writers own blurb @blissfulparker​ --> completely recommend u go read hers its much better than anything i could ever write!!!! (and just her whole account) = link

Summary: pure exhaustion and mutual pining, Tom Holland x actress!reader

^(just thought this was cute, doesn't really fit aha but full credit to op!!)

A scheduling nightmare would be putting it lightly. Perhaps almost unavoidable but that didn’t make it any less of a hellish form a torture. Harry had very helpfully said it actually was a form of torture, that is sleep deprivation. Y/n loved her job - it was all she’d ever really wanted - yet that thought was quickly becoming not enough to get her through the day. Not when it felt like an interrogation tactic used by the CIA. 

To give a quick timeline of the past few days may give a little context:

Thursday - filming the fight scene all day plus an evening-turned-half-the-night-shoot due to some technically difficulties delaying the process.

Friday - flying to New York while doing read throughs of scenes for the next few days; followed immediately by getting glammed and filming the tonight show with Fallon; then a dash across town to the late late show with James Corden; then straight back on a flight to Atlanta that landed at stupid o’clock in the morning

Saturday - a full day of shooting in a mock grand central station set

The press trip to NY had been unplanned… to say the least. But the star of their studios other new release had taken ill - meaning they had slots booked on some of the biggest talk shows in America that would just be abandoned (angering the shows bookers too). It was a waste of perfectly good promo time and since the studio had their two other stars together doing a block of reshoots - it wasn’t a conversation. Much more a call demanding the two of them to be on the plane.

Normally this wouldn’t be such an unmanageable ask either, except the reshoot block was really rather time pressured. You see, the promo tour wasn’t far from beginning meaning they really needed the final film in the can. So really it was a bit of a mess. Just to free up that single day the two were in New York the whole schedule had had to be rejigged - in doing so they’d lost a rare day off too. It was just typical.  

The joys of success hey?

Well, that’s at least what Y/n was making herself think whilst her incredibly talented SFX artist was in the process of crafting a deep wound onto her upper arm. The reason why she would be ‘dripping with blood’ whilst at a train station was beyond Y/n to be honest - she hadn’t been allowed to read a lot of the script so even now as filming was drawing to a close, the story arc of the movie she was headlining was still a little ‘fuzzy’.

“So I watched your ‘spill your guts’ thing on YouTube” Ellie giggled whilst reaching over for more prosthetic putty- a technical term apparently

“I’m glad one of us enjoyed the experience” Y/n replied with a sigh, rolling her eyes at the mischievous smirk on her face - no doubt Ellie took great joy out of seeing her suffer through eating a thousand year old egg. Which Y/n swore the taste of was still in her mouth… and it seemed as though it’d never leave. 

“Oh don’t worry darling I did too” Nelli called over from the next chair along, where she was doing Tom’s makeup for the day of shoots. “Between that and the animals on Fallon, you made a hell of a lot of people laugh last night” Tom’s artist was referencing the fact one of Jimmys other guests was a zookeeper, so at the end of the interview he had you and Tom join in trying not to scream at the snakes and spiders.

“You mean laugh at us?” 

“Well of course darling!” Nelli exclaimed back in an overdramatic bronx accent making all three of the women burst out laughing, Ellie’s unceremonious snorts echoing through the trailer only egged them all on more.

Tom in response, who had otherwise been absent from conversation for the majority of the morning, exclaimed a curse and jumped up in his chair. While you and Ellie collected yourself, Nelli apologised to him.

“Oh sorry love, I’m interrupting your snooze with my uncontrollable comedic gift” She spoke sweetly, even if still taking the moment to flaunt to the other women, as she squeezed his shoulder compassionately.

“No no” Tom waved off her apology, attempting to rub his eye before Nelli swatted his arm away - a stern look for the risk of ruining all her hard work she’d put into making his face look half presentable. 

“I’m impressed you can sleep while they poke you with all these er instruments” Y/n added in, having only just realised Tom had been in a light sleep for god knows how long they’d been in that chair. It did seem a bit unlikely, being able to fall asleep as you were dabbed, prodded and brushed. 

“Maybe you should try though Y/n… your purple eye bags are proving a struggle even for me” Ellie quipped back, now it was Y/n’s turn to give the stern look. Tom took the explain though, shutting her off from whatever kindly meant insult she was about to throw back at her friend. 

“No normally never, I just….” He was cut off by an ear splitting yawn, appearing almost powerful enough to crack his jaw - which would be a disaster, for no one should ruin such a beautiful and sharp jaw line. “…uh-sorry. I just think I ended up taking my NyQuil and DayQuil the wrong way round in the madness of yesterday.” Only Tom, the poor kid often seemed to lacking in any form of common sense - even if those closest to him knew just how intellectual and passionate he could be about the right topic. Affectionately, Nelli scalded his idiocy by jokingly swatting his head with a little tut.

“I can’t believe your still standing then! I’m barely alive and I don’t have any sedatives in my system.” It was true, Y/n was at that stage where every part of her body felt ridiculously heavy… eyes included … eyes especially. 

“But I did sleep on the jet back while your stupid self was studying the script!” Tom replied with a pretty inarguable point - at the time he knew her actions were stupid;  when their flight took off at 11 PM he was certain that the most valuable asset to his ability to act in the reshoots today would be sleep - rather than character development. And he’d tried to convince Y/n that briefly, but gave up. She was bloody stubborn when she wanted to be. 

“Stop competing about who has it worse cos I think it’s me and Nell”Ellie announced - making Nelli agree empathically with her coworker, nodding her head as she looked first to Y/n in her chair then back at Tom.

“Yeh because we have to deal with your unusable faces!!”

After much sarcasm thrown back and fourth, the trailer slowly ebbed it’s way back into serenity and peace as both artists focused on their work. Once Nelli was done she excused herself, Tom staying in the chair in favour of studying (more like staring blankly) at the dialogue for this mornings scenes. His pretence didn’t last long though and while Ellie was busy adding the final touches of fake blood to the now almost completely believable gash that she’d crafted on Y/n’s arm - Y/n had her attention focused the opposite way.

At poor little Tom. He looked so childlike, his slightly puffy eyes looked as if they had weights tied to them - they way he was having fight against gravity to flutter his eyes open, before loosing the next second only for the process to repeat as they dragged downwards. The broad muscles of his neck occasionally seemed to occasionally let up a little, letting his head tilt slowly at first until it gathered enough momentum to throw him off balance. The then sudden movement of his head unconsciously pulling itself back in line caused his eyes to bolt open prior to the whole cycle repeating again. All Y/n wanted to do was let him lay down someone, her heart feeling a tug in her chest just seeing him like that. 

Ellie proclaimed her completion of the wound, leaning back to admire her work before looking to get an affirming nod from Y/n. Yet instead, she was too preoccupied gazing at the boy slouched across from them. “Someone seems a little distracted.” Ellie smirked, finally garnering Y/n’s attention, only feeling more and more smug watching a light tint appear on the actors cheeks. 

“I-well-no… we need to go.” Y/n ignored her words as though nothing had happened, instead rushing off the chair to get Tom out the chair and onto the awaiting set. They had places to be.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||| (bcos im lazy)

Honestly when the director, Ed, called for lunch break, it was pretty apparent to be purely as a compassionate gesture to Y/n and Tom. Both of them had tried so hard this morning to fully commit, even so they’d both been almost completely useless. Y/n kept missing cues whilst all Tom’s actions and lines where slow, dragged out and at times completely prompted from someone behind the cameras. 

So when the lunch break was called there was only one thing on Y/n’s mind and what sandwich was available in the mess tent was not it. Still standing on the set next to her fake holdall bag she looked toward Tom, who was pulling himself up to standing from the train station bench - the pace of his movement making him look more like an old man. 

“You good?” His answer was predictable. 

“I’m so fucking shattered”

Tom swore he’d never heard anything sweeter come out of Y/n’s pink lips than her next statement.

“C’mon I know somewhere we can lie down.”

Without any sort of thought Tom blindly agreed, nodding as he took her outstretched hand in his. The gesture in itself brought a fresh wave of comfort to his aching limbs and as his feet stumbled to catchup with her slight head start he leant the majority of his weight into their connected hands. 

Neither would admit it but they were ‘a thing’… whatever the hell that meant. It was clear as day to everyone and anyone that worked closely to the two but neither of them had ever broached the topic with each other. They’d worked on a few films together over the years; each time they got closer and closer to the point any job without the other simply wasn’t as good. It was scary though, especially for two actors in the prime of their careers. If they weren’t working the same film they’d likely be the opposite side of the world to each other most of the time - quality time together would be few and far between, Really their jobs didn’t suit dating at all, yet it would be perhaps easier if one half of it worked a ‘normal’ job. Something with consistency, a regular structure. A level of dependability that neither Y/n nor Tom could offer to the other. 

So it was terrifying, acknowledging the growth in their magnetic attraction to each other. Both were acutely aware that doing that, confronting their feelings, would most likely signal the beginning of the end. 

Although none of this stoped Y/n from returning the gesture, tilting her shoulder into Tom’s left side as they took slow steps through and then out the set building. She steered the two past the hair and makeup trailer and round into a store and extra equipment trailer. Tom tilted his head as she climbed the stairs whilst beckoning for him to follow - it didn’t seem like the most obvious choice. Rolling her eyes, Y/n explained.

“It’s where all the blankets and coats and kept for the raining scenes plusssss no one will disturb us in here.” Again Tom was not in a position to disagree, eyes drooping as his shoulders sagged to the floor. Right now he’d take anything. 

So he climbed up the stairs and shut the door behind him, just as Y/n flipped the light on. She was right, it was well equipped and with an almost mountainous supply of red blankets that normally the crew and extra would all be wrapped up in after the freezing rain scenes with all the ‘waterfall machines’ as Y/n called them. However it was also um…. It was cosy. “Oh I don’t think I realised how small it was” She chuckled lightly, since now the door was closed her back was pressed up against the far wall of cabinets and still her front was mere millimetres from Tom.

“I…I don’t mind… if-if you don’t?”

“I’m too tired to care” She giggled in response, and Tom , now with her seal of approval, immediately started ransacking the piled shelves for all their worth creating a floor carpeted in the pale red of the blankets, in an attempt to make it more cosy. Joining in, it was almost remarkable how quickly their bodies suddenly agreed to move, with the new promise of rest mere moments away. 

Once the trailer was fully drowned, Tom kicked off his costume shoes and threw his jacket off - it haphazardly landing by the doorway. Y/n copied him, leaving her stood up whilst he had the advantaged of already settling down on the floor, her standing and looking down at him.

The space between the two opposing shelving units was not close spacious enough for two people to lie down whilst keeping a respectable level of personal space. Suddenly feeling a wave of awkwardness, Y/n stayed standing, wringing her hands slightly - whilst fairly certain Tom could hear her heart running at 100 mph. 

“You er… gonna stay there or?” Tom, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t a complete idiot - he could see she was suddenly self conscious. He got it too - they’d never crossed this boundary of choosing to cuddle into each other. It had happened once of twice accidentally over there 2 years of knowing each other. Both of those times it was completely accidental, falling asleep watching a movie with a safe distance of space b between the two, only to find hours later their bodies almost completely intwined. Tom would be lying if he said that his heart didnt skip a beat when he had awoken to Y/n’s soft and gently breath fanning into his neck. He’d loved it, but understood that was unconsciously breaking down part of the wall they’d both been the constructors of.

For fear of getting hurt. 

So now, as Y/n awkwardly bent down and lay on her side, he thought it was imperative to make her feel comfortable. Naturally then, his arm slid round her shoulders and pulled her down toward his chest, releasing a little breath as he felt her relax, her legs slowly wrapping round one of his. 

“This okay?” He murmured, now into the crown of her head as she lay half on her side half on his chest. In reply she nodded into him and Tom couldn’t help but grin- unbeknownst to him but Y/n was doing the exact same thing. 

The peace lasted all of 3 seconds until she groaned again.

“What?” Tom enquired as she wriggled out his hold and stood up. Instead of replying though she just leant over and flicked the one harsh light bulb off making Tom chuckle as she fumbled her way back onto the padded floor in the darkness, earning a few grunts from both as she accidentally kicked Tom’s thighs or banged her head on one of the now empty shelves. Fumbling her way back into a comfortable position, occasionally cursing when she stubbed her toe- or Tom did when she accidentally elbowed him in the ribs. 

“Comfy?” Tom asked a little sarkily as he squeezed her a little more into his side.

“Mhmmmm… I’m gonna sleep for 100 years”

“Yeh me… me too”

And with that they both almost instantly and in complete unison sagged into each other and the blankets - the pent up stress and tension of the past few days ebbing away.

What the pair had neglected to remember was that sleeping for 100 years wasn’t really an option. The whole crew of 50 people, who wanted to restart filming after 45 minutes, had not been told about Y/n’s little hiding place. The pair were so completely safe in their own little cocoon of comfort they were completely oblivious to their teams calling there names more and more frantically. Completely oblivious to the game of hide and seek the situation had descended into, completely oblivious to Harrys natural annoyance as the director asked him for the whereabouts of the two stars - as though Harry was childminder to the pair of them.

It was Nelli who found them first. She’d and Ellie and Tom’s manager had all been recruited by Harry as part of the man hunt. Both girls, having seen first hand the state of the two this morning, were fairly certain they’d both crashed out somewhere. So Nelli, already with a sneaking suspicion, opened the door gently, her figure blocking the majority of the light from seeping through to the dimly lit inside. The sight she was met with had her actually pouting at the cuteness - and yes its a cringey word but also the only one appropriate.

Between bedding down and barely an hour later the two had managed to become impossibly tighter pressed to each other. Y/n’s face was pressed into the crook of Tom’s neck and his arms seemed to have pulled her on-top of him almost completely. Her left leg was hooked under his right, which was then sandwiched by his left too. They both looked so pure and innocent and god did Nelli know they both needed any extra time they could get.

Nelli cared a lot about Tom, she’d been working with him from the beginning, from the child star days to now. She cared about him like her very annoying surrogate son and she wanted to see him looked after. She also so completely wanted the two stars to stop pining after each other. Because frankly it was getting a little frustrating for everyone else. 

So she chose to tactically forget about her discovery, sneaking a photo on the sly before silently pulling the door closed and leaving them to their sleep. 

[forgiveness-in-the-misery]

Toki’s Psychological State Through the Seasons

Toki is by far for me personally the most interesting member of Dethklok; I know to some degree he’s deemed as a potentially over hyped character by fans and even the show itself, but there’s countless reasons why people cling onto that character, and they’re good reasons. Even if said reasons just come down to “I think he’s neat.” that’s valid.

For me I am so fascinated with his character development, personality, and the varied chunks of background information we get about him throughout the series. A big part of this character is that when you look at him in season one compared to season four he is very different or at least he appears to be much different. Season one does establish that Toki does have a childish personality, his bedroom looks more like a room for a kid than one for a guy in his 20s. Season one establishes those basic facts about him that do heavily carry out through the show, but also increase as the show goes on.

Toki goes from immature but not overly immature to....a complete fucking wreck by the finale of season four (before Doomstar) and the reason for it is simple; it’s trauma.

Toki starts to act differently in season one after the Dethfamily episode; he spends practically that entire episode in a catatonic state, his parents always looming nearby like figures of danger and doom. After this we do get to him being bitter about being seen as immature and seen as the kid of the band (despite the fact he was barely 16 when he joined Dethklok) and when a charity informs him that a dying girl wants to meet him he turns into a complete prick. He finally comes out of that when he sees a video the kid made of herself singing a song about death and hatred, with that scene we see a small flashback of Toki’s childhood; him about the little girl’s age standing out in the snow staring up at his parents looking confused and a moment later he’s being smacked across the face. 

We could already gather beforehand when we found out he came from a very devout religious sect outside of Lillehammer that his childhood was sketchy, plus how he locked up when around his parents, but seeing the flashback of him being hit as a little boy.....Answers the obvious question of “did they beat him?”

Season one is the least eventful of the seasons. Season two is when shit begins changing drastically.

Season two Toki receives a call to inform him that his father has cancer and is on his death bed, the family and the church wants him to return to Norway to see his father. He acts completely fine about this initially, the phone conversation and the way he announces his father’s terminal illness to the band is as if somebody just asked to borrow his car. When it gets close to time to actually go and when they are in Norway it’s different though; he becomes anxious and clearly uncomfortable, in Norway he stays in town mostly, stalling around places he went to as a kid and a teenager before he ran off to America. 

He does handle his father’s dying well once he finally convinces himself to go inside his house and see him then follow through with his father’s dying request to carry him up to his old childhood home (which goes wrong because his friend’s are dicks.) 

I am not going to go into personal detail at all and my situation was nothing like Toki’s (it’s incredibly rare to hear situations like that anymore), but Toki handling his father’s passing freakishly well kind of was a red flag for me, because I know from my own experiences that when you find out something complicated like a terminal illness or the death of your abusive parent theres’ a chance you may respond way too calmly to it, and then later down the line days or months or years later something will trigger a big reaction to it. Which is what happens.

After handling his dad’s death well we get the most iconic scene involving Toki at that point and honestly still the most iconic; he beats a man to death with his bare hands. The thing that triggers this is a hallucinated image of a rabbit, an animal he associates both with his father and his childhood, the image of it triggers him to fly into an insanely feral blind rage taking it out on a guy who had been annoying him all night. Toki has always throughout the entire series shown signs of being a tad violent, but never THAT bad. Sure he shot down a plane and had accidentally caused a death or twenty (the whole band is, it’s part of the sacrifices to the Gods deal) but we had never seen him before or after that moment beat somebody to death. That is new and it came from a place of pent up....shit. Shit he never worked through and even after that continued to not work through.

Because after this we lead into him worsening further; he begins drinking. A lot. The band consist of dudes with addiction issues, mainly alcohol, but Toki never seemed to drink quite as much as them until after he went feral on that straight edge guy. 

Toki deals with his childhood trauma in several ways:

He drinks. A lot.

He focuses on fantasy and daydreams to keep himself from focusing on his past.

He spends a lot of time with Dr. Rockso who takes advantage of his kindness often, he also spends gross amounts of money bailing his clown buddy out of jail. Constantly.

He occasionally gets violent, but never to the point of manslaughter.

Seasons three and four are when we get fully introduced to Toki acting like a kid more than a guy in his 20s and it makes sense. Toki didn’t have a childhood; we learn that his parents essentially made him into a slave at a young age having him do pointless “chores” like sweeping snow during a storm, carrying stacks of wood much too heavy for a small child, etc. and when he failed to work quickly enough or failed a task they punished him. They punished him by locking him in a shed, they punished him by chaining him up like an animal, they punished him by smacking him, by beating him with a bull whip, and worst of all (who knew it could get worse) they would force him to stay for long periods of times in a deep hole dug into the ground. A hole where he hid a clown doll made of twigs and straw, the only friend he had as a little kid.

From all that we can gather through the show he didn’t exactly have a social life of any kind until his teens, the older he became the braver I think he became, and that was responded to with worse violence from his parents. I think the statement in season one about a vision of father killing son wasn’t totally off, I think if Toki had never run away from Norway that his father would have murdered him. I think his parents knew somehow that he isn’t entirely human, they knew he was something else, and I do think his parents had plans to kill him before he could become “too powerful”. 

That aside though.....Once we the audience as well as his friends find out far more details about his horrifying childhood Toki changes. A lot. He’d already been immature and a tad bit off but he regresses further after that, more prone to depression and outbursts, clinginess, and a need to feel like he’s loved by pretty much anybody.

This is a dude who is about my age that came to the horrid realization that any person or animal he loves will die because that’s his “gift”, the gift of death. He works his ass off to repress and rationalize a brutally nightmarish childhood, and the guys he’s in a band with who he loves and sees as his family....are dicks. We know that when he joined Dethklok before they got famous that they were all close, but when they began becoming popular and became immensely wealthy the others became more focused on self indulgence and power, less focused on this still a child who desperately just wanted a family.

I think a key factor with Toki being the way he is comes down to the band’s “no caring” rule. A rule that only existed because of Magnus. Toki is the baby in a group of people who have known each other for a good while, people who came to an agreement to not give a shit about each other for a reason they never explained to him because it’s too painful for them to think about. I think he always tried to live by that rule of not caring, he tried to bury all the shit wrong with himself the best that he could but he was never good at it. It’s also clear they all care about each other and they definitely care about Toki; Nathan and Skwisgaar often being the most protective of him. 

In season four aka the season where the show becomes less of a comedy and more of a drama with stunning animation. Toki is immensely more immature and awkward, he’s clingy with the band especially where Skwisgaar is regarded. Near the end of season four he’s completely fucked up; he splits his time between Rockso (his comfort object) and Magnus (a father figure to replace Nathan) in the dinner episode which has so much going on in it. So much. Toki is at his lowest point in the series; he shows up late, drunk as fucking hell, shirtless, and covered in bruises and cuts. Rockso is with him and when Charles tries to tell him Rockso shouldn’t be there Toki goes into a full fucking anxiety attack until Charles tells him it’s fine to have the clown there. Toki’s heavily dependent on Rockso by that point; his found family is quickly falling to shit. God knows what kind of shit Magnus might have been feeding him about the band at that point. 

Toki’s entire thing from day one/the pilot of the series is that he just wants a family. When he feels like he doesn’t belong in the one that he found and was taken in by he searches for family in other places, when he can’t handle the memories of his childhood he spirals hard. I understand that the guys didn’t really know how to handle it after they heard about Toki’s childhood so I can’t fault them completely for just.....shoving him off onto Rockso after that, but I still think they should have tried to be there for him more so, more directly. I think an outlet that isn’t a drug addled clown might have helped him in some way, I think if when he’d been a teenager if one of them had found out about his upbringing and just pointed out “that isn’t okay, at all.” then things might have panned out differently. 

Mental regression isn’t uncommon when it comes down to victims of trauma caused by extreme abuse. Especially considering his trauma all occurred basically from the get go; he was a child slave, the closest I would guess he ever got to having a childhood when he was a kid was seeing other kids childhoods. Going into town and seeing kids playing, sneaking into birthday parties just to be around other kids his age, etc. and he definitely was childish as a teenager, but I think he tried to bury that side of himself when his bandmates started teasing him or pointing out how unmetal it all is.....But then a douche bag journalist brought his parents to America, a little girl died, his abusive father died horribly (as he should) in front of him, he beat a man to death (allegedly), etc. 

He spent a lot of years away from all the trauma and the death and the bull shit then suddenly it started piling on top of him again and his escapism was fantasy, clinging onto a junkie clown, partaking in childish hobbies.....because why not? 

Each member of the band suffered some messed up shit when they were kids and it shows in different ways, this is Toki’s way of dealing with it....or not. I’m not entirely sure what his psychological state would be post Doomstar; the way he bounces back from immense trauma makes me think that he would be okay given some time and that’s a safe assumption to make, especially now that his bandmates/family will be there for him the way he needs them to be.

I want to tag @theidiotwiththepaintedface who hopefully will enjoy this painfully long deep dive into a character’s psychology lol.