#whatever other things people call that thing

[classyrbf]

Sukuna being soft to his one and only love... Kinda.

when thinking of someone who is kind hearted and soft, sukuna isn’t the first person that comes to mind. He’s literally the opposite of everything that is considered nice, sweet, good, and whatever else that invokes happiness. Anyone who comes near him is fearful of what he’s capable of, considered one of the most strongest and dangerous things on earth. King Sukuna, Lord Sukuna, King of Curses and whatever else the people call him is a what everyone knows him by.

But, back home, in his estate that locked away in the deep dark woods on a mountain top, he has you, someone who has casted some type of spell to get under his skin, to make him feel emotions he thought he hated. “Ryo!” You shout through the halls, running to you shared chambers, a beautiful flower in hand. You barge into the bedroom, his gargantuous figure sitting there, a simple robe tied around him. “Look, I found these flowers outside of the estate!” You walk up to him, full on smile plastered across your face. “I’d like to have them in the garden.”

He lets out a low grunt, one of his four arms reaching for the brightly colored flower, inspecting it as if it was some foreign object. “Fine,” he plainly says, handing it back to you. “I’ll send one of the maids to the village to find seeds.” He blinks at you.

“Oh, thank you!” You tightly wrap your arms around his neck, jumping onto him and hugging him tightly. You press kisses to his cheek.

“Enough.” He gently pushes you away. It’s not that he doesn’t like your affection, he just doesn’t know how to receive it nor return it. A murderous and cold hearted monster like himself feels guilty that a ray of sunshine like yourself has taking a liking to him. And why has he allowed it? Why does he feel a buzzing in his chest whenever he hears your voice? Why does he allow to treat him like some low level human? Your kisses, your hugs, your stupid nickname for him. If it were anyone else, he would have slain them by now.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, stepping back a few times. “I got too excited.” When he hears your voice drop, he can’t help but feel a way. It makes him cringe and confused all at the same time. He wants to reassure you, tell you it’s okay, and hold you close. Instead, he gets up, staring down at your frown. Instinctively, his hand reaches out, caressing your cheek. Those eyes of yours quickly find his, a small smile tugging at your lips.

“Come. Dinner should be ready,” he states, walking out the chambers and into the hall. You follow right behind him, like a puppy.

After dinner, you’re getting ready for bed, locked away in the bathroom as you slip your new nightgown on, one that you’ve been saving to show Sukuna. He’s already in bed, his lack of clothing is…a choice when he sleeps. A giddy feeling settles in your stomach, smoothing out the fabric before you walk back into the bedroom, unable to hide your smile. “Ryo,” you gently call out. He turns his head. “Do you like my new night gown? I got it at the market the other day.” You climb with him into bed, making the brave choice of straddling him.

He narrows his eyes, noticing the silk fabric and lace detailing at the hems. It was much more shorter than all your other night gowns you usually wore. “It’s…okay,” he huffs. The way your skin was showing, your thighs peeking out from underneath and your breasts filling out the top, it was more than just okay. That little piece of fabric was making his thoughts run rampant. “Now let’s sleep.” He shuts his eyes.

Nervously, you clear your throat, resting your hands on his chest. He blinks one eye open, seeing that you’re still there staring at him like you want something. “Ryo…”

“What?” His gruff voices breaks the silence.

You sit there on top of him, lips parting to speak but nothing comes out. "Nevermind." You roll off of him and onto the bed, your back facing against him. "Goodnight," you mumble, pulling the blanket over you.

He looks at you, head resting against the pillow, your body moving with each breath. He doesn't know why but he finds himself reaching out to you, pulling you in close with ease. His arm holds you tightly against him, back pressed against his chest. "Tell me what you want," he whispers against your ear, a shiver sending down your spine.

With a shaky hand, you grab his, guiding it under your nightgown. He takes a deep breath, jaw clenching when he feels his hand resting against the warmth of your clothed cunt. As much as he wants to, he can't. He's too rough and unforgiving, he'll break your porcelain body and treat you like nothing because he can't make love. He's incapable of giving you that. He knows you desire it, he can sense it. You want warmth, you want appreciation, slow kisses, and that humanly connection. "I can't. I'll...hurt you." He swiftly removes hand, avoiding any more temptation.

Your body turns, now facing him. "You can never hurt me," you say so confidently. He admires your resilience, but deep down you're still unaware of who he truly is. "I can take it," you chime in again, doing your very best to convince him.

"I am unable to. You desire affection and love. I want nothing more than pleasure." He's the one now turning away from you. He can sense your frustration and sadness, but you should know he's doing this for your own good. He'll use you, and treat you like a rag doll. He does not feel the same, he can't possibly feel the same emotions you desperately want him to. Your simple human mind can't comprehend it.

Any other woman who dared to throw themselves at him he would gladly take, basking in a quick night of greed and lust. He can't do that to you, for some reason his conscious won't allow him.

"You cannot love your future wife?" Is what hears, sadness riddling your tone, voice wavering. "Why am I here then? Why have you not killed me like the rest who defy you? Am I something only for your pleasure? I'd rather be dead than live like this any longer—"

"Do not say such words!" Sukuna shouts, sitting up. "You are much more than my own heart and mind can comprehend! You confuse me! My heart beats with feelings I haven't felt in centuries! Whenever I see you, I feel weak, vulnerable, a foreign feeling to who I truly am!" His yell bounces off the chamber walls. "But I cannot get rid of you, I cannot...kill you," his voice softens exceptionally. "I cannot sleep when you aren't near, and I cannot go a day without worrying something will happen to you. What have you done to me?" His brows furrow, an angry expression carved into his face.

Now, there's nothing but still silence. You sit up on your knees, shuffling closer to him, eyes fixated on his. He flinches at your touch, the warmth of your hand cupping his cheek. His hand wraps around your wrist, wanting to pull you away but he can't. "Stop. Just let me in." Your lips connect with his, giving him a light kiss.

"You're too good for me. I will hurt you eventually. You're a mere mortal, a human—"

"Stop talking. Let all those bad thoughts go and focus on me." You throw your legs over his waist, straddling him once more. Your lips peck his again, pulling away to look at him. Whenever he looks at you, he sees himself holding you, kissing you, treating you like the most fragile thing on earth. He doesn't feel aggression, or anger, or emptiness. He sees you, hears you, connected to you in more ways than he knows.

His hands hold your waist, moving in closer to feel your soft lips against his again. The kiss is slow and attentive, tongues slipping into each others mouths. Your hands ghost down his broad chest, pushing yourself into him. He didn't realize how much he needed you like this until now, growing hungry for more, feeling your desires deeply. He flips you over, pressing you onto your back without breaking the kiss, yet he's still so gentle, running his hands over your exposed thighs and basking in your touch as well. Your hand finds his, intertwining your fingers and he holds it back, squeezing your much smaller hand in his.

In this moment, he lets his feelings come break free instead of pushing them away. As much as it scares him, angers him even, he can't bring himself to put any of that on you. You have simply captivated him in more way than one and that is something new he has to learn to live with even if he is over a thousand years old.

feel free to support me <3

[verdancy-hime]

Except that humans are not dogs.

And this means humans have a much longer attention span, sure. They have more object permanence.

But also it means humans can pre meditate things.

And often what people will do is specifically give you the silent treatment or refuse to do some other thing that they know is the equivalent of making you think they were lost in the woods or eaten by a coyote

On purpose so that they can come back and hopefully you will forgive and forget something else that they did.

You can use that to your advantage. Like sometimes if someone is being mean or combative and I called them out on a behavior several times and they are still doing it I will ignore them for a while and see if when they come back they no longer are whatever outside their normal behavior that got into them and they're going to be nice.

But sometimes you need to show people that no, even if they give you the silent treatment or even if they wait until they know you are having a bad day or something bad is happening that they could help you with, they still cannot just treat you any type of way. They cannot manipulate you into accepting bad behavior from them because they were worse before or you thought they weren't coming back or they told all your other friends to ignore you or whatever.

Sometimes people in your life encourage you to think of them as dogs so they can piss on your carpet and look at you with big sad eyes and pretend they don't know how to work a doorknob. And they have opposable thumbs.

Okay this is gong to sound condescending on several levels but:

There's a kind of cliche about training a dog - that if you want it to always come when it's called, you should never scream at or punish it when it does. Even if you just spent twenty minutes getting increasingly panicked thinking it was dead in the woods! Even if it had been trampling through the neighbors garden! It is very important that it's direct association is 'stopping whatever super interesting thing I was doing to go back to human = being praised and rewarded'. If the association is instead being screamed at or punished, the dog will be less enthusiastic to stop whatever fun thing it's doing to run to that.

I feel like a great many people would noticably improve their own lives if they started applying the same logic to how they treated other humans.

[brookghaib-blog]

The ghost I left behind - V

Pairing: Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x reader

Summary: Y/N and Bob had a life before he disappear, full of love, hope, and a lot of chaos, but they managed each other, she was the only one who truly could make him avoid the void inside his mind. How could he turn his only light into a shadow in his mind ?

Word count: 11.4k

--

Y/N's pov

Y/N woke with a jolt.

The pavement beneath her was cold, even through her coat. For a moment, her vision spun—bright lights above, blurred figures running, shouting. Her lungs burned like she'd just surfaced from deep underwater, and her ears rang with the echo of something… distant. Something awful.

She sat up slowly, disoriented. This was New York. The same street she’d been on before everything turned. The clinic was gone from sight now, swallowed up in the chaos of the crowd. People were rising to their feet, groaning, dusting themselves off, confused like her. Some cried. Some screamed. Others simply wandered aimlessly, eyes blank.

Where was Bobby?

Her head turned frantically, searching for his face, scanning over strangers and shadows. “Bobby?” she croaked, but her voice was swallowed by the noise. She stood up too fast, staggered, and her hand flew to her stomach instinctively.

The baby.

Her heart thudded. She reached into her coat pocket with shaking hands—and her fingers brushed glossy paper. The sonogram. It was still there. She pulled it out and held it tightly in both hands like it was the only thing grounding her to the earth. The tiny smudge in the picture—the tiny life she was fighting for—was safe.

She let out a breath that was halfway to a sob. Then, as if sensing her distress, her baby kicked—just once, firm and clear—and her hand flew to the spot, cradling her stomach.

“I know, baby,” she whispered, voice cracked and full of ache. “I know. I’m here.”

But was he?

Where was Bob?

She spun around again, more desperately this time, her hair falling into her eyes. “BOBBY?” she yelled now, throat raw. “BUCKY? YELENA? ANYONE?”

No one answered.

No one familiar.

Just the blaring of distant sirens, the hum of helicopters somewhere overhead, the sound of feet on pavement and confusion bleeding through the city.

Her body moved on its own, staggering toward the sidewalk. Her legs felt like jelly. Everything felt heavy. The smell of smoke and dust lingered in the air, and the ground vibrated faintly under her feet, like the world was still shaking from whatever had happened.

She reached a low wall and sank down slowly, curling in on herself. The sonogram fluttered in her fingers like a fragile leaf. She ran her hands over her stomach again, more gently this time, as if to reassure herself for the hundredth time that her baby was still okay. The thought of losing him, especially after everything… It was too much.

Her hand slipped into her coat pocket again and pulled out her phone. Cracked, screen flickering with life. She stared at it, willing it to work. Willing someone—anyone—to call. But there was nothing. No messages. No Bob.

Was it even real?

Her mind flashed back—violent and disjointed.

Bob’s face twisted with pain, his tears, the blood on his knuckles as he beat the Void senseless. The sound of Yelena’s voice calling out. The feel of Bob’s hand in hers. His voice: "You are… everything." The sudden pull, the blinding light—and then waking up here.

Was it just another illusion?

Was he really there, or had her mind played the cruelest trick yet?

Her lips trembled, and she buried her face in her hands. She tried to stay strong—for the baby, for herself—but the silence was deafening. The uncertainty unbearable.

A whimper escaped her throat.

Her back pressed to the wall, her arms curled protectively around her belly, and she let the grief unravel. Grief for the confusion, the fear, the loss, the aching not knowing. Grief for Bobby—if he was even real—if she had ever really had him back.

The baby kicked again. She smiled through tears.

“I’m still here,” she whispered. "I’m still here.”

Her breathing slowed, just enough to hear the trembling silence in her chest.

Y/N wiped at her cheeks with the sleeves of her coat, rough fabric against soft skin, not that she noticed. Her eyes burned.

The people around her had mostly cleared out. Sirens were growing distant. Police were trying to direct people away from the chaos, medics calling out for injured civilians. But none of them were for her. No one looked for her. Not even the team.

Maybe they were never really there, a part of her whispered, cruel and quiet.

But then she remembered—Mr. Cooper.

He had called her, right before the world turned inside out. She had never called him back.

With a shaky breath, she reached into her pocket again, pulling out her battered phone. She turned the brightness down just enough to keep it from shorting out. A thin crack ran through the middle like a scar, but thankfully, the phone still worked.

She tapped on his name and lifted the phone to her ear.

It rang only once.

“Y/N?” His voice came in a rush—tight, worried, breathless. “God, kid—are you okay? I tried calling you back, but then the phones went dead, and.. I don't what happened—Jesus, are you hurt? Where are you?”

The tightness in her throat returned immediately.

She swallowed it down.

“Yeah,” she croaked, trying to make her voice sound normal. Normal. “I’m okay, I—I’m fine, Mr. Cooper. Just… caught up in all that mess. Something happened downtown. I think it affected a lot of people.”

There was a pause on the other end. She could almost picture him—standing in his kitchen, hand bracing the edge of the counter, brow furrowed behind his thick glasses. His worry was palpable, stretching across the line like a tether.

“You don’t sound fine,” he said softly. “Are you sure you’re alright? Where are you now? I can come get you.”

She almost said yes. Her body screamed for safety—for someone to take the weight from her, just for a moment. For someone to look at her and tell her she didn’t have to carry all of this alone.

But she couldn’t.

She needed to be alone. To think. To break. To cry.

“No,” she replied, quietly. “No, it’s okay. I’m walking back now. I just need to be home. I just… I need a little time, that’s all.”

He hesitated. She could hear it—his need to say more, to offer help, to insist.

But he knew her. He’d known her for long enough to hear what she wasn’t saying.

“Alright,” he said finally, with a gentleness only someone like him could offer. “But if you need me—even in the middle of the night—you call. I mean it.”

She nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “Thanks,” she murmured. “I will.”

They hung up.

She stood there for a few more seconds, clutching her phone like it was an anchor.

Then, slowly, she turned and started walking.

The streets felt emptier than usual. The shadows felt taller. Her feet carried her forward on autopilot. She passed broken traffic lights, turned-over garbage bins, a restaurant window blown open from the pressure of whatever had hit the city. There was a scratch on her arm she hadn’t noticed until now, and her boots were scuffed from the fall.

Everything felt surreal. Like the city had been turned slightly inside out and then sewn back together in the wrong order.

Her apartment came into view.

As soon as she stepped inside and locked the door behind her, the silence swallowed her.

No more voices.

No Bobby.

No team.

No Void.

Just her.

She slipped her coat off and dropped it on the floor. Her body ached. Her back throbbed. Her eyes burned. She shuffled to the couch and sat down, curling her legs beneath her.

Her hand moved again to her stomach—her constant reminder that she wasn’t completely alone. He was still there. Still safe.

The sonogram sat on the coffee table where she placed it gently, her fingers lingering on the image.

She stared at it.

The tears came without warning.

She cried without sound at first, tears streaking down her cheeks and chin. Then came the hiccuped breaths, the full-body ache, the sobs she couldn’t swallow back. She buried her face in her hands and let it come. All of it. The fear. The loss. The impossible pain of seeing Bobby again—really seeing him—and not knowing what part of that had been real. Of hearing his voice. Of holding him. She felt like she had him again just to lost him minutes after. Just when things were moving for the better and her grief was getting easier, this thing appears, gives her her Bobby, made her relieve everything, and went away.

She cried for her younger self.

She cried for her baby.

And when she couldn’t cry anymore, she sat in silence, her palms resting on her belly.

“…What the hell happened?” she whispered into the dark.

There was no answer.

But her baby kicked again—soft this time, like a gentle reassurance.

And somehow, despite everything… it helped. Nothing was making sense. If was leaving her past, Bobby appeared as punishment, but how come those people that she never knew, or encountered before, made an appearence. Was it real ? Then where are they ?

Exhausted physically and emotionally, she falls asleep without noticing. No dreams, no faces, just an exhausting sleep in hopes of waking up better and half forgetting. Go on with the rest of her day, and restart her grief.

But a call came. Mr. Cooper was calling her. Which made her jump from her sleep, unaware that she had even fallen asleep. Scared of the sudden call, she picks up and answer as fast as her brain could process.

"Mr. Cooper, hi! what's...?"

"You turn the TV on, right now" He said in a raspy firm tone.

Confusing her even more. "What ? Mr.Cooper, why are you calling me to watch the news ? I'm resting, I will meet you later and tell what happened, everything fine plea..."

"I said, turn.on.the.TV.now Y/N.", as a dad scolding her, Y/N just does as he says, still not understand the urgency to watch whatever that she do later when she's fully rested.

Turning the TV, the news appeared, being splashed in every channel possible, doing a piece on what seemed to be a new team that were now the New Avengers.

"Oh...hell no, what the actual fuck."

--

Bob's pov

The press had a field day.

“Thunderbolts Save New York!” “Shadow Anomaly Contained by New Avengers!” “Sentry: Hero or Weapon?”

Everyone suddenly had opinions about them, but no one seemed to have answers. Inside the compound, though, it was just them—no press, no chaos, just post-mission exhaustion and a growing sense of what the hell just happened?

Alexei was already in celebration mode, sitting backward on a chair like a kid in detention. “They called us the New Avengers! I told you, didn’t I? All it took was a little global disaster, and boom—we’re legitimate!”

Yelena snorted. “You screamed ‘Thunderbolts assemble!’ like an idiot.”

“I wanted a moment, Yelena!”

Walker shook his head. “Next time, yell it before we get thrown through a building.”

Ava mumbled from the corner, rubbing her temple, “At least they spelled my name right on one headline. That’s a win.”

Bob was the only one still standing, leaning by the window, arms crossed but a weird energy in his posture. He had a faint smile, like he was too buzzed to come down from whatever adrenaline rush he’d been riding since they landed back in reality.

He turned toward them. “I mean, that wasn’t nothing, right? We did it. Whatever it was. I blacked out after that Void-whatever showed up and now I’m back in New York with a press badge taped to my ass.”

Yelena raised an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”

Bob shrugged, almost chipper. “Bits and pieces. Some wild dream stuff. Did we fight something? Did I do anything embarrassing? Don’t say crying, I’m emotionally evolved.”

“Define evolved,” Ava said dryly.

Walker, who’d been quiet for a second too long, finally turned toward Bob and asked, “Hey. You… remember anything about Y/N?”

Bob blinked. “Y/N?”

“Yeah,” Walker said, more pointed now. “Your girlfriend.”

Bob gave a crooked smile. “You guys know about her now? Valentina told you, didn’t she? Let me guess—she used that to recruit me. ‘Tragic story, guy ditched his pregnant girlfriend, big ol’ redemption arc.’ Classic spy move.”

He laughed, but no one laughed with him.

He looked around. The mood had shifted. Everyone was staring—not accusatory, but... odd. Sympathetic. Guarded.

“What?”

Ava tilted her head. “Bob, do you really not remember anything? In the Void?”

“Just flashes. Feelings, mostly. Stuff that didn’t make sense. Shadows. Screaming. A... woman. But I figured it was all in my head.”

Yelena walked toward him, gently. “It wasn’t. She was real. We saw her.”

Bob’s laugh faltered. “No, I mean—she’s a memory. That’s how it works, right?”

Alexei shook his head slowly. “No, Bob. We met her.”

Walker leaned forward, eyes serious. “She was with us. We were in some kind of mind trap or construct, sure, but it wasn’t just you. She was there. Talking to you. Touching you. Holding you.”

Bob looked between them, heartbeat rising. “You guys are messing with me.”

“We’re not,” Yelena said. “You held her. Told her you were sorry. Told her you loved her.”

Bob’s face fell. “No, that… that’s not possible. I would’ve remembered.”

“You don’t remember her saying to you you’d finish the baby's crib?” Ava asked softly.

Bob sat down slowly, as if the weight in his chest had just become too much. “I… I thought that was a dream.”

Walker’s voice was quieter now. “She was real, Bob. And when we came back… she wasn’t with us.”

He stared at the floor.

The room was quiet again.

Bob looked up slowly, eyes wide but full of dread. “Where is she?”

Yelena swallowed hard. “We don’t know.”

Bob sat there, stunned. His brain was still trying to catch up, to rewind through fragmented shadows, memories half-formed, a scream, a soft laugh, her hands on his face. It hadn’t been just a dream. She was there.

“She’s probably in the city,” he said suddenly, voice dry, eyes distant. “She lived here. We—we lived here. Small apartment just above a laundromat off 36th, near the bridge. The kind of place you don’t show your parents but you make it work because it’s yours. She hated how the window leaked in the winter. Always shoved towels under it to keep the cold out.”

He chuckled for a second. It was hollow.

“She might be there. Or around. She never liked going too far out of the neighborhood.”

The others exchanged a look. Alexei leaned forward a bit, resting his elbows on his knees, watching Bob like he was defusing a bomb with his words.

Bob’s shoulders began to rise and fall unevenly. The smile had drained, replaced by a creeping realization behind his eyes. His mouth opened like he might speak again, but nothing came out—just a short breath, almost like a hiccup from the back of his throat.

Then the panic hit.

His hands gripped his knees, hard.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “What the hell do I do?”

“Go to her,” Yelena said softly.

“No—no, you don’t understand,” he muttered, shaking his head, palms pressing into his temples. “I left. I left her—knowing she was pregnant. I walked away. I just left. And then I got grabbed by Valentina like some stupid lab rat for some twisted ‘fix-the-golden-boy’ science project, and I thought I was going to die there.”

He looked up, eyes glassy, chest heaving like the weight of everything he ran from had finally caught up with him.

“I never thought I’d make it out. I didn’t think I’d have to face any of this again. I told myself I was saving her from me. That if I just disappeared, maybe she’d have a better shot. Maybe she'd forget the mess I was and move on. And then… then I survived.”

He looked around the room at their faces. “And I don’t know what the hell to do with that.”

Ava spoke gently. “You go to her.”

Bob let out a tight, bitter laugh. “And say what? ‘Hey, sorry I vanished, missed half the pregnancy, ditched you in the worst moment of your life—mind if I come back and finish building the crib?’”

His voice cracked halfway through, and he rubbed a hand down his face, hard.

“She probably hates me. She should hate me.”

“You don’t know that,” Walker said, his tone oddly soft for once. “You don’t know anything until you see her again. But I’ll tell you what’s worse than facing her? Never trying.”

Bob swallowed thickly.

“She looked at you like you were still hers,” Yelena added. “In there, whatever the Void made, it was twisted, sure. But she still looked at you with love. With pain, yeah. But love, too.”

Bob went quiet. For a few seconds, no one said a word.

Then—he exhaled shakily and whispered something, like it had only just re-entered his mind.

“Guys…”

They looked over at him.

He blinked, stunned again by the weight of it.

“I’m going to be a dad.”

His voice cracked, and it wasn’t just shock this time—it was awe. Dread. Hope. Regret. All of it.

“I missed five months,” he said. “I missed appointments. Her cravings. Her first checkup. I wasn’t there when she probably cried herself to sleep because I most probably put her through hell. I missed everything.”

“But you’re here now,” Alexei said, gently but firm. “You still have time.”

Bob looked down at his hands, noticing for the first time how badly they trembled.

“I know I’m not the same person I was when I left. I’ve been clean since Malaysia. The withdrawal nearly killed me. I’ve been through hell trying to be better… but I never once thought about how I’d come back. What I’d say. What I’d do if I ever saw her again. And how will I even tell her that, how will that even sound ? Hi baby, I wasn't good so I left the country and found new friends, I'm so much better know, which would be impossible if I stayed here, by your side, taking care of you, in our home. Yeah, that sounds great. You know what that sounds like? I'll be blaming her for not being better!"

Walker crossed his arms. “We'll figure it out. Together. If she knows she knows that what you did was not the way, but was more desperation than being a deadbeat.”

Yelena nodded. “And he knows what that is like.”

Walker just looks at her, a shoked expression slap on his face. "What the hell did I do to you? Jesus."

“She might not want to see me,” Bob said, barely above a whisper.

“She might not,” Ava agreed. “But she deserves the choice. And you deserve to say it to her face.”

Bob finally stood, slowly, like the weight of his guilt was a physical thing slung across his shoulders.

“I need to find her,” he said quietly. “I need to see her. Even if it’s just to hear her say it’s too late.”

--

Y/N's pov

The scent of fries and charbroiled beef did nothing to ease the twist in Y/N’s stomach.

She sat at a booth by the window in a corner of the burger place, her cheek pressed against the cold faux-wood table. Outside, the neon lights of the city flickered with life, completely unaware that her world had been flipped upside down. Again.

Mr. Cooper sat across from her, silent, drumming his fingers lightly against his milkshake cup. Their number was still being called up at the counter—order 68—but neither of them moved. No appetite. Just tension and confusion and the low buzz of the news still replaying in her mind.

“The New Avengers—unofficially named, of course—have emerged after a battle outside Manhattan’s southern district. The team includes the U.S. Agent, Russian super-soldier, Red Guardian, Black Widow’s sister, and… a man we’re still learning about. A man who, eyewitnesses claim, flew and tore through solid steel. They’re calling him ‘The Sentry.’”

She flinched again at the title. It didn’t fit. Not with the man who used to sneak an extra shake into her takeout bags just to see her smile. The one who got nosebleeds too easily and talked in his sleep. The one who vanished five months ago and hadn’t left behind anything but a phantom of what used to be.

Mr. Cooper finally broke the silence with a gentle throat-clear and a hesitant voice.

“So… this is awkward,” he said, looking at her sideways. “You never mentioned him being a superhero. Or a super soldier.”

Y/N groaned, lifting her head off the table and glaring at him as if it were his fault.

“He’s not. I don’t even know what the hell is happening. We met because we worked together—he used to spin a sign to promote the restaurant's food.” Her voice cracked somewhere between disbelief and exhausted sarcasm. “Does that sound like a super soldier to you?”

Mr. Cooper leaned back, raising an eyebrow. “Jezz! He spins a sign for a living and you let him date you and get you pregnant?” He gave her a crooked smile. “Kid, you’re a pretty lady. You kno—"

“Can you focus on the dead man I’ve been looking for four goddamn months who just reappeared out of nowhere as a freaking avenger?” she snapped, louder than she intended.

The people in the next booth looked over briefly.

Mr. Cooper coughed into his fist and looked away. “Yeah. Sorry. Right.”

Y/N folded her arms across her chest and leaned back into the booth, trying to breathe. Trying to think. But the noise in her head was deafening. Bobby. Bob. Alive. Right there on TV. Eyes glowing. Smiling like he belonged there. Like he’d always belonged there.

"He sure looks happy as hell." She said letting out a heavy breath.

And he never called. Not once. No text. No note. Nothing.

Her fingers curled around the sonogram still tucked inside her coat pocket.

“He just… left,” she murmured, eyes trained on the linoleum floor. “Didn’t say a word. Not one. And he was in New York this whole damn time?”

“I mean…” Mr. Cooper’s voice was cautious. “For what it’s worth, we don’t know that. There hasn’t been any official word on when he got back. Maybe he wasn’t in the States until now.”

“He had to see the posters,” she whispered, fury rising in her chest like a slow boil. “I plastered them everywhere. I went to every station, every hospital. He was all I thought about. And now he just shows up on the news with some dumb hero name, fighting like he’s Superman and pretending like he didn’t leave me behind?”

Her voice trembled by the end of it, rage and grief all tangled into one.

Mr. Cooper leaned forward, speaking softer now. “I know you’re hurting, kid. I know this feels like some cosmic slap to the face. But there has to be an explanation. People don’t come back from the dead just to pretend nothing happened.”

She looked at him, eyes glistening, but her jaw locked tight.

He added, “As far as we know, there’s no record of him even coming back from Malaysia. If that lady Valentina had anything to do with this, and he was part of one of her experiments, you know she was on trial for those sketchy projects.” He trailed off, grim. “They probably kept him buried in some black site until now, he had to gain some kind of power.”

Y/N didn’t say anything for a long time.

Her food number was called again. Still no movement.

“I just…” She exhaled, pressing a hand against her belly, where the baby gave a soft kick, as if responding to her heartache. “If he’s been here… If he knew... Why hasn’t he come back? Why isn’t he banging down my door? Why isn’t he groveling on his knees, begging me to forgive him for leaving me?”

Her throat clenched around the words. She hated how small they sounded. How hurt.

“Is he with someone else?” she asked suddenly, the words tumbling out like they had a mind of their own. “Did he just move on? Decide the whole father thing wasn’t for him, and now he’s flying around in spandex trying to save the world instead?”

Mr. Cooper reached out, placed a hand over hers gently. “He didn’t look like a man who moved on. Not to me.”

Y/N blinked down at the table. "How do you even know that? Let's recap, I tell I'm pregnant after a huge fight about his addiction, because I was scared of losing him, days later I wake up, he left without trace, I look after him, he's in Malaysia, now he's a super hero. Oh yeah! It doesn't sound likke he moved on and built a new life, without me."

Her heart ached. Not just because he was alive. But because now she had something even worse than grief to wrestle with.

"Mr. Cooper. I give up. I can't take anymore, I...when that thingy came I had this dream, nightmare, hallucination, whatever, he was there. I thought that it was real, those people were there, I'm having a hard time figuring out what's happening, but...if it was real than he saw me too, why isn't him here? He.moved.on." Tears blink in her eyes, she looks away.

"I can't take the stress anymore, I'm just getting myself together, and I just putting all this anxiety and stress on the baby, I can't keep going in a path without a destiny." She picks up a napkin that rested on the table to wipe her tears, and looks at Mr.Cooper. "There's always other people, other women, he's a hero, and he's going to be rich now, bet ther-"

“Y/N.” Mr. Cooper’s voice was sharp, firm, cutting her spiral like a blade.

She stopped, her eyes snapping up to meet his. He wasn’t angry, not really. But there was something frustrated, protective in the way his brows drew together.

“Why do you always go there?” he asked. “Why do you keep acting like him leaving, or cheating, is the only explanation?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“You’ve been so damn strong these past months,” he continued, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “I watched you tear up half the city looking for him. I watched you yell at cops who wouldn’t listen. You made those missing posters by hand. You begged strangers to keep an eye out. You didn’t let anyone talk shit about him—not even me. You told everyone who doubted him to go to hell, because you knew he wasn’t the kind of man who’d walk out. You believed in him.”

He paused, voice softening.

“So why is seeing him now—alive—turning into this total collapse?”

She shook her head, overwhelmed, trembling with exhaustion and rage and heartache.

“I don’t know,” she choked. “Because it’s easier to believe he left on purpose than to admit that maybe... maybe he’s been back and just didn’t want to come home.”

“No.” Mr. Cooper shook his head slowly. “You don’t believe that. You’re scared of that. There’s a difference.”

Y/N looked down at her stomach.

“I spent so long hoping. Waking up at night thinking maybe I heard the door. Every time the phone rang, I jumped like it was him. I let people call me delusional because I just knew he wouldn’t leave me like that. And now that he’s alive, I feel like... like I can’t breathe. He never made me feel like he didn't want me, or once made me doubt him.”

“Because hope is dangerous,” Cooper said gently. “But it’s still yours. And you don’t have to throw it away just to protect yourself. You don’t have to build a worst-case story in your head just so it hurts less if it’s true.”

She looked at him then, fully, eyes glassy and tired. “You really think he’s not out there forgetting me?”

“I think if Bob Reynolds is even half the man you made him out to be... then he’s out there panicking. Terrified. Not sure how to come back. Because maybe he thinks you moved on. Or that he hurt you too badly. Or that you’ll slam the door in his face.”

Silence stretched between them.

The burger order had been ready for fifteen minutes. No one cared.

Y/N leaned back slowly, wiped under her eyes with her sleeve. She exhaled shakily.

“I don’t want to be angry anymore,” she whispered.

“Then don’t be. Be ready.” Mr. Cooper smiled gently. “Because I don’t think this story’s over. Not even close.”

The footage of the Thunderbolts—no, the New Avengers—flashed across the screen again. Images of chaos, the sky cracking open, then the clean-up crews, and finally a group photo: grainy, chaotic, half-captured mid-motion—but there he was.

Bob.

Looking so different and yet unmistakably him. Taller somehow. Stronger. Almost glowing.

Y/N’s eyes were glued to the screen, her burger untouched.

“Do you really think that woman—Valentina, whatever—could have something to do with all this?” she asked suddenly, her voice low, cautious, like speaking the name might summon something.

Mr. Cooper blinked, caught a little off guard by the shift. “Valentina de Fontaine?”

She nodded. “They said she was behind the team, right? And now all this... stuff happens. And Bob’s with them. So I’ve been trying to piece it together, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

Mr. Cooper sighed, taking a bite of his fries before answering, reluctantly. “She’s in trial right now. Big federal investigation. No full details, but... I heard she’s being charged for working with the OXE Group.”

Y/N’s heart skipped a beat.

“What’s the OXE Group?” she asked slowly.

He didn’t look at her at first. Just watched the news crawl at the bottom of the screen as if he were still deciding whether to tell her the truth.

“They’re a private military research firm. The kind of people who used to do black site work. Off-the-record stuff. Real shady.”

“Okay...” Y/N pressed, her voice tightening. “But what does that mean? What is she actually in trial for?”

Mr. Cooper finally turned to look at her, his expression sobering. “Illegal human experimentation. Enhancement trials. Word is, they were trying to recreate the super soldier program without oversight.”

The booth felt colder all of a sudden. Y/N’s eyes widened, her breath catching.

“Human experiments?” she repeated. “You mean like...”

He nodded, grim. “Like testing on people without consent. Drug trials. Mutation injections. Splicing DNA with alien tech. You name it.”

She slumped back in her seat, her hand going to her stomach again like second nature, like she needed the grounding.

Her voice cracked. “What if... What if she did something to him?”

Mr. Cooper frowned. “Y/N...”

“No, I’m serious!” she shot back, panic bubbling up. “What if he didn’t just leave? What if he was taken? Or experimented on? What if he got—changed—and that’s why he didn’t come back? What if they hurt him and wiped his memory, or used him like a weapon?”

“Y/N, we don’t know any of that,” he said gently, but her mind was already spiraling.

“It would make sense!” she snapped. “I saw him. I saw him in that facility, and he didn’t look like himself. Not just stronger or taller or whatever. He looked wrong. Like he was fighting something inside of him. And what if it wasn’t just him fighting—what if it was something they put in him?”

Mr. Cooper rubbed his temple slowly. “It’s a stretch, but... honestly? With people like Valentina? I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Y/N covered her face with both hands, overwhelmed by the thought.

“He always hated being weak,” she whispered. “He never said it out loud, but I could see it in how hard he tried.”

“And now maybe someone used that, maybe someone other then you saw what he had to give.” Cooper added grimly.

She dropped her hands and looked up at the screen again, the soft glow of the TV painting her worried face. Bob’s image flickered again—his silhouette standing strong beside the others, like he belonged there. But there was something distant in his expression. Something hollow. Something that didn’t look like the man she fell in love with.

“I’m not even pissed anymore,” she whispered. “I’m scared. What if he doesn’t come back because... he can’t?”

Mr. Cooper reached across the table and placed his hand gently over hers. “Then maybe it’s time someone went and got him.”

Y/N didn’t respond right away.

But her eyes, still glassy from earlier tears, were now clear with something else.

Determination.

"You think I should go there ?"

Mr.Cooper just smiles softly. "Maybe. You already went everywhere for him. This looks like a last trip."

--

The Next day - Bob's pov

The watchowerbuzzed with movement and low chatter as the Thunderbolts prepared for something that felt more serious than any mission they’d been on: Bob’s return.

Alexei was in his element—straightening a collar, wiping nonexistent dust from a navy-blue suit jacket, inspecting the polish on Bob’s shoes like a proud older brother sending a kid off to prom.

“You see this? This is what redemption looks like,” Alexei said, stepping back to admire Bob. “This says: ‘I am responsible man who has fought gods and folded laundry.’”

Bob stood stiffly in front of the mirror, hands tugging at the uncomfortable sleeves. “It says I’m about to ask for a job at a bank.”

“You look good,” Ava said simply from across the room. “It’s clean. Grown. It says you took this seriously. That matters.”

“She liked me messy,” Bob muttered under his breath, glancing down at the crisp fabric, the sleek hair combed back. “She said I looked more like me that way.”

Yelena, seated on the couch, rolled her eyes. “That was before you got sucked into a lab, exploded in the sky, and became some walking nuclear sunrise. You’re not just the guy that was struggle to keep yourselve together anymore, Bob. You’ve changed.”

Bob frowned. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Walker stepped in then, arms crossed, voice blunt but not unkind. “Look. You go there looking like you haven’t slept since 2019, she’ll think you’re still spiraling. But you show up like this? It says you’ve been trying. You want her back, right? Then show her you didn’t just survive — you got your shit together.”

Bob sighed and looked at himself again. The suit was neat, dark, serious. The tie Alexei picked was a shade too bright, but he let it be. His hair, slicked back, made his features sharper, more intense — and somehow older.

“Do I really look like… me? Do you think she will like this?” he asked, quieter this time.

Ava shrugged. “You look like someone who fought to come back.”

“And is about to cry,” Yelena said, deadpan. “But that’s your brand.”

Alexei grinned, clapping a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Trust us, this is the version of you she’ll want to see. Not the one who left, the one who chose to come back.”

Bob didn’t say anything for a moment. He took one last look at himself and nodded—just slightly.

Alexei, walking beside Bob, leaned in and whispered, “If she cries, cry with her. If she yells, nod wisely. If she hugs you… propose.”

Bob laughed for the first time all day, nerves still twisting deep in his chest. “Noted.”

He didn’t feel ready—not even close.

Alexei was fussing over Bob’s lapels like a proud uncle before prom, squinting critically at the clean lines of the suit. “You look strong. You look professional.”

“Fashion is how we prepare for emotional battle,” Alexei declared, adjusting Bob’s cuffs. “You must dress like the man you want her to believe in. Smell good. Stand tall. Speak deeply.”

“Alexei, you sound like a shampoo commercial,” Ava said from her spot near the mission board, clearly unimpressed.

Yelena rolled her eyes. “He’s not seducing her. He’s trying to apologize. Just tell her the truth, idiot.”

“Tell her the truth?” Alexei scoffed. “Fine. Tell her: ‘Hello. I have become golden space god now. I will protect you and make you rich. Also, I will buy you several dogs. Jewels. Maybe matching capes.’ Boom. Proposal.”

“Yeah,” Yelena muttered, “you just described a sugar daddy.”

“Is that not good?” Alexei blinked.

“That’s not great,” Ava shot back.

Walker leaned forward, trying to restore order. “Can we all just stop arguing about sugar daddies for one second?”

But that second was long gone. Ava was now arguing with Alexei about power dynamics in relationships, Yelena was threatening to punch someone if they didn’t shut up, and Walker looked like he was about five seconds from walking out.

Amid the chaos, Bob slowly sat down on the edge of the chair by the wide Watchtower window. He didn’t say anything. Just stared out at the distant lights of the city. A city she might be somewhere in. Alone.

They kept bickering around him, their voices overlapping, but Bob wasn’t listening anymore.

Then, softly, without looking at them, he spoke.

“I’m really scared.”

Silence fell, thick and immediate.

The team turned to look at him. Even Alexei’s big grin faded a little.

Bob kept his eyes on the skyline, his voice low and honest.

“She’s been abandoned her whole life. By people who were supposed to stay. Family. Friends. Even strangers who promised better and never meant it. And now I just—” he swallowed hard—“I went and added myself to that list.”

He clasped his hands, fingers threading and unthreading like his nerves were on a loop. He finally looked at them, eyes wide with something between guilt and fear and rawness that none of them had ever seen from him.

“I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know if she even wants to see me. But she deserves the truth. And the choice.”

Yelena blinked a few times, her voice quieter when she spoke. “Then that’s what you give her.”

Alexei stepped closer, this time without a joke. He reached out and straightened Bob’s jacket collar.

“You wear the suit,” he said, firm but kind. “Because you are not just scared man anymore. You are also someone who came back. Someone who shows up. And sometimes... that is everything.”

Bob looked down at his shoes. The suit didn’t feel like him—but maybe it didn’t have to. Maybe it wasn’t about who he used to be.

Maybe it was about who he wanted to become.

Just as the room began to settle—after the shouting, the sarcastic digs, and the tail end of Alexei offering to re-style Bob’s hair himself if it meant calming him down—the doors to the Watchtower meeting room hissed open.

Mel stepped inside. She had that look of someone about to drop a grenade in the middle of the room and then walk away.

“Hey, uh—sorry to break up whatever group therapy session this is,” she said, tapping her tablet nervously, “but you’ve got a situation downstairs.”

Everyone turned.

Bob stood near the window, still fidgeting with his collar, his mind halfway between meltdown and autopilot.

Mel glanced at her screen. “There’s a woman and a guy asking for you. She’s being very... insistent.”

Bob blinked. “For me?”

“Yeah,” Mel said, nodding. “She says her name is Y/N L/N.”

The name hit him like a punch to the ribs. He froze. The breath left his lungs in one swift exhale.

“She’s here?” he said, barely audible.

Mel gave a wide-eyed shrug. “And some guy with her—says his name is George Cooper.”

Bob’s brows furrowed. “Who?”

Walker squinted. “You don’t know him?”

Bob shook his head. “No. Never heard of him.”

“Probably someone helping her,” Ava muttered. “Friend? Neighbor?”

“Or he’s just muscle,” Alexei offered. “In case she decides to throw you out a window.”

Bob swallowed thickly.

“She’s here?” he repeated, almost like he didn’t believe it. “In this building?”

Mel nodded. “Refusing to leave. She said if you don’t come down, she’s coming up. I told her that wasn’t exactly allowed without clearance and she said—and I quote—‘He’ll want to see me. Tell him I’m here. He’ll come.’”

Silence dropped over the room.

Alexei stood, clapping once. “WELL! This is very romantic. She crossed enemy lines to see you.”

Yelena looked at Bob. “You gonna faint or do something useful?”

Bob’s heart was racing. He glanced at Mel again. “She’s okay? I mean... she looks okay?”

“She looks pissed,” Mel said, matter-of-fact. “But yeah. Alive. Loud. Standing on both feet.”

Walker leaned back in his chair. “So. What’s the move?”

Bob licked his lips, nervous. “I... I don’t know what to say.”

Ava gave a soft exhale. “Start with 'Hi, I’m sorry,' and work your way up.”

“Do not start with ‘I’m a superhero now,’” Yelena added, arms crossed. “She might hit you.”

Alexei looked far too excited. “Tell her you’re going to take care of her forever and buy her a houseboat.”

“Guys,” Bob muttered, pressing his fingers to his temple. “I don’t even know who that guy is. What if she moved on? What if he’s her—God, I don’t know—boyfriend?”

“Then she wouldn’t be here, asking for you by name,” Yelena said calmly.

He was shaking.

Not with fear exactly—but something deeper. The kind of anxiety you only feel when you know you're about to come face to face with the thing you both miss and broke.

Bob whispered, “I’m really scared.”

That was enough to quiet the room.

He looked down at his hands. “She deserves better. And now... I don’t know what she’s going to see when she looks at me.”

Walker leaned forward on the table, his voice low. “Give her the choice, Reynolds. That’s all you can do.”

Mel stood awkwardly in the doorway. “So... what do you want me to tell them?”

Bob took one breath. Then two. Then forced himself upright.

“Tell them to come up.”

Yelena gave a small smirk. “About damn time.”

Mel nodded, giving him a soft, understanding look. “Got it.”

And with that, she stepped out, letting the doors seal shut behind her.

Bob stared at the floor.

“She’s really here.”

“Yeah,” Ava said. “She is.”

He swallowed.

Bob immediately turned to the rest of the team, his chest rising and falling too fast, hands shaking.

“I can’t do this. I seriously cannot do this. She’s here. She saw me on TV, and now she’s here, and I have no idea what she’s going to say—what if she just wants to scream at me? What if she’s already moved on and she’s just here for closure or to give me back my things—oh God, what if she brought a box of my stuff? That’s what people do, right? Boxes?”

Alexei clapped him hard on the back, nearly sending Bob stumbling forward.

“Relax, golden boy,” he said with a grin. “At least she came when you look good. If this was five hours ago, you’d still have pizza sauce on your shirt and look like a wet rat. Now you look like a gentleman. Hair all slicked back. Like James Bond but sad.”

“Very sad,” Yelena added, dryly. “Like James Bond who’s been crying in a Denny’s parking lot.”

Walker grunted. “Real supportive, guys.”

Ava leaned forward, her tone softer. “Bob. You’re spiraling.”

“I should be spiraling,” Bob huffed. “She’s probably been through hell and I left her—what do I even say? ‘Hi, sorry I ghosted you and joined a black-ops team and maybe died a little bit in Malaysia, and now I have godlike powers but still can’t hold a normal conversation’?”

“Yeah,” Yelena said with a shrug. “That, but slower.”

Alexei was still grinning. “What if she’s just here to take you back? Huh? Ever thought of that?”

Bob blinked at him, confused.

“I mean,” Alexei continued, “she saw you on the news, looking heroic, cape blowing in the wind—metaphorically speaking—and she thought, ‘That’s my idiot.’ Maybe she’s just here because she wants you back.”

“Exactly,” Ava chimed in. “You don’t know what she’s thinking. You’re panicking over something that hasn’t happened yet.”

“She came, man,” Walker added. “She didn’t send a letter. She didn’t text. She showed up.”

Bob ran a shaky hand through his hair—well, tried to, forgetting it was slicked back with gel now and recoiling in horror. “God, it’s so crispy.”

“Don’t touch it!” Alexei scolded, slapping his hand away. “You ruin that hair, and all this is for nothing.”

Everyone turned as the elevator down the hall gave a soft ding.

Bob went pale.

“They’re coming up,” he whispered. “Oh God. They’re coming up.”

Yelena gave him a nudge. “You don’t have to be perfect. Just be honest. And breathe. In through the nose. Out through the dramatic monologue.”

He looked to them, chest rising and falling, eyes wide.

Then he nodded. Slowly.

“Okay,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Okay.”

And Bob—dressed like a gentleman, scared out of his mind—stood facing the door, waiting for her

The elevator let out a soft chime, and the doors slid open with a mechanical hum.

Y/N stood there like a storm held in a glass bottle. Hair a little windblown, eyes sharp and already glossed with too much unshed emotion. Her coat hung off one shoulder, and beside her stood Mr. Cooper, arms crossed, watching with the protective stiffness of a man about to throw someone through a wall if needed.

The moment her eyes locked on Bob, she froze. Just for a second. Because what she saw was so jarringly not what she expected.

He stood across the room in a suit. Hair combed back, posture stiff as if he were pretending to be someone else. A mock version of composure. And yet—beneath it, she could still see him. Still Bob. Still the same guy who used to burn toast and tell jokes that didn’t land, who once danced in the living room holding a broom like a microphone.

Her mouth fell open.

“Bobby…” she began, voice strained, “What the fuck?”

Bob flinched. She hadn’t even raised her voice, but it hit him like a slap. Still, without thinking, without breathing, he moved forward, arms open.

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I know—I just need to—”

He embraced her.

Y/N’s breath hitched sharply against his chest. He was warm. Real. Solid. And for the briefest of seconds—less than a heartbeat—she didn’t push him away. Her hands even hovered, as if they didn’t know what to do.

He smelled the same. Felt the same. She hated that her body remembered.

Then she came to.

“No—no!” she gasped, shoving him back with both palms against his chest. “Don’t you dare. You don’t get to hug me like that, like nothing happened!”

Tears spilled from her eyes now, but her jaw clenched with fury. “Where the hell have you been?! What was this, Bobby? What was this?! You disappeared, and now you’re in a goddamn suit, on the news like everything’s fine? You left me! You left me!”

Bob stumbled back, hands raised, chest heaving. “I know. I know I did—please, I—I swear I’ll explain, just—can we… can we talk? Alone?”

He looked past her to Mr. Cooper, then the rest of the team hovering awkwardly in the background. They were trying not to look like they were watching, but they definitely were.

Yelena was half-tucked behind Ava, who was subtly gripping Alexei’s arm to stop him from chiming in. Even Walker looked frozen mid-step, unsure if he should intervene or back off.

Bob turned to them with a shaky exhale. “Can we have a minute? Please?”

Mr. Cooper looked to Y/N. “That what you want?”

Y/N glanced around the room, then back at Bob. She wiped the corner of her eye with the sleeve of her jacket.

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Yeah… please.”

The tension in the air shifted as the others nodded and slowly made their exit. Alexei gave Bob a small, reassuring pat on the shoulder as he passed—though it was more like a seismic jolt.

“I’m watching you,” Yelena muttered under her breath as she followed the others out.

Walker pointed a finger at Bob.

The doors shut behind them.

Now it was just Bob and Y/N, the silence closing in like walls. The city glowed faintly through the tall windows. The room suddenly felt too big. Too quiet.

Bob took a tentative step toward her. “I—don’t know where to start.”

Y/N folded her arms, brows pulled tight. “Try the part where you vanished into thin air.”

His throat tightened. His hands trembled.

“Okay,” he whispered, eyes locked on her. “Okay.”

“I didn’t think I’d get to say any of this,” he started, his voice dry and cracking. “I didn’t plan on saying anything at all.”

He finally looked up at her, his eyes red-rimmed, breathing uneven. “When I left, I didn’t just leave because of the pregnancy, Y/N. I’d already… been thinking about leaving. About… disappearing. I’d been thinking about it long before I knew. That test—God, it broke me. Not because of the baby. Not because of you. Because I knew right then I wasn’t the person you needed me to be.”

He swallowed hard and stepped forward slowly, careful not to spook her.

“You know how bad it got. I—I thought I had it under control, the meth, the withdrawals, the spirals, all of it. But I didn’t. I relapsed again two days before you told me. I—I’d been hiding it. I was so ashamed. I couldn’t even look you in the eyes some nights. I’d lie awake next to you and think about how much I was failing. How I was just—burning your life down with mine.”

He rubbed his face roughly, eyes shining as his breathing caught. “And then the test. And you. You looked so happy. And I—I felt like I was standing in front of this life, this beautiful life you wanted, and I was the wreckage in the way. I thought… if I stayed, I’d keep failing. That I’d be angry all the time. That I’d scream, or break things, or—God—for the first time in my life, I was scared of myself.”

He looked at her now. Fully. Face open and wounded, stripped of anything but his truth.

“So I did what cowards do. I ran. And I didn’t just run—I collapsed. I went to Malaysia because it was dangerous. Because I thought I’d die out there. Because dying felt easier than telling you I was broken. I thought I was doing you a favor. That you'd be better off. That the baby would have a clean slate, and you’d hate me, sure—but you’d survive. You’d thrive without me.”

Silence.

A few seconds passed, and he saw it—her breathing uneven, her hands curled tight at her sides.

And then she broke.

“You know me, Bobby,” she cried, voice trembling but laced with fire. “You know me.”

He barely had time to brace himself before the words poured out of her in sobs and gasps and fists clenched in grief.

“I love you so much I could feel death creeping into my chest every night you didn’t come back. I stopped eating. I couldn’t sleep. I would scream into my pillow until I passed out. I waited for hours by the door every time it rained, thinking you’d be cold and coming home. I sat in hospitals and police stations—God—I put up flyers, Bobby. I looked in every building, every alley, every damn street like a maniac because I knew something had to be wrong!”

Her hands trembled as she wiped her face with her sleeve, but the tears kept coming. Her voice broke again, smaller now.

“All I ever wanted was for you to come home. To have you here. I—I would’ve moved with you. To anywhere. Anywhere. You could’ve said the word and we would’ve started over. Just me and you. I would’ve helped you through everything. I wanted to help. But you didn’t give me the chance. You didn’t even give me a choice.”

She was sobbing now, her chest heaving, and Bob could only stare at her, broken open.

“I want our kid to know you. To love you. I wanted him to have what I never had. You keep thinking you’re some monster—that you ruin everything, that nobody gives a shit. But you leaving took my whole life with you. You took my happiness and left me to hold the pieces!”

Bob stepped closer, slow and trembling. His voice came out hoarse.

“I never wanted to hurt you. I thought I was saving you.”

She laughed bitterly through her tears, shaking her head. “Well, you didn’t save me. You wrecked me.”

Bob nodded, lips pressed together as tears welled in his eyes. He looked down at her—then unconsciously, his eyes dropped to her stomach. She was showing now. Just enough.

“I missed everything,” he whispered, his hand trembling like it wanted to reach out but didn’t dare.

Y/N nodded silently, wiping her cheek.

“You did,” she said.

“Bobby…” she exhaled slowly. “You’re on the damn news. The Avengers, the Watchtower, all of this? You’re dressed like a damn wedding crasher—how the hell are you a superhero now?”

Her voice cracked. Confusion, disbelief, anger still curling in her chest like smoke.

“You don’t have powers. I know you. You had bad knees and a caffeine addiction and you used to pull your back lifting grocery bags. What the hell happened to you? What—what was that thing in the sky that took over the city? I saw you in it. I thought I was losing my mind.”

Bob blinked, lips parted like he’d been caught off guard. He looked down at the floor, then back up at her with a deep, ashamed breath.

“I wasn’t supposed to make it,” he said softly. “When I left for Malaysia… it wasn’t just to run. I signed up for something. Something I knew was dangerous.”

Y/N’s brows furrowed, a pang of dread in her gut.

“What kind of something?” she asked carefully.

Bob clenched his jaw. “Human experimentation.”

Her eyes widened, horror flashing across her face. He rushed to keep speaking before she could spiral.

“It was Valentina. She was… recruiting people. Not for the Avengers, not at first. For something else. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t want answers. I thought—if it worked, maybe I’d be someone. If it didn’t… I’d just disappear like I always meant to.”

Y/N shook her head, horrified. “Bob—Jesus Christ.”

He nodded, shame deepening his voice. “It worked. Somehow. I don’t know how to explain it. They gave me something. It rewired everything. My body, my mind. I’m not… me anymore. I’m something else now. I can fly. I can tear steel apart. I can hear a pin drop from across the city. I don’t get tired. I don’t bleed. But…”

His voice wavered. He looked up at her with eyes that were begging to be understood.

“There’s something inside me. Something that came with the powers. A shadow. A presence. They call it The Void.”

Y/N stiffened at the name. Her breath caught.

Bob swallowed hard, nodding slowly.

“It’s real. That… thing that covered New York? That was me. Or, part of me. I don’t remember all of it—I black out when he comes. But it’s like… he waits. Like he watches from behind my eyes, waiting for a moment to crawl out.”

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes again.

“I didn’t know what I’d done until I woke up in that lab. Until I saw what was left behind. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t even know I could do something like that. I—”

He broke off, breath shaky.

“I don’t want these powers. Not if they come with him. I’m scared, Y/N. Every second. Because if I lose focus for one moment, if I get too angry, too desperate, too… weak—he gets out again. And next time, he might not leave anything standing.”

Y/N’s face had softened now. Her arms weren’t crossed anymore. She was just… standing there. Listening. Absorbing it all.

Bob stepped forward, a hand to his chest like he was trying to ground himself.

“But if I have to… if I have to… I’ll use it. Because I’ve seen what he can do. And I’ve seen what I can do when I keep him under. I think I was meant to help. Meant to protect people. Even if I’m scared.”

He met her gaze again, with more resolve this time.

“I don’t want to run anymore. From you, from what I’ve done, from what I am. I just want to… figure out how to live with it. With him. With the powers. And I want to do it with you.”

Y/N stared at him in stunned silence for a moment.

Then she took a trembling step forward.

“Do you really want to be that guy?” she whispered. “Or are you still trying to disappear, just in a different uniform?”

Bob flinched like she’d slapped him—but he didn’t deny it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m trying.”

Y/N stood in front of him, arms limp at her sides, staring down at the floor. The silence was no longer sharp—it was dull, thick, almost protective. She was processing. Still trying to stitch everything together, the pain and confusion and love all colliding at once inside her chest like a storm without direction.

Bobby shifted, watching her with quiet, careful eyes.

“…Are you able to forgive me?” he asked, his voice a near whisper, almost afraid the sound might shatter whatever moment this was.

She didn’t answer. Not yet.

“I mean… we don’t have to be anything. Not if you don’t want to. I don’t want to force you into something just because we—because this happened,” he continued, motioning vaguely to her belly, to the air between them, to everything. “But I want to be there. I want to be there for you. And for the baby.”

His voice cracked.

“And I want you. I love you. I never stopped. Not for a second. But… you went through hell. And I was the one who lit the match. I didn’t protect you. I hurt you.”

That last part hung in the air like a confession he was ashamed to even say out loud.

Y/N still didn’t say anything. Her eyes flicked upward for only a second before she turned her head to the side, blinking hard. Her heart was racing, her head was buzzing. All of it was too much. The powers. The Void. The abandonment. The hug. The apology. The love. The ache. She loved him. God, she loved him—but what if love wasn’t enough? What if it never had been?

And then… she felt it.

A soft, unmistakable push from within her. Tiny.

She looked back at Bobby, the emotion behind her eyes unreadable—but deep.

Without saying a word, she stepped forward and gently took his hand in hers.

Then, she guided it to her belly.

His fingers spread over the fabric of her shirt, and at first, he just looked at her, confused—until he felt it.

A kick. Strong. Rhythmic.

His eyes widened. A stunned breath fell out of him.

And then… his knees buckled, slowly, reverently, until he was crouched in front of her, both hands now resting on her belly, forehead pressing softly against it like he was praying. His eyes fluttered closed, and he tilted his head ever so slightly, as if listening with his whole soul.

And he heard it.

A heartbeat.

Steady. Fierce. Alive.

Bob’s breath hitched. His lips parted in disbelief, awe folding into tears.

“We made that,” he whispered.

Y/N’s hand lifted, slow and gentle, resting on top of his head—his hair stiff with gel, slicked back against the version of him someone else dressed up to be a man who looked like he had it all together. But beneath it… she missed the curls. The mess. Him.

She let her fingers slip through what little softness she could find, her thumb brushing the nape of his neck.

“We can take it slow,” she said, voice raw, almost hoarse from holding back too much for too long. “We can do it.”

His head tilted up to look at her, his eyes glassy, his whole world held between her hands and the heartbeat beneath them.

“I just need to… readjust,” she said, inhaling shakily. “I don’t know what to do just yet. But… I can do it.”

A small, sad smile tugged at her lips as her gaze met his.

“I want you.”

Bob blinked, breath caught in his throat.

She nodded gently, her hand still cradling the side of his head.

“He wants you, too.”

Bob closed his eyes again, pulling in a breath like he’d been underwater all this time and finally came up for air.

And for the first time in months, everything stopped hurting—just for a moment.

Bob stood slowly, eyes never leaving hers. He looked unsure, reverent almost, as if standing in front of something holy.

This time, when he moved to embrace her, it wasn’t frantic or desperate—it was gentle. Careful. A silent apology. A prayer wrapped in human warmth. His arms curled around her back as hers slid around his waist, and they just held each other for a moment, feeling every tremble and heartbeat, the months of pain melting into skin-on-skin comfort.

He pulled back just slightly, enough to see her face. His hands cradled her waist, thumbs brushing slow circles against her sides. His voice was low, a little hoarse.

“Can I… please kiss you?” he asked, breath shaky. “I really need it.”

Y/N looked up at him, eyes still glassy with leftover tears—but softer now. Open. She nodded, slow.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Me too.”

Their lips met in a kiss that wasn’t rushed or polished—it was real. It was raw—it all came crashing together in that one, perfect kiss.

And it felt like him. Like Bobby. Like home.

She tasted salt—his tears, or hers, she couldn’t tell. One of her hands moved to his jaw, fingers curling against the line of it, while the other gripped the back of his neck, pulling him closer, needing him. His arms wrapped tight around her, and he let out a low sound—half-laugh, half-sob—into her mouth as their kiss deepened.

They could almost feel the ghost of another version of them—laughing in the kitchen of their tiny old apartment, dancing in their socks, sneaking kisses between burnt grilled cheese and a mattress on the floor. That old life flickered like a film reel behind their eyes.

He kissed her like he was trying to memorize her again.

She kissed him like she’d never let him disappear again.

When they finally pulled back for air, they were both breathless, foreheads touching. Their hands lingered—on waists, on cheeks, on the edges of clothing. Like letting go might mean waking up.

Y/N looked at him through her lashes, still catching her breath. Her voice cracked with a laugh.

“…Is this how you dress now?”

Bob blinked, then glanced down at himself—the stiff suit, the buttoned collar, the slicked-back hair.

Y/N made a face. “I hate it. You look so… ew.”

He burst out laughing, his shoulders shaking. “What?!”

She nodded, pointing dramatically at his head. “That’s not my Bobby. That’s a… stockbroker.”

“A what?” he said, grinning.

“Messy Bobby. Large hoodie Bobby. Hair-like-you-just-woke-up Bobby. That guy?” She grinned through the teasing, stepping closer, fingers already mussing his gelled-back hair with playful aggression. “That guy was hot. This guy looks like he’s about to lecture me about my Roth IRA.”

Bob chuckled, letting her mess it all up, curls flopping forward again. “Okay, okay. I’ll ditch the suit. Alexei’s gonna cry, though. He made me wear it.”

“Why?” she asked, still smoothing his hair out to her liking.

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “We were… planning on coming to see you. The team thought I should look… presentable. Impressive.”

She raised a brow. “Well, you failed. Miserably.”

He laughed again, and for a moment, it was just joy. Simple, real joy.

Then his smile softened. “Still worth it, though. You’re here. You kissed me. Twice.”

She smirked, a glimmer of playfulness flashing through the exhaustion in her eyes.

“That was charity.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She grabbed the collar of his too-stiff suit jacket, pulled him forward, and kissed him again—slow and deliberate.

“Still charity,” she whispered against his lips.

And Bobby just laughed into the kiss, his arms tightening around her.

The elevator doors slid open again with a soft ding. Bob straightened, still holding Y/N’s hand, only to freeze when a man stepped into view behind her.

Middle-aged. Slightly rumpled jacket. The kind of no-nonsense posture that screamed authority with too much paperwork. Bob blinked. So did the rest of the team.

Alexei leaned in and stage-whispered, “Who’s the guy? Is that your dad? Did you bring your dad?”

Y/N shot him a look. “No.”

Bob tilted his head, confused. “Uh… sorry, who…?”

The man extended a casual, unimpressed nod toward Bob. “Name’s Cooper. George Cooper. I work at the precinct downtown.”

Bob blinked again. “Wait—like… a cop?”

Walker narrowed his eyes. “Why is a cop here?”

Cooper kept his arms crossed. “Because I’ve been the one picking up the pieces while your golden boy here ghosted the entire tri-state area.”

Yelena raised her eyebrows and turned to Bob with a snort. “Ooooh, I like him already.”

Bob looked at Y/N, still processing. “You brought a cop with you?”

“He’s not just a cop,” she replied, gently but firmly. “He’s my friend. The only one who gave a damn when you disappeared. When nobody took my reports seriously, when they called me crazy—he helped. Every step.”

Mr. Cooper glanced sideways at her, not showing much emotion, but his voice softened. “She didn’t have anyone else, man. I’m not here to cause problems. Just had to make sure she was okay. That you were actually here and not another hallucination.”

Bob rubbed the back of his neck, heart squeezing in his chest. “Right. Yeah. Okay… sorry, I just… wasn’t expecting…”

Alexei interrupted with a grin. “It is okay, Bobby. She brought backup. Like real soldier. I respect it.”

Yelena nodded. “Honestly? After everything, he should’ve come with more backup.”

Walker crossed his arms. “So what now, cop? You sticking around?”

Cooper held up his hands. “Nope. I’ve done my part. She wanted to talk, I made sure she got here safe. That’s all.”

Y/N looked over at him, smiling faintly. “Thanks, Mr.Cooper.”

He gave her a brief nod and headed for the elevator. “You know how to reach me, kid.”

As the doors closed behind him, Bob turned to Y/N again, still wrapping his head around it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t know you had to go through all that.”

Y/N met his eyes. “That’s because you weren’t there.”

Silence lingered for a beat—one heavy with mutual understanding and all the things they still had to say.

Alexei, ever the mood-breaker, clapped Bob on the back. “Well, at least she showed up while you still looked dashing. I told you—hair slicked back, suit crisp. You’re like billionaire crime-fighter now.”

Y/N squinted at Bob. “God, you still look ridiculous.”

Bob gave her a sheepish grin. “I know. I was trying to impress you.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled despite herself. “Like that would work on me.”

[hanimanny]

“i only know that i feel tired, antiqued; i feel as though i’ve been awake for a long long time”

HOMESICK

synopsis: when the exhaustion of loving finally takes you.

tags: xavier x non!mc, ANGST!!! hurt/ comfort(?)

word count: 4.4k

likes + comments + reblogs appreciated

authors note: xavier’s version of this. let me know if you want versions of the other Lis. also please give me some ideas!!! divider by: @fairytopea

ACT I: VIGIL

Laughter has never been so suffocating.

You watch, not from a distance, but next to MC.

You think it's worse to be this close and to hear everything you're hearing now. In all the years of trials and tribulations of knowing Xavier, have you ever heard him laugh so brightly, smile so widely, or love so loudly?

The quiet, ever aloof prince of Philos—the man you followed, crossing stars, passing meteors, abandoning the place you once called home—beams brighter than his evil.

You think about all the things that built up to this moment.

To you, he was the stars: bright and all-encompassing. His silence—always silent—ever consuming, as you trailed in the shadow he left behind. Throughout the years of companionship and camaraderie, you followed blindly, as you always do, even when you knew what following him meant: an ill-fated destiny you could never rewrite.

You knew MC once before—the same woman who took the world by storm, a hurricane in his life that devoured him whole, leaving nothing for you behind.

Just like the MC you once knew, this MC is just as captivating.

The universe is playing a sick joke. He is your longest companion, the very last of your kind—the last light of your planet, your world, your culture. You left it all behind because, to you, loving him meant more than the comfort of your people and the safety of your planet. Loving him was worth leaving everything behind.

Ironically enough, he thought the same thing.

And despite it all—the friendship, the companionship, the camaraderie—you’re not even a placeholder for the love he holds dear. Nothing but white noise that followed him around, that clung to him at every turn.

A persistent, pathetic, piteous echo.

You are so close, and yet, so far.

Pulled in by the gravity of his very being. You think—thought—that all this time, just being beside him would be enough to soothe the dull ache of your heart, the perpetual pain that roamed your bones, and the exhaustion that swallowed you whole.

Like a dreamer, you think of the ways he could love you in the same capacity he loves her. That if you show up enough times, reach out and fill the silence he leaves behind; that the days of dedicated devotion, the sacrifices made along the way, would surmise to something worthy of being loved.

Worthy of being seen.

You’re left stranded in his orbit, gravity pulling harder the more you think you’ve got a handle on your thoughts. The pain, the agony, the suffering. Thinking that sticking by his side was all you ever needed, that you can’t be greedy—because having him was enough, and having him be yours was pure insanity.

You hear the laughter erupt once again, likely from a silly joke MC made. You pull yourself out from whatever hole you've dug, pull your lips into a smile the best you can, laughing along. It's hearty and very becoming of your character, you think, since MC wraps a secure arm around yours and squeezes with affection.

You allow her, of course—straining your cheeks until they burn, letting out a long-drawn sigh that fills the room.

Despite what others may think, as you converse along luridly, as if the volume of your voice could hide the heavy heart you bear, you've never been so quiet.

…

ACT II: DREAM

You once thought that the convenience of being neighbours was a good thing.

Next door to Xavier—close to him, but never next to him.

Walking to the Hunters Association together, coming home together, eating together. Just being together.

But you could tell Xavier wasn’t ever there—not really.

Despite being with him for so long, his mind was usually elsewhere. Sometimes in dreamland, but mostly—actually, always—drifting to her.

At some point, in between the solo bickering and one-woman conversations, you, too, found yourself wandering.

Like your mind sanctioned itself in your own self-made isolation.

Quieter. Smaller. Dimmer.

You stop talking as vividly—maintaining just enough energy to keep up appearances. Your voice, so used to fading into the background, remained where it was so oftentimes pushed towards—away from everything. Everyone.

You stop tagging along in the mornings, early days, and late nights, save for the obligatory lunch with your co-workers.

You stop leaving your apartment, taking refuge in a bed you’ve grooved your body into, like a coffin awaiting your arrival. An apartment you’ve grown used to, replicating the only home you knew.

And you’re just so tired. Tired of it all. Exhaustion clings to you like chasing breath. Sleep evades you like the plague.

It was your choice to cling to hope—to leave your home and to follow, naively, in hopes that one day, he would look at you the same way you look at him. To experience his love: the soft edges, the warmth, the gentleness. To think quiet, everlasting devotion would get you anywhere—devotion that controlled you, consumed you. Devotion that you thought would be enough, as silly as it sounds, to at least hold a candle next to the sun.

Devotion that instead puts you in the hands of despair.

You’re stupid to still hope, to yearn for a love that was never yours to have. To attempt to go against fate—against an entire lifetime of love.

So really, it was your burden to bear—and bear it alone.

And the funniest thing of it all? Xavier never once visited you. Checked on you. Sought you out. Even the tenant right below you, Charlie, visited, offering warm welcomes of fresh bread and a simple smile.

As you lie on your couch, enveloping yourself in the embrace of your own naivety, forced by Jenna to take a day off, you listen to the familiar silence.

Which is soon broken by the snubbed sound of light that snuffs the room.

It’s the first time in weeks—29 days, 21 hours, 2 minutes—Xavier has stepped foot in your apartment.

You don’t make a move to look at him or say anything like you normally do.

You both reside in the deafening silence. One by choice, one succumbed.

For the first time, Xavier breaks the silence: “You weren’t at work today.”

You could laugh, scream, cry, or all of the above, but you don’t.

Quietness reaps your soul.

Xavier continues. “MC was worried about you.”

A lifetime's worth of companionship, and he wasn’t even here to seek you out.

You truly are stupid.

Xavier isn’t used to the silence—not this kind. Despite being so quiet all the time, this silence was completely foreign. It was heavy and uninviting, almost suffocating.

There’s a moment of unrelenting anticipation as he waits to see you respond.

When you don’t, he steps forward. One step, then two—then he’s at the foot of the couch, peering down at you like a deity summoned—unconsciously shining with that light of his.

Steel blue eyes bore into you, trying to read you.

But you’re too fractured to be read. At least not clearly.

“Are you okay?”

‘Am I okay?’ You want to laugh at the thought, to make fun of the words asked.

Were you ever okay?

You miss it all—your family, your friends, your people, your home.

To think, once there was a time you chose to abandon it all in the name of love—where you thought complacency was where you belonged: beside a man you knew never loved you, maybe never even liked you.

Now you can only sneer at the fact, as you reminisce about a place far and forgotten, only finding a place deep within your memory.

Xavier prompts a different question. “Have you been sleeping?”

And for the first time in a while, you finally speak.

“I’ve been dreaming a lot.”

First, about you. About us. About what could have been. About what never was.

“What about?” His voice holds something softer than you ever thought possible from him. Something reserved only for her, never for you.

It almost makes you break. To confess everything. To finally open up your heart and pour all your pain out. To free yourself from self-made shackles and unwanted thoughts. To hear the very softness you crave—to be held, caressed, embraced.

But you don’t. Because even with that unreadable look in his eye—the same eyes you’ve longed for all this time—you know what they hold.

Obligation

“Home,” you say simply.

For the first time in a while, Xavier looks at you—really looks at you. He’s known you all this time, the image of you ingrained in his brain like second nature. He knows you—you’re his oldest friend, most trusted companion. He's seen all sides of you, but the person he’s looking at looks nothing like the you he remembers.

He looks at you and can’t even recognise you. Cruelly, for a moment, he even wonders if it’s really you.

“I don’t see any changes.” Xavier takes a quick glance around; everything remains stagnant, as it always has.

You don’t correct him—not this time. You hum a noise between affirmation and acknowledgement and drift off to a place once forgotten.

Silence consumes the soul once again, with Xavier wondering when he had become so complacent with it all: with your constant presence, voice to fill the spaces he’s left behind, unrelenting energy, and unwavering spirit.

“You’re right. Nothing has changed.”

…

ACT III: DRIFT

Xavier hasn’t visited since.

Not that you didn’t expect it.

You still see him at work, at lunch with MC, and on the rarest occasion, you bump into him in the hallway of your apartment complex—like strangers.

You do your best to find a new rhythm in this life, as your absence becomes more common and your presence goes with the echo of your voice. You’re seen less and less.

Maybe you were never seen at all—not truly.

You find that it’s easier to deal with heartache in the same way Xavier deals with everything: in silence.

Silence, although not foreign, not even new to you, seeks you out and sticks to you like a foreboding message.

You’ve spent years so bright, a will so strong it held on tight enough to kill you. Your loudness brought you here, away from Philos, so as the bits of your spirit whittle away along with your soul, silence is left to fill in the gaps of an empty shell.

You learn to live without Xavier in your life—as though he isn’t the last thing you have of your home, of the love you once felt, the comfort, the security. You learn to live without Xavier and learn to nurse a pain that has become something of a lover.

You had to learn to live because the world kept spinning—even when you’re lost in a place, unfamiliarly familiar, and can do nothing but live on.

But are you even living at this point? Even a dead girl walking has rights to a life—to living.

You’re leaving for another mission. In spite of Jenna’s protests, you’d rather fight to exhaustion—to blend the pain in your chest with the ache of muscles.

Your face reflects your volition. Eyes pulled down by the weight of your burden, face pale like a dying star. Despite trying, your smile doesn't quite reach your eyes, your laughter isn’t as bright, and your voice isn’t as loud.

You wait for Jenna’s reluctant orders. She’ll be damned if she lets you out on another solo mission—because despite your incredible hunting rates, you too are human.

A voice so familiar pulls your attention, and you look up to see Xavier standing before you—ice blonde hair and steel blue eyes in tow.

How long has he been standing there?

“Jenna assigned me as your partner for the mission.” Your face shows no expression—and not for lack of trying.

You laugh inwardly at the thought.

You're too much like him, in a sense. Loving hard enough to abandon your home, to follow blindly with fate—in spite of your own shortcomings. To silently love, quietly devote, and slowly disappear.

You purse your lips and let out a sigh too heavy for someone like you.

Xavier is almost taken by surprise.

“Let's go.” Xavier can hear it in your tone, and see it in your voice. How truly tired you really are—incomparable to his ever-waking sleepiness.

Your exhaustion runs you dry.

Again, silence befalls the two of you—an unwelcome rhythm that has found a place in the cracks of your relationship.

For the first time, Xavier trails behind you. Watching you. Observing you. And if he didn’t see your face or know your frame, he’d think the person walking in front of him was nothing but a stranger.

This time, Xavier walks in your shadow.

…

ACT IV: SILENCE

You think you’re fading.

The remnants of who you once were have been whittled down to the bone. You’re broken—maybe you always have been. Maybe this was who you were always supposed to be.

You’re so tired, not just emotionally but physically too.

The never-ending stream of wanders is starting to take a toll, even on professionals such as you and Xavier.

Your sword is dull, chipped at the edges, and your wounds scatter across your frame, staining your skin in a dirty shade of red.

Even the almighty knight is struggling to keep up with the demand.

So, as you find refuge in a murky cave, to recuperate the best you can, you find that the full-body ache starts to return.

You lean against a well-placed boulder, breath shallow and your grip loose, as your eyes haze over the fire in front of you.

You feel the warmth reach out for you—gently, creeping through the shell of yourself.

It’s quiet, save for the crackle of the flame.

You feel peaceful for once—the hunt muddling your thoughts so much that you can’t even think straight. Or maybe it’s the exhaustion of not sleeping.

Despite it all, you feel a strange sense of tranquillity. One with the throb in your chest that makes it hard to breathe, but is easier to deal with now that everything aches.

It’s peaceful, you think, as you fade into whatever hole you’ve dug all those years ago. Your mind is muddled, and your soul flickers with the last bits of who you were.

Suddenly, you’re pulled back out—again by the very men who left you there, like a nostalgic toy forgotten all these years.

Your eyes pull away from the fire.

You soak in his gaze. It holds none of the same love you see him give out so freely to MC. It’s hard and stern—years of knighthood sewn into his features. He looks at you like he doesn’t know you at all.

Calloused hand gripping your shoulder—it’s firm enough to shift your attention, your body facing him.

You look at him and try to find the line between succour and obligation. Try to find one thing that says you mattered—even just for a second.

You were foolish to believe that you could remain just his friend, companion, comrade. You were stupid, dumb, idiotic.

You were completely blind to it all—to think that his love could have relieved something burning in you. Something insatiable. Something permanent.

“You’re drifting.” Xavier’s voice cuts through your messy thoughts and heavy heart.

You’ve been drifting.

You don’t make an attempt to joke like you used to—not even a weak smile. You sit back and stare at him like you don’t even know him.

“You’ve been doing that more often.” You take a moment to digest what he says—something he’s noticed entirely on his own, not by MC’s worrywart love.

Once upon a time, you would’ve thought it was normal for him to notice these types of things—the dullness of a close second. But now, you’re surprised. Shocked, even. Like he’s seeing you for the first time.

“Where are you going?” he prompts, and his voice holds something so intrinsic to the soul. Something you can’t find here. Something like home.

You’re fading, like the light of his evol—dimmer, as you’re pulled into the gravity of your own mind.

You’d like to tell him—if not as a lover, then a friend:

I’m lost. I’m gone. I’m tired. I’m sad. I’m furious. I’m not myself. Not with what’s left of who I am.

I am not home.

You don’t. Despite something inside you telling you you must. That it’s not worth dying on this hill.

You think: How much deeper of a hole can you dig before you vanish? Before you're gone? Forgotten? Never having existed in the first place.

Until you’re not a person, but a memory.

You don’t tell him anything, because that’s not the kind of relationship you have—not anymore.

In the midst of the silence, your voice finally breaks through.

Quiet. Cracked. Almost gone.

“I’m thinking of going home.” There’s finality in your tone. Weak as your voice may be, Xavier hasn’t heard such certainty from you in months.

His eyes knit in confusion, contort in concern.

Maybe you’re just tired. But there’s something to your expression—an unspeakable hollowness that wasn’t there before. Your eyes haze over with something distant.

A body without a soul.

Like he always does, he remains silent. Never reaching out. He’s seen you get through worse, come back stronger. He’s seen everything. He knows you.

Or maybe... he knew you.

All the years of companionship will amount to something. It has to. He’s known you for so long. You stuck by his side even through death. You truly were the one stable thing in his life. Never needing to chase—always there, beside him. With him.

It was always you and him—even as he fights his way through the forgotten memories of MC, you remain.

Though, something claws at him, as his hand gently travels down your arm. To reach. To ask what you meant. To wonder if you meant the apartment beside his, where it reflected the culture of Philos, somehow capturing the stars in every object you bought.

He wants to ask if home is with him.

But he doesn’t.

Silence is there to greet him again—him only, he thinks, because you seem so used to it now.

Unfamiliar territory.

His eyes travel to his hand on yours, afraid to let go for some reason. As if letting go meant never seeing you again.

Your head is slumped motionless against his shoulder. His eyes peer onto your back—and then he sees it.

The blood stains the rock behind you. Your back is adorned with gashes that soak your uniform.

“Y/N,” he calls out, like it’s the only thing he knows. Because it’s the only thing he can do.

He hears no response. Not even a whisper of a shallow breath.

It’s not quiet. Not even small.

It’s silent.

Then he feels it. The way your eyes droop down to the fire. The limpness of your hand on his. The paleness. The coldness.

The death.

His spare hand reaches out.

He shakes you. “Don’t close your eyes.”

But you don’t abide—swaying with the motion of his force.

You could do anything. Do everything. Move mountains. Slay beasts. You were strong. Firm. Confident. He knew you could get through anything.

“Come on, just open your eyes. Can’t you do that?”

“One breath. That’s all I need.”

“Hold me tight, Y/N.”

Xavier cradles your gaunt body as he pulls your head taut to his shoulder. He rocks you like a sleeping child, holding you tight—tighter than he ever has before.

He’s shaking—and not from the cold.

He doesn’t know what comes over him, but suddenly, the silence breaks.

And he hears everything. Sees everything. Feels everything.

And he cries.

Because that’s all he can do.

…

ACT V: LINGER

Xavier likes to think that he notices your absence.

The way people step over the shells of your name, the routes taken to avoid the common spaces you once occupied in the living. The untouched work desk, memorialised by those who remembered her. The vacancy next door — the home she built away from home — now barren, her things sold, thrown away, or forgotten.

MC, who was so loud with her affection, mourned just as passionately. Her heart sewn onto her sleeve as she cried the loss of a friend. Flowers tended on the desk of a fallen soldier, and distance built from the apartment upstairs.

But really, he doesn’t.

The way you’ve faded so naturally out of his life — never moving, never reaching. The walk to and from home is the same. His apartment is the same. His life remains the same. Like you were never there. Like the image of your smile wasn’t something that pushed him through distant times.

Like you never meant anything to him.

Like the years of friendship, companionship, camaraderie — all amounted to a tombstone with your name etched into it.

And he hates himself for it.

For being so complacent. For never seeing you. Never hearing you. Never reaching out. For always thinking you’d remain the same: the loyal, competent pillar in his life. For thinking that his silence meant nothing to you.

Because it did. It meant everything.

He hates how he’s living life like he always did — like you weren’t ever part of him. Regret, guilt, grief — they all settle in his bones, for a person he can’t even remember.

Along with the memory of you, time passed, as it always does. And as time passed, he slowly forgot.

Your goals and aspirations. Your loves, your hates.

Your dreams.

He can barely remember your face. The last time you laughed. Your smile.

He can barely remember you at all.

Only pulled in by the gravity of his grief, where he finds you at the centre of it all.

To think he was so far from you. The irony now is that he can’t ever leave.

Stuck on a cursed image of a woman who meant so much to him.

Who held the moon up so he could shine with the stars.

He sits on his bed, light voided from the room. The pictures from your apartment piled by his bedside, facing the stars, watching — as you always did.

For the first time, he’s not tired at all.

Is this how you felt? How restless you were?

When he showed up that time, too worried about MC and her anxieties. Too quick to solve her issues that he hadn’t noticed how your eye bags sank deep enough to stain your spirit. How you lay, lost, drifting to a place he couldn’t reach.

Dreaming of home.

And just like his home, his culture, his people — you too join the faint memory of Philos.

His phone buzzes, bright. The screen illuminates the room.

Xavier thinks it’s MC again — she doesn’t know the depth of what you and Xavier shared, but she understood the weight of long-term partnership.

At first, he answered every time — to relieve her worries, to silently say he was fine.

But now, everything feels like a farce.

A lie he tells himself as much as he tells the world.

If the absence, the silence, isn’t acknowledged — maybe it’ll keep things still. To stop time from moving.

Because if time doesn’t move, then the memory of you won’t fade.

And you’ve faded enough.

He picks up the phone and waits.

Then he hears it — the soft laughter he longed for. It’s gentle and hearty, so full of life.

Xavier peels the phone from his ear to peer at the screen.

Then he sees it. The light. The brightness of a smile lost to memory, now alone. It’s displayed in front of him — teeth bared, lips stretched wide with a feeling he hasn’t seen in years.

It’s you.

Laughing so freely. Smiling so widely.

You’re alive.

Xavier scrambles upright, leaning forward to see the screen more clearly.

It’s you — in clothes he’s never seen you wear, in a room he’s never seen before, with a face he barely remembers.

But he knows it’s you. 

How could he ever forget? Not truly.

So desperately, he calls out. Announcing himself, finally reaching out.

Your eyes perk in surprise as you lean in.

“Holy shit, did he just say my name? That’s crazy!” you giggle, and Xavier is too overcome with emotion to even question the absurdity of your words.

“No wonder people were glazing this game on Twitter!” you laugh before the call cuts.

Xavier’s too stunned to react. He taps rapidly through his phone to check the caller history.

Unknown.

He scrambles to call again.

Anticipation sweating off of him.

He holds his phone tightly and then— You pick up.

Your face: confused.

“Damn, I didn’t even level his affinity up yet and he’s calling already,” you mutter, peering at the screen.

Xavier looks dishevelled, almost destroyed. His hair is a messy heap, and dark circles shadow his eyes. The usual soft glow of his skin— dulled, lifeless.

He’s worn thin. A dead man walking.

“Hey,” Xavier says softly, almost inaudibly.

He watches your face shift — confusion to elation.

“Oh my god, you can even talk! Let me try again.”

And then you speak — not offhand commentary, but to him.

“Hi,” you greet, brightly enough to light up the room.

Xavier is at a loss, and doesn’t reply. But unlike before, you speak again.

“This is so cool. So like, does this count as my daily interaction?” you ask aloud, maybe to yourself, maybe to him— he can’t tell.

“Right, probably not in his programming to answer questions like that,” you mumble, before turning your full attention back to him.

“I’ll see you soon, alright? I hope this mechanic isn’t a glitch.” You grin softly.

And nothing in Xavier’s entire career could’ve prepared him for this.

But he’s not letting this opportunity go. Not when he has another chance to hear you, to see you — and even if he can’t touch you, he’ll never let go.

He’s not letting you slip.

Not now. Not ever. Not again.

“All right... I’ll see you soon,” Xavier replies simply.

Watching your face glow is enough for him.

The way your lips stretch, teeth bare — a face full of life.

Here, he decides: he’ll wait as long as you need.

As long as you want.

He’ll wait until the phone screen glows once again. He’ll wait to see you again.

Close enough to hear you. To see you. But never touch you.

…

ACT VI: ECHO

“Hi Xavier”

The unfair proximity of a dream

[littlegochu]

2am text │ jjk 18+

"You still up?"

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader (f)

genre: exes to lovers, cold male lead, cold female lead

rating: 18+, smut

synopsis: we broke up eight months ago. mutual, no dramatic fights—just distance and timing. but we made one rule before ending things: no texting each other after 2AM.

tonight, he breaks it.

Jungkook [1:59 AM]: you still up?

Y/N [2:01 AM]: if this is a drunk text, i charge hourly.

Jungkook [2:01 AM]: not drunk. just... restless.

Y/N [2:02 AM]: restless enough to break the 2AM rule?

Jungkook [2:02 AM]: technically, it's 1:59

Y/N [2:03 AM]: what do you want jungkook

Jungkook [2:03 AM]: drove past your place, felt weird not turning in

can i call?

Y/N [2:04 AM]: what are you planning?

Jungkook [2:04 AM]: nothing, answer

incoming call.. declined

Jungkook [2:06 AM]: ok y/n

Y/N [2:06 AM]: pull in, ill be down in 5

the elevator doors slide open with that same soft ding at 3am when jungkook would come home late, when we lived in each other’s lives like a habit.

i expect to find him outside, leaning against his car in the lot. hoodie up. arms crossed. rehearsing whatever half-truth he came here to sell.

but he’s in the lobby.

posted near the wall like he never left. hood still up. hands in his pockets. still and silent like this isn’t weird for either of us.

my steps falter, but i don’t let it show. not really.

“you let yourself in?” i ask, keeping my voice flat.

his eyes flick up to me, then away. “door still sticks.”

“it doesn’t.”

he doesn’t respond.

i take a few more steps closer. i didn’t expect this part—to see him in the light. to see him this close again.

he looks the same. just... bigger. his shoulders fill out that hoodie now. jaw’s more defined. he stands like someone who knows exactly how he takes up space. like he grew into the weight he always said he was carrying.

he doesn’t belong in this building anymore. not like this. not like him.

“you weren’t waiting outside?” i ask, just to say something.

“was tired of the cold.”

“you’re wearing a hoodie.”

he looks at me properly then. no emotion. just quiet observation.

“and you came down in socks.”

“come on,” i mutter, walking past him toward the elevator. “not doing this in the lobby.”

he doesn’t follow immediately, but he doesn’t argue either. just moves when the doors open.

the ride up is silent. stale air. old music humming from a busted speaker. i cross my arms and stare straight ahead. i don’t know what he’s thinking, but i know better than to ask.

when the doors open, i walk ahead. unlock the door. leave it open behind me.

he steps in like he still remembers the layout. like muscle memory.

i flick on the lamp and fold my arms again, just to give them something to do.

“you want water or something?” i ask.

“no.”

we stand in the low light. same apartment. same couch. same two people trying to pretend this is normal.

“just to be clear,” i start, voice steady, “this isn’t some 2am thing. right?”

his brows twitch, barely. “what thing,”

“you know.”

he stares. then— “you know i’m not like that.”

his tone is flat. not defensive. just stating facts.

i nod. “i know. i just… wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“you think i came here to sleep with you?”

“i think it’s two in the morning and you’re standing in the apartment we used to live in.”

he doesn’t blink.

“then why’d you let me in?”

i meet his eyes. “i firgued you were drunk, i wasn’t letting you drive off and wrap your car around a streetlight.”

his voice is lower this time. “i’m not drunk.”

i narrow my eyes. “swear?”

“smell my breath if you want.”

i don’t move. but the heat in my chest flares.

he leans against the counter, arms crossed. “i didn’t come here for that,” he says again.

“okay,” i say. “good.”

but now i’m wondering what he did come for.

and i don’t know if i’m ready to hear it.

part 2 here: https://www.tumblr.com/littlegochu/783478807400202240/2am-text-23-jjk-18?source=share

[moonlitrogue]

Full Moon x Pick A Card : What you need to hear 📝🌛

Some channeled messages that this full moon’s energy brings to the collective. All specific and general details are meant for a certain part of the collective. Take what resonates, leave what doesn’t and if you are drawn to more than one pile feel free to read them! Let me know if it resonates. 👒

pile 1

angel number : 555 | song : blooming today by sung ki kyung

hello, pile 1! i see you have had an exhausting cycle. some of you have been identifying with external conflicts and the sludge of other people’s projections with your own vibe. this group is either young, or sheltered. or you may have limited interactions with the world. holding and understanding pain, is not your purpose right now. if you have been tangled with other people’s shadows or confronting their unhealed behaviour, remember to take due care of yourself. i hear, “drop the anchor”.

you need a little more muscle and structure in you, to not be blown away by things you dislike or bring disturbance. we can’t avoid being agitated or moved by the currents of life, but you also need to find stillness so that, you are able to receive the wisdom that comes out of situations which are ‘threatening’. how will you find this stillness? 

deep, regulated, conscious breathing. the one thing you have been doing, since you came into this world, it is the one thing connecting us within. and regulating our functions from the chaos. 

some of you have artistic abilities and talent. you are called to explore any creative medium during this cycle. this stage of your life calls for introspection and exploration of your creative side. creating a sanctuary, a paradise for yourself is closer to your life’s purpose.

“curation”, im hearing that word a lot. curation of knowledge and resources. in this cycle, you will be provided with opportunities to expand and learn. you’re called to deepen your understanding of yourself. you need a ‘base’ to work on and have a footing in this world. don’t be afraid to be a beginner, a learner. the roots need to go deep to ensure your growth and survival, and to keep the flower above the ground blooming.

masterlist

pile 2

angel number : 1111 | song - antenna by hyukoh, 落日飛車, sunset rollercoaster

you feel restless pile 2. im channeling the placements for sun in taurus, moon in pisces, saturn in cancer/virgo and north node/8h scorpio. if it doesn’t resonate with your placements, that’s alright, it is only a general vibe i got. i was told, “your quest, your mission is on its way.” 

some of you are recovering from ill health. im hearing you need more of omega-3, so include some tuna, mackerel, flaxseeds, chia, walnuts and edamame beans in your diet, whatever your preferences may be. 

i feel a lot is going at the mind and body level - maybe, anxiety, you’re in need of fresh air and good ventilation, maybe even a clean-up of your surroundings. there could be a change of scenery, traveling, it could even be a short-term movement. 

why am i channeling so many things for you?

you could be at a crossroads. preparing to enter a transformational phase. for this reason, you are looking for answers and the universe wants to tell you : the answer is now, the answer is you.

you have worked on something for a long time. and you are getting close to its fruition. you may not have noticed how much you have grown during this journey. what a wonderful job! the universe is so proud of you! 

you have come a long way and with all the challenges you have overcome, you have also acquired all those skills. it feels like you have absorbed the know-how and have it in your inventory. 

keep being in the flow, soften your mind, keep reminding yourself that you have got this. your dream is closer than you know. this is a moment to rest and refine, that is all. 

masterlist

pile 3

angel number : 1221 | song : pined for you my whole life by matt maltese

there is wonderful news on the horizon for you pile 3. you guys have such a charming and dreamy energy. such romanticists. why do i feel some of you are being pursued or courted? there is a cloud of pining around you!

now the message coming through for you is that you gotta not be so slippery lol. why are you putting so much energy into daydreaming and pining when you have people for you, willing to lay themselves at your feet? you have the opportunity to live out your fantasies, so what are you waiting for?

ah, the comfort of your imagination is hard to leave? i get it, pile 3. believe it or not, you coy mfs make it hard for some people to live and breathe. it is not just the case of desire but the gift of being able to connect with you, genuinely.

and because you are so blessed with intelligence, you know who is good for you. you know who complements your energy, and this person is itching to spoil you. 

give yourself the permission to be seen. vulnerability is challenging and you are allowed to take baby steps. and you don’t even need to initiate, it seems. i hear “don’t complicate it, keep it simple, simple is so attractive”.

on a more general note, i hear how “blessed” you are and how “lucky”. you are mostly grateful and don’t take things for granted. so, it creates these ripples where things come to you “with ease”. maybe your own personal efforts could be dismissed, or the hurdles be discounted from your achievements. 

you may have to deal with expectations or people diminishing your success. that invalidation is really uncalled for. don’t use that excuse to undervalue what you do, okay? 

validation is only an added bonus, people are not always qualified or observant or compassionate. 

a lot of this pile’s wounds seem to be related to wanting to be recognized. we were never meant to be alone, afterall. you will always be the first witness to your journey.

i recommend journaling. there are a lot of ways to go about documenting your life and you can look for less effort-intensive ways. “one line” journals are also helpful. you can even record your own voice narrating a week or a month in your life. 

there is no need to be ashamed of your achievements, pile 3.  people will learn to recognize it in due time but in the meanwhile, keep going and celebrate with the ones who DO recognize and cherish you. 

masterlist

pile 4

angel number : 1010 | song - the flood by aurora

have you parted ways with someone who meant a lot to you? im sorry my dear, pile 4. i know how much they meant to you, and vice versa. you each carry so much of the other’s love and quirks. yeah, you guys seem inseparable. in fact, this break may be necessary for you to look at the world and take a breather from the expectations and influences of each other. to some of you, this break can even bring peace or a different perspective. i’m getting that this is a professional break. maybe one or both of you could be exploring opportunities, pursuing a career or work that has placed a lot of demands in a way that has led to this separation. 

im a little confused with the contrast because, i sense this loyalty and connection, but also sadness. for one group, it is possible you will both do your own thing for a while. this connection is one of a kind and i do see reunion of sorts on the cards. you both have so far had the front seat privilege of cheering each other, witnessing the highs and the lows. this period will be a reset. if you are seeking reassurance, i hear better days are coming. 

for another group, you will sort of realise this person was idolised and now you will be able to drop that idea. if they have triggered you, this will be an opportunity to reflect on it. the other person is also going through an important lesson, and i hear the word ‘illusion’. it is possible if you guys ever do make the decision of reuniting, you will drop any illusion, or be more honest and clear with your communication. 

this theme also extends to the rest of your own identity. you are thirsting to know what is ‘real’, and what is ‘true’. you want to slither between the gaps and know things on an intimate level. you want to savour this world in its raw form. how delightful. this could be the start of something new. a new pathway forming in your brain, the way you see and connect with the outer world. 

are your interactions merely reactive, or are they coming from a place of curiosity, wanting to understand better. are you in a glass wall, only seeing the other person from within a closed space, or can you see the light dancing in their eyes and the weight they place behind certain words? these are the questions, the energy of this full moon prompts you.

masterlist

dividers by @strangergraphics

[wbbfannnnnn13]

Motion Sick // Chapter 5

Theme: homoerotic friendship hot mess

A/N: Just trying to move plot forward before getting into some real messiness and eventually a resolve! Probably won't have another chapter out until next week for this series because I need to finish up my other series, but we'll see. Please comment, react, whatever! I love to see it!

WC: 5K+

Warnings: angst, maybe some cussing?

**** Chapter 5 ****

The thing about first dates is that they never feel like the movies. There’s no soundtrack, no golden-hour lighting, no perfect banter where both people say exactly the right thing. There’s just nerves. 

A lot of them.

Especially when you’ve been hanging out for weeks already—study sessions, walking each other back to dorms, late-night Snap streaks, casual movie nights that weren’t officially anything but definitely felt like something.

So yeah. This wasn’t the first time Paige and Kathryn had hung out. But it was the first time it was called a date. Which somehow made it feel entirely different.

She stared at her closet for way too long before finally settling on a cropped long-sleeve top and black cargo pants. Comfortable, but bold. Just enough skin to hint at her abs—not that she cared if Kathryn noticed. (She did.)

Her hair was half up, half down, loose curls falling over her shoulders. She spritzed some cologne. Debated lip gloss. Changed her earrings twice.

Kathryn was waiting by the front entrance of her dorm, her usual athletic casual look upgraded just slightly—black jeans, crop top, an oversized denim jacket, a necklace Paige hadn’t seen before. Her hair was pulled into a loose braid, and she was fidgeting with her keys like she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands.

“You look good,” Kathryn said, smiling in that sideways kind of way that always got to Paige.

“You too,” Paige said, a little too quickly. “So… mini golf?”

Kathryn grinned. “Figured we should settle once and for all who the real athlete is.”

They walked over together, shoulders brushing, the teasing already in full swing about who’d win.

The place was half empty, glowing under string lights and faded neon signs. The vibe was more arcade nostalgia than romantic, which helped. Paige could breathe.

They picked out clubs and chose their golf balls—Paige called dibs on the purple one without hesitation—and made their way to hole one, where the goal was to bank a shot off a sun-faded plastic flamingo.

Kathryn was bad. Like, hilariously bad. Like, can’t-even-pretend-to-be-supportive bad. Paige didn’t even try to hide her laughter when Kathryn whiffed her second shot and sent the ball into a fake pond.

“Oh my God,” Paige gasped, wiping tears. “Are you trying to lose?”

“I’m establishing expectations,” Kathryn said, deadpan. “So when I come back and win, it’s more impressive.”

“Babe, you’re down by four already.”

Kathryn raised an eyebrow. “Did you just call me babe?”

Paige’s face went warm. “Shut up. Hit your ball.”

They bantered their way through all eighteen holes, pausing only to talk trash or duck around a group of loud undergrads. Somewhere around hole ten, Kathryn figured out a ridiculous strategy that involved ricocheting every shot off Paige’s ball.

“It’s a legit tactic,” she said, lining up another bank shot with zero shame.

“It’s cheating,” Paige shot back, grinning. “And you’re annoying.”

“Still catching up, though,” Kathryn said sweetly, right before sinking the putt.

They split a Coke and a bag of M&M’s at the end, sitting on a metal bench near the arcade. The air had cooled, Kathryn’s braid was coming loose, and Paige felt lighter than she had in a long time.

It was easy. Too easy.

The kind of night that didn’t ask anything of her. Didn’t push. Didn’t pull. Just let her be. And God, had she missed that.

After, they walked back to campus slowly—like neither of them was in a hurry to go back to reality. The air was crisp. Kathryn shoved her hands in her pockets and occasionally bumped her shoulder into Paige’s like she didn’t know what to do with her own affection.

Outside Kathryn’s dorm, they paused.

“This was fun,” Paige said, a little too quickly.

Kathryn nodded. “Yeah. It was.” Then a beat. “I was kinda nervous, honestly.”

“Why?” Paige asked.

“You’re just… not like other girls I’ve hung out with.” She looked down for a second, then back up. “You make me nervous in a good way. Like I wanna keep doing things that make you smile.”

Paige swallowed, pulse stuttering.

She didn’t mean to close the distance. Not really. But then Kathryn tilted her head, and Paige’s breath caught, and suddenly they were closer than before—shoes toe-to-toe.

“I had a really good time,” Kathryn said, voice low.

Paige smiled. “Me too.” And then she leaned in. Just a little. And Kathryn met her halfway.

The kiss was… sweet. Soft. Innocent. Like a sigh. Like a yes.

It didn’t take her breath away. But it settled something.

Her hand found the edge of Kathryn’s jacket, anchoring herself for just a second longer. Then she pulled back, blinking.

Kathryn’s cheeks were pink. She smiled. “Been wanting to do that since you beat me at FIFA.”

“You mean when I destroyed you at FIFA,” Paige said, breathless.

“Rematch soon. You’ll lose.”

“We’ll see.”

They lingered for a second longer. Not touching now, just standing in that quiet post-kiss pause, both a little dazed.

“Night, Paige,” Kathryn said, opening the door.

“Night.”

Paige turned and started walking back, fingers brushing her lips, trying—and failing—to hide the grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. She crossed her arms, like maybe that would help steady her heartbeat. It didn’t.

It didn’t feel dramatic. It didn’t feel like a movie. It felt… good. Simple. Easy. Maybe even right.

For the first time in a while, she didn’t feel like she was chasing something. She just felt found.

****

Morrone Stadium looked sharp under the late afternoon light. Clean turf. Crisp white lines. The kind of fall breeze that made you zip your hoodie up halfway and still squint against the sun.

Paige hadn’t planned on going alone—not because she wouldn’t have, but because when Aubrey and Ice overheard her mention Kathryn’s game, they immediately invited themselves. “You’re not about to soft launch your soccer crush without us,” Aubrey had said. “It’s not a launch,” Paige muttered, pulling her hood up.

But still—she didn’t say no.

The three of them sat low in the bleachers, close to the midfield line. A few basketball players trickled in over the first half, but none of them sat close. Paige liked that. It kept things… quiet.

Kathryn wore all white—jersey tucked, socks pulled high, her usual headband in place. She had a navy practice penny over the top for warmups, but by kickoff, it was off and folded on the bench. She looked calm, focused, confident. Like the game ran at her pace.

“She’s got field presence,” Ice commented, chewing on her straw. “She’s hot,” Aubrey added, unapologetically.

Paige tried not to smile. Tried not to stare too long as Kathryn jogged over to the corner flag midway through the first half.

“Corner kick,” Aubrey said, nudging her. “This your girl’s moment.”

Kathryn didn’t even glance toward the bleachers—just set the ball down with surgical precision, took three quick steps, and sent a perfect left-footed cross into the box. One of her teammates met it clean, heading it into the back of the net like it had been drawn up in a textbook.

The crowd roared. Kathryn jogged back into formation, high-fived the striker, and kept moving like she’d done it a hundred times.

“She’s smooth,” Ice said, tipping her coffee like a toast.

“Well, she is captain,” Paige replied before she could stop herself.

Aubrey raised an eyebrow, grinning. “Ohhh, okay. So now you’re bragging.”

Paige just shook her head, but her smile gave her away.

After the win, she stayed in the stands while Kathryn cooled down with the team. No waving. No big moment. Just a glance across the field and a barely-there nod—acknowledgment. Like something only the two of them would catch.

Later that night, Paige got the tag. Kathryn had posted a game-day carousel—action shots of her teammates, a scoreboard close-up, and a blurry bench photo with the caption: “w’s only.”

But the tag wasn’t in the post.

It was on her story. Just one clip: a slow pan of the bleachers, Paige tucked in the corner, hood up, grinning like she didn’t know she was being filmed.

The caption read: “love the support 🤍”

She tagged @uconnwbb, @aubreygriffin, @icebrady… and @paigebueckers. Like it was casual. Like it was nothing.

And yet Paige stared at it way too long before locking her phone.

She barely had time to process it before her phone buzzed again. The Huzzskies🏀team chat was already on fire.

Aubrey: okay soft launch 😏

Caroline: please tell me you’re sending this to your mom so she stops asking if you’re still single lol

Amari: not Paige out here looking like a proud boyfriend 😭

Jana: well damn

Aubrey: lowkey proud of you. highkey stalking her tagged pics rn 👀

She just watched the messages roll in, the screen lighting up again and again like it was laughing with her.

She didn’t respond. Didn’t add a single emoji. But her thumb hovered over the keyboard for a second, then dropped.

She smiled. Just barely. Then locked her phone.

And that should’ve been the end of it. Cute date. Supportive friends. A win all around.

But instead of feeling lighter, she felt… something else. Like a corner of her chest had come unstuck. Like her body remembered something she hadn’t given it permission to.

It didn’t hit all at once. Just a quiet nudge. The kind that starts as a whisper and gets louder the longer you try to ignore it.

Because it wasn’t just a story post. It wasn’t just a kiss, or a caption, or how easy Kathryn made things feel.

It was what came before. The dance. The almost. The way Azzi had looked at her like she was still something worth choosing. And the way Paige had walked away—like that solved anything.

She thought she’d feel proud of herself. She didn’t.

What she felt was unfinished. And tired of pretending otherwise.

She reached for her phone again. No hesitation this time. Scrolled until Azzi’s name came into view.

She hadn’t texted her in weeks. Not directly. Not since before the birthday. Before the dance floor. Before everything that still lived in the space between them, untouched and unnamed.

Her fingers hovered. Then typed.

hey do you have time to talk this week? just wanna clear the air after my birthday.

She read it back once. Didn’t overthink it.

Just hit send.

For a moment, nothing. Then—

Azzi: yeah. just let me know when.

That was it. No emoji. No questions. But it was enough.

Paige let the phone fall beside her, the light from the screen fading slowly as it dimmed out. She pulled her blanket tighter, curled against the far side of her bed, and stared at the ceiling like the right words might be written up there if she just looked long enough.

This was the right thing. To be honest. To stop letting silence answer for her.

And maybe it wouldn’t fix everything. Maybe it would just be a moment. But at least it wouldn’t be another ghost.

Still, later that night—long after her shower, long after Kathryn’s “thanks for coming :)” text that Paige reread twice—she opened her drawer, looking for headphones.

And for a half-second, she thought she saw something. A flash of white. A blue ribbon.

But then it was gone. Buried again beneath socks and receipts and whatever else she’d shoved in there.

She closed the drawer. Didn’t think twice. Didn’t notice what she’d missed.

****

They met in the film room after weights. Neutral ground. No distractions. Just the echo of earlier conversations bouncing faintly in her head and the quiet hum of a space that used to mean nothing but basketball.

Azzi was already there, perched on the edge of one of the recliners in the front row, her high bun loose in that casually chaotic way it always was. She sat hunched forward, elbows resting on her thighs, like she hadn’t fully decided if she was staying or just passing through. She looked up when Paige walked in, her expression carefully unreadable.

“Hey,” Paige said, her voice low.

Azzi nodded. “Hey.”

The silence stretched for a few seconds. Not tense. Just… uncertain. They hadn’t been alone together in a long time.

Paige leaned against the table at the front of the room, directly across from Azzi, close enough to talk, but not too close. Measured. Intentional.

“Thanks for coming,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I just figured it was time to clear the air. Before the season really starts. Before things get too complicated.”

Azzi nodded again, slower this time. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

Paige glanced down at her hands. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my birthday. About the dance. I know it was kind of a moment. It felt like that. I’m not gonna pretend it didn’t.” She paused, then added, “But I think it was more about… history. And the drinks. And just falling into old rhythms.”

Azzi’s eyes flickered, but she didn’t interrupt.

“We’ve been more than just friends for a while now,” Paige said, her voice soft. “Even if we never said it out loud… it was always there.”

Azzi gave a tiny smile at that. “Yeah. I know.”

“And I don’t regret it,” Paige continued quickly. “Any of it. I wouldn’t take it back. But I think it’s time to move on. For real this time.”

Her voice wavered for a second, but she steadied it. “Things with Kathryn feel… good. And I don’t want to mess that up by leaving anything with us unresolved.”

Azzi dropped her gaze to her shoes, her fingers knotting together in her lap. Across from her, Paige fixed her eyes on a spot on the wall like it might give her something to hold onto.

“I guess what I’m trying to say,” Paige went on, “is that I want us to be okay again. For real. Not stuck in that weird space where we don’t talk or try to pretend we’re fine when we’re not.”

She looked over then, eyes finding Azzi’s like she was checking to see if it was still safe.

“I just…” Paige let out a slow breath. “I want to go back. Before it got messy… When you were just… my person.”

The words came out soft, like they’d been sitting in her chest for a while.

She paused, then added— “Can we do that?”

Azzi didn’t say anything right away. She didn’t have to. The silence between them felt familiar now. Not quite heavy, but full.

So Paige kept going, her voice a little lower now, like maybe if she said it gently enough, it wouldn’t hurt as much.

“I know last time we tried to be friends… I was the one who pushed it too far. I crossed the line.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, eyes flicking down. “And I don’t think it was confusion. I think I just wanted you close, and I didn’t know how to ask for it without making it messy.”

She looked up again, her expression soft but sure. “I’m not trying to do that anymore. I’m not trying to stir things up or go back to something that doesn’t work. I just… I miss when it was simple. I miss when you were the first person I told everything to. And I guess I’m hoping we can find our way back to that.”

A pause.

“That version of us. The one that wasn’t so complicated.”

Azzi didn’t answer right away. She let the question hang there between them, suspended in the hum of the overhead light and the weight of everything they never quite said.

Eventually, she nodded. Once. 

“Yeah. We can.”

Paige exhaled. “I really want that. Especially with the season starting. I want to be good teammates. I want to be in your corner. Always.”

Azzi looked at her, and there was something behind her eyes—something that wasn’t quite sadness, but lived in the same zip code.

“Me too,” she said quietly. “I never wasn’t.”

They didn’t hug. Didn’t linger.

Paige offered a soft smile, stood, and gave her one last look. “Thanks again. I know this wasn’t easy.”

Azzi nodded. “It’s okay.”

And Paige believed her. Mostly.

She turned and left, the door clicking softly behind her.

Azzi

Paige never mentioned the gift. Not once.

Not the white box. Not the ribbon that had frayed from being carried in Azzi’s pocket all night. Not the gift inside. 

And that silence told her everything.

She’d opened it. Of course she had.

Azzi hadn’t left it somewhere subtle. This wasn’t a mystery box behind a stack of laundry or under a pile of books.

She’d put it dead center on Paige’s desk. Right next to a half-eaten granola bar and her tangled phone charger.

So yeah. Azzi knew. She’d found it. She’d seen it. And she hadn’t said a word.

Which meant she had nothing to say.

She didn’t spiral.

Didn’t cry.

Didn’t do anything dramatic like throw her phone across the room or listen to Phoebe Bridgers on loop until Caroline threatened to unplug the speaker. 

Which, honestly, was worse.

Because that ache? The one she’d been trying to ignore since the dance floor? It didn’t go away. It just settled in. Got comfortable. Became background noise.

And yeah, at first it stung. But eventually it dulled into something manageable. Like a muscle that used to be torn and now just aches when it rains.

She still thought about it sometimes—what Paige might’ve felt when she opened the box. Maybe she’d rolled her eyes. Maybe she didn’t even try it on.

Maybe she tossed it in a drawer like it was nothing. (Okay, that one hurt a little more than she wanted to admit.)

But eventually, Azzi got used to it. Used to the silence. Used to being the one who still cared but didn’t say anything about it.

Then came the team group chat.

Screenshots. Teasing texts. A picture of Paige standing in the bleachers at Kathryn’s soccer game, hood up, hair tied back, looking happier than she had in weeks. Azzi watched the reactions roll in like a slow, dumb parade.

Lou dropped five heart eyes. Nika posted a GIF. Aaliyah suggested wedding colors.

And Azzi—she read every message, watched the little reactions stack up in real time.

At first, it hit like another quiet twist in her gut. She told herself it didn’t matter.

That it wasn’t that deep.

But if Azzi was being honest—really honest—it felt like the final answer to a question she hadn’t wanted to ask.

And the answer was no.

No, Paige wasn’t holding onto anything. No, she wasn’t second-guessing that dance. No, she didn’t open her gift and feel her breath catch in her chest.

So when Paige texted her—hey, can we talk?—Azzi already knew what it was going to be. Not a confession. Not a door reopening.

Just… closure.

And when they met in the film room, Paige sitting across from her with soft eyes and a measured voice, saying she wanted to go back to before things got blurry— Azzi nodded.

Because what else was she supposed to do? Fall to the floor and scream, Please, give me another chance. 

No thanks. She still had to show up to practice the next day.

Besides, there was something almost comforting about knowing where they stood. Finally.

They were friends. Teammates. Not unfinished business.

And the truth was, she was grateful for that. Because losing Paige completely? That would’ve left a hollow space she didn’t know how to fill.

So she held on to what she could. Even if it wasn’t the version she used to hope for. Even if it meant learning how to sit beside Paige again without reaching for something that wasn’t hers anymore.

And maybe that would take time. Maybe she’d still flinch sometimes—at old songs, at inside jokes, at the way Paige laughed when she wasn’t trying.

But eventually, she believed she’d get there. To the version of herself that could look at Paige and feel calm instead of cracked open.

The part of her that still wanted more? It would quiet. Not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon.

And when it did—when that ache finally softened—she’d still be here. Still Azzi. Still steady. And maybe, just maybe, still close enough to be in Paige’s life in a way that didn’t hurt.

In a way that felt like peace.

****

They rounded the corner, the Dairy Bar’s warm yellow lights glowing against the foggy windows. There was already a line — always was — students in sweats and messy buns, someone in pajama pants and slides, a couple with their arms around each other.

Azzi pulled her hood up. She didn’t know why. She kicked a rock down the street as they walked, hands shoved deep in her hoodie pocket. 

Aubrey walked next to her, sipping from a Sprite and swinging a lanyard around one finger like she had nowhere in the world to be except right there.

“This better be good,” Aubrey said. “You pulled me out of my Netflix zone.”

Azzi rolled her eyes.  “You act like you didn’t break into a jog when I said waffle cones.”

Aubrey gave her a look but didn’t argue.

They got in line between a group of freshman girls in matching sorority hoodies and a dad and his kid debating over rainbow sprinkles.

Azzi stared up at the chalkboard menu—overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and mostly just stalling—while a case full of too many flavors sat beneath a lineup of UConn-themed puns like Bleed Blueberry Bliss and Husky Tracks, none of which she actually felt like reading.

“Can I say something?” Azzi asked, staring at the freezer but not really seeing it.

Aubrey gave her a curious look. “Alright. Floor’s yours.”

“I think I might like girls.”

Aubrey didn’t flinch. Didn’t even pause. She just took another sip of Sprite and said, “Yeah. No duh.”

Azzi blinked. “Okay, why does everyone keep saying that?”

Aubrey shrugged. “Because… Azzi. We’ve all seen the way you look at Paige. It’s like you’re seeing everything you want and everything you’re scared of, in the same breath.”

Azzi groaned. “God, that’s so dramatic.”

“You’re dramatic.”

“Okay, yeah,” she admitted, laughing under her breath. “But still. It was only her. It’s not like I’ve been walking around campus making a list.”

“So?” Aubrey said, raising an eyebrow. “It doesn’t have to be everyone. Sometimes it’s just one person that makes you go, oh.”

They shuffled forward in line. The smell of waffle cones drifted toward them, warm and ridiculous and somehow perfect.

“I guess I thought it didn’t count unless it was more than once,” Azzi muttered.

“Who made that rule?”

Azzi didn’t answer. Because… yeah. She had no idea.

They finally stepped up to the counter. Azzi asked for pistachio in a waffle cone, mostly out of spite because no one ever picked pistachio and she kind of liked being contrary. Aubrey got cookies and cream because she was predictable and proud of it.

They paid, grabbed their cones, and headed outside to a bench near the side of the shop. The wood was cold beneath them, but neither of them said anything.

Azzi took a bite. “This was a terrible choice.”

Aubrey grinned. “Tastes like regret?”

“Yeah. But like… fancy regret.”

They sat for a minute, letting the sounds of the night fill in the space. Footsteps. Laughter. The low bass of someone’s speaker rattling in a dorm window.

Then Azzi spoke again, slower this time. “I think what hurts the most isn’t that she’s happy.” She licked a drip of ice cream off her wrist. “It’s that I’m not part of the version of her that is.”

Aubrey didn’t say anything for a second. Then— “You were, though.”

“Yeah,” Azzi said. “And I loved that version. I just didn’t know what to do with it until it was already gone.”

She looked out toward the parking lot, watching headlights pass through puddles from the earlier rain.

“She found someone who makes her laugh. Someone who doesn’t hesitate. And I keep thinking—good. Like, I really do want her to be okay. Even if it’s not with me.”

Aubrey leaned back on the bench, her cone resting against the wrapper. “That’s what makes it real, you know.”

Azzi turned. “What?”

“That you want her to be happy even if it doesn’t lead back to you.” A pause. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”

Azzi exhaled, quiet but not heavy. “It does.”

“Then let it suck. For now,” Aubrey said. “But maybe you also start paying attention to how you feel around other people. Like… just see who makes you want to smile. Or stay a little longer. Or flirt back.”

Azzi gave her a flat look. “I have a boyfriend, remember?”

Aubrey didn’t blink. “Sure, you’ve got a boyfriend. And I’ve got a plant I forgot to water for three weeks. Doesn’t mean it’s thriving.”

Azzi snorted. “That’s dark.”

“I’m just saying,” Aubrey continued, twirling her cone like she was making a point. “There’s a difference between staying with someone and actually wanting to be with them. One of those is comfort. The other’s real.”

Azzi let the words settle as she took another slow bite of her ice cream.

“Anyway,” Aubrey added with a shrug, “if you ever decide to explore what real might look like—with someone new—I’m officially offering my services as an unpaid, highly unqualified wingwoman.”

Azzi laughed—really laughed, for the first time in what felt like forever. “I hate you.”

“You love me,” Aubrey said, bumping her shoulder. 

They let the quiet fall again. The kind of quiet that didn’t press. That felt like permission to feel things at your own pace.

And maybe that was enough for tonight. Not closure. Not clarity.

But a starting point.

****

She hadn’t planned on doing it that night. But when she got back to her dorm and saw Derrick’s name light up her phone — missed call (2), text: “U alive??” — something inside her clicked.

Not like a spark. More like a switch.

She’d known this was coming. For weeks, maybe longer. And now there was no reason to pretend she didn’t.

hey. can we talk for a sec?

They met outside the student center, the campus mostly quiet, lit by streetlamps and the flicker of vending machines buzzing against the wall. Derrick stood with one foot propped on the bike rack, a basketball tucked under his arm like always. Like nothing was off.

When he saw her, he smiled—out of habit, not happiness—and reached out for a one-armed hug.

She didn’t hug back.

“What’s up?” he asked, still easy, still assuming this wasn’t what it was.

Azzi stuffed her hands into the pocket of her hoodie. The same hoodie she’d worn to his games, to late-night film sessions, to fall asleep in when she didn’t know how to say what she was feeling.

“I think we should break up.”

It came out quiet. Still. But it didn’t waver.

Derrick’s brow pulled tight. “Wait… what?”

“I’ve been feeling it for a while. But I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. I just… I don’t think this is right anymore.”

He blinked like he didn’t fully understand the language she was speaking. “Is this about her?”

Azzi hesitated. “Who?”

“Paige,” he said flatly. “Come on. Don’t act like I don’t see it.”

She tried not to react, but her throat caught on something.

“She walks into a room and you go stiff like someone just pressed pause on your whole nervous system.” He took a step closer, the ball dropping to the pavement beside him with a soft thud.

Azzi looked away. She could lie. She thought about it—just for a second. About saying It’s not like that. Or You’re overreacting. About falling back on the safety net of vague deflection.

But she was tired. Tired of performing what she thought other people needed from her. Tired of keeping her feelings sorted into folders labeled "safe" and "later." Tired of lying.

Especially to herself.

So she took a breath and met his eyes. “It’s not about Paige. It’s about me.”

He laughed again. This time it had edges. “I heard the rumors last year, you know. About you and her. Stuff people said. I figured it was just drama. People trying to stir things up. I didn’t want to believe it.”

She looked up. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Wasn’t it?”

A beat passed. Long enough to feel it settle between them.

“I didn’t cheat on you,” Azzi said. Her voice stayed even, but there was steel in it now. “I didn’t lie. I just… I didn’t know how to explain something I was still figuring out.”

He folded his arms. “So what now? You’re into girls?”

“I might be.”

“And what, I’m just the warm-up act?”

“No,” she said. “You’re someone I really cared about. And someone I don’t want to keep lying to—especially now that I’m not lying to myself anymore.”

He stepped back, mouth tight, jaw flexing. “Whatever. You wanna go figure it out, go ahead. Pick a team and stick to it next time.”

That one stung. Even though she’d half-expected it. Even though it told her more about him than it did about her.

Azzi nodded once. “Thanks for making this easier.”

He scoffed, grabbed the ball, and walked away without another word.

She stood there a moment longer, the night air cool against her cheeks, the back of her throat tight. Not with tears—just truth.

By the time she got back to her dorm, she was still holding onto the drawstrings of her hoodie like they were something to anchor her.

She didn’t feel triumphant. Didn’t feel broken either.

Just… clear.

It didn’t matter what label she landed on. Gay. Bi. Still figuring it out. She just knew that whoever she was becoming, he wasn’t part of it.

And maybe that was the whole point. Not choosing a side. Just choosing herself.

[elumish]

If I may (not being a cishet man but being someone who spends a lot of time looking at how people talk about gender particularly in fiction), I think that a lot of those things that many men hate in women are stand-ins for a combination of two(ish) things: 1. selfishness/self-centeredness, (1.5. the desire to take up space,) and 2. shallow interests.

If you take a picture of your latte and post it, it's often viewed as self-centered, because you're taking the time to record something that's irrelevant except in how it relates to you, and then you're posting it on the internet and telling other people to look at it. It's viewed as not contributing to society and as being vain and focused on yourself.

The 1.5 here is that having big headphones that stand out or non-ear piercings is seen as trying to draw (particularly male) attention to yourself. Which is vain! And self-centered! And if you do that without wanting men to call out your looks, then you're rude, but if you do want men to call out your looks, then you're attention-hungry and desperate.

We also see, time and again, that women's interests are treated as shallower and less culturally relevant than men's. Things like fashion are treated as shallow obsessions while things like sports are seen as legitimate. Even with coffee--it's socially acceptable and even cool for men to be into fancy (black) coffee and espresso, but pumpkin spice lattes are basic and cringe (or whatever the people are saying nowadays).

And this view is not reserved for how men treat women. As often as not, the person saying "she's just doing that for attention" is a woman.

You see this in the romance genre (and in fanfiction) a lot--antagonist women are often shown as shallow and self-obsessed, and the desire to force the people (especially men) to pay attention to them is shown as a large part of that.

And to @talos-4's point above, when men see themselves as having serious interests and a serious purpose in life, things that don't contribute to, serve, or cater to that seriousness (like lattes or cat ear headphones) are seen as shallow, frivolous, and detracting from society and those men's purposes, while things that do (like domestic, logistical, and emotional labor) are seen as important and desirable.

The longer I exist as a loudly proudly gay man the more I think that cishet men aren't actually attracted to women.

[jordiipordii]

If you have about two mins please read this:

I just want to go ahead and throw this out there: as a fandom, we all are here because at one point or another we picked up AFTG for the first time and could never put it back down again.

We all love Nora. We all respect her. We all are very excited about many things for a multitude of reasons. As we should be because holy shit did we get some news today!

And yet some of us are already bickering over contradicting opinions. Please listen to me:

If you’re not excited for the two books focusing on Kevin, that’s ok. Say your piece and move on. Or! Discuss it with someone. Don’t just sit and argue. We’re years away and you don’t have to commit to those books in the slightest.

Or if you’re in one ship tag and another ship is tagged there that you don’t like— ok. Just scroll or tap away. It is a little frustrating when it isn’t what you’re looking for but no one is making you read it. Especially if you disagree with it.

We got some fantastic news from Nora barely 12 hours ago and I already see posts bashing the people that still like/want kerejean or the people who still think jerejean will get married in the next book, this and that and etc.

People. It takes significantly less effort to just swipe away than it does to call someone else out on what they believe/want. I’m not trying to add to the negativity with this; I’m saying let us all say what we want to say.

We do not have to agree with each other. No fandom does. I don’t have to agree with you and vice versa— neither of us has to agree with person C playing the banjo in the corner, or with the random cat smoking a pipe on the subway. Do you see what I’m trying to say?

We can disagree. And we no doubt will because the next book is probably going to be released in 2026. We have six and a half months until we roll into the next release year. There’s going to be banter and discussions but the point I’m trying to make is we don’t need to argue.

The entire core focus of All For The Game is what? Found family. It’s in the Foxes. And the Trojans. Even the Ravens if you squint hard enough at their shared trauma.

At the end of the day we’re all still fans of the same thing for one reason or another, plus the angsty trauma Nora has inflicted on us over the years. We are our own little found family. On here, and on TikTok, Twitter, Reddit— etc.

Let’s try to spend the next yearish talking and discussing and brainstorming without telling each other that the other person is wrong, or what they say doesn’t make sense— or worst of all that what they’re saying doesn’t matter.

Not saying not to contradict each other. But do it in a way where we’re all still respected. Sing the Barney “I love you” song. Play the ABC game. Whatever it takes to keep us separate as individuals in how we think and what we hope for, but still pulled together as a community.

We have an incredible one and a long time left with each other. And I love you all.

[alltimecharlo]

Can you write a willmack reunion after worlds… fluffy adorable in love boys

of course hehe!!! fic under the cut :)🩵

Will spots him before Mack sees him.

He's halfway through the arrivals gate at Stockholm Arlanda airport, hair a mess from the hoodie he just yanked off, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, when he catches that familiar outline up ahead—tall and broad and pacing slightly in front of the check-in desk for their shared flight. It takes Will a beat to register that it's really him.

Mack.

Macklin Celebrini in the flesh, in the Team Canada track jacket Will's seen in a hundred photos over the last month but hasn't gotten to tug at in person. Not since they split off after their last NHL game, each called up to opposite sides of the Worlds divide. Not since Will's been left to pine through every Team Canada social clip and still text Mack like he wasn't watching him shut down entire shifts in real time.

He doesn't even think about it. He drops his duffel where he stands and sprints.

"Mack!"

Mack whirls around, eyes already wide, and barely has time to open his arms before Will barrels into him, full-body. They crash together with enough force to knock Mack back a step, but he's laughing—breathless, delighted, arms curling tight around Will like a reflex.

"Jesus, Will—"

"Shut up, I missed you so bad," Will says, already burrowing in.

Mack smells like hotel laundry soap and airport coffee, and Will breathes him in like he's been holding his breath for days. Which, maybe he has. It's been weeks.

"I saw you two seconds ago on FaceTime," Mack says, but his voice is low and fond, and he doesn't let go.

"Yeah, and it wasn't enough," Will mutters into his shoulder. "You look stupidly hot in that jacket. It's so annoying."

Mack huffs a laugh and rubs a hand down Will's back, firm and slow. Will practically melts into it. His hands fist into the fabric of Mack's hoodie, and he doesn't even care that they're drawing a few stares from other travelers.

"You know," Mack murmurs, cheek pressed to Will's temple, "you're kind of making a scene."

"Don't care."

Will pulls back just enough to look at him, takes in the soft lines of Mack's face, the new bruise blooming along his cheekbone from the semis, the ridiculous little smile curling his lips. He's so stupidly pretty. He's here.

Will cups Mack's jaw, thumb brushing over his cheek.

"I hated not being with you."

Mack's eyes go soft. "I hated it too."

They stare at each other for a beat. The noise of the airport fades. Will feels everything slow down, narrow in. It's not the big flashy reunion people probably expected. It's something smaller, deeper. Real.

Then Mack says, "Did you cry after your bronze game, be honest."

Will rolls his eyes and shoves at his chest, laughing. "You asshole."

"I'm just saying," Mack grins, catching his wrist, "you looked suspiciously red-eyed in the postgame."

"Whatever. Still better than losing in the finals."

Mack groans. "Low blow."

Will just smirks and threads their fingers together. It's easy. It's them.

Their gate gets called over the PA, and Mack tugs him toward it. Will leans into his side like a magnet, brushing shoulders, and Mack lets him. Doesn't stop smiling, either. It's the kind of thing Will wants to bottle up and keep forever.

"I got us seats together," Mack says.

"Obviously you did," Will says. "You're obsessed with me."

Mack rolls his eyes, but his ears go a little pink. "You wish."

Will bumps their hands and thinks, I really do.

They walk toward the gate, flight home ahead of them, and Will's never been happier to leave a tournament behind.

♡

[derwahnsinn]

Richard interview with Guitar World

Another interview with Richard Kruspe, this time with Guitar World. Some answers are very much the same as others in this batch, although there are a few very nice tidbits here.

A few snippets:

You’ve written a lot of thunderous riffs over the years. Which one are you most proud of?

“I honestly don’t know. But I do remember the first time I played the Rammstein riff. It was actually when I was in a band called Orgasm Death Gimmick. It’s a very simple idea that still gives me goosebumps every time I play it. It’s one of my oldest riffs but a very specific idea that created the concept of Rammstein.

“Our riffs are quite simple. These days I see so many people widdling away and shredding. But in general, I think a guitar player should focus more on rhythm than soloing. All the players I loved were great rhythm players, even if some of them could solo too. The picking hand is the most important thing to me.”

What are the trademarks of a classic Rammstein riff?

“To create a Rammstein riff, you have to think simple but also think huge. There needs to be a lot of space. And finally... you need a lot of luck!"

(...)

You and Paul Landers are one of the most dynamic forces in metal. How do you make each other sound better?

“It works best when he leaves the sound to me! No, I love Paul, but we are very different, like day and night. The polite thing to say is we let each other play to our strengths, in whatever positions that might be. We are not like Malcolm and Angus. We like different things – Paul is a SansAmp guy; I’m more into analog.

“I used to drive people crazy with my live rig in the early days. I wanted the same sound I had in the studio, so I bought all the preamps, mics, tents, iso-cabs. There was a whole truck just for my guitar equipment! After a while, I thought, ‘Fuck it, let’s try that Kemper thing!’ and life became so much easier.”

Like you say, it helps when two sounds come together as one.

“Exactly. We create one big sound together. That way we don’t have to argue over who is playing what. One goes left, the other goes right, and it’s the same information with our own unique tones. Very occasionally we’ll play different parts or in different octaves, but mostly we’re doing the same thing together.

“It can be a struggle, to be honest. It’s not easy having another guitarist with their own opinion about music. It takes a lot of communication and listening. Sometimes you need to put your ego to one side and let the other person lead. It’s a compromise – but sometimes those compromises will lead to good things.”

Photo: Paul Harries

[melondecarabia]

⋆˙⟡ 4h trial run (3/3) 

leo kurosagi x fem reader 

smut, angst?, drama 

minors and ageless blogs dni! 

authors note: after great trial and tribulation, i offer the final part of this series. 4.6k words though!

tw: SEX!!!, drugging (aphrodisiac), leo 

summary: Leo completes his plan, which goes half as he wanted. 

24h sugar pill (part 1)

36h observation period (part 2)

smut under the cut!

Ah, sweet Friday afternoon. The weather is warm but not too hot, and for once in a long time, you have the freedom to do absolutely nothing. Professor Nicholas had granted you mercy, presumably due to the dark circles under your eyes and the time he witnessed you walk into a door. Two times, actually, and the same door. You hope no one else saw that back-to-back fumble. 

Life is pretty good right now, all things considered (and certain subjects willfully ignored.) Everyone else is busy with school or other tasks, and there's a microwavable yet delicious meal in your fridge, courtesy of your morning visit to the campus store. Even better, you found a TV show just boring enough that falling asleep for a couple minutes won't throw you off the plot, but it still manages to be entertaining enough when you manage to pay attention. The only thing bothering you right now is… Hm. Whatever is going on with Leo. 

He's a complicated guy, to put very simply. He's your… friend? Not a friend? Frenemy, perhaps. It's difficult to categorize the connection you have with him. The first few weeks of regular interaction with him were a trial set by the universe, to see if you would wither under the acid of his judging gaze and toxic insults. Even the sound of his name seemed unpleasant, until you became confident enough to bitch back. That confidence was achieved through multiple near-death experiences and dealing with other… strong personalities 'cough' a red-headed gambler 'cough' a cartoonishly rich hermit 'cough' an Italian diva 'cough cough'. But you managed! And even made friends! You even managed to make Leo hang off of you at every break, which in hindsight might've been a clue to what's going on right now. 

And yes, his words were bitter, and his attitude not exactly widely palatable, but it was a refreshing feeling compared to the bittersweet taste of pity offered by too many people. Having to defend yourself verbally was preferable to the lethargy brought by each brush against the veil to the beyond. It felt… normal. Like you're just another person being roasted by their obnoxious friend. And in moments with just the two of you, peeks of someone else other than a bratty influencer would flash before being covered up again. 

After some time, he started to post about his girlfriend. Or rather, you, who was being borderline blackmailed to smile and wave at the camera as he gushed about made up events between you two. And he could've taken the easy way, sticking to posting selfies taken in his room or on campus, but of course he went the extra way and started demanding that you request a R&R permit, so that he could drag you to popular date spots in Tokyo to eat trendy desserts. They oftentimes didn't taste even half as good as they looked in digital photos, but the whole excursion was a welcome distraction from a looming annihilation in the horizon. 

But then Wednesday happened, and threw all of that away and into a blazing furnace. Yes, you were being called Leo's girlfriend by more than 10 000 people, but in reality you were just a prop and a friend to hang out with rather than anything remotely romantic! Then he just had to get smacked in the face with that stupid pollen! And apparently he already liked you? Your spine melts into the beat up couch as a groan leaves from the depths of your existence. No matter your personal feelings, you have to work with all the ghouls, but fuck if it isn't easier when you're friends and notwhatever-the-fuck-this-is with them. 

A light knock interrupts your internal spiraling complaining session, and you would rip and tear into them if the person wasn't Leo. Fuck. He's wearing your hoodie, and a light dusting of makeup. 

⋆˙⟡

Why aren't you saying anything? His confidence is getting chipped away at by your silent staring. As the awkwardness builds up, he starts to break. Some random, unremarkable show is playing on the TV. "What are you watching?" Fake it till you make it, Leo is sure confidence will carry him to victory as he pushes past your unresponsive figure and into the dorm. Okay, no going back anymore. The sound of the front door closing jumpscares him, but he hides it by sitting down on the couch. Each footstep that he hears adds another pump in his heart, to the point that he's a bit concerned that the organ will give up before he's actually managed to accomplish anything. The material under your soft hoodie feels uncomfortable, but it's nothing compared to the painful anticipation of yesterday evening. 

Blankets and pillows shuffle as you settle on his left side. The TV is on at regular volume, but Leo can't hear anything over the rapid rushing of blood. Some meaningless dialog playing only amplifies the silence of you two. Okay, so you won't start the conversation then? Fuck it. The suspense feels like getting fucked with a chainsaw. "Did you tell anyone?" He can barely see you flinch from the sudden sound out of the corner of his eye. Leo may be an audacious bitch, but looking at you head on right now would shatter his bravado into dust. "No, no I didn't." The old springs of the couch creak in protest when he pulls his leg up. 

"How are you? You uh, didn't reply. To my text, I mean." How has he been? Crazy, thank you for asking. A strong urge to chew on the armrest builds up, and if he doesn't get to actually kiss you soon, he'll do it. Oh shit, he forgot to answer! 

Your presence comes just a bit closer, and he can smell the slight berry scent of your bodywash. "Leo?" Thank fuck this hoodie is so large, or you'd immediately spot the boner he has even in this position. "Mhm, yeah." 10/10 acting, mister Kurosagi! Wow. But that's all he can do at the moment without jumping your bones. 

⋆˙⟡ 

Clearly, he's not in the talking mood. Okay. So, to gather your thoughts and maybe come up with a plan (you're pretty sure Alan would come drag him out if needed) you'll have to get a bit more distance from the concerningly silent man. "Okay, good to hear. I'll go get some iced tea, then." You shuffle off to the direction of the fridge, glancing back to gauge his reaction. It's so weird to see him just nod instead of making a comment along the lines of 'ewww, you always buy the disgusting one' or something like that. Whatever. 

⋆˙⟡ 

The thumping of his heart sounds louder than the clinking of ice against glass, as he quietly makes his way to the bathroom. Take it easy now, Leo. You're so close to victory. 

First step, removing the small bag from his pocket to the porcelain counter. Ugh, his hands won't stop fucking shaking! He rolls his wrists and takes a deep breath to channel chakra like those aspirational videos of rich people doing yoga. He cannot fumble this. 

Second step, stripping off most of the clothes he's wearing. All that's covering him up right now is a delicate set of lingerie, and each movement he makes seems to rub his notable erection just teasingly enough to get him further on edge. His skin is moisturized with a lightly scented and glittery lotion, to entice you even further. His dick twitches when the floral lace shifts over the tip, as he checks out his barely covered ass. Damn, he looks good. A final swipe of fruity gloss, and he smiles deviously. Looks-wise, he's done all he can. 

Third step, he opens the small bag recently procured from a nameless Mortkranken dweeb. What does it contain? Well, one of the most effective ways for two people to bond is skin-to-skin contact, so… a very strong, potent aphrodisiac that lasts about 4 hours. And rest assured Leo will be making those 240 minutes count, damn it. He carefully inspects the pill settled between the index and thumb. It kinda looks like a plain vitamin… he pops it under his tongue, careful not to bite it yet. 

Now, to the last step! 

⋆˙⟡

You hope to god he's not doing yoga in there again. 

The ice cubes floating around in the dark liquid were not worth the struggle it took to get them out of the fancy, cat-shaped molds. Before you can reach for the cupboard handle, a warm presence presses against your back and shoulders. Oh boy. You can see Leo's bare arms hugging your midriff, and a bitter annoyance washes over, spoiling the mood further. 

"I meant it." Oh. 

"I really do love you." The wooden countertop feels like it's going to give under your grasp. 

"Fuck everyone else. As soon as your curse gets broken, we can leave this hellhole." You suck in air to block out the cursewords about to spill. 

He's important to you. But this hot and cold behavior? It makes you question what you're allowed to talk about with him. "Can you take this seri-" And then you stop, seeing him pout at you like a puppydog being scolded. Then you look below his neck, to see that he's wearing a lacy periwinkle babydoll that allows his pebbled nipples to poke through quite prominently. The top is slit in the middle, leading to his bare, pierced belly button and- good lord he is hard. 

⋆˙⟡ 

And the fourth step, as you're distracted looking below his waist, is kissing you. A squeeze to the ass opens up your lips, just enough for him to share the now crushed pill with you by mixing saliva with a swipe of his tongue. His heart beats like a jackhammer, and he can't stop the loud moan he lets out as your crotch brushes against his. Your taste is sweet, even more so with the aphrodisiac and a sense of accomplishment. Before he can slide his hands any further, he's quite rudely pushed away. "Ugh, ew, what is that?" Leo can't help but wish you were spitting in his mouth instead of the sink, as you sputter at the starchy and too-sweet-to-be-tasty experience of the aphrodisiac. Ugh. Yes, it's not a pleasant flavor, but don't just push him away! He glares with indignance, but is pacified by the sight of your ass on display. Gray leggings are the best invention ever. 

A slow turn, accompanied by a glare sends shivers down his spine. Leo can't help but rub his thighs together in excitement. "What. The fuck. Was that?" Your spine straightens slowly, with eyes coldly measuring him. He has to swallow down a whorish moan at the thought of you sinking your teeth into his shoulder. The amount of saliva in his mouth nearly glues it shut, but he manages to answer with shaky anticipation of your upcoming actions. "An aphrodisiac. Basically, if we don't fuck right now," He gestures at you both with a trembling hand, "we'll be suffering for a whole day." A little lie, just to encourage you even further. I mean, why would you suffer when there's a clearly willing (and sexy) helper right in front of you? Right? 

⋆˙⟡

See, it's shit like this why you get nervous when he's quiet and alone for even a bit. You would kick his twink ass into next week, but it's pretty difficult when there's suddenly a prominent feeling of emptiness between your legs. "You little-" but before you can verbally tear into him, a throbbing of your clit doubles you over like a punch to the gut. 

Yes, Leo is hot, and on any other occasion you would've perhaps entertained the idea of having sex with him. But your moral code? It won't let you give him the satisfaction that easily. The bitch looks so smug, as if he hasn't been bricked for who knows how long… He wants to play games like this when you have secret weapons, huh? "I've got a vibrator and a dildo. Suffer on your own, dumbass." 

And before he can even think to stop you, the lock clicks to keep him out. 

⋆˙⟡

What the actual fuck? 

The metallic handle barely rattles. "No no no no, open the door, right now, I swear-" Lust and panic slur his words as he loses track of what's spilling out of his mouth. What kind of super fucking strong door does this rundown cathedral have? "Open the door, please. Please?" Fear sets in as his master plan crumbles like a sandcastle, and a tear of desperation slides down when the door makes no hint of budging. "Come oooonnn, it'll feel really good!" The man can't even find it in himself to cringe at the shaking of his voice. 

A hiss, like that of a pissed off snake escapes him as the throbbing of his genitals gets too intense. This was not part of the fucking plan! What the fuck?! The rushing of blood through each vein feels like the pressure of a kettle about to explode. And what does Leo do? 

⋆˙⟡

Hmmm… will the batteries last long enough on this, or do you need to get new ones? Where would those even be… The effects of the aphrodisiac feels like a cup of molasses has been poured into your skull to drench each brain cell in sugary goop. Every movement seems choppy and slow, but uncomfortably intense as the clothing on you feels like sandpaper. You can't even focus on remembering where the batteries would be, as a loud whimpering of your name rings out behind the wooden door. 

…he wants it so bad? A look the baby blue vibrator, and then at the closed barrier separating you to weigh all available options. A deep sigh, as you feel disappointment in the choices you make. Fiiiiine, he can have a chance. 

Clack, and the door opens to reveal the menace on his knees, with fat tears rolling down his pretty face. The color yellow really does look beautiful. A deep gasp prevents your thoughts from wandering any further away from the subject at hand. Or rather, sitting down on the floor in lingerie. When did he even buy that set? "Finall-" "Stay." His whole body twitches, settling back down while rubbing his thighs. Clasped hands are tucked between them, and the muscles tense and relax with inpatience. 

That shade of pink on his cheeks looks satisfying. They seem soft as well, like marshmallows. Probably achieved with comically expensive moisturizers. "You really want me that badly then?" 

An eager nod. His seemingly innocent look would make you feel like a pervert, if it weren't for the devious things he keeps doing. "Okay then. Beg." 

⋆˙⟡

As much as he'd like to think of himself as a composed mastermind, Leo is far from it when it comes to you. An undignified whine escapes before he manages to say anything remotely intelligible. "Please. Need-" A shuddering inhale, "Need you. Now. Right now and-" It's as though his lungs have lost 70% of their capacity, reducing him to pant like a dog at your feet. The difficulty of speaking in breathy whispers is worth it though, seeing that satisfied grin on your face. His eyes catch onto the wet spot on your leggings, right where your slit is covered by fabric. 

"Good boy." A manic giggle is his response to praise, as all the blood in his brain leaves to dye his cheeks crimson, and to make him even harder. "Stay right there, sweetie." The unhinged grin loses a bit of it's joy as you turn around, meaning you can't see him shake with want. As you settle on the bed with crossed legs, "Crawl." 

⋆˙⟡

You can see the moment he manages to process the demand. It takes a couple seconds, but he deliberately arches his back as he gets even more turned on by the humiliation. He's a bit slow, moving on hands and knees to settle in front of you, but eventually manages. The smile on the man's face seems calmer, but there's a feral glint in his eyes as he waits for the next command. If he's so willing to get bossed around, then you should be able to get some answers out of him, right? 

Blunt fingernails grab onto his powdered face to draw him closer, making his torso dig into your knees. Leo's face melts in comfort at the closeness, eyes glazing over despite the harsh movements. "Why did you do that?" A bead of sweat travels down his temple, and you push aside the temptation of catching it with your tongue. The man shuffles around with excess energy and discomfort, but doesn't make any move to leave. 

"Do what?" A barely audible mumble. 

"Pretend you're in love with me. I care about you, more than I'd like, but in less than a year I'll-" Despite having soft hands, the sudden grip on your wrists feels like steel shackles. He rises to his knees, making sharp eye contact with a brewing undertone of anger. "You won't get turned into a stupid fucking walking bouquet, and I'll make sure of that, okay?" Ragged breaths shake his shoulders. "And-" His face softens, eyebrows no longer knit together, and eyes gleaming with a tired hope. "I didn't pretend." He lets out a sigh before burying his face between your still clothed thighs, cradling them with his hands. For a while, the aphrodisiac is cleared by the weight of his words. 

"I love you. And I want to be with you, forever." It's a bit muffled, but you still heard him loud and clear. The silence hanging between you two feels thick, like heavy fog in a pier. Subtly smoothing your hands over his shoulders, a slight nervous shaking can be felt. You're not sure if it's due to you or him, but it's probably both. 

…oh fuck it. You lift Leo's face back up, and his mascara smudged eyes widen as your face gets close enough to breathe the same air. "I love you too." He lets out a breath, before making the first move before you can even think of it. Lips crash onto yours, as if desperate to receive more sweet words of returned feelings. He lets out a satisfied hum as he sucks on your tongue, as if tasting a gourmet dessert instead of spit. 

His hands touch your upper, then lower back, before trailing to your thighs, desperate to finally feel each centimeter of you that exists. As his fingers tangle into your hair and back of head, your arms haul him up to the bed and next to you. A surprised gasp turns into a moan as your knee settles between his bare thighs, to press against his leaking dick that's barely covered by floral lace. 

The piece of cloth barely counts as covering, as it's low waist almost lets the flushed tip free with each movement he makes. Leo's glossy mouth latches onto your neck to suck deep hickeys. "Come oooonnn, just take these oooofffff…" His fingertips feebly tug at your simple tee, and instead of, you know, taking it off like a normal person, his manicured nails tear it off you in a few seconds. Even under influence, you'll have to put him in his place. 

His flushed face is yet again grabbed by your hand that had been busy kneading at his thigh, and pressed away from your clavicle. "Did I say you could destroy my shirt?" He gives you a petty pout, "You were'nt fast en-hagh?!" A mix between a sharp inhale and a moan, as your lips suck harshly on his lace-covered nipple while tugging at the other. Breathy whines and lewd sucking noises fill the room, as he trashes around overwhelmed with the sudden pleasure. 

"Nnnnnhhh, too much…!" His head crashes down onto the mattress with a whine, and after leaving a final pair of bites on the now red and swollen buds, your lips settle a soothing kiss on his jawline. He gives a satisfied sigh at the soft feeling, before it's cut off. "Hrk?!" His whole body jerks as if shocked by electricity, as his Adam's apple is caught between your teeth. His squirming thigh grinds against your sensitive clit, as you don't let go of his neck. 

Finally satisfied with the marks you've left on him, you sit up to observe your handiwork. Eyes unfocused with lust, a heaving chest marked by blooming bruises, and… "Did you already cum?" There's a wet patch on the thigh of your legging, the one that had been between his legs. Leo blinks for a bit, then looks down at the waistband of his underwear, where a considerable amount of sticky fluid had leaked through the sheer cloth. 

"…don't stop." His arms sluggishly wind around your waist, lips trailing kissing from your abdomen to clavicle, before leaving a slow kiss on your lips. His hands glide up to free your breasts for him to palm at, before grabbing at your waist to guide you below him. The man's skin shivers under your touch, as his ass gets grabbed in return. 

⋆˙⟡ 

Leo might crash out if he doesn't get to make love to you right the fuck now. He has to move quickly, or the sensation of your hands kneading at his cheeks and making eye contact might, or rather, will make him cum again. Fingers hooking under the waistband of your leggings and underwear, he pulls them off to uncover your body completely. 

His heart jumps up to beat in his throat at the sight of your bare body. After all, the most he's seen so far are near daily flashes of absolute territory (which he is thankful for), or bare arms when the weather is too hot and you opt for a shorter button down on your uniform. But this? A smug, smoldering look, with your head supported by several pillows. Pupils blown wide like an apex predator locked in on it's target, and a sheen of lust-induced sweat makes your skin glimmer under the dim lights of the room. 

A pearl of sweat drips down your chest, and just because he can, he catches it with his tongue. Reveling in the pleased groan he receives as a reward, Leo's already back at full mast, and quickly works to pull down the garment still hanging on his hips. Eyes targeted at the drenched slit between your legs, his lips feel dry despite the amount of drool and gloss on them. 

He settles closer, and taps the head of his dick on your clit. Each of those light taps sends a slight violent shiver through him, and for a good while second guesses his stamina. "Leo… get on with it already." His eyes dart to look at your aroused expression, with kiss-swollen lips frowning at the quiet stalling. A crooked grin appears, as he's satisfied that for once you're desperate for his touch, even if it's only a fraction of the diabolical horniness he feels on the daily. "Oh? Don't worry, I'll make you cum your brains out real soon, honey." His tip finally catches your entrance, and the moan you let out harmonizes with his own. With each centimeter that he goes in deeper, Leo can feel his IQ decrease considerably. 

⋆˙⟡ 

"…Leo?" You nudge at his shuddering shoulder, his face covered by gray bangs as the desperation for your own release grows with each moment. He got in to the hilt, and then just… froze. A poke to the cheek makes his head snap up, letting you see the fat tears and beads of sweat roll down his flushed skin like a river. He's heaving like there's not enough oxygen around. A thick gulp, and he manages to lift himself up from your body. "Mhm. I'll be- be starting now." And now the man is shaking. With the first drag outwards, his breath stops, and when he slams back inside? His glittering lips open in a quiet scream, and his pierced tongue rolls out. It's electrifying, seeing him go pussydrunk after barely any action. He breathes in deeply, before deeply rolling his hips and letting out a quiet whimper. Another movement back, and… A loud, slutty moan rips out as copious amounts of cum fill you up. Splat, he collapses on top of you as dead weight, still shaking from the overwhelming force of his orgasm. 

…oh hell no. He has the audacity to drug you, and then not make you cum even once? Leo is roused from half-sleep as you push him over to lay on his back, slowly blinking the exhaustion away and whining at the feeling of cold air on his still hard dick. "(Y/n)? What are you doing?" For a brief moment, you can see his nervousness at the sight of a seemingly neutral expression splitting into a smile, one too controlled to mean anything pleasant or nice. He audibly gulps, and before he can manage to say anything coherent again, he yelps at the feeling of your sweaty palms grabbing at the soft flesh above the backs of his knees. He lets out a whimper as his thighs touch his still covered torso. "Are you ready, honey?" Yellow eyes still staring at the sight of your leaking pussy, he nods, hearing but not listening. The softness of his thighs further gives in as you leverage yourself upwards to settle on his tip, before dropping down with a wet smack of thighs on thighs with ease. 

Not giving him another moment to recover from overstimulation, you lift your hips upward so that only the very tip remains inside, and smack down with an even louder sound, and then again, and again, volume only increasing with added sweat and liquid evidence of arousal. Leo's hands grab at your biceps, slightly stinging under the clearly polished nails as he tries to cling on to any sanity left. You can feel the building of deep pressure in your lower stomach at the sight of his pierced tongue rolling out as a dumb smile splits his face, and tears of overstimulation glitter as you can feel him cumming inside yet again. "Hahah… don't stop, don't stop, don't-" His manic rambling gets cut off as another orgasm rolls his head back, a silent moan rounding his lips. A roll of your hips grinds your clit against his pubic bone just right for white light to blind you with your own ecstacy. 

A moment, just the two of you panting and looking into each others eyes, calming down. When you move back upwards, his legs cross behind your back to keep you in place. A petulant frown appears on his swollen lips. "Don't leave now-" His eyes widen before rolling back with the haze of lust yet again, with another roll of your hips. "Who said anything about stopping?" A slow back and forth movement to warm back up, and you reach back to slap his ass. "You're not leaving this bed until I've had enough." 

⋆˙⟡ 

His plan worked. Take that, losers! He got to fuck you (you fucked him, but whatever), got to take a romantic bath with you (in candlelight. That's marriage material), and now? He's laying in bed, waiting for you to come back with his favorite spicy chips as he cuddles your black cat plushie. He saves the pink home appliance set on his 'kitchen' Pinterest board, a smug smile practically stuck on his face. Life is good, and he's got his future plan set in stone. 

⋆˙⟡ 

crossaxtoku: loser cucks 

Kaito blinks at the comment left on his photo. The one with you and Luca from the other day? He's pretty sure this person commented on a couple other ghouls' posts too… 

[anakinstwinklebunny]

PAIRING: sam monroe x vinnie

FLUFF ❦

SAM MONROE was kind of an overthinker ever since he became a dad. It was still weird to function with such tiny guy who saw him as his entire world. After being called in, he sat down on the not too much comfortable chair in the doctor’s office, bouncing his knee anxiously while Vinnie sat on his other leg, kicking his tiny feet, happily swinging them back and forth.

It wasn’t normal. At least that’s what Sam kept telling himself. Why? Most kids Vinnie’s age were loud, destructive little goblins, climbing shit, screaming for no reason, throwing full-on tantrums over stupid things like the wrong color of sippy cup.

But Vinnie? He was… calm. Gentle, quiet, always clutching his stuffed bunny, never making a huge fuss unless he was really, really tired. And Sam was convinced something was wrong with him.

So here they were.

The doctor who was some older dude with reading glasses and a calm face, was finishing up a routine check, shining a small flashlight into Vinnie’s eyes while Vinnie blinked slowly, looking adorably unimpressed.

"Alright," the doctor said, standing up straight. "Everything looks good. What exactly were you worried about, Mr. Monroe?"

Sam cleared his throat. He didn’t like sounding stupid, but he ran a hand through his hair and mumbled, "He’s… too quiet."

The doctor raised a brow. "Too quiet?"

"Yeah." Sam gestured vaguely. "Like, he’s too good, y’know? Other kids are out there, like—like terrorizing their parents, breaking shit, screamin’ for no reason. And Vinnie’s just sittin’ there, colorin’ outside the lines and cuddlin’ his damn stuffed bunny."

At the mention of his favorite toy, Vinnie brightened and hugged the bunny closer to his chest. But the doctor really seemed to be..out of place. Like he didnt know exactly what was happening.

Sam continued. "I’m just sayin’, man. It ain’t normal. He ain’t normal." He crossed his arms. “Like, is he sick or somethin’? Is he—y’know, like—wrong?”

At that, the doctor actually smiled. "Mr. Monroe," he said, "I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you brought your child here because he’s… well-behaved?"

Sam frowned. "That sounds dumb when you say it like that."

The doctor chuckled, shaking his head. "There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with Vinnie. Some kids are just naturally more easygoing. It’s a personality thing, not a health problem."

Sam was not convinced.

"But he doesn’t even throw tantrums." to which vinnie whined softly, grabbing onto Sam’s sleeve, and pressing his face into his dad’s chest.

Sam sighed. “Okay, fine, but like… not real tantrums. Not, like, full-scale, demon-level tantrums.”

The doctor smirked. "And that’s a problem… because?"

Sam hesitated. "I—I dunno, man, I just figured he should be, like… tougher or somethin’." He shrugged, looking away. "Like, what if the other kids pick on him? What if he gets older and just lets people walk all over him?"

The doctor softened at that. "Mr. Monroe," he said, voice gentle, "you know what I see when I look at Vinnie?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. The doctor smiled. “A happy, secure, well-loved child.”

The words hit him in a way he wasn’t expecting. He glanced down at Vinnie, who was still clinging to him, humming softly, probably half-asleep from being in a warm room for too long.

"He’s calm because he feels safe," he explained. "That’s a good thing. It means you’re doing something right."

His throat felt weirdly tight out of a sudden, his eyes went to stop at the white floor. Like, damn, man, why you gotta say it like that?

After a long beat, Sam exhaled sharply through his nose and muttered, "Yeah, whatever."

The doctor chuckled. "Take him home, Mr. Monroe. He’s perfectly fine."

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[extremely-judgemental]

I am sick of seeing ‘Tamlin is a narcissist’ ‘Nesta is a narcissist’ all over this fandom and so now you get an unsolicited lesson in psychology because these accusations are driving me crazy! I’ve dealt with narcissists all my life, and no, it’s not code for ‘I hate them and they ignored my feelings that one time, so they must be a narcissist’ but people with legit condition, and one of them being my biological father.

This isn’t a judgement on anyone with personality disorders. Modern media loves to glorify them as the driving force behind all evil in the world when not everyone diagnosed is plotting to destroy lives. Narcissism is a vast subject and can’t be dumbed down in a few bullet points. The following are the common traits associated with this condition and a true narcissist will check most of these boxes.

Exaggerated sense of self-worth: They believe they are special and unique. They have superiority complex and regard themselves on high standards that are ‘unachievable’ for normal people. Everything they do and say is remarkable because they did it. Their whole existence in your life itself should be treated as the Second Coming of Christ.

Now, the two characters in the entire series with the such low opinions about themselves that the combined value of their self-worth is in the negatives are Tamlin and Nesta. And you are calling them narcissists?

Entitlement: As a result, narcissists believe they are special, that they deserve special treatments. So they are above punishment or can get away with anything since they are wiser and nobler than everyone around them. You should treat them as the sun and the moon and the stars in your life. If not, they won’t stick around. If not, you are the entitled one disrespecting them.

When are Nesta and Tamlin given special treatments or shown to want it? They are literally treated as doormats by everyone. And Nesta sees herself as an accessory to others. She is Feyre’s sister. She is Elain’s protector. She is Cassian’s mate. She is a friend of Gwyneth and Emerie. During the Blood Rite, she is dispensable so they could live. She doesn’t even see herself as a person on her own.

Obsession with self-image: Narcissist have a carefully crafted persona for the public so they are perceived as nothing short of perfection. Their friends, their family, their career, their lifestyle—everything exists to reaffirm that image and serve them in one way or the other. It’s their way of obtaining public validation to satisfy their ego.

After their family recovers from poverty, the last thing Nesta is worried about is how others see her. Don’t even get me started on Tamlin. He’s been an open book from the start and never did anything for himself.

Self-preservation: Narcissists have a strong instinct to protect themselves because they can’t ruin the reputation they worked so hard to build. There is no way they are putting themselves in harm’s way for the sake of others. They are just too precious. There is a subset of this condition where they may stand up for social causes but that is again a projection of their self-worth and inflation of ego. Okay, I’m digressing.

Nesta went to Wall looking for Feyre. She scried and went to the Middle so Elain doesn’t have to. She stayed behind to fight so Emerie and Gwyn could survive.

Tamlin literally doesn’t know what that word means. He’s been wrecking his life and image left and right ever since the beginning.

Craving for power, attention and dominance: Most of what a narcissist wants is for external validation. Power, beauty, success, fame—whatever earns them that. And anyone who doesn’t offer this to a narcissist becomes inferior. Also, since they think so highly of themselves they only respect the ones who possess what they believe they have or they wish to have. If they want power, they will respect ones with power, because they are equals now. And, lying goes hand in hand with narcissism as they want to protect their facade by all means. It’s easier to control the narrative when they are in ultimate power.

When did Nesta want power or dominance? Over and over again we see her to want to be left alone. After their family came into wealth, if she were a narcissist, she would be hosting parties, scoring the wealthiest man to secure her future, have left her family right away. If she were a narcissist, she’d thrive in the attention she was receiving after the war. She would’ve been a weeping mess so her sisters could coddle her.

I can’t believe I even have to explain for Tamlin. He hates the title of High Lord and the distance it forces between him and his friends. He uses his title when his decision is opposed and when his fears are justified (which is most of the times) and people don’t listen to him otherwise. He is seen to only pull ranks when he is left with no other choice.

Need for praise and validation: A narcissist loves to talk about themselves and their achievements. They are too special for others to understand, so the attention they get satisfies them for a while and strokes their ego. They will surround themselves with people who validate their fantasies of grandeur. And anyone who doesn’t is demonised for life irrespective of their true nature.

Remember the time when Nesta willing boasted about all her trauma to anyone who listened? Or her experience with the Cauldron at the High Lord meeting? Remember when Tamlin cried to Feyre every night about his experience UtM? Or how it’s so hard for him to restore his court all the while protecting her and so she should be grateful to him and dote on him? Yeah, no one in the book either.

Sensitivity to external perception: Narcissists can’t take criticism well as they see everything as a threat to their self-image. They will never admit their shortcomings as in their minds, they can do no wrong.

Tamlin and Nesta have received nothing but criticism from everyone throughout the series. Most of the times, they admit it themselves, apologise, and work to be better.

Competitive and envious: Everyone gets jealous, but it’s heightened for narcissists. Everything is a competition and everyone is jealous of them because of their exaggerated achievements and self-importance. And their sense of jealousy doesn’t come from a place a lack, but entitlement: ‘I deserve it more than them, and so it should be mine’.

Just, where? Nesta and Tamlin are barely holding their lives together to even worry about what others have. If anything they want to give up what they already do have for some peace.

Lack of empathy: Narcissists don’t feel empathy, so they can’t feel guilt either. It allows them to exploit others without remorse. They will justify their actions and never take responsibility for it because of their entitlement—everyone is a monkey in their circus.

If Feyre’s hunting is an exploitation by Nesta, then Feyre exploited Nesta’s labour at home. Their life during poverty is two little girls trying to survive in a terribly dysfunctional family in extreme conditions. They were abused and exploited by their father, not each other.

And Tamlin takes on every burden upon himself and stumbles through it without expecting anyone to understand him. He wears his mistakes openly as much as he does his rights.

And these two are nothing but a walking lump of guilt and empathy.

I’m sorry that not everything revolves around Feyre and I’m sorry that Nesta didn’t put her on a pedestal every day of her life. Besides, it didn’t work out so well for Tamlin when he did either.

Nesta is self-sabotaging because of the pain she carries. Her self-centredness stems from guilt that she wasn’t enough for others and didn’t live up to their expectations. She is not a narcissist for finally succumbing to the shame and pain that she has been living with ever since their mother died and family went into poverty, especially when everyone around her loves to rub it in her face.

And Tamlin is a broken man afraid of being helpless again after he witnessed his people suffer and die for him for decades, and his partner be sexually assaulted every night for two months all because she came to his rescue. His domineering tendencies are a manifestation of his fears of failing the people he loves.

But, do you wanna know who is actually a narcissist in the entire series? Take a wild fucking guess. If I start listing names, there’s gonna an army crying over a cardboard cutout who has zero personality other than a mate and some flowers, and a stupid overgrown man-child who can’t think about anything but his dick for more than two fucking seconds.

See, it’s easy to label someone as a narcissist when you already have a low opinion of them. Everything they do is selfish, self-centred, and manipulative. You are allowed to love or hate any character you want, that’s your prerogative as a reader. Hate Nesta all you want, hate Tamlin too. But why do you have to mischaracterise them with a disorder that’s already stigmatised in the society?

And, narcissism is a spectrum just like everything else and not everyone who exhibits these tendencies is a narcissist. And not everyone diagnosed is pure evil. I assure you most of you won’t even recognise one if you meet them. If your gauge is based on one life event, I have news for you—even you will qualify as a narcissist.

These disorders are not a moral failing, instead a condition they are born with. These people don’t get to choose how their brains are wired and they struggle to live by certain normal, socially accepted principles that they don’t/can’t understand. They can’t open up about their issues without someone villainizing them for no other reason than their conditions.

Oh but you, with your perfect brain and your perfect morals and perfect ideals, the proclaimed advocates of victims and survivors are walking around calling people names and accusing them of being an abuser because they like a fictional character?

Honestly, you are worse than the people you demonise because you are aware of your actions and you are choosing to be a bitch.

Your opinion is not a fact. Not everyone you hate is a narcissist. Not everyone you hate is a psychopath. And you are neither cute nor smart for slapping these label on others to justify your hatred. Just say you hate a character and shut up.

[chamerionwrites]

#You are right - but I don't care#They'll figure it out or they won't & I don't mind reading slop#Fandom is pretty ametuer as a space & also has a history of being looked down upon#So they/we/whatever rally against any criticism harshly#But also so does any art movement or whatever because art movements & the Platonic ideal of the artist or whatever#Is the most annoying person you've ever met#It's tumblr#I think we're all someone's the most annoying person you've ever met#You think that u have an opinion#and it matters & you're right#But also because nobody is obligated to like or agree with or even argue coherently with your opinion#You get shit#And it does suck#But maybe stop poking the bear & expecting not to get poked

Man people will really just tweet it right out sometimes, huh. Next time tell me I was asking for it; that would get the point across much more succinctly.

Anyway before Tumblr loses reblogging privileges I have three things to say, the first two more measured and patient than the last:

(1) This post was specifically sparked by a scene of quite brutal racialized violence that often gets downplayed, reinterpreted, and erased in that fandom's gifsets. More broadly, it's about the tension between fandom touting itself as a progressive space and fandom's aggressive allergy to criticism, and how in practice the latter often makes fandom INCREDIBLY hostile toward anyone who wants to discuss broad trends in (eg) fandom's handling of race or imperialism or etc, including other fans making really very reasonable observations from a place of their own fannish love and investment. (Naturally this issue often hits fans of color first and hardest.) In the post's original context this is a lot clearer and maybe I should have been more specific here, but in my defense I didn't know it would break containment.

(2) When somebody leaves a long, lavish comment calling out every little word choice and plot point and thematic thread that they adored in a fanfic - this too is criticism!!! This is the result of someone reading fic with a critical eye, taking note of how it's crafted and what makes the narrative tick and exactly why they enjoyed it. Broadly speaking, a lot of people who read with this kind of analytical bent are also the people who like to analyze trends and patterns and subtext in fannish culture - and sometimes to question or challenge those trends. More and more frequently I hear fanfic authors lamenting that nobody leaves comments on fic anymore. I think it's worth asking ourselves whether this is in part due to fandom making itself a deeply unwelcoming place for people who read critically.

(3) That whole uwu we fans are just poor unfairly maligned smol beans, oppressed under the boot of other fans who care about fandom's flaws because they live here too big meanypants outside agitators who don't understand our beautiful community and want to tear it down, so really if you think about it it's YOUR fault if we lash out at you because you aren't ass-kissingly stepford-wife positive about fandom at all times stance is absolutely PEAK gamergate-manbaby and/or evangelical christian-style persecution complex, and so long as we're being frank here - I find it pathetic.

Honestly this gets at my chiefest complaint/frustration/discomfort with fandom as a whole. Which is: in their rush to defend the artistic merit of fanworks I think a ton of people have really valorized transformation and remixing and reinterpretation in and of themselves, when imo those are all quite neutral actions. When done well, they can expand and build upon and subvert meaning in really powerful and thought-provoking (and fun!) ways. When done poorly, they are just as likely to flatten and oversimplify and decontextualize and completely erase meaning. The simple act of changing something does not imbue the choice to do so with creative validity. It is entirely possible for a cover song to be bad (or just boring!). To exactly the same degree that it is possible to transform a pretty shallow and straightforward work into something deeper and more nuanced and subversive, is possible to transform a work into a vastly shallower and less interesting shadow of itself. As with nearly everything in art, it's all about the execution!

But the second you voice this position (which should honestly be a pretty uncontroversial one imo), you get people shrieking at you about being gatekeep-y and pretentious and betraying the sacred fandom etiquette of Don't-Like-Don't-Read.

And like...listen. I was not raised in a barn. I am 150% capable of quietly back-buttoning out of a fanfic I think is bad or boring - which is exactly what I do when I encounter them - and I am obviously not advocating for stupid ships wars or any kind of harassment or leaving hatemail in people's AO3 inboxes. (Which some people will also accuse you of the second you say anything less than lavishly positive about fandom, in true piss-on-the-poor fashion.) Literally all I am saying is that you can't have your cake and eat it too - that if fandom and fanworks (in the broadest sense) have artistic merit then fandom and fanworks (in the broadest sense) are fair game for artistic critique. Which means, in practice, that I can go on my own blog and make a post exactly like this one - critiquing broad trends, or stating that some interpretations are bad actually, or pointing out that subverting or talking back to or reading against the grain of canon is very different from simply ignoring it, or saying "fandom's culture of collage/remix/fuck-canon-I-do-what-I-want can lend itself to to really creative and interesting art but also to a lot of really bland homogenized cut-n-paste art, not to mention some pretty troubling decontextualization." And that if you feel this rains on your personal parade, you are then free to DLDR by back-buttoning out of my blog and/or blocking me so you never have to see my hot takes again, rather than clamoring in my notes about how I should let people enjoy things.

[fenny-v1]

normal animals