#why does he have a face. why anyone would need a face. just to make me suffer trying to paint it as perfectly as possible

[lunarxcity]

Why you? (Part IV to Why me?)

azriel x rhys' sister! reader

angst/eventual comfort (Now Azriel is in his healing era, don't worry he does suffer in this chapter so prepare for the azriel angst. You can't be in a healthy relationship when you are mentally at your worst and lashing out at everyone around you and Azriel is learning this the hard way.)

Summary: When you walk in on Azriel and Elain the mating bond snaps leading you to flee to Autumn with Eris so you can be free of Azriel. Your absence causes Azriel to come to some drastic realisations, but is it already too late and has your time in Autumn led to you moving on?

Parts I, II, and III if you missed them!

-

They say that misery breeds loneliness, or was it misery likes company, either way Azriel couldn't remember how it went but he knew he felt miserable and alone.

You were gone and Rhys had banned him from seeing Elain, even though it didn't matter. He couldn't even look at her without feeling crushing guilt. Guilt for considering killing your friend for the sole reason of him wanting to fight for his mate, which any honorable fae male would have done. Guilt for possibly driving you out from the Night Court. Guilt for dragging Elain into this and then ignoring her.

To say that Azriel has been a mess would be an understatement. After needing to sleep in your bed to calm himself down the night you left, he hasn't had a decent night's sleep. At this point, his dark circles had dark circles, he hadn't shaved, and he has basically been on autopilot for the past 3 months.

Him and Rhys hadn't been on good terms for the first month, but he came around and apologised for the way he spoke to him. They were civil, but Azriel didn't know how he could be close with him again after what he said. If you were there you would have played the peacekeeper, telling him what to say and scolding Rhys for his lack of sensitivity. He thinks about you more than he would care to admit, which is saying something because he's been admitting it a lot lately.

The first 2 weeks were so rough for Azriel that he threw himself into his work, not talking to anyone and even missing his training which he can't recall having ever done. He walked into the training ring and first thing Cassian did when he saw him for the first time since the night you left was laugh and say, "Oh brother, you look a bit rough for wear. You have obviously had better days."

Azriel didn't say anything. His face was set in the same straight-faced look that he had been wearing every day. He just walked up to Cassian and began fighting him. You would think that missing 2 weeks of training out of the hundreds of years wouldn't make a difference, but he had lost every single sparring match between him and Cassian. You would have loved to see it, you probably would have been on the sidelines laughing saying that Azriel needed to be humbled with his snowball fight record. His thoughts strayed to you and he was immediately snapped out of it by Cassian landing a blow on his right jaw sending Azriel to the ground."

"You seem distracted brother. I am always here if you want to talk." He holds his hand out as a truce, but Azriel doesn't take it. He was upset and in pain and feeling a flurry of emotions that he didn't know how to deal with. He picked himself up and told Cassian, "I appreciate it brother, but I don't need you or Nesta or Rhys trying to fix me." Granted he realised he was being a bit dramatic, but his adrenaline was high and didn't know how to deal with what he was feeling, let alone what he was feeling.

Azriel turns his back on Cassian, beginning to storm off from the training ring. "You think she would want you to suffer in Silence? To keep hurting everyone else because you're trying to outrun your problems? " Azriel stilled. "If she cared enough, she wouldn't have left. Why should I care about myself when she is so repulsed by me that she would prefer an enemy of the Night Court's company over mine?" His voice was ice that sending shivers down Cassians spine, this was the feared Spymaster of the Night Court speaking, not his brother.

"For someone who's job it is to collect information, you truly do not know anything." Cassian shook his head and took off into the sky before Azriel could say anything.

Great now that's two of his brother's that he's not on great terms with. Things with Cassian continued to be tense and since he was also on Rocky grounds with Rhys, things had become a bit awkward with Feyre and Nesta. Yes they were polite and would invite him to things and he would still have his weekly coffee with Nesta, but things were a lot more tense since they couldn't even bring up their mates.

No one in the inner circle would bring you up, not to Azriel at least. He knew they talked about you and Azriel, both in friendly hangouts he wasn't invited to and the family dinners that he had been dodging. He knew that they probably had a lot to say when the insomnia had gotten so bad that he needed to take residence in your room. He doesn't know the exact details because the shadows have been withholding information from him too. Just what he needed another person who had an issue with him, this one actually being part of him.

At this point he was on the best terms with Amren which actually started an unlikely friendship. He must have looked so pathetic for Amren to invite him over for tea. It started with talks of the prison, which then led to the inner circle, which then led to inner workings of the Night Court. Tea with Amren became a normal ordeal, she didn't treat him differently and was the same blunt Amren she's always been. It was a good distraction.

He wore the gloves you had gifted him regularly, even if his hands weren't bothering him, he liked the sense of comfort he felt when he wore them. He still felt a mix of emotions when he thinks about your departure, he's angry with you for leaving him here like this, sad because he feels like you have given up on him, and most of all feeling like he's an idiot because all he wants is for you to come home. To come back to him.

Rhys had assigned him on his first mission, a recon mission in the Dawn Court. Azriel had begged to go to the Autumn Court, to at least check on you and make sure you're okay, but Rhys immediately shut him down every time. It's a two week long mission and he was ready to go. The blade you gave him for Solstice had been left in your desk, since Azriel moved to your room. It was too special to him to risk damaging it, so he left it there but he feels like he wouldn't be doing your gift justice if he didn't wear it on his mission.

At this point it had been about 6 weeks without you. He took the blade from the sheath you had also had made for him and inspected it. The silver metal shone in the sunlight, and the blade was the thinnest and sharpest he had ever seen. Outside the silver edge of the blade there was a clear outlining that went all the way around the edges of the blade. He assumed this was the blood bind, so Azriel took the blade and sliced his left hand. The blood weld and the blade absorbed it, the clear lining turned red with blood and once it had decided that was enough blood spilled to activate the blood bond, the red turned into a shimmering black.

Azriel admired and then sheathed the blade. He turned and looked at himself in the mirror and almost jumped at the sight. He truly did look terrible, the beauty of the blade you had crafted for him a contrast over his current ragged state. Your blade. That you had made for him.

Azriel knew he hadn't been the greatest friend lately. He skipped the things you guys would usually do to try and get to know Elain better, his reasoning being you guys have already spent so much time together and would have so much more. He wishes he could go back in time and deck himself for even thinking that. He misses your coffee runs. He misses pranking Rhys with you. He misses laughing with you at Cassian being well Cassian. He misses your laugh.

He doesn't even need you there, he would take whatever small part of you he can and would happily thank the Mother for even allowing him that small respite. He's coming to realise that in the midst of his cruel and miserable existence, you had been the one ray of light in his life and that when the Mother decides that it's his time and he's nothing more than stardust scattered across the universe or the Mother decides to take her revenge for the sins he's committed in this life that it's the sound of your laugh that would carry him away. If the Mother was good she would allow him the luxury of scattering you with him, but ashes are plentiful and he only needs a single ember.

In the silence of your room, haunted by the ghost of your absence Azriel breaks. Tears stream down his face for the second time in this very spot and realizes that something needs to change, that he needs to change.

When Azriel returns from his mission, he knocks on Cassian's door. Cassian opens the door, his face is straight and devoid of his usual smile. "Are you finally ready to talk or am I going to have to kick your ass again and watch you storm off and brood some more." Azriel begins to feel shy, it is not a feeling that is common to him nor one he likes. This was already very hard for him, but he also forgot that Cassian was Cassian and he wouldn't allow him to walk in like nothing happened. Azriel knods and looks at Cassian with determination in his eyes, "I'm ready." Cassian matches his seriousness and then breaks down in laughter and brings Azriel into a bone-crushing hug. "I'VE MISSED YOU BROTHER." Azriel normally would have tried to get out of it, but he needed this.

Azriel sat down and told Cassian his problems. All of them. They started mid-day and didn't end until passed out after sunrise. He told him about feeling worthless and left out. He told him about you and how he doesn't know what he did or how to fix it but does know he's going insane like this. He talked about Rhys and how that whole situation had really affected him, Cassian had no idea and was so upset that he left for an hour or two and came back bloodied. 15 minutes later Nesta came in and brought him bandages and ice while telling him good job for putting Rhys in his place.

This became regular for Azriel. Him and Cassian would talk out all his problems one by one and he would actually try to do something to fix them. Cassian talked with Madja, and Azriel was now seeing her regularly as she claimed that "illnesses of the mind must be given the same level of attention as illnesses of the body." He started showing up to family dinners again. He apologised to Elain and told her that he couldn't go on with what they were doing because he wasn't in a place for anything right now and could barely deal with himself. She understood and was happy he was finally getting the help he needed. He told her not to wait for him and that it would be better for them to remain friends and she agreed.

Azriel began doing things for himself. He went to your guys' favourite bakery on the regular. He started reading all the books you had left on your shelf. He even started playing piano again, a hobby he had long forgotten, but only remembered because found his old compositions stuffed in a book on your shelf. He had no clue how you got them, he thought they were all thrown away, but nonetheless he was glad to have them.

Things were looking up for Azriel. The only thing bothering him was that he still didn't have you here or know why you left. No one would tell him anything and they would all shut down around him when you were brought up. Conversations would quiet, and topics would be changed. This confirmed the suspicion he had from the beginning, the reason you left was directly concerned with him.

While he was getting better, Azriel did have his ups and downs. His biggest down was the realisation that you had been writing to every single person except for him and Elain. The shadows had finally decided to start talking to him again and the first thing they had told him is that they caught your scent in the house. He flew like a madman from the other side of Velaris, getting there in record time. He searched for your scent, desperate to see you, when he found a handful of envelopes, all with your name and scrawl. The ink was a dark red and the lines were too thin to be from any of your writing tools. You must be using Eris' then.

This bothered Azriel so much he almost forgot the reason why he was holding these letters. He looked at who they were addressed to and saw every single Inner Circle member had received a letter but him and Elain. He put the letters back on the desk and waited to see if anyone would bring them up. Nothing. His shadows began to update him of their arrivals. You had been regularly corresponding with them and not him. Azriel was crushed.

Nevertheless, he continued with his routine. He saw Madja regularly, became close with his family again, and began to actually do things for himself. The process was difficult and so incredibly hard, especially for someone who had been bottling things up for as long as he had.

He's even been visiting his estate lately to see his mother, as she lives on his property. He avoids her when he isn't doing well, she's been exposed to many cruelties over the span of her long life she doesn't need to deal with more. Talking with his mother has really helped. Her warm smile could brighten any day. He's missed her lately. He has a bad habit of putting the ones that he cares the most about on the back burner, but he's working on it.

It's been 3 months since you left and Azriel is finally feeling better. He was at his weekly session with Madja. It was going really well actually, well it was going really well until she causally says, "And how do you feel about a certain princess' return to the Night Court?" She asked almost sounding like a child teasing their friend in front of their crush. Azriel didn't even pick up on it. His shadows stilled and his eyes went wide. You were coming back? Back to the Night Court? Back to him?

Madja looks at him confused. She tilts her head, "You didn't know?" He shakes his head no. He lets out a breath he didn't even know he was holding and goes, "No I had no idea. I'm still the only one she hasn't spoken to." His tone bitter, but he caught himself and asked, "When is she getting back?" He hopes she'll just forget about his mini outburst just a second ago.

Madja looks surprised and Azriel is even more surprised at her confusion. She has sat here for the past few weeks hearing about him complain about your lack of communication with him, shouldn't she know that he knows nothing of this?

Madja goes, "You do know you have little shadow spies that listen in to all of your conversations?" Good to see that age hasn't dulled her sense of humour. How did he forget about that? Azriel shakes his head and goes,"Fair enough Madja."

She gives him a pitying look and sighs, "She'll come back. As far as your relationship goes, I would recommend talking it out in person. You both obviously have a lot on your minds, your relationship won't be able to move progress until you address this." Madja leans forward, like she's about to tell him a secret. "Now knowing both of you for so long, I can assure you that you guys will be fine. You're fond of each other and your biggest fear is losing each other, it's going to take a lot more than this to ruin you relationship."

Azriel looks at her agape. While this was fairly common knowledge, no one had actually sat him down and told him this. He assumed that you guys were fond of each other in the way he was fond of each of the inner circle members. Now that the dynamics of the inner circle shifted, they were all pairing up and finding their person. While you had always been close to Rhys, Azriel was the one you had usually ended up pairing up with in the end. Azriel had never come to this realisation, his entire life, he had been yearning for someone to pick him, only to drive away the one person who did.

Madja looks at him and he swears she can read his mind. She shakes her head and starts, "You were ready to die for her Azriel, when she was going to be clipped. You put yourself under the mercy of the old high lord for hundreds of years to ensure her safety and you're going to let your relationship fall apart because of what? A misunderstanding?"

Azriel stills, the conversation had escalated very quickly, leaving him speechless. He can't jump to conclusions before he even knew your side. He would talk to you and everything would be okay. It was just one big misunderstanding. It had to be.

He takes a deep breath and revels in his new found peace and clarity. The Azriel of a weeks ago would have angrily stormed off, lashing out at whatever unfortunate victim would check on him to make sure he's okay, but he's getting better now. He isn't anywhere near perfect, he is the same Azriel, but he hopes that when you get back he will be someone that is deserving to have you in their life without taking you for granted.

He takes a deep breath in and out. "Okay. When is the soonest I can speak with her?"

-

note: Azriel self-help arc time! Yes he did suffer for a bit and yes he will suffer a lot more so don't you worry, but I do think he deserves a little respite. He's coming to his senses... slowly. Thank you all for the support on this series I know we've hit a bit of a slow point in the storyline but there will be the reunion in the next episode which will be explosive one way or another so keep an eye out for that. Until next time loves!

note note: I probably will stop putting out chapters at this speed because I want to actually be able to edit them and the next parts are really important to the story and I do want to get it right :)

taglist: @alimarie1105 @chaosabroad @bbontenswhhore @tele86 @ashblooddragons @circe143 @i-am-infinite @princesssunderworld @thestartitaness @tiffany-xx @cpfantasybooks @lucia-valentinaa @jennigsonl @ivy-34 @firefly-forest @k-homosapien @coeurdeveea @cherryjain17 @bckynatt @becstersworld @rcarbo1 @gojospearlycim @atluky

[howlingmod]

SIT NEXT TO ME!

summary - how some of the survivors and killers show their love ... giggles

misc - low quality content im so tire .... but i must write .... it is demanded of me .....

Noob - Physical Touch

-Simple pleasure, simple guy, what can I say.

-It's not even something they're aware of half the time, a big part of what probably tipped you off to their feelings for you in the first place was their touchiness. While they're more physical with everyone, it definitely lingered with you more. They'd stick closer to you on excursions and, more often than not, would be brushing shoulders with you when working on generators.

-They just like being able to feel your presence, it's grounding to them in a big way. A lot of the time they'll have a hand on you just because it feels comforting, usually it's on your shoulder or they'll reach for your arm if you've got one free (they prefer holding onto your arm/hooking arms more than handholding to be honest ... it just feels so much more secure and special !!)

-Late at night they'll frequently fidget with your hands, looking at all the lines in your palms and the little cuts and marks that litter your skin. It puts them in a trance, you're just so gorgeous to them, in that human, real kinda way. It's hard for them to put into words ...

007n7 - Physical Touch

-Before .... everything, he's a lot more varied. If anything, he probably leaned more towards acts of service- he likes making your life easier, especially with you (presumably) helping him raise c00lkid. It's not easy being a parent, he knows how stressful it and daily living in general can be. He feels good if he can make your day a little less stressful.

-Now though, he really needs that grounding. There's just so much missing. He's not really on great terms with anyone here and he knows he deserves it. You're all he has left. You're the only shred of his perfect life left.

-It's the little things when you guys are around others, the way he sticks to your side, the times where he'll subtly reach for your hand and squeeze it in reassurance, where he'll hug you when you get back from an excursion and look you over. It's the little bits of vulnerability he can spare to show you he loves you.

-Other times, it's more desperate, tight clinging to your form when you lay together because everything's suddenly clamped down on him like a million weights. It's those times that feel most like a perverted version of the ways you used to lay together when things were better, less suffocating and mournful. Sometimes you still expect the door to your room to open and c00lkid to crawl under the sheets with you two. He never does.

Shedletsky - Quality Time

-Ohhh my god this guy does not shut up. He's always got some story to tell you about, some little anecdote that something you said or something that happened reminded him of. You never really know how accurate he's being to reality, you can make your guesses but he'll only ever smile and shrug if you ask for confirmation.

-It could come off as egotistical or annoying if it weren't fairly obvious it was his way of keeping morale up. What, you think he's making things up? Why, he'd never! You'll just have to argue with him about it if you care so much. It's just a way of keeping your mind on something other than your current situation, even if it means he has to be the butt of a joke more than a few times. Besides, he just thinks playfighting with you is fun sorryyyyy <//3

-That being said, he can be serious. What you two are going through isn't exactly easy, you can't always ignore it, you have to face it head on sometimes. If you wanna talk about how scared you feel not knowing what's going to happen, he'll listen and admit he's scared too. If you wanna talk about how hopeless everything feels, he'll admit he's felt the same way a few times before. He might not be as emotional but he's forthcoming with his experiences, the last thing he wants you to feel is alone, if he can make you feel heard and helped then he's happy to admit to every bad dream that's ever haunted him.

-It'll always end with some little glimmer of hope, no matter how vague. He can't afford to lose you to apathy, he'll spin as many tales and sneak as many wishes he has for the two of you into your conversations as it takes for you to keep going just a little longer. He doesn't know what the future looks like, but he wants you to be there with him to see it.

Dusekkar - Acts of Service

-While they're more than good with their words and freely give out their praise to you, they also worry about your physical well-being frequently. Even if you're in good standings, they'll be keeping an eye on you. It's just a habit they've picked up protecting the others that's amplified tenfold for you. Perhaps they're a little biased with their shields, but they couldn't bear to lose you.

-They'll make your life easier in any way that they can, they know that the stress of everything can add up and they want you to stay strong despite it. They can't stand idly by and let you fall to the wayside, rotting in fear and pain. How could they ever truly protect you if they allowed for you to crumble right in their arms?

-It's little things- letting you sleep in longer, making sure you get a little extra food even if it means sacrificing some of their portion, hovering around you whenever you head out on an excursion. You're their world, their muse, their heart- they'll make sure you know how important you are to them and how deeply they care for your health in every way they can, it's what you deserve.

John Doe - Acts of Service(?)

-John's a weird one. He only has so much he can do for you without risking hurting you. If he sticks around you too often that could alert the other survivors and cause them to attack you. He can take bullets, you can't. Additionally, he has to be careful, that corrupted arm of his isn't exactly gentle. He knows fully that he could crush you, kill you in the blink of an eye if he isn't careful. So, he has to settle for little gestures.

-He'll leave you alone when he hunts. He'll heard you in the direction of generators, supplies, warm corners free from the chilling wind. If everyone else dies he'll walk you back home, paint you with their blood to make sure it doesn't look suspicious. He'll watch from afar till you disappear into the closed doors of your 'base.' Even then, you suspect he doesn't leave until later, hovering around as a spare set of eyes and ears on you.

-Even then, he's selfish, takes gambles when he hangs around you for just a little while longer. He'll contort, physically pulling the shoulder of his monstrous arm as far back as he can to avoid the chances of even brushing it against you when he reaches for you with the other. He'll keep it restrained, muscles pulled taut just to keep you to his side in a rare moment of peace. He's a man of few words, you can only imagine what his vocal chords have been turned into, but if you push your head close enough to his chest you just might hear him breathe out an "I love you" in between the pained labor of his lungs.

1x4 - Gift giving

-Likewise, he also can't stick around for very long. That doesn't mean he won't make a lasting mark on you. He's more risky, he knows that if the others found out and tried anything he could paint the walls red with them all before they could even lay a finger on you. He thinks he could take care of you far better than they could, provide a better home, protect you better than they could ever try to. More than once he's thought about faking your death, making a bloody scene for the others to find so he can take you from them. They're only a burden on you, a risk you (for whatever reason) worry yourself with.

-He won't force you, he's some humanity left, but that doesn't mean he won't show them up (to him, at least). He'll present you with enough jewels and gold to make an officiant pale with the dried gums of blood in between the joints, kick supplies in your direction and rip them from the hands of fallen survivors to give to you, he's offered up fingers, bones and heads as a show of his prowess and only grumbles when you turn them down.

-He'll never understand why you bother yourself in the ways you do, taking others under your wing when they can't do anything but leech off of you in return, so he'll have to make up for their inabilities instead. Where they can only take, he'll give you more than you could've ever dreamed for. It's his way of displaying how special you are to him, the pride he takes in you just as you do him. Consider himself a dragon and you the lucky singular he allows into his hoard.

+ (PLATONIC/FAMILIAL) C00lkid - N/A

-Well ... c00lkids always really liked spending time with you and dad! Dad always had cool stories about all the stuff he got up to when he was younger and you always had fun games to play with him and dad. Sometimes you'd draw with him and happily hang up his art to admire everytime you went through the kitchen before work and then he'd spend the whole day drawing more and more for you to look at, making up stories (that usually involved dracobloxxers) and worlds to tell you all about during dinner.

-Other times you guys would play tag! Usually it didn't last very long, at some point you'd get tired and have to sit down for a while and do something else with him (SAD!) but you'd been running a lot more recently! He hadn't been able to tag you in a whiiile, but he knows he will eventually! You've just been giving him another challenge to overcome like you always did, ducking around corners and over ledges. It's hard, he's scraped his knees pretty bad a few times and run into the walls more than he can count, but he always gets back up!

-It's a little weird to him though. He's never really played with anyone other than you and dad. He doesn't really know why those other people are there. You won't tell him. You never stop running. (He misses when you'd get tired, when you'd stop and hold him while you watched a movie together instead.) (He misses you and dad talking to eachother, telling him stories and dancing with him in the kitchen.) (Did he do something wrong? Are you mad at him? Why won't either of you just TALK to him!-) (If he stops chasing you, won't you be sad? Would he be disappointing you?)

-Sometimes he suddenly gets very sad. Sometimes you stand still and look at him from afar and you don't smile at him. Just stare and have this weird, long-gone look he's never seen before. He thinks about walking up to you, asking what's wrong, if you and dad hate him, why you always run but he knows you'll just run again. Instead he just chases after everyone else and wishes dad would order pizza again and you would put band-aids over the cuts on his knees from falling and the pricks of branches on his arms.

[darkmatilda]

𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 | 𝐬.𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: in which one spencer reid tries to focus on work, but keeps getting distracted. first by an unexpected phone call. then by the way you start flirting with another agent right across from his desk. but in the end, why does it even bother him?

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐭𝐰: spender reid x diva!chemist reader, reader kinda threatens to poison him, but its not a threat, just their silly way of showing mutual affection <3

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 3.3k

𝐚/𝐧: anon's request. heyyy wonderful people, just letting you know that your request was the second-to-last in my inbox, so im opening them again! feel free to send me your ideas for the diva reader series, im already grateful in advance :>

Spencer usually gave out his phone number only to the people closest to him.

That way, he didn’t get unnecessary calls distracting him from more important matters, and he could be sure that if someone truly needed to reach him, they wouldn’t have any trouble doing so.

So, as he walked through the Quantico office, planning to track down Hotch—who supposedly wanted to see him—he was so absorbed in their case that he pressed his phone to his ear without thinking, without even looking at the screen, fully expecting to hear a familiar voice. Someone from the team, maybe.

Instead…

"Hey there, gorgeous."

A slightly raspy male voice. Spencer immediately estimated the caller to be around forty, judging by the subtle rustling sound—whoever it was, they were holding the phone just a little too close to their mouth.

Spencer froze in place.

His first thought—a wrong number.

His second—another one of Morgan’s pranks.

Just in case it was the latter, he didn’t hang up immediately. If his friend had planned something, he needed to find out what—so he could properly retaliate later.

"We met last night, don’t know if you remember," the man continued after a brief silence, caused entirely by Spencer’s confusion. "I hope you do. Because I sure do. Hard to forget a face like yours. You still there, sweetheart?"

In case anyone had any doubts—Spencer was not the intended recipient of this conversation.

He hadn’t gone out the night before, let alone given his number to a stranger. In fact, he had been in an entirely different state.

"Oh, sweetheart, don’t make me mad now. Or maybe you’re staying quiet because you’re curious how much I remember about you? Want me to remind you what you were wearing?"

Suddenly, it clicked.

After a brief second of pure disbelief, Spencer rolled his eyes upward, staring straight into the glare of the overhead lights. He blinked slowly.

His brain was exceptionally sharp that day. Even more so than usual.

Which meant it didn’t take long for him to put the pieces together. A quick mental chain reaction, linking scattered fragments of information into a single, clear conclusion. 

The man on the other end of the line thought Spencer was the woman he had met the night before.

Spencer had a few female friends, but everything—literally everything—pointed to her.

First of all, he was nearly certain none of the others had gone out last night. They had all been working together, after all.

Second, and somehow more importantly—none of them, except her, would have found it remotely funny to give his number to a random guy.

As a joke? Was that what this was supposed to be?

“There’s no need for that,” Spencer cut in sharply, before the man on the other end could start poetically or less poetically describing her outfit.

This time, the silence came from the other side, laced with clear confusion.

Spencer couldn’t stop the faint crease forming on his forehead, nor the subtle tension drawing his shoulder blades together. The entire conversation left a bad taste in his mouth, and it wasn’t just because the guy was wasting his time.

It was his voice.

Self-important. Smug. Wet in a way that made simply listening to him an unpleasant experience. The kind of voice that could turn an otherwise neutral or even affectionate word sweetheart into something damn near degrading.

Years of experience profiling people meant Spencer had no trouble picturing exactly the kind of man he was dealing with. And the distaste coiling in his gut only sharpened.

“For future reference,” he said, barely pausing for breath, his grip tightening on the phone, “I’d suggest double-checking the numbers women give you when they’re trying to get rid of you. Because this isn’t your sweetheart. This is the Behavioral Analysis Unit, which, for your information, is part of the FBI. And your utterly pointless, time-wasting phone call could be considered obstruction of justice, which, surprise, can land you several years in prison.

A loud silence followed—one that left Spencer with a strange feeling. Satisfaction, maybe.

The man cleared his throat, and Spencer would bet good money that there were one or two silent curses mixed in there.

“This whore must’ve given me a fake number,” the guy muttered, no longer speaking directly into the phone.

The sudden shift from sweetheart to whore was so blatant that Spencer couldn’t hold back a sharp, mocking scoff.

“Well, I’m guessing you didn’t think of her as a whore when you were trying to hit on her last night—”

He barely finished the last word before the line went dead.

For a moment, he remained motionless, the phone still pressed to his ear, analyzing his own reaction. He was completely taken aback by it. Almost immediately, though, he forced himself into a nonchalant shrug, brushing it off as nothing more than irritation at an unwanted call.

Work. Right. Work. He had work to do, he had to meet with Hotch…

…but he had barely covered a few meters when his gaze caught a familiar stride and silhouette crossing one of the hallways. And before his mind could even consciously make the decision, he found himself heading in that direction—despite originally going somewhere entirely different.

“Did you have fun last night?” he asked as her hand pressed the elevator button.

She didn’t look at him at first, though she must have heard his footsteps. It wasn’t until he spoke that she slightly turned her head toward him.

“Not too bad,” she admitted casually. Her hands immediately moved to their usual position, arms crossed over her chest, and a small teasing smile danced on her lips.“How about your morning? Any interesting phone calls?”

He opened and closed his mouth, not expecting to be so transparent. He also felt a bit confused by her enigmatic, calm reaction. The elevator stopped, and she confidently stepped inside first.

Spencer followed her.

“I don’t quite get it,” he admitted, furrowing his brows. “Was that supposed to be a joke at my expense, or that guy’s?”

They stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder in the small elevator space. He looked at her, and she stared ahead. She slowly shrugged.

“Maybe both,” she replied, inspecting her nails. Spencer clenched his lips, holding back from saying that she could at least spare him the ignorant, irritating attitude for once. “Or maybe I just wanted to get rid of the pushy guy by giving him the first random number I could think of” She paused, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. “And maybe I was hoping you'd scare the shit out of him with some long lecture, preferably about the law. Was I right?”

She shifted her gaze fully to him, her piercing eyes locking onto him with such intensity that denial was out of the question. He didn’t even need to answer—the flicker of expression that crossed his face gave him away instantly.

Her short laugh filled the elevator.

He always felt a little humiliated, standing there in silence while she laughed at his expense. So he spoke first, blurting out the first thing that came to mind—the thing that had been sitting there for a while now.

“Does that happen a lot? Guys being pushy?”

She gave him a closer look, maybe because of the unintended seriousness in his voice. He hadn’t meant for it to sound that way. Clearing his throat, he tried to appear more indifferent.

“Well, yes,” she said simply. Stating an obvious fact, a reality she was used to. “Every time. But getting rid of them isn’t hard. A well-placed conversation, and they run off just as fast as they showed up.” She scoffed. “But sometimes I’d rather just, you know, actually enjoy my evening instead of dealing with them. And that’s when the fake number trick comes in.”

Spencer caught himself listening with genuine interest. He was well aware of the effect she had on people—how she drew eyes just by existing, how so many of those looks were filled with nothing but desire. He also had the impression that, for the most part, she regarded them with mild disdain—or maybe even enjoyed being the center of attention.

He hadn’t considered that sometimes she’d had enough of them—so much so that she had an entire list of strategies to get rid of them just as quickly as she attracted them.

He realized he had fallen silent, lost in thought. The elevator stopped at her floor—he hadn’t planned on getting in with her in the first place, which meant he was now stuck pretending he was going somewhere else.

She took a step toward the open doors before his voice stopped her.

“Wait, you’re not even going to say thank you?” he asked. “I did waste some time on that guy. That was a solid lecture.”

She stood in front of the open doors, facing him.

“I have a suspicion,” she began, one brow arching as a teasing smirk tugged at her lips, “that you enjoyed it way too much to actually need my thanks.”

She gave him a small wave—just her fingers, really—before the elevator doors slid shut, cutting them off from each other. Spencer hated to admit—even to himself—that she had a point. Okay, a lot of a point, he realized as he recalled that fleeting rush of satisfaction when the call abruptly ended, punctuated by a hint of panic on the other end.

And maybe that was what ultimately decided it—because from that moment on, on the rare occasions he received similar calls, he always had a long, meticulously crafted, stern lecture at the ready. One that, just before the inevitable abrupt hang-up, sent the smallest, most satisfying shiver down his spine.

*

"You have three hours."

"I can handle it in two."

 "Do it in one."

Spencer remembered these words, muttering a soft shit under his breath. The massive stack of papers that not only needed to be read but also carefully analyzed seemed to be getting no smaller. The hour on the clock, however, kept ticking forward.

"Hm? What's up? Do you have something?"

He slowly shifted his unwilling gaze to the man he was trapped in the room with. Well, not literally trapped, but that’s how it felt. Dean Bradley, an agent who’d been working on the case they’d just been assigned to for years, knew it inside out—naturally, he had been assigned to cooperate with them. His current role, however, seemed to involve nothing more than pretending to write something on the whiteboard and occasionally throwing out a theory that supposedly brought them closer to the solution but, in reality, only pushed them further away. Bradley was incredibly distracting to Spencer.

"No... I just... nothing." Spencer replied rubbing his throbbing temple. That case had been exceptionally exhausting, he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, and the coffee he had just drunk hadn’t helped at all. "Nothing. Just...can you not say anything to me for a while?"

Bradley raised an eyebrow at him but Reid didn’t really care. Simply buried his nose in the papers again, reading, or rather, devouring the pages with his eyes. There hadn’t been the best atmosphere between them ever since Spencer had ignored his outstretched hand for a greeting. Well, that was because he had seen Bradley leaving the bathroom earlier, and even if he had washed his hands, he had immediately touched the door handle that everyone in the building touched, half of whom hadn’t washed their hands. Honestly, Spencer would have preferred to kiss him as a greeting. It would have been safer.

For a moment, Bradley was actually quiet. He didn’t stay that way for too long, though—just long enough.

"So, where are those lab results? Weren’t they supposed to be here by now?"

"They were. So, I’m guessing they’ll be here any minute," Spencer replied shortly.

"It’s taking a while. Maybe I should just go grab them myself?"

Yeah, please do, Spencer nearly begged. He even opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, the door swung open and a woman stepped in, moving with quick, confident steps, but this time with a bit of frustration in her stride.

Completely ignoring the man's gaze landing on her, she stepped up to his desk and dropped the promised lab results onto it with a sharp motion.

"Could you tell me," she began, one hand still resting on the papers, preventing him from immediately going through them. Because she was standing while he was sitting, her figure loomed over him, forcing him to tilt his head slightly to meet her eyes. Naturally, he did, his gaze moving from her hand with neatly manicured fingers to her beautiful face, her bottom lip slightly protruding as she prepared to speak. "When exactly did I become your secretary? Because I don't remember that moment."

Spencer didn't even blink before responding, so used to thir verbal sparring and the fast pace she always set, just like her steps.

"Well, maybe since you started handing out my number left and right," he shot back instantly. Without breaking his gaze, he grabbed the empty cup sitting within arm's reach. "And since you consider yourself my secretary, would you be so kind as to make me a coffee?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Agent Bradley watching their exchange with fascination, focused on only one side of the conversation. No need to specify which side. Meanwhile, the woman tilted her head slightly to the side, a certain gleam lighting up her eyes.

"Sure," she replied, to his surprise. There was something devious in her tone. Suddenly, Spencer didn't want the coffee anymore. "But I’m not sure I’d be so kind as to make sure those ten teaspoons of sugar you put in your coffee are actually sugar, and not, say, arsenic..."

Instinctively, he pulled the cup closer to himself.

"Not ten," he mumbled.

"Oh, my eternal apologies, I exaggerated a bit. Five?"

"Well, now you're getting closer..."

Their conversation, or rather their verbal sparring, was interrupted by a cough.

“Reid,” Bradley said his last name much friendlier than ever before, with a mischievous grin on his face. “When you said the chemist would bring us the lab results, I imagined, I don’t know, Einstein with his hair sticking out in all directions. Did you really lock such a treasure in the lab?” he chuckled. “So it wouldn't distract y’all?”

Spencer looked up at the woman in front of him again, who had only just noticed the third person in the room. Her hand slowly slid off the papers she’d been resting on, though it stayed on the desk. She half turned her body toward the new speaker, casually sitting on the desk. There was something hypnotic in the fluid, clock-like motion as she crossed one knee over the other. For a moment, he just watched, realizing after a while that he wasn’t the only one.

“Maybe I locked myself in there,” she replied. Her tone calm, too calm, as it always was before she’d throw words, like precisely aimed darts, at the other person. “So I wouldn’t have to listen to the same tired lines from agents with the same tired faces, thinking they’re being creative.”

For a moment, he completely forgot about the pile of papers waiting to be analyzed. He watched what was unfolding in front of him, a small smile involuntarily starting to form on his lips. However, it faded the moment he noticed Bradley’s expression. He had expected him to be shut down. Speechless, maybe. Hurt in that characteristic, pathetic way typical of fragile male pride. Instead, Bradley was grinning like an idiot.

“Wow, that’s a bit harsh,” Bradley commented lightly, not in the slightest bit put off by her words. In fact, the fascination on his face only grew.

Spencer couldn’t help but glance at the profile of the woman sitting motionless on the desk. Her gaze was now also more focused, following the person across from her. Her eyes seemed even more concentrated, intrigued, and entertained than during their conversation. He forced himself to tear his gaze away from her, physically making himself look back at the papers. Work, right, work. He had to focus on it, despite how distracted he was by their presence. It was, after all, natural. They were speaking rather loudly, right in front of him. He began reading the text on the page, concentrating only on it.

“You must feel like some princess locked in a tower,”

His ears, against his better judgment, picked up Bradley’s next words. He shook his head. Text. A quick glance at the woman’s face. Text.

“You know, that German fairy tale from the 18th century…”

Spencer, from his own experience, knew that info dumping wasn’t the most effective way to flirt with a woman. Especially when it wasn’t even accurate.

“17th century,” he corrected, unable to stop himself. Both their gazes landed on him, but he didn’t respond to either, keeping his eyes fixed on the papers. He was reading them, but couldn’t grasp their meaning. He started analyzing the same paragraph again, continuing, “Assuming we’re talking about the German version of that fairy tale recorded by The Brothers Grimm. Because, actually, this was developed from the French literary fairy tale Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force, which itself is an alternative version of the Italian fairy tale Petrosinella by Giambattista Basile.”

A long silence fell. The woman shifted slightly in her seat, pretending to be focused on her work, and he tried not to look at her face. Was there pity or amusement on it? Why did it matter to him so much to figure that out? What mattered was only one thing: they were bothering him. The two of them. With the noise they were generating, to be precise.

The sound that filled the room was probably just a long breath from Bradley.

“Wow,” he repeated, thrown off. “Thanks for the clarification, Agent Reid.”

“It’s Doctor Reid.”

He couldn’t stop himself and looked at her. She closed her eyes when a smile spread across her lips. She didn’t try to hide it or hold it back. It was simply there. Bradley noticed it too, his arms, which had been casually resting on his hips, sliding down along his body.

"Didn't you have some urgent documents to analyze?" he began, trying not to sound confrontational, but he failed. He sounded confrontational. "The ones you kept reminding me about every five minutes since we got here?"

Reid didn't have a sharp retort ready for that one; in fact, Bradley had hit the nail on the head. He did have a lot of urgent documents to go through, but for reasons unknown to him, he'd decided to engage in this pointless conversation instead. His silence only seemed to fuel the satisfaction on Bradley's face, which was broken only by the movement of the woman. Specifically, her rising from the desk.

"You could've just said we’re interrupting," she remarked, stretching one leg after the other, every movement fluid. "Especially if it's something important. Is it?"

"Well, actually, yes..."

"In that case, I suppose we're in the way. Shall we go, Agent Bradley?"

She must have read his last name off the badge pinned to her chest. Both Spencer and Bradley looked at her, but only one of them slowly cracked a smile. The other let out a sigh, pretending to feel relief, though deep down, he genuinely did—finally, he could focus on what he had wanted to from the start.

They both made their way toward the door. Unused to her quick pace, and still a bit surprised by the attention she had given him, the agent trailed after her like a lost puppy. As they crossed the threshold, she turned back to him over her shoulder, looking like a kid bragging about winning a bike race.

Spencer merely shook his head with pity, and when they both disappeared in the same direction, he scoffed.

He returned to his work.

After a while, he found himself thinking that perhaps he preferred their conversation to be within earshot, rather than out of it.

[aurumacadicus]

I had a thought. Hmmmm. Bear with me.

--

"Rogers," someone barked, and Steve almost choked on his champagne. He turned, bewildered, to find Carol Danvers charging toward him like she was on a mission. A group of partygoers even scattered out of her way. He cast around for anything he could have said that would insult the air force. He couldn't think of anything that would have insulted her anymore than her playful ribs about the army, though.

"Barnes says you're a sad-sack," Carol said, coming to a stop right in front of him.

"...Ouch?" Steve spluttered after a moment. "He said that about me?"

Carol winced, seeming to realize she'd basically just insulted him. "No, I mean, uh--" She coughed, cleared her throat, then took a step backward to give him some space. "Barnes says you don't dance. At all."

Steve blinked, wondering what that had to do with anything. "No, I don't."

"And you came stag," she added, gaze intense.

Steve glanced around for an escape. That seemed ominous. He didn't even want to come to this stupid party, but the brass had basically told him it was mandatory after a few successful (and very high profile) missions. They hadn't served dinner yet. While he would miss the steak, he could probably make it out through the kitchen. Or a bathroom window.

"Will you stop looking like I'm asking you to volunteer for a firing squad?" Carol hissed between her teeth. "I just need you to sit with a friend while Jim and I dance."

"...Oh," Steve said after some thought. "Maybe if you hadn't charged up to me like you were asking me to volunteer for a firing squad, I wouldn't look like this. I thought Maria couldn't come?"

"Different friend," Carol answered, voice clipped. When he only raised an eyebrow at her in response, she huffed, blowing a piece of hair out of her face. "Jim doesn't want to leave him alone right now, but I didn't want to pull anyone away from their date."

Well, Steve supposed he could understand that. He threw back the last gulp of his champagne, then set the empty glass on the bar. "Okay. Don't approach me like we're about to get into a fistfight anymore."

"Sorry," she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, then turned to lead him over to her table. "Also, does Barnes's date have a gun on her? She reached for something when I went to ask him if he knew anyone who wouldn't mind sitting for a song."

"No, it's a knife," Steve answered helpfully.

Carol almost stumbled, but she caught herself on the next step. "She would have stabbed me?!"

Steve paused, considering, then answered, "I dunno, maybe. She's never stabbed me."

"I can see why Barnes likes her," Carol grumbled reluctantly. She grabbed his sleeve before he could say anything else and yanked him up beside her. "Tony! I've found someone to sit with you. This is Steve."

Tony, Steve assumed, blinked up at both of them in confusion. His mouth was still open with a forkful of cheesecake halfway toward it. His eyes darted back and forth between them before he finally set is fork back down. "Um?"

Steve couldn't help but gawk. How had he gotten dessert already? The hors d'oeuvres were still out on the main table. Steve had just nervously demolished the last of the crostini. He was still thinking about the steak he'd ordered.

"Jim and I are going to go have a dance," Carol continued, reaching out to grab Jim by the collar and drag him up out of his seat. "I promise we'll be back after three songs."

"Um," Tony said again, and Jim spluttered something about his own dessert, but Carol dragged him away before he could get his feet under him. He and Steve watched them disappear into the crowd milling about the dance floor. Steve almost felt sorry for him.

But then he saw that Jim's dessert was a beautiful piece of chocolate cake with soft pink layers of frosting. "Well, best not to let Jim's plate go to waste," Steve said cheerfully, sitting down in Jim's seat, and pulled the tiny dessert plate closer. He could probably get himself another slice later, after dinner. He had this one, after all.

"Um," Tony said again, frowning in confusion. "You don't. Have to sit with me? I can take care of myself for fifteen minutes."

Steve shrugged. "No offense, but I'm more scared of Carol than I am of you."

Tony swiveled to stare in the direction Carol had disappeared to, then looked back up at him, huffing. "I guess that makes sense." He shifted in his seat awkwardly. "Maybe you can actually get me out of here without drawing attention when you're done with Rhodey's cake."

Steve wondered what that meant, but he'd shoved a huge bite of cake into his mouth at the same time, and by the time he'd chewed and swallowed, Tony was focused on making sure he got the perfect cheese-to-crust ratio in each bite, and waved him away when he tried to ask. He gave off kind of the same vibe Natasha did, and he had several knives nearby for the oncoming dinner service, so Steve focused on his cake.

Tony finished just as Steve was scraping the last of the icing from his plate, and he dabbed at his mouth with his cloth napkin, set it on the table, then clasped his hands in his lap and turned to bat his eyelashes at Steve. "If you can get me onto the balcony without letting anyone talk to me, I will give you a million dollars."

Steve blinked back at him. "That's it?"

"If you can get me to my limo without Rhodey noticing, I'll even make sure he doesn't kill you," Tony offered.

Steve stood, then narrowed his eyes, slowly sinking back into his seat. "I dunno, this is a lieutenant colonel we're talking about."

Tony blinked at him slowly, then simply stated, "Coward."

"Okay," Steve said, lurching back to his feet. He scowled when Tony smirked at him, irritated that he was apparently so readable. He offered Tony his hand.

At that, Tony looked surprised. He glanced back and forth between Steve's hand and face, shoulders drawing in nervously when he slanted a look around them, as if to see who might be watching them. He looked back up at Steve with a frown. "Carol didn't tell you why Rhodey didn't want me alone, did she?"

Steve hesitated, then let his hand drop back to his side, feeling like an idiot. "She barely told me who you were."

Tony looked away, shoulders rising and falling with a heavy sigh. "Oh. Well." He shook his head, then lifted both of his hands from his lap, letting them drop to his sides--

Steve couldn't help the sick feeling forming in his gut as Tony rolled himself back, wheelchair appearing from under the tablecloth. It looked like he still had his legs, but Steve knew looks could be deceiving. And it would be rude to ask, of course. He swallowed thickly. Why would this mean Tony needed to be babysat, though? Unless he was talking about leaving before dinner was even served. He felt like he should have asked Carol more questions, been more assertive, if only to save himself the embarrassment he felt now.

"It's okay," Tony sighed, pushing his chair back under the table so he could hide it with the tablecloth again.

"...I can take you out onto the balcony," Steve said after a brief pause.

Tony shot him an amused smile. "That million just too much to pass up?"

"What? No, I wasn't going to expect it anyway," Steve scoffed. He reached out, wrapping his hands around the handles of Tony's wheelchair. "It would feel like stealing, anyway. It's not gonna be hard."

Tony tipped his head back to raise an eyebrow at him. "Oh yeah? Lots of people have been coming by to talk to me since I got here. I'm sure tons of them will stop us, and--"

"Hold on," Steve said, then braced his feet against the floor.

Tony let out a startled little 'meep' as the chair lurched forward, hands slamming down on the armrests as Steve quickly gained speed. His alarm quickly gave way to delight, though, because then he was throwing his head back, laughing, as Steve sprinted toward the balcony. Most people jumped out of the way, but Steve did end up mowing over a few long skirts. He'd probably get chewed out by Colonel Phillips tomorrow.

But with the genuine delight on Tony's face, he couldn't find it in himself to care that much.

"Oh! Oh," Tony laughed as Steve slowed to a stop next the railing. He put a hand over his chest, lifting the other to wipe a tear away from his eye. "Oh my god. I'm gonna have to pay so many dry cleaning bills."

"Take it outta that million you owe me," Steve replied, leaning back against the railing with a smug smile. "And then give the rest to charity."

"You're crazy," Tony told him, grinning, and he sounded happy still. "Rhodey always told me military guys were crazy, but I never really believed him."

Steve shrugged. "Well. I allegedly once threw myself off a helicopter without a parachute once."

"Allegedly," Tony repeated, shaking his head with what looked like genuine admiration. "How high up was it?"

"Well, I spent a lot of last year pulling off a real good mimicry of Jimmy Stewart from Rear Window," Steve answered, still smiling.

Tony's mouth dropped open into an 'o' of shock. "Are you crazy, or stupid?"

Steve shrugged again. "Yeah." Tony laughed again, from deep in his belly. It was a good look on him, Steve thought, letting his hands drop back to brace on the balcony railing. "So why did Carol think you needed to be babysat?"

He regretted asking immediately. Tony's smile dimmed, and his eyes dropped to his lap. He wrung his hands a couple times, then looked back up at Steve with a sad smile. "Dancing was my favorite part of these events before the accident. I am--I... was good at it. My mother had me in dancing classes since I was six. This is my first big event since..." He motioned at his legs. "I didn't realize how much I would miss it. And Rhodey's such a good friend, he was gonna sit with me the entire time, even though I knew he wanted to dance with Carol."

"That's nice of him," Steve answered carefully. He offered Tony a rueful smile. "I guess it's a good thing she chose me, huh? I can't dance at all."

Tony's expression turned wistful. "I could have taught you. I've taught a lot of people to dance." He looked Steve up and down, gaze turning speculative. "Mostly debutantes. But I was always up for a challenge." His eyes lingered on Steve's feet, then he squinted up at his face. "Those might have hurt my toes more than their stilettos."

Steve blinked, surprised, then couldn't help a bark of laughter. "Wow! Saying I have big feet and calling me fat at the same time."

"You're built like a tank," Tony huffed petulantly. "I'm pretty sure that's why so many people jumped out of the way. A collision with me, oh, well, ouch, but what a great story for the papers. Getting hit by you would have killed them instantly."

"I was probably going too fast," Steve allowed, but he decided he didn't really care. Maybe it would keep him from getting sent to these shindigs. He let his eyes trail over Tony's legs, considering, then dragged his gaze up his body. Tony looked... pretty slight. He wondered how long it had been since his accident. It would be rude to ask though. "Are you ambulatory at all?"

Tony frowned, brows furrowing together in confusion. "Yeah? I mean. I'm still in physical therapy, so. Hopefully I'll. Get more use out of my legs again." He sighed. "Maybe I'll dance again someday. But probably not."

"So it won't hurt you to get out of the chair?" Steve asked, just to be sure.

Tony tipped his head. "...No," he finally answered. "The pain is... secondary to the neurological component."

"Cool," Steve said, standing up from leaning on the railing, and reached out to scoop Tony up into his arms.

Tony yelped, flailing, and threw his arms around Steve's shoulders. "Fuck! Steve! You can't just go around picking disabled people out of their fucking wheelchairs-!"

Steve took a moment to make sure Tony wouldn't squirm out of his grip, carefully adjusting his arms under his knees and behind his shoulders. Once he was certain he had Tony safely in his arms, he straightened his back, then carefully turned in a circle on one heel.

"Did you--" Tony choked out, and he buried his face in Steve's neck. "Did you just twirl me?"

"It's the only dance move I know," Steve answered. He rocked from side to side, then carefully twirled him in another circle. "You could teach me some other moves, if you don't like the twirling."

"No," Tony whispered, and Steve didn't comment on the fact that he could feel him beginning to tremble. "I mean--yes. I can teach you. But I don't... dislike the twirling."

Steve nodded, giving him another spin. "So, are you leaving the party with Colonel Rhodes?"

Tony couldn't quite bite back a laugh, leaning back to smile at Steve. It almost hid how bright his eyes were, how much he blinked to keep tears at bay. "You are about as subtle as a bull in a china shop, Steve."

Steve couldn't help but grin back. "I wasn't trying to be subtle. I just used you as a battering ram."

Tony laughed again, leaning back in. His arms squeezed around Steve's shoulders as his laugh ended in a sort of hiccup. Steve didn't mention it, instead going back to his slow, gentle circles. He was kind of surprised that no one had come after them, but he decided not to think too much on it. Jim would come find them after he and Carol finished dancing. It wasn't as if Steve hadn't left a noticeable trail of scandalized rich people behind him to follow.

[sparrolina]

This was really fun, so here's my board for Mer Moon! (just as a warning, it contains some MINOR SPOILERS for The Stars and the Sky)

Some of these are more backstory related right now (like knowing that the staff won’t come to help him). But they will be explored in future chapters so I've decided to include them. I've also rambled a bit under the cut, so you might need prepare yourself if you decide to read it 😂

In a lot of ways, Moon hasn't had the easiest life so far. He's been separated from his family at a young age, trapped in an aquarium for 20 years, forced to become a test subject for countless experiments - all before being put on display for the masses and forced to entertain them. For years, this life was the only one that he had known. And he's learned a lot of bad behaviour and unhealthy coping mechanisms because of it.

After arriving in the ocean, Moon's emotional control steadily grows worse. He finally has the chance to experience things that he has never done before (like catching his own meals). And he's determined to make the most of it. Fazbear's handlers aren't around to stop him any more. So why not have some fun and push everyone's boundaries for a while? What's the worst that anyone can do?

And yeah, he tries to be good now that he's free. But it's hard to be happy and act like a functioning Mer when there's so much that he doesn't understand. Celeste can only teach him so much - and despite everything, a part of Moon wishes that he could be more like his friends. What would life be like if he was a social butterfly like Sun? Or if he wasn't the oldest and had to be the one who keeps everyone safe? (He might love to rub it in Sun's face that he's 10 minutes older, but the responsibility can be exhausting sometimes).

Moon will always be known as the troublemaker of the group. The one who acts reckless and stupid and does the wrong things. But at his core he is someone who cares. He doesn't mean to upset anyone (Well, except Calvin. But who doesn't want to upset Calvin?). And he cares about Sun and Celeste so much that he wants to take their pain and shoulder it for himself (He's suffered a lot already. He knows that he can handle a little more). But how can he do that when he can't bring himself to express his feelings to them? (Do they know that he loves them? He really hopes that they do.)

Instead, Moon tries to show them in other ways. Like helping Celeste and protecting her from those who would do her harm. Or by trying to be patient with Sun when he mentions missing Michael at the Aquarium. Moon doesn't know how Sun convinced himself that life there wasn't as bad as it was. They lost so much to that place and its unforgivable that their childhoods and their innocence were stolen at such a young age. But Moon pushes away the pain and forces a smile onto his face so that Sun can live out his fantasy. He'll play along if it means that Sun keeps that smile on his face. He can't lose his adoptive brother because he's the only family that Moon has. (Especially after Celeste...)

Despite his faults, Moon doesn't want to hurt anyone or cause them pain. He just wants to be loved and enjoy his newfound freedom. He's desperate to understand what it means to be a part of a family. And even though he doesn't think that he deserves it, he's going to treasure every single moment that he has with his friends.

They're his world after all. And he'd do anything to keep them safe.

SHRIEKS

YOUR MOONS!!! GIVE ME YOUR MOONS!! (And maybe refs too and feel free to add extra explanations to certain things or bonus details /nf)

Big moon and angst fan and also trying to get into other peoples stuff more, curious to see what other people have,, apologies if my digital handwriting is hard to read my handwriting kind of sucks all around

[orikixx]

cw: 2.2k words, fem!reader, eventual smut, not proofread

bodyguard!Toji who's a cold, dangerous, untouchable man. his whole entire life he's only seen bullcrap, and he's so done dealing with it. he decided to take matters into his own hands, making himself feel better about his shitty life by protecting others' lives.

bodyguard!Toji is used to working with every type of people. spoiled nepo baby who clearly has a crush on him? check, and you can be sure he'd flirt back. some clueless airheads almost getting themselves killed, obviously. stubborn ceos' kids, even government assets.

bodyguard!Toji who's taken aback when his handler, shiu, shows him a picture of you. for the first time in his entire life, he considers turning down a job offer. he's seen plenty of women, sure, but he's never seen someone as captivating, genuinely stunning as you. his reaction earns him a snicker from shiu, as the man sighs. toji knows he needs the money. never choosing the right boat to bet on, he could definitely use it.

bodyguard!Toji reluctantly accepts the offer, yet he's in his own head as shiu gives him the details. he knows he shouldn't have accepted it. why would he knowingly risk your life like that, when he's aware he won't be able to resist you? hell, he can't even focus on shiu's explanation, your stunning face lingring in his mind, suffocating every other thought. sure, he's been with plenty of women before, and heaven knows that if he wants to, he can have multiple ladies a night. he still does sometimes, but its never anyone he’s attached to. he makes sure they have fun too, ever the gentleman, but thats it for him, pretty much a pump and dump.

bodyguard!Toji who sees you the next day, and thinks he might have to quit. maybe he hasn't truly worked with all kinds of people. the man stands still as you open the door to your house, inviting him in. no client has ever extanded him the opportunity to enter their home, the one safe space a bodyguard usually won't be in. he walks in, keeping his cool as he eyes you up and down. your figure shows behind your flimsy pjs, and he's eating it up as you try introducing yourself to him.

"um, is everything okay mr fushiguro? you look distracted.."

"all good doll. what were ya saying?"

bodyguard!Toji continues ogling you as you keep on rambling, your voice eventually dying when you notice where he holds his gaze.

"oh gosh, I'm so sorry! let me go change, I'll be back in a second!"

he hears the panic in your voice and smirks, watching you run off to your room. he uses the free time to wander around your apartment, his gaze skimming over every little detail he can take in. fuck, as if your cute pjs weren't enough, your place is filled with scented candles, decorated polaroids and an insane amount of pastel colored throw pillows.

bodyguard!Toji mentally curses himself when you return in an oversized hoodie and jeans, reminding himself he's got a job to do, one that he's paid very well for. he manages to somewhat focus this time, listening as you tell him about how your dad thought you needed a bodyguard since his own dangerous job, so here you guys are.

bodyguard!Toji manages to pass the first few week just fine. he usually guards you from mornings to late afternoons, so he spends the majority of his days with you. not that he minds having a beautiful woman to stare at, but there's something else he finds interesting about you. despite your dad's buisness, you seem far too delicate and somewhat unserious. he's not calling you dumb, you certeinly are a clever woman, it simply took him by surprise. toji's eventually grown accostumed to you, and dare he say, even started enjoying your company.

bodyguard!Toji can't wait for the day to end already. you didn't give him too hard of a challange, you guys merely wandered throughout the mall for some hours, yet he can barely hold himself back when you enter a lingerie shop, pleading him to stay outside. toji almost flushes, before shaking his head.

"ya know I can't do that, promise I won't peep."

you sigh and dramatically stop inside, the tall man walking with some distance, as sadly he's got enough self control to try respecting your privacy. he's standing there, feeling like some kind of pervert. honestly, he might be one, since he's currently using all his willpower to not follow you towards the fitting rooms.

bodyguard!Toji is a simple man, so when you leave the shopping bag outside of the fitting rooms, he can't help himself but peep into it, making a mental note of the cute bras you took, of course all of them had bows and gems, and a crotchless thong you tried burying under the pile. toji can feel himself going mad at the thought of you wearing them, his pants already growing tighter. who are you even buying them for? you never mentioned anything about a boyfriend, and that made him happy among the weird feelings it brought up.

bodyguard!Toji who acts all nonchallant when you come out of the fitting room, hastily shoving a few more items into your bag before running off to pay. he hopes he managed to play it off well enough that you won't notice the tent in his pants, as he tries thinking of anything else to calm himself down.

bodyguard!Toji who's rushing to your place one night, as your dad alerted him of a potential threat to you, following some unsuccessful buisness meeting. he knows he should be somewhat nervous, you're his client, after all, but sweat lingers at his brow, he feels his guts knotting with fear, and its all too much. he knocks on your door once, twice, louder when you won't answer. his emotions quickly get the best of him and he forces his way into your apartment, immediately assuming the worst has happened.

bodyguard!Toji doesn't spot you anywhere as he quickly scans the kitchen and living room, getting more and more nervous by the second. what if he's lost a client? the dreaded occasion has only occured once, with no intention of repeat, especially if it was you who he was losing. toji hears the faintest noise, so he proceeds deeper into your small apartment, the noise only getting stronger.

bodyguard!Toji eventually spots the source- your bedroom. he sighs with relief, before realizing he's hearing groans and whimpers. what if someone's in there with you? what if they caught you in the bedroom, and are torturing you for information? toji bursts inside without a second thought, knocking the door wide open with his strong shoulder.

"f-fuck, so close, toji please!"

and toji knows he's screwed.

bodyguard!Toji simply stands there, dumbfounded for a short moment as he watches you scramble up the bed, covering yourself with the fluffy blanket. you're breathing heavily, cheeks flushed, and, well... fingers sticky.

"fuck doll, didn't know you had it in ya."

"get out toji! what the hell are you doing here?"

"there was a threat alert from your father, but now I see we have crucial business to attand to."

bodyguard!Toji smirks as he watches your expression go blank, all thoughts disappearing from your mind.

"do you... what?"

it's barely a whisper, and he can see a glimer of hope in your eyes, making him falter. he slowly inches closer, sitting down on the edge of your bed.

"I'm serious ma, with the way you were moaning my name I bet you wouldn't mind some help."

you bury your face in your hands, groaning loudly, yet nodding.

"gonna need you to say it, ma."

and with a sigh, you do.

"could you... help me, toji? please?"

bodyguard!Toji pounces on you as if he's never touched a woman before, pulling your hands off your face before finally kissing you. it's hungry and needy, something you wouldn't have expected from toji, your own guard. he greedily bites on your lower lip, forcing your mouth open as he hovers on top of you. you're moaning into the kiss, feeling his hands travel down to your bare legs, skilled fingers getting closer and closer to your core.

bodyguard!Toji who gently forces your thighs open, rough fingers almost tickling your soft skin. he breaks off the kiss, panting, before crawling down the bed, now eye to eye with your gooey cunt.

"don't just stare, it's emba-"

"keep it down doll, wanna appreciate her."

you flush, too weirded out by the situation that you fantasized about countless times to even look toji in the eye as his mouth latches onto your clit. toji takes the neglected bud into his mouth, sucking harshly as your thighs squeeze his head. he groans, relishing in your taste as he feels himself getting harder by the second. he continues sucking on the sensitive bundle of nerves, flicking it with his hot tongue as your fingerss grab his fine, black strands. your moans fill the small room, only fueling toji on.

bodyguard!Toji quickly slips a finger inside of you, groaning at the feeling of your velvety, slick walls around him. you're so tight, and he's only one finger in, fuck how small are your fingers? will you even be able to handle his dick? toji pushes these thoughts aside, focusing on the way you squirm, eyes squeezed shut as his finger pumps faster inside of you. the man almost chuckles, pushing a second thick, experienced finger inside you, scissoring them both and thrusting into your g spot.

You almost scream his name, thighs quivering, and he’s abusing your spot until you're gushing all over him, creamy liquid clinging onto his fingers as he pulls them out of your already sore cunt.

bodyguard!Toji experately licks his fingers clean, closing his eyes and savoring the taste of your sweet nectar, letting you catch your breath for a second. once he's had enough, he looks back at your fucked up face.

"youv'e had enough, doll?"

your stare trails down to his erection, the sheer size of the tent in his pants frightening you. you shake your head, and toji follows your gaze, chuckling to himself.

"you know you gotta say it for me, ma."

"can you just fuck me toji? for the love of god I might die if you don't.."

you almost mumble that, but it's more than enough for the embarrassingly desperate man.

bodyguard!Toji quickly gets rid of his jeans and boxers, which are already decorated with a small spot of precum. he spits once onto his hard shaft, strechy globes landing on his bright pink tip. he strokes up and down, shivering as he looks at you. you're all spread out on the bed, cum still leaking out of your cunt, yet you look up at him with so much adoration. he leans in, landing a soft kiss onto your forehead, surprising you. you smile, only momentarily, because the moment he pushes his fat tip into your tight cunt you feel the worst stretch of your life.

"go slower, fuck it hurts so bad already!"

toji hums, thumb coming up to circle your clit in an attempt to calm you down.

"it's gonna be okay ma, just relax and let me do all the work."

bodyguard!Toji eventually manages to push his entire length into you, mushroom tip bullying your cervix as he pumps in and out, hips snapping onto yours in god-like speed. your nails rake down his back, pushing him closer, deeper into you, and he moans at the feeling. one of his hands comes down to trace your cheek, and he studies your face, mouth wide open, drooling, and eyes squeezed shut with pleasure. "such a good girl for me, can feel you clenching baby." toji decides to be a good man for once, bringing his hand back to your clit, rubbing tight circles onto it. you clench so hard around him, and toji thinks he wont be able to pull out with the grip you've got him in.

"inside.. p-please? ah!"

yeah, he's so fucking screwed.

bodyguard!Toji cums so hard, the hardest he ever has, leaning down to capture your lips in a kiss. feeling his sticky load filling you up even more is enough to tip you off the edge once again, slick walls clenching around his dick. you breath heavily, wrapping your arms around toji's neck as he almost collapses on top of you.

"that was... that was insane, toji."

"yeah? you liked it ma?"

toji knows it was a pointless question, you nod as he scans the mess you two have left all over your soft sheets. he gently pulls out, almost smirking when you whine at the loss of his warmth. he helps you clean up, gently trailing his hands all over your soft body. you simply lay there, too exahusted to move as your own bodyguard cleans you off. you look up, your mind wondering with a small pout.

bodyguard!Toji notices, of course, he's learnt to notice everything about you since you've met.

"everything okay, doll?"

"tomorrow, will we just be.. in business settings again?"

toji hears the undertone of hurt in your voice, already expecting the worst outcome.

"well.. it's gonna be complicated, but if you're willing to try anything more, count me the fuck in. especially with this tight pu-"

"toji!"

bodyguard!Toji is helping you get in bed, tucking the blanket for you.

"I'll see you tomorrow, y/n."

"cya tomorrow, mr fushiguro!"

you're definitely the weirdest client he's ever had, but he loves it.

a/n: OH MY GOSH😭 ugh ik this is super rushed but I wanted to use my day off to at least try writing something, so here it is lol. Hope it’s not too bad and you guys like it💕

[nebulablakemurphy]

Haymitch Abernathy & The Dead Donner Girl (Part 2)

Summary: Haymitch is forced to mentor the niece of his former ally, aka the prequel to all things Moves & Countermoves. (Warning: Sunrise on the Reaping spoilers.)

Part 1

Haymitch knows it is bad when he’s summoned by letter to the Capitol, the week before Y/N’s victory tour. He knows it is worse when Snow wants to recap her interview following the games.

“Well I didn’t win because I was the smartest, or the strongest, or even because I deserved it the most.”

“Then how did you do it, Y/N?” Caesar leans in, “we’re all dying to know.”

“I won because someone loved me.”

“Aww.” The audience coos.

“Tyson was more than my ally, he was my friend. He protected me. He deserves to be here today, not me.”

“I don’t know how true that is,” Caesar says.

“I think if we all loved each other; everyone in the districts and everyone in the Capitol, maybe we wouldn’t need the games to remind us of the rebellion. If we all love each other, why would anyone rebel?”

“How sweet,” Caesar holds a hand to his heart. “What a sweet girl.”

The audience roars with applause.

“I have no idea what the future holds, for any of us. But I would very much like to be your friend.” Caesar tells her.

Y/N smiles and nods, extending her hand to him. “Of course.”

“She wants to end the games.” Snow tuts, “didn’t you warn her what a careless mouth could do?”

“I haven’t spoken to her,” Haymitch admits. “I’ll get her under control before the tour.”

The man hums. “I’m not sure you can.”

“All I’m asking for is a chance.”

At this the older man smirks. “If I grant you the opportunity to correct her behavior, what are you willing to give me in return?”

“Anything.” Haymitch decides.

“Does loyalty to your former ally run so deep that you would do anything to save a girl you can’t even bear the sight of, simply because she is her kin?” President Snow cocks his head to the side.

“I guess it does.” It’s all for you, sis.

Coriolanus steeples his hands on the desk before him. “A car will be sent for you this evening, I have something special in mind for your retribution. Be sure to wear something nice.”

“Nice?” You want me to dress up to be tortured?

“Suit and tie,” Snow nods.

“Fine, alright.” Haymitch agrees.

“And moving forward, do keep her contained. I know you’d hate for her to join you.”

Haymitch purses his lips, where the hell are you sending me?

————————————————————————

“Man, I wish you had to do this instead of me.” Y/N laments, arranging flowers against Tyson’s headstone.

“Little girl, there’s a train rollin’ in for you.” Tyson’s mother, Cherry reminds her.

“I’m aware.” Y/N sighs, turning to face the woman.

“You be good now, ya hear? Remember who you are.”

“Yes, Mrs. Cherry.”

“That’s Ma to you.” The woman taps her chin, affectionately. Tears welling up in her eyes.

“Yes, Ma.” Y/N forces a smile. She can’t cry now or she’ll never stop.

“Wish we coulda met you different, but I’m glad to know you all the same.”

Y/N allows herself to be pulled in for a chaste hug. “Me too.”

“Make us proud.” Make our boy proud.

“I will.” Y/N takes off, out the side gate. Purposely skirting Tyson’s father, Tucker, and his siblings, in an attempt to keep her composure. Racing home to her house in Victor’s Village.

Haymitch is back. The lights in his house are on next door.

She wonders where he ran off to, but Haymitch never tells her anything. Still she pushes through the open door of his house. “Knock, knock.”

No answer. She finds her mentor passed out on the dining room table. “Haymitch, it’s tour day.” Again nothing, he doesn’t even stir. Hesitantly, she reaches for his shoulder, giving it a jostle.

“AHHHHHHH!” The man springs to his feet, knife at the ready.

“Haymitch,” Y/N holds up her hands, “it’s just me.”

“Why are you here?” He blinks rapidly, attempting to settle his nerves. He’s not in the arena, not in that house in the Capitol where he had to-

“It’s tour day.” She reminds him, before turning on her heel to leave.

“Wait.” Haymitch calls after her, “wait.”

“Yeah?”

“You need to be careful.”

“Careful how?” Y/N asks, “I’m not kissing Snow’s ass in front of the people whose kids he just killed.”

“That’s exactly what you’re gonna do.”

“You want me to sell out?”

Haymitch slams his fist against the table. “People are going to die. If you say the wrong thing, people are going to die.”

“Haymitch, they believe in what I’m saying about the games. They-”

“Aren’t going to stand between you and Snow if it comes to that. Nobody is gonna do that but me!” That’s never been more clear.

“I never asked you to!” Y/N shouts back, “I don’t want to be responsible for what happens to you.”

“And you think it was my dream to become responsible for you? Whether you live or die? You think I want that on me?”

“Then let the peacekeepers take me off your hands. A public execution ought to be enough to stop whatever I’ve started.”

“I made a promise!” Haymitch snaps. “I promised Maysilee that I would take care of her family. Bang up job I’m doing, already lost Merrilee.”

A promise like that is something Y/N understands very well. “That wasn’t your fault, what happened to her.”

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it was.” Haymitch digs the soles of his hands into his tired eyes.

The silence hangs heavy between them.

“Look, I won’t say anything reckless.” Y/N whispers, “just stop blaming yourself. You tried your best to keep your promise, Maysilee would understand.”

————————————————————————

Vanity arrives, zipping her victor into a lime green dress with feathers around the neckline and wrists. When she is deemed camera ready, Y/N is escorted to the stage in front of the justice building. Y/N bounces into view, clutching what appears to be cards in her hand.

President Snow shifts in his seat, waiting for a proper performance.

The victor finds the cameras, waving them closer with a smile.

What’s your play? Coriolanus leans toward the projection.

The shot tightens to the words scrawled on her index card. ‘I’m sorry! I lost my voice.’

Y/N taps her throat for emphasis.

You

little

shit.

———————————————————————-

President Snow sends a doctor to assess Y/N in district eleven.

“Her throat is raw and her vocal cords are inflamed, other than that she appears healthy. It’ll be at least a week before she can speak again.”

What have you done?

The tour must go on. Without a voice booming from the microphone, the fallen tributes from each district are able to speak for themselves. With no sweet words to sugarcoat and glorify their crimes, the Capitol is forced to own what they’ve done. After all, how can she say the wrong thing if she says nothing at all?

Y/N grins and waves, blowing kisses to the crowd and paying special attention to the cameras.

Haymitch says nothing about her antics, all he can do is sell the lie. But in this lie, there is some truth. Y/N cannot speak. Not in any meaningful way, not in the only way she would.

Punishment for this act will surely come, but for now she is free.

Miraculously, Y/N’s voice returns just in time for her tour to end, in the heart of the Capitol. The audience for Caesar Flickerman’s show is packed full, practically overflowing into the aisles.

“It is such a pity that you didn’t get to speak in any of the districts. I, for one, was eager to hear your speeches.”

Y/N makes a show of unwrapping her cough drop and popping it into her mouth. “Well Caesar, laryngitis is no joke. If I could have spoken, you know I would have.”

“Of course, of course.” Caesar smiles, “we are so happy that your voice has returned in time to see us all here tonight.”

“No place I’d rather be,” Y/N tells him.

————————————————————————

Two years pass and Haymitch does not speak to her, the girl whose noose hangs around his neck, in lieu of her own. Mercifully she leaves him alone.

Bam!

Bam!

Bam!

The pounding on his door alerts Haymitch to the fact that the dead Donner girl is back with a vengeance. Only she would dare to visit him on his birthday. His eyes remain cast downward, looking anywhere but at her. “Can I help you?”

“I’m hoping you can.”

She sounds different. Older.

Curiosity gets the best of him and he looks at her, for the very first time. Because she has outgrown her nickname, too old and too alive to be the ‘dead Donner girl.’

This is the girl the Capitol can’t wait to get their hands on? This is the girl men fall to their knees for? Who he’s spent the past three years in servitude to? This is Y/N? “I imagined you’d be different.”

Y/N crosses both arms over her chest, “that’s what eyes are for.”

Pain in my ass. “What do you want?”

“You, actually.” Y/N informs him, “come mentor with me.”

“Why on earth would I do that?” Haymitch can’t help but laugh.

“Because I need you.”

“Laying it on thick there.”

“And,” Y/N raises her brows, “because you’re one of the few people I can trust.”

Haymitch shifts between feet, uncomfortably.

“Allies?” The girl offers, holding out her hand.

Haymitch sighs, looking up towards the sky. For you, sis. “Don’t make me regret this.”

[lamardeuse]

write your name on every blank page

by lamardeuse

911 || Buck/Eddie, Eddie & Christopher, Eddie & Buck & Christopher || Rated M || c. 11000 words

aka my contribution to the Eddie in El Paso post 8x11 fic wave, posted less than 24 hours before we get canon Eddie in El Paso :D

Eddie sets out for El Paso with his truck and a rented trailer full of essential items and valuables, the patio furniture the movers had forgotten to take and seven years' worth of mementos to remind him of that time he briefly escaped his parents' sphere of influence.

“I'm sorry you're going to have to buy a new bed,” he says as he and Buck stand in the doorway of his – well, soon to be Buck's bedroom.

“Yeah, there's no way I was going to fit a California King in here,” Buck says. “But it's fine. The mattress was getting kind of – uh, worn out.”

“I bet,” Eddie mutters. “Anyway, I'm sorry you've ended up with such a downgrade.”

Buck shrugs. “I don't see it that way. Your place is a lot more spacious overall. It has a yard. And it's just – nicer.”

“Is it?” Eddie makes a face. “Come on, the loft was cool.”

“Yeah, well, that isn't the selling point it was when I was twenty-six,” Buck murmurs. “The loft hasn't felt like home for a long time. Your house – it's got that warm feeling, you know?”

Eddie's breath catches in his throat at the thought of Buck rattling around this place alone, trying to find a warmth that left the day Christopher did. Trying to summon the ghosts of what they once were to one another, of what they might have been if –

“Buck, I –”

“Yeah?” Buck says softly, and Eddie can't look at him, he can't.

Instead, he turns and nods toward Chris' door. “At least you've got an extra room now. What're you going to do with it, turn it into a gym?”

“Nah. I thought I'd – uh. Make it into a guest bedroom so I can babysit Jee-Yun here, and have it for when you and Christopher come back for a visit. I can get one of those beds with the extra mattress that slides out and – anyway, I have a couple of ideas.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, because it's either that or bust out crying. “Well, you know, it might be a few months before I can even think of getting away from the – the work I have to do to the house, and the new job.”

“Good,” Buck says airily, “'cause putting together Ikea furniture is a real pain in the ass, it'll probably take me at least that long to figure out the directions.”

That startles a laugh out of Eddie, which he imagines was the point. “So, what time you want me at your place in the morning to help you pack?”

Buck scratches at the back of his neck. “I've been thinking about that. You need to be on the road early if you want to get to El Paso before Christopher goes to bed. The movers aren't coming til Thursday, so I can take my time.”

Eddie frowns. “You're saying you don't want my help?”

“I'm saying I want you to – not have one more thing to worry about,” Buck says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I'll see you at six-thirty to load up, okay?”

“Sure, yeah,” Eddie says, suddenly struck by the thought that in a little over ten hours he'll be saying goodbye to Buck. There's so much to say and no time left to say it, not that he has any idea where to start. But even if he did, what would be the point? He might never be coming back to L.A., not to live.

It's not nothing, he'd said, and even that had felt ripped from him, a confession he needed to make for himself as much as for Buck. He can't afford to be more selfish than that, because no matter how anyone standing in this near-empty house feels, Christopher needs a father more than Buck needs Eddie – and maybe even more than Eddie needs Buck. It's simple math, the alligator eating the greater number like they taught you in grade school. But if that's true, why does he feel like the one being consumed, devoured, erased from existence?

Buck hesitates for a moment, his gaze assessing. They should hug, just like Eddie had hugged Hen and Chim and Bobby. But maybe they both know it could get messy, and the last thing either of them needs right now is more mess.

In the end, Buck awkwardly says his goodbyes and leaves. Of course, Buck being Buck, he turns up right on time the next morning in the pouring rain with his big smile and his big arms and his enormous heart and a dozen freshly-baked protein cookies. The hug they'd avoided the night before seems a little less dangerous in the light of day, at least until Buck's arms wrap around him, warm and strong.

Eddie's smile as Buck's warm breath tickle the rain-chilled skin of his neck feel like it's trying to smother him. Time's up, and all he can do in the end is keep that smile stuck to his face while he gasps for air beneath it.

As Eddie's passing San Bernadino on the I-10, he reaches into the bag for one of the cookies and savors it slowly, letting the chocolate melt on his tongue.

When the silent tears start falling, he's not even surprised.

read the rest at the AO3

[ro-ren31]

I need a crack fic of SVSSS and Total Drama Island

All of the competitors would be characters from svsss, except for a few who would be either ocs, characters from TDI, or even characters from other MXTX works.

Chris McLean does as he does and throws the wildest challenges at them,

Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge are both a little feral and would do the wildest things to win, I don't think either of them really care about the money, they're just competitive.

Zhuzhi-lang came here because Tianlang-Jun told him he needed to socialize more, Shen Yuan was nice to him on the first day, and now ZZL follows him like a lost puppy.

Shang Qinghua is in TDI, hates absolutely everything about the place except for Shen Yuan, and that one large hot guy (Mobei), but he is desperate for the money and so is actually pretty good at the game.

Shen Yuan is there because Shang Qinghua had dared him to send an audition and didn't think either if them would get in. When they did Shen Yuan decided to just go with the flow, he hates some things, loves others, and doesn't care much about the money prize.

(Shen Yuan also becomes part Disney princess, because TDI is full of feral forest animals and somehow Shen Yuan tamed them all, )

Because TDI has the characters in teams, Team 1 would be Shen Yuan's suitors. Essentially, anyone who has liked Shen Yuan at some point, while team 2 would be Shen Yuan and his platonic group (Ning Yingying, Ming Fan, Qi Qingqi, Liu Mingyan, Shang Qinghua) anyone who hast liked him romantically. (It will probably be filled with mostly girls, and yes, Liu Mingyan is there because Chris McLean would absolutely put a pair of siblings in the show just to pit them on different teams.) (Actually I'm pretty sure he did that once)

The teams will be evened out by the third-party characters. Throughout the challenges of TDI, all of the suitors will fall for Shen Yuan in some way, and Shen Yuan's team members each have a favorite. They also help their favorites in battles of affection, while sabotaging the other suitors, in exchange for help in some of the challenges of course.

Nobody outside of the suitors really get why they all love Shen Yuan so much. Sure, he can be cute and he is as vicious as he is kind, but the guys gaining over him could all do better. Even the audience who watch the interactions between the different suitors and Shen Yuan only understand it a little.

In one of the late challenges, like last 6 or something, the contestants all have to do something in a certain amount of time that will shock the judges. Some decide to go absolutely wild, others decide to do something completely dangerous. Shen Yuan instead plotted.

Shen Yuan finds out that Chris will be inviting one of the investors as a guest judge, finds said investor, (with the help of some intern friends and maybe Chef) and convinces them to let Shen Yuan Judge in their place, the investor is all for it.

Shen Yuan goes through the things he brought and got a few favors from enough different people and interns for no one to truly know what he was doing, then he changed his glasses for contacts, fixed his hair, put on an expensive outfit and make up. He grabbed a fan from the bottom of his luggage that he hadn't needed for anything and planned to use it as a cover for his face, then he had one of the inters tell Chris that the Investor had to go for an emergency and sent someone to judge in their place. And with all of that happening, on the day of the competition Shen Yuan simply walked to the judges table and looked st everyone coldly, he didn't speak and just judged. When Chris called for Shen Yuan to come out on stage and present their shocking object, Shen Yuan simply snapped the fan and put it down before smiling.

----BONUS

Tianlang-Jun was the investor. He saw son wanted to join TDI, convinced his nephew to also join. And then he threw money at Chris to keep up with the drama and dangerous stunts. He finds the show absolutely hilarious.

[takenbypeter]

My Blond Pretty Princess

Benjamin Poindexter x reader

Words: 595

A/N: got this after someone commented that Dex was their blond pretty princess in one of my posts and idk if they wanna be tagged but I thought it was adorable to call him that

Did Dex love the idea of you going with your friends to a club all by yourself? No. But did he know that it would be wrong to do anything to stop you? Yes. And while his original plan was to go with you, (just to make sure you were safe), work had to thwart his way. Fortunately he had just about finished up when his phone rang. 

Your contact photo filled his screen and he paused instantly thinking the worst. Without getting too ahead of himself he picked up the phone, hearing the sound of muffled music and cars in the background. Then came your voice, “Dex!” He moved away from his phone as you practically shouted in his ear. “I miss you! I’m not having any fun without you!” 

Dex’s smile grew crooked as he relished in the fact that you wanted him there. Someone missed him. And not just someone. You. “Are you still there?”

“I’m sitting outside on the curb.” 

“I’ll be there soon,” is all he said before he took off. It didn’t take long for Dex to reach you. And as soon as he pulled up sure enough there you were perched on the curb. 

Putting the car hazard lights on he got out and opened the passenger side before kneeling to your side. 

“Hey,” he said and your head slowly turned towards him. Your eyes widened in excitement at the sight of Dex as a smile spread along your face. “Hey.”

“Are you okay? Can you stand?”

You nodded, your head began to feel heavy while you started to push yourself up off the ground. “I’m only a tiny bit tipsy but I’m fine.” Is what you said but your swaying movements that prompted him to grab your waist, proved otherwise. 

With one hand around you he walks you to the car and gently sat you in the passenger seat. Only after making sure all your limbs were inside, he shut the door then joined on the other side. 

The car ride home was surprisingly quiet on your end. In fact Dex was the one pulling the conversation from you. 

“Did you have fun?” The question was genuine. 

You shrugged, your eyes closed while your head lay against the headrest. “It was alright at first but then it just got boring, and then some people tried to join our group but I wasn’t really about that. I didn’t really want to be there with anyone except you.”

Dex’s cheeks rose at knowing that you felt the way he constantly felt. You fell quiet again but he noticed your head turn to his direction. 

He kept his eyes on the road in front but could see you staring at him from his peripheral. 

“What is it?”

“Do you know you’re my pretty princess?”

Dex tried his best to contain his laugh but your slurred words genuinely caught him off guard. 

“I thought I was a knight in shining armor.”

“Sometimes but you’re my princess…you know why?” You waste no time in sharing the answer with him. “Cause a princess protects her kingdom and keeps it in order. She helps her people but she also needs help from a knight. That’s just like you. You protect me but sometimes you need help too.”

“So does that make you the knight?”

“Absolutely,” your word drifted off as you faced forward again and rested your head back as sleep was beginning to catch up with you. 

“My blond pretty princess,” were your last words as you drifted off into la la land. 

[hiddensanctuarywrites]

Lawrence Oleander's Love Languages and Attachment Style

Love languages

Listed from most to least preferred

Quality Time - Having conversations where he's actively listened to without being judged, or even better, if he's understood, is something he desperately needs. He craves this more than anything and it's the biggest reason why he still reaches out to people occasionally.

He's spent his whole life feeling at the very least like a social outcast, so he will become viciously attached to anyone who listens to him and still chooses to stick around. This is also the quickest and easiest way to earn his trust and affection.

For the people he's closer to, he will listen to them vent or talk about whatever they want, but he usually doesn't have much of anything to say in response. If he's particularly attached to them, he might use whatever they confide in him as ammo, attempting to convince them to isolate themselves from everyone but him.. If they even have a choice at that point. 

He also finds it nice to do things with someone once he's able to relax around them, whether that's working, chores, gardening, making art, ect. Significantly more if it's also done in a comfortable silence.

That being said, Lawrence still has a very low social battery. Even if he likes the person, he can only be around someone for so long before kind of shutting down. If the person doesn't understand his cues then he'll start getting snappy, so just be aware. 

Physical touch - He’s very touch starved but also not used to it At All. It needs to be on his terms or gradually introduced for him to feel comfortable with it. Once he is comfortable, he does seek it out.

He’s more likely to hover around the person he’s with when he’s in the mood to be touched. That or he'll just grab them rather aggressively. He's.. not the best at actually asking for what he needs. Give him a break though, he's new to this.

If he's focused on other things and the person he has feelings for is near, he'll subconsciously hold onto or touch them. It's calming for him because it's a physical reminder that they're with him and also gives him a little sense of control.

He's actually the most prone to touching when he's in one of his "moods" and likes focusing on very specific parts of the body. He has a habit of petting people when he's like this.

Acts of Service - He really enjoys feeling useful and needed, so he definitely likes giving this kind of love when he has the energy for it. He's very particular about it and only does it when he feels like it, though. 

These things usually include making them tea, grabbing something for them so they don't need to get up and remembering to buy them food or other necessities when he's outside. If they're limbless, washing their hair/body and feeding them is also included. 

Receiving? It depends. He would need to trust this person at least a bit before he’d let them do things for him. If they still had the ability to cook and clean for him and did so, he’d be incredibly grateful. Just don't mess with his plants under the pretense of helping him, not without asking first. Those plants are His to do what he wants to.

Words of Affirmation - This is a tricky one. His long history of being around people who are nice to his face, only to talk behind his back or run away from him, combined with his very low self esteem, makes him very distrusting of any words of affirmation given to him. 

He’s quick to dismiss and get annoyed with any kind of praise he receives. It takes a while for him to get to the point where he’d actually accept it and trust that the person is being honest, even if he doesn't believe what they say himself. 

No matter what, he’ll get upset and lose trust in them if he gets the feeling that person is not being sincere or is only saying nice things to get something from him.

When he gives it, usually it comes out as a comment. As if there’s no other way to view that person, that is just how they are. These comments are usually not at all straightforward and instead chock full of metaphors.

He tends to speak out more of these observations when he’s in one of his “moods.” Whether the person takes it as genuine praise or just unsettling is up to them. Usually he also talks about the concerning thinks he wants to do to them but he says it with such adoration that it's hard to dismiss the genuine feelings behind his words.

Gifts - He doesn't really think about giving gifts because they've never been all that meaningful for him. He thinks of them as more of a social burden rather than something to simply enjoy. 

So when he receives something, he's not really sure how to react. Even if it is something he genuinely likes, he feels awkward and uncomfortable about it. He will put it to good use or take care of it, though.

If he does give someone a gift, it'll almost always be a plant or something easy he can pick up from the gas station. If you don't know how to take care of the plant then don't worry, he can teach you. He'd be upset if you neglect it, though.

Lawrence’s Attachment Style - Disorganized/Fearful-Avoidant

This attachment style is a combination of two other unhealthy attachment styles – Anxious and Avoidant. It makes the person want love, to belong and feel supported but also have an intense fear that the people closest to them will hurt them. They are so terrified about the possibility of rejection or disappointment that they tend to self sabotage their relationships or avoid them entirely. This attachment style is characterized by being very hot and cold, seeking closeness and then pushing people away when things start getting too intimate.

When he starts to get close with someone, he has a very hard time believing they genuinely care about him and enjoy his company; it’s much easier for him to assume they want something from him or, at best, are being delusional. He lives under the pretense that he’s unlovable, unwanted, and unworthy. All of his past experiences solidify that opinion and thus, he’s just waiting for the “inevitable” to happen again. 

When it doesn’t happen right away and they continue to be affectionate towards him, he will start getting incredibly anxious about how much power they're getting over him. They can choose to stop caring about him at any time and leave him in an even worse hell than the one he was in before they met. 

When things get to this point he will start vacillating between icing them out or shutting down as a form of self preservation and actively seeking attention from them or acting very possessive. It can be quite jarring whenever this change suddenly happens but he’s too preoccupied with his own needs to realize just how confusing and hurtful his actions are.

Lawrence is constantly on the lookout for signs of betrayal or any perceived rejection. He will jump to negative conclusions with little to no evidence to back it up and become aggressive over this “disloyalty.” It will not be easy to calm him down enough to talk it out and convince him otherwise, at least not right away. How badly he handles it depends entirely on how things have gone before the incident.

The longer the relationship with him lasts, the more stable and secure he’ll start to feel in it. If the person he's with proves that they're safe and consistent, he will start trusting them and feel more comfortable with furthering their levels of intimacy. 

A person needs a certain level of patience, compassion and healthy communication in order to form a healthy bond with him. If they're hot and cold, dismissive or overly secretive then a relationship with him will likely be much more volatile.

I hope you enjoyed this post! Let me know what you think and if you agree or not! I will be writing about his mental health and how that affects him next. ❤️

[cerisahh]

can i request tdlosk jealous headcanons ?

FOCUS ON ME !

summary ꒱ how would tdlosk characters react if they were jealous

characters included ꒱ saiki, saiko, teruhashi

notes ꒱ hi anon! you didn’t specify which characters you wanted so i just did three for now. i did scenarios in which the characters are jealous and how they would react in each situation rather than a headcanon format - i hope you enjoy it! i may do a part two to this if anyone has any other characters they would like to see ^_^

KUSUO SAIKI

saiki, despite being the powerful psychic he is, has limited experience in basic human emotions.

not that he can’t feel them of course, it’s just hard for him to recognise it sometimes. often he’ll believe a new, unfamiliar feeling is just another drawback of his psychic abilities.

he’s sitting in class during break, tuning out the droning of his self proclaimed friends that are insistent on surrounding him at every possible turn, when the familiar lilt of your laugh filters across his mind.

you two don’t share the same class, but the sound of your laugh isn’t uncommon when around him - even though he never intentionally makes any jokes - so he just brushes it off.

until he hears toritsuka’s voice intertwined with yours. you’re actually conversing with that degenerate? what on earth would possess you to do that?

he decides to focus in on you two. toritsuka seems to be trying to invite you to a cafe after school. it’s of little consequence to saiki, he knows you won’t entertain or indulge in any of toritsuka’s perverted fantasies.

imagine how he visibly tenses when he hears you agree. kaidou sees his face and asks him if he's alright, teruhashi asks him if he's feeling ill, and nendou asks him if he needs to go do a number two.

saiki doesn't offer anyone with a response or clarification as he exits the classroom, every step wondering why he did. maybe, no, it was definitely toritsuka's voice grating on his last nerve.

he decides against paying the classroom you two are in a visit, he'll just... take a trip to this cafe after school too. to ensure toritsuka stays respectful and doesn't go getting any bright ideas about you.

he’s certain the school day has gone by faster than usual as he makes his way outside of the gates. you and toritsuka are walking together a little ahead of him.

saiki doesn't bother with his invisibility since toritsuka would be able to see him regardless, he just keeps a reasonable distance from you two.

you on the other hand, blissfully unaware there's a presence following you and toritsuka, are having a blast. you were the first person to welcome toritsuka to PK academy, and since then you've become quite friendly with each other. although, this is the first time you've hung out together after school.

the cafe he suggested going to was actually one of your favourites. saiki knew that too, he was the one that introduced you to it.

your meet-up is going well. too well for saiki's taste. surely you must know toritsuka's true nature? saiki can hear his thoughts. currently he’s wondering how your lip gloss tastes. he’s truly despicable.

any idiot would know your favourite flavour of lip gloss is cherry.

what saiki does next, he would not call sabotage, but simply an effort to save you from toritsuka. using his telekinesis, he sends a wave of vertigo to the waitress coming over with your drinks so that it’ll spill on toritsuka.

in a turn of events too quick to see with his precognition, the waitress trips over her left foot instead of her right, spilling the drinks all over you instead.

while saiki looks on, horrified, toritsuka takes the opportunity to help you try and remove the stains using a napkin. to no avail, mind you. but it gave toritsuka a perfect opportunity to, well, admire you, let’s say.

saiki is lucky the coffee jelly he ordered hasn’t come yet, as he would’ve unconsciously blown up the glass.

you excuse yourself to try and fix yourself up in the washroom. saiki sits and glowers at an unsuspecting toritsuka for a moment before deciding he's finally had enough of him.

using telepathy, he transmits a message directly to toritsuka's mind; 'someone's messing with your porno mags'.

it's almost too easy. toritsuka's eyes practically boggle out of his head and he races out of the cafe, scribbling a hasty message out for you on a napkin with the broken tip of a crayon. good riddance.

it isn't hard to pick out your voice in the cafe, given it's only mildly crowded. you've failed to remove the stain from your shirt. and it landed all over your lap too! what a shame. you'd have to wash your uniform again tonight.

you exit the bathroom with an apology on the tip of your tongue for taking so long, but the only apology that materialises is the hastily written one toritsuka has left for you on the table.

oh, you think, what was really so important that he had to ditch not even halfway through? did he get embarrassed because i looked so messy? it wasn't my fault the waitress tripped!

correct. it was saiki's. speaking of saiki, was that pink hair in the corner of your eye him? oh! it is! you guys are pretty close, so saiki shouldn't mind if you crash his solo coffee jelly date, right?

saiki finds that he wouldn't mind one bit.

METORI SAIKO

you could count on one finger that amount of times saiko has been jealous of someone.

having as much money as he does, there’s no point in being jealous when he could just, literally buy whatever, or whoever he wanted.

i imagine the first time he feels jealousy when regarding you would be on your birthday. stay with me here.

from the moment you wake up to the evening, he's treated you to a multitude of very expensive activities. perhaps you two take a private helicopter tour over japan, or he surprises you with a meet and greet with your idol, i definitely see him spending hours in an exclusive boutique to get you an array of new outfits.

the point is, there's no limit to what he can get you. his wealth is unfathomable, and you're treated like a princess for the entire day.

he, of course, throws you a lavish party in the evening. friends, family, and famous people attend in equal proportions. soon enough, it's time for the gift opening.

a large majority of the party goers have departed as the hours have rolled on, only your close family and your closest friends remain now.

you open saiko's gifts first, a smorgasbord of one of a kind jewellery pieces, practically a new closet's worth of designer outfits, bags, shoes and accessories, and even an exotic pet you had mentioned briefly in passing.

your appreciation and affection for him is evident as you plant a kiss on his cheek, thanking him for your gifts and for the adventure filled day he planned out for you.

saiko waves it off, exclaiming 'only the best' would ever be enough for you.

you go through everyone else's gifts then, saiko has no doubt that his were the best gifts you had received all night. these plebians couldn't even dream of topping it. not that they even could, considering the price of everything he had bought was more than they would ever see in their lifetime.

you're opening up kuboyasu's gift eventually, who is rubbing his neck with an air of nervousness as he explains your gift - a colourful and funky pair of butterfly earrings.

saiko thinks they're the ugliest things on the planet. they're nothing compared to the jewellery he gifted you earlier. much too gaudy and cheap looking. they can't have cost much at all.

so why on earth are you squealing at them like they're the finest things you've ever seen? you instantly put them on and marvel at them in the mirror, thanking kuboyasu profusely for such a thoughtful gift.

kuboyasu explains that he saw them at a market stall and thought of you and your affinity for butterflies so he had to get them for your birthday.

oh please, saiko thinks, any fool would know she likes butterflies. i got her a pair of sapphire encrusted butterfly earrings too. so what's the big deal with four eyes' gift?

as to not ruin your birthday, saiko wisely keeps his mouth shut for the remainder of the gathering. it's only when everybody goes home later in the night does he say anything.

you're both sat in the centre of the grandeur when he asks you if he liked your birthday. you, of course, give him a resounding yes and chatter about your favourite parts of the day. but all saiko can think about is those damn butterflies that are still in your ears.

you notice him staring at them and touch them with your finger, "it was so thoughtful for kuboyasu to gift these to me, don't you think?"

saiko bristles at his name and harrumphs, "they're certainly an... acquired taste". he softens a little when he notices your expression. "i don't understand. you seemed to like his gift a lot more than you liked mine. were they not up to your standards?"

it takes a moment for you to understand what he's saying but when you do you almost sigh at him, "oh, metori. you silly silly man."

you assure him that you adored the gifts he gave you more than anything, who wouldn't? your outward reaction at kuboyasu's gift was due to the fact it was so unique and unexpected - with it being the first gift you'd received from one of your new friends, and the fact that you didn't even know that he knew you like butterflies, so it was a surprise getting that from him.

ah, he thinks, your reaction was more surprise than anything! his jealousy burns little brighter than a flame now, content with the revelation and the confirmation that you didn't like four eyes more than him. it was a ridiculous notion in the first place. nobody could compare to him.

although he does take it into consideration for your next birthday, he still goes all out with expensive gifts, but he takes more care into choosing some authentic, personal presents for you as well.

KOKOMI TERUHASHI

you're a childhood friend of hers, only recently having moved back to japan. to your luck, your parents secured a job relatively close to PK academy, so you get enrolled there.

teruhashi is so excited to see you again, it’s been a few years since your last meet-up, so she has lots of gossip to catch you up with.

you two walk to school together, filling each other in on various things that have happened in your lives since you saw each other last.

you notice pretty quickly that kokomi is still as popular as ever. even just on the way to school people have been gawking at the two of you - and at least three in the last two minutes have offered you a ride to school. one guy even offered to give you his car.

skilfully avoiding the adoring masses, you two end up at school early as you’d both planned, giving teruhashi ample time to show you around a little before classes start. you’re in her class of course, after a few strings had been pulled on her end.

it doesn’t take long before you get swarmed again, having barely seen any of your new school at all. boys, and even some girls of every year crowd the two of you, asking teruhashi how she is, what she thinks of the weather, if she needs anything - one boy even asks her if she wishes to be carried to class.

ah, nothing much has changed then.

until their attention switches to you after teruhashi introduces you to them. you bow politely to the crowd. best to make a good first impression with the people that are infatuated with your best friend. you’ll probably spend most of your time in this school seeing them anyway.

“woah, it makes sense that teruhashi would surround herself with someone just as attractive as her!”

“our goddess and her disciple!”

‘what a pain. another teruhashi to deal with.’

you feel a little overwhelmed with all the crowding but try and make the most of it by introducing yourself politely.

despite your outward peaceful expression, you’re internally freaking out with all the attention on you. sure, you were aware you were attractive to a point. but these kids can’t all be that obsessed with physical appearance can they?!

the answer is; yes they are. you’re suffocated by questions and compressed by a wall of bodies. where did you come from? why did you decide to come back to japan? how long have you been friends with teruhashi? do you want an escort to class?

it’s actually dizzying. you’ve a newfound respect for kokomi’s willpower - not only having the patience to deal with these people, but also having the willpower to not verbally assault them.

teruhashi has been trying to quell the excitement since it started to small avail. her perfect facade showing cracks as her practiced smiles twitch with every ounce of attention on you.

not that she hates other people having attention on them! well, maybe a little - but not you! you’re probably one of the only people she could stand to receive attention over her. but all she can think about is how they’re taking you away from her.

how dare they! she thinks, outwardly maintaining a perfectly polite demeanour. how dare these nobodies get in our way. sure, we’re gorgeous but that doesn’t give you the right to crowd us! and to top it off you’re making it so i can’t even finish catching up with them! what do you people know about them, huh? at this rate we won’t even get to class on time - i’m putting an end to this!

all teruhashi has to do is clear her throat and the entire corridor is silent, aside from a couple students who don’t care at all moving around the congregation that’s formed around the both of you.

“i’m sorry everyone, but we have to get going to class,” a chorus of sighs and aww’s fills the air, “thank you so much for giving my friend a PK welcome, everyone has been so accommodating! have a good day, everybody!”

her dismissal, soft but firm, causes the crowd to disperse. holy shit, it’s like she had these people under mind control. you were glad for it though, that wasn’t a great experience for you.

kokomi’s cheerful presence after the fact makes up for it though, and you barely notice that she’s walking closer with you than before.

your first day goes by with no more hiccups, you almost get a repeat of the crowd at the school gates but with a flowery goodbye from kokomi to the masses, you’re off without a hitch.

you stifle a grin as you leave the love drunk boys at the gates, “kokomi, you have that school wrapped around your little finger! i don’t know whether to be jealous or impressed!”

she pretends to be flustered and waves you off with a blush. you’ve barely brushed the surface of her influence and power.

[dammit-tazmuir]

WELL ALL RIGHT THEN... Huh... I guess it's also possible that stars are alive enough to kill and resurrect, but function inherently Differently than people and planets?

Harrow initially describes planets themselves as "a collection of microbial life", and John says you could say the same about humans, but you can't say the same about stars. So maybe it's not exactly a "stillborn RB" so much as whatever process souls go through, it creates something a little different than planets do, something adjacent to but not quite a Resurrection Beast? But that can still be siphoned and everything. Like, not that the stoma isn't the ghost of a black hole because that makes perfect sense, just maybe there are different words for that we don't know yet.

ACTUALLY THOUGH...

In HtN Ch36, quoted above, where John says "anyone who enters a stoma has never returned." This implies there's more than one.

But if stomas are black holes,

"It’s a dark and cold and unlovely part of space, and the stars there are old and were nearly dead then. We nuked them with thanergy and now they’ll shine forever, but the light is not the same … It would take us years to get there if we went from stele to stele." - HtN ch. 6

They have definitely killed other stars, so maybe those are other stomas!

Some other interesting things to consider alongside all this, like how John does seem to be in some genuine danger inside the River, like having to just wrestle Augustine rather than call on his divine might. And there's still the question of why exactly he can't set foot inside Dominicus's halo.

And you know what else they've never explained the logistics of? Obelisks and steles.

“I am taking you both through the River.” There must have been no small measure of blank incomprehension on your faces. He said, a little abstracted now: “It’s the only way. Faster-than-light travel turned out to be a snare—the way it was originally cracked, anyway. The first method destroyed something to do with time and distance, rendering it unusable for any good purpose…” “I’ve always thought it should be correctly managed with wormholes,” said the Saint of Joy, doing something obtuse with the controls, “or spatial dilation.” God said, “It’s in that wheelhouse. We came up with the stele instead, and the obelisk, which are less to do with travel than they are to do with transmission. But there will be times in your future when you will have to move unfettered by needing an obelisk, and even times yet to come when you will fulfill the sacred Lyctoral duty of setting obelisks, and that means travel through the River.” - HtN ch. 6

Listen, all I'm saying is it would be so very John Gaius to invent an alternative method of long distance space travel that fucked up time and space and blame it on the other guys, or to come up with something that breaks the universe in a different way than their method did, a way that's less physical and thus obviously not nearly as horrible as those guys.

👀 Whatever the extra details though I think you're incredibly onto something here!!

John is hiding two Resurrection Beasts, not just one.

This was originally going to be a much longer and fancier argument, but I don’t have it in me to dress it up properly, so I’ll just pepe silvia this out

What impact does a Resurrection Beast actually have from within the River?

Answer: an apocalyptic and defining one.

I think we’re all on the same page at this point that Tamsyn Muir loves Foreshadowing Literally Every Plot Twist From As Early On As Is Physically Possible, so for posterity, here’s what Palamedes and Harrow first have to say about the River Bubble phenomenon in HTN:

“You cannot build in the River! It is a dimension of perpetual flux—defined space is nonsense here—you might as well try to wall off time with bricks and mortar.” “Yes. Sort of. But by our very presence in the River, we briefly exert space on non-space. Think of how, when you blow air into water, you make bubbles. The water can’t be where the air is. It’s like the air temporarily enforces its own rules over a localised area.” -HTN ch. 33

The given impossibility of carving lasting form into the River seemingly leads directly into some of the biggest open questions as of the end of NTN - i.e., what is the Tower, how is it related to John’s cosmic imperium, and how has it enabled him to wall off time with stone and mortar after all?

However, this is misdirection. While the River Bubbles created by the presence of Palamedes and Harrow clearly remain fleeting and unstable, NTN explicitly shows us the existence of entities capable of pushing back against the River with far more force.

Pyrrha said, “This is impossible. We should be flayed alive,” and Paul said, “Yeah.” Nona tried to explain. “The water doesn’t want to touch us, that’s all.” Crown was saying urgently, “Judith—stop, come back,” and Nona vaguely heard unbuckling; and then shadows fell over her, people standing behind her seat. The Captain’s voice was like old teeth. “He left them too long—you left them too long, my salt thing.” “You are here,” said Nona, finding talking was hard, that her voice sounded drowsy in her own ears. “Okay, good—the water really won’t touch us. I was worried about our back end [of our truck].” -NTN ch. 30

The possessed bodies of Harrowhark Nonagesimus and Judith Deuteros - both of whom now carry the spiritual influence of Resurrection Beasts in whole or in part - actively function to repel the waters of the River such that Nona worries about min-maxing the coverage of their reality fields. If a human’s presence exerts some space on non-space, the presence of a Resurrection Beast supercavitates against the water.

Kiriona is also extremely explicit that the Tower serves much the same cavitation-function in the space of the River, ameliorating the existence-sapping pull of the waters:

“The ride?” said Palamedes. “Wait. You mean you both dropped through the River? In that shuttle?” “Can’t be,” said Pyrrha, who was watching the Prince narrowly. “Not anymore. You’ve got a soul attached to you, kid … or part of one, at least. John would have had to go with you to stop it being stripped bare.” The corpse prince tilted her head to one side, like a curious bird. “You haven’t been in the River lately, have you?” she said. “What’s that meant to mean?” “Guess you’ll find out at some point,” said the Prince. -NTN ch. 25

Pyrrha sucked in her breath, and she said: “What the fuck is that?” “Told you so,” said Kiriona Gaia. As the megatruck spun around, the wide rippling grey waters resolved into something totally different. There was a big structure standing up out of the River—that water was the River, after all—a tall, cold cylinder of what was unmistakably stone. -NTN ch. 30

In other words, we don’t need to postulate a new category of power to explain the Tower: we can be fairly certain that it’s one of the world-body-layers of an as-yet-unidentified Resurrection Beast, for whom an anatomy shaped like a heaven-piercing tower would make it no more alien than the rest of its peers.

That being said, it’s not a difficult guess at this point to match the anatomy inside the River with the outward-facing creature in physical reality - the Tower’s aesthetics are strongly reminiscent of John the half-RB and his literary cant, but John has been active for ten thousand years, and there’s only one Resurrection Beast who starts waking up at the same time as the Tower rises.

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side    Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,    In her sepulchre there by the sea—    In her tomb by the sounding sea. -Annabel Lee

He said, I didn’t stick my thumb in my mouth. Had more sense than that. Fuck knows what would’ve happened if I tried to absorb you all the way; I probably would’ve burnt to death. But I needed a house to put you in, if I wasn’t going to put all of you in me… He said, From my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done. -John 1:20 (NTN)

Before I get to the question of the relationship between the Tower and the Devils, I want to emphasize the significance of this explanatory stance: the Tower’s existence, as a lynchpin nailed through the unreality of the River, is no different from the influence that Palamedes and Harrow are able to exert in their respective River bubbles.

That is, the Tower is larger, but not qualitatively unique. A RB’s force of repulsion against unreality is exactly akin to a human soul’s repulsion against unreality, and both of them give rise to their respective reality bubbles. “Pushing back on the water” is exactly the metaphor for existence in the River that Palamedes takes for granted, and which Nona and the Tower both exert effortlessly.

And here we have to take a step back and ask: just what in the River is really ‘natural’? Does the subjective reality of the River even have objective features to begin with?

“This is Canaan House,” you said. “Moment of death,” he agreed. You said, “The barrier begins where your line of sight ended. It’s derived from everything you saw.” He said, “And it doesn’t change … the sea is still. It looks like it’s moving, but it’s not—it’s like one of those holographic pictures where turning it up and down lets you see another part of the image. There is nothing here, and that nothing never changes.” -HTN ch. 33

In the dream, they were hiking up a big hill of brown, sun-blasted grass, crunching like paper beneath their feet. Below them the waters were rising, but they ascended without hurry, unpanicked by that bubbling, churning, brown morass… The clouds were strange, and in the far distance, a twister danced on the neon surface of the sea. -John 15:23 (NTN)

In the dream the waters kept rising. They started making a hut at the top of the hill. Bodies were bobbing up and down in the water. He was scared of that—he was always scared of the water—and he made the waters go away for a while, and he raised up some parts of the earth that had been covered by sea. -John 19:18 (NTN)

I would venture a guess that the answer is no - that the organizing metaphor of death as flood waters and rotting oceans is actually being imposed by the expectations and experiences of the undead Alecto, just as Harrow-the-Lyctor exerted a uncontrollable subconscious pull over the world of spirit.

Exactly how many Resurrection Beasts are there?

The first time TLT raises this question, it explicitly lampshades that there’s a loophole in the final accounting for this metric: it wants you to pay attention.

“How many revenants are there?” You prepared for an astronomical number. The Body raised its eyebrows when the Emperor Undying said, “Three. “There were nine. We called them by number. Over ten thousand years, we have managed to take out a grand total of five.” Before you could do anything—exclaim, or question his mathematics, which did not hold up even on first acquaintance—he did something dreadful. -HTN ch. 2

Five casualties plus three survivors is eight, one less than the given total of nine. With the benefit of hindsight from Nona or a little forward thinking from eagle-eyed first-time readers, we know that John is equivocating because he doesn’t want to talk about Alecto, who was neither alive nor dead at the time, and who obviously the missing ninth Resurrection Beast of the Earth.However, Nona gives us another accounting problem:

He said, I took you into myself and we became one. He said, I bit through the sun first. It’s human nature. That started things going. Once you take down the sun, you’re cooking with gas, pardon the pun. I sliced through Venus, Mercury, Mars … by that point a couple of the tugs had already launched through the Kuiper. I had to kill Jupiter and Saturn in a fucking hurry. You and I went full fucking Hungry Caterpillar. We took Uranus … Neptune … crunched down Pluto … found every satellite and craft, reached in, crunched up all the humans, moved on. -John 1:20

John kills ten celestial bodies, not nine - nine planets, plus the Sun. TLT is very clear that stars are alive enough to slay and reanimate with necromancy, and thus that they should properly be alive enough to leave Revenants behind upon their violent thanergetic death.

Moreover, the metaphors and apologetics John clings to in this section - the ways in which he talks around his crimes against the Dominicus - are extremely loaded: he can’t stop himself from equivocating between Alecto and the Sun.

He said, You were screaming. I wanted you to stop, I wanted … I wanted you. I wanted you like a caveman wants a wildfire … or the sun.  I realised you were too much for me. This is the problem, the incorporation, this is the hardest part … It’s the human instinct, to take. He said, As the world went up I remade us both. I hid me in you … I hid you in me. And when we were together … once the shaman had claimed the sun … I became God. He said, I bit through the sun first. It’s human nature. -John 1:20

Augustine is certain that John can’t be drawing any power from Dominicus, and the rest of the story seems largely in agreement with his conclusions. However, John is clearly able to draw power from Alecto’s soul despite the fact that the First House is a corpse. If John were also supping on the dead soul of the sun in order to reanimate the sun’s corpse, that would be entirely compatible with the observed flow of energy from out of John and into the star of Dominicus, and it would resolve all uncertainty about his and Alecto’s absurd jump from Kardashev I to Kardashev II.

Then, the only missing planks of this wild hypothesis are: Why didn’t the Resurrection Beast of the sun flee the Dominicus system with the rest of the RBs? Where could John possibly be keeping a third keystone of his Perfect Lyctorhood? And, doesn’t this make the puzzle of John’s powers more complicated than it really needs to be?

Whence the Sun?

As for the first question, I believe John and Abigail both have their answers for this:

“The only sure way to banish a revenant is to destroy the physical anchor it inhabits before it can escape the shell. Inanimate objects can be destroyed; corpses too, if you remove the brain. But, Harrow, we have other problems on our hands,” said Abigail. -HTN ch. 49

You said, “So if you die, the Houses die with you. The star warming our system fails, and—becomes a gravitational well, as I understand it?” “Yes. A black hole, like the one that took out Cyrus,” he said. -HTN ch. 37

“It’s not that getting rid of the corpus wouldn’t be useful,” said the Emperor. “It would be. When Cyrus drew the corpus into a black hole, Ulysses said that it was the simplest thing in the world to dispose of the brain, that it fell into a dormant state, and he could bring it down to a stoma singlehanded…” -HTN ch. 36

When we see Harrow flip planets on-screen, the process of apopneumatic shock which blows the soul of the Beast from its corpse is not instantaneous. In other words, if a highly energetic system such as a star were to immediately die, its corpse might collapse or detonate faster than its soul could possibly escape through a thanergetic link to another vessel. The Resurrection Beast of the sun may literally be stillborn, severed from its own ties to undeath and left vulnerable for John to seize it - a vast and spiritual world-body lost somewhere within the afterlife.

And there is, in fact, another candidate for this entity - another ‘objective’ component of the underworld that we can map to the ruin of the sun, just as we can map the Tower and the entire aquatic River to Alecto.

“It is the mouth to Hell,” said God. He said, “A genuinely chaotic space—chaos in the meaning of the abyss as well as unfathomable … located at the bottom of the River. The Riverbed is studded with mouths that open at proximity of Resurrection Beasts, and no ghosts venture deeper than the bathyrhoic layer. Anyone who has entered a stoma has never returned.” -HTN ch. 36

Outside—another kilometre down, maybe—was the pale belly of the River, studded with rocky promontories. And right at the bottom—the water was churning. The station tilted forward, and I could see clearly. A hole had opened. It was big enough to swallow up the whole of Drearburh and have room to spare. It was a huge, hideous, dark expanse, and it had seething, weird edges; it took the lights pattering over them for me to see that the edges of the hole were enormous human teeth. Each one must’ve been six bodies high and two bodies wide, with the dainty scalloped edges of incisors. The teeth shivered and trembled, like the hole was slavering. And that hole had nothing in it; that hole was blacker than space, that hole was an eaten-away tunnel of reality. -HTN ch. 52

“They concoct their own vengeance,” said the Captain. “Their justice is not my justice. Their water is not my water. I came to help. I am made a mockery. The danger is upon you, and you do not even know … they are coming out of their tower, salt thing. There is a hole at the bottom of their tower. I will pull their teeth. I will make it blank for you.” -NTN ch. 27

A standard interpretation of Varun’s words is that the Tower itself is as a prison containing the Devils, and there’s a ‘hole’ in the sense of an aperture which now allows them to escape. Yes, but: the hole is specifically attributed to the bottom of the Tower because the spiritual embodiment of the black hole of Dominicus is spatially located at the base of the Tower. The hole is the Stoma, which Alecto has been placed to help seal and tap into - a Tower by definition rises up and over the bottom of the world.

We can say with some confidence, just on aesthetic grounds, that is an extremely strong connection between the Stoma and John’s power. The power of the Eighth House, which “sucks at the Stoma like a teat”, shares a shadow of the intensely oral, penetrating, incandescent burning glow of John’s transcendent necromancy:

As he faded, the pale Silas incandesced. He glowed with an irradiated shimmer, iridescent white, and the air began to taste of lightning. Gideon felt an internal tug, like a blanket being pulled off in the cold. It was a little bit like the sensation back in Response (which was, what, a thousand years ago?)—something deep inside her being prodded in its tender spot. But it also wasn’t, because it hurt like hell. It was like having a headache inside her teeth. -GTN ch. 17

Silas slammed his fists on the ground. The air was choked from Ianthe’s lungs. Her mouth and skin puckered and withered: she stopped, awkward, stiff, eyes bulging in surprise. The remnants of blood rose from the floor as pale smoke, trailing heavenward all around them. For a moment everything was blanched clean and luminously white. -GTN ch. 34

And God said, “Stop.” The world slowed down. You stopped, sitting upright in your chair: your bones somehow rigid and still, and your flesh chilly and rigid around those bones. The shrapnel spray from the Saint of Duty did not stop. But what remained of him stopped too, half man, half rupture—his prurient details hot and white, naked insides clothed with the sinus-drying burst of the power of God. -HTN ch. 25

I’m not sure that John has entered a full Lyctorhood arrangement with a second Resurrection Beast. However, I certainly believe that he’s constantly siphoning the RB of the sun, and that he’s permanently shaped Alecto to help him siphon and subjugate the sun, in much the same fashion that the Eighth House uses its own cavaliers to suck at the Stoma - yet incalculably vaster, for Alecto’s world-soul is both an impossibly vast channel and likely more suited to metabolizing the power of the sun than any other planetary Resurrection Beast.

Likewise, because he has no personal connection to the sun, I suspect John is using it not just as a punitive measure, but also as a proxy to extend his Lyctoral well - he can feed countless billions of people to the stillborn RB of the sun, dump smaller RBs inside, let them render down into an insane soul melange hive - teeming with demonic Heralds bursting to leap free through the first thanergetic link or solar convergence they can find - and capture the energies released by their lysis without having to devalue the meaning of the priceless relationship he thinks he shares with Alecto.

TL;DR - Hell is the ghost of a black hole, John is using Alecto to perform the Penrose Process on it

[kairithemang0]

Saf swap aus and why they're the bane of my existence... or something (and what i'd do if I made one. bcs it's very very different to saf proper and that's why I wouldn't really call it one SORRY THIS IS GONNA BE LONG PLS READ IT THO I WORKED HARD)

I don't really know how to describe it. Hopefully this makes sense.

More of, I dislike swap aus because I do not think that Curt would become any time of DMA, nor would Owen leave being a spy once Curt was presumed dead

And also

OWEN WOULD NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS LEAVE CURT THE WAY CURT LEFT HIM!!

Owen would rather die than do that. Curt mattered so much to him, if Curt slipped, there's no way only one of them was making it out alive. If it was anyone, it'd be Curt, because he would sacrifice himself for Curt to live.

At one point, I believe, that Owen stopped caring about missions that had anything to do with Curt. He did not care for his government, he understood that it was bullshit. Which is very different to Curt, who very clearly cares for those he works with, despite them being awful.

Owen understands that MI6 cares for him because he is a good spy, and that if they found out that he was gay, he would not matter at all. Curt may realize this with ASS, yes, however I don't believe he fully grasps it the way Owen does, or doesn't care as much. Curt still does his job because he wants to help his country, Owen does it because he simply has to.

So, therefore, if Owen left Curt, in the 0.333% percent chance that happens, and Curt survives, I do not think he'd take it as a personal attack the way Owen does. Curt rationalized him leaving Owen because it was what he was supposed to do as a spy, he needed to leave Owen to save himself. He'd likely come to this conclusion if he was left for dead by Owen, despite it hurting.

If Curt were to then be captured by Russians (which to me is what happened to Owen), and then found and rescued by Chimera, and nursed back to health, I also do not think Curt would go along with their idea. He says that the idea of some type of archival system bores him, that he has no interest in it. I'm unsure if Chimera would know this about him and therefore give him another reason to go along with them (since I doubt they just have the archival mission, but many). Even then, I doubt he'd ever become some type of DMA figure, or that he would ever rise through the ranks the way Owen did. I doubt Curt would want to go behind the backs of his country either, and certainly not if they're working with Russians or Nazi's. He values the US too much, and especially in a cold war era, I don't think he'd be able to put his nations pride aside for something that I don't think he'd care much for.

And Owen. Well jesus Owen would never stop working after Curt possibly died. Owen would work his ass off because now that's all he has. If he was going to escape his agency, it would have been with Curt. He will never find someone like Curt and certainly couldn't run off if it wasn't with him. Owen would rather prefer to work himself to the bone than never take any breaks again, likely working until he dies. I think his performance in missions would diminish, but he'd get them done. It'd be clear that he's ruining himself, however how much would MI6 care? I'm not sure

Anywho. If there's any type of saf swap au, it would be some type of "Owen somehow for some reason leaves curt for dead, curt leaves chimera right after they heal him (whether he needs to sneak out or not), he finds Owen who's probably trying not to bash his head into a wall, punches him in the face for leaving him, before never letting him go and they go into the woods and have a gay wedding but not legally married thing" or something.

[dandylion240]

Jonah stared at the black and white keys his fingers were resting on. The conductor’s angry voice washing over him, making him wish he could runaway and hide.

“That’s enough” Riley’s voice rose above the bombastic tirade the conductor was inflicting upon them all. “Ridiculing him is not going to make him play any better. If anything it’s only going to make things worse.”

“I want him stricken from the roster” the conductor screamed.

“That’s not your decision to make” Riley stared him down while several others in the orchestra nodded in agreement.

“Give the kid a break” one of the violinists said. “All your yelling is making him nervous. Everyone here knows you play your worst when you’re not enjoying it.”

“I’m the conductor” the man seethed “what I say goes.” Raking his eyes over Jonah “he’s a dead weight the orchestra doesn’t need.”

Putting a hand on Jonah’s shoulder to keep him seated Riley faced the conductor. “This orchestra isn’t your personal project. It’s owned by the senior members who started it. We asked you to conduct while our conductor was on sabbatical. We can just as easily ask you to leave. Members are approved by us not you.”

“I see” the man crossed his arms breathing rapidly. “I suppose you’re one of the senior members. Typical. The boy clearly has no talent.”

“Dad I’ll….” Jonah attempted to stand up to leave.

“Sit” Riley ordered “you will not leave because of this idiot.” Turning towards the conductor “I think all of us here will agree you don’t fit our family first model.”

“Are you firing me” he asked blinking astonished that anyone would have the audacity to fire him.

“I think that is what I’m doing” he nodded.

“You can’t perform without me” he smirked.

A man a little older than Riley stood up. “All we need is a conductor. I was conductor before I can do it again. My son can play cello in my place. He’s almost as good as me anyway.” His comment illicited laughter around the group.

“Fine” the man huffed throwing his hands up. “You’ll regret this” he glared at Jonah as if he were to blame.

“Dad I…” he looked at his hands folded in his lap “what if he’s right? What if I’m not good enough?”

“Everyone take twenty” Riley announced to the group. Kneeling beside his son “come with me. We need to talk.”

Once they were inside a small private office Riley turned to his son. “Alright let’s have it.”

Looking away he shrugged “nothing.”

“Don’t do that” he snapped. “We both know you haven’t been playing up to your potential. That pompous ass wasn’t wrong about that. Now I want to know why.”

Jonah lifted his head up, face white as a sheet. “I’m going to be sick.”

Snatching up a nearby trashcan “here” Riley watched as Jonah threw up his breakfast. “How far along are you?”

Wiping his mouth Jonah groaned “I just have a little stomach bug.”

Kneeling beside him on the floor “I’ve had this particular brand of stomach bug five times. I know your pregnant.” Jonah gave him a desperate look. “Have you taken a test yet?”

“It can’t be that,” he leaned back resting his head on the wall. “I’m on birth control. Ethan’s not ready for another child.”

“You haven’t told him” Riley sighed sitting beside him.

“No” he buried his face in his arms crossed over his knees. “What if he reacts like he did before. I couldn’t take that.”

Pulling him close “he’s not the same person he was then.”

“I don’t know about that” his voice quivered as he fought to keep the tears back. “I see the irritation he can’t hide when Eli interrupts us.”

Snorting Riley shook his head. “Son that’s natural. Your dad and I have both felt that way when you or one of your siblings interrupted us.”

Frowning Jonah stared at him. “I don’t remember ever seeing you or dad annoyed with us.”

“Of course not” he chuckled “all you saw was us giving you our attention.” He stopped considering his son a moment “does Eli react negatively to Ethan? Does he notice his irritation?”

Brow furrowed “no I don’t think so. Sometimes I think Eli prefers him to me.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about” Riley squeezed his shoulder. “Tell Ethan. You’ll see you’ve been worried for nothing.”

Sniffing he wiped the wetness from his cheeks. “I’ll take the test. Then tell him.”

“You do that. The sooner you get this off your chest the better” Riley got up. “Until then I have no choice but to replace you in the line up.” He tried to ignore the disappointment in his sons eyes. “It’s only temporary. You’re simply not ready for the show next week.”

“Who are you going to get to replace me” he asked trying hard to not let his disappointment show.

“Me” Riley smiled “that’s how I know the replacement will step down when you’re ready to come back.”

Previous/next

[internals1ut]

honestly I'm just curious on how the captains would fight over the reader (preferably fem but fine if it's gender neutral) and what would the aftermath be.

Hello sorry for the wait!

But I come with the reply for this post!

However instead of writing x reader I will be using the Honor Roll -

It just makes everything easier for when I write since I don't specialize in X Reader fics. . ;-;

Jin:

He is rather demanding so there is no way he won't get what he wants.

If he see the Honor Roll talking with Alan he will suddenly find his way over and place an arm around them.

Glaring at the Vagastorm captain as he has a right hold on their arm and mumbled a "let's go" before he drags the Honor Roll away with him back to his cold room.

Alan:

A bit more gentle than Jin.

He will hold the Honor Roll but doesn't say anything but his face says it all.

He will glare at the Frosthiem captain before slowly pulling the Honor Roll away from him.

He is as gentle as possible since he doesn't want to hurt them.

Haru:

Now he is a bit more complicated

He doesn't have a scary look or is very demanding

But when he sees the Honor Roll what seeks like trouble with Taiga there is no way he can't stand by!

He will call for the Honor Roll and hug them tightly, telling them he needs their help and that they promised, trying to make up something to get them away from the Sinostra Captain.

As they walked away, he turned his head over and stuck his tongue out at Taiga

It was a dangerous game, but at least he made it out alive..

Taiga:

Both scary and demanding..

The moment he sees you with Haru, he is directly behind you and gives you more space at all!

He goes out of his way to verbally threaten Haru to go away or else he will find Peekaboo himself and swears he will eat the rabbit this time.

Was it the threat of eating his baby or the shine of Taiga's pistol that scared him off? Maybe both.

But after that, Taiga has his head in the Honor Roll's lap acting like a spoil little shit.

Subaru:

He is a lot nicer than anyone.

He will wait until the Honor Roll and whoevee are done talking before he takes them away and tries to make up every excuse in the book just for them to stay with him and spend all their time with him.

Maybe a little possessive but at least he is the most wholesome about it-

Edward:

He makes it clear that he wants your attention, so when Yuri is doing his usual nagging on The Honor Roll about not knowing certain things.

Edward seem O be there at the least time and wraps his arm around her and pulls them away.

"Don't worry, why learn from you when they can have someone who has lived an entirety"~

He managed to get Yuri away

Now the Honor Roll needs to repay him for assisting ~

Yuri:

He isn't one to fight for attention.

But when that damn vampire is sticking his nose in your guys business.

Yuri does everything in his peer as a doctor to get the Honor Roll away saying that they have a check up coming up.

He will use the same excuse all the time just ros we the Honor Roll more often and so they could not go and see the other captains in worry that they would try and take the Honor Roll away from them.