#words: 1.4k+

[stormsthatrage]

Have a Bleach extended-winter-war time-travel-fix-it idea. In this AU Kaien's death happened before the whole turn-back-the-pendulum arc. (Yes, another Bleach time-travel AU, I know, shut up.)

As Ichigo and Kisuke are planning to go back to the past, Kisuke makes sure to emphasize to Ichigo that they have to protect Shiba Kaien. Apparently, it's of the utmost importance.

Ichigo doesn't know exactly how Kaien's continued well-being plays into saving the future. Kisuke never really explains it, or gives him a straight answer when he asks. But Ichigo knows that the Shiba Clan-Head carried a great deal of political power, and Ichigo also knows that Kaien -- according to Kukaku and Rukia -- was highly competent, incredibly noble, and fundamentally kind. It's not exactly unintuitive that a person like that could be important to bringing down Aizen.

So Ichigo listens, when Kisuke tells him to protect Shiba Kaien. He memorizes how Kaien died in the original timeline. He's attentive as Kisuke reiterates for the thousandth time that Aizen will keep trying to assassinate Kaien until he succeeds. He takes notes when Kisuke hypothesizes about what Aizen's various assassination attempts might look like -- poison during a meal, hired assassins at night, an ambush during a mission.

Ichigo ingrains the assignment into his core: protect Shiba Kaien, because if Kaien falls, the mission fails.

So when Kisuke slips a paralytic into Ichigo's tea and places Ichigo in the middle of the time-travel kido array and drains the entirety of his own spiritual energy to activate the array, a sacrifice that Ichigo never would have agreed to--

Well. The first thing Ichigo does when he arrives back in the past, numb and alone and only able to function by focusing on the duty that is his purpose -- is track down Shiba Kaien.

After all, if Ichigo is going to kill Aizen -- and he is, no matter what it takes -- he needs to keep Kaien alive.

Ichigo goes straight to the Shiba family grounds. In true Shiba fashion, they accept him immediately as family. They tend to his wounds and give him a meal and welcome him home. They let him get away with his weak excuses and explanations, and they defend his presence to the rest of Soul Society.

Kaien, in accordance with everything Ichigo has heard about the man, personally takes the newest addition to the family under his wing.

Ichigo's plans to deal with Aizen take shape around his need to keep an eye on Kaien.

Ichigo, instead of running as far and fast as he can from the Shiba clan, accepts the offer to live in the Shiba compound. He gets to know every clan member and retainer, subtly vetting for traitors. He sleeps in a room near Kaien's, allowing him to both guard against assassins at night and place warding runes around Kaien's door without having to worry about being caught somewhere he has no business being.

He joins the Court Guard in the 13th division instead of the 5th, because the only real way to protect Kaien on a mission is to be there with him. Ichigo knows that if there's an ambush, or if the mission details have been tampered with, he'll be more than enough fire power to get Kaien out of it. And it's easy to always get paired with Kaien; Kaien -- reliably taking every opportunity to hover around Ichigo that he's offered -- does most of the work, leveraging his status as lieutenant and Ichigo's combat ability to keep them together.

Ichigo finds himself frequently taking meals with Kaien and Kaien's friends. Kaien always invites Ichigo, and Ichigo accepts so he can subtly check the food for poison.

(Ichigo does not tell Kaien about Aizen. Ichigo is still unsure what Kaien's role is in the whole fight, and in the meantime, telling him about Aizen is a sure way to get him killed.)

Things heat up. Ichigo prevents both Miyako and Kaien's death, killing Metastacia before it can hurt anyone. Ichigo's shadow war against Aizen gets more intense. Ichigo sneaks out regularly to dismantle Aizen's illusions, destroy his labs, and attack his network of power, slowly weakening him.

Ichigo waits for the assassination attempts against Kaien, but they don't come, even several weeks after Metastacia fails. Ichigo takes it as a sign that he's got Aizen distracted.

Things continue for a while. Ichigo falls into a strange routine.

(And Ichigo tries not to break, seeing so many of his loved ones alive and unknowing of him. It is agony, to be around Shunsui, who is not his mentor, and the Visored, who are neither visored nor pack.

But the worst is when Captains Urahara and Shihouin catch on to his war against Aizen. He finds himself working with them as allies.

Allies. Mere allies, instead of --

Well. Not that it matters anymore.

All that matters is his duty.)

Time passes. Aizen weakens. There are no attempts on Kaien's life yet.

And then Aizen's web has unraveled enough for Ichigo to attack.

It's a long battle. It's a bloody battle. It's a very public battle.

Ichigo wins.

And it's only after it's all over -- after Aizen's crimes are revealed and Soul Society is at peace and the future is saved; after Ichigo finds himself still alive and adrift, with nothing left obligating him to keep going and everything telling him to give up; as Kaien refuses to leave Ichigo alone and escorts him to regular appointments with Unohana and forces him to talk about the truth of his past --

It's only then that it clicks.

Ichigo is whispering secrets about the future into Kaien's chest, Kaien's arms wrapped tight around him, when Ichigo confesses that he messed up, that he put the Shiba clan in unnecessary danger. Ichigo tells Kaien about his death in the original timeline. He talks about how Kisuke told him that in this timeline, Aizen would try and kill Kaien again if the first attempt failed. Ichigo promises desperately that he never would have sought out the family -- would have kept the danger far, far away from them -- if he hadn't thought he had to watch Kaien's movements so closely.

And Ichigo admits that Aizen never actually tried again. Ichigo admits that he and Kisuke miscalculated, that Ichigo brought danger to the Shiba's doorstep for nothing.

It happens like this:

First, the words leave his lips, "Kisuke" and "miscalculated" in the same sentence. Hearing himself say it lays bare the absurdity of its premise.

Then, Kaien draws away slightly, to look Ichigo in the eyes. Ichigo sees, plain on Kaien's face, a terrible, damning gratefulness.

Then, Kaien says -- fierce and defiant in the face of what could have been -- "I am so glad you came home."

And it clicks. At last, Kisuke's final manipulation reveals itself to Ichigo's eyes.

The emotions flash through him: the sting of betrayal; a flavor of love that bursts across his tastebuds as hurt; a familiar brand of exasperation that, a split second later, has his knees giving out under the weight of old pain made fresh.

Kaien catches Ichigo before he hits the ground and holds him as he shatters. And Ichigo can barely breathe through the knowledge that Kisuke would have been so smug to see them.

A sob rips itself from Ichigo's chest, and it's followed by another, and another.

Ichigo's older cousin holds him, in the home of their family, through it all.

_________

THE END except not really.

This must immediately be followed by a whole arc where Kaien, much to his own dismay, finds himself trying to hook Urahara up with his little cousin.

After all, Future-Urahara sent Ichigo to the Shiba clan. Future-Urahara tricked his little cousin into bypassing his own self-destructive tendencies to seek out family and love and support. Clearly, Urahara would actually be good for Ichigo.

And, you know, Ichigo clearly loves Younger-Urahara, judging by Ichigo's whole... well, everything, whenever the two interact.

(This whole matchmaking endeavor is made easier by the fact that 1) Kisuke is already infatuated, fascinated, and not a tiny-bit madly in love, and 2) Yoruichi is also, from the other end, trying to set Kisuke up with Ichigo.

This whole endeavor is made more difficult by the fact that 1) Ichigo is in denial that he loves this younger Kisuke since he never thought this younger Kisuke could also fall in love with him, 2) Kisuke is in denial that he loves Ichigo because that is a Shiba and he himself is a creepy low-born ex-assassin mad-scientist, and 3) neither Ichigo nor Kisuke know what it looks like when someone is interested in them.)

Poor Kaien. He succeeds eventually, but not before witnessing truly legendary social ineptitude.

[zuzu-draws]

So after the spoilers for Chap 257 dropped, I saw some tweets clarifying the meaning of the Kanji Sukuna used in the chapter when referring to his mother, and the overall reveals in the chapter got me thinking.

I’m making this post as a way of gathering my thoughts, personal speculations and where I think all of this connects to Sukuna’s character and the information Gege has given us over the years. Nothing I say is by any means new information, but like I said, I’m just collecting my thoughts here. By the way, just a warning, this post contains SPOILERS for the JJK Manga! If you don’t like that, please don’t read this!

Something I’ve noticed is that the theme of “Hunger” and symbolism of “Cooking/Food” is heavily referenced with Sukuna throughout the Manga. Gege in a previous Fanbook has disclosed Sukuna’s favorite Hobby to be “Eating”.

This theme is again very much ingrained within Sukuna’s cursed techniques and even his Domain Expansion, the “Malevolent Shrine”. With his two main techniques being “Dismantle” and “Cleave” are cutting-type attacks. He is also able to use a Flame-Arrow, and Fire is essential for making Food. The Shrine in his Domain Expansion literally has mouths on all sides, looking eager to chew down anything in-front of them!

This symbolism also heavily influences Sukuna’s own manner of speech, and the way he speaks to other characters in the series as well. With his post-fight chat with Jogo before his death, Sukuna mentions Jogo lacking the “Hunger” to take control of his desires, preventing him from reaching the heights of Gojo Satoru. Before the Start of their fight in Shinjuku, Sukuna called Gojo a “Nameless Fish on top of his cutting board”, and that he was going to start by “Peeling off the scales”(refering to Gojo’s infinity). There’s also further symbolism that supports this by analyzing the Kanji and meaning of Sukuna’s “Malevolent Shrine” but I’m not very educated on that so I won’t be opening that point here.

What all of this points to is that Eating and Food……is extremely important to Sukuna, to the point that it literally affects him in manners innumerable.

Eating is an instinct, a necessity for the survival of every single living being.

And In the face of extreme Hunger and starvation, even those with the strongest will could lose their Humanity and revert to the basic animalistic side of their existence. (The Heian Period also had a Famine, although I believe the timing to be a bit off, but do with this info as you see fit)

In JJK Chapter 257, it is revealed to us that Sukuna and his Twin were most likely starving in the womb of their starving mother.

On the brink of starvation, Sukuna had to consume his “other self”(his twin), so that he could survive.

Btw, this tweet and this thread gives additional characterisation to Sukuna:

Link to the original thread: Link.

More context (and reactions :P):

Link to original thread: Here

This reveals to us that indeed, Sukuna was born a twin. And as we all know, “Twins” are seen with extreme scrutiny in Jujutsu Society, they’re not well liked. This too in a period where Cursed Spirits and Jujutsu Sorcery was at its peak, it is not far-fetched to assume that his Mother may not have been treated very well by the people in her surroundings, especially as she bore twins.

When Kashimo asks if Sukuna was born the Strongest or if he made himself the Strongest, this is the response Sukuna gave to him:

When you think about it, how do you think the people around them would have reacted when the woman: who was supposed to birth two twins, gave birth to a single child instead? and that child had consumed his other twin in the womb itself?

No doubt people would’ve been horrified, disgusted and even revulsed. With the woman and her newborn child.

This would’ve led to their further ostracisation in the already very close-minded society. Unable to fend for herself and her newborn child, it must’ve been difficult for Sukuna’s mother to survive. I feel like somewhere along the line, Sukuna was left alone to fend for himself at an extremely young age. To protect himself from both Curses and Society alike.

This is why I believe Sukuna knows what true starvation, weakness and hunger feels like. Both in the emotional and literal sense. He was left without another person caring about him or his well-being, in a cut-throat period where it was “Fight or be killed”.

Powerful curses roamed all across Japan, nowhere was safe. Simply be strong, or you'll die. There's no room for weakness. And initially, a kid!Sukuna was weak, as anyone would be in the beginning when they're just starting out in this world. (and maybe, he didn't have much to eat, leading to long periods of starvation? :') )

I believe it is this debilitating hunger, and feeling of weakness that eventually led to Sukuna’s current Hedonistic mindset.

He’s essentially traumatised by it, and believes that it was his own weakness that led him to experience this sheer starvation. That he deserved to feel this way because he was weak then. Perhaps, the people around him were right, that as long as they have the power and strength to overcome anything, they’re free to do as they please; And there is nothing anyone else could do about it.

I feel like the irony here is that Sukuna himself, must’ve been a “weakling” before eventually rising the ranks to become History’s Strongest Sorcerer. This is also why he values Strength so much.

Ultimately, Sukuna has decided that there was nothing more important than being strong enough to fulfill your own desires. And “eating” is one of his most important desires. It’s his favourite thing to do, the one he derives the most pleasure out of. And like an animal, whose main focus is to consume, consume and consume. He too, simply consumes.

Most morals likely have no meaning to him. He doesn’t care who he hurts, what he does, as long as he’s able to get what he wants. And this isn’t limited to eating.

This is why people referring to Sukuna as a “Natural Disaster” is so befitting of him. Because Natural Disasters also don’t care about what or who they’re destroying, they just come and go, wreaking havoc appropriate for their nature and magnitude.

I believe Sukuna himself has said lines similar in nature, when talking to Kashimo:

Now I’m not sure how Sukuna perceives or even experiences this “Love”, because I think he has a rather very warped idea of it. I do think that this definition of love is similar to the one that Gojo also understands, but I don’t think he knows what “love” truly is. I’m not sure how I could comment on this, but I do think that Sukuna’s emotionally starved, whether he realises that or not.

Because, like Kashimo himself asked Sukuna “What is the point of dividing your soul into 20 different parts and then traversing across time if you’re satisfied with this?” we do not know the answer to that yet.

But many people have speculated that “Black Box” panels in JJK manga represent a curse (either self-inflicted or put by someone) on the speaker. Like, take a look over here where Sukuna reiterates the same dialogue, except it looks like he’s trying to reassure himself:

This once again shows that Sukuna has only ever strived for himself, in the same hedonistic fashion, to a very very extreme degree. It is possible that he's been lacking something, and he himself does not realise that he’s lacking it. Maybe it was this subconscious feeling, that led to Sukuna agreeing to Kenjaku’s plan of dividing his soul into 20 different parts, and to traverse across time as a Cursed Object.

Sukuna’s an incredibly complex character, and I’m excited to see where this goes. Gege has put extra care in the way he characterizes and depicts Sukuna, and again, I’m really sad that a lot of that characterization gets lost in translation. Still, I’m going to try my best to understand and get the most accurate feel of his character as I possibly can.

If you made it this far, Thank you for reading! And if you would like, please do leave a comment in the tags or replies because I would love to read what other people think of this and just Sukuna in general. I do not see a lot of people doing critical analysis of him, and a lot of his actions are seemingly swept under the rug. I don’t like that, so hopefully this contributes to people focusing more on Sukuna and his character. (/^v^)/ <3

[coddda]

Light's relationship with his father is such a heartbreaking multi-faceted tragedy to me I hate it so so so much.

Soichiro loves his son so much, and while he's certainly not a perfect father I know that he cares deeply about Light. He wants to prove Light's innocence so badly but he can't let go of the underlying doubt that he might really be Kira and it gnaws at him. He does not know that from the very beginning he was being used by Light, whether it was to obtain information about the investigation, or to get to L, or to strengthen the foundations of his own lie that he wasn't Kira, this entire time he was simply another resource. He'll hang onto this doubt for years, even after L is dead, even if he doesn't express it in the latter half of the series, until he himself is on his deathbed, with what he believes to be undeniable proof that Light isn't Kira. (It's a lie, of course.) He dies happy, but it's on the foundations of blissful ignorance. His own son brought him here, brought him to the point where he had to sacrifice half of his own remaining life span, to his own death march, and was still trying to use him even now to kill someone else, but he doesn't know that. Soichiro said that what was evil was the power to kill others, and that whoever used it was cursed. Light was that cursed man, of course, and he tried to bring that curse onto Soichiro too by making him kill in his last moments. Soichiro was happy regardless, because he didn't know. He'll never know. (In the manga/anime at least. More on that later).

Light loves his father but it's not enough to turn him away from the terrible decisions he's made, if anything it only fuels them. His idea of "justice" is a twisted model of what he parroted from Soichiro, and he uses his father as another pawn (and a powerful one at that) in his plans. If he can prove that Kira is justice then perhaps his father will no longer call Kira, and therefore Light, evil, so he just needs to ensure that Kira becomes justice, right? It's Light's own actions that land his own father in the hospital for a stress-induced heart attack and yet he says only a few minutes later that he's the happiest he's ever been in his entire life. Even after Soichiro denounces Kira by calling him evil, even after he calls the Death Note's power evil, even after he unknowingly tells Light that he is cursed. When Soichiro dies Light is too deep in his own plans to actually properly process the fact that his own father is dying past what it means for his goals, but at the same time he still cares enough that after the fact he'll genuinely cry, only to brush it all away later. (Personally, I don't have a single doubt in my mind that Light's crying in that scene was genuine and I Will die on this hill). Soichiro had unknowingly denounced Light one last time just before his death, openly relieved that he "wasn't Kira after all", which also reveals that he has had doubts about Light this entire time, even after L died. By the time he's caught at the Yellow Box Warehouse Light will have denounced his father too, seeing him as someone who was made to be a fool, someone who was naive, even, too earnest for his own good. He won't realize that part of this description of his father might have applied to Light himself, back when this all started. Light takes after his father so much in so many ways already, so why not in this way too?

Ough. And honestly the other adaptations never miss out on this tragedy either, and I love them for that. (spoilers for the musical and 2006 live action movies I guess?)

In the musical we see Soichiro express his doubts and conflicts about who to believe, Light or L, if the son he raised really is a murderer, if everything he knows about him is just a lie. Like, there's an entire song about this, and you can tell how torn he is about it all, how badly he wants Light to be innocent but about how he also needs to face the truth no matter what it is, but at the end of it all he doesn't even get the answers he wants. At the end of the musical the only thing he finds is two corpses, Light's and L's, with no answers. No last words, no closure, only dead ends and a dead son and a grieving daughter. It's so awful I hate it here.

And the live action movie is fucking Insane. Like, wow. Okay. (Spoiler for the ending of Death Note The Last Name I guess) In the 2006 movies/novels Light writes Soichiro's name in the Death Note himself, and it's such an inconcievable move that it leaves even Misa shocked; Light tries to make Soichiro give him the Death Note for the last part of his plans, seeing his death as a "necessary sacrifice" (insert tangent essay about why I think 2006 live action movie Light is actually the most "coldhearted" Light Yagami, despite how infamous anime Light is). It doesn't work, and Soichiro does end up finding out that Light is Kira this time, and they have a confrontation, but he doesn't even sound truly hateful towards Light for it. He Never seems to outright hate Light for it, even after Light calls the whole confrontation a waste of time and instead tries to continue killing with the piece of the notebook in his watch, even after he tries to get Ryuk to kill everyone. When Ryuk inevitably writes Light's name and he collapses, Soichiro still reaches out for him and holds onto him as he's dying. Light literally dies in Soichiro's arms, still looking for the validation that he was right, that this wasn't all for nothing, that he was doing the good thing, trying to make Soichiro understand that he was trying to enact justice based on what he learned from him in the first place. Soichiro not only learns but sees for himself what his son has become, and Light dies in his arms leaving no closure for either of them. Soichiro will announce Light's death in L Change the WorLd on the news without saying his name, saying instead that it is only Kira who is dead, even though he and Light are one in the same. Sachiko and Sayu will never get to know the full truth about what happened to Light, instead Soichiro will lie and instead tell them: "Light was killed by Kira."

And then holy Shit the jdrama. If I write about it here this post is gonna literally double in length and also I don't really wanna spoil it but. Man. Man. If you watched it you know. Holy Shit dude I Cried.

It's the fact that, canonically, Soichiro will die oblivious to what Light has done, but even in the instances where he does find out, it doesn't make it any better, and it doesn't make him love Light any less, it just gives him more to grieve.

It's the fact that there isn't a single universe where Light doesn't use his father for his own gain, whether to gain information, or to try and control him with the Death Note, or make him write in the Death Note himself, and not a single time will he realize just how far he's strayed from Soichiro's ideals, and not a single time will he not forsake him for it by the end of the story.

It's the fact that, despite everything, Light will always refers to Soichiro as "dad/my dad" (informal) rather than "father/my father", even after he has been "denounced" (and this is true in every language that Death Note has been translated in, as far as I could find. Man, isn't that so cool! :) <- Through tears).

Anyways that's what I've been thinking of how's your guys' days going

[sunaluvs]

♡ tags: afab + gn reader, highly suggestive so 18+ MDNI, showering, readers implied to be shorter than meguru but this is a timeskip so he can be 7ft if u wish, fluff.

♡ a/n: i haven't written anything in 2 years and this is disgustingly self indulgent. unfortunately this mans rotting my brain and i am weak. i wrote this in a daze

Through your light humming and the spray of water, the sound of a door flinging open rings clear through your apartment.

“I’m home baby!” Bachira’s voice booms through your home, the sound winding through the small space left open in the bathroom’s door, the thud of a bag and shuffle of feet following his words.

“Welcome home!” you call back, rinsing the last of the shampoo out of your hair.

You hear him do a little jog towards the bathroom, socked feet thumping against the floor, before his voice calls, “Coming in!”

That’s all the warning you get before your door is thrown open, the sounds of your boyfriend singing your name and the shuffle of his clothes bringing a small smile to your lips.

“How was your day, baby?” you ask, grabbing your bottle of conditioner and squeezing a bit onto your palm.

“Fun as always, I experimented with a few new moves,” he replies, excitement clear in his voice. “My shoulders are busted though, feels like they’re gonna fall off. I’m convinced it’s because you didn’t kiss them before I left this morning.”

You snort, rolling your eyes as you massage the conditioner into your hair, “Oh yeah, definitely, it couldn’t possibly be due to the rigorous training you do every single day.”

“Nope,” he quips, whipping the shower curtain open with a shit-eating grin, stepping in the stream of water in all his naked glory. “It’s not every single day, I get a break on the weekends.”

You hum in reply, lazily dragging your eyes down your boyfriend’s physique, the results of all his hard work. It’s all prominent muscle and compact strength, sharp, defined abs and a strong core, hulking thighs you’ve had the delightful pleasure of sitting on (and between), packing power you’ve seen used to launch countless balls precisely and ruthlessly across fields. The shape of him, embraced with golden sun-kissed skin from the summer sky, is made almost lewd with the addition of water dripping over his body, glistening and moist and trailing deliciously down to his co—

“Eyes up here baby,” he sings, stepping closer to your heating body and bringing his face lower to meet your gaze head-on, beaming at the hazy appreciation clear on your features. “You stare any harder and I’ll start getting shy,” he teases.

That snaps your eyes back into focus, and you snort incredulously, “Oh please, you haven’t known shame since you popped out of the womb. I could fill an address book with all the people who’ve seen your dick.”

He giggles and brings his hands to your hips, gliding over the wet skin, and pulls you slightly out of the water’s stream. “I’ll learn some just for you, baby.”

“Hmm, as long as you don’t suddenly start getting shy on me,” you hum, tipping your head to look at his playful expression. “You can have some shame with everyone else, though. In fact, I am requesting that you do.”

“Anything for you, honey,” he grins, pulling your chest flush against his and dipping his head to kiss you. It’s slow and lazy, wet with the lingering water on your face, his tongue licking your bottom lip like he’s savouring the feel of every crease beneath it. Bachira drags it out as he always does, but doesn’t escalate it, keeping it slow and steady as his hands slip over the soft curves of your body, caressing your waist, thumbing along your rib cage, dipping beneath the swell of your breast. Being out of the water and subjected to his teasing touches pebbles your nipples, and you release a sigh into his willing mouth. Your skin shivers, nectarous arousal gradually trickling into your gut, but there’s no urge to hasten the moment along. For a man always on the move, always looking for the next goal and next game to win, being the one Bachira slows down for is not something you take for granted. You savour every easy breath and satisfied hum he lets out against your lips and lean into his precious, languid warmth.

It’s only when his fingers lightly flick your nipples that you break apart, a string of spit connecting your lips, remaining close enough for your noses to touch fleetingly and your warm breaths to gather in the space between you. His honeyed eyes, typically bright and wide and wild, settle transfixed and heavy-lidded on yours, his gaze no less intense and singularly focused on you. It’s overwhelming sometimes to have all the world’s devotion directed sacredly at you like this, brilliant and irresistible and all-consuming. Bachira never goes halfway at anything, not at his football or his principles, and least of all you. He is persistently and overwhelmingly fierce with his adoration, an ebullient fire that never stops consuming. You’ve never loved the sting of a burn more.

“Getting a little handsy there, ain'tcha,” you murmur, thumbing softly at the grin that spreads on his lips.

“Jus’ playing with my food a bit.”

“Never learned your manners, did you?” you breathe, goosebumps rising on the skin of your thigh as it brushes against his dick, thick and slowly hardening.

“Think I just lose ‘em all with you,” he laughs breathily, the sound hanging adoringly in the steam as he rests his forehead against yours. “Missed you so much today. Every day. Wish I could pack you up in my training bag and take you everywhere with me.”

You huff, bringing your arms around his shoulders and tilting your head to the side, “You don’t think staying home would be easier?”

The words give him pause, eyes fixed on yours as he opens and closes his mouth. His eyebrows furrow. The heat of the moment dissipates as your boyfriend gives your question a genuine thought.

“I mean, yeah? But—well. What about practice then? I don’t think that’d be very productive to my progress and today was actually kinda huge in terms of breakthroughs, I was finally able to get a handle o—”

You burst into giggles at the bewildered expression on his face, torn up at the choice you’ve apparently forced him to make. 

“I’m just playing, baby,” you grin back at him, squishing his cheeks and puckering his lips, cooing, “I’d never be so mean and make you choose.”

He heaves a dramatic breath of relief, planting his face on your shoulders and whining, “You’re being mean now! I almost had a heart attack.”

Your chest feels full to bursting with affection. “Aww, my little honey bee, my sweet baby angel, sorry for forgetting how fragile my sensitive darling is—”

He groans and shakes his head, and you delight in the pout you can feel pressing into your skin, “You’re a bully,” he mumbles, pressing impossibly closer to you, wrapping his arms tightly around your middle.

“I don’t know what you mean, I love you, sweetheart,” you laugh back at him, kissing the top of his dampening head.

His pout transforms into kisses along your shoulder as he hums, moving along the lines of your collarbones. “Yeah?” he breathes against your skin, lips curving up. “You love me?”

“Uhuh.” You indulge him, fingers playing with the hair curling at his nape. “Love you so much, Meguru. Makes me feel kinda crazy sometimes.” 

You feel the soft smile he was pressing into your skin transform into a grin, his eyes no doubt twinkling and bright with delight. “It does?”

“It does,” you repeat, using your hold on his hair to pull his face up from where it rested against your collarbones. Just as you thought, his eyes glisten with infatuation, little crescent moons as he beams up at you with a dopey smile. Your breath catches in your throat at the stunning sight, profound adoration sitting in his faint smile lines and the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, earnestly dripping like syrup from his voice.

“I make you feel crazy? In love? Really?” he breathes, bringing his face close enough to yours for his warm breath to fan across your lips. “Say it again. Say it, I wanna hear it.”

And who are you to deny Bachira Meguru anything?

“I love you so much, baby,” you murmur, rubbing the tip of your nose against his damp cheek. “Always make me feel so crazy, so full of your love.”

“Again,” he tries to demand, but it’s a plea, you know. A supplication, a prayer to bear witness to the fire blazing with ardour in your chest, one that burns divinely for the man in front of you. His eyes are impossibly bright, drowning you in their sea of sunny reverence, and you know that he, too, would happily walk into the sting of your own flames.

“Feels like I can’t breathe sometimes.”

“Again.”

“Can’t think properly when it comes to you.”

“Again.”

“I love you, Meguru.”

“Again.”

[tervaneula]

Leonardo sighs into the white fur his snout is blissfully buried in. 

“You’re so soft,” he mumbles and burrows even further into the warmth in his lap, pulling Yuichi’s back flush against his plastron. 

“We’ve established that about thirty times in the last thirty minutes,” the rabbit chuckles and keeps letting himself be treated like the world’s largest teddy bear. “I should get going though. Your brother is giving me the stink eye.” 

Huh. Leonardo hadn’t even noticed anyone coming into the room from the midst of his trip to Fuzzy Land. 

“...which one?”

“Little Mikey.” 

Leonardo snorts, inadvertently giving Yuichi a light raspberry and he snickers at the tickle of it. 

“Don’t call him that where he can hear you, lest you evoke the fury of Dr. Delicate Touch.” 

“I think he heard me…” 

That gets Leonardo to lift his face up from the fluffy heaven he would’ve been content to spend the rest of eternity in and sure enough, Mikey is downright glaring at them at this point from his seat across the room, arms crossed, a refurbished and heavily modified N-Gage (provided by Genius Built™, of course) he’d apparently been playing games on now laying forgotten in his lap. 

It’s baffling until Leonardo remembers with a jolt that he had promised to go with him to Run of the Mill today. A cursory glance at the clock on the wall tells him that they’re well past the agreed time to leave. 

He audibly swallows. 

“Heyyyy, big man–” he starts but Mikey levels him with an icy glare that doesn’t let him continue and he shrinks, squeezing Yuichi’s middle as if the rabbit could hide him from the quiet fury of his little brother. Yuichi stays silent, no doubt amused by the much bigger man cowering behind him. He’s only heard about both Michelangelos’ different personas and he’s curious to see if any of the infamous doctors will make an appearance this time. Obviously, he’s partly to blame for whatever’s about to occur but while curiosity might kill the cat, satisfaction always brings it back. 

“You know what. It’s okay. It’s perfectly fine to forgo your promise and let your baby brother starve in favour of some cuddles you can get like, iunno, every dang day,” the box turtle says, ice dripping from his voice as he gets up from the armchair and saunters right up to the personal space of the two swordsmen. 

“And the stink eye was for Leo,” he adds and forcefully jabs Leonardo in the forehead with his finger. 

“I’m sorry!” Leonardo squeaks, his head retracting into his shell on instinct. Despite his foul mood, Mikey grins. 

Yuichi looks behind his shoulder… and freezes. 

The smugness radiating from Mikey changes into confusion as the rabbit just keeps staring at the space where Leonardo’s head used to be. 

“Wait, have you never seen him do that before?” he asks, and Yuichi slowly turns his head to look at him. Finally finding his tongue, he almost screeches, 

“That’s normal?!” 

Mikey bursts into laughter. 

“We’re turtles! Obviously! Look!” 

Yuichi’s eyes sting with how they’re nearly bulging out of their sockets as Mikey demonstrates his ability to retract all of his limbs with ease and his shell falls to the floor with a clang. 

“Ta-dah!” he exclaims from within and pushes his arms out enough to make jazz hands at Yuichi. 

“Oh my stars,” the rabbit mumbles and suddenly lightheaded, he leans against Leonardo’s body. The slider finally gets his nerves in check and pops his head back out with a grunt – it’s a tight fit, has been for years, and he’s inherently glad that only a few things are scary enough (Mikey being one of them doesn’t exactly make his life easier but that’s not here nor there) to make him retract any of his body parts. 

He nestles his chin in the crook of Yuichi’s neck and can’t keep the amusement out of his voice. 

“Did I actually spook you?” 

Yuichi draws a deep breath and slumps bonelessly into the slider’s hold. 

“You bet,” he mutters, “that’s so weird. You’re so weird.” 

Leonardo barks out a laugh. “Excuse me! You’re not exactly a model example of normal either, mister universe-hopping, not-a-yokai-nor-a-mutant bunny rabbit.” 

Mikey decides to pop out of his shell at that moment, groaning. 

“Uuuugh nooo, don’t start with the banter! You’re lucky your boyfriend is un excellent comic relief. I’m so hungry, Leo! Let’s go already!” 

Feeling bad for forgetting his promise, Leonardo relinquishes his hold on his heaven-on-earth with a quick peck on his cheek. 

“I’ll portal you home. See you tomorrow?” 

Yuichi sighs but can’t help the smile that tugs the corners of his mouth upwards. “See you tomorrow,” he replies and gets up from Leonardo’s lap. Mikey moves out of his way, having fished his phone out of a pocket on his belt. 

“I’m gonna text our order to Hueso,” he grumbles but the earlier fit of laughter seems to have drained all the venom out of his voice and he only sounds a little vexed. Yuichi almost reaches out to pat his head but thinks better of it and hides his hands in the sleeves of his yukata. 

“I’m sorry for keeping your brother,” he apologises with a small bow, “had I known he had a promise to keep, I would’ve excused myself earlier.” 

Mikey huffs, his thumbs still flying across the screen of his phone. No doubt Leonardo is going to pay for his transgressions in the form of a massive dinner order. “It’s not your responsibility, but I appreciate that!” 

Leonardo shakes his head fondly. He’s infinitely glad that his family has accepted Yuichi so quickly and therefore the rabbit could afford to lose some of that politeness, but he has to admit that it’s also pretty adorable. He gets up to retrieve a katana (formerly a butter knife – one of the more banged-up ones the Mikeys wouldn’t miss) from the conveniently placed wall mount and rotates his wrist to open a portal right to the middle of Yuichi’s living room. 

“I’m still not used to you doing that,” the rabbit says, staring at the swirling mystic energy with more than a little awe. “It’s so convenient! I don’t think there’s a single person in Neo Edo who can do magic like this.” 

“Well duh, only a Hamato can have ninpo like ours!” Mikey puts his phone away and demonstrates his abilities by manifesting a golden chain which he uses to yank the sword out of Leonardo’s grasp. 

“Hey!” 

“My turn!” Mikey giggles and swings the katana through the air, leaving it spinning near the ceiling. Leonardo sighs and hurries to walk Yuichi to the portal before his concentration fades and he has to make it again. The rabbit steps into it obediently but before Leonardo can bid him farewell, he turns around to lean back over the threshold and pulls Leonardo down to squish their snouts together. It’s not really a kiss, per se, but it has the desired effect anyway as the slider’s eyes widen comically and his cheeks flush crimson. Yuichi lets go and steps back with a huge grin, his eyes glinting with mirth. 

“Have fun at dinner! Give my regards to Señor Hueso!” 

Leonardo can only stare after him, the heat on his face practically rivalling the sun, and Mikey has to elbow him in the ribs to get him back in the present. 

“Y-yeah! Bye!” he says, a goofy smile plastered on his embarrassingly red face and Yuichi waves him goodbye as the portal closes. 

Now that there’s no more lovey-dovey nonsense in the way of their dinner, Mikey doesn’t waste a moment to manoeuvre the katana into his hand to grab the hilt in order to slice through the air to make a portal to the pizzeria. The crackling blue ring of magic that appears is small and it wavers before fizzling out and, lucky for the slider, Leonardo manages to suppress his snort in time. 

“Aw man, I thought I had it this time!” 

“No can do, big guy,” Leonardo salutes him and motions for the box turtle to give the sword back to him. Mikey sighs and acquiesces. The portal into the graffitied alleyway appears effortlessly and Mikey immediately jumps in, yelling at the slider to follow. 

Leonardo does, but not before brushing his fingers over his beak, still feeling the tingle Yuichi’s much softer nose left behind. 

He realises he’s irrevocably smitten, and frankly, despite the trouble it landed him in today, he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

LMAOOO OKAY i've never written anything this long this fast so there's probably a bunch of stuff that needs to be fixed but I needed these cuddles and I needed them now. Thank you @spacemimz for requesting them I love you SO MUCH

As you can see though, this turned into something more than just cuddles and I'm kinda. Really happy about it hahjhjhashsdg

[flowercrowngods]

🤍 also on ao3

It’s just past 3am when Steve finally caves and reaches for the phone on his night stand. His fingers are trembling slightly as he dials Eddie’s number — he knows it by heart even though he never called before. Eddie gave it to him a few weeks ago, making him promise that he’d call if he ever needed to talk.

“Any time of day or night, alright, Harrington? Call me whenever.”

And so that’s what he’s doing now, feeling strangely vulnerable about it. There’s no way Eddie’s gonna pick up. He’s gonna wake him. He’s gonna keep him from his sleep, possibly even interrupting one of the few nightmare-less nights he has.

Steve feels guilty the very second the dial tone meets the silence of his room, his chest heavy, eyes closed. Part of him hopes that Eddie won’t pick up the phone, that he’s in deep enough sleep to miss the call, that he’ll come into Family Video tomorrow and smile at Steve like he always does, none the wiser.

But, miraculously, amazingly, unfortunately, Eddie does pick up the phone. Rather immediately, at that.

“Yeah?” He sounds sleepy, and Steve’s heart falls immediately. He can’t get his mouth to work, only holding the phone to his ear, soaking up Eddie’s sleepy voice and trying to replace the guilt, the weakness, the heaviness of another sleepless night. “Hello?”

Steve remains silent. Can’t quite get the words to work. Fucking figures.

“Stevie? It’s you, isn’t it?”

He nods, stupidly, before saying, “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Hey now, what the hell do you have to be sorry for?” There’s shuffling on the other side and Steve imagines that Eddie is sitting up now, settling in to listen to the sob story of the nightmare Steve had without even falling asleep first. He does that sometimes. Doctor Owens has a fancy term for it, but Steve doesn’t want a label for his insanity. Because if there’s a label, that means it’s nothing special — and that’s kinda the only thing he has left.

But he doesn’t tell Eddie anything about that. Maybe one day. If he sticks around. Gods, but Steve hopes he does.

“If you’re sorry for calling me,” Eddie continues, his voice impossibly soft, “you don’t gotta be that. It’s fine. It’s why you have this number, alright? I’m here.” There’s more silence for a moment, but it’s the kind of silence that leaves him room to breathe. Eddie is good at that kind of silence, despite the fact that he talks so much all the time.

Maybe it’s the constant talking that makes the silences all the more significant.

“What do you need, Stevie?” Eddie asks then, and Steve hides under his blanket, the phone pressed to his ear. “I could come over. Or you could come over, I don’t really care either way.”

“No. Don’t wanna move. And…” No company, he wants to say, but the words get stuck in his throat. Sometimes company and kindness make the bad times worse. They make it more real, and what Steve needs is for everything to be a little less real. Maybe that’s why he’s calling Eddie. There’s no way that boy with his doe eyes and his wide smiles and his gentle voice in the middle of the night is real.

“Alright, I got it.” Eddie breathes deeply on the other end and Steve remembers that that’s a good idea actually, so he follows Eddie’s breath for a while.

“Can we just…” He trails off. Gives up on finding words, cringing at himself, glad that Eddie can’t see him like this.

“Can we what, hm?”

Steve shakes his head and remains silent, knows that his voice will sound anything but strong when he opens his mouth, and every second Eddie doesn’t hear what a mess he is, is important.

“I’m bad at this,” is what he settles on, closing his eyes against the world inside and outside his blanket.

“At what? Sleep? Words?”

Yes, and yes. But it’s not what he means. “Asking for things. I’m not good at that.”

“Hey, neither am I,” Eddie says and it sounds like he’s smiling. Steve imagines it and he hopes, oh he hopes that Eddie is smiling. “Y’know how I told you to call me whenever? That was essentially me just asking for you to call me. To know that… that I’m here.”

“I do,” Steve says quietly, and his body is sort of trembling with the confession. “I do know that.”

“Good,” Eddie breathes. “So what do you need?”

Steve sighs and pretends he’s somewhere else, pretends he’s in a world where asking is easy, where being known comes naturally and not with shaking voice and trembling hands. Pretends Eddie knows him already.

“Can we just… Fall asleep like this? Talking, I mean, though I don’t even know if I have things to say. The silence is more important anyway. You’re good at those, did you know?”

A light chuckle comes from Eddie, and Steve smiles along with it. “I’m good at silences? Me, Eddie Munson? You sure you don’t have the wrong number?”

“Very.” It’s all Steve says, and then it’s Eddie who’s quiet— as if to prove his point.

“Yeah, Stevie,” he says after a beat, his voice making Steve shiver. “We can fall asleep like this. Do you need me to talk to you, or…?”

He considers briefly, but he already knows the answer. He doesn’t need Eddie to talk. Just needs him to be there.

“Nah. Just… Just be there?”

There’s a hum now — the same kind of hum that Eddie always does right before giving him that secret smile of his, when he’s about to touch Steve or give him a new pet name. Sometimes, when the door to Family Video falls shut behind Eddie and Steve is left to deal with his fluttering heart, he likes to believe that this him has been placed into the universe with his name to it.

He wonders if Eddie knows. If the hum tastes like his name, if it makes Eddie’s heart flutter just as much.

“Hey Stevie?” Eddie interrupts their silence after a while and Steve can’t fight the smile on his lips.

“Yeah?”

“Did you know that otters hold hands at night so they don’t drift away from each other in their sleep?” He waits for a moment, allowing for a reaction, leaving another silence for him to claim. He does, but only with a smile as he grips the phone tighter, imagining it to be Eddie’s hand. “This sorta feels like that.”

The trembling that hasn’t really stopped is back now, the air heavy with implications and possibilities. Steve swallows.

“You keeping me from drifting away, Munson?”

“I hope so.”

It’s whispered words across the lines, crossing lines and blurring them. It’s taking his breath away, replacing it with something else, something new, something he has only felt when they were alone, but never this intense. He fills his lungs with it.

“Hey Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

More whispers, more greedy lungfuls of this something new.

“Is it bad that I kinda wanna hold your hand now?”

A beat, a sigh, a careful breath. It makes Steve think that the air in Eddie’s room is sizzling too, heavy and light at the same time. Maybe it’s just as addictive.

“Only if it’s bad that I’m kinda imagining yours in mine right now.”

Steve shakes his head again and doesn’t feel stupid about it now. “I don’t think that’s bad,” he whispers.

“Good.”

Maybe whispers are their new language. Maybe everything else is too harsh for this fragile thing, maybe the world outside Steve’s blanket isn’t ready to see the smile on his face or hear the rapid beat of his heart. He doesn’t mind.

“Tomorrow. Can I hold your hand tomorrow?”

“What do you mean, Stevie, you’re already holding it.” And there’s that smile again that makes Steve huff out the softest of chuckles, hiding his face in his pillow to ground himself against this heady feeling. “Yeah, you can hold it tomorrow, but only if I can hold yours, how’s that sound?”

“Sounds perfect, Eds,” Steve says, just louder than a whisper, and he waits with bated breath if anyone out there in the universe heard, if their bubble would burst.

But it doesn’t. Eddie only murmurs a sweet, soft, “Can’t wait.” And then there’s only silence because they’re both smiling, hearts racing, hands trembling around the phantom touch of warm fingers. They fall asleep like that soon after.

[jounosparticles]

jouno’s eyelashes - a quick analysis

yes im analyzing jouno’s eyelashes. im obsessed with him what can i say.

one thing i’ve noticed throughout my many rereads of jouno’s segments of the manga is that he is actually given eyelashes in a lot of the panels he is present in! often times they’re just thin white lines but they’re definitely there. here are some examples.

now, if we recall back to what harukawa said about eyes a long time ago:

the darker ones eyes are, the more tainted or corrupted a person is. someone who is doing good and/or feeling good may have whiter eyes. to rephrase, one who’s eyes are dark are typically doing something corrupt and/or are in an emotionally bad state. we see this numerous times throughout the manga with many characters, the shade of their eyes changes with their emotion at the time usually.

now what does this have to do with jouno? well, i believe his eyelashes are used to display his intentions since he keeps his eyes closed constantly.

now, there are definitely some exceptions to this. panels where his eyelashes are small could be hard to colour this way, so im looking past a few instances for that purpose.

anyways, i believe looking at his eyelashes in this perspective also hints towards his betrayal of fukuchi, since you can see he has good intent. more on this later.

i'd also like to preface this by reminding you that jouno believed he was in the right with most things he did. he was sure the agency was in the wrong for a long time, times where his lashes were white while dealing with the agency was likely because he believed himself to be doing what is good.

now, starting with his debut in chapter 57, his eyelids are almost completely black as he arrests dazai

his eyelashes appear a bit darker as he torments people i find.

such as shortly after he slices kunikida's notebook and asks tetchou to kill yosano.

one scene i actually want to put a lot of emphasis on here is chapter 78's interaction between jouno and kunikida.

here is his face when he first walks in, he's simply making small talk over how a terrorist attack is awful

we can see his lashes pretty well.

we can also see it well when he's talking about his asian pear. maybe he just really likes them.

however, as the conversation progresses onto tormenting kunikida, his eyelids casually grow darker.

they're not completely black yet, but you can tell he is enjoying bothering kunikida despite his claim of innocence.

after this, you can see his lashes are a little brighter as he announces that yosano is going to be executed.

this makes sense remembering that he is under the belief that yosano is guilty of terrorism and is getting the punishment he believes she deserves.

after this, jouno walks away as kunikida cries out in anger.

his eyelashes are almost completely black here, likely because he is getting nothing but personal enjoyment out of kunikida's grief. he isn't doing good by this and this could definitely be seen as corrupt behaviour.

a huge contrast to what i've been saying falls in chapters 71 and 72, the cafe scenes.

you can see the white of his eyelashes in nearly every panel he's in.

what makes this different than when he was bothering kunikida is that bothering the cafe owner was moving his case forward. he believed he was pursuing justice and doing what is right by extracting important information here; as opposed to doing nothing but mentally torturing someone who isn't improving his case. from his perspective, his actions weren't tainted in anyway except possibly approach, but since he was doing what was right his eyelids were painted white.

another example of this is in chapters 60 and 61, when he is fighting the agency for the first time.

and when the agency escapes and he's surprised to find out the pursued terrorist group would have allies in chapter 62.

i found that these three chapters had a lot of small panels where you couldn't really see the detail of his eyes, but generally they were white as he caught the criminals. they were also white as they escaped, since he was likely confused that people were easily supporting the group he perceived as evil.

my last example of this is his eyes being very white as he tortures the bank robbers in the flashback scenes in chapter 92.5.

he believes that he is seeking justice here. the robber gets what they deserve, and his intentions are what he believes in just which explains his eyes being white.

anyways, to summarize this all: jouno's eyelashes colour often displays his morality. his lashes seem to be coloured more white when he is doing what is morally right from his perspective. even if what he is doing is considered brutal by most, his eyes glow white if it is in pursing of justice or good. in contrast, if what he is doing has no overall benefit and he is just distressing someone for purely his own enjoyment, his eyelids often are coloured much darker.

however, as i said above i believe this subtly hinted at jouno's betrayal of fukuchi.

in chapter 92, we can still see by his eyelashes that he has the right intentions when hunting for the agency.

and towards the end of the chapter we see his eyes still have a small white streak, implying his bluff on actually being willing to switch to the other side. at the same time, the thinness of the lash could be so small because he is lying to his superior as well, which i suppose could also be seen as tainted behaviour.

however, after fukuchi's plan is unraveled we see the brightness shine again.

as i stated above, when he isn't doing what he believes is right or is tormenting people for no reason but his own enjoyment, his eyes look black. but if you look at the image below you can see his eyes are partially coloured white, hinting that he was going to do what was right. it is subtle colouring, i assume that is partially due to the fact that his face was rather small on the page. but regardless it is still noticeable.

and what do we know? he did switch up and betray fukuchi shortly after saying this.

with that in mind, there's one scene i deliberately avoided bringing up until now; the scene i believe heavily tries to avoid hinting at jouno's betrayal of fukuchi. im referring to the scene where jouno confronts aya.

as i said, if jouno is acting corrupt towards someone for his own fun, his eyelids are dark, but if he's doing something that he believes is just his lashes remain partially white. i believe that out of context his eyes would likely be black as he torments aya, however since he secretly had good intention they would have actually been white.

however, the readers had yet to know the context of his approach until the end of chapter 93, so they needed to hide the fact that he may have had good intent here.

so harukawa kept his eyes covered (or coloured his face differently) throughout the scene.

the most we see of his face in this whole scene is his side profile, which is small enough to not need to colour his eyelashes in.

i believe this was an intentional choice to keep the readers from guessing that he was doing something he believes is right here.

anyways, to sum up this segment i believe that jouno's eyelashes in chapter 92-92.5 subtly hinted at the fact that he was indeed siding with aya and was preparing to betray fukuchi.

in conclusion, i believe jouno's eyelashes hint at his true intent a lot. they show that he is a good person hiding behind a facade. the shading of his eyelids is a lot more subtle than how most character's eyes look in the manga, which i believe helps add more to jouno's somewhat moral ambiguity. he is an incredibly well-written character and i can't wait to see more of him!

[szollibisz]

Do you have any hcs abt how Curt and Owen "came out" to one another? (Using the term loosely cuz obviously they can't just be like "IM GAY") And also how they got together (who fell first etc etc)

Ok, so to preface this, my favourite thing about curtwen is just how many ways you can interpret their pre-canon relationship.

I try to keep their story relatively loose in my head, save for a few headcanons I very strongly believe in, because it's more fun this way.

For me, the #1 headcanon that's in all the iterations I think of, is that they hated each other at first. I think their personalities clash way too much for them to be all buddy-buddy on the first day. (Physical attraction? maybe. Was it minuscule compared to their irritation with each other? yes.)

I just think it's interesting how the two of them gradually (and begrudgingly) start to care about each other.

I think their "friendship stage" is one of my favourite parts about the whole thing. Now I refuse to believe either of those men have friends. Maybe coworkers and acquaintances, but not friends. Which is why this stage lasts so little.

As their work their way up to care for and respect each other, both of them go a little crazy about it.

It's the first time in years or even decades they felt genuine affection and maybe even trust, and both of them are extremely starved for it. So it really doesn't take much for them to fall for each other. (especially since the aforementioned physical attraction was always there and only getting stronger as they learned to tolerate each other)

I imagine, because of this, Owen was the one who fell first, and he employed his usual tactic for dealing with unwanted feelings: Being an ass and depriving himself of good things. He got more intense about his work, trying to immerse himself in it, so he'll stop thinking about Curt. He stayed up late, didn't even try to take it easy when he had a migraine, drank shit coffee and other great things.

It technically worked. He looked like shit, which in turn made Curt worried, and if Owen completely invalidated his worries the two of them would get into a fight, be mad at each other and not interact so much. Owen thought this would make him not yearn for Curt so bad (he still did, in fact, yearn for him that bad)

When Curt realized he was in love with Owen he was pretty horrified. Like listen. If someone has commitment issues it's Curt. Maybe he had a boyfriend or two during his teenage years/twenties, but they didn't end well, and since then he's been trying to keep everybody at arms length. He convinced himself Owen wasn't so bad because hey. They were just buddies (and Curt desperately needed a buddy.)

He tried to shove down and ignore his feelings, but moaning your friend's name while banging another guy may just be a little more than what you can avoid.

He never understood why Owen turned so cold suddenly, and he was terrified Owen just didn't like or trust him anymore. In turn he was also mad at him for trying to shut him out.

Their little hate renaissance could only last so long though. They were still each other's only friends and no matter what they did they kept being drawn back to each other.

This was a super long preface but. I am not normal about those two.

So. different scenarios and headcanons and whatnot

1. Either one of them somehow discovers the other is gay. This would probably mean Owen finding out about Curt, because, I wholeheartedly believe that man would leave during a mission sometimes just to get a quick fuck in. Maybe Owen finds out with evidence (fast & easy method) or he just starts strongly suspecting with his great spying and deduction skills (slow & torturous method, he'd try to convince himself he's just seeing what he wants to see) either way, the confrontation would be very uncomfortable for both of them. Curt would deny it ofc, and Owen would go through the internal battle of "tell him it's fine, you won't rat him out, but be a little homophobic about it, so maybe you can keep the only friend you have, but also be ok with the fact that he'll always be with other men and never you" or "tell him you're gay too, maybe he likes you, maybe not, and potentially risk losing your job and livelihood and everything you've ever worked for" He'd most likely end up doing the latter, surprising both Curt and himself. (He's already way more into Curt than he admits to himself) And things escalate from there.

2. Dramatic post mission (maybe a "I thought I'd never see you again" moment) This is where their friendship gets really interesting to me. For a scenario like this the months long yearning is a given, maybe even a lot of unresolved tension between the two (which would probably be resolved with violence anyways) They care very deeply about each other by now. They know each other better than anyone, and their idyllic relationship is only made into a living hell by all the pining. At this point I mean, they'd buy each other birthday gifts, go over to the other's house when they were in the same country and share way too much info over drinks. Their job is always dangerous, but even they can get scared. Maybe we're talking being crazy outnumbered, or a torture/hostage situations, or hell even a collapsing building. Point is, id either one of them thought the other (or both of them) may die, at this point they'd be impulsive enough to just say I love you or kiss the other. In the moment neither of them would care, and later on, when you'd normally talk about things like near death makeout sessions, they'd just. not. do that, because communication is for guys with better life prospects. This one has absolutely no coming-out talk in it, simply because they don't need it

3. Possibly drunk hookup Now clearly, we are talking about two of the most down bad men ever. This is one scenario, I think could also work really well when they still really hated each other. Maybe throughout their first few mission they both gathered enough evidence and sussed each other out, and after (yet another) explosive fight they might just. Alleviate the tension by not beating each other up but by. other means. They don't end up talking much about it, but it keeps happening, and wait maybe they don't even hate each other all that much. (This is the more sober option) The other one is where the "possibly drunk" comes in. If they've been friends for a while, they probably got used to working around each other and finding comfort in the other's presence. This includes little habits, inside jokes, and even (very small) physical touches. This probably wouldn't go down during a mission, it's more likely to happen at either Curt's or Owen's house, maybe during some holiday. Both of them realizing it's a pretty bad idea early on, because, without all the stress of the missions and navigating a foreign country all that's left is them and the feelings they have for each other. Owen would probably say no to drinks for the first few times, just to avoid a potentially dangerous situation, but Curt would wear him down eventually. Now, with both of them drunk and comfortable, it wouldn't take much for things to escalate. Maybe Curt forgets to take his hand off of Owen after patting him on the back, or Owen holds Curt gaze for a little too long. Either way, those two end up fucking. The next day both of them are a little horrified, but they manage to come clean about their feelings (even if it's in the most backwards and convoluted way possible)

Happy ending (or not) There's many more ways it could've happened, but I already wrote wayyyy too much I think.

In the end I don't think they'd ever have a proper conversation about homosexuality, even way into their relationship. It's something they slowly pick up on from each other. How ashamed are they, what makes them tick, what you shouldn't say etc. And then of course, since they don't communicate properly and sometimes purposefully hurt each other, they'd throw it all back in the other's face.

I'm not sure this is what you meant when you asked for hcs, but I got carried away.

[queenofhearts7378]

“So this is Jake's fault, right?” Randy asked.

Danny made a noise of agreement as they continued running down the hallway, red flashing against their eyes and alarms ringing through the air.

And okay, it wasn't really Jake's fault they were being chased by a killer robot after breaking out of some holding cells.

Ever since Jake had turned 16, he'd been getting more duties outside of New York, really stepping up into his role as the American Dragon. NYC was still his home, his main area of protection, and the main capital of the magical community; he wasn't leaving anytime soon.

But occasionally a smaller community would reach out, asking for help with bigger problems they couldn't handle and he couldn't answer over the phone or e-mail. So Jake began traveling (through mundane or magical means), and solving the problems in person.

And occasionally dragging his out-of-town friends along with him.

Which is how the four of them ended up here: in an off-the-books government facility in Horrible, Arkansas, and made up of the same branch as the GIW.

(Danny had groaned out loud in his and Rand's cell, thunking his head against the bars when he heard that.

The agent that was interrogating them gave him a weird look.

“He's from Amity Park.” Randy said solemnly, patting Danny’s shoulder.

The agent went white so fast Randy honestly thought he was about to pass out before fleeing the room.

“Wow,” Randy said, “Y'all's city really is a curse.”)

The four of them had literally stumbled onto the grounds, got searched and had most of their stuff taken away, and thrown into holding cells where agents would periodically come to interrogate them on how they found the place and who else knows about it.

Danny had phased them through the back wall as soon as they were left alone, and accidently ran directly into a wall of weapons that fell on top of them both. Randy only got a sore shoulder, but something zapped Danny and he hadn't been able to transform since.

Which was when the alarms went off.

And when they discovered that the facility used killer robots as security and were all too happy to shoot a couple of teenagers.

Now they were running for their lives trying to find their stuff and their friends without getting shot by the robots or the agents.

They skidded around another corner, and Danny grabbed open the nearest door, throwing it open to check for their stuff.

Instead they were met with two startled agents in the middle of grabbing their weapons.

Randy didn't waste the chance and spun around Danny, landing a kick in the first man's diaphragm and then bringing his knee up just as the man bent over to gasp for air.

(The ninja suit let him be faster, stronger, more bouncy, and protected him from hard hits. The lessons and training of 800 years worth of ninjas were pressed into the fabric enabling him to fight when he had never done it before. He still had training though. He spent hours in the Nomicon practicing the moves and katas his brain knew but his body didn't. Following the footsteps and marks the Nomicon drew out around him, mirroring the poses the illustrated samurai and dragons went though. And lately, following along next to the First Ninja as he performed the moves next to him, occasionally fixing his posture, as Plop Plop chattered nearby.

Being the Ninja wasn't all cool flips and awesome weapons. Even without the mask, Randy was still a ninja.)

Danny took the chance to leap onto the other agent's back trying to get his weapon, throwing the man off balance right as he tried to shoot Randy.

The shot went wide and hit the wall, leaving a faint scorch mark on the white plaster. Randy dived under the shot, rolling forward right past the agent. He kicked his leg out, catching him in the back of the knee, right as Danny yanked the weapon out of his grasp and leapt off the agent's back. Between the teenager using him as a springboard and his leg giving out on him, the agent hit the floor hard. Danny didn't give him the chance to get his bearings and swung the weapon, clocking him over the head.

He swayed for a minute before hitting the ground. He wasn't unconscious but he wasn't getting off the floor anytime soon.

Randy and Danny high-fived before fleeing back out the door.

“Randy, that was awesome!” Danny exclaimed as they checked the other doors for their stuff. “I didn't know you could do that!”

“I know, I know, I'm the Bruce McCheese. Hold your applause,” Randy bragged as he opened the last door in the hallway to reveal yet another supply closet. Running past Danny, he punched him in the shoulder, “I'm still a ninja without the mask Casper.”

“What was that? I couldn't hear you over your ego getting in the way!” Danny laughed as he turned the corner, only to catch a metal leg in his stomach. His back hit the wall and his stolen weapon went flying away from him.

“DANNY!” Randy screeched, knowing he wouldn't get there in time as the security bot charged up to fire.

His feet and hands moved before he could think about it.

‘Separate - Gather - Free’

Randy could feel the energy pool through him, starting with his feet (“Your stance grounds you,” First Ninja said, “It centers you. It's the most important part of using the spells.") and surging upwards through his body in a way he's never felt while in the suit. Randy could feel the air thicken in his palms and he thrust out his hands just as the energy hit his palms and the top of his head.

“Ninja AIR-FIST!”

He could see the ninja magic hit the security robot and smash it into the wall. All the energy that had surged through him faded out, leaving Randy feeling like he just played Grave Puncher for two days straight.

He swayed for a moment, exhaustion hitting him like a brick, before he stumbled over to a gob-smacked Danny.

“Since when could you do that?” Danny asked as he scrambled to his feet.

Randy braced himself against the wall, “Uhhhhhhhhh……now I guess?”

Danny looked at the dented wall, then back at Randy. “Can you do it again?”

“Nngh….think I'll pass out if I did.”

“Alright, last resort then. And I still can't go ghost.”

Randy groaned. “Man we are shoobed.”

“We just need to find the others…..and our stuff.” Danny crouched down in front of Randy. “Alright hop on. You look like you're about to pass out now.”

“Pretty sure it'd just slow us down.” Randy said, even as he wrapped his arms around Danny's neck.

“Dude it's like I'm holding a couple of grapes. What are you, 80 pounds soaking wet?”

“Screw you too.” He dug his heel into Danny's thigh, “Giddee up. I think I hear the others breaking things up ahead.”

Jake and Adrien were indeed in the next hallway over, both transformed and absolutely wrecking anything they came across.

“Hey guys!” Chat grinned at them, impaling the last security bot with his staff. “We were looking for you!”

“Yo Ribbons! What happened to you?” Jake flew over to hand them their backpacks.

“Turns out Mister Ninja over here can use his ninja magic out of the mask.”

Jake blinked at them, “You can do that?”

“Apparently,” Randy said as he slid off Danny's back, “if I want to feel like I went ten rounds with a hoard of robo-apes.”

“Oof.” Jake shook his backpack at them as Randy pulled on his mask. “Well we found the main computer room, stole a bunch of hard drives that I'm going to give to Spud and Tucker, and Chat broke like, everything in there with a Cataclysm so no need to worry about cameras.”

“And we found out what they are called.” Adrien chimed in, “Beings Under Government Surveillance. They had a sign.”

“Bugs?”

“B.U.G.S.!”

“No wonder the GIW are such pests!” Danny and Adrien said together, high fiving. Randy snickered at the pun.

“Yeah, you're all comedians, can we go? The missing fairies are running loose and I've got to figure out if they need to move, or if they'd be fine with some more magic barriers around their town.”

“And I really gotta talk to the Nomicon. It's wack they didn't warn me about this.”

~~~~

Later in the Nomicon:

First Ninja stared at him in disbelief, “You did what.”

[atsoomi]

It's been exactly 2 days, 4 hours, and 32 minutes since you and Kuroo got married.

It was the kind of wedding you thought you’d never get the privilege of having— small, comfortable, and filled with familiar faces— not to mention, the most memorable day of your life. You’d never thought you could be that happy, or that you’d be surrounded by so many people who shared the sentiment. But if Kuroo has done anything through the course of your entire relationship, it’s prove your negative thoughts wrong.

And then, of course, came the honeymoon. 

Previously, you’d argued with him a lot about where to go for the honeymoon period. He thought somewhere in Japan— like Hokkaido with its breathtaking natural scenery, or Kyoto with its countless temples— would do just fine. But you’d nagged him about taking you somewhere outside the country, reminding him of the fact that you live in Japan; you have the rest of your lives to travel around Japan, but who knows when you’ll get the chance to go to Europe again?

After a few weeks of going back and forth, discussing all the possible locations and looking up things till one in the morning, you finally agree on Italy, specifically, Venice. It’s the perfect mix of culture and fun for both of you, and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t dying to see The Grand Canal, especially with all the lights at night.

So, after a day of post-wedding packing, and a long day of traveling, you’re finally in Venice. In Venice, on your honeymoon. And it would be absolutely perfect, if you hadn’t lost your husband of two days in the crowd of locals. 

You’d done a lot, a lot, of research on spots in Venice that you wanted to visit during the 3-week stay. And you’ve always known (after a lifetime of fantasizing about this trip) that if you come to Italy, you have to try their gelato. So you went through a few articles, bookmarked a few websites, and found this shop, Gelateria il Doge. 

It’s been described as a hidden attraction, and you’ve always loved discovering hidden gems. The excitement was so overpowering that the first thing you decided to do once you settled down in your hotel room is go out and find it. Kuroo can’t say no when you’re so excited, so it only took twenty minutes to find yourself at the desired spot.

You went in, without Kuroo because he insisted on slowing down and taking some more pictures, and you finally ordered the gelato you’ve been thinking about since you agreed to come to Italy. But it seems to have cost you your husband.

He’s not where he was standing five minutes ago, you turn and scan the mass of people walking by, but you don’t spot the familiar head of dark hair. Your phone rests in your cross bag but your hands are full with gelato, so you hesitantly accept your fate and sit on the nearest bench you can find, assuming that you’ll just spot him when he comes back from wherever he went. 

You sit and admire the cold treat in your hand, it’s beautiful and inviting and it makes you feel like you’ve never had ice cream before. It makes you feel like your life is about to be altered permanently, even though you’re not completely sure what flavor you got— something about poor Italian skills and taking risks.

You’re about to taste it for the first time, practically salivating at that point, when a strange guy sits on the same bench, seemingly popping out of nowhere. You pause, mouth shutting, as you peer at him with caution. He’s undeniably good looking, skin-kissed tan skin and brown hair falling over warm green eyes, but he’s not exactly your type. No other man could be.

You attempt to ignore his presence, but he turns his head and you make intense eye contact. Your mouth hangs slightly open as he scans your face, it’s awkward and you feel the awkwardness paralyze you into speechlessness. You’re sure you look incredibly dumb but your mind is too busy malfunctioning to save you. 

His eyes go down to your hand and he says something in Italian that you don’t understand. A few seconds pass by before he reaches for it, your hand that is, with wide eyes. You reflexively flinch away, alarmed at the sudden approach. What the hell is going on?

“Oh my god, you idiot, the gelato.” He speaks, frustrated, this time in the language you can understand, with a heavy Italian accent. 

You look down at your hands and you’re surprised at the trail of melted gelato on your hand. Oh, he’s not a creep, you realize, he was just trying to help.

You bashfully keep your head down, embarrassed at how you reacted and the fact that you were too tense to realize he said the word gelato about 3 times. God, this is embarrassing, where is your husband when you need him? 

“Sorry about that,” you lick the melted sweet off as discreetly as possible, “I don’t speak Italian.” 

He raises an eyebrow at you. “Yeah, I can tell.” 

You’re silent, ashamed to be specific, as you eat the rest of your gelato before something else happens. He observes you for a few minutes, as you eat from both cones to prevent any disasters, before he chuckles quietly. 

“Tourist?” He asks. 

“Kinda,” you answer, slowly relaxing as the embarrassment wears off. 

He nods, ��How did you find this store then?” he points to Gelateria il Doge. It stands there proudly, almost mocking you for making a fool out of yourself in front of a local.

“Oh, lots of research.” You laugh to yourself, remembering the sight of a very tired Kuroo by your side while you’re on your thousandth new tab. “It actually wasn’t that hard.” 

“Do you like it?” He asks. 

“The gelato?” 

He shakes his head, “Italy.” 

“Oh,” you smile, “yeah, it’s lovely and I’ve wanted to visit for a really long time.” He hums approvingly so you go on. “You’re Italian, aren’t you? Grew up here?”

“Kinda”, he retorts and you giggle, “I grew up in the south, but my brother lives here.” 

You nod your head in understanding; more questions are on the tip of your tongue (like his name for example?) when you’re interrupted by a familiar voice. 

“Oh I thought you looked familiar.” You turn your head and see your husband of two days walking towards you and this Italian stranger. He beams at you, happy to be reunited with the sight of your lovely face, but halts for a second when his eyes shift over to the guy. He tips his head to the side, silently asking about him, and you just smile. I’ll tell you later. 

“You weren’t going to eat both gelatos yourself after all,” the Italian says, which reminds you of the two cones you’ve been holding yourself the whole time, and the fact that your husband walked off and left you all alone, in Venice of all places. You’ll definitely yell at him once you’re alone, but for now, you settle on standing up and handing him his cone. 

“I’ll leave you lovebirds alone now, enjoy the honeymoon, ciao.”

He winks at you discreetly, maybe not discreet enough because Kuroo suddenly places his arm around your shoulder protectively, and you manage to wave at him before he’s gone. 

Kuroo turns to you, eyebrow raised, “was he hitting on you?” 

You laugh, “that’s all you care about, isn’t it? What about telling me where the hell you’ve been? Or apologizing for making me wait so long,” you slap his chest, “it’s actually your fault I had to entertain another man.” 

He holds your hand against his chest, grinning at the fake annoyance in your voice, “I apologize my dear, dear wife.” His eyes rest on the ring he put on your finger for a second, feeling prideful. “ Let’s sit, we have to finish this before it melts.” 

While you eat, you tell him about the whole interaction with the Italian man and every small thing that happened while you were apart. He scoffs at the events between you and the guy, fully convinced that he just wanted an excuse to touch your hand. You laugh and tease him about how attractive the guy was, telling him maybe you should’ve gone with the guy who didn’t leave you all alone. He flicks your forehead before you can continue and that conversation gets lost between all the other topics. You ask him what he was doing while he was gone, and he smiles, all-knowing and mysterious. 

“You’ll see.”

[lavenoon]

havent posted Accidentally Undercover art in months and when I do it's no context spoilers for a new alt reveal drabble I'm writing

[enigmatic-mystery-777]

Valiant Effort

It's time to celebrate Halloween! What better way than a Halloween party! You and Daniel are given the task of baking cookies for the event...but neither of you know how to actually bake. The two of you bond as you try to navigate the pitfalls of baking.

Taglist: @residentdemonhunter @systemadministratorclu @mrssci-fi-nerd-sg-1 @stargaterevival @cuillere @daydreampending @phantom-of-grace @riverageleis

[saetoshi]

saetoshi nation how do we feel about karasu

[dont-offend-the-bees]

🎁 hehehe

Hehehe thank you bestie 💛 You're getting Lonely Bones instead of Domestic bc I need sooo much prodding into finishing it xD

“Oi,” Charles mumbled, ever the peacekeeper — but his heart clearly wasn’t in the admonishment. His hand, however, was in Edwin’s hand; like he couldn’t bring himself to break the contact, either.

send me a 🎁 and I’ll write five sentences of what I’m working on and share one of them

[ninemelodies]

sleep, over

also available on ao3

The Doctor wakes to the feeling of fingers pinching his nose shut. The comforting, stable presence at the back of his mind lets him know he’s still on the TARDIS, and she quickly confirms that yes, he is, and it is, in fact, Donna that is pinching his nose.

The room is quiet except for Donna's stifled giggles and the hum of the TARDIS.

Ah. He must’ve fallen asleep during the movie. Donna was trying to wake him up.

They had this routine. About once every week (relatively, time could be a bit funny when you're hopping through it) the Doctor and Donna would have a movie night. First, they would play some silly game to determine who got to pick the movie (last week it was thumb wrestling, this week it was rock-paper-scissors. Donna had won both times.) After that, they would settle in to watch the movie. Donna liked to curl up across the couch with a fuzzy blanket while the Doctor preferred the armchair. Finally, as the movie was going through its opening credits, Donna would complain about him always falling asleep during the movie, and the Doctor would shoot back that that was impossible, he was a Time Lord, he didn't need that much sleep, thank you very much.

Usually within 30 minutes, the Doctor was asleep. Donna would cover him in his own blanket, let him sleep during the entire movie (though she complained he snored something terrible), and then, once the movie was over, she would wake him.

However, Donna seemed to be challenging herself to find the worst way to wake him up. There had been several she had done so far - she had tickled him, yelled boo! at him, and sang a surprisingly competent rendition of Sigh No More from a 2011 version of Much Ado About Nothing. (The Doctor had fussed about her watching movies from the future, but Donna had brushed him off because "it's Shakespeare, Doctor, does the story ever really change?" and the Doctor had to concede that she was right). She had woken him up normally, once, and he had been pleased until he went to stand and discovered she had tied his shoes together.

In the ranking of her attempts to wake him up, this wasn’t necessarily one of his favorites. But it didn’t hurt him, so he wouldn’t complain about it much. Although...

The Doctor grinned inwardly. This was the perfect chance for some payback.

In his current position, with his chin tucked against his chest his only options to breathe were to tilt his head back or use his respiratory bypass. He was pretty positive Donna hadn’t considered the fact that all he had to do was tilt his head back to start breathing through his mouth and therefore her nose pinching was technically useless. The Doctor did not move his head and he did not start breathing through his mouth once his lungs started getting a bit tight. Instead, he activated his respiratory bypass and began to wait it out.

How long would Donna stand there before she got bored? Who would crack first, the Doctor or Donna?

By his estimate, the Doctor had about 30 minutes before he would run out of air. He passed the time by creating a list of TARDIS repairs that needed to be done imminently, lest they crash somewhere. When he was done with that, he switched to making a list of planets that Donna would likely enjoy visiting.

He was interrupted when Donna shifted and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “bloody Martian” under her breath.

If she was testing him, she wasn’t going to get a response.

A hint of panic, not his own, but Donna's, flashed through his mind. She released his nose, placed her hands over his hearts, and leaned down so her ear was next to his face. She paused there for a moment before she jerked back and began pacing the floor in front of his chair. “Oh god,” she muttered. “I've killed him. Stupid daft spaceman! You can’t be dead from something like that.” She paused her pacing and stared at him. “Right?” she asked.

The Doctor took pity on her and shifted in his seat. He didn’t open his eyes, but he resumed breathing through his nose and unclasped his hands so that one dangled, wrist up, over the arm of the chair.

He felt Donna's warm fingers clasp around his wrist, searching for a pulse. It tickled. The corner of his mouth curved into a slight grin and he heard Donna gasp.

Uh oh, he was busted.

Donna let go of his wrist, but before he could open his eyes and sit up, she was back. She whacked him on the arm several times with something soft. A throw pillow from the couch, he assumed.

The Doctor cracked an eye open to look at her just in time to take a pillow to the face. It was a significantly lighter hit than the ones to his arm, but he was still going to whine about it. “Dooooonnna!” He whined as he moved the pillow off his face and opened both eyes to pout at her.

“You stupid prawn!” she yelled, pointing an accusing finger at him. “I thought you were dead!”

And the Doctor couldn’t help it - he laughed. Donna resumed smacking his arm with vigor as he leaned over and laughed until his stomach hurt. “Donna, Donna,” he gasped, trying to both get her attention and dodge her hands. He caught her wrists and stopped her movement. “I'm sorry,” he said, sincerely. “I forgot that when I activate my respiratory bypass I look like I'm dead to bystanders.”

She pulled her wrists away and crossed her arms over her chest. "You scared me!"

The Doctor tilted his head to acknowledge her statement. "Maybe you will think twice about pinching someone's nose to wake them up, hmm?" Internally, the doctor winced. He was starting to sound like his first self all over again.

To her credit, Donna had the decency to look at least a little chastised, but it didn't last long. "Well, I'm going to bed and you shouldn't sleep in that chair."

This was another part of their routine. Just because the Doctor looked like he was in his mid-thirties didn't mean that his bones and joints always agreed. Donna found this extremely funny and did everything in her power to get him into a position where she could tease him about it.

The worst thing? She was right. Sleeping in this chair would kill his back. The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her, tossed his blanket to the side, and braced his palms on the arms of the chair. He pushed himself up with a groan and a wince as his knees, elbows, and back all popped.

Donna couldn't contain her delighted laugh. "You sound like gramps!" she giggled.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and stretched his arms above his head. He rolled forward onto his toes and listened to his ankles pop. "Yeah, well," he said as he straightened his shirt. "I am 900 years old. I am older than anyone or probably anything you have ever known."

"Hmmm,” Donna hummed. “Someone’s tetchy when they’re tired." Donna clicked her tongue and offered her elbow. "C’mon gramps, let’s get you to bed."

For half a second, the Doctor considered sitting back down in his chair and going back to sleep, just to spite Donna.

Somehow, Donna seemed to pick up on this. "Listen spaceman," she said. "If you fall asleep in that chair I am not helping you pop your back in the morning."

"You wouldn't dare," the Doctor said. Donna always helped him pop his back.

"Try me."

They stared at each other, eyes narrowed, each one unwilling to give. This time, the Doctor was the first to crack. He smiled and took Donna's still offered elbow. "I won't sleep in the chair," he promised.

"Good," Donna said. "You sleep like a grandpa anyway."

The Doctor objected, but Donna had already dropped him off at his bedroom door and was heading towards her own. "Goodnight, Doctor," she called over her shoulder.

"Goodnight, Donna," he called back as Donna disappeared behind her door. The Doctor continued watching her door for a moment before he turned and headed towards the console room. That nap had done him good, maybe he could get a headstart on those TARDIS repairs…