#you can actually see how much better i got at planning out my characters instead of just applying for them on a whim lmAO

[leviathanxprincess]

Introducing Homicipher Characters to Your Plushies - Pt. 3 !

The Homicipher Characters come to you in hopes for whatever insanity they plan to drag you into, you instead have a different plan! Showing them your plushies!

Notes: Gender Neutral Reader! This Part includes: Ms. Bride, Ms. Nurse, Ms. Blue-Clad, Hairdresser, & Adami ! Girls Round 🫶

Previous Parts: One & Two

Ms. Bride

So cute !!!!!! Oh my gosh !!!! She loves your plushies so much !!!

She immediately wants to put them in cute little outfits! Please let her do so she'll love you even more than she does now!

You both have so much fun with your plushies, she loves them as equally as you do.

She memorizes all the names and any lore you may have and also their importance to you.

If you so desire she'd love to see up little tea parties or something with them. It'd be a lot of fun! You could put together your own wedding with them as the guests as well!!!

She did not know how much she adored plushies until she met you and she's so happy that she did. Please get her some plushies of her own. She'll got absolutely insane dressing them up and will never let them go.

Ms. Nurse

She loves you and your plushies a lot !!! You're so adorable when you talk about them and she loves when you do !!

As a nurse she completely understands how plushies and other small gifts can help comfort a person. So she knows just how important they are to you and will never judge you for that ever.

If she ever sees you remotely upset she will bring over the plushies she knows that brings you the most comfort and place them on you.

She finds some comfort in the plushies as well, and she would be over the moon if you got matching ones for you and her.

I'm not sure how much she knows how to sew, but if she sees a hole or anything on one she'll wrap it up in bandages to make sure the stuffing doesn't fall out!

It's hurt after all! She's gotta take care of it and help it and you feel better in any way that she is capable of.

Overall, she's a huge lover of plushies, and loves that you love them too! 10000% memorized all their names after that day you told her about them.

Ms. Blue-Clad

She seems like the type to like plushies a lot. Though I think she prefers when they're smaller plushies rather than the bigger ones.

She'll listen to you talk about them but I'm not sure how much she's actually memorizing about them. If anything she's just looking at the different colors and creatures they are.

Any blue plushies you have she immediately adores. Those are her favorites.

Bonus points if you get her one later on.

That being said! She thinks you're adorable when you're talking about them!!!

She wants to smother you in kisses so badly!!! And she probably will.

Honestly so long as you are happy and smiling, I think she is as well.

Hairdresser

... Do any of them need haircuts?

If you say no she'll totally understand. But if you allow her to give one or two a haircut she'll still make sure they look super cute!!

I don't think she had deep thoughts on the plushies, but she will listen to you talk about them. Especially if you let her do your hair while you talk.

Might occasionally bring you one or two she comes across while looking for her scissors if she loses them.

I don't know if she'll memorize all their names but she definitely remembers the ones you talk about the most.

Decorate her little salon with plushies!

She will allow it only because it's you. Plus, she does really like the fact it adds some character.

Adami Adashino

Staring blankly. This girl walked into her partner's house covered in blood said partner just starts rambling on about plushies.

Honestly, she can't deny she's endeared.

10000% the type to get cuteness aggression.

Can and will start squeezing and pinching your cheeks and such. But she can't help it!!! Look at how adorable you are!!

She will learn their names for you but she doesn't always remember them very well.

But like. You still think she's cuter than your plushies right? Right?

If you don't say yes prepare for her to be jealous. Good luck!

[obsesssedblerd]

Part Four (2): “I promise, I’ll make this right.” 

- the jjk men promising to be a better partner for you after they forget your anniversary. 

final [second] written part of this smau series. 

Pt. 2: Choso, Shiu, and Gojo

Contains: angst to comfort 

a/n: and here’s the last, last part with the remaining characters! again, thank you so much for being so patient! <3 once again, sorry for any mistakes! 

---

CHOSO 

Truthfully, you didn’t know if you were actually ready to confront Choso, but you know that it’s time. You stand in front of the door to his house, and knock. You wait for less than a minute, then the door opens to reveal Yuuji on the other side, rubbing his tired eyes. His pink hair was messy, so you know that he woke up from a nap not too long ago. 

When he registers that it’s you, he gasps loudly, then holds up a hand and smiles nervously. “H-Hi! Um, wait just a minute, I’ll grab him! Please don’t leave this spot.” 

“I won’t leave, Yuuji.” 

His smile falters a bit. “No, seriously, please don’t. Me, Cho, and Megumi couldn’t find you for days.”

You place a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I promise,” you say slowly, “I won’t leave.” 

“Good. Be right back.” He gives you a thumbs up, closes the door, and you hear him scream from behind it, “Choso!! CHOSO!!! She’s outside, so stop blasting your sad music and get down these damn stairs!! No, I’m not kidding, why would I do that?!” 

You blink in shock, then Yuuji opens the door once more to smile sweetly at you. “He’ll be out in just a moment.” 

“Uh- Alright, thanks.” 

Not too long after, Choso appears. You can immediately tell that he hasn’t been sleeping much the last few days. Other than that, he looks relieved to see you there. He reaches towards you to hug you, then stops himself, remembering the situation. “Hi,” he quietly greets. 

“Hi. Walk with me?” He nods, and you two walk side-by-side to a nearby park. You let the silence drag for only a few minutes before you ask him the question that’s been weighing on you for the last couple of days. 

“Be honest. Before we got together, did you want to date Yuki at one point?” 

Are you only with me because you weren’t able to get with her? 

Choso stops in his tracks, and looks over at you, eyes blown wide with shock. “No. Never. We’re just friends, like I’ve told you before. I know it seems like-” 

You hold up a hand. “Cho, please just understand where I’m coming from. The-” 

“I do understand,” he says desperately, taking a step closer to you. “Of course I do. That's all I’ve been thinking about. I chose to hang out with her instead of you, numerous times. It’s unfair to you, I know, but I swear-”

“I feel like you love her.” Your biggest fear of your relationship flies out your mouth, and tears rush to your eyes, spilling down your cheeks. “Every single time, it’s her. It feels like it won’t matter how special something is—like our anniversary—because you’ll run to her the second she asks you to hang out and completely forget about me.” You take a breath and exhale slowly, trying not to make yourself look even more pathetic. “I’m tired, Cho.” 

“Listen to me. I do not love Yuki,” Choso says slowly. “Not now, not in secret, not ever. I am in love with you. You’re the one I want to wake up next to every morning, you’re the only one I trust when it comes to helping my siblings, and you’re the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.” He scoops your hand into his. “There’s no way in hell that I would choose her or any other woman over you, so I’m begging you, please get that out of your head.”

Before you can use a sleeve to wipe your tears, he wipes them for you, then uses his hand to cup your cheek. “I’m so sorry for hurting you. You spent so long planning the dinner for our anniversary and I completely forgot about it like it was nothing. I wish I could go back in time, but I can’t. All I can do is beg for another chance to be a better boyfriend. So, please, let me have another chance.”

You notice that his eyes are also watery. You’re about to point it out, but he hugs you tightly before you can, his body slightly trembling. “These last few days have been killing me, because I’ve messed up so bad to the point where you think I’m in love with another woman, when you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met in my  life. I don’t want anyone but you. I could never choose anyone over you. I don’t care who they are.” 

He rubs a comforting hand up and down your back. “Please,” he repeats once more. 

“Never again, Choso,” you mutter shakily. “I mean it.” 

He sighs in relief, then kisses you. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Walk back with me? I have your present back at the house. Then, we can plan another dinner, and something special after that.” 

---

SHIU

When you enter the hotel room, you see Shiu Kong there, leaning in the chair with a light, but nervous smile. “Hey, princess.” 

The door shuts, and you furrow your brows in confusion. “How the fuck did you get in here?” 

“Well, you weren’t answering your phone anymore, so I found a different way to track you.”

Your brain whirrs with multiple possible scenarios, then you roll your eyes when you figure it out. “You asked Toji, didn’t you?” Your work partner was the only one who knew your location.

“I had to blackmail him in order to find out where you were. It wasn’t easy.” 

You give him a fake smile. “Well, I don’t really care about that. You should leave.” 

“No.” 

“Shiu. Don’t piss me off,” you warn. “Go.”

“Not until we talk.” 

You cross your arms. “It’s either you leave, or I will handle you the same way I’d handle any person that comes into my room without my knowledge or permission.”

Shiu holds his hands up. “I’ll let you shoot me after I apologize.” 

“You’ve already apologized plenty over text. I already told you that I’m done. I’m better off focusing on work, and you’re better off just hanging out with your friends.” 

“Can you stop saying that shit? Baby, please, I swear that missing our anniversary dinner was a horrible mistake, and I’ll never make it again if you give me another chance.” When you don’t answer, he sighs desperately, taking a chance with his life and walking over to where you’re standing. “I’m sorry, princess. I completely understand why you’re pissed, and like I said, I’d let you shoot me if it’ll make you feel better. However, I will say that I can’t let you go. I love you.” 

You shut your eyes and shake your head. “Look, that’s sweet and all, but I don’t think you understand how awful it is knowing that your boyfriend chose a random night of drinking with his friends over a romantic dinner that you spent weeks planning. It makes it hard to believe that you even like me, let alone love me.” 

“I understand why you’re doubting my feelings for you. Anyone would after their lover forgets their anniversary. But I promise, I do love you, and if you give me another chance, I’ll show you. I’ll make you feel it. Please give me a chance to fix this.” 

“...But what if you don’t?” 

“Then I’ll let you kill me, like you’ve killed your other boyfriend after he fucked up and broke your heart.” When you raise your brow in question, he answers you, “Toji told me about that when he warned me to leave you alone earlier. Not taking his side at all. Heard he was an asshole, anyway. But, I’m serious. If I don’t do better, and I hurt you again, I won’t run or fight back when you come to kill me.” 

“Shiu, I don’t want to kill you,” you say, slightly frustrated. “I just want you to care more.” 

His thumb brushes underneath your eyes. You didn’t even know that you started crying. “I know, princess, ‘m so sorry. I promise, I’ll never make you cry again, and I’ll be better.” He’s relieved when you allow him to hug you. “Come home, okay? We’ll talk more there, and then I’ll start making this up to you.”

You nod, then rest your head on his shoulder. “You do know that Toji’s more than likely going to kick your ass for blackmailing him, right?” 

“You’re in my arms again, so it was worth it.”

---

GOJO

You’re speeding through the hallways of Jujutsu Tech, your heartbeat thundering in your ears. An hour ago, you got a text from Maki, your precious second-year student, telling you that something bad happened and that you need to come to the school quickly. 

“Maki, I’m here! Are you okay?!” You shout as you burst into the empty classroom. You find her, and you tilt your head in confusion. 

She looks fine. In fact, she’s standing next to a Yuuta Okkotsu, who looks like he’s about to vomit. “S-Sensei! I-” 

Maki cuts him off with her usual, sharp glare. “Not. A. Word.”

Inumaki and Panda are also there, and across the room, the three first years are standing stiffly. 

Something’s up. 

“Okay,” you say to the students as you cross your arms. “What on earth is going on?” 

Nobara looks over at Yuuji, who’s sweating nervously, and raises a brow. “Um… Haha,” he laughs, scratching the back of his head. “Don’t look at me like that, Kugisaki. H-He should be here any second, I swear!” 

He? 

Suddenly, Satoru Gojo teleports in. “What’s going on?” He asks as he looks over at the students. “I didn’t see a threat outside of the school. Yuuji said something bad happened?” 

“Great!” Nobara claps her hands together. “You’re both here!” 

Satoru goes quiet, and you raise an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah?” 

Maki points to you and Satoru. “You two need to talk.” 

“...Sorry?” 

“You two need to talk!” Nobara repeats Maki’s words. “Listen, we can’t stand having our two favorite teachers separated like this. [Y/L/N]-sensei has been gone for days!” 

“Plus, Gojo-sensei, you’ve been super stressed!” Yuuji shouts in defense. “Fushiguro says that you eat a lot more sweets when you’re stressed. You ate two packs of those mini cupcakes, plus the brownie that Nanamin gave me!” 

When Satoru looks over at Yuuta, he throws his hands up. “No, no, please don’t look at me like that! I voted against this! I said that w-we should probably give you two some space to figure it-” Inumaki slaps a hand over his mouth. 

“We’re just… worried,” Megumi mumbles. 

“Yup!” Panda shouts. “Very worried, and that’s why we came up with a plan to get you two back on track. We’re going to lock you two in this room, and you’re not coming out until you’re happy and in love again!” 

“Because you two are supposed to be together forever and get married and invite us to the wedding!” Yuuji pouts, and the rest of the students voice their agreements. 

You can’t believe it. They set you up. Your mouth falls open in shock, and the students all walk outside of the classroom. Maki and Nobara are the last ones out, and they both glare at Satoru. “Geto-sensei said that you missed your anniversary dinner,” Nobara hisses. “You better give her the most amazing, romantic and extravagant dinner after this, or we will deal with you!” 

Behind Nobara, Yuuta chuckles nervously. “...Pretty sure that you won’t be able to get past his infinity-” 

“Shut up, Okkotsu!” The rest of the students shout, then the door shuts and locks with a loud click. You drag a hand down your face, then scoff. Great.

“Wow, they’re really something,” Satoru chuckles, but when you don’t say anything, he turns to face you, his expression serious, even with his usual blindfold on. “Say the word, and I’ll teleport you out of here. Then, I’ll talk to them.” 

“No, it’s okay,” you say quietly as you sit in one of the empty chairs. “We can talk.” 

As you look around the classroom, a few memories from the year before came back. “Wait, this is the classroom where we met, isn’t it?” 

“Looks like it,” Satoru says as he leans against the wall, smiling softly. “Zen’in, Panda, Inumaki, and Okkotsu were first years. You were standing right here. Your first day as a transfer, and you were already teaching these kids as professionals.” 

“Yeah.” You stifle a laugh. “You stayed for the entire lesson, even though you had a meeting with the higher-ups. Suguru and Yaga had to practically drag you out of here so you wouldn’t spend another hour flirting.” 

“They were pissed, but it was worth it. Our newest team member is just so pretty,” he says, then reaches for your hand, your thumb lovingly brushing against yours as his voice dips lower. “The most beautiful woman that my six eyes have ever seen.” 

It’s a nice memory, but when you remember everything else, your smile falters. Satoru sighs, “I’m so sorry, pretty girl. Not just forgetting the annivesary dinner that you planned, but also for leaving you hanging. I don’t blame you for disappearing for a few days. If I were in your shoes, I would’ve been upset, too. I really don’t have an excuse. That was just… wrong.” 

“I appreciate that, Toru, but… are you sure that this even works? All of the chasing, the begging to spend just a few hours together, it’s draining. I know you’re the strongest sorcerer-” 

“You matter more than that,” he says firmly. “So much more than that. If it came down to choosing between you or being the strongest, I’m choosing you in an instant. I meant it when I said that I’d let Toji Fushiguro kill me again before letting you go.” You wince when you remember the gruesome details of that story, but don’t interrupt. “I made a horrible mistake by forgetting that date. I can’t imagine how awful it was sitting at the restaurant all alone. I’m so sorry. I don’t care how long it’ll take to make this up, I’ll prove that you mean the world to me.” 

You consider his words. While you’re still a bit hurt about being forgotten, you miss your boyfriend, and you do believe that he’ll make it up to you, despite you being a bit hesitant. “One more chance, Satoru,” you tell him. “Don’t ever do this to me again.” 

“I won’t. I promise,” he says, lifting his blindfold to reveal the gorgeous, cerulean eyes that you love so much. “You won’t regret this.” When you reach for him, he lowers his infinity fully to let you hug him, a long exhale leaving your body when you’re suddenly wrapped in his arms and his scent. “I missed you,” he whispers to you. “I was so worried. I couldn’t find you.”

“Didn’t mean to worry you.” 

He kisses your cheek, then pulls away from you. “Okay, time to go.” 

“Go where?” 

Satoru chuckles. “I owe you an amazing, romantic, and extravagant dinner, otherwise my students will find a way to kill me. Plus, we’re going to be disappearing for a while. I got a trip planned. Flight leaves early in the morning.”

You gasp. “What?! But what about work? Or the students? Or the-” 

He interrupts you with a feather-light kiss against your lips. “All taken care of, pretty girl,” he purrs. “Just let me make this up to you, okay?” 

“Alright, but first you need to apologize to the students for wreaking havoc while you were stressed, and buy Yuuji a new brownie.” 

[riririnnnn]

Noa really gasted all my flabbers.

Before this chapter (278), I knew that he is the World's Best Striker, but after this chapter (278), I can see why he is the World's Best Striker. He is literally him. It's like looking at some kind of genius mastermind of some sort. The "Instead of assisting my teammates to win 1-0, it feels better to pull off a hat trick and lose 3-4" makes so, so much more sense now!

I won't lie, till now, his character did seem pretty bland to me—just some dude established as someone at the top of the game who was, in the end, going to adopt the protagonist in some way and then the sappy ending of student winning over the mentor.

Oh boy was I wrong.

The curveball he just threw at me, hurled me outta this universe. And just like in Loki's case, I feel like a fool once again since I have misunderstood Noa's whole character.

Firstly:

You know how some things just stand out for no reasons at all? Like, it's a trivial thing, but it just keeps on silently scratching the back of your head—the above panel happened to be that exact thing for me. My dumb ahh was really thinking, "Tf they talking about?" when I first saw this panel.

Before this small exchange, Noa was taking about how there are two philosophies in BM—and it depicted Kaiser and Isagi in the opposite of eachother—and this is exactly when, according to me, the whole Kaiser Vs Isagi rivalry's roots got firmly cemented. Yes, I do understand this rivalry started when Kaiser grabbed Isagi by his chin, but hear me out, okay?

You see this thing above?

Yes. Exactly.

We were told that BM's basic principle is Logic and Rationality, and considering Noa's personality, one can assume that Blue Lock-ers in this team would've been coerced into following this motto too, but Noa didn't do remotely anything like that. In fact, in all the other NEL teams, the coaches low-key molded the Blue Lock-ers to their respective mottos whereas Noa remained hands-off throughout everything—one of the main reasons why the majority of the Fandom considered him the worst coach in NEL.

But, well, I used to use this (above) reason to defend him—that he isn't tampering with Blue Lockers' originalities by letting them do things on their own accords just like Ego used to do.

Keyword: I used to.

Because I really don't know what to feel now that I've a whole different perspective in my hands—look at this:

These are Kaiser's words.

Kaiser was, in a way, already competing against Noa in BM, and now Isagi was added into the equation too which made him more hostile. I mean, instead of disregarding the rather, comparatively, un-rational philosophy of the Blue Lock-ers, Noa was accepting it and giving it room to grow! And if this philosophy won, then Kaiser (not in a literal sense) would be wiped off of the team! Further, it also seems like a small jab of, "You think you are the shit? Then prove yourself." which Kaiser was able to sense, and that's why, I think, he asked, "Are you testing me?"

Secondly:

LMFAO LAVINHO'S FACE! THIS IS MY FAV PANEL OF HIM!

I highly admired Noa for never stepping in the field until and unless the opposite team's coach had stepped in. It used to be my favourite argument for defending Noa's coaching ability. And just like my previous point, I can't look at this the same way anymore.

Of course, he isn't wrong—the coaches stepping in definitely throws off the balance in the field. But, well, if the power dynamics shift too abruptly and too much, it would tip off Kaiser and that'd ruin Noa's plan for the NEL—it would also tip off Isagi which would also ruin Noa's plan for the NEL.

So, in short and straightforward words, he always stepped in the field for the sake of himself and not for the sake of younger players in his team.

Thirdly:

This convo happened after Shidou's goal—PxG's first goal in their match with BM.

Right after these words left Loki's mouth, Noa went out to make changes in the positions of BM—he went out to suggest things and all just like an actual coach would do. And though this panel stood out to me in an odd way, I also remember finding it so damn hilarious for him, seemingly, being threatened by a mere 17 year old—I was actually going to make fun of him for this when this chapter (253) came out, but then I guess I chose to do otherwise.

I think it's because before this chapter (253) dropped, I was going to make a wholesome post about the possible relation between Noa and Loki since they are from the same national team—some kind of Father-Son relation. But then the I saw their convo and felt embarrassed, and probably decided to not talk about them till more of their story got revealed.

Now their convo makes a lot of sense in a different way.

And lastly:

I remember being caught so off guard by this. Like, till that point, Noa had never ever talked regarding Kaiser in such a way—it nearly felt as if he were rooting for him, and I found it so sweet that I even included it here.

But now that we have a bigger picture, it doesn't seem that much sweet to me anymore.

I can't understand how I dismissed his poker face in the (above) panel as simply his usual emotionless self when it clearly looks like he isn't surprised at all—like he knew what was unfolding in front of him beforehand, like he was expecting it and.. he was quite literally expecting it, didn't he?

All this time I thought that Loki was the sneakiest about his personal goals in NEL meanwhile Noa was two steps ahead from the start.

[starsstuddedsky]

Needles and Knives

red hood!jeno x doctor!reader

...

“Don’t you dare die,” you say, gripping the scalpel.

“Already did that,” Jeno mutters, eyes fluttering. “Didn’t agree with me.”

...

summary: Jeno’s plans never included you yet somehow you worm your way into his life. Being a vigilante isn’t easy - but neither is loving one.

genre: angst except i can’t stop them from making jokes so like fun angst. little bits of fluff here and there

warnings: gore, mentions of death, violence, cursing

wc: 16k

a/n: dc fans i am so sorry. my knowledge of these characters comes from wikipedia. medical workers i am so sorry. the medicine in this is NOT accurate. if ur neither maybe you can fully enjoy this fic. i hope you do :) this is as proofread as its going to get..... as always i appreciate any sort of feedback you can give. i hope this story leaves you as delusional about jeno as i am <3

Not for the first time, you open the door to your apartment to find a man covered in blood on your couch. At least he managed to keep it off the floors this time. 

You can just see the back of his head from the doorway, black hair sticking up from where he slouches on the couch. The head seems to be intact, which is a bit of a relief—being a surgical intern means you’ve become numb to gore, but not fully immune to the nastiness of patching up a tear in his scalp. 

“Still alive?” You ask as you kick off your shoes. Your feet ache from standing for the past eight hours. 

Jeno huffs a humorless laugh. “More or less.” He twists to look at you, holding up a very sad looking plant. “Which is more than I can say for this poor thing.” 

You drop your bag behind the couch and cross to stand in front of him, his head swiveling to follow you. He sets the dead succulents down on the side table. The tuft of white that hangs over his forehead bounces with the movement, stark against the rest of his black hair. 

 His shirt is already off, discarded to the side. At work, you’ve become just as numb to bodies as you have to gore. You haven’t quite managed that with Jeno despite seeing him shirtless on the regular since he seems to find himself covered in blood on your couch at least once a week. Still, you can’t really be blamed for being a little flustered when he looks like… Well, that. He’s got more abs than ribs and broad shoulders that give way to thick arms of pure muscle. But you can never truly ogle because he inevitably is covered in too much blood for you to ignore. 

“I think I just popped the stitches,” he says, referring to the wound on his stomach that is once again bleeding. “No new shit. I think.” 

“I don’t think that’s actually any better,” you say. “You know we usually tell patients to refrain from strenuous activity after they’ve been stitched up.” You retrieve the medical bag you definitely don’t keep stocked from the supply closet at Gotham City Hospital. 

“They usually get pain meds, too,” Jeno grumbles, even though he’s never once complained about the actual pain of being stitched back together. 

You kneel in front of him, focusing on what was once a deep gash. He showed up with it a couple days ago, spewing more blood than he physically should be able to produce. It’s already half healed, though the new stitches will still help. 

“They usually aren’t getting blood on my couch either,” you say. “We can do this all day.” 

Jeno doesn’t answer, staying quiet long enough for you to peek at him and make sure he hasn’t passed out from some injury you don’t know about. Instead you find his dark eyes, filled with an intensity that wasn’t there when you were children. You still find it hard to believe the kid that walked with you to school every day for three years has grown up into this—all hard lines and guarded expressions. Every time you look into those eyes you are reminded how little you know about him. 

Here’s what you do know: Jeno and his family disappeared when you were twelve. Vanished in the middle of the school year, leaving the house next to yours half full of their belongings in the flight. And then you didn’t see him for another twelve years, long enough for you to graduate high school, and then college, and then med school. Long enough for you to get a prestigious internship in the surgical program at Gotham City Hospital, which had you moving three states over into an apartment you had to rent without even doing a walkthrough. It’s this apartment—the one that he sits in now—that brought Jeno back to you. Again, he’s become the boy next door, though you still can’t reconcile your memories of the little boy with this man, who never smiles. You barely recognized him. But he recognized you, and even though he didn’t seem all that interested in having friends, he found out you were a med student and just happened to need stitches. And then he needed help with a broken wrist. And then a black eye. And then, and then. 

It didn’t take you long to figure out he’s Red Hood, one of the newer vigilantes of Gotham City. Or, more accurately, it didn’t take you long to figure out he’s a vigilante. It did take a while to figure out Red Hood, but his eyes eventually gave it away. One look told you he’s cold on the inside. One look told you he’s a killer. 

(Plus you’ve seen the now-iconic leather jacket hanging in his entryway.) 

But though you can’t call his eyes warm now, they aren’t cold either. He regards you with a softness you’ve never seen before, or maybe just never noticed. You duck your head and turn back to the stitches. 

“If you pull these again, you’ll be sewing them up yourself,” you mutter. 

“Well, how else am I supposed to see you?” Jeno asks. “You only ever make time for me when I’m bleeding.” Despite his earlier complaints, he doesn’t flinch as you begin the sutures. In fact, he doesn’t show any sign that he’s even noticed. 

You roll your eyes. “That's because I took an oath. Something about saving lives, and something about ‘no matter how much I want to take a hot shower and pass out for the next twelve hours, I’m legally obligated to keep my weird neighbor alive when he shows up begging for help.’” 

“Who said anything about begging?” 

You pause, needle in hand. “I can leave you like this, you know. You can finish it yourself if you really want to.” And you know he can. You’ve seen the scars. So many scars, which tell the story he hasn’t told you: the oldest on his forearm, perfectly straight, the result of a real surgery; the thick ones on his back that look like they were never stitched up; the cut on his arm that looks like it tore through muscle yet was carefully stitched up; the scar on the back of his neck that looks like it should have broken his neck; and the angry red scar on his left knee that he said he stitched up himself a couple months before you moved in next door. 

You open your mouth to tell him he’s really on his own now, but Jeno says, “I guess I can beg.” 

You pause, then say. “That’s just terrible.” You have to look away so you continue the stitches. “You can do way better than that.” 

“Oh, YN, great saver of lives,” Jeno says, “please do me the great honor of stitching me up. Again.” 

You hum. “Better but still room for improvement.” 

“I would die without you. I would get on my knees if I could. Please, please, do not stop stitching me up.” 

You grin at him and almost get a smile back, his eyes truly warm. You take it as a win—or at least a vast improvement from how he was two months ago. You finish the stitches, sitting up straight. 

“I don’t suppose you’ll sit still long enough to let these actually heal, will you?” Not that you know how long that is. You noticed a while back that most of his injuries heal far faster than they should. He shouldn’t need to come to you for minor injuries yet he does, over and over again. It doesn’t make any sense, but as long as he keeps showing up on your couch, you’ll keep taking care of him. 

Jeno looks at you like he wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should. Maybe this is it. He’ll finally tell you exactly how he gets his scars. How he became the Red Hood. 

Instead, he says, “Nah, probably not.” 

You sit back on the couch beside him, sighing. “I watched a seven hour surgery today, and you know what I learned?” 

“Hm?” He turns, cheek resting on the couch. For a moment you see the boy again, cast in gold from the afternoon sunlight. You can just picture his smile, the way his whole face melts into a gooey happiness. You blink and he’s gone. 

“Surgeons are dicks,” you blurt out, forgetting what you were going to say. “They never want to believe patients, and I get it, sometimes they’re annoying and think they know best, but this girl came in three months ago complaining about pain and Dr. Park called her a junkie. She came back in today and collapsed in the waiting room because he never actually examined her. 

“She was having a heart attack, and if he just listened the first time, it might have been salvageable, but the second one ripped her heart to shreds. Dr. Nakamoto said he’d never seen someone survive a heart that looked like that.” 

“But she did survive?” Jeno asks. 

“Yeah,” you say. “For now. She needs a heart transplant, though, so it’s a waiting game.” 

He nods. 

“I don’t get why Dr. Park or any of the other doctors couldn’t run a simple EKG. It’s not difficult and it would have saved her life but they took one look at her and assumed she was a junkie,” you say, “and I can’t even complain about it because Dr. Lee will just say some shit like ‘medical decisions are more difficult than you think’ because that’s easier than actually checking if his surgical team gives a shit about their patients beyond death rates.” 

You sigh. “The worst part is, they aren’t even bad doctors. They know the medicine, and the procedures they can do—it’s really incredible. I don’t know, sometimes I worry you can only be good at medicine or good with patients, and it’s impossible to be both.” 

“You really think that?” 

“I don’t know.” You shrug. “I’m just tired.” 

Jeno nods, letting silence settle between you. It’s far too comfortable to just sit with him like this, a peaceful solidarity you’ve only ever felt with him. You won’t give it meaning, won’t think about it any more than another afternoon on the couch together. That’s all this is. 

“I should take a shower,” you say. 

“I should get back to my place,” Jeno says. Neither of you move. 

.

.

Lee Jeno doesn’t consider himself to be consumed with rage, despite what the headlines say. Yeah, the mask is intense, but he doesn’t use it to incite fear among all those who look upon his face. He just needed to keep his face hidden from Bruce (and, as much as it pains him to admit Bruce might be right about anything, he can’t deny that keeping his identity hidden is ultimately the right move). 

He tosses the magazine on his desk. He’s got to stop reading the tabloids. They’re rotting his brain. But somehow they’re the only reliable source on the current crop of Joker’s little worshippers. Jeno still can’t believe it took him six months to realize the ads were calling for new recruits to the cult. 

He feels the pit of anger, deep in his stomach, writhing at the thought of that man. Revenge would be too kind. Jeno will take him down, no matter what. 

Maybe he’s a little consumed with rage. 

But he can’t ignore the recent distractions. He’s spent the past week sitting behind the computer doing whatever investigative work he can, any excuse to avoid pulling the stitches again. You really didn’t seem like you were joking about making him do it next time, and it was a bitch to stitch up his knee on his own. The angle alone would make his ribs pretty much impossible. 

Jeno sighs, tapping on his keyboard to bring the computer to life. Three monitors light up, the far left screen featuring the feeds of all the security cameras that show the apartment building that he very legally tapped into. The far right screen shows three different news feeds, local to Gotham, national news, and an international broadcast, volume off, subtitles on. The middle screen remains blank, ready for him to pull up whatever information he needs. 

Hunt Joker. Get revenge. 

It was simple when he first got his memories back. Those were his only goals. But then he had to train, become a better fighter, establish some sort of half-life in the city–which meant figuring out how to pay rent, which meant figuring out which billionaires he could reasonably steal from without them noticing. He admits it’s foolish to have Wayne Enterprises on the top of the list, but the bastard owes him. 

Six months passed by before he finally set this place and a couple other safe houses up. And then another six passed, and Jeno is still no closer to revenge. He is supposed to be better than before, but all he’s done is steal some lunch money from people too rich to notice and take down a couple men who liked to pick on the weak. He hates that he did more in tights than he’s done becoming Red Hood. 

He let his life become too simple. Day after day of hunting criminals and keeping them from hurting anyone ever again. It was freeing, no debriefings with idiots that would tell him that he should have acted differently—should have acted with more mercy. He makes his own decisions and no one is there to judge him. It’s proof he never needed anyone, even if hunting Joker is taking a little longer than it would if he had Wayne Enterprise resources. 

And then you showed up. 

He leans back in the chair, the joint squeaking. Jeno still doesn’t know what to make of you popping back into his life. He hasn’t been the kid you knew for so long he almost forgot about him. That kid died the day his parents yanked him out of school and moved to Gotham city. His parents worked back breaking shifts in one of the factories, while Jeno lasted a month in school before he realized he could stop going and no one would care. He learned how to survive Gotham quickly, and pretty soon he thrived. He barely even noticed when his parents died. 

You bring back memories of suburbs and eating ice cream before it could melt onto his hand. He remembers this one time you were walking back home after school and you tripped and skinned your knee. There was so much blood, Jeno freaked out and thought he’d have to carry you (which he definitely couldn’t do back then), but you just stood up and gritted your teeth and walked all the way back. It didn’t surprise him at all to find out you’re a doctor now, not when you were always so hardcore. 

It came in handy pretty quick, too, though he’ll at least admit to himself that his powers probably won’t let him die. It just turned into a routine for him, a nice way to end his day (though his work “day” generally ends at dawn). 

But nice is for a boy that doesn’t exist, not for the justice he seeks. He can’t keep pretending to be someone he isn’t, and someone as smart as you can’t keep pretending to believe his lies. He focuses on the security feed, watching a dark sedan roll past. 

He can keep avoiding you. It would be easy to clear out of here, especially when you spend most of your time at the hospital anyways. He could do it now—you’re in the middle of one of those endless shifts where you sleep in the hospital. You complain so much about being exhausted that he doubts you’d notice that he left, at least for a month. You’re not friends with him, Jeno doesn’t have friends. You just took an oath to save lives, and he forced you to save him. You wouldn’t even miss him. 

But even as he contemplates it, he knows he can’t do it to you again. Even if all you are is the person that patches him up every other night, you deserve some explanation. A goodbye. 

Rain begins to fall, slow at first, then a steady patter, the gentle wind strong enough to send the rain against the window. 

He hears the truck engine rattling down the street before it finally comes into view on the top left camera. Strange, the bottom right camera covers the opposite side of the street but shows nothing. He keeps an eye on the truck, which rattles by, frowning at the bottom right screen. 

Not just an empty street. Though the sky is dark in the background, the pavement and sidewalk are still dry. Jeno curses, getting to his feet and grabbing his belt. He loads the pistols, clipping on the extra ammo to his belt alongside the gadgets while keeping an eye on the other cameras, trying to see if he missed anything else. Two more screens play on a loop, the transition more obvious with the rain. He pulls on the mask, grateful he made it waterproof. His jacket is last, riddled with holes he never had the time to sew back together. He keeps his knife in his right hand, checking the cameras a final time—all showing empty loops—before ducking out the window onto the fire escape. 

The jacket is thick enough to keep the rain from actually soaking him, but the cold seeps through. It brings an ache to his bones, an empty feeling like his body doesn’t quite belong to him. He presses a hand to his heart, the pressure bringing a new ache that reminds his body his heart still beats. 

He jumps the rest of the way down from the fire escape, landing in a puddle of water that splashes beneath his boots, sending water up to his knees. He needs eyes on the situation. Ideally he’d go to the roof, but there’s too much daylight to be out in the open like that, turning him into a sitting duck. He opts for the alleyways instead, looping around the back of the building to where he can see the street without being seen. Whatever is going on, he needs to drive the action away from his place. 

He scans the road, settling on the dark sedan parked in front of the corner store. It wasn’t on the security camera feed when he left, and as he watches, two tall men with dark hoods pulled over their heads slip out of the back seat. They approach the apartment building with the confidence of residents, though Jeno can tell from here they don’t. He memorized his neighbors a long time ago, but even if he hadn’t, Jeno has seen enough gangs to know bruisers when he sees them. 

But who do they belong to? Who knows where Jeno lives? The people he’s been skimming from? He hasn’t been stealing enough to warrant this kind of a response. No, his life as Jeno couldn’t have attracted these men. 

So it’s Red Hood? Anyone that knows about Red Hood should know better than to send two goons that could be taken out this easily. Jeno switches the knife to his left hand and pulls out a pistol, turning off the safety and cocking the hammer. 

Before he can squeeze the trigger, he senses something, the rain behind him falling on something other than pavement. He drops to the ground and rolls until his back is against the wall and a dumpster protects his front. A bullet buries itself into the pavement where he had been standing a moment ago. 

He moves again, vaulting over the dumpster, catching the man holding a pistol at the end of the alley by surprise. Still in the air, Jeno squeezes the trigger, hitting the man in the stomach. He lands on his feet and crosses the alley in two quick strides to kick the man as he falls. His hood falls off as he lands on his back, revealing an assuming face. Like the other men, Jeno has never seen him before. 

Jeno kicks the gun out of his hand and snatches it from the pavement, slipping it into one of the extra holsters on his belt. He glances between the front of the building and the back. The two goons out front had to have heard the noise, which means he doesn’t have much time before they make it to the alley. But he’s got no idea what might be around the other corner. 

He crosses back to the dumpster, keeping an eye on the man behind him as he waits. The man at the other end groans but doesn’t call out for his buddies. Rain overflows from the gutters, falling in spurts rather than droplets. Thirty seconds pass and Jeno only hears the rain. Are they waiting for him? Circling around to trap him between them? 

He adjusts his grip on the knife in his left hand, holding it so that the blade is nearest to his pinky finger, his thumb wrapped around the bottom of the base. He keeps the blade facing out, stepping to the front of the apartment building. Instinct guides him to the left, giving him enough time to block the bat with his right arm, sending a shock up his shoulder. 

He steps closer, letting the man—one of the goons from before—pull the bat back for another swing. Jeno swings the knife up, catching the man’s jacket but missing blood. He drops the knife and twists, turning so that the man is behind him and ducking to catch the arm still swinging the bat and flip the man over using his momentum and the bigger man’s weight. He hits the pavement hard, sending water splashing all over Jeno.  

The second man catches up from the other end of the alley, firing wild shots that don’t come close to hitting him but force Jeno to step back. Jeno pulls a throwing star from his belt, sending it cutting through the air to knock the gun out of the man’s hand. With his right hand, he takes a shot at the man struggling to get off the ground, catching him in the back. He falls again and this time he doesn’t move. 

The second man charges out of the alley, the throwing star gone from his hand, though it still drips blood. He has a crowbar in his other hand, like these guys want to be stereotypical goons. He moves about as well as the other man, all power and zero agility. Jeno dodges him easily, letting him take a couple swings before he shoots him in the head. The man drops a couple steps away from his buddy. 

Jeno glances around but the dark sedan has left. No one else ventures out to investigate—probably because Jeno still holds a gun. He retrieves his knife and the throwing star, going back to the first man that he shot who still groans at the end of the alley. Blood mixes with the iridescent swirls of run off, red overtaking the blended greens and purples. 

He kneels on his chest. Rain falls on the back of his mask“Who sent you?” 

The man gurgles a laugh. “What’s it to you?” 

Jeno pushes his knee a little harder. “I asked you a question.” 

“Fuck you,” the man says. He tries to spit but the mix of blood and saliva ends up splattering on his own face. The man suddenly turns, moving with more strength than Jeno expected. At the same time that Jeno points his gun at the man’s head, the man pulls a gun from inside his coat, pressing it straight into Jeno’s stomach. Neither of them hesitate to pull the trigger. 

.

.

Caution tape is up in the alley next to your apartment, but the rain seems to have washed away any sign of the crimes committed. It pounds into your head relentlessly, soaking you through your coat. 

Though you’ve been living here less than a year, Gotham’s reputation has held true. Working in the hospital has given you even more experience with the diversity of types of people the city attracts—good, bad, and everything in between. You even worked on a guy who apparently turned out to be a Batman villain a few months ago. 

Between working at the hospital and living in the city in general, you’ve gotten used to dissociating crime scenes with the sense that you’re actually in danger. Besides, you live next door to a vigilante. Who are you to say this is even a crime scene?

You don’t think anything of it until you open your apartment door and catch the unfortunately familiar scent of blood. Wind and rain crash through the open window, pulling your stumbling feet forward to find the source of the blood. 

Jeno didn’t make it to the couch this time. He lies just inside the windowsill, barely sitting up with his back against the wall. One hand clutches his stomach, red blood spilling over the black shirt. His head hangs low, hair soaked by that rain that still falls on him through the open window. The red mask sits in his other hand.

For a scary moment, he doesn’t move. 

You drop your bag, rushing to him. You can’t stop your voice from shaking. “Jeno?” 

He groans when you shake his arm. “Ow.” 

You curse as you slam the window shut and lay him out on his side, keeping his hand over the wound until you can get a better gauge on what it is. “What the hell did you do to yourself?” 

He doesn’t answer, only groaning as you try to reach your medical bag while keeping pressure on the wound. You finally get it to the ground, pulling out the scissors and slicing through the shirt so that you can see the wound—a gaping hole framed by bullet fragments  where his stomach should be. 

“Fuck.” He needs a hospital, a surgeon that’s done more than assist on an appendectomy, but you can’t bring yourself to dial 911. It would bring too many questions on Jeno, who has clearly avoided hospitals for a reason. And he came to you. He trusts you, even if you don’t trust yourself. You have to save him, if only because you’re the only option. 

 You set out the equipment, spraying them with alcohol to sterilize them and get ready to cut. 

“Don’t you dare die,” you say, gripping the scalpel. 

“Already did that,” Jeno mutters, eyes fluttering. “Didn’t agree with me.” 

You gape at him but he seems to have slipped back into unconsciousness. You force yourself to look back at the bullet hole. You can only yell at him if he’s alive, so you push away the thoughts and get to work, replacing any insecurity with arrogant belief that you know what you’re doing.

.

.

Death is nothing like falling asleep. For one thing, it fucking hurts. Jeno supposes the method might have played a factor. He used to think getting shot point blank might be better than being beaten for hours and then blown up (he now has the experience to decidedly answer that question: marginally better). But death itself. It hurts. 

And resurrection? All the pain of death with none of the peaceful end. Jeno remembers crawling out of the ground, forcing his muscles to work even though his body still suffered from the wounds that killed him. 

But it was the pain that forced him to keep moving, the pain that still fuels him now, a never ending ache deep inside that no time will heal. 

Joker may have held the bat, but Batman didn’t stop him. He never stopped him. Jeno remembers the look on his face, the shadowed glimpse of it that he could see. He remembers dying, hearing the Joker cackle, and Batman calling out to him—calling him Robin. 

He remembers the pain. Pain he can live with. Pain makes him who he is. He can’t let go of the pain, not when it is all that he is. 

But the pain ebbs away when you’re around. And for the life of him he can’t convince himself that it’s a bad thing.  

.

.

You manage to get Jeno into your bed after you finish patching him up—which was six grueling hours of pulling bullet fragments from the hole and praying he didn’t bleed out. No one should have been able to survive the amount of blood that seeped out of him but by some miracle (though maybe it’s a curse), his heart keeps pumping. 

He woke up just long enough to let you sling an arm under his shoulders and half carry him into the bed. You spent the entire time praying he wouldn’t pull apart the stitches and bleed out for real, but it seems like luck was finally on your side. 

You should get up. You should clean up the blood, or at least wash it from your hands. You can only find the energy to drag your armchair next to the bed and sit beside him. His chest rises and falls with even breaths. 

Still alive, for now. 

He mumbles again, voice too low to make out any words. His eyes flutter but remain closed. Does a man like him dream? 

“What happened to you?” Your voice cracks. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t show any sign that he can hear you. “You disappear for weeks at a time. You rarely show up when you aren’t bleeding. But you never talk about it, and you don’t smile anymore. I don’t think I know you anymore. I don’t know if I ever did.” 

You managed to hold back your tears, push all the emotions away to keep him alive but they come flooding back now. Tears spill over as you watch him breathe. 

“Your heart keeps beating but are you really alive?” You ask. 

He doesn’t answer. 

.

.

You moved to Gotham in August. The heat was so bad that crime rates were down–making it miserable to carry box after box up two flights of stairs since the building didn't have an elevator. You’d only been here twice before, both times on school trips, never on your own. 

But your friends all live back in your college town, and your parents were busy dealing with a lawsuit against your neighbor for the mailbox war, so you were stuck moving on your own—which wasn’t all that terrible since the apartment came half furnished. Still, you had to figure out a way to get a mattress up the stairs, along with a car full of clothes and all the rest of your belongings. Between the heat and the prospect of stairs, you weren’t exactly stoked about living in the city. 

Two trips had you wheezing for air, leaning outside your door to catch your breath. The door to the apartment next to yours swung open. You hoped someone wasn’t already complaining about the noise you were making. Instead a tall, broad shouldered man stepped out, wearing a simple black t-shirt and cargo pants. 

He turned around, revealing cold eyes and a face that looked like it spent most of its time frowning. But behind it all something familiar called to you, buried deep behind the bitter front. You remembered a boy who cried because he stubbed his toes, a boy who would fight you to make a wish on every dandelion that lined the sidewalk on the walk home. 

He froze, a tiny frown in his brow. “YN?” 

“Jeno?” 

You set down the tote, stepping around it to get a better look at him. Your eyes jumped between his, trying to decipher the hardness behind them. Though it had been over ten years, you still thought of the sweet boy who lived next door often, always wondering what happened to him. 

It seemed that the years had not been kind to him. Though he grew taller and filled out considerably, he had an emptiness behind his eyes, the kind that comes from too much hurt. He looked like it had been years since he last smiled. He barely seemed to react to you, guarding every expression as if you could be some sort of threat. 

“You’re taller,” you finally said. 

“It has been a while,” he said. 

“I think ten years qualifies as more than a while,” you said. 

He just nodded. “You’ve moved here?” 

“Just today,” you said, gesturing to the boxes. 

“You’re on your own?” 

You shrugged. “My parents are bringing a load later in the week, so it’s really not that much stuff.” You paused but Jeno didn’t run away, so you figured it was safe to ask, “How long have you been living here?” 

“In Gotham since I left.” He pauses, eyes flicking between yours. For a moment you think he’ll tell you everything. Then he says, “Here specifically, only about six months.” 

You should have asked. Maybe it would have made things simpler, maybe you wouldn’t be dancing between fantasy and reality, balancing a tedious act of ignorance. 

Instead you asked him if he’d help you move your mattress and what the pizza delivery situation was like. 

.

.

Jeno wakes up sometime in the middle of the night. You snap awake from your dozing as he shifts. 

“Sit still,” you say. “I don’t think I can put you back together if you fall apart this time.” 

Jeno blinks. Even in the darkness you can see eyes are still glazed over in confusion. 

“You were shot,” you explain. “Point blank from the looks of it.” 

“Ah,” he says. His soft voice carries in the quiet hours of the night. “That’s what hurts.” 

“Never make me do that again.” Your voice shakes despite your best attempts to steady it. The tears from earlier try to weasel their way back out of your eyes. “You should have died.” 

He reaches out, except he really must be feeling weak because his hand barely makes it to the edge of the bed before it hangs limp. 

“‘M sorry,” he mumbles. “Didn’t want to get shot.” 

You blink back the tears as anger courses its way through you. “I don’t think anybody gets shot on purpose,” you snap. 

He tries to snort but it ends up sounding like a short exhale through his nose. “Fair enough.” 

“I’m not a good enough doctor for all of this,” you say. “This isn’t a hospital. I don’t have sterile equipment, or a blood bank, or an extra set of hands, I mean, if anything worse happens, you could be in real danger and there’s nothing I could do about it, and I can’t—” You pause, taking a deep breath. “I don’t like when I have to admit I can’t do something, but with you, it feels like that’s all I can do.” 

“You saved my life,” he says. “It doesn’t really feel like you couldn’t do it.” 

“It was a pretty fucking close call,” you say. “Gunshot wounds aren’t particularly easy, and you had to go and get shot in the stomach.” 

He shifts, hand running over his torso beneath the blanket. “I didn't pop the stitches, though,” he says. “I gotta get some points for that.” 

You glare at him, though he probably can’t see it in the darkness. “Don’t make fun of me. I’m trying to be serious.” 

“So am I,” he says, “it was not easy. I sat still for two full days. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve done that?” 

Ask. Get a real answer from him. Stop shying away from who he really is. You have to talk about it. 

“Well, get used to it,” you say. “You’re staying in this bed. I don’t care if I have to tie you down.” 

Jeno actually smiles. It’s been far too long since you’ve seen that smile, softening the hard lines and curling his face into something sweet. “I could be into that,” he jokes. 

And maybe it’s because there are blood stains on your shirt that will never come out and you haven’t slept in about thirty hours and you came far too close to losing the only person you really care about, but you laugh. “Just shut up and get some rest.” 

“You should rest too,” Jeno says. “You look terrible.” 

“Yeah, well it’s your fault,” you say. 

He pauses then says, “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Well, don’t apologize.” You sniffle. “It’s harder to be mad at you.” 

He smiles again, and you can’t even pretend to be mad at him anymore. It’s too hard on your heart, which has been through far too much for any more lies. You smile back at him. 

.

.

After a day, Jeno can walk around on his own. You called out sick from work, despite his insistence that he’d be fine on his own. He had to bribe you to convince you to sleep on the couch, since you would barely let him go to the bathroom, let alone move back to his own room. He won’t complain too much, though. He forgot how nice it is to wake up to someone. 

He sways on his feet, holding a hand up to stop you from helping him. He forces even breaths, determined to make it to the couch without any help. 

“You don’t have to do this,” you repeat for the thousandth time. 

“I told you I’m fine,” he grunts. Two more steps and he’s there. He takes a deep breath, ignoring the way his entire lower half screams at him. One more step. 

He collapses onto the couch more than anything, but he makes it. He lets himself slouch a little, head resting against the back of the couch. How many times has he sat here like this? So many hours spent waiting for you, watching the sun inch across the room. But most of the time it’s been like this—you at the opposite end, always a cushion separating him from you. 

The fake wooden floor is stained deep red, pooled around where he laid while you worked on him. He wonders what would have happened if you weren’t there. When he first came back he thought he was invincible, and his healing has saved him from a lot–but he’s never truly put it to the test. Could he have survived without you? 

His mask still sits where he pulled it off underneath the windowsill. He peeks at you from the corner of his eyes, your head turned towards it. Say something. 

You stare at the mask, clearing your throat. “I hope you didn’t pay too much for that shitty costume,” you say. “You don’t even have armor.” 

“YN,” Jeno says but you refuse to look at him. 

“Seriously, walking around dressed like a vigilante is going to get you killed.” 

“YN. You know it’s not a costume.” 

“What, you made it yourself? That’s even worse, I mean, it’s one thing to dress up like these guys but trying to be one of them, that’s just plain stupid. I can’t believe—”

Jeno shifts to the center cushion and wraps his fingers gently around your wrist, forcing you to look at him. “I am one of them.” 

He lets go of your wrist and watches you process the words, trying to figure out any other meaning. Your eyes dart between his, panicked and desperate. For whatever reason, you don’t want to admit it, and it’s been fine. But Jeno is tired of feeling like he’s lying to you. 

“I know,” you finally say, sighing and looking away again. He hates that it feels like he’s let you down. But he won’t apologize for who he is. 

“Why didn’t you ever ask about what happened after I left?” He asks. 

You’re quiet for a long moment. “I think I was afraid. It didn’t take long to realize what you were—or at least that you were wrapped up in something twisted—and then it was obvious whatever happened to you here wasn’t good, and I wasn’t sure if I should know that.” 

Jeno nods, gaze traveling to the window. He can see some scattered rooftops, mostly shorter residential buildings of the area. Farther in the distance, skyscrapers stick out. He’s spent more years in this city than not, grown to love it like family. But unlike family, the city doesn’t love him back. It’s not capable of it. No matter how much of his blood lines the streets, Jeno will only ever be one of millions that call the city home. 

Yes, what happened to him here wasn’t good. But it wasn’t all bad, and it’s not over yet. He won’t give up on the city just because of the past. 

And there’s you now. He has these moments where his heart beats so hard it feels like his chest will burst in the good way. He no longer ceases to exist when he isn’t fighting. Jeno worms his way back into reality, not separate from Red Hood, but no longer overshadowed by him. 

“I’ve had a lot of time to think these past couple weeks,” Jeno says. “Time to figure out what I want. For the longest time, it was revenge. It didn’t matter how I got it, how many people had to die. I would avenge myself no matter what. 

“And then you came into my life, and I would catch myself wondering what would have happened if I could have stayed back then, how different my life would be. I even wondered what would happen if I took off the mask, permanently. 

“But this is all I know how to be, and, I think even when I get my revenge, I won’t be able to leave this life behind.” He pauses, tilting his head away from the window and waiting until you meet his eyes.  “I don’t want to die again. I don't want to live this miserable half life where all I think about is getting back at the people who wronged me. I want to live, and when I’m with you, I feel alive.” 

You stare at him, eyes adorably wide. Maybe he's been a little too good at keeping his feelings hidden. It’s alright. He can wait for you to work it all out. It’s not like he’s got anywhere to be. 

“I like being with you,” he says. “I like who I am when I’m around you, and I like you. I mean, you’re stubborn and you always have to have the last word.” He smiles at your bewildered eyes. “But you care so much, not just about me, or your patients, but about everyone, and everything.

“Like your little houseplants that keep dying no matter what you do. I mean, it’s hilarious that you can save my life but you can’t keep a succulent alive. Or the way you talk about the street cats, and even the rats. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had sympathy for the cockroaches.” He finally manages to cut the rambling off. For a long moment you’re too quiet, and he begins to feel the inklings of fear worming its way up his stomach. 

“I don’t know about that,” you finally say, voice soft. “I think they might be radioactive here.” 

He waits but you don’t say anything else. He knows he shouldn’t ask, that he already has his answer. Still, he can’t help it. “That’s all you have to say?” 

Your eyes slide to the floor. “I… I don’t know.” 

“You feel something,” he says, reaching a tentative hand out to rest on top of yours. You freeze beneath him, eyes darting between his hand and his eyes like you can’t decide which you’re scared of more. 

“Tell me I’m not crazy,” he pleads. “Tell me you feel at least a fraction of the way I do.” 

You squeeze your eyes shut, taking a deep breath. “I do care about you,” you begin slowly, “I care about you too much. You have this life, and I know you need it, and I want you to have everything that you want, I just don’t think I can be a part of it when it inevitably destroys you.” 

He squeezes your hand. “It won’t destroy me,” he says, “I won’t let it.” 

“You died.” Your voice shakes. “I don’t think I could handle that.” 

“I won’t let that happen again!” Jeno says. “Things are different now, I’m not the same person I was when I died.” 

He won’t die again. He’s sure of it, not just because he’s learned from his mistakes but because he has something else to live for now. He has more than the family that pushed him to be more than he could, he has his own life, goals outside of revenge. But grounding it all is you, the first person he thinks of, always. He won’t die when it would hurt you this much. 

“Even if you could promise that, it’s not enough.” You look away from him. “I don’t want to die either, and it seems like that’s inevitable around people like you. The loved ones always die first.” 

He opens his mouth to say he would never let that happen but the words die in his throat. He can’t guarantee that, and one look at you proves even if he could it wouldn’t matter. It’s not enough. 

“I think I love you,” he whispers. 

You smile sadly. “I think I love you too. I wish it was that simple.” 

He sighs, resting his head against the couch cushion. “I don’t suppose supreme embarrassment is a good enough reason to let me go back to my own apartment, is it?” 

He watches you purse your lips out of the corner of his eye. He pretends not to see the tears threatening to spill over. 

“I have to go back to work,” you say, voice steady. “I suppose sleeping in your own bed won’t be a problem.” You turn stern. “As long as you swear you’ll actually rest.” 

Jeno winces. “I don’t think I can do anything else.” 

“And yet you will,” you say. Jeno knows it’s worthless to argue, especially when he really can’t promise he won’t do anything. He goes where he’s needed. 

But until then, he’s perfectly happy to wallow in the embarrassment of getting shot and shot down. 

.

.

(please enjoy a brief interlude until i figure out how to fix thing shitshow)

The city always smells cleaner after a good storm. You enjoy walking to work, though the piercing wail of sirens makes it harder to appreciate the way the city almost smells like spring. Green has returned, sprouts of grass and early flowers blooming. You can walk and breathe and pretend like your heart isn’t dragging along behind you. 

Jeno haunts you. You dared to check on him before leaving and found he has reverted back to the one word answers and solemn expressions, a shadow of a person. He barely even looks at you, and you can’t even blame him. You’ve done more than break his heart; you can bear the consequences of doing so. 

Because it doesn’t really matter. He will keep getting hurt and you will keep patching him up. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. 

Even if you can’t stop dreaming about him. 

An ambulance wails past, turning into the hospital. You try your best to push the Jeno thoughts away, preparing yourself for the inevitably grueling day. You push open the doors, the security guards now familiar. You smile at them, the movement of the muscles feeling foreign, and take the elevators to the fourth floor, heading to the locker room for the surgical interns. 

You’ve barely changed into your scrubs when Jaemin appears. 

“Wow,” he says, biting into an apple. “You look terrible.” 

You glare at him. “You look worse. How long have you been here?” 

He shrugs. “I got a whole six hours of sleep in an on-call room, so I’m actually doing great. You, on the other hand, look like you spent the two days fighting guys who wear pinstripe suits and call their henchmen goons.” He eyes you for a moment. “And you lost.” 

“That’s pretty much how I feel,” you say. “Though I still think you act like the criminals in this city are cartoon villains.” 

“The aquarium was attacked by a crocodile-man last week and the guy that stopped him cosplays as a bat,” Jaemin says. “I don’t know how you take any of this seriously.” 

It helps when you have a melodramatic version of the bat guy bleeding out on your couch every other week, you think. 

“I don’t know, being afraid for my life helps,” you say. 

“Oh the crocodile guy just wanted to free his people,” Jaemin waves his hand. “He wasn’t going to hurt anyone.” 

“His name is Killer Croc.” 

“Semantics,” Jaemin says. “But seriously, you’re okay? Nothing happened?”  

You shrug. “I just haven’t gotten enough sleep, I’ll be fine. Why are you acting so weird?” 

“You haven’t heard?” Jaemin asks. “Dr. Moon and Dr. Jung were both attacked three days ago. Dr. Jung is in the ICU and Dr. Moon is still missing.” 

“What happened?” 

“Police don’t really know yet,” Jaemin says, “but it’s connected. These big guys in suits with these weird black hoods were seen around both of their places before the attacks. They found Jaehyun in his apartment, beaten pretty bad, he’s been in a coma ever since.” 

“Wow,” you say. You’ve worked with both of them quite a bit. You spent a week learning about skin grafts with Dr. Moon, a star plastic surgeon. Jaehyun gave you an extra shower curtain when you mentioned you tore yours when a cockroach crawled up your shower brain while you were in it. They’re both good, nice people, not the type to get involved in trouble—definitely not trouble like this. 

“Is Jaehyun going to be okay?” 

Jaemin purses his lips and shrugs. “Still not sure. He had some pretty serious injuries, most of which were patched up but apparently he had some bad head trauma. They called in the Lee Taemin from Central.” 

“You didn’t shit your pants meeting your hero?” 

“YN,” Jaemin says sharply, “a good friend of mine was in the hospital, and the best neurosurgeon in the country, the guy I will one day convince to be my mentor, was called in to save his life. Of course I was shitting my pants.” 

“Did you get to meet him?” 

“I thought it would be weird to introduce myself to him, but I did happen to visit Jaehyun while he stopped by, and happened to mention I wanted to pursue neuro when he asked.” 

“And?” 

“And he said it was a smart decision. Or said only the smartest thrive. He’s very confusing.” 

“So basically you’re obsessed?” 

“Yep.” 

You lean against the metal lockers, letting the cold press against the back of your neck. You think about Jaehyun, hooked up to machines with a whole team of doctors, including a star doctor, all working to keep him alive. How long will it be before that’s Jeno, except no machines, no team, just you? How long before you won’t be enough? 

.

.

Jeno has discovered all there is to know about his ceiling. There’s eleven cracks, tiny fissures in the paint that’s at least ten years old. The color is off white, not cream, though in the corner above the door, they did a touch up with a paint that has slightly more blue. He can tell what time it is from the angle of the light coming through the window. 

He’s beginning to run out of things to learn. 

He misses you, so much. He wonders what your ceiling looks like, if it’s got its own little galaxy of cracks. He misses sitting on your couch, knowing that he’d see you soon. 

 He can’t remember the last time he got out of bed, and he can’t even blame it on the gunshot wound. He's not fully recovered, but he doesn’t need to lay in bed all day. He should be up and moving, keeping himself in shape, or at least hunting down the guys who attacked him. All he managed to do was set up an alert with the license plate of the car he saw, feeding it through all the security cameras he could get access to. 

But otherwise he lays in bed and stares at the ceiling. 

Getting this dejected over a rejection makes him feel like a teenager—not that he ever went through this during his teenage years. He can put on the mask and be Red Hood, but Jeno? He doesn’t know how to be Jeno alone, he doesn’t want to learn. He had his parents when he was younger, then Bruce, and Dick, and the family that began to grow among them. Despite all he used to whine, he’s never truly been alone. 

Will he be alone now? Will Jeno even exist without the people around him to keep him going? Or will he truly become Red Hood, letting the man behind the mask cease to exist. 

He knows what Bruce would say. The mask can’t exist without the man. But Bruce is the reason he put a mask on in the first place. He can philosophize all day long, it’s his fault Jeno ever died. He doesn’t have to listen to the man’s words. 

Jeno rests his hand over the wound. He hardly feels the ridge where the stitches are. He wonders how the wound will scar. 

It doesn’t make any sense but even though his body heals unnaturally fast, the scars remain. It’s like his body remembers dying and wants to remind him—even though he came back once and he’s stronger than ever before—he’s still human. 

And there’s nothing more human than a broken heart. He should be grateful it’s only metaphorical. 

Jeno sighs. The worst part is he knows how dramatic he’s being. But it’s only been 28 hours. He can allow himself a little bit of time for the dramatics. Bruce takes like a month off when a civilian dies under his watch. 

He pulls his blanket closer, wondering if it’s too far to put on some music—something loud, maybe. 

Instead he hears a ding, a notification from his computer. He sits up a little too fast, feeling a tug on his stitches, though they don’t fall apart. 

He can’t spare too much thought to them, not when his screen lights up with feed from a security camera, zoomed in to show the license plate of a dark sedan, the numbers he remembers. It rolls past, camera shifting down the block as Jeno drops into his chair, typing rapidly until the screen zooms out. The larger screen reveals the sedan is one of many, traveling in a line together. 

He sets up the second monitor to plot their movements across the city, a bright red line tracing the few turns they take. 

The windows of each car are tinted, concealing those within. But, with his previous encounter, it’s safe to assume there’s plenty of hired muscle in the six cars. It could be anywhere between fifteen and thirty men, headed this way. 

He watches them draw closer, tapping his finger on the desk. They caught him by surprise last time. On a good day, he wouldn’t sweat odds this bad, but it’s not a good day. He can still feel his insides healing. 

It’ll be a tough fight, but he’s planned for this. He’ll rig the place, take down as many as he can and get to one of the other safe houses. 

The Jeno that lived here will disappear. And it will be for the best. 

He changes into his suit, moving as fast as he can without hurting himself. He stuffs as many weapons as he can into his pockets, his belt weighing extra heavy around his waist. 

Then he gets to work on the bomb. A smaller explosive, more of a popper than a true bomb, but enough to take out his computer and all of the evidence he’s left behind here. 

He wonders if the police will come. Will they question you? Surely someone has noticed he spends a lot of time with you. You’d never give him up, but would you defend him? Would you go on television, tell the world Red Hood is just a man? You’d look good on television. 

You wouldn’t though. You wouldn’t say a word, not to the cops, not to anyone. 

He’s really going to miss you. 

He checks the map. Still five blocks away. Except… The cameras first picked up the sedans in the upper east part of the city, by the Sprang River. They mostly traveled west from there, they’re still north of him. 

They stop at a light, just two blocks away. He watches, waiting for them to turn. 

The sedans roll straight ahead, passing the apartment. He frowns, staring at the screen but the cars keep going, one block, two, and then they pull to a stop. 

Jeno curses, grabbing the keys to his bike. It was never about him. 

.

.

The sun peeks through the windows of the hospital, the only sign time passes. The setting sun casts the parking lot in gold, making even the ugliest cars shine. You pause to peek outside, for once not in a rush. You have to scrub in with Dr. Qian in twenty minutes, but until then, you have a rare moment of freedom. 

Because you’re standing at the window, you see the exact moment the cars pull up. They form a line, like a row of beetles, stopping in front of the entrance, blocking the parked cars. As soon as they roll to a stop, the doors fly open, men streaming out all wearing black hoods. They line up in front of the car closest to the entrance, whose doors had remained closed since stopping. The driver exits first, another hooded man, though considerably smaller than the rest. He opens the door to the backseat, head bowed low. 

The man in the backseat takes his time. Pale hands peek out of the carefully fitted suit, the only open skin you can see. He steps out from the car and the line of men bend into sharp bows. He closes the door and you finally get a full look at him: from the suit to his shoes, he wears all black, but most striking is the black mask that covers his face. It melts into his suit, keeping every inch of his skin hidden save for his hands. 

He must say something, because the men straighten and vanish from your view, streaming into the hospital. 

Is it too late to alert security? There has to be twenty men, and with how Jaehyun looks, you doubt they’ll be able to hold them off. 911, then? It’ll take the cops forever to respond, and it’s too late. They’re already here. 

You could call him. He’d come. 

Despite all your instincts screaming at you to hide, you turn around. The lobby is packed with the final rush of visitors, and 9-to-5 staff getting ready to leave for the day. It’ll be safer to pack in with them than be caught on your own, and maybe you can warn security before mass panic breaks out. You rush down the hall to the large open space in the front of the hospital. 

Maybe it’s the adrenaline, but everything feels too normal. A father holds his child’s hand as they walk to the bathroom. A nurse whispers furiously into her phone. An elderly couple hold hands, clipboards to the side of them. You scan the small crowd, looking for a security guard. 

Instead you find a brute of a man, black hood tipping back as he raises a gun above his head and fires it a couple times. 

“Everybody quiet!” He growls. “On the ground!” 

You drop into a squat, hands automatically coming above your head as screams echo. Someone yanks on your coat, knocking you off balance. Your heart nearly stops but it’s just Jaemin pulling you to sit beside him with a wall at your back instead of the open hallway. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. You slide into a seated position, back against the wall. Jaemin crouches next to you, keeping one hand on the wheelchair of the patient he must have been with before all of this. You peek at him and recognize him as Yoon Jeonghan, the guy that got hit by a truck while biking. He looks like he’s trying to decide if he’s included in the “on the ground” order. 

The goons pick on a couple people, shoving them to the ground. 

“Hands above your heads!” One of them orders, pointing his gun at random. You raise your hands again, Jaemin following more reluctantly. 

Ten minutes pass as goons escort people from all over the hospital, the lobby quickly becoming packed. Half the patients are in wheelchairs, clinging to IV drips while the doctors and nurses glare at the men. Finally, it seems they have collected everybody, and a quiet tension falls over the room. 

Then the man in the black mask strolls in. 

“What’s the saying?” He asks, muffled voice carrying in the open space. “If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.” He clasps his hands behind his back, strolling along, peeking at the cowering hostages. 

“He doesn’t have a pinstripe suit,” Jaemin whispers. 

“I don’t even think he’ll call the henchmen goons,” you whisper back. 

Jaemin shakes his head. He’d probably tsk if he didn’t think it would get you both killed. 

“I bet they’ll still beat us up,” you whisper. 

“If you don’t shut up, they definitely will,” Jeonghan mutters. 

Jaemin rolls his eyes and makes a face at you. You bite back a smile. You’ve tempted fate enough. 

“The name you all will know me by is Black Mask,” he announces. 

This time you can’t help the smile, turning away from Jaemin to prevent yourself from laughing out loud. Even Jeonghan mutters, “Very creative.” 

“I have a list, you see,” Black Mask continues, “people that owe me. They know what they’ve done. I promise if your name is not on that list and you don’t make a fuss, no harm will come to you. I’m a reasonable man.” 

Reasonable men don’t play dress up and shoot up hospitals, but you figure he’s due for a dramatic speech. At least he’s explaining why he’s here. 

Black Mask pauses in front of one of the nurses—Shotaro, a good nurse who you’ve worked with several times. He grabs him by the shoulder, sending him sprawling to the floor. 

“This one,” Black Mask announces, waving at his goons to pick Shotaro up. They half drag him away as Black Mask continues to make his way through the crowd. 

“This is more efficient, you know,” he says. “I’ve tried other methods, but there were some complications. So, I thought to myself, if you’re all in one place, why not just go to the source?” He points at another nurse, Sehun, but Dr. Bae steps in front of him. Black Mask pauses, tilting his head to peer at her before gesturing to the goons to drag them both away. Dr. Bae puts up a fight, trying to twist out of their grip, but one of the men tosses her over his shoulder and carries her out. Sehun follows, stumbling behind. 

Dr. Moon, Jaehyun, Shotaro, Sehun, and Dr. Bae, though it seems like she wasn’t originally a target. All good, hard workers, not the type to make mistakes, definitely not collectively. You watch as Black Mask creeps closer and closer. 

You’ve worked with all of them. Only a few months ago, a case of a man with terrible burns on his face. Your blood runs cold as Black Mask stops in front of you. You stand up, a heartbeat before he points. 

“You,” Black Mask says, venom seeping into his voice. “You owe me.” 

“I remember you,” you say, keeping your voice soft. 

“You remember what you did to me,” he says. 

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” you say, “and neither did anyone else in this hospital.” 

He raises a hand and smacks you, and before you can react, two of his men grab your arms, dragging you away whether your feet move or not. You try to think of something witty or smart, but all you can think is how much you don’t want to die. 

They take you to the stairs, carrying you up two flights of stairs before depositing you in an empty patient room. One of the men stays with you, guarding the door, while the other vanishes. 

You glare at the man, face stinging. Jeno would tell you not to provoke a psychopath. 

But Jeno’s not here. You shouldn’t want him to be, because even if he could be here, he would only get himself hurt, and you won’t be responsible for causing him any more pain. 

He said he loved you, even after all he’s been through. He wasn’t afraid. 

You don’t want Jeno here, not to save the day. But it’d be nice to apologize to him. And if there was only one person you could say goodbye to before you died, you’d want it to be Jeno. 

Maybe you do want Jeno to save the day. Just so you can apologize. Just so you can tell him you were wrong. Just so you can finally admit the truth. 

.

Jeno’s bike screeches to a stop a block away from the hospital. He parks it in an alley, covering it with a tarp and trusting that the locks will prevent anyone from stealing it. He hopes he’s swiped it from the impound lot enough times for the police to leave it alone too. 

He climbs to the roof of the nearest building, moving painfully slow, between the pull of the stitches and the exhaustion of healing such a large wound. But from here he can see the line of black cars in front of the hospital, the setting sun reflecting on the metal, making it difficult to see. He switches to infrared, the mask buzzing a couple times before picking up on the mass of bodies in the main lobby. Majority of the building is far too empty for a place of medicine. 

From his memory of studying the schematics on an off day, he remembers the west facing wing houses the operating rooms, which explains why the infrared picks up a couple small masses. But with the rest of the hospital empty, the four rooms on the third floor stand out. Each holds two bodies, one significantly larger than the other. 

That’s where he’ll start. 

A better fighter would get a better gauge of the situation. Maybe spend more time determining which are civilians and which are hostiles, or figure out exactly where they’re holding people. But Jeno has always worked best flying by the seat of his pants. He still doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but these must be the hostages important enough to separate from the main group. 

It would be safest if you were on the first floor, just one of many in the crowd, but the selfish part of Jeno wants you to be where he can see you. Where he can save you. 

He can’t waste any more time. He shoots the grappling gun, pulling on it to build momentum even faster and angle himself directly at the window. It shatters beneath his feet, and he tucks into a tight ball, rolling once before springing onto his feet. He ducks as the big man swings a crowbar at him, wincing at the sharp pain near his stomach. He takes a quick strike with his knife, slashing up across the stomach first, then across the throat, finally driving the knife into the man’s heart. He crumples to the ground and doesn’t move. 

Jeno pulls the blade out, wiping the blood from the knife on his pants and sheathing it. He turns around to find a figure in a white lab coat, cowering in the corner of the room, hands over their head, glass shards scattered around them. 

He crouches down in front of you, brushing the glass off your shoulder. You peek up at him, eyes softening as you recognize him even though you’ve never seen him in the mask before. There’s a small cut on your cheek. His thumb moves on its own, swiping at the blood and doing nothing but spread more on your face. 

“Are you okay?” Jeno asks. The modulator of the mask twists his voice into an unrecognizable beast. It’s perfect for protecting his identity and intimidating low lives, not so great for comforting the scared victims. Maybe he should tweak that part of the suit, make it adjustable. But you don’t flinch, standing up and shaking the rest of the glass off. 

“I’m fine,” you say. “How did you get here so fast?” 

“These are the same guys that shot me,” Jeno says. “I had a tracker out on the car, which led me here.” 

“Sionis,” you say. Jeno frowns. He knows that name. 

“Roman Sionis, that’s the guy doing all of this,” you explain. “He was a patient three months ago, really bad damage to his face. He’s targeting the team responsible for his care, doctors, nurses, everyone he blames for what happened to his face.” 

“Which includes you,” Jeno says. 

You nod, eyes tight. “Which means they weren’t after you when you got shot.” 

“Hey,” Jeno says. “I’m fine. You patched me up, and I’ve got the super healing, so if either of us was going to get shot, I’d rather it be me. It’s not your fault.” 

“I know,” you say, though you don’t sound like you believe it. “Should you really be jumping through windows, though?” 

He shrugs. “Didn’t pull the stitches. I swear.” 

You purse your lips but let it go. He wishes you would just say what you’re thinking but you look away from him, glancing at the door. 

“They took three more of us up here, and they probably know you’re here by now.” 

Jeno nods. Resolve the situation, then talk. 

“I’m going to clear out the rooms one at a time,” he says, “then work my way downstairs.” He unholsters a gun, handing it to you. You raise an eyebrow. 

“I’ve never used one of these.” You reluctantly take the gun out of his hands. 

“Point and squeeze the trigger,” he says. “It’s semi-automatic, you don’t have to do anything to reload. If they’re close enough you won’t even have to aim.” He forms your hands around the gun, teasing your fingers into the right position and turning off the safety. He lets his hands linger, waiting for your eyes to meet his, though he remembers a moment later that the mask conceals them. 

“Get the rest of the hostages and stay together,” he says. “I’ll be right back.” He forces himself to let go of your hands but doesn’t step away yet. 

He should say something else. Maybe apologize for what he said. Take it back. But he meant every word of it, even if you did too. He’s said all he can, and if that’s still not enough then at least you’re still alive. 

“Go save the day,” you finally say. “Then… I’ll see you after.” 

He nods, turning away and striding to the door, stepping over the body. “Wait for me to clear the rest of them, then get the hostages out of here.” 

He pulls the door closed behind him, trusting that you will be fine on your own. He doesn’t have time to worry, ducking to dodge the knife that flies toward him. He doesn’t let the man get a second chance, sprinting as fast as he can and burying his knife in the man’s heart. He’s turning a second later, using the man’s body as a shield against the second man in the hall, who doesn’t hesitate to fire a couple shots. Jeno throws the first man’s body on him, his knife following quickly after, burying itself in the man’s forehead. 

Like always, his pains melt away when he’s fighting. He barely feels the tug of the stitches, or the exhaustion he felt earlier. This body was made to kill, and that’s what he’ll do. 

He ducks into the room next to yours, knocking the guard to the floor and stabbing him. The hostage, a woman wearing a white lab coat, stands. 

“Wait here,” he says. “I’ll clear the rest of this hall. Don’t go outside unless you want to get shot.” 

She nods slowly. 

Jeno clears the other two rooms similarly, quick and far too easy. He hesitates at the stairwell. He should clear the rest of the civilians if he wants to resolve things quickly, but it feels wrong to leave these hostages to you—you were a hostage yourself only a few minutes ago. But it’s irrational. He knows you’re capable of protecting yourself, and smart enough not to get yourself killed. He has to trust you and do his job. You were the one that told him to save the day. 

He doesn’t bother with the stairs, jumping in the open space between the flights and using his grappling hook to control his fall. If he wasn’t hurt, he’d just drop the three stories, but it’s only a little slower this way. He retracts the hook with a button and sticks it back into his belt, pulling out his knives. 

He makes it halfway down the hall before he sees the first figure, raising his knife on instinct. He drops it a moment later, picking out the scrubs from here. The nurse sprints past him, barely glancing at him. More and more people follow, until a stream of people flood the hall. They part around him, allowing Jeno to make it to the lobby as it clears. Only a few people remain, mostly patients that struggle to move on their own and the people that stayed behind to protect them. 

Where is Sionis? Where are all of his men? Even in the flood of people, they would have stood out. Did they hear the commotion upstairs and run? One of the men fired his gun a couple times, maybe they went to investigate. 

No, they wouldn’t have let the hostages go if that were the case. He curses himself for not trusting his instincts, turning around to get back to the stairs, but the hallway is still blocked by all the people clamoring to leave. 

It takes painfully long to get to a stairwell, but he finally makes it. That’s when he hears the gunshot—different from the pops before, no this is a sound he recognizes. This is his gun. 

.

.

You wait until the hallway is quiet, peeking out the window for good measure. Nothing moves, the bodies on the floor limp. Blood pools around the three, puddles bright against the white tiles. You wait for another heart beat, holding your breath but the only movement comes from the blood, trickling down the hall. 

The door creaks open beneath your fingers. It feels like your footsteps echo as you hurry to the closest door. You make it to the first door, hand on the doorknob when you hear it—footsteps echoing from the stairwell, the opposite side of where Jeno left. They thunder up the stairs, at least ten men. 

You open the door a crack, whispering a sharp, “Stay hidden!” 

You don’t give whoever is behind the door a chance to argue, closing the door and sprinting to the stairwell as fast as you can. You hear a shout just as you cross into the stairwell, sprinting forward. You take one step toward the descending flight but see dark heads bobbing in the space between the stairs. You curse, turning and heading up. 

Shit, shit, shit. You can only go up. The men from the other end of the hall burst into the stairwell, your heart sending another shot of adrenaline through your body and pushing you to take steps three at a time. Even as you feel your body working harder than ever before, you know it won’t last. You have to find somewhere to hide. 

You burst onto the fifth floor, cringing as the door slams against the wall. No chance they missed that. 

You run as far as you dare, ducking into a storage closet and curling into a ball in the farthest corner, hiding behind a wall of bedpans. You shove a hand over your mouth, trying to cover your heaving breaths. Bile rises in your throat as the sprinting catches up to you but you swallow hard, closing your eyes and praying. 

Jeno’s gun rests in your other hand. The cold metal helps calm you down, your breathing evening out as you hear a door bang open. A moment later then there’s another bang. You hear footsteps in the hall, then another. They must be checking room by room. 

You’re about halfway down the hall, maybe five rooms in. You don’t have much time. 

You raise the gun, letting go of your mouth to hold it with both hands. Your finger drops to the trigger. Point and squeeze, Jeno said. You can do that. You aim it at the door, bracing your arm on your knees to keep them from shaking. 

You flinch at the next bang, feeling the wall shake. They’re in the room right next to you. They trash the room, sending vibrations through the floor, until it suddenly stops. 

You’ll have to move fast, you can’t give them any chance. 

Light cascades around as the door is thrown open. You squeeze the trigger, keeping the gun aimed at the large mass in front of you. There’s a loud bang and the gun slams your shoulder back but the man stumbles backward. You squeeze the trigger again and this time he goes down. 

A second man dodges the falling body, taking a step inside but you squeeze the trigger again and again and again and he falls too. 

Shit, how many shots was that? You clench your teeth but they seemed to have learned the lesson for the moment—nobody follows. 

“Alright, that’s enough fun.” You recognize Sionis’ voice from behind the mask this time. “Come out on your own or get dragged out. Your choice.” 

“I’d really rather stay here,” you say, voice shaking. You force yourself to your feet. 

“Fun way it is,” Black Mask says. This time two men push their way through, one blocking the other. You shoot and it hits the front man in the shoulder but he doesn’t go down. You squeeze the trigger again but nothing happens. 

You throw the gun at him, hoping to catch him in the head but he just knocks it away. You start pulling things from the shelves, throwing as hard as you can. It does nothing to stop them, grabbing you by the arms and heaving you off your feet. You twist and kick and try to bite but they don’t seem to notice. They hold you up in front of Black Mask in the middle of the hallway. 

“You are a feisty one,” he muses, watching you thrash. 

“Let me go,” you say. You try to growl but it comes out more like pathetic begging. 

“I’d like you to calm down a bit,” he says. 

You open your mouth to tell him to fuck off but apparently that was some sort of signal because one of the men raises a fist and brings it down hard on the top of your head. 

It sends jitters down your spine as your teeth clang together. You blink tears away, your head lolling forward a little. The floor blurs beneath you—no it’s your eyes, struggling to focus. 

“Now, on with business,” Black Mask says, clasping gloved hands together. “I—”

You nearly fall to the floor as one of the men holding you—the one you shot in the shoulder—falls to the ground. You tilt backward as the second man goes down but a tight hand around your arm yanks you backward. 

Black Mask pulls you into a patient room, the bed pushed against the wall next to the bathroom. He pulls you away from the door until your back is against the window. He keeps his hand tight around your arm, pressing something hard and cold against the side of your head. Your brain still reels from the hit but you don’t have to think hard to figure out it’s a gun. 

There are a few shouts from the hallway but it falls quiet quickly. Only one pair of boots echo in the hall, solemn footsteps that pause by the door. Then Jeno appears in the doorway. 

Blood splatters cover the shirt, concealing the bat motif. It seeps into his leather jacket, though Jeno himself seems to be unscathed. He holds a gun in one hand and his knife in the other. 

“That’s close enough,” Black Mask says when he tries to step inside. 

Jeno’s mask covers his eyes, but if it didn’t, you’re pretty sure he’d be glaring. “Let the innocent go. Settle this like an adult.” 

“Innocent?” Black Mask cackles. “Sure, I’ll let the innocent go. I already did that.” He grips your arm tighter, pressing the gun harder into the side of your head. “But this one isn’t innocent.”

He taps on the mask. “I don’t wear this for fun, I’m sure you know. But I’m not like you. I don’t hide to protect myself or my loved ones—I don’t even have loved ones, and you know why? Because this idiot and the idiots at this hospital don’t know how to do a simple facial repair!” 

“They were third degree burns, you’re lucky to have a face,” you say. 

“Shut up!” Black Mask screams, shoving you. Jeno takes a step forward but freezes when Black Mask turns back to him. 

“One more step and you’ll be cleaning some brains off your mask!” He takes a breath, lowering his voice. “I’ll be the first to tell you, that’s no easy task.” 

“Let the hostage go.” Jeno sounds cold through the modulator.  

“And you’ll let me go?” Black Mask huffs a short laugh. “I don’t think so. Your reputation precedes you.” 

“Then you know what will happen if you pull that trigger.” 

“Leave now and I’ll leave this one alive,” Black Mask says. 

“What, half mad after you spend a few hours with your tools?” Jeno says. “Your reputation precedes you, too.” 

Black Mask sighs. “Then it seems I have no choice.” The gun presses hard against your head. 

“I’ll be seeing you around,” Black Mask says. You squeeze your eyes shut, waiting for the shot but the pressure on the side of your head vanishes. 

There’s a loud bang, and for a moment you’re sure you’ve died, but then you feel a hard shove on your chest. Your legs hit the wall but it’s not enough to stop you from tumbling out the window, nothing but air beneath you. 

You barely raise your arms out before something tackles into you, an arm wrapping around your waist. You wrap your arms and legs around whatever they find, clinging like a baby monkey to Jeno’s side. 

He raises the other arm, shooting the grappling hook and pulling hard. You snap in the air, swinging up higher than you had fallen until you’ve crested the roof. 

“I got you,” Jeno says, arm wrapped so tightly around you you’re crushed against his side. 

He takes all the weight as you fall onto the roof, bracing the landing with his legs, somehow remaining upright. 

You can only cling to him, waiting for your brain to sort out what happened. You aren’t dead. Black Mask threw you out the window. Jeno caught you. You repeat the words over and over in your head until they almost make sense. 

“We’re back on solid ground,” Jeno says. 

“Mhm.” You don’t let go, keeping your arms tight around his neck. 

“You’re safe now,” he says. 

“I know.” 

He pauses. “You can let go.” 

“Not ready yet.” 

“Okay.” 

For a long moment all you can hear is the pounding of your heart. It lessens and you start to hear tires screeching on pavement down below, people shouting, sirens wailing in the distance. 

“Black Mask is getting away,” you say. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Jeno says. “I’ll get him when I get him.” His hand ghosts over your back. “All that matters is you’re okay.” 

“I’m fine,” you say. “Physically fine, at least. Just trying to sort out my head.” 

He hums, second arm wrapping around you in a true hug. You let yourself linger in the moment, breathing in the sharp scent of blood on his jacket. It smears against your scrubs as you press closer to him, turning them slimy against your skin. The jacket hides the warmth of his body, a hard layer separating you from him. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

You lean back, letting go of his neck to rest your hands against the side of his mask. Whatever it’s made out of is hard, a thin metal that curves around his features yet doesn’t bend beneath your fingers. It doesn’t look anything like Jeno, the pale eyes concealing the most human part of him. He reaches up, pulling the mask off. 

Sweat makes his hair stick to his forehead, which is creased with concern. His eyes flit between yours, dark and full of everything. For too long when you first ran into him, he would look at you with cold emptiness. Though you can’t read everything behind them now, he doesn’t bury all his feelings. He lets them shine through. 

“It’s not your fault,” you begin, letting your hands fall to his shoulders. “Too much has happened, and that guy hit my head, and I thought I was going to die, so it’s hard to tell what I want to say. What I’ve been meaning to say.” You take a deep breath, looking at his forehead instead of his eyes, at the white streak of hair that clings to his forehead. “But if I don’t say it now, I think I’ll chicken out and never say it. 

“I’m kind of a coward,” you say. “I don’t want to get hurt—I mean, like, don’t let anybody anywhere near my heart to keep it safe, and it works. I’ll find an excuse, any excuse to push them away. 

“I did it to you. Yeah, I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to think about you dying because it always sends me into a spiral, but those were all excuses. It doesn’t matter that you wear that mask. That doesn’t change anything, and I won’t hide behind it anymore. 

“I love you,” you say, “so much. So much that it’s making me brave. I don't want to be a coward anymore. I want to love you. I’m sorry it took me so long, but I love you, I really, really do.” 

Jeno doesn’t say anything for a long moment, looking back and forth between your eyes. He doesn’t frown or smile, his face a mask itself. 

“Oh,” he says. 

“Apparently near death experiences lead to radical reflections and revaluations of life values.” 

And then he smiles, a real smile that curls his eyes and sends your stomach hurtling in somersaults. He presses his forehead against yours, your hands still resting on his shoulders. 

“Don’t apologize for things that aren’t your fault,” you say. You brush his cheek with your thumb. “Save your applogies for real fuck ups.” 

He snorts. “Think there’s going to be a lot of those?” 

“Somehow I think I’m going to get stood up a lot,” you say. “It’s okay, though. That’s just what happens when you date a superhero.” 

“I don’t know about that,” he says. “I’m no superhero.” 

You kiss his nose. “Whatever you want to call it. But you’re a good man, Lee Jeno, through and through.” 

Jeno brushes his lips against yours, barely a kiss. He moves hesitantly, like he’s scared you’ll crumble in his hands. 

Well, you’re not going to die, he made sure of that. You are here and alive, and so is he. You grip the neckline of his jacket, pulling him into a crushing kiss. You press your lips harder against his and his arms tighten around you, finally kissing you back. 

It’s terrifying, how much you trust him. Like jumping off a cliff and knowing he’ll catch you—which basically he just did—you have to let go of the fear. Even when his arms are wrapped around you and you can feel him with every atom, it isn’t easy—a part of you will always want to run away, protect yourself. But you’re done running. Jeno put a gun in your hand and told you to fight. You can do that for him—for yourself. 

You will hold onto him and you will love him and he will do the same for you. It’s all you can do. 

.

.

Bonus: 

Jeno doesn’t know how you slept on this armchair. The back is stiff against his back and he can’t hang his legs off the side without the arms cutting into the back of his knees. He can tuck his head against the wing but it leaves his neck at an awkward angle. 

It’s for the best, though, since he needs to stay awake anyway. He shifts the chair until it’s against the side of the bed and sets his legs back on the edge of the bed, crossing one over the other and resting his elbows on the armrest. You raise your eyebrows at his feet but don’t tell him to move. He’ll give it a good twenty minutes before he tries to sit on the bed. He wonders if you’ll kick him out if he just asks outright if he can curl up next to you. Better to ease into it. 

You look radiant, wearing a big t-shirt curled under the blankets. Your lips curl into a little smile every time you catch him looking at you (which is pretty much always). 

“I’m going to invest in a big ass taser,” you say, still listing out your plan to keep yourself safe. “And some heavy duty pepper spray.” 

“I can teach you how to shoot a gun,” Jeno offers. 

You make a face, nose scrunching. 

“No?” 

You shake your head slowly. “No thank you. My arms hurt.”  

“How about some hand-to-hand?” He asks. 

“Are you going to be able to keep your hands to yourself?” 

“What are you talking about?��� 

You look pointedly at his hand, which has found yours, fingers tapping on your knuckles. Huh, he didn’t realize he was doing that. He raises both hands, holding them up like a criminal waiting to be arrested. 

“My bad,” he says, setting them in his lap. Your bottom lip juts out for a second but you’re too proud to ask him to hold it again. He bites back a smile at the little war behind your eyes. 

“How’s your head?” He asks. 

“Concussed,” you say flatly. 

“You want to sleep?” He asks. 

“Not yet,” you say. You finally concede, reaching out a hand for him. He puts his feet down, slipping out of the chair to sit on the edge of the bed, clasping his hand over yours. Your shoulder rests against his hip. You blink up at him. 

“What?” He asks. “Is this okay?” 

You nod slowly, studying him with piercing eyes. He gets the feeling you see right through him, so he turns his gaze to your intertwined fingers. 

“What did you think of me when you first saw me? When you moved here, I mean,” he asks. 

You pause for a long moment. “Honestly?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I thought you were unemployed for at least two months.” 

Jeno snorts. 

“I mean pretty much every time I knocked you were wearing sweats and half the time you looked like you had just woken up!” 

Jeno scratches the back of his head with his free hand. “I don’t wear sweats that often.” 

You pause for a moment and he doesn’t dare peek at your face. “When you asked me to sew up your scalp, I figured it was either vigilante or something worse, and then I saw Red Hood on the news and I just knew.” 

He looks at you, head tilted down to see the top of your head. “Really?” 

“It looks like you,” you say. You pause before adding, “Plus you’ve got that leather jacket hanging in your entryway. What’s up with that, by the way?” 

“What?” 

“Your ‘suit.’ A leather jacket and cargo pants?” 

“They’re functional,” he says. 

“Your name is Red Hood and you don’t even have a hood. It’s a mask.” 

“Well a hood doesn’t exactly protect you,” he says, “and it strikes fear into my enemies.” 

You snort. “Does the black t-shirt help with that?” 

“Yeah, I can’t defend that one,” he says. “It’s cheap and easy.” 

“No wonder you died,” you say. 

“I take personal offense at that,” Jeno says. 

You yawn. “Okay buddy.” You scoot over a little. “Just lay down already.” 

Jeno grins, shifting to pull the covers up and slide his legs down them. He stretches out, rolling as close as he dares to you. His arm hovers over you until you shake your head and pull it over your waist, shifting until he all but lays on top of you. Your shoulder presses against his chest, his head resting on the same pillow only a breath away from you. 

“If you wanted to cuddle you could have just asked,” you say. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” 

You turn your head to meet his eyes, nose brushing against his. He could melt into your eyes, so warm and full of a happiness he hardly recognizes. He hopes he looks a fraction as happy as you do—and he hopes you know it’s only a fraction of how he feels. 

He didn’t think he’d ever feel happy again. Even if he finally got his revenge on Joker and Batman, it would be bittersweet at best, the end goal of a bitter fight that started when he dragged himself out of that grave. 

But he is happy. It’s the warmth that courses through every fiber of his body, the way his heart pounds every time he looks at you, the hope he feels when he thinks of the “after.” 

“You know it’s been years since the last time I smiled?” He says. 

“Yeah, I could tell.” Your eyes soften impossibly more. You rest your hand against his cheek again, fingers soft and careful as they trace the lines of his smile. They work their way to his lips, ghosting over the soft skin. 

“I think that part is over,” Jeno says. “Hating the world.” He presses a kiss on your thumb. “I’d like to be happier now. 

“Red Hood is a part of who I am, and it always will be. But Jeno is too, and I won’t let go of that.” He tightens his arm. “I’d like to hold onto you, too, though.” 

You grin. “I’d like that too.” You press a short kiss to his lips. “But my head hurts and right now I’d really just like to go to bed.” 

Jeno nods, shifting away only to turn off the lamp on your bedside table. He curls back around you, tucking his head against your neck and pulling you as close to him as he can. He is Jeno, he is Red Hood, and he isn’t alone anymore. 

thank you for reading!! likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreciated

[azurlily]

Guess whose not dead?!

(This is an actual post with a character, just scroll down to the pink bow if you don't want to read this.)

I was in and out of the hospital for a long time. I'm sorry I haven't been writing, but I'm doing so much better. I've closed requests so I can catch up on the ones I currently need to do.

I also wanted to mention some of the newer works(that AREN'T being requested) that I plan to make will probably be either smut or darker stuff. It's a way for me to cope and I enjoy writing altogether.

Yandere!CEO x Fem!Reader

Morena(yan!ceo) x fem!reader

Synopsis: You're a young woman working in the tech industry, you know people(mostly men) don't take you seriously. Due to the constant stress of needing to be better (just to be considered good) you are constantly anxious and jittery, you've also developed a depressive mindset and you consistently struggle with taking your medication.

You just got a new job by a large, female owned, tech company! You thought you'd feel better and you wouldn't have to deal with a toxic environment. You were dead wrong; your boss is a bitch and expects constant perfection and no less. You were just barely able to make it under her radar, until she starts going through files- and you find yourself in her office with a deal you just aren't allowed to refuse.

Not like you can refuse a demon after all?

TW: Non-consensual kissing and physical touch, somewhat mentions future kidnapping.

The reader is kissed(while under a spell that takes away will-power from their body) and is forced to sign a contract against their wishes.

You stand quietly, with your hands in front of you- clasped together so tightly you'd think you were about to get in your knees and pray. But no, instead you were ready to beg to not be fired.

That's what this was right? You were getting fired and your horrible, asshole, bitch-faced boss wanted to say it to your face. You could cry, you almost did on the way here.

Yet as much as you wish you weren't in this situation, as much as you wish you could repent for whatever you did; you genuinely have no idea why you've been called here. You've never gotten a write up, all your reports are clean and bug free, and you work well with seemingly everyone.

You stand face forward, staring at the woman who decides wether you get to eat for the next month. The same woman who while you hate her, you can't -no you won't- deny her beauty. You-

"Hello?! Do you hear me or are you too busy pissing yourself to pay attention?"

You look down, wondering if you genuinely did pee yourself, only to see dry pants and floor. You look back up at her and she gives you the look of someone who both wants to laugh and yell(not in the good way).

You wondered if there was something who had tried to sue her for how rude she was. I'm sure there could be some sort of case, as long as there was proof. Hell, even witnesses would do.

"Sorry, ma'am. What exactly is it you called me for? Has my team done something wrong, did we miss some meeting, or did-"

She stands up, slamming her hand on the desk so loudly it echoes. You nearly jump out of your skin- was she going to hit you?!

"Be quiet. I can't handle you prattling on like a cow. I'm not firing you, nor am I firing anyone on your team. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Oh and please- call me Miss Morena. Thank you."

Oh she is definitely a condescending bitch.

You thought for a moment, 'quite the opposite'. So you aren't getting fired, hell you may be getting a raise! Maybe Morena wasn't so bad of a boss. Maybe she just likes hard workers.

"Thank you, ma- Miss Morena. If I may ask: does this mean I'm getting a promotion?"

Morena smiles, not the smile you give someone when they're right about something. The smile you give when you're a fox, and you've just cornered the bunny you've been trying to catch.

"Yes, a promotion of sorts. I actually have a contract for you, but I can give you the gist and read the rest to you later."

Morena pulls an inch thick stack of papers from the desk. She sets them aside with a pen and slowly steps out from the desk. Morena signals you to come closer, but you only take a few steps forward. You could practically feel how badly this situation was going to go.

As Morena got closer, you began to feel more compelled to make eye contact with her. Like someone was whispering into the back of you mind, telling you to look up. To look into the beautiful blue eyes that Miss Morena holds. To never look away; keep your eyes on hers.

Don't look away from me. I always get what I want and that isn't changing anytime soon, little rabbit.

"Well I've been looking over employee information and I noticed you moved from very, very many jobs before you got to this one. Never staying in one place. I never really liked people like that, and from what I've seen, people like that have done the same with my company. Now I hope -very strong word here- that someone with skills like yours wouldn't do something to this company. I hope that you'd stay, willingly of course. You would stay willingly, right?"

Of course you would, you never had any interest in leaving. You planned to stay past the one year mark, past the time where everyone would get raises in order to ensure you were getting a that this place was a good opportunity. You loved it here, you loved you teammates, your boss, you loved the office building itself.

"Of course I'm staying, Miss Morena. I would never leave."

The words coming out of your mouth felt robotic, they felt like you were lying to yourself and others. Like you were in your body, but you weren't the one speaking.

"Good girl, now go over to my desk and sign you name on all of those papers. Don't read them, you don't need to. You can put all your trust in me."

You did exactly as you were told, you signed every paper with you signature. You didn't even think, your body was moving like second nature. You had this warm feeling in your gut, this safe and controlled feeling. You like feeling like this- don't you?

You hear some shuffling behind you and yet you can't turn around to see what's going on. You only hear a voice.

"You know while your under I guess I can explain. You can't really yell at me or try to run away, so I can speak my peace. You're going to be the newest human I suck the life out of! But hey, for the next few months you'll get to live lavishly and without fear of anything. Other than me of course!"

Your brain registered what she was saying, but you couldn't respond. What were you doing to do? What could you do?

"Come here bunny."

You turn around and walk straight into Morena's arms. She gently grabs your face, you just noticed three of her fingers on her left hand have been filed down. Meanwhile the nails on her right hand, as well as her pinky and thumb on her left, are long and colorful.

Morena pulls you closer to her, her lips ghosting over your mouth. You feel her press her lips to yours and you get an overwhelming feeling of disgust wash over you. You feel nothing but utterly dirty as she kisses you, you feel like someone's just stabbed you and is trying to clean the wound to make themselves feel better about the act.

Your eyes are wide open the entire time, so you watch Morena go from kissing you deeply to pulling back in what looks to be shock. Her pupils dilate slowly, her eyes relaxing and you see nothing but black take over.

"Oh...oh you're much too sweet to kill."

Morena gently moves you head to the side pressing her tounge against your neck. You feel her shiver and watch as she pulls back with a dark smile on her face.

"I take back what I said about you enjoying these next couple of months. . . You'll get to enjoy such pleasures for the rest of your life. With me."

You let your body process her words this time, you don't know how to react. Instead you feel your eyes wet themselves, your expression hadn't even changed. And yet, you were crying. Morena notices almost immediately and you watch her face distort itself into a disdainful look of annoyance, until it twists into one of sadistic pity.

"Oh, shh, bunny. Hush now, stop those tears. I'll take the spell down once were home, in my home you wont be able to run away. So you can have a tantrum all you want there. I know you don't like me right now, you maybe even hate me, but give it some time. You'll realise you need someone, and I'm the best you'll be getting for the rest of your pathetic human life."

Everything goes black after that.

[op-sys-chaos]

A prompt I just saw by @brucewaynehater101 inspired me so have a sad DC prompt with a happy ending, ft. violence and character death and so much angst but also a good conclusion :)

What if the pits’ effects weren’t forever? What if instead, when you were revived with the Lazarus Pits, the Pit Rage picked a single goal and latched onto it. Not until after the Pit Madness fully fades and leaves only the Pit Rage, so it takes time, but the second you get your mind back the Rage gets a goal. Luckily, once you fulfill that goal, the Rage goes away and you get your mind back fully. Unluckily, it’s a rage-based goal, so it’s usually not pretty.

Jason is still in the midst of the Madness stage when Talia informs him of Tim becoming Robin. He’s almost out of it, but he’s not fully himself yet. The Rage latches onto Jason’s anger at being replaced. So Jason’s Rage goal is this:

Kill Tim.

Jason won’t get hit sanity back, won’t be rage-free, until Tim is dead.

Talia finds out about this and is instantly upset. This time, she’s not just delaying Jason’s return home by sending him to train with a lot of people for Bruce’s sake; she’s also doing it for Tim and Jason. She doesn’t think Tim deserves to die for the crime of putting Bruce back together and she knows Jason will be appalled by what he’s done once he’s fully sane again. So she delays as long as she can. But, like in the comics, Jason still goes home and enacts his plan.

Under the Red Hood still happens pretty much the same. Jason’s still in there, after all, and he’s still mad at Bruce. The only difference is this: during Jason’s attack on Titans Tower, he doesn’t stop. The Pit Rage is screaming at him with single-minded focus to kill Tim. So he does.

And, less than a second after the light fades from Tim’s eyes, Jason gets his full sanity back.

Jason gets his sanity back and the first thing he sees is the body of the little brother he just killed.

He can see it all now. How fucked up some of his plans were. How he never wanted to murder in the first place; the Pit Rage pushed him to do it. He doesn’t even blame Bruce for not getting there in time and not avenging him. He figured after all the shit he just did, they’re even. More than even; Jason just killed Tim. Bruce has the moral high ground now. Maybe he always did, Jason thinks. But he doesn’t have time to analyze his mistakes. Tim’s only been dead for a few seconds. Maybe there’s something Jason can do to save him.

He starts CPR.

Another Titan, maybe Kon, barges into the room (idk where the Titans are, I rest most of UtRH but I never read the Titans Tower bit so all my knowledge here is second hand) and sees Jason kneeling over Tim’s body doing chest compressions. Jason looks up and notices the Titan and tells them to start bandaging Tim’s wounds so he doesn’t lose any more blood.

Jason knows this probably won’t work. He’s desperate to fix it anyway.

The Titan starts bandaging, wanting to ask what happened but more focused on saving Tim, and Jason just keeps doing CPR. Jason doesn’t even notice himself getting tired as he does it; he’s got way too much adrenaline in him right now to care.

It’s been three minutes of CPR. The Titan has tears streaking down their face, knowing Tim isn’t surviving this. They’re about to tell Jason to give up.

And then Tim inhales. And coughs. And he’s breathing again, he’s alive, he’s okay-

Actually, he’s very much not okay, he’s immediately unconscious again and he’s very very injured. They rush him to the med bay at once and get him attached to the machines he needs to start healing. Jason, who followed, finds and needle and thread and starts stitching up the worst of the wounds and replaces the hastily applied bandages with better ones.

Tim stabilizes, but is in a coma for the next two days.

When he wakes up, the first thing he sees is the Titan who found him, followed by the rest of his team. They’re all so glad he’s alive and okay.

“How… how did I survive that?” Tim manages to whisper the second he finds his voice.

The Titan who found him looks at him with an unreadable expression, then says “Jason.”

“What?”

“When I found you, Jason was doing CPR. He ordered me to bandage up your wounds so you wouldn’t lose any more blood. He… he didn’t give up. Tim, he did CPR for three minutes straight to save you.”

Tim’s confused. “How?? Why??”

“You can ask him when you can leave the bed. Right now, he’s in a cell. We haven’t told anyone he’s here; we’re waiting for you to decide what to do with him.”

“We also may have told Batman that you had stayed up for three all nighters so we knocked you out to get you to sleep. That’s why he’s not here; he just thinks you’re getting some much needed rest,” another Titan (probably Bart) explains.

(…Do I even have the Titans roster right for this time period? I just realized I’m thinking of Tim’s YJ team not his TT team I have no clue who’s on TT rn. Anyway.)

“Let me see him,” Tim demands. So they stick him in a wheelchair and roll him to Jason’s cell.

Jason looks up, sees Tim, and pure relief is on his face as he says “You’re okay…” and then instantly breaks down sobbing. The team can make out the sounds of the words “I’m so sorry” over and over if they pay enough attention to the sounds coming out of Jason’s mouth.

Eventually, Tim asks Jason to explain. And Jason tells him that his Pit Rage goal was killing Tim. (The way that Pit Rage works in this AU is well known to the bats.) He explains how that ended up as his goal too. And Tim looks at him with a mix of pity and horror as he realizes. “You finally got your mind back for the first time in 4 years and the first thing you saw…”

“Was my little brother’s dead body,” Jason confirms with a whisper. Tim hides his shock at the fact that Jason called him his little brother right away and moves on with the conversation.

“So you ended up with my death as your goal, because you heard about me becoming Robin while still under Pit Madness and your mind, which was only 3/4 there at that point, decided that B replaced you and that I had to die to prove that Robins just get killed and he should have no more Robins. You end up in the Pit Rage state, leading to all the crime lord stuff, and you’re stuck in it for YEARS.”

“I think Talia delayed me as much as she could,” Jason chimes in. “I’m grateful to her for that. I wish she’d delayed me forever, though.”

Tim’s confused at that. “Jason, you would’ve been in that state forever.”

“It’s better than knowing that I killed my new little brother, even if I managed to undo it right after,” Jason admits, staring at the floor. “How… how can I go home and look B in the eyes after that?”

Tim smiled softly at that. He understood. “Jason, look at me.” With a gulp, Jason looked up. “We don’t victim blame here. We’re Robins. We comfort victims. You were a victim of the Pits, and we all know how the Pits affect a person.”

Jason looks back at his feet, but hope blossoms in his chest for the first time in 4 years. It’s nice to be able to feel that emotion again. “You mean it?”

Tim smiled at him, and instead of answering, said “Welcome home, big brother. You’ve been missed these last four years. I’m glad you’re finally, truly, fully alive again. As far as I’m concerned, the man who killed me died at the same time, and in his place my older brother was resurrected. It’s nice to finally meet you, Jason.”

Jason starts bawling at that. At Tim’s gesture, the Titans unlock Jason’s cell, and Tim rolls his wheelchair close enough to finally hug his brother. He’s not much of a hugger, but this is a hug-worthy occasion.

Jason is by Tim’s bedside for the rest of his recovery, being brotherly and making sure Tim heals. Eventually, Tim goes home, and he brings Jason with him. (None of the bats knew Jason’s identity at this point, besides Tim who figured it out bc he’s Tim.) People are suspicious about his spontaneous resurrection, until they mention that it’s not spontaneous at all. “He had to fulfill his Pit Rage goal first. Don’t worry, it was nothing that couldn’t be undone. We’ve already fixed it, so don’t ask,” Tim says, putting the matter more or less to rest. The Red Hood retires, leaving a message saying “I’ve seen the light and I’m gonna go join it.” No one knows if that means that he’s now a good guy or he left to go off himself. Most people assume the latter.

Jason rejoins the Batfamily after a few weeks of family bonding and healing under a new moniker (dealer’s choice). He’s wearing a domino (and Hood never too his helmet off) so no one really associates the two besides conspiracy theorists who think Hood’s message meant the first option. They’re right, of course, but Jason denies it when asked. Batman never finds out who was under the Red Hood, but Tim says “don’t worry, I know, and he’s gone now” and proceeds to make Batman regret asking whenever he brings it up again by being the most cryptic mf alive. Jason thinks it’s hilarious and helps Tim come up with vague ominous shit to say whenever B asks.

Eventually, Damian joins the family, and Jason jumps to Tim’s defense the second Damian tries to kill him. Damian doesn’t get in more than two swings before he’s stopped, and quickly learns that this family loves each other and murder isn’t okay. (He didn’t do it because Talia convinced him that Tim stole his spot as heir or anything; he just decided that all on his own, so when he was proven wrong it didn’t take all that long to convince him unlearn that notion.) Within a few months of Damian settling in, Tim passes on the Robin mantle willingly and becomes his own hero (the name is again dealer’s choice).

When the BruceQuest happens, Tim isn’t alone this time. When he insists Bruce is alive, Jason sides with him, saying “I came back from the dead, I’m sure Bruce can too.” (Half of the reason he sides with Tim is lingering guilt from the Tower, honestly, but hey it’s someone who believes him, Tim will take it.) Tim shows Jason how he arrived at that conclusion and Jason thinks it through and ends up fully on board. Between Tim and Jason, they get Dick to sit down long enough to hear Tim out, and within minutes the whole family is sure Bruce is alive. It helps that Damian was already Robin so that lingering angst didn’t hurt the already limited conversational abilities of the batfam. They all work together, and Bruce gets back in a week. Dick doesn’t have to take over as Batman and Tim doesn’t lose his spleen or get nearly SAed or any of the other horrendous shit that happens during that comic run (which is actually really well written and I recommend you read it, for Tim’s inner monologue at minimum. He’s so sassy, I love it. But I digress). As a side effect, the LoA is still going strong because Tim didn’t have to take it down, but it also means they don’t have Tim’s help with the Council or Spiders and the two groups do a great job of destroying each other.

Eventually, years pass, and Jason and Tim’s relationship has healed enough to start making jokes about what happened. To each other quietly at first, but one day, the family is playing Among Us and Jason (the imposter) kills Tim. In the ghost chat, Tim goes “smh, this betrayal hurts worse than when he actually killed me” and Duke, Babs, and Steph, who are already dead, start freaking out about “Tim what do you mean he killed you when did this happen are you okay are you fucking with us what happened???” Other people who die join the chat to pure chaos and Tim just silently laughing and screenshotting the whole thing, sending the images to Jason, who’s also cracking up. The second the game ends, everyone explodes with questions. All Tim says is “what happens in 20xx stays in 20xx” and doesn’t elaborate any further. The whole family starts digging through the reports from that year but of course find nothing. Jason and Tim think it’s hilarious. Everyone else is concerned. Eventually, though, the decide it’s just some prank or inside joke between the two. Until one day, Tim makes a joke about it when the Titan who found him initially is around, and the Titan goes “ugh, don’t remind me, seeing your dead body was horrifying.” The family goes straight back into freak out mode. Jason and Tim are too busy cracking up to answer, and the Titan shrugs and goes “I’ve been informed that what happened in 20xx stays in 20xx.”

Eventually, though, the group is in some situation where they have to confess secrets. Maybe there’s truth serum involved, or it’s like that secrets cave from Once Upon a Time where you have to share a secret to get out. And Tim admits that Jason’s Pit condition was killing Tim, and that the first thing Jason did when he got his sanity back a moment later was bring back his little brother. Tim also admits that he’s glad that that was the condition, because it meant he could be there to help Jason the second he came back to himself. Everyone is understandably horrified, but Jason’s touched that Tim was glad he could help him. Besides, Tim and Jason have been joking about it for a while now, so clearly, they’ve moved on from it. They’re okay. And then it’s Jason’s turn on the confessional. And he confesses to being the Red Hood. Batman and Nightwing of course freak out, but to the rest, they’ve only heard vague stories and seen the personnel file on Hood. They don’t get the big deal. Luckily, Dick realizes that Hood’s disappearance, followed by a note soon after announcing his retirement, coincided with the end of the Pit Rage. Batman, on the other hand, figures out that the Titans lied to him about Tim being on bed rest at that time and that Tim was actually recovering from his death. The Teen Titans get a massive lecture later, but Dick calms Bruce down eventually. They also update Hood’s file, noting that he’s retired and was under the influence of something during his time as a villain.

All in all, it ends well. The family is okay, the siblings are all actually on pretty good terms with each other, and Bruce has all of his kids home safe and sound whenever it’s time for weekly family dinner. Are they perfect? Of course not. It’s the batfamily, they’re still emotionally constipated af. But they’re a family, and they’re all as sane as they can be. And that’s what matters.

Ok it got a tiny bit heavy again at the end, I meant to end it with the among us bit, but still. What do yall think? :)

[ataraxiaspainting]

Cherry Wine.

Yan Chrollo x F Reader.

Synopsis: It is your last day of actual freedom, and Chrollo intends to have it end with a mix of your design and his own. Everything is perfectly set. All he has to do now is wait for you to come into the web.

Warnings: Yandere themes, a wild Feitan appears, stalking, drugging/restraining (chloroform/handcuffs), and kidnapping.

Word Count: 1k.

*~*~*~*

A familiar jingle accompanies the turntable’s rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers. It is your keychain, moving with your key as you unlock your apartment door, moving as your feet shuffle on your doormat to get rid of the dirt the soles had acquired from walking. The sounds of tired sighs, your headphones being placed beside the rack where your jackets and umbrellas and shoes are placed. Chrollo knows all of these melodies by heart because those notes make up the beautiful orchestra that is you. 

He hears the little creaking noise of the door closing, along with the lock being turned, sealing your fate. A small sound of the closet you keep near the entrance, which holds your bags and fancier footwear like high heels. Chrollo respected the silent rule of never wearing shoes inside, something that is out of character for him whenever he breaks into other peoples’ homes, and had placed his own black loafers behind that one expensive purse you only used one time for a presentation you had to make for your professors and peers. 

He had Shalnark record the entire thing and has rewatched it multiple times, each one seeming better than the last.

Everything about you, from how you walked, how you were so expressive with your facial expressions, how you seemed to be able to befriend anyone, everything about you felt like it came from another world. Or perhaps he is the one who came from another world, metaphorically? Chrollo chuckles at the thought. It would make sense, really, Meteor City felt like another world, that is for certain.

One of your cats meows loudly, the larger but older one from the way the meow was scratchy like nails on a blackboard, most likely being right next to you. He is distressed, perhaps. Chrollo is an unwanted visitor, after all, and despite being more of a cat person, he had to deal with your cats more than your dog, oddly enough. While your dog cowered and hid under the table, whining like she had been reduced to that of the small puppy she was when you first adopted her, your cats teamed up to attempt to scratch his eyes out whenever they jumped on the kitchen table or couch, hissing and possibly screaming bloody murder. Somewhere deep within Chrollo’s heart, it hurts a bit.

He knows that because of your naivety, you will just pet the cat, take off your coat, and your boots, and go upstairs, where your dining table has been set by Chrollo. It’s a welcome gift, in Chrollo’s opinion, but also perhaps an apology one as well.

As soon as you walk into the kitchen, your fate is as doomed as a little fly caught in a spider’s web.

“Come on,” You grumble. “Already? Geez. I just got that bag too…” Are you talking to your cat? “What the hell? I know you have stomach problems but… gosh.”

Ah. Do you plan on switching out the brand of cat food again?

“I guess that’s my own fault though for getting a cat I knew has digestive issues, huh? I can’t be mad at you. You’re almost the same age as me and… that’s a lot in cat years.” Chrollo hears the sound of a yawn as he presumes you are stretching. You must be tired, you have been on your feet all day today helping out your peers with their assignments, as usual. “It’s just now I have to clean up all this puke… argh.”

Should I speed things along? 

A text message from Feitan, who has been outside your apartment door, though you didn’t see him, unsurprisingly. He is most likely getting annoyed, from the tone of the writing, because Feitan can be doing much more important things for the Troupe instead of helping you “settle in” as Chrollo put it.

That won’t be necessary. Trust me. Everything is going as planned so far, even if this is a minor setback.

The reason why Chrollo didn’t choose someone like Phinks or Nobunaga to help him with this task is because Feitan is the most silent. He can easily imagine the other two scaring you away accidentally if they accidentally lose their cover.

The table is set, with flowers and books and other things you love. All he has to do is wait.

You should have just brought Machi.

Chrollo sighs at that, just barely audible. But he knows Feitan is nothing but loyal to him, so he knows that he will not try anything that he does not like.

Machi is busy shopping with Paku and Shizuku for the other things I need for [First], it would be rude to ruin their own task, Fei.

With that, Chrollo’s message is left on read.

Everything is going according to plan, and Feitan will not ruin it, even if he had wanted to.

All that is left is to wait. You’ll come on your own.

Feitan is only here if you attempt to run afterward, after you see your gifts, after all.

He hears footsteps, coming up the stairs, at long last.

One.

Two.

A large meal is placed on the side of the table that has an empty chair. Chrollo sits across, smiling. Plates and bowls filled with things that are sweet, savory, and everything else in between. They are all your favorites, Chrollo double-checked with Shalnark before he had left. Other items are placed on the table as well, like that jewelry set you were eyeing last week but unfortunately was too expensive for you. You were trying to limit how much you spend, a good habit to build surely. It is a shame you will never get to use that skill, though. Unless Chrollo gives you an allowance each week based on how well you behave, an entertaining concept in his opinion, but if it ever becomes reality it will have to wait a few weeks at the very least.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Chrollo also had Feitan carry handcuffs, in case the chloroform does not work as it was intended to.

But that is after you two talk, it would be rude to not introduce himself and show off everything he has bought for you.

Seven.

[krirebr]

I Know I Should Know Better 4

Pairing: Curtis Everett x Female Reader, references to past Colin Shea x Female Reader & past Johnny Storm x Female Reader

Word Count: ~3.5k

Summary: Curtis has been working as your body guard for almost two years now. Standing by and watching you work and party your life away is becoming more and more difficult, but is there anything he can do about it?

Warnings: Angst, adult themes, complicated power dynamics, minor age difference (not explicit in this part, but reader is mid-twenties and Curtis is early thirties), drinking & implied drug use, explicit language, bad boyfriend (Colin continues to be awful, even though we haven't actually seen him since part 2), self-destructive behavior, anxiety, negative self-talk. She's still having a bad time, you guys. All of my work is 18+ - Minors DNI

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

A/N: Well, here it is! As I currently have it planned, this will be seven parts, so we're officially past the halfway point now. This part's a little shorter, but I'm hoping you'll think it's worth it.

Big thanks to @drabblewithfrannybarnes for helping me nail down the new character here! (If you don't remember doing that Carly, it's because it was ages ago 🤣)

Any comment, reblog, or ask to let me know what you think will be greatly appreciated. Even if it's just screaming at me. 😄 As always, thank you so much for reading! 💜

The drive to the restaurant was uncomfortable. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just you. Sitting in the backseat alone, while Curtis and Jensen quietly conversed in the front, you felt ridiculous. You should learn how to drive. You were a grown woman who couldn’t even get herself anywhere—just another way you didn’t know how to be responsible for yourself.

You stared at Curtis in the front seat. It’d been a few weeks since your boundaries conversation. You hadn’t spoken to him much since. He was right. It was better. Cleaner. But you missed being able to talk to him.

Something had changed about the way he watched you though. You would swear that it was more intense now, the way his eyes followed you around the room. And it always seemed like he had something to say, he’d just never say it. He didn’t make any sense.

You took a breath. You were nervous about this lunch. You weren’t entirely sure what the purpose of it was, aside from the fact that Marnie Reynolds had wanted to meet. You hadn’t seen her in years and then she just texted you out of the blue two days ago, asking if you wanted to have lunch. You assumed she was going to pitch you something. Why else would she want to talk? You hoped it’d be something easy to agree to. It would make Wilford and Tanya feel better if someone actively wanted to work with you, at the very least. 

The restaurant wasn’t the kind of place you normally went to. It was nice, but tucked away, not designed for those who wanted to see and be seen. Marnie had chosen it. She was waiting for you at a small table in the back, even more private. She stood as you approached and enveloped you in a warm hug. She was just as glamorous as you remembered, suddenly hit by memories of sitting in her trailer while she let you try on her jewelry. She’d always been so nice to you. “Oh, honey, it’s so good to see you,” she said as you both sat down. 

You smiled and nodded. “It’s good to see you, too. How are you?” 

“Oh, good, good,” she said with a big smile. “Just got back from a shoot in Greece. Happy to be home.” Her eyes lost a little of their luster as she asked, “How are you, darling?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” you said. You could tell she wanted you to say more, but you just nodded and shrugged.

“Well,” she looked at you carefully, “I can’t get over how grown up you are. I know it’s silly, but I think I’ll always see you as the sixteen-year-old I met at the table read ten years ago.”

 “You and all of America,” you said dryly before you could think better of it.

Instead of chastising you, she just nodded. “I’m very grateful I didn’t have to grow up so publicly and then have to make that transition to being an adult. I can’t imagine how hard that is.”

You shrugged again. You didn’t really know what to say to her.

“Which, speaking of, I owe you an apology.”

Panic rose in your chest. Oh, god. Had she sold a story about you? Said something private in an interview? Blocked you from a new role? You weren’t sure you could handle one more thing right now. “Oh?” you asked shakily.

She nodded, seriously. “I should have done a better job of keeping in touch with you after we’d finished the movie. I owed you that much. I’m sorry.”

You furrowed your brow, confused.  “That’s fine. You’ve been so busy. I didn’t really expect you to remember me. I mean, you won an Oscar. I know how much work that takes.”

“Mmm,” she said, “and you sent me flowers.”

You shrugged. You just kept shrugging. “Well, you were always kind to me, and I was so happy for you. It seemed like the least I should do.”

 “You were always so sweet. I’m so happy to see that hasn’t changed.”

At the sincerity on her face, you looked down at your menu. You didn’t know what to say to that. 

“How’s your mom?” she asked, her tone strangely cautious. “Is she still your manager?”

“Oh, no. Wilford helped me get a new one when I turned 18. He thought I needed someone more experienced.”

She let out a breath, almost like she was relieved. “I have to admit, I’m happy to hear that.” You gave her a confused look and she continued softly, “She was always so hard on you. It was part of why I always invited you to my trailer. It seemed like you could really use a break from her.” She gave you another impossibly warm smile. “Plus, you were such great company. I loved making that movie with you.”

You couldn’t hide your relief when the server chose that moment to take your orders. You didn’t know what to do with the fondness in Marnie’s eyes. 

Once you were both done ordering, you decided you were ready to talk business. “So, what’s the project?” you asked.

She looked confused. “Project?”

“Uh, yeah. Whatever you wanted to pitch me? The reason you asked me here.”

“Oh, honey, no, I’m sorry. There’s no project. I just wanted to see you.”

That didn’t make sense. That she didn’t want to work with you again made sense. No one did, so of course she didn’t either. But then why else were you here? “I don’t understand,” you said quietly.

She let out a sad little sigh. “I’ve seen some of what’s been going on with you, online, and it just seems like you need a friend. I want to be that for you. I think about you more than you know.”

“Oh,” was all you managed to say.

She grabbed your hand over the table. “There’s so much going on for you right now. I can’t imagine how hard it must be, and then to have to deal with it in public too.”

You didn’t say anything, just looked at your joined hands on the table. Then, finally, still looking down, “Uh, yeah. I’m having a pretty hard time.”

She squeezed your hand. “I’m so sorry. I’m here to listen if you ever want to talk about it.” 

You finally looked up and nodded, but didn’t say anything else. You weren’t sure you could.

She looked at you carefully. “Have you thought about taking a break at all?”

You were reminded of Curtis, sitting on your couch, looking at you so earnestly, talking about taking a year off. You shook the image out of your head. “No,” you said. “It isn’t a good time. My reputation isn’t great right now, so I need to get back out there and show people that I can do the work. I need to fix it.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, “that sounds like agent speak.”

“Well,” you shrugged, “he’s right.”

“Remember, though,” she said, slowly, “that you’re a person, too. Not just a career.”

You just looked at her, blankly. Your career had been the most important thing about you since you were nine years old. You didn’t know how to separate the two. Luckily, that was when the server returned with your food, and Marnie graciously took it as a sign to take over the conversation for the rest of your meal. She talked about the movie she’d just finished, how her kids were doing, and the large garden she was planting at home. It was nice. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d had a meal out with a friend like this.

Still, you left the restaurant feeling raw and restless. You weren’t sure what to do with that conversation, the hard parts of it. The way she looked at you like she actually saw you. There was an itch in you now that just made you want to run.

Instead, as soon as you got home, you poured yourself a glass of sangria from the pitcher your housekeeper kept in your fridge and took the latest script Wilford had sent you onto your deck. You could feel Curtis watching you as you moved through the glass doors. That was his job, you told yourself. It was just his job.

The script fucking sucked. It was awful. The opposite of what you wanted to do. But you knew what Wilford would say. Beggars can’t be choosers. This was your fault. You were the one who’d destroyed your reputation. You had to be the one to fix it. And if making shit like this would fix it, then that’s what you had to do. Too many people relied on you for you not to do whatever you could, take whatever paychecks you could get. You hated it. You hated it so much. But you would do it.

You picked up your phone. You hadn’t realized how much time had passed. It was well into the evening now. There was a text from Michelle an hour ago, letting you know she’d left. And a few minutes ago, one from Nikki, a girl you partied with sometimes, that just said ‘Fuck them both!’

What the hell did that mean? Panic began to crawl up your throat and your hands started to shake as you typed your name into Google and clicked on News. Your stomach dropped.  Johnny Storm, that snowboarder you’d barely dated over a year ago, apparently had a podcast now. And the latest episode, posted that day, featured Colin Shea as its guest. Shit. Fuck. You couldn’t even look at what they’d said. There was no point. It was all just the same old bullshit.

You felt tears start to prick at your eyes. Why couldn’t everyone just leave you the fuck alone? You weren’t even that interesting. How could they possibly have anything to talk about?

Fuck that, you thought, as you stormed back into your house. You distantly registered Curtis calling after you, but you didn’t pay any attention. You were too focused. You headed straight up to your bedroom. They wanted something to talk about? You’d fucking give it to them! You charged into your closet and grabbed the sluttiest, shiniest dress you had. Fuck yeah. You could do this. You would be exactly who they wanted you to be. If they wanted a show so fucking badly, you’d give them one.

You ran back downstairs, looking for a particular pair of earrings that a costar had given you as a wrap gift a couple of years ago – huge dangly ones that said Fuck on one ear and You on the other. There was nothing subtle about what you were going for tonight. 

You’d have to think of someone to call, too. Someone suitable for the kind of scene you wanted to make, the kind of big mistake you wanted to fall into. You were so fucking tired of holding it all together. You were done. Your mind immediately landed on Lucas Lee, your costar in that dumb action movie last year. He was awful but so hot. Nothing but trouble and always up for whatever. Perfect.

As you entered your living room, your eyes landed on one of your jewelry boxes on the coffee table. There they were! As you picked up the box, you realized Curtis was sitting by himself on the couch. You saw him take in your short, sparkly dress and grimace. You weren’t in the mood to analyze it. “I’m going out,” you announced. “Have Jensen get the car ready.” 

You were already moving through, headed back upstairs when you heard Curtis rasp, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

You turned on a dime. “Excuse me?”

“I think,” he said slowly, so calmly you wanted to break something, “that going out right now, in the sort of mood you’re clearly in, would be a very bad idea.”

What the actual fuck? “Since when,” you asked, your voice quiet with seething anger, “is it your job to tell me what to do?”

He shook his head and you didn’t know how to react to how sad he looked. “I’m not telling you to do anything. I’m asking you to stay home tonight. For your own safety, which very much is my job.”

You just stared at him, dumbfounded. You didn’t understand him. He told you you weren’t friends. He was the one who said he was just your bodyguard. So what the hell was he doing now? 

In the moment you stood frozen, just staring at him, he took a cautious step forward. “Did something happen?” he asked barely above a whisper.

You shook your head furiously. You felt like you could barely form words. You were so angry and lost, and scared, and sad, and confused. You were feeling more than you thought your body could contain. And you knew, you knew, the only way to get these feelings out would be to go out and get as wild as you could. And here Curtis was, not letting you. You were afraid you were going to explode. “That’s fine,” you finally got out, ignoring his question. “You don’t have to come with me. Jake neither. I’ll get a fucking Uber.” You took a step towards the opening of the room. “Go home Jake!” you shouted through the house. “I won’t need you tonight!”

Curtis sighed your name. “I’m not going to let you go out by yourself,” he said firmly.

You threw your hands in the air. “Then make up your goddamn mind!” 

Jake appeared in the doorway, looking confused and Curtis turned to him. You took the opportunity to get back to the safety of your room, leaving your security detail to figure their shit out. Once back in your room, you dug through the jewelry box until you found the earrings you were looking for. You heard your back door open and close. Good. Jake, at least, was gone. You knew Curtis would be harder, but you were fucking determined. 

Just as you were opening Uber on your phone, Curtis appeared in your doorway. “What,” you growled.

“Would you just listen to me for a minute?!” He said, not quite a yell, but not not that either, as he barged into your room. All of his practiced calm from downstairs was completely gone. “Something bad is going to happen if you go out tonight! It is, I know it is. And I know you can feel it too!”

“Why do you care?!” You shouted at him. “No one else does! Why do you care so much?!”

“You know why!” he shouted back, and took another step toward you, but then suddenly stopped. Much, much quieter, much softer, and with eyes so pleading, he said “You must know.”

You didn’t. You really don’t think you knew until that moment, when the realization slammed into you. Every look, every sigh, all of the moments of him that hadn’t made sense. You took a step back. “What?” you breathed, barely realizing that you were shaking.

He took a step forward to follow you, then stopped. He opened his mouth to say something, but you shook your head at him. “No,” you said. “You can’t.”

“I can’t?!” he asked, incredulous and upset again.

“No!” you shouted, but it was so much weaker now. “I just– Why would– I’m such a fucking mess!” You were starting to cry, the adrenaline of the last half-hour finally leaking out of you, replaced by that same bone-deep exhaustion that you’d had for too long. “I barely have a high school education. I don’t know how to do anything for myself. No one wants to work with me. I am barely keeping it together and everyone knows it. I’m a trainwreck! Why would you–” You couldn’t bring yourself to say the words that you knew he meant. “Why would you have feelings for someone like that?”

 The sadness was back in his face. You looked away, unable to bear it. In your periphery, you saw him take a cautious step forward, then pause. When you made no move to run, he eliminated the distance between you, standing directly in front of you. He slowly, gently, carefully brought one hand up to touch your face, caressing your cheek with his thumb. “I know,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “I know all that and I still love you. Because I also know that somehow, despite everything, you are one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. You are so kind. And thoughtful. You let everyone see your soft spots, even when all they do is hurt you. You have every reason to be awful or bitter or mean or any of a thousand things. But you aren’t. It’s all of it, it’s all of those things and the ones you said too. All of it together, that’s why I love you. I love you because you’re you.”

You wanted to sob. No one had ever said anything remotely like that to you before. Not anyone in your family, or a single one of your exes. No one had ever cared enough to say any of that. Except for Curtis. He’d always cared, hadn’t he? Since that first day he’d showed up, when you’d been so scared about the possibility of a stalker, he’d taken such care with you. He was the most caring, thoughtful, beautiful person you knew. You took a deep breath and looked into his eyes.  You could see his worry, but also the deep conviction with which he’d just said all that to you. You couldn’t help yourself anymore. You surged forward and you kissed him. 

He made a noise of surprise—you didn’t know how he could possibly be surprised after all that—but after just a moment he was kissing you back, bringing both hands up to cradle your head. You were getting your tears all over him, but he didn’t seem to care. He was soft and gentle and passionate. You needed more. You needed all of him.

You took a step back, breaking the kiss. You did what you could to brush the tears off your face. You grabbed the bottom of your dress and pulled it over your head, then tossed it on the floor. You stood in front of him in the lingerie you’d picked out to fuck Lucas Lee of all people and couldn’t understand how you’d ever been able to think about anyone but Curtis. But you did know how when you stopped to think about it. You’d never been able to fathom that you might deserve this man. That he might actually want you.

He stared at you. “Fuck,” he whispered. “You’re–” you braced yourself for what might come next. So hot or fucking sexy. You’d even gotten beautiful once or twice. He only took a second before he finished his sentence “–incredible,” with such awe on his face that you actually felt your knees go weak. You had to look away. He was too much.

He took your face in his hands again and placed a soft, short kiss on your lips. “But would it be ok if we slowed down?” he asked.

You couldn’t keep the disappointment out of your voice. “Why?” 

“This is real for me,” he said. “And if we do this, I want it to be real for you too. I want you to be sure. And for now,” he stroked one thumb over your cheekbone, “right now I just want to hold you. Is that alright? If I just hold you tonight?”  

You didn’t know how to respond to that. Sex had always been the best, most important part of any of your relationships. It’d been the biggest thing that any of your previous partners had wanted from you. You weren’t sure you knew how to do it any other way. But he was holding you so gently, looking at you so softly, all you could do was nod. 

He kissed you once more. Then stepped back and started to take off his clothes. You made your way to your bed and got in, watching him as he shed his clothes. He really was the most beautiful man you’d ever seen. Nothing on any movie set you’d ever been on, any party you’d ever been to could compare to him. 

Once he was down to just his boxers, he crawled in next to you and pulled you close. Your lips touched his shoulder as you asked, barely audible, “You really love me?”

He kissed your forehead. “Yes,” he whispered. “I really love you.”

Taglist is open

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[leikeliscomet]

Heartstopper's Aspec Representation Isn't For Me - And That's Okay (Mini Essay)

Spoilers for Series 3!

So I just finished series 3 and I feel conflicted. I don't hate Heartstopper at all. I think it's a very cute show. I'm happy queer baby gen z and gen alpha have something to see themselves in, I love how Tara, a darkskin Black lesbian girl is happy in her relationship. I'm happy Isaac makes my fellow aspecs happy. I'm happy Charlie tore Ben's singlet in series 2 and for once the victim/survivor is allowed to not forgive their assaulter. I like Heartstopper's little moments but I've felt like something was missing overall and now we're on the third season, I think I know what it is now. There's comments on BL and yaoi by Alice Oseman I don't fully agree with, some of the acting in the show could be a bit better I guess, most of the characters are comfortably in the British middle class and I am a grown adult now so my interest in school/teen dramas has dipped a little bit (but not you Waterloo Road ily <3). So to an extent, there were always gonna be limits on how much I enjoy this show, but nevertheless, I still think they're worth pointing out, especially if we're claiming Heartstopper for the next gen of queer rep. Because honestly having watched shows like Heartbreak High and Koisenu Futari plus being a massive Selah and the Spades fan, I feel a bit robbed in terms of quality.

Isaac still feels underdeveloped and for a show that's been going on for 3 series now this feels disappointing. Like obviously Nick and Charlie get all the screentime as they're the main characters. Tao and Elle got a lot more juicer storylines from s2, Tara and Darcy got more to work with this series even if it was rushed (oh I miss you long series 2010s shows), but Isaac still feels leaps behind everyone else. He didn't really get anything in series 1. In series 2 we saw him coming to terms with his identity which felt like a good starting point but I was still waiting for the 'big asexual plans' Alice Oseman promised and... nothing. I liked his comment about googling aromanticism to Charlie because the representation by PowerPoint style of aspec writing can get tired. I also liked his moment of feeling left out by his friends plus still wanting to know Nick and Charlie's tea, giving him sexual agency whilst aroace instead of feeding into infantilisation. But apart from that... nothing. I wanted to feel more moved by the aquarium scene, but it felt tacked on because whilst Isaac's upset was justified, Imogen just wanted to chat about gay fish, so Isaac came across as a little passive-aggressive instead of what was supposed to be his moment. Plus it feels a little backhanded how much effort series 1 went to in how big coming to terms with your identity is, plus the gorgeous way Isaac's aroace revelation was filmed in series 2 was filmed just to have him blurt it out in an aquarium and have barely any of his friends actually support him like he supported them. But life imitates art I guess. This whole season we've seen characters talking about university plans, gap years and going through the post-16 struggle. But what about Isaac? We never find out what uni he wants to go to or even if he wants to go. What subjects does he like? What job does he want post-school? What's his relationship like with his family? The people need to know! I always found it weird how Isaac was left out to the point where straight characters, whilst still bearing in mind that Tao x Elle is an interracial pairing between two POC and one of which is a trans girl and this is very rare and deserved representation too, had gotten more screentime than him. Imogen, Sahar, Mr Ajayi and Mr Farouk had all been introduced for bigger storylines but Isaac, despite being in the main group, still had to wait for his share. This series was such a huge moment for everyone but Isaac... again. And whilst I'm happy if everyone else is, I genuinely feel like we all deserve better.

Tori was given bigger moments this series and that was great because I was waiting for my introverted slurping sister to come through. Her concern and care for Charlie and jealousy of Nick were great plus with the introduction of Michael, it was all leading to the big reveal of Tori being ace, right? Right? Wrong, because this scene was cut from the ferris wheel moment and I have no idea why. Oseman confirmed it was because Tori's storyline will continue in s4 and she didn't want to rush it but like, what? Series 3, at least in my eyes, did an alright job at building up her coming out. And again, if Nick could get his bi awakening in a one series arc, why can't this asexual character then too? They also covered Darcy's non-binary transition and coming out in this series too so I don't know why there wasn't room for Tori apparently. There was plenty of room for an 'I'm asexual' within those 5 minutes. Waiting to develop her in series 4, which is yet to be confirmed and likely to be the show's last series so it will already have a lot to do with wrapping up the Nick x Charlie saga seems like a poor decision. This is the second time we've had to wait till next season for the aspec character's arc by the way.

I'd like to see some aroallo POVs on this but this season put a lot of emphasis on linking love and sex together and it felt a bit strange icl. Yes, they're linked socially/societally and it's great to have sex with someone you love and love someone you have sex with etc etc etc but the first 2 series made a point of separating the two by showing love without sex and how it was just as meaningful. Almost every time a character was sexually attracted to another e.g. calling them hot or started making out because they wanted to have sex in that given moment there would be a dialogue from one of them going 'it's okay we're in love 'it's normal you're in love' 'well that's what people in love do!' and these are all correct statements but like... we get it! You don't have to be head over heels in love to find someone sexually attractive or just want to have sex with them. It's okay if you're not in love too y'know? I'm not sure what that constant reassurance was for because depicting sex without love isn't as pearl clutchy as it seems when all parties are safe, consenting and comfortable, or, if you've ever had any knowledge about aro(allo) spaces tbf. Nick and Charlie are not aspec and are very much sexually attracted to each other so the conclusion of them having sex isn't surprising at all, especially when I already knew from tweets back in series 1 that Heartstopper the comic already had a storyline later on of the two having sex for the first time. Plus the other characters aren't aspec either so their sexual debuts are also unsurprising and deserved. Plus, I'm actually glad they included Tara and Darcy having sex because many 'sex positive' shows seem to leave out the lesbians. But for a show with an aroace creator and aspec characters, the depictions of romance and sex don't feel like they were written from an aspec lense or for an aspec audience. It's normal for people to be romantically and sexually attracted to each other and then date and have sex. But if you're aspec, you know this. We all know this. This is the mainstream and default depiction of human (hetero)sexuality. We're watching the queer shows to see something different from that. When romance without sex can only hinge on the characters being below the age of consent plus a supposed 'innocence' due to their young age and sex without love is non existent, plus when you factor in how there are no aroallo or alloace characters in the show with 'groundbreaking' aspec representation, it makes for a bit of a headscratcher. Heartstopper may be made by an aspec, has aspec characters and aspec fans, I don't consider it an aspec show. Bit sad, but it is what it is.

It's honestly strange how despite this fact, asexuality and aromanticism is barely mentioned in the main discourse about this show. Antis claim Oseman is a cishet woman despite being non-binary and aroace. They blame the sexlessness of the show on puritanism despite Oseman being aroace. There's constant arguments about how 'unrealistic' it is for teenagers to not have sex despite Isaac being a whole teenage aroace and how some people just didn't have sex in their teens... like aspecs. People are annoyed the show keeps giving Isaac aromantic and asexual storylines because it's 'not as important' and they 'don't care' as if he's not a main cast member and again, the creator is aroace! If you look at the promo pictures of the show, it has the main three pairings, Nick and Charlie, Tao and Elle and Tara and Darcy and no Isaac. Despite the fact it's supposed to be 'for' us and made by one of us, it's not. And a lot of non aspec queer fans watching the show don't see it for us despite being made by one of us either. And that's a real shame.

I'm fully aware Oseman knows about writing aroace characters from the book Loveless, which has an aroace MC. But I think Netflix choosing to adapt Heartstopper over Loveless was intentional. I think Netflix creating Isaac instead of Aled, a demi gay non-binary character from the og comic, was intentional. I think all the decisions Netlix made with Isaac and Tori are intentional, the same way bringing Yasmin Benoit to the Sex Education writers room to cut half of O's storylines was intentional. Netflix has fumbled the bag with asexual and aromantic representation several times now (Cash Piggot and Todd notwithstanding) so at this point, I'm not surprised anymore. Again, I'm happy for anyone who really likes Heartstopper, but I've finally accepted that it's not for me. And that's okay. When someone makes the predominantly aspec, slightly more grown, queer show with fully fleshed out arcs for its's asexual and/or aromantic characters or hits up Lovie Simone for the scrapped Selah and the Spades TV show, I know where I'll be.

We deserved our moments too. We deserve our Heartstopper.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

you once said that the ZK do not allow the canonical Zuko to show real, sometimes ugly signs of trauma. can you write more about this? because that's what I always felt when I came across their terrible takes, but I couldn't express it.

Gladly! But first, I need to mention the sign of trauma that Zuko usually lacks - and that, for some reason, the fandom insists defines his character:

Fear

Don't get wrong, I'm not saying Zuko never experienced fear. We all saw that poor boy on his knees, crying, begging his father not to hurt him.

But in "Zuko Alone" we also see 10-year-old Zuko get bitter that only his younger sister was expected to show off her firebending skills, and deciding that he would go against his father and demonstrate his own skills to the Fire Lord - that despite the fact that he knew Azula was better at it than he was. Even when it goes wrong, he is upset, but doesn't look afraid of the consequences.

That same episode shows Azula mocking him for playing with knives despite not even being good at it, and even though the fandom insists she was his worst fear ever since he was a child, Zuko responds with a "Put an apple on your head and we'll see how good I am." That little guy has exactly zero chill.

Let's not forget why he was banished either: Despite being considered too young to be in that war meeting, Zuko demanded to be there, eventually got his way, and despite having been told not to say anything, the second he hears a general suggest using their own men as "fresh meat" to lure the enemy, Zuko speaks out against it. And at the start of the Agni Kai, he looked 100% ready to fight a grown ass man with battle experience - until he saw it was his father/Fire Lord.

Let's not forget his Agni Kai with Zhao, which was his idea and that he actually won - and before that, he openly calls Ozai a fool, to which Zhao points out that banishment clearly not teach Zuko to watch his mouth. Or the time he openly challenged Azula in Ba Sing Se and they only didn't fight then and there because Azula knew she'd have the advantage by using the Dai Li. Hell, at the start of that very season, after she tried to lure him to a trap, Zuko's first reaction is to charge at her, fire-daggers in hand. That boy is the definition of "Fuck around and find out."

He has also done things like choosing to save his uncle from earthbenders instead of chasing Aang, crossing a blockade and going into actual Fire Nation territory even though he legally is no longer allowed to do that, and helped rescue Aang from Zhao as the Blue Spirit. It shows us that Zuko doesn't have an issue with temporarely deviating from his mission because of something HE deems important even though his father doesn't, openly disregarding Ozai's orders, and even basically saying "My father will have the Avatar as a prisoner only if I'm the one to capture him"

And, of course, on the day of the eclipse, Zuko grabs his swords and directly threatens Ozai, telling that bastard to sit the fuck down, shut up, and listen to his list of reasons why he sucks as a parent, ruler and person.

Zuko is brave. Unbelievably so. He is fierce, proud, and impulsive to the point of getting himself in situations that he should have known would not go his way (like fighting a waterbender in the snow, in the full moon) because he is very much a "act first, think later" kind of guy. So the fandom's insistence that he is constantly paralyzed by fear is a gross over-simplification of how his trauma affects him.

We only see him genuinely afraid of Ozai twice. During the Agni Kai itself, and then again when he WANTS to speak out against his father's plan to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground, but can't bring himself to because he remembers what happened last time he spoke out against that kind of horrible thing during a war meeting, at that very room. It took something THAT triggering to make him cower before a challenge.

However, fear wasn't the only reason why didn't speak out during that moment, and that takes us to the first "ugly" sign of trauma that the fandom as a whole likes to pretend Zuko wasn't repeatedly shown to experience:

"My father is right about me, actually"

Zuko doesn't think Ozai was wrong to disfigure and banish him. How could he? Nobody in that entire room stood up to at least try to support him, not even his uncle - who also once said "Why would your father have banished you if he didn't care about you?" because, surprise surprise, nobody in that family knows how to help someone through trauma because they're all dealing with their own shit. Even his crew, who WAS sympathetic to him after finding out how he got that scar, were still 100% willing to not only support Ozai, but risk their lives for him.

Zuko isn't just trying to heal from abuse, he is trying to heal from victim-blaming, and to go against YEARS of indoctrination that say the Fire Lord can do no wrong. That's part of why it was so difficult for Iroh and others to help him: Zuko didn't believe that he needed or deserved help.

And that is also one of his three major unhealthy coping mechanisms. Claiming that HE needs to prove himself to Ozai, that HE needs to make up for HIS mistakes, not the other way around.

It might seem strange that this could be a way to cope, but look at it this way: If it WAS his fault instead of Ozai's, then that means his dad is not an unfair, abusive piece of shit that is unbelievably cruel and impossible to please. Zuko just needs to accomplish this mission of capturing the Avatar and everything will be fine, they'll be a normal family again, and he won't have to be afraid of someone he thought he could trust.

It was like Iroh said: Things are never going to be the same ever agin, but the Avatar gives Zuko HOPE. And that hope that his abuser will one day have a change of heart and be a loving father to him again is both what allows Zuko not to give into despair - and what keeps him trapped in that awful situation.

Misplaced Anger

Another "unpleasant" sign of trauma that Zuko has is how he clearly has an anger problem. Sure, he's a moody teenager with a short fuse, but we see over and over again that he tends to blow things way out of proportion, and that when faced a fact or opinion he doesn't like, he is quick to lash out at someone with VERY cruel words (see him calling Iroh a lazy, shallow, jealous old man in "Avatar State", or calling him crazy and saying if he wasn't in prison, he'd be sleeping in a gutter in "The Headband").

Through the entire show, many people faced Zuko's wrath - Iroh, Aang and friends, his crew, Azula, innocent people of the Earth Kingdom, Mai, Ty Lee, that one rando that talked to Mai, and even Zuko himself.

The one person that usually escapes said wrath is, ironically, Ozai. In "Zuko Alone" he refuses to believe his father would ever be capable of harming him, in "Avatar State" he snaps at Iroh for doubting that Ozai really changed his mind about the whole banishment thing.

He is mad at Aang for being too difficult to capture, and at Zhao for stealing his one chance to come home. He never stops to question if it's fair that his father had him chase someone that was presumed dead, aka an impossible task, as the condition to bring him home. He also never addresses how he feels about the reason WHY said banishment happened until the Day Of Black Sun.

He is mad at Azula for lying to him and trying to take him home as a prisoner. He never gets mad at his father for not only wanting to lock him away forever because ZHAO screwed up at the North Pole, nor how messed up it was that he put Azula in charge of said mission.

For fuck's sake, in the day of the eclipse, we find out that Zuko legit believed his mother was DEAD - and the entire circumstance was shady as hell and put Ozai in a very bad light. Yet Zuko still wanted his love, still wanted to be a "worthy" son.

He HAS to direct his anger at other people, otherwise he'll realize that no, his father, the adult that was meant to care for him, is a complete monster.

Everytime Zuko lashes out at other people before confronting Ozai, he's basically acting like someone who is drowning and, in a panic, is trying to pull the nearest person under so he can try to breathe. It is one of the most accurate and honest representations of trauma and abuse, and it makes me SO mad when people erase it in their fics because "poor, innocent, helpless turtleduck that can do no wrong" makes Zuko look like less of a dick - and also completely strips him of his agency.

And that isn't even the thing that fans ignore the most. That "honor" goes to the simple fact that Zuko, as expected of a child raised to believe the Fire Lord can do no wrong, decided that Azula had the right idea and that the best way to avoid being a victim again was...

Copying His Abuser

Zuko has REPEATEDLY let his "inner Ozai" out through the show.

He is all manipulative by not letting the pirates know he was chasing the Avatar who was worth A LOT more than the scrowl they'd get as a reward for helping him, and by using Katara's necklace as a way to try and get her to say where Aang was.

He repeatedly steals stuff from innocent people (including some who helped him, like Song) because, in his own words "These people should just be giving stuff to us" - aka he's very much an entitled prince.

He betrays his uncle by joining Azula in Ba Sing Se, leading to Iroh being thrown in prison. He also doesn't give a shit when Katara says "I thought you had changed!" and he sends a freaking assassin after the Gaang. Even him refusing to tell Azula that there was a chance Aang could still be alive works both as a "Zuko doesn't trust Azula to not use that against him, and for good reason" and "Zuko did not even stop to think that, since Azula was the one who killed Aang, him coming back also puts HER in danger, because he's too focused on his own problems to notice anybody else's."

More importantly, he rejected a chance of a ceasefire with the Gaang three times (The Blue Spirit, The Chase, Crossroads of Destiny), much like Ozai refused his shot at ending the war in the finale before his battle with Aang, and not only did he challenge Zhao to an Agni Kai and seriously consider burning him, he also threatened one of his crewmen by saying he'd "teach him respect" - which we found out later that episode was what Ozai right before disfiguring poor Zuko.

For fuck's sake, Ozai was literally designed to look like an older Zuko. One without a scar, one that was never banished, one that never had to see first-hand all the death and suffering war brings and reflect on the role he plays in it.

Finally, we have the war meetings in "Nightmares And Daydreams", in which Zuko doesn't speak out against his father's completely inhumane plans to deal with the Earth Kingdom. When talking about it with Mai, he says "I was the perfect prince, the son my father wanted. But I wasn't me."

That is the turning point for Zuko for a reason. It's him finally being forced to acknowledge that, to become Ozai's ideal son, to earn his (conditional) love, to not be his victim he has to be just as bad as he is, just as cruel, just as unfair - and we see in Azula's breakdown how Zuko likely would have ended up if he accepted that path.

But he didn't, and that was not easy because even though it was the morally correct choice, it'd require him to sacrifice everything - his title as a prince, his right to be in the Fire Nation, his relationship with Mai, his (extremelly complicated, sometimes good, often awful) bond with Azula, the "easy" way to get literally anything he wanted at everyone else's expense, and, of course, accept that his father was never going to love him, was never going to change, and was never going to feel sorry for abusing him.

Erasing such a central conflict of his character for the sake of denying he ever did anything wrong is, ironically, removing one of Zuko's most noble character traits: his inability to just live with himself after doing something horrible. There's a reason he is in deep conflict even after getting everything he wanted after the fall of Ba Sing Se - he knows he doesn't deserve it after what he's done.

If you ignore his mistakes and the horrible consequences it had for other people, you also ignore Zuko's growth. This puts him more in the position of a good guy being held hostage by the evil villain, not of a troubled child that redeems himself as he matures.

No flaws, no mistakes, no growth, no arc.

Trauma Doesn't Just Go Away

This one is, by far, the bad trope regarding Zuko's trauma that Zutarians are the most guilt of: assuming that if he just gets enough comforting hugs (mainly from Katara), all of his inner turmoil will suddenly be healed. No more sadness, no more fear, no more of the ugly traits they never acknowledge in the first place. Just a happy, fully recovered Zuko.

But that's just not how these things work. Having the support of a loved one helps victims feel better, but it won't magically make everything okay. Trauma is a really difficult thing to handle. There's good days, bad days, relapses, bad habits that are difficult to move past from. And not only are there cases in which people take YEARS to recover, there are also cases in which they never fully heal, and instead just learn to live with that burden that is still very much present.

I understand the desire to show in fics and headcanons that Zuko will eventually be fully healed and happy, but the way Zutarians make Katara act as not just his girlfriend, but as basically his therapist that needs to find miracle solutions for every single one of his problems, comfort him whenever any minor inconvenience happens until he's gotten enough hugs to be magically okay doesn't just reveal how hypocritical they are, since they insist Kataang is about Katara being Aang's girlfriend/mom/baby-sitter, but also that they legit do not understand a damn thing about trauma and how it works.

Which takes me to:

How Mai Actually Did Right By Zuko

Poor, poor Mai. She gets blamed for "bring out the worst in Zuko", for not being "supportive", for being too cold and unemotional, for not "seeing the real him" - yet she's one of the characters that CONSISTENLY help put Zuko back on his track.

She offers him emotional support and lots of signs of affection over and over again - telling him not worry when they're arriving at the Fire Nation, pointing out she doesn't hate him when she says she's beautiful when she hates the world, explicitly saying she cares about him in The Beach, being incredibly sweet and loving to him during all of Nightmares and Daydreams, and then again in the finale by helping him get dressed up and acting all cute as they get back together.

But she also holds him accountable when he screws up. She doesn't let him use his difficult life as an excuse to be a jerk and calls him out when he's being unreasonable, or when she feels mistreated/like he's making a mistake (see The Beach and Boiling Rock Part 2).

But since the fandom loves to completely erase Zuko's mistakes AND to not let go of a stupid ship war, this completely changes the context, making Mai out to be this awful, bitchy girlfriend, when in reality, she did a great job handling Zuko - sometimes even better than the fan favorite and mentor figure Zuko had through most of his arc.

Uncle Iroh Fucked Up

Before all of you try to kill me, let me make one thing clear here: I love Uncle Iroh. He is one of the most awesome characters in the show, and I fully believe he was trying his best to help Zuko.

But he is still a human being that makes mistakes, and he was raised in the same dysfunctional family Zuko was, meaning he often had NO IDEA how to handle his deeply traumatized teenage nephew/son.

Him spending all of book 1 trying to help Zuko capture Aang so he could go back to living with the guy that disfigured him is already bad enough, but we also have the episode "Avatar State" in which Iroh asks "Why would your father banish you if he didn't care about you?"

Obviously he only did these things because he didn't want Zuko give into despair and depression - but he is still, at best, ignoring the issue, and at worst actively making excuses for Ozai's abuse of his own son. This backfires on him spectacularly, as Zuko sides with Azula over him both in the first and last episode of the season specifically because he believes that appeasing Ozai is the right thing to do, as he was only banished "for his own good."

But THE biggest mistake Iroh made when it came to helping Zuko was his refusal to accept that no, Zuko was never going to be happy by living a quiet, simple life in Ba Sing Se - even after Zuko explicitly said as much to his face.

Obviously, to some extent, Iroh HAS to make Zuko accept that he won't ever be able to come back home after Ozai literally ordered Azula to capture him, but he could have tried to find some kind of middle ground with Zuko, since being a waiter clearly wasn't making him happy.

"Oh, but what about how Zuko started acting after his metamorphosis? He was so happy about working on the tea-shop with his uncle, and that was supposed to reveal his true self!"

Yes, it was supposed to do that. But we saw how Zuko acted after actually dealing with his trauma and redeeming himself. He was obviously in a much healthier place, both mentally and spiritually, but he was still moody, still sarcastic, still as proud as ever, and even Iroh recognized that he was meant to be Fire Lord.

Zuko's arc has a lot to do with identity, with how he sees himself. At that point, the only thing he still had in life was his uncle - so he was acting like him, because there seemed to be no other role model, no other path. Seeing that weird, cheery, relaxed, always-seeing-the-good-side-of-things version of Zuko was honestly unnerving.

And Iroh thought that Zuko basically giving himself the Lake Laogai treatment was okay because he following in his footsteps, doing what helped IROH heal and change - he didn't realize it was never gonna be able to do the same for Zuko.

The very second Azula shows up, even when she's being hostile, Zuko drops the facade, because she's a reminder of both his old life and what he thought his future would be. And when she offers him "redemption" Iroh tried to advice Zuko against joining her by saying "The redemption she offers is not for you" (as in not for someone who is doing better and doesn't need to return to the Fire Nation) and "It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose good." How is it a choice if Iroh is explicitly saying which option Zuko cannot pick, essentially making the decision for him?

Iroh didn't just get the way to help Zuko wrong - he didn't realize his nephew didn't believe he needed help. They were not on the same page at all, and that contribuited to Zuko betraying him.

Though, thankfully, it ended up being for the best, as Zuko found his own way to redemption by himself.

Conclusion

This fandom as a whole tends to not understand Zuko at all and just eat up a bunch of fanon while pretending to be so intellectual, which I very much resent it for.

[tangledbea]

How do you think the events of the movie would have gone if Lance and Eugene were still partners, and Lance took the place of the Stabbington Brothers?

Oh my god, this is such a good question! It immediately set my mind awhirl with possibilities! It couldn't have come at a better time, because I just finished editing the next chapter of BtK last night, and my head's in the Eugene and Lance feels!

Okay, so, first, would this mean that Eugene would double-cross Lance and take the satchel/crown for himself? Or would he be a good friend and help Lance out of that dead end?

In the first scenario, I see it falling back to "No Time Like the Past" rules, where if you fall behind, you get left behind. Lance would understand this, at least on the surface. But the stakes would be much higher, since theft of the crown was a much bigger deal. Also, if Eugene and Lance were still partners, the bounty on Lance's head would match Eugene's. I don't think Lance would give himself up to the guards without a fight, but I don't think he'd want revenge on Eugene, either. This may lead to a second act reunion, at the campsite, rather than Gothel joining forces with him. I can see Lance showing back up as a third wheel after Rapunzel and Eugene's talk about his past and why she stays in the tower, etc. In other words, they just opened up to each other, got vulnerable with each other, she showed him her magic hair, then here comes Lance, putting a jovial divider between them.

Oh! Oh! Okay, so what if Gothel doesn't recruit Lance, but she does tell him about the girl with the magic hair, and then sends him to the campsite with his own assumptions about what's going on? So now Lance thinks this is a ploy to keep Rapunzel chill until it's time to take/use the hair or whatever else. He thinks Flynn is still working a ruse and doesn't realize he's falling for Rapunzel and becoming more and more Eugene as time goes on. He might feel put out if he thought Flynn was trying to keep the big prize for himself, especially after also taking the crown. And if Eugene starts to explain the situation, Lance would think it's the long game to get the satchel back, and Eugene wouldn't yet have the strength of character to admit that he was falling and was starting to reconsider being a thief.

So now we've got Lance third wheeling it and Eugene trying not to show how much he likes Rapunzel while they're in the kingdom. (Bonus: that's twice the wanted thieves in the party now, while Punz is just trying to have a good time on her birthday!) We get to just before "I See the Light", and wouldn't you know it, the only boat left would be cramped if all three of them took it out! Lance, can you please stay here or take another boat or something? Again, Lance suspects that Flynn intends to make off with the crown without him for a second time, because they made no plans to meet up after this whole charade is over, and he's getting really irritated. Instead of enjoying the lights, he makes his way to the far bank, signals Eugene with the lantern, etc. Now when Eugene goes over there, he and Lance argue about the next step in the game. Think Miguel and Tulio towards the climax of Road to El Dorado. Eugene is just like, "Fine! Take the crown! I don't even want it anymore!" And Lance is like, "You mean you don't want to be partners anymore. You think I'm blind? You think I can't tell what's going on with you and the girl Eugene?" I don't think they'd get into an actual fistfight over this, but here comes Gothel with the steel chair a tree branch and knocks them both out, trusses them up and sends them back to the kingdom in a dinghy, then goes back to Rapunzel and shows her how, in the end, Flynn chose his life of crime over her.

In prison, Eugene and Lance are able to have a real heart-to-heart, clearing the air between them. Lance is able to see that Eugene was never out to betray him, and that he just wants a new life, a clean slate, with Rapunzel. He talks about the old lady who told him about her hair, and Eugene puts two and two together. Now it's Eugene and Lance who get broken out of prison by the Pub Thugs, but Lance stays with the Thugs to hold off the guards, urging Eugene to go save Rapunzel. Climax of the movie is the same as it is in canon.

For the second scenario, this means that Lance would be third wheeling it from the very start! They'd both find and climb the tower, Rapunzel would knock them both out and hide them both and interrogate them both. Lance and Flynn would be on the same page at the start, just trying to get the satchel/crown back from the girl, who is being a royal pain in the tuchus about this whole thing. But the thing is, with a second friendly presence who's also influencing Eugene the whole time, there's a lot less wiggle room for romance. I think there'd have to be some notable changes in order to keep New Dream on track in this version. It's hard to brew romance unless you can get the intended couple alone. I guess I'm saying it would need to be more like El Dorado in this version, where the (previously) Eugene perspective is now turned into a buddy flick, and that would need to be harmonious with Rapunzel's POV. Good for her that she makes two friends, but the impact of that means that she and Eugene are less likely to find time to fall.

Ooh, perhaps Lance doesn't get stuck in the cave with them, though? Yeah! Rapunzel and Eugene get stuck in the cave, Lance does not, they all get separated. Now Rapunzel and Eugene can have their opening up to each other stuff, Gothel can still set the suggestion to Lance that Eugene's trying to get Rapunzel's magical hair for herself, and we can pick up from the campsite scene in the first scenario! Yeah! But now, Lance is aware of the chemistry between Eugene and Rapunzel, and he's a bit more... reserved in the kingdom. Now he's playing the long game, waiting for the opportune moment to confront Flynn about Rapunzel and the crown and the hair and all that stuff. They fight after "I See the Light," continue on as in first scenario!

And this, my friends, has been a stream-of-consciousness brainstorming session by Bex!

[capcavan]

🗣️ (also sorry this got long, turns out i have thoughts) so like riko is one of the weirdest fandom cases i've ever seen. i've been in fandoms where characters who commit actual war crimes and genocide are badass babes or uwu soft bois, and even spoiled mafia brats who commit terrible crimes against the heroes for daddy's attention that get love and redemption. it's so weird to see just how isolated from all that riko is to me.

i do think it's partly how aftg is written, and that's also partly because niel's pov is not at all forgiving of riko, while is entirely forgiving of people like andrew. but i also think it's because of how riko himself is written. he's one of these characters that's better on paper than he is in the book to me. because he's never presented as smart enough to fall into the magnificent bastard trope where everyone applauds how devious his plans are, but he's not outright hammy enough to just be a fun read, he doesn't even get the same stupidly dramatic flare as andrew. and while we're told he's powerful and doing dangerous stuff, he's presented on page, more often than not, as a petulant child that neil is just done with or a guy who likes to torture people who neil is also done with. neil is never actually scared of riko, or even particularly threatened by him, and i think that hurts him and makes his position in the narrative weaker. especially when nora is trying to play him as a villain and a threat in a mafia story rather than a good old fashioned rival in a sports drama. for example, his first impression on the kathy show should live up to the hype of this imposing charismatic villain who broke kevin's hand, but instead loses him temper, forgets all of his media training and lets a nobody like neil goad him into losing control of the interview, and then his payback, things like shoving neil around and seth's death, are basically brushed off because neil doesn't really care that much. it's not given the weight to be a seriously omg this guys a threat first impression. and this isn't uncommon, lots of media hamstrings their villains at the start by making sure we know the main character is too sassy for them and can humiliate them, without thinking about how weak that can make the villain seem. it feels sometimes like nora wanted riko to be this chess master villain or tragic child who's lashing out at the world, without committing to it fully to either, or was just not an experienced enough writer to have known how to write either of those things in the pov of someone who hates riko's guts, which is understandable, writing is hard and that sort of nuance takes practice, especially if you just go by the books and not the extra content, and i do wonder how differently nora would have portrayed riko if she rewrote the main trilogy now with presumably a lot more practice under her belt. in the end riko ends up in this weird grey area to me where i understand why he's not popular, given he has none of the usual obvious traits that fans like to latch onto when redeeming a villainous character, and even the ones that are there are glossed over pretty quickly because of neil's pov, and a lot of his more interesting pieces are on paper not actively presented in the book, and not everyone reads super deep, but i also don't understand the amount of hate. i have literally never seen a character in any other fandom i've been in have this much fandom wide hatred.

See I have nothing to add here because you single handedly dropped the best analysis of Riko's character in the series I had pleasure to read so far and summed up all my feelings about why and what of the fandom. If the goal was to write a character that is impactful yet easy to hate then that goal was achieved but for me it real takes away form the magnitude of feelings Riko could evoke in reader and questions he could provoke in narrative if he was given bit different presentation that woudl still align with the lore we already have.

[chugging-bleach]

"EVEN IF YOU DON'T LOVE ME BACK, I LOVE YOU" - love confessions with the gintama men.

✩ ⋅ ⋅✩ ⋅ ⋅ ✩ ⋅ ⋅✩ ⋅ ⋅✩ ⋅ ⋅ ✩ ⋅ ⋅✩ ⋅ ⋅✩ ⋅ ⋅ ✩ ⋅ ⋅ ✩ ⋅

includes. Gintoki, Hijikata, Katsura x gn!reader

summary. the way you fell head over heels for the idiot, confessed your love and where you got a confession back, much to your surprise.

tags. love confessions, fluff, light angst, hurt/comfort, being confessed back to, rejection, love at first sight, unrequited feelings

a/n. this is the first reader insert tumblr post i have attempted. if you don't want to read the rejection of the confession part it has been marked as 'alternate// rejection,' so feel free to skip it. thank you and please let me know how you like it <3 feel free to request other gintama characters! i plan to write for ayame and tsukuyo next so stay tuned for that :) i hope you have as much fun reading as i had writing this!

also shameless plug but consider checking out my <y/n> fic on AO3 about drunken shenanigans with the entire gintama gang <3 - The Baby Daddy deserves to suffer as much as the Baby Mommy to birth an abomination

SAKATA GINTOKI.

how you fall in love.

you were facing a large dilemma and had nowhere to go for a solution and are directed to the Yorozuya's doorstep

you are in denial about it but it was love at first sight, you know you have gone insane when a man guzzling down strawberry milk is attractive to you

maybe you just need to get laid

or maybe just maybe you can't look away from his neck, they way his adam's apple bobs as he gulps it down like water and how you can see his chest exposed a little with his shabby yukata

or the way he says "i'll handle it" knowing full well he won't but you can't help but trust him

your confession.

"the jobs over. you can get rid of me now."

that's the problem. you don't want to leave. you're on the back of his scooter since he offered to drop you home

after all, he caused more trouble than the job was in the first place, where your main job split off into mini jobs which you had to tackle along with the main job???

honestly, you're just happy that you spent more time with him before you had to part ways

"i didn't know you were that scared of scooters." you were gripping tightly as if you never wanted to let go of him

"your scooter might just break down. better to take you down with me"

is what you meant to say but instead you said

"i like you, Yorozuya-san. i like you a lot."

he actually falls off the scooter and both of you tumble in a heap together, thankfully uninjured apart from the pain of the intense silence that descends

you're both panting loudly and are too afraid to break the silence

"i'll...walk the rest of the way" more than him, you want to save yourself the ache

with a heavy heart you scramble to your feet, ready to wallow and drag yourself back to your house

"wait up. if you think this is going to be payment i need to correct you! you need to pay real money, tricks won't work..."

his voice falters. your eyes are clear and barely containing the emotion brimming in them.

he has to answer you

his confession.

"don't look at me like that. help me up."

you snap out of your trance and reach a hand out with your heart beating rapidly

he grasps your hand, wrapping his fingers around you. you try not to linger too much on the touch, tighten your grip and pull.

the opposite force pulls you forward and you fall to the floor and are being pulled into his lap

not pushed away not at all

"now then, there's a lot of strawberry milk you owe me for all this trouble."

that's as much as a confession as you will get from him and it's more than enough, more than you ever thought you would get. he holds you as tears stream down your face silently.

alternate// rejection.

he falters starting and stopping his sentence multiple times, struggling to find the right words.

you want to snap at him in frustration, that he just cut to the chase and be done with it

you remind yourself that this is difficult for him too

he brushes the dust from his soft, white hair that you won't even get to sink your hands into nor wind around your fingers

when he looks you in the eye, you know his answer and you know what he'll say

"i will always accept you as a prized customer, -sama!"

you give a shaky smile, hoping that the darkness of the night is enough to hide the tears falling down your face and you walk away with a taste like rotten strawberries on your lips

HIJIKATA TOSHIRO

how you fall in love.

your boss is relentless, sending you out on random errands all day, thinking of you as his personal maid more than an employee

today you're on your fifth cigarette run of the day, buying for the entire office

the usual vending machine is out-of-service so you go to the trashy one which is a long walk away

once you get there, you see the rusty exterior and sigh, thinking of how many dimes the machine will eat before actually spitting out the cigarette box

you also see a man, casually leaning on the other side of the machine smoking. a man you recognise as the demon vice captain of the shensengumi.

you freeze in your steps, scared as if you committed a crime, when in fact you are innocent

he stubs out his cigarette on the side of the machine and tosses it. it lands on your arm and you yelp in pain. he looks startled and slowly realises what happened.

"ahh, i... miss...um..."

why is the police officer scared in this situation? you speak up, clutching your slightly stinging hand "it's not a bother, officer. i was wondering if you can help me with this machine? the one i frequent is out of service and my boss needs me to buy some. how many coins will this machine eat?"

your simple request with easy instructions activates 'officer helping civilian mode' and he goes ahead and shakes the machine violently. a box of the worst brand that your boss will curse you for, Mayoboros with the mayonnaise filter falls out.

you stare at him as he hands you the box. your voice catches in your throat and you're instantly smitten. he's devilishly handsome. you notice his face has a shallow cut on it.

"here," you remove the backing from a bandage in your bag and place it on his cheek. you're on your tip toes and his breath fans your forehead. "thank you for the cigarettes, officer."

"hijikata toshiro at your service miss, your boss will appreciate those cigarettes."

your boss, in fact did not appreciate them. you tune out the yelling by recalling how close you were to him.

your confession.

you frequent this rusty vending machine even though the previous good one is back in service. you just want to see him again and again. without fail, he's always there and you wonder whether is it because he's just a nicotine fiend or because he wants to see you too

immediately you banish that thought out of your head.

you arrive again and as usual he's leaning against the side of the machine but this time he has bigger bandages covering his face, neck and body

he moves to shake the machine like he does but you stop him, stilling him by placing your hands on his shoulder. he moves away from the vending machine, quietly looking at you and waiting, a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth.

you show him the box of cigarettes sticking out of your pocket and gulp the lump in your throat. it is now or never. you have to, need to know his answer.

"i like being around you. i like being around you a little too much." the smoke from his cigarette is fanning your face making you feel more light-headed. "i want to be around you more."

your sentences are awkward and you couldn't look him in the eye while you could feel his eyes on you the entire time.

his confession.

he takes a puff of his cigarette. you watch the smoke curl up in the air, bracing yourself for the worst. he shifts around uncomfortably, awkwardly closing the distance between you and then just as quickly moving away.

you dare to look at his face to see the calmness is gone. pink is dusting his cheeks under the bandages and the image of the cool police officer cracks. he looks so adorable trying to bid for time by smoking slower.

"i need to leave for the office soon."

hijikata was always a man of few words. he placed his hand on the top of your head and ruffled your hair gently, sighing the entire time. words were escaping him.

"would you want to get dinner with me after work?"

you expected a lot of responses but this one exceeded your expectations and was the best one

"absolutely!" you beam and he gives you a small smile in response to your big toothy grin

in another unexpected moment, he presses a kiss to the top of your head and you just melt on the spot, now it's your turn to be a blushing mess

"see you tonight"

alternate// rejection.

hijikata and you maintain eye contact. you can see he feels the same way. but something is holding him back.

he swings his shenshingumi jacket over his shoulder, never moving his gaze away from your face.

"i get into a lot of trouble. wouldn't want a pretty thing like you to worry over me."

you don't want to understand how he can reciprocate the same feelings and yet still flat out reject you. you don't want to understand his reasons.

you especially do not want to think about how this might be the last time he decides to see you since you decided to reveal your feelings. you knew the risk this carried and it blew up all over your face. a strong wave of self-hatred washes over you. if only you hadn't confessed, you would have been able to see him everyday. maybe if you confessed at a later day, things might have turned out differently.

he snaps you out of the loop, placing the jacket around your shoulders. you didn't realise you were shuddering from the weight of the situation, from the effort of reeling back the strong wave of negative emotions being set off inside you

you pull it close to you absently. hiijikata closes the gap between the two of you, lightly, barely brushing his lips against yours. before he could get carried away, he pressed a few chaste kisses on your forehead and temples

there was another reason to him ending it and you respect him enough to watch him walk away just as quickly as he had closed the distance

he left his jacket behind and sure enough there's a cigarette and lighter in the pocket. you light your first and last cigarette of the time being and wonder as you cough loudly, the smoke which is the only reason there are fat tears on your cheeks and your throat is scratchy

will you wait?

KATSURA KOTARO

how you fell in love.

someone left their kasa hat at your store so you decide to give it to the local lost and found when the owner doesn't come to pick it up from your store for over a month now

all you remember is the man rushing into the store, taking his hat off, letting long black hair down which mesmerised you, wearing a ridiculous plastic moustache disguise and pretending to peruse your goods. you were planning to kick him out despite how pretty he was since this eye candy was just being a nuisance.

before you could say anything he said "stay calm."

a bunch of dangerous street samurai swarmed your shop and you couldn't in fact "stay calm," looking at their swords, thinking of the damage they could do. this shop took a lot of money to make and keep running and you didn't want it ripped to shreds

thankfully, there were no other customers so you played dumb and said "welcome! how may i help you gentlemen?" hoping that your fear didn't show

they looked directly at the only other person in the store the "stay calm" man and you knew a fight would break out. bracing for the worst and calculating the damages bill (more scary than all these men combined), they said "that man did not have a moustache. he's managed to escape!"

you are dumbfounded that the disguise worked. once they all left, the man took the hat and 'disguise' off. "do you want to buy anything?" you ask. "no but i owe you a favour."

"then get out! don't bring trouble to my shop!”

since then, you haven't seen him and thought he would come back for his hat. on the way to the lost and found, you unexpectedly bump into him again.

this time he is wearing an afro. on top of his long hair.

"your hat, sir. you left it in my shop." he takes it from you and bows deeply, walking you back to the shop. "stay safe," you want to scream that he's the shadiest character ever but smile.

after that, you keep meeting him in random 'disguises,' which have a 100% success rate of working.

your confession.

you don't enjoy the brief meetings and clashes. you want to know more about him. "remember you said that you owe me a favour?" you say, heat rising to your cheeks.

this time, he's only wearing sunglasses and his signature hat. you have seen his posters everywhere KATSURA THE TERRORIST. well, he makes a pretty shitty runaway criminal but there must be some magic in those disguises.

"yes, in fact you can ask me two things. you gave my hat back to me."

you didn't want to bring up the fact that he should owe you more since you saved him from being found multiple times by swallowing your pride and playing the hysterical woman card

there are, more important things you want to ask him

"one should be enough. can we get ramen?"

you thought he would be dense and not understand what you were getting at, so then you would have used the second favour

his confession.

you flick the end of his hat, startling him and knocking it sideways. he totally was hiding being flustered under the hat and worrying at the edge of his lips.

"i...don't exactly know about timings. it's always random."

"i can wait, then you can pay me back again for waiting. my shop can be your home."

blush colours your cheeks as you realise what you just said. you want to spontaneously combust. you move your head, hoping your hair falls and covers you enough.

katsura moves the hair out of the way and beams at her. “i know of a good ramen place. why wait let’s go now.”

alternate// rejection.

no he didn’t get it.

he considers your offer way too seriously. he didn’t get the underlying message.

“sure. let’s go now. there’s a place around here.”

you didn’t get your answer but you might say something at some point during the ramen eating.

he stops you in front of ‘Hokuto Shinken ramen shop’ with the sign falling off. a blonde lady comes outside, throwing a pan at katsura, who promptly dodges.

“i brought a customer here! this doesn’t bode well for you!” the lady looks annoyed and you can’t blame her. it is annoying to have katsura in your shop with all sorts of people looking for him all the time.

“that doesn’t mean you bring yourself too!”

you’re glad katsura didn’t get what you were trying to say. you didn’t know there already was someone else since you barely knew anything about him. you start walking away, trying to ignore the tightness in your chest.

“wait up! forget this fool! i’m nishiki and i’ll bring you the best ramen you’ve ever had!”

“the soba is much better,” katsura said only to get hit in the head. you think about slithering away and making an excuse but instead you decide to stay.

“a bowl of ramen sounds divine.”

[deconstructthesoup]

Some miscellaneous stuff for the Fantasy High Leverage AU:

After getting kicked out, Kristen got taken in by Ankarna and Cassandra, who are living their best country-lesbian vibes out on a farm together---a farm which eventually gets in financial trouble and almost gets shut down by a corporation, which is how the crew learn about Kristen's past before she was a hitter. The farm winds up doubling as a safehouse. (Also, Ankarna wears flannels and has a shotgun, and Cassandra does tarot readings at their stall at the farmer's market on weekends. They also have a little black cat, with no relation to Kalina.)

Despite all the rumors swirling around, the way Fig and Fabian met is surprisingly mundane: when Gilear moved from Portland back to London after he and Sandralynn divorced, Fig went with him, and she got enrolled in the same school that Fabian was attending. The two of them became fast and immediate friends, wound up becoming the most popular kids there due to their combined chaos and the fact that they were kind to those who needed it, and were pretty much inseparable from that point forward. And when Fig introduced Gilear to Fabian's mom, who'd been widowed for a while and was looking for someone stable... well, as much as Fabian complained, it meant that he and Fig were officially siblings. (They learned how to grift from Hallariel, who was a very well-renowned thief in her day. It's how she met Bill, after all.)

Fig is the sibling who's the "bad actor in a theater setting, good actor when she's breaking the law" type, though it's a bit more complex than that. She's amazing at coming up with a character on the spot, building off of the questions that people ask her, and remembering details so none of the information contradicts what she's already said, but she finds scripts "boring and restrictive," and always tries to put her own spin on things... which doesn't always fit well. She does get a little better at following a script of sorts when she's on the crew---at least, she learns to follow the plan.

Kristen hasn't gone by "Kristen Applebees" since she was fifteen---instead, the criminal underworld knows her by "Kristen Justice-Forester," referencing her adoptive moms. Mostly because that sounds generally more badass, but also because she really wants to forget about her old life as the church girl next door.

Gorgug's legal name is "Gavin Thistlespring," but he's been going by Gorgug since he was twelve---it was the name of his first ever D&D character, and it eventually became his hacker handle. (This is really because I just needed an explanation as to why a perfectly normal human in a world that's basically ours would be named "Gorgug." I do something similar for Fig in a lot of my AUs---her name's either just "Fig," or she's named after a character from a fantasy series that Sandralynn likes.)

Someone suggested that Kalina is the Sterling equivalent, and I liked it so much that I decided to make it canon---but instead of being Riz's former partner, she's his dad's old partner and mentor who was forced to help cover up Pok's death. She's not necessarily bad, but she does have a very black-and-white view of morality, and she's not a fan of Riz's new, less-than-legal idea of justice.

Adaine still has the Parker rep of being "crazy," but in a very different light. Rather than being a thrill-seeking ball of chaos who's an unpredictable wildcard in every way when the story begins, she's unsettlingly quiet, perceptive to the point where she can predict things minutes in advance, and acts seemingly without morality and with her own skewed logic. As she spends more time with the crew and warms up to them, however, everyone starts to see that Adaine is unflinchingly and unfailingly kind---and that once she actually warms up to you, she will talk nonstop about anything she's invested in, whether it be obscure history facts, thieving tips, or whatever show, book, or video game that one of the others has gotten her hooked on. She's just closed off as a defense mechanism.

Fabian is the sibling with a deep and personal bond with Riz---not that Fig isn't close to him, but Fabian and Riz shot each other when they first met, and you can't beat that. And while Fabian used to have a thing for Riz, he eventually realized that Riz wasn't interested in any kind of relationship, though neither of them fully had the words for it (because, y'know, this story still starts in 2008). Still, though, he considers Riz his best friend and vice versa, and once he's on the crew, he never dates anyone without introducing them to Riz first. And his affections tend to bounce back and forth between Gorgug and Ragh. Or both. Let's just say that Fabian's got the most romantic drama out of any of them.

Riz is still close with his mom, despite the fact that, as a lawyer and former cop, he knows that she probably wouldn't approve of what he does. He just tells her that he runs a private detective agency, which isn't too far from the truth---hell, it's their cover story, after all.

Fabian's father was the greatest thief in the world when he was alive, but that came with a lot of enemies, and that's not something that Fabian wants to deal with---not to mention, he's always been adamant about making a name for himself, and to not just skate by on the Seacaster name. If that means that he has to refer to himself as "Fabian Faeth," well... so be it. He reasons that it's Fig's last name. Not Gilear's.

Fig has never met her bio-dad before the story begins... but she does meet him eventually. There's a whole thing there.

Adaine does not kill Angwyn in her backstory. However, she does get to do that eventually, and it's cathartic as fuck.

[rascalentertainments]

Wish Granted AU: Flazino

Now the sorcerers' overworked, underappreciated, underpaid, incredibly tired apprentice, Flazino! I keep laughing at the fact that this guy has more depth to him than half the cast of the canon movie. 😂 He went from throwaway character to a nearly co-protagonist character with importance to the story!

His design was inspired by several Disney characters. The outfit and hair are a reference to Arthur/Wart from "The Sword in the Stone". The face and body language is based on George from the Paperman short film (Remember how great that was? And it mastered the 2D/3D hybrid animation long before Wish? What happened to those animators, Disney?)

(You can even use this concept art as reference for Flazino if you want too, especially that pissed off look 😂)

And I swear it wasn't on purpose, but as I started drawing him tired, he started resembling Bruno. All his references are from overworked or stressed out characters and I didn't even do it on purpose! 😂

Now for some backstory and info dump! This was pretty fun because I got to create my own take on him since there's practically nothing on him outside of a deleted scene.

• Like the aforementioned deleted scene, Flazino's wish is to study magic. For this story, its so he can help others lives be better, which is what he thought Magnifico wanted as well. He thought the job would be more glamorous or fun as he learned, but it turns out Mags doesn't actually want a successor. He plans on being in power permanently. He pretends he granted Flaz's wish and instead of studying magic, he's the errand boy, cleans the lab equipment, feeds Sabor, and is in charge of the tour guides for newcomers. Flazino just practices what he can at home and secretly takes ingredients from Amaya's potion cabinet.

•No one's sure if the bags under his eyes are from losing his wish and side effects starting, or its just him being stressed out all the time. Either way he's like Aled, he doesn't sleep much cause he's always working or worrying. He's sort of sassy when he's really tired so he might make an off hand comment. Bonus: He swears, but its censored in the "Spongebob Sailor Mouth" style. You'll just hear a noise or beep censorship sound in place of it. 😂 (Hey, you can say "Hell" and "Damn" in a Pixar movie now, so why not?)

•He gave his wish at 18, and was surprised to hear it was getting granted so soon. Though Mags doesn't really need an apprentice, he takes Flaz on just in case something happened to him, all of his magic, power and evil will go into the apprentice. Sort of passing on his plans to him to become the next Magnifico and continue his work. That's pretty terrifying.

• Most people in the Hamlet think that he and Asha are secretly a thing, but that's not the case. Lord knows Sabino wanted his granddaughter to get a boyfriend so she'd stop being so serious all the time. They never really had feelings like that for each other, they just stayed friends. One part is because Asha has just sealed herself off from connecting deeper with other people, and on Flaz's side, he already has feelings for someone else. (Also, after Star shows up and spends time with Asha, she starts feeling things for him she's been repressing for years. Girl, chill.-)

• During the first few months of becoming the apprentice, he learned about the Hamlet through rumors in Rosas. He didn't understand why people would run away until he stumbles on seeing the king and queen crush the wishes of a couple who talked about leaving Rosas and not trusting the royals. He never saw that couple again.

He later took off one night into the forest to finds this supposed Hamlet using a tracking spell. Once he finds it, Sabino and other people tell him why they ran and what a monster the royal could be. Flazino felt so disgusted that he promised to help anyway he could. So he makes an excuse to get specialty mushroom from the Uncharted Forest once a month and brings supplies to the Hamlet ever since. (stuff like seeds to grow food, flour, medicine, toys for the kids)

• A lot of the people actually go to Flazino if they can't get to the king for help improving the kingdom, or people needing help. The royals don't do crap, so he just does the best he can himself. But most people don't realize he's the one that granting their needs and not the royals.

• His connection to the 7 Teens actually foreshadows Asha bringing them together. Like the deleted scene suggested, they all know him as the "great apprentice to the king", when he's really just a tired guy trying not lose his sanity. He has different interactions with each of them.

Gabo is the one shouting that the royals are evil like a conspiracy theorist, but since he's such a low threat, they send Flazino to get rid of him and everytime he gets away. Gabo's been a nuisance for months now and he's even defacing anything with the royals on it. He actually agrees with Gabo, but obviously can't say it out loud.

For Simon, he tries to keep him awake when he can for his knight training, or guard duty so its his way of trying to help fulfill his wish of being a knight. He's tired himself, so its even harder.

Safi is allergic to practically everything when he cleans, so Flaz has an idea to make a medicine that can cure that through magic. He has no idea its just so he can talk to the girl he likes without sneezing in someone's face. 😂

Hal is one of the easiest he gets along with. She's pretty content where she is and gets along with him fine. Though he gets roped into doing some of her work when he's not paying attention, lol. If she does see an injustice being done to someone else she'll step in to help them.

Bazeema he's not even sure what she thinks of him. She's so shy whenever he talks to her, all he knows is that she does a great job caring for the local animals and flora in the kingdom, which he's thanked her many times for. Though she has been leaving him yellow roses as thank you messages.

Dahlia is actually the one he bonds with the best. He ends up talking to her when its time for Sabor's breakfast or dinner and she makes the food by hand with her parents. At first he just talked to her out of convenience and vent a little bit about being overworked (much to his surprise, she's actually listening). Then the two of them just found some comfort in talking to each other when they've had a long day and now its developed into a full-on crush for him. But with Dahlia going all fangirl on Magnifico, he doesn't have high hopes the feelings mutual. (She's been dropping hints but he's not getting it)

So I guess we got three Flazinos right now: RFTS!Flaz who actually likes his job and still wants to learn magic, UaS!Flaz who's a prince of the evil royals, and then WG!Flaz is an overworked man who wants to hurt his bosses. Y'all need therapy. 😂

(So now, Chapter 6 of WG will be out tomorrow! 😏)

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[seraphinitegames]

The Wayhaven Chronicles - Update 26/05/2023

Ohh, what a week!

So, my plan was to start expanding on the overall plans for the beginning, middle, and endings. This is usually how planning works for me is that I just gradually expanding them and things start to come together and can see where I can fit in the events I want and need to happen.

But what happened instead was the story was just…flowing! I began planning out the beginning, and I was gone! The story events were just popping up in perfectly natural places in the narrative as well as character reintroductions!

For example, my thought was to have certain characters show up at the very start to get those reintroductions in so as the story could continue. And it was good, I was happy with it. BUT as I was planning an amazing point popped up that is SO SO much better. It blends with the story of Book Four as well as getting into their branches at the same time.

There’s definitely something about this book already that feels like it really wants to be told!

And the now-named baddy definitely wants to be written and get some attention, hehe! 😃

We also managed to record the Book Three debrief/chat this week! That was seriously fun though we got a bit carried away chatting, so it ended up much longer than originally intended, hehe! We’ll be chunking it up into parts so as it’s not as overwhelming to listen to. The first part will be up on Patreon later this month. It felt good to really be able to chat about that and almost kind of, like, put it to bed. Now I’ve got all of that out of my head I can really move onto the next!

Nai has been working on typing up the character sheets for me this week with all the updated information needed from Book Three. It’s so strange to look at how I originally intended some of these characters to be from the start and how they’ve actually ended up coming to life when I got writing them!

Next week is another May Bank Holiday on Monday, but the rest of the week will be the same as usual: Book Four planning! Hoping it goes as smoothly as it is going now! 😃

I just wanted to say as well thank you so much for all the wonderfully kind and supportive messages I got about the bunnies! Betty is on medications and will be having some more blood tests taken a few weeks from now, so I’ve got all my fingers crossed for a positive outcome!

Hope you all have the most incredible weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so we’ll talk to you all again soon! <3