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#I might have to write more for this

redactedrem · 15 days

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Headcanon where after so many arguments between the batkids and Bruce over his paranoia and complete disregard for his kids privacy, the entire family had compromised with (in the healthiest way possible) downloading life360 on their phones and that's how they all keep track of each other.

Now Bruce knew that this is mostly for his benefit and is supposed to be a healthy alternative for his unhealthy paranoia and helicopter parenting, but what he wasn't expecting was for his kids to start keeping track of him.

He's putting gas in his car and Dick calls him because apparently Dick has been watching him drive around on the app? And Bruce is currently at a gas station thats right around the corner from a Taco Bell and now Dick wants him to get food for everyone since he's already there.

He's driving home from a meeting and Steph calls him because her and Duke were shopping in the area and wants to know if he can pick them up, when he asks how she knew he was on the same street, he gets a "Oh I just like to stalk everyone on the app for funsies." as an answer.

Jason calls him and he can barely get out a hello before Jason cuts him off, "Bruce why the fuck is your phone battery on 5%, charge your damn phone" which completely stuns him because why does he know that. He clears his throat before answering. "Jason, what?"

"Everyone can see each others phone batteries on '360, now charge your phone." Is all he gets before Jason hangs up on him.

#I have more ideas in my head #but I didn't want to make the post too long #might repost later #might write a small fanfic off of this #I actually don't have life360 but my friend does and I'm basing this off of how she interacts with her mom #batfamily #batfam #headcanon #dick grayson #nightwing #bruce wayne #batman #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #cardinal tim drake #stephanie brown #spoiler

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inkskinned · 3 months

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you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.

(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)

but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.

(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)

there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.

(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)

you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.

(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)

you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.

in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.

but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.

they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.

it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.

#spilled ink #warm up #can you tell what i'm mad about today specifically #i will say that there are a LOT of things that go into this. like a lot. this is ungendered and unspecific for a reason #it isn't just sexism. it's also racism. and ableism. and honestly classism.#and before a healthcare professional reads this as a personal attack: i understand ur burnt out #we are ALSO burnt out. your situation is also dire. this is not an attack on you.#this is a commentary on the incredible amounts of bigotry that lie at the heart of capitalism #where people have to pay money out of pocket to be told to fuck off.#your job is important. so is our humanity. and if you cannot accept that people are fucking mad as hell #at the industry - you are probably not listening .#anyway at some point im gonna write a piece about sexism specifically in medical shit #but i don't want terfs clowning in it bc they can't understand nuance #> it is true that ppl w/a uterus are more likely to experience medical malpractice & dismissal globally #> it is also true that trans people experience an equally fucked up and bad time in the medical field #> great news! the medical industrial complex is an equal opportunity life ruiner :)#(if you find it necessary to go into a debate about biology while discussing medical malpractice #i want to warn you that you're misunderstanding the issue. because guess what.#cis MEN might experience this. particularly black men. particularly disabled men.#so YES having a uterus can lead to more trouble for you. but this happens a LOT.#instead of fighting those ALSO experiencing your pain.... try working WITH them.#which btw. is like. actual feminism.)

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ghcstao3 · 3 months

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urban fantasy where witch soap runs an apothecary with his familiar ghost—or, who everybody thinks is soap’s familiar, when in reality ghost is just a black cat shifter who likes to freeload (and help with the potions and balms and whatnot, sure—but mostly he likes to nap in the front window because it gets the most sunlight)

(soap can’t even complain because somehow it gets him more customers)

(something about his “familiar” being cute, and, well. he can’t argue against that)

#might write more later i just. need sleep first #i have an idea for their first meeting hehe #simon ghost riley #john soap mactavish #soapghost #ghostsoap #ghost x soap #ghoap #alternate universe

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becca-e-barnes · 9 months

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I've been way too into hot wife stuff at the minute, I blame Serenity Cox and it got me thinking about being Steve's wife but he's really into watching you with Bucky.

Most of the appeal for Steve is that you and Bucky really degrade him. He gets to watch his little wife cum on his best friend's cock while you both taunt him and he never thought he'd be into it the way that he is.

"Your girl's so fuckin' tight, Steve." Bucky pants, slowing his thrusts into you because if he keeps up his current pace, he'll cum faster than he wants to. "Does Stevie fill you the way I do? Bet he can't. He's not as big as me."

You shake your head, staring right at Steve. "Not even close. You're pathetic, aren't you Stevie? You'd rather watch me get fucked by your best friend."

You know it's mean but Steve fucking loves it. He's cum four times already and he's still jerking himself off. It's like he just can't stop and it's so thrilling to see him enjoy this as much as he is.

"I'm gonna cum in your girl, Steve. Gonna make you watch me stuff her so full. Just imagine your pretty little wife with my cum dripping out of her greedy cunt. If you're lucky, she might let you fuck her after I'm finished." Bucky's not usually so vulgar but God, it works wonders for both you and Steve.

"I don't know. I'm not sure if I'll ever want to fuck Steve again." Hearing you say that sends Steve over the edge, spilling a fresh load all over himself while he groans pathetically and even then, he doesn't stop.

"I can't blame you. Now you know how it feels to be fucked right. Felt you cum on me more times than I can count." Bucky's not wrong but his excitement is building and you feel his pace start to falter.

"Fuck, oh fuck." You whimper, feeling the first few pulses of his cock and the unmistakable feeling of his load splashing into your eager body. You've needed this. You were desperate for it and after a second you realise neither of you needed it more than Steve did.

"Good girl, fuckin' take it. I can't stop." Bucky groans, pressed as deep inside you as he can get, pumping his cum right to your cervix. He cums for what feels like an eternity and it's pure bliss.

By the time he's finished, Steve is trembling with need once more.

"If you don't want your wife knocked up with your best friend's baby, I suggest you get to work." You tease, pressing Steve back on the bed and repositioning yourself so you're sitting on his face, letting his best friend's cum drip out of you and into his eager, waiting mouth.

#becca's thots #becca writes spice #stucky x reader smut #steve x bucky x reader #stucky x reader #sometimes I write stuff like this and I just have to sit quietly for a while afterwards #I'm going to bake some cookies now #I made 30 for a trip this week and they were gone in no time #so I was asked to make more for our staff meeting tomorrow #I might just run away and open a bakery #that's my dream life #I'd love that

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eyrieofsynapses · 4 months

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why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

#aurora comic #aurora webcomic #comicaurora #art analysis #...I hope those are the right tags???#new fandom new tagging practices to learn ig #much thanks for something to read while I try to rest my wrists. carpal tunnel BAD. (ignore that I wrote this I've got braces ok it's fine)#anyway! I HAVE. MANY MORE THOUGHTS. ON THE STORY ITSELF. THIS LOVELY STORY #also a collection of reactions to a chunk of the comic before I hit the point where I was too busy reading to write anything down #idk how to format those tho #...yeet them into one post...???#eh I usually don't go off this much these days but this seems like a smaller tight-knit fandom so... might as well help build it?#and I have a little more time thanks to break so #oh yes also shoutout to my insanely awesome professor for teaching me all the technical stuff from this he is LOVELY #made an incredibly complex program into something comprehensible <3 #synapse talks

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ghost-proofbaby · 9 months

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twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR TWENTY TWO

in which eddie is honest. for real, this time.

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, discussion of/allusions to smut from last chapter, angst, not edited (what's new though), upside down does not exist, minors dni

→ wc: 11.1k+

→ a/n: welp. this... yeah, this is a lot. i truly hope it's worth it. in the waiting, anticipation, and length. if it isn't... my bad. i'm sorry in advance. also, please note, pov change only applies to the memory.

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

22:00 ──────────────ㅇ─ 24:00

His regret turns to pain as you whisper, “What did you just say?”

—

HOUR TWENTY TWO – 1:00 PM

You can’t speak. It’s as if you’re frozen; every muscle, including your tongue, has gone rigid. Every racing thought escapes just beyond your reach. Every single one of the last twenty two hours pound behind your rib cage, and you think you might just faint. Right here, right now. The blood rushes your ears as your body goes ice cold, and even the railing cutting into your palm seems to drift away from you.

“I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t even try to deny it. He knows you heard what he said – he can’t take it back. It’s written plainly on his face that if he could, he would swallow back down those disastrous words. He’d grab that destruction four letter word right out of the air, no doubt, and set it aflame. He’d blow away the ash if he could guarantee you would have never heard it.

But he can’t. You heard him.

I’ve loved you for so long.

Everything is heavy. The air, your limbs, your godforsaken tongue.

“Say something,” he suddenly begs. You’ve never seen Eddie look so desperate, eyes wet and voice cracking, “Anything.”

You want to answer him. Your bones ache with the need – the need to reply, the need to question, the need to do anything but stare at him with what he must surely mistake for horror.

Were you horrified? Were you?

You don’t know.

It’s why you can’t answer him.

“I-” he starts up again, breaking down even further right before your eyes. You want to reach out, to coddle him, to tell him it’s fine. But it’s not fine.

You don’t even get the chance to ruminate on just how not fine it is, or that heat beginning to come to a boil in the pit of your stomach, because the sound of one of the neighbors exiting out onto their own balcony interrupts the infinitely delicate moment.

“Hey there, Eds-” You don’t know what actually interrupts the gruff man that steps out, who exudes familiarity with Eddie until he takes in the scene before him.

Eddie, completely fucking naked. You, with only a shirt on. If it weren’t for the moment at hand and the trembling emotions coming to fruition inside of you, you’d probably find it comical. You’d probably find a way to join in the old man’s single guffaw before the two of you meet each other’s gaze and become aware of what exactly is happening.

But it’s not funny. You’re both fucking naked — physically and emotionally — and it’s not funny.

You’re mortified as both of you are scrambling across the balcony, a whirlwind of discarded clothes fisted and nearly tripping over each other to shove back into Eddie’s living room. That embarrassment now trickles down into the start of a boil, everything in you becoming red-hot from how flustered you’ve become and the way you can’t have a second to just process it all.

When you turn to face Eddie once the sliding door has slammed shut, his cheeks are the brightest pink imaginable.

“What the fuck,” you whisper out, trying to steady your breathing, trying to take it all in.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Your adrenaline is almost making you sick.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he catches your whisper amongst your stoic silence and seems to forget the moment that his neighbor had just shattered, voice clear as day as he pulls his curtains shut. You swear you catch the old man still staring, still laughing, and you’re just grateful that you’re not the one completely nude, “I had no idea Mr. Jenkins would come outside, usually none of those fuckers see the light of day before sundow-”

“Your neighbor just saw us naked,” you almost scream. You want to shout, want to throw everything in sight. You crave to flip that coffee table in the center of the room and throw a fit that outdoes even the most petulant of toddlers.

“I know, I-“

“If you say sorry again, I’m walking back out there,” you take a deep breath, but it does nothing to calm you’re shaking body, “And I’m throwing myself off the fucking balcony.”

Maybe you’ll be able to laugh about it in five years. A year, even. Hell, a month or as soon as next week. But you can’t right now; all you want to do is cry.

Some random man just saw you naked. Eddie apparently fucking loves you.

It might be the sleep deprivation and it might be the fact that it feels like the Universe is laughing in your face at every turn right now. Whatever higher power exists seems to be waiting around every corner for the chance to kick you repeatedly as you stumble to this finish line. And you can’t fucking take it.

So you give in. You give in to that childish need to stomp your feet and scream until you’re blue in your lips.

“I just- Fuck!” Eddie jumps a bit at your exclamation, he’s still naked, “I can’t catch a break! I can’t catch a fucking break. First, I’m showing up here, and I’m stuck with you for twenty four hours. I’m stuck with the man I hate for a whole fucking day,” you’re full on pacing, not caring how ridiculous this scene would appear to anyone. Your hands wave erratically in the space around you, and all Eddie can do is stare, tense with wide eyes, “And I cry in front of you, have full breakdowns in front of you. I listen to you remind me over and over how much you truly despise only to now suddenly find out that, hey! I actually love you! And do I get to process that? No. Because now, some fucking old man that lives next door to you has seen my goddamn vag-“

Eddie’s entire demeanor collapses. “Oh, so now I’m back to being the man you hate?”

You pause your ranting, realizing what you’ve said.

You’re just angry. You should have thought before you spoke, before you opened your mouth and began to spew your venom, because you can see the way the words have struck Eddie. Not your intention.

“I didn’t mean that.”

“But you said that,” he flatly argues back.

Your stomach twists.

“I’m just-“ your tongue is back to being heavy as the two of you face one another. Feet apart, worlds apart. “I’m fucking embarrassed, Eddie.”

“You think I’m not?” he scowls, and you try to tell your racing heart it’s a good sign. But it’s not. You almost preferred his walls dividing the two of you, “Shit fucking happens. We got caught — we fucking dirty talked about getting caught! Big fucking deal! Karmic justice or whatever bullshit people spew. It doesn’t mean I’m going to- It doesn’t change-“ he’s stuttering now, matching that exasperation that had you pacing just moments before. He huffs, a hand reaching up and dragging his bangs upward, harsh at the root as he finally drops his hands in his own defeat, palms slapping his sides, “Everything changes. You said that, not me. You said everything changes, and all it takes is a little bit of fucking embarrassment to go back on your word?”

He’s still fucking naked. You still can’t think.

“I’m not having this conversation with you naked,” you whisper, almost in disbelief as you shake your head, “I’m- Put your fucking clothes on. Please.”

“Put my clothes on?” he scoffs, taking a step closer to you, “Put my clothes on? Do you mean the same clothes you just insisted I take off not even ten minutes ago?”

“We were having sex!” you yell. You’re sure if the old man is no longer on his balcony, he can hear you through the walls. Hell, even if he is still outside, it’s likely he hears the screaming match beginning, “Why- Why are you turning this on me right now? You just said you fucking love me! The least of our issues right now is me telling you to get fucking dressed!”

“Why are you lashing out at me right now?” Eddie’s voice is louder than yours, something more broken inside of it, “I-“

“Clothes,” you grit out, avoiding his eyes as you start to yank your panties on violently, “Now.”

You can still feel him. His essence is dripping between your thighs. And you don’t find any sense of enjoyment in it, you don’t savor that quick-fading warmth nor the reminder of the pleasure he’d just brought you. It just reminds you of the words he had said all while not even looking you in the eyes. He couldn’t even face you as he had admitted it.

One thing at a time, you try to remind yourself. One fucking thing at a time.

Eddie’s own redressing is another sight that maybe, hopefully, one day you’ll look back on and laugh at. But right now, it can’t spark any amusement in you. Not as all your emotions slam back into you at full force.

You’re embarrassed. You’re confused. You’re angry.

“Happy?” he spits out once his boxers are on, shirt tugged back on so hard over his head that his curls frizz up.

“No,” your eyes are burning, and you feel it again. All those desperate emotions. Like a wild animal inside of you has begun to claw at your insides, making you bleed from the inside out.

Eddie loves you — and he has, for a long time, apparently.

Eddie’s neighbor has seen you naked. Saw your full bottom half exposed.

You’ve managed to hurt Eddie’s feelings, again.

Eddie fucking loves you and never thought to mention it. He has for a long time.

All your tempered strings snap, that wild and stricken thing inside of you finally cutting loose.

You don’t know what you’re angry at. You’re angry at him, and yet you’re not. You’re angry at the situation, and yet you’re not. You are bitter from words withheld and you are sour from every moment that paves the road that brought you two to this very moment.

You’re just angry.

“What did you mean?” the question comes out sharply enough to make his own defiant anger fade ever so slightly as he physically flinches, “I- I need to know what the Hell you meant, Eddie.”

Anger is metallic on your tongue. It seeps from your skin, floods the air, only further dampens everything already so heavy.

The longer he doesn’t answer you, the more smothering the entirety of the apartment becomes.

“Just tell me. Make it make sense, because right now?” you pause for a deep and shaky breath. Your eyesight is blurry now. Eyes red rimmed with tears that will surely sear your cheeks if they find the nerve to be shed, “Right now, I don’t get it. Over and over and over again, you have reminded me that you hate me. Prior to tonight, it was safe to assume that scorning my existence was one of your favorite pastimes. And I know, I get it — everything has changed. But- But-“

How can anything change if you weren’t honest to begin with?

Did anything change for him? While you were discovering and tending to sore feelings that had been festering for a while but had never seen the light of day, was he only nursing an old wound?

“But what?” his voice drops low. His entire demeanor has dropped, cowering down before you. His head dips down, his shoulders droop with prepared rejection, you watch the man before you, the man you had just let defile you and the man you had just worshiped on your goddamn knees, turn to dust.

A shaky gasp. Wobbly knees. The blood rushes through your ears again, flushing out any noise except the two of you breathing out of sync. His deep breaths, accepting and welcoming a rejection he was so sure he was receiving. Your shallow breaths, panting and rapid and trying to just get everything to slow the fuck down.

You were right. Once the tears shed, they burn a trail of Hellish fury right down the center of each cheek. “When I say everything has changed between us, what does that mean to you?”

He’s undressing an old wound, an open slash that seems to be unable to form a scab. You’re pressing on bruises, aching parts of you that had purpled from his neglect long ago. It’s clear as day now — the difference.

You no longer care about the embarrassment of being caught.

“What do you want it to mean?”

“Don’t do that,” the tears fall faster now. You can’t even begin to dig into this chasm of emotions. Are you angry at him? Are you disappointed by the circumstances? Do you love him? “I want an answer — I need your answer. You promised me your honesty, so give me it. Now.”

His eyes meet yours, and your entire world seems to fold into itself, “It… doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t change much.”

Everything has only changed for you.

“So it means nothing, then? You have me at your disposal, you have me on my fucking knees for you, you tell me you fucking love me, and it all means nothing?”

You’re twisting his words and you know it. But you can’t help it, can’t stop it.

“I never said that!” his voice is no longer low and quiet. Sudden worry creases beside his eyes as his mouth goes slack in shock, “I never said it meant nothing.”

“But it doesn’t mean much, right?” You hate your wet cheeks. You hate the way everything in you is somehow slow-breaking, yet suddenly shattering. An unnerving juxtaposition that is drowning you and sending you reeling over and over again, “It doesn’t change much, right? Because when I said that, Eddie, I meant it – everything fucking changed for me. It wasn’t- It’s not- This isn’t just some throwaway thing to me. Not even a day ago, I thought I had to hate you with everything I had. I thought I had to hate you.”

And I don’t. Not even a little bit. Even right now, when I should.

“Is that what you think I’m saying?” his voice is low where your voice has risen, his face calm where yours has gone stormy.

Where you’re on fire, he’s treading still waters. The opposite dilemma that has always existed, and the one you had the nerve to see as poetic. But water meeting flames is never poetic. It never ends well. You should have seen that coming from a mile away.

“What am I supposed to think?” you also quiet your tone to match his. You wonder if the neighbors really had heard a thing. You almost hope they had, that this argument is affecting someone else’s day the way it’s affecting you, “You’re standing here, and you’re telling me it doesn’t mean much, and-“

“It doesn’t change much,” he corrects, and you’re now the one flinching at the crack in his voice. “Not for me. Not when I-“

Not when I’ve loved you for so long.

He can’t even finish his own sentence.

“So what does it change?” you throw your hands out in exasperation, “If it doesn’t change much, what has it changed?”

There it is again — his silence, your anger.

“Is it not enough to just know it changes something?”

If you were stupid, you’d take his tone as pleading. You’d mistake it for begging. But you can’t. For all your fury, you can’t believe that he’s actually stooped so low as to beg for you, especially after what he’s just said. Time and time again, you had repeatedly cracked yourself wide open for him, and he’d managed to rip your heart right out of your chest with such a simply yet damning statement. The most casually cruel bit of honesty he had offered you yet tonight: that nothing changes.

“We’re back to square one,” you choke out in realization, “I- Fuck. This entire time, you weren’t honest with me.”

He opens his mouth quickly, and for a second you believe he’ll offer an explanation that can soothe over the ache. He’ll come up with an excuse that you can buy, he’ll explain himself in a way that proves you wrong, and the sweet oblivious bliss can return.

“No,” he says instead after careful consideration, “I wasn’t honest with you.”

Your tears are running rampant as you only nod slowly, pressing your lips together in defeat, “Awesome. Great,” you reach up, sniffling as you swipe at your nose, still silently quiet but no longer awarding him with any display of your rage, of your hurt, of anything but your acceptance, “No, really, that’s- Cool. Nothing changes. I get it.”

I’ve loved you for so long.

It didn’t make sense, but you don’t have it in you to dissect it any further. He had loved you the entire time, and still set out to make you bleed. His grand admission doesn’t change a single fucking thing.

You don’t say another word as you grab your pair of jeans up into your fist, being sure to move slowly and not in the haste every nerve in your body calls for. You need to leave – you need out of this apartment, and you need to never see Eddie Munson again. It wouldn’t be a far leap from what your friends already deal with. If the friendships take blows of damage from it, so be it-

“Where are you going?” he asks, standing stiller than a statue as he watches you.

You grab your bag, “I’m leaving. The deal’s off. Or- I don’t know. Tell them the bet’s off-”

“The bet is not off-”

“It is,” you turn to him, absolutely frozen in your resolution, “It really, really is. You can even fucking lie to them if you want, I don’t care. Figure out a way to get the money but I don’t want it. I’m done.”

“So that’s it?” he scoffs in disbelief. When you pull on your jeans, when you sling your bag back over your shoulder and begin to walk to the counter where your phone was left, he realizes that it’s really happening. He realizes you’re truly done, “No questions? I just told you I wasn’t fucking honest, and you’re just going to walk away, not even demand I tell the tru-”

“I’m tired of pulling the truth from you,” you finally move with some of the aggression you felt, hand smacking the counter beside your phone, “If you care so much, if you love me, I shouldn’t have to beg until my knees bleed for you to actually be honest with me,” you take your phone, shoving it into your back pocket before you look at him, “I can’t keep doing this. You were always right. They’re your friends. Congratulations, you got what you always said you wanted. You won’t have to deal with me anymore – consider this a farewell from your life. I’ll make sure no one invites you to my fucking funeral.”

You assume he grabs you due to your cruel reference to his insult from the very beginning of the night, that he’s going to fight you for that bit of your oddly calm speech. But when his hands wrap around your bicep, and you face him with those silent tears still racing, what comes out of his mouth stuns you.

“I’ll be honest,” he is pleading, he is begging, “Stay, and I’ll tell you everything. I don’t even fucking care about the bet — we can call off, everyone else can go to Hell. I don’t care about the money, I don’t care about the bet, I just-” he pauses, and you watch the desperation building taller and taller within him, “Stay and let me explain.”

You should tell him no. You should tell him to go to Hell. If you stay and hear him out, it will only end in pain for you. You should leave.

Instead, your bag begins to slip off your shoulder.

“You have ten minutes,” you whisper as his hand finally releases its grip, “Explain.”

—

SIX MONTHS EARLIER - EDDIE’S POV

If he were smart, Eddie would’ve kept his word.

He’d told them he wasn’t showing up. He’d told them he had work (not a complete lie), and that he wouldn’t make it tonight. He just hadn’t felt like drinking anymore — not since two weeks prior, when he’d gotten black out drunk while hanging out with Nancy, throwing his own personal pity party.

Pathetic.

It wasn’t just that killer headache that had been haunting Eddie since that night. It was much more than that; it was solid and palpable regret. He’d thrown back too many beers, mixed it with some sort of wine coolers that Nancy offered him once he started to feel the buzz. All it took was just a bit too much alcohol in his system, and suddenly, his rant that Nancy had agreed to indulge him in became so much more. One moment, he was just complaining about you. And the next, he was rambling, letting less harsh words slip between the complaints, more compliments than things he wanted you to change. One wine cooler in, and he was no longer complaining about the way everyone had been fawning over you after a full six months of friendship, but instead the way that your sad eyes and pouting lips following him around a room was cosmically unfair.

He didn’t remember much of the rest of the night, and he was glad when Nancy had given him a pitiful look over the cups of coffee she offered.

He’d told her. He knew he’d admitted his stupid, annoying, despicable crush on you to her. Probably whined about the way you and Harrington had clearly had something going on. Definitely spoke too much about how badly he wanted to experience your gentle hand in his calloused one, or to feel your arms wrap around his neck in greeting rather than daggers from your glare every time he entered a room. Hell, he’s sure there was a good thirty minute period amongst the fuzzy memories where he’d sat on the edge of tears as he continued to mumble about how he wasn’t good enough for you.

Nancy Wheeler, his best friend, finally knew. Six fucking months of keeping it under wraps, and Eddie Munson had finally slipped up.

And she clearly hasn’t forgotten as Eddie had prayed she would every single night as she’s the one to answer his knocks on Steve’s door, grinning with the hidden knowledge.

She’d texted him with one last plea for him to show up. Insisted everyone was here. Went so far as to make him a list, and made sure to add your name at the end. It had been phrased like an afterthought on the screen, but he knew her too well. He knew Nancy purposefully mentioned you.

“Munson! Finally! It took you long enough,” she squeals, clearly already halfway to drunk before she quiets down, “And you said you weren’t coming. Wonder what, or who, changed your mind.”

“Fuck off.”

It had been a bad day. Work, classes, a phone call with Wayne that had just left Eddie disheartened and terribly homesick. It was selfish, but the thought of seeing you in passing tonight, even if you did seem to dislike him just as he had intended, made it all a bit more bearable.

Coming home. Seeing you felt like coming home, even if you’d slammed the front door on his face.

He follows Nancy down the hall, a pit growing in the bottom of his stomach, heavy as ever. He shouldn’t have even wanted to see you. The last time he had seen you, you’d been out for blood, blatantly ruining a date he’d managed to bag with Chrissy Cunningham. Chrissy, who never gave him the time of day in high school. Chrissy, who was clearly set on using him as a rebound during yet another break from Jason. Chrissy, who’s only flaw wasn't just the fact that she wasn’t you.

“Eddie, my man!” Argyle greets Eddie the moment he enters the living room. He’s lounging on the couch, Jonathan to his right and a space where Nancy clearly had occupied now empty.

Eddie nods, still feeling the week weighing him down. No sight of you yet, “Hey, man.”

He just wanted to see you. One glimpse, preferably before you’ve caught sight of him, and he’d be fine. He’d learned to live with those fleeting moments the last six months, he could keep it up for just a bit longer.

He’d get over you eventually. Even if it killed him.

He had to give his plan time to work. So far, he’d done well, easily offering you a cold shoulder and nothing more after that first night. It wasn’t easy — he doesn’t think anyone would find the task of being cool towards someone as radiant as you easy — but he’d done it. Brick by brick, his wall of invincibility was standing tall and strong between you two. It was safer this way, he had to remind himself. It was better to run off of brief glances of your smiles and laughter never directed at him than to risk anything more. He’d only disappoint you, or you’d magically disappoint him, and it would end in bloodshed. Someone like you, someone so good and kind and easy to gravitate towards, would leave Eddie broken beyond damage.

You didn’t go for guys like Eddie. Steve had made that clear since day one.

Eddie takes the loveseat as Nancy returns to Jonathan’s side. He tries to make it subtle, the way he twists his head to glance around the room as he removes his jacket, eyes roaming until he finds you. In the kitchen, with Steve and Robin, tense back telling him you’d already noticed his arrival.

So much for seeing you smile.

He tries to keep up with the conversation going on. Argyle and Jonathan are having some sort of debate about aliens, nothing short of heated and passionate, and he’d normally be jumping in without hesitation. But his eyes can’t stop flickering to the kitchen and each time, he can see you downing even more alcohol. He knows you don’t like him, but did you hate him that much?

“You’re awfully quiet,” Nancy leans over to whisper as Jonathan grows in volume about another branch of a conspiracy theory.

“Just tired,” he flatly replies. He’s suddenly itching to get his hands onto some alcohol of his own. Fuck the lessons he should’ve learned a few weeks ago. Fuck his regret in confiding in Nancy.

“Was work rough?”

He hums pathetically in response, eyes glued to the kitchen still. To you.

Nancy’s eyes finally follow his focus, “Have you… I don’t know, ever tried just talking to her?”

He snaps from his daze at that, head turning quickly to Nancy, “I talk to her all the time.”

“You do not.”

“I do too.”

“Never nicely,” she points out, narrowing her eyes, “You’re like a little boy on the playground, tugging on her pigtails until she figures it ou-“

“I don’t want her to figure it out,” he cuts off the assumption, eyes widening in horror at the thought, “Christ, Nance. I thought I made that clear when I ended up shitfaced on your couch.”

Nancy softens. She can see what’s happening here, see every dampening thought that weighs Eddie down. He might not remember his drunken rambles, but she does.

“The only thing you made clear is what a spectacular ass you’re making out of yourself,” her words hold no bite, only truth, “Who cares what Steve said that night? He was drunk.”

“So was I,” Eddie’s eyes are back on you, palms running up his outer thighs until he curls them to fists by his hips, “I was drunk when I talked to you about her. Forget about it.”

Surprisingly, his stubborn best friend leaves it be. Puts the pointless argument to rest.

Eddie’s feelings can’t rest, though.

Every night, he tells himself it’ll all go away. The distance will make his heart grow harder, and he’ll eventually be able to wash himself of you one of these days. And every night, all the feelings you’ve sprouted inside of him only teem their way higher, up into his throat and choking him with every last breath before he falls asleep. He can’t forget those first few weeks, the way you seemed to think his coldness was a phase. You’d tried so desperately to seek him out at every function, sparked so many failed conversations with him that left him to burn. Every smile you’d offered him during that time, he’d taken for granted.

Even last week, when you’d interrupted his date, he’d let himself relish in the memory of your attention. Pathetic.

Had you been jealous? Had you just been spiteful, finally giving him a taste of his own medicine? He couldn’t decide, wouldn’t let himself linger on the reasoning. But he’d remembered your touch, could still feel it scarring his skin wherever your palm of fingertips had rested as you’d scared off Chrissy. He’d even hesitated in the shower that night, pausing for a moment before washing over the shoulder you’d gripped when you’d first approached their table and embarrassed him without care.

He deserved your spite.

And he deserves to have to overhear the conversation you’re currently having in the kitchen. You’re going on and on about all the men you’ve had dates with, detailing out every one night stand for Steve and Robin who listen with eager ears.

It makes his stomach churn and twist sharply. Each new man you bring to your roster makes his throat burn with jealousy, plain and simple. And he knows it written all over his face when Nancy leans over and puts a hand on his knee, giving him a concerned look.

Even the change of topic between Argyle and Jonathan on goddamn Bigfoot can’t overtake the sharp cut of your bragging.

“I’ve never seen your eyes so green, Eddie.”

He’s about to snipe back that his eyes are brown, and be unnecessarily cruel from his sour mood, when he realizes what she means.

“I’m not jealous,” he lies through his teeth.

“You very much are.”

He doesn’t have it in him to bicker back and forth about this again. Not about you, and not with Nancy, “What does it matter? Like I said, me and her? Never gonna happen.”

He had said that. He remembers that, at least, from his drunken confession. He’s sure he reiterated that point several times once he’d made it past the point of coherency.

“She’s lying,” Nancy casually whispers, pulling her hand back, “She- Us girls talk, you know? Just… she’s lying.”

“I went on a date with Chrissy. It doesn’t matter.”

And she has no clue how fucking hung up on her I am. She’ll never know if I have anything to do with it.

“You can keep saying that,” Nancy glances, making sure their other two friends on the couch are still too deep in conversation to listen in, “But we both know that’s not true.”

Unsurprising. Even if Nancy hadn’t listened to him cry that night about all his miserable yearning, all his unrequited feelings born out of a mess he got himself into, she would have known. Eddie has tried to guard himself when it comes to you, but there’s some times his leashed affection can’t help but seep out.

Whenever you stumble on sidewalks beside him, his arms and hands are the first to fly out. Whenever the group has gone out to bars altogether, he watches you like a hawk, almost daring the men surrounding you to disrespect you. Whenever your birthday came around, he’d bought that damn gift card to his favorite coffee shop, all because he saw you frequent it twice. Although, to be fair, he’d made Harrington be the messenger there. He wouldn’t have been able to look you in your eye, wouldn’t have been able to put up the bitter persona on a day that should be special to you. He didn’t want to ruin your birthday, so he’d simply sat on the sidelines. Let everyone else go out and celebrate with you. Let everyone else pour enough affection into your cup, even when he wishes his own could have been the final drops to cause it to overfill.

He had to tread carefully. It’d be too easy — to let himself pour out all these silly feelings and meaningless attraction. One wrong move, and he’d cause his own undoing. His own destruction. It doesn’t matter if it would be by your hand; he’d only have himself to blame at the end of the day.

He’s lost in thought, still itching for a drink, when Nancy is suddenly standing over him. “We’re going out for a smoke, you in?”

He shakes his head numbly. His mind is far away now, getting lost in all that he’s done wrong, all that he can’t have.

He’s homesick. He’s watched the way you’ve interacted with Robin and Steve the entire night, and he’s goddamn homesick for a home that he’ll never hold the keys to.

“You sure, man?” Argyle asks him, wiggling his brows, “I brought the good shit.”

Numbing his mind with drugs. It’s tempting.

“I’m good,” he reaffirms, still speaking in monotone. He doesn’t have the energy to put up a brave face, too focused on his heavy chest and that miserable pit in his gut still.

And everyone leaves. He’s sure there’s something poetic for his stormy mind to pick up on there, as he watches his friends gather without him and exit to the outside, but he’s more focused on a miniscule detail.

You’re not with them.

Meaning you’re still in the kitchen.

And God, he really should know better. He should stay planted in his seat and he should sit in his misery until they all return. Only trouble can come from not doing so. But then his body moves to its own accord, fueled by something wickedly cruel and terribly homesick as he grabs one of the bottles of beer off the coffee table. It’s Nancy’s, he’s sure of it. Her lipstick stains the opposite side of the rim he takes a swig from. The beer has long since gone lukewarm, but beggars can’t be choosers. He clears his throat as the bitter lingers on his tongue.

He should know better.

But he doesn’t. He really, really doesn’t as he enters the kitchen. You’re on your phone as he stands in the doorway, and there’s no time to hide what you’d been glancing over.

A dating app.

You spin to face him, and he imagines a world where your eyes land on him and light up. Something akin to that first night, to those first few weeks. Where you look at him with purpose, and he sees relief flood your irises rather than irritation or fear.

No such luck. He only has himself to blame.

He can’t think of anything else to say, so like an idiot, he gestures vaguely with the bottle of beer towards your phone, “Those apps fucking suck.”

That jealousy is still gnawing at him. Hateful, painful, reckless.

You look down at your phone for a second, and click to exit whatever messages you’d been on. And then you look back up at him.

“You’ve used them in the past?” you question him, but he’s still stuck on all the recounts of your escapades he’d overheard tonight. Whether or not they were true didn’t matter. All he sees when he closes his eyes is you, with other men. You, looking at someone else with purpose, relieved eyes awarded to someone more worthy.

He’s lucky he can choke out a short, “Nope,” and make it not sound strangled.

“Okay,” your attention returns to your phone screen, and Eddie’s returns to his internal battle.

He’s jealous. So goddamn jealous it’s insufferable. It’s not your fault – he chose to push you away, he chose to lash out like a child for his own sanity and his own safety. You’d ruin him; you’ve already ruined him without even trying. If he gave up on the act, on this carefully thought out plan, he’d be beyond leftover rubble of a man. He’d be gone beyond recognition, reduced to ash and smoke. A nameless, forgotten whisper of dust that people would only point to and say, see? Look at that. That’s what becomes of you when you never learn.

He’s pined enough in his lifetime after girls like you. Girls who were too good for him. He’d done it with Chrissy, and it was still causing him nothing but trouble.

That burden didn’t hang over Chrissy, or over you. It was all Eddie’s own fault. Neither of you could help that he wasn’t good enough; it wasn’t either of your jobs to fix him or lower your standards for him. You’d even been kind, you’d even nearly fallen into that trap.

It was for the better. All of it was for the better this way.

And yet the jealousy remains. The anger still thrives between his ribs, and begs for release.

“Why are you even still on them?” he should think over his words more carefully as they begin to roll off his tongues. He knows he’s in the wrong before he even continues, “I heard you’ve been having a shit time with the guys on there – quite the opposite of what you’ve been telling Harrington tonight, might I point out.”

Each word is sharpened so intentionally, glinting from raking against that anger inside of him. You don’t deserve their prick. Really, he should just be comforting you the way the others do – how Robin surely was, how Steve must be.

But it’s part of the plan. So he tampers down the jealousy and he feeds into the anger, lets it consume him. Because making you hate him is easier than letting you like him. It’s easier to watch the one you can’t have sneer at you like the enemy than let them smile at you like you’re just a friend.

“I-” you falter in your words, and he decides to straighten his back, takes a deep breath as he slips the mask on effortlessly. He hates how easy it’s become. He hates how quickly he turns everything with you into a fight, “You win some, you lose some. It’s the nature of the app.”

Sometimes, it’s like a game. And he can pretend that your hatred, your distaste, is also all a facade. Like the both of you are two sides of the same coin. A playful banter rather than an actual argument between two people who can’t even call themselves friends. When he looks at it like that, blinded by his delusion, it makes the ache dull. Sends it away for a few fleeting seconds, convinces himself he really can carry on this way.

“You haven’t made it sound like you’re losing at all, tonight. I nearly started a drinking game with Nance where we took a swig every time you said you managed to pull another ‘fuck ‘em and leave ‘em’. Quite the boy count you’ve got there, player,” he forces a grin as he leans on the counter, watching his words get under your skin exactly as he had intended.

You’re cute like this. Clearly drunk, getting flustered. He revels in the way your face physically scrunches in annoyance, the way he can watch you gear up to fight fire with fire. A sick, twisted game of cat and mouse that always can entertain him in the moment and haunt him at night.

“You’re bluffing. You couldn’t hear me from all the way over there.”

He wonders, for a second, if you’d caught him staring at any point. He wonders if you’d even care.

“We could.”

“No, you couldn’t.”

“Yes, we could.”

“You’re lying.”

You cross your arms, and he can’t help but watch the way they push your chest up. He can’t help but ponder on how much better it would all feel if this were really playful banter.

He has to refrain from physically shaking the thought from his mind.

It’s for the better.

He narrows his eyes, he grips onto the anger again, that hidden jealousy. He should know better. He should stop it. The words even feel heavy on his tongue, terribly forced. Because his anger isn’t at you.

“I’m lying? You’re the one who’s been telling Stevie nothing but lies tonight,” and oh, how ironic, for the liar to be calling out someone’s little white lies, “Why do you need to even lie about all that, anyways? It’s not like the truth would be any more pathetic than the act you’re putting up,” the words come out a bit easier when imagines the barrel of the gun pointed at himself, as if he were speaking so casually cruelly into a mirror rather than at you, “Everyone strikes ou-”

He’s clearly struck a nerve. And it aches, but he reminds himself that that’s the point. That’s his goal.

“I’m pathetic? Just last week, you lied to the group. You were trying to avoid being where I’d be and told them you had to walk your neighbor’s dog.”

He wasn’t trying to avoid you. He was trying to avoid Nancy after his entire drunken confession fiasco.

“I did!” he continues to lie. Even with no one to show for, he piles up his lies high. Buries himself beneath them, beneath his pathetic act and worthless reasons. It’s probably for the best that you had assumed that he was avoiding you.

“Your apartment has a strict no pet policy, Eddie.”

The act cracks for a moment as he freezes. Why did you know about his apartment’s pet policy?

“How do you know that?”

It can’t be because you care, or even get curious about him. He’s done everything in his power to cause the exact opposite, to make you be repulsed by him and to run the other way if you can help it.

“I didn’t, but Nancy did,” He doesn’t even react to the roll of your eyes, unable to get riled up as he usually would at that. It clicks for him; it makes sense, because Nancy had stormed down his door not even a day later, “It’s all I had to hear about the entire night. How she wishes we could get along, how she hates when you lie to her. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Eddie does feel guilty about that. He doesn’t mean for his own self-destructive behavior to leach out to his friends, or even you. His goal has always been to make it so that when he’s not around, he’s not even an afterthought to you. But selfishly, part of him preens at the idea of you being reminded of him, of you thinking of him when he’s not in the room with you. It’s a conundrum. It’s almost deadlier than his other option.

“It’s not my fuckin’ fault you go out with my friends,” he grumbles like a damn child, almost pouting in his guilt. There’s another selfish sliver of him that’s also upset at that – upset at the fact everyone else gets to bloom with your friendship and positive attention, but not him. Once again, it’s his own doing. He really shouldn’t be angry at you about it.

“And it’s not my fault that you don’t.”

Times like these make him want to give it all up. He has to physically tense his body, tick his jaw and bite his tongue to avoid throwing the entire act to the side. He wants nothing more than to grab you by your shoulders and shake you, scream that sometimes it is your fault. But you don’t know it – you can’t read his mind, see past his intentions.

You don’t know what Steve had so generously reminded him of that very first night.

“Whatever. Why are you lying to Steve?” his voice is devoid of all emotion despite the storm brewing inside of him. He can’t even blame it on alcohol – he wishes he could, but his tolerance to beer can handle the single sip he’s taken. He crosses his arms, wrapping them around his body, trying to protect that terrible vulnerability only he’s aware of. When your position mirrors his, he wonders for a moment if you’re also feeling it.

But you’ve been drinking. This entire conversation, every emotion, can be blamed on that. You’re luckier than Eddie.

“I’m not lying.”

“You are. With Steve, and with me at this very moment.”

He lets a reaction at his own irony slip through for a brief second, eyebrows furrowing as the voice inside him screams hypocrite! Hypocrite! Hypocrite!

He wishes he could pretend to be oblivious to why he can’t stop bringing Steve up, but he knows better. He can bury the jealousy alive, but it still bites all the same.

“How the fuck do you even know how my dating life is going? We aren’t exactly friends. Did Robin tell you? Did Steve tell you?”

We aren’t exactly friends.

He should relish that confirmation that his plan is working, that you truly don’t see him as a friend, but it just fucking stings. He swallows hard physically, as if it can help him swallow down the truth any better, but it does nothing for him. The truth only continues to choke him up. His tongue has momentarily frozen over in his mouth as he tries to push past the painful reminder and wrap up this conversation. He feels it, that sharp burn of an unattended wound, and he realizes at the wrong moment that whether or not he keeps you at an arm's length, bloodshed will always occur.

At least this way, he tells himself it’s protecting himself. This way, the knife isn’t pointed at his own heart.

“You’re right. We aren’t friends,” the words are poison on his tongue. They taste of dirt and rust, like a grave that screams to be dug up but he has no shovel. He’d tossed it once he’d sealed the tomb, like a fool, “But Rob and Nance are, and Nance and me are. See where I’m going with that one?”

At least he wasn’t lying to you for a brief moment. Nance had told him. He’d throw you that bone, at least.

“Well-” and with your own pause, you seemingly return the favor. You’re handing him yet another opportunity on a silver platter; exposing an insecurity that he should let live and let die, but he won’t for the sake of the wall he has bled to put up between you two, “You say that as if Nancy and I aren’t friends.”

“Are you?”

He’ll regret that taunt for the rest of his days. Two simple words, and he’s damned himself. The conversation that follows, about Instagram and followers and social standards of friendship, doesn’t even matter to him. It’s just a routine. Constant knives, clashing swords of words, lie after lie piling up with the bile in his throat as he shoots for kills. He hands over reason after reason for you to resent him, and makes sure that each punch lands. Ignores the ache, the one billowing in his knuckles as if each subtle insult he tosses your way doesn’t bruise his innards all the same way. By the end of the back and forth, it should be enough, for both of you. He’s accomplished the same thing he always sets out to do with every conversation: he pisses you off, putting another inch in that stretch between you two.

But then you turn your back on him. And he deserves it. God, he deserves it. But he’s still full of bad ideas tonight, the awfulness of the last few days still suffocating him, and so he makes another decision to regret. He walks up behind you.

You open your phone, and he sees it. You’re on the dating app again, and the screen flashes with the face of your latest contender.

He knows that face. He schools his face to remain even, but he fucking knows that face.

The bartender at his local haunt. The only other person besides Nancy who had ever seen Eddie so miserable over you. He had been drinking alone that night, and the whiskey had him pouring out his guts to the poor guy. Slurred words of the girl who had slipped between his fingers, of the one who got away, of you.

And that same bartender had been the one to sympathize with Eddie, claiming he understood. That he knew that feeling – dating around and doing anything in your power to get the girl you truly want off your mind. He said he had one of his own. He’d told Eddie that his pain-riddled speeches helped him make up his mind, that he was going to go after the girl he really wanted, that Eddie should do the same.

Was this bartender your ex-boyfriend? Had the two of them been discussing the exact same girl?

Bad decisions. Over, and over, and over. It all comes to a rise within Eddie – not just the anger, but the jealousy and the hurt and the goddamn envy of the man on the screen. He hates the bartender, he hates himself, he hates the world at this point.

He tells himself he should add you to that list. But he doesn’t. He can’t.

And it all spirals out of control before he can prove that to himself. Words grow sharper, small kindles of tension between the two of you finally explode to full blown flames, and he’s suddenly saying things he doesn’t mean. Things he’ll linger on for the days and weeks, the months to come.

“You’re so dense, you never realize that you’re not wanted, Not by those assholes, not here-”

He’s mid-lie, one finger on the trigger of the gun he assumed was aimed at his own chest, when it finally happens. A snap within both of you. Timed perfectly with the glass that shatters against the wall beside his head.

Eddie learns two things that night.

One, half of his plan worked. He’s succeeded. You hated Eddie Munson’s guts, and instead of him being content in his success, he’s sick to his stomach. It doesn’t bandage the wound inside of him, doesn’t pack away cotton nor cauterize the bleeding. It only worsens it. Widens it, impossibly so. He swears shards of that broken glass fly right into his unsuspecting chest, even if Nancy doesn’t find a trace on him when she comes back inside to see the aftermath. You hate him, he’s proven his point. He has proven himself to be the worst possible version of himself, the most unlovable man he had always seen in the mirror now residing in him staunchly enough that every single one of his friends sees it.

He’d done it. He’d diminished any chance he had ever held of being friends with you. And he thought that, without a doubt, that meant he’d diminished any disastrous chance of letting you close enough to risk the chance of any more of his feelings getting involved. He thought it would have meant that he’d done it – he’d protected himself, and in some sick twisted way you, from inevitable bloodshed.

But blood had still been shed. Even if his friends were only cleaning up broken glass in the kitchen, he could still see the stain of red across the floor and walls from you and him. He was bleeding out for you, but he had just driven the knife in deep enough that you would never return the feeling. There was no world where you would be bleeding out for him, only because of him.

The second revelation comes a bit later in the night.

Closer to midnight, hours after the fight, when Eddie finds himself alone as per usual. He stumbles to his usual bar, thankful for the late hours, fully prepared to get so fucking wasted he can’t remember his own name. He’d wish to not remember your face, especially when he had spewed such hateful intent your way, but he knows there’s not a single brand or amount of whiskey out there that can cleanse him of that. Your name is just another ghost to add to the lineup. You’ll haunt him until his dying day. And he deserves that.

But then, when he walks into the bar, he sees the bartender.

The same man who had stood you up just the night before. The same man Eddie simply couldn’t understand. He was clearly on a date, a nice girl sat at the table across from him, laughing at every word he said. Eddie remembers their conversation, although a bit hazy.

“I think you’re onto something, man. Some girls are just… irreplaceable. I’ve got a girl like that of my own – prettiest eyes you’ll ever see, a smile that could cure cancer – and… you know what? I think we should both go for it. Give up on the girls who could never compare.”

He wants to vomit. The bastard had even poured a round of shots on the house, had fucking cheered with Eddie before throwing back the alcohol with him in the promise of moving onto the girls who matter.

He had said cheers to discarding you. Brushing off you. To you being one of the girls who could never compare.

Eddie’s vision goes red, and he knows half of the blame falls on himself. He’d been the reason this asshole stood you up. He had already been the reason for your pain tonight before he’d even said a word to you. His self hatred has never burned so deeply, so viciously.

But you can’t punch yourself. And so instead, Eddie doesn’t hold back when he approaches the table and lands his right knuckles right on the bastard’s cheek bone. Even goes in for a second punch. He would have gotten in a third punch, but the bartender hits back. Not as hard as Eddie, fists fueled by self-defense rather than ravaging guilt and crippling self-hatred, but enough to get deter him until security could gather both men up.

It’s in the alleyway that he has his second revelation. At the hands of the man who had just hurt you. It was like looking in a mirror. Eddie nearly does finally vomit as he leans against the brickwall, security a few paces away, ready to file a police report. But then, the bastard still manages to somehow be better than Eddie, throwing up a hand to stop them from dialing for the cops.

“Don’t,” is all he says, leveling a stare when Eddie’s eyes fill with tears.

“Really?” Eddie cocks an eyebrow, pushing his luck. He needs someone to punish him. He needs to be thrown in a cell for the night, to be treated as the degenerate he truly was, “I just rearranged your fucking face and-”

“Why’d you punch me?” the bartender spits out some blood, nose crooked, “You- You’re a fucking regular, dude. How’d I piss in your cheerios?”

Eddie’s feeling vulnerable. All his actual feelings boiling and burning in the back of his throat, begging to be released. He doesn’t need a drop of whiskey this time to be honest.

“The girl,” Eddie rasps, tears threatening to spill as he pictures your face again, “I told you about the girl. The one no one else compared to.”

The bartender’s eyes widen, “Jesus, fuc- are you telling me that we were talking about the same fucking girl? I- Vanessa told me she wasn’t seeing anyone else, I can’t believe she fucking lie-”

“Not her,” Fuck Vanessa, Eddie thinks bitterly, almost laughing. He has no right to say his next words, but he does, and they cause a pain worse than even the most nightmarish hangovers he’s ever experienced, “My girl is the one you stood up for her.”

You weren’t his girl. You never would be his girl.

The bartender only looks more confused, and Eddie’s anger flares a bit more at the thought of him talking to more girls beyond you. The man before him had had everything Eddie wanted: he had had you. And just like Eddie, he had fucked it all up. It was easy to misdirect his anger in the moment.

He says your name out loud, a searing iron in his throat that makes it come out garbled and strangled. Some recognition falls upon the man’s face.

“Oh… her.”

Eddie doesn’t hold back, “Her? That’s all you have to fucking say? You stood her up, you fucking- Jesus Christ, go burn in Hell,” He’s being irrational. He doesn’t care, “Call the cops on me. Tell them to let me rot in a fucking cell. I deserve it – but so do you. That girl… that… her. She’s one in a fucking million, she’s a thousand times better than whatever girl you have waiting on you inside, and you couldn’t see that. You’re a goddamn dick.”

No one makes the move for the call. The bartender just shakes his head again, being far too patient. Eddie opens his mouth, ready to scream now as he demands they punish him. Make him pay for his crimes. Not just the punches, but everything he had broken tonight.

He broke you tonight. He deserves to burn in Hell far more than the man before him.

“I knew you were in love with her, but-”

Eddie cuts him off, “I’m not in love with her.”

He hates the look he receives. It’s the same pity that Nancy now looks at him with. That same hidden judgment, like everyone else knows something that he doesn’t.

“You may hate to hear it,” the bartender is choosing his words very carefully as he swipes in a contrasting carelessness at the blood pouring out of one of his nostrils, “But you don’t throw punches like that for a girl you’re not in love with. So I suggest you mind your business, and if she is as valuable as you keep going on about, you tell her rather than punching the dude he just serves you fucking alcohol.”

He doesn’t even have to close his eyes to see you anymore. The image of you is clear as day, even with his eyes open. You, broken and vulnerable and full of hatred for him. Just as he had intended.

Success tastes metallic and bitter. Eddie finally empties what little he had in his stomach onto that concrete alleyway.

He doesn’t leave the wall. Not when the bartender goes back inside with one of the bar’s bouncers, not when the remaining bouncer eyes him and nervously steps forward, not when they return with a paper declaring him banned from the bar.

He can’t move. All he sees is you. He hasn’t drank more than that one pitiful swig of beer at Steve’s, but he feels like his world has gone incoherent all the same.

He fucked up.

He crinkles that piece of paper harshly once he’s properly left alone in the alleyway, angry enough that it tears a bit from his force. It doesn’t phase him; he didn’t intend on returning anyways. He carries it with him the entire way home, regardless, rolls it between his palms until it’s gone soft with the sweat of his hands.

It’s for the better. He fucked up, but it’s for the better.

He tosses the wadded ball into the trash when he gets home. Goes through the numb motions of taking off his shoes, tossing his jacket on the counter rather than the hook he’d put up for it, and leaves his bike’s keys beside it. Eventually, he makes his way to the bathroom, brushing his teeth but never once glancing up in the mirror. As a matter of fact, he avoided every single reflective surface in his apartment that night.

He still sees your face, broken and teary, as he turns off his bedroom light and lays on his mattress that night. It doesn’t matter how many times he repeats it to himself, reminds himself over and over, the mantra of it being for the better doesn’t work. It can’t break through. All because of a pathetic revelation.

Eddie learns that night that he is, in fact, in love with you. And it doesn’t matter, because you hate his fucking guts, just as he had intended.

—

You don’t make a single move once Eddie breathlessly finishes his explanation. Not even to breathe.

He’s been in love with you since that night at Steve’s.

You’d known that he had punched the bartender that night. You’d known that he had been banned from his usual bar that night. But you hadn’t known the entire truth. You couldn’t have ever imagined it, ever pieced it together, until now.

And you don’t know if that speaks more on you and how dense you’ve been this entire time, or on Eddie and how dishonest he’s been this entire time.

“God, I’ve loved you for so long, and I’ll never be fucking worthy.”

It suddenly makes sense. At a sickening and sudden pace, it clicks into place.

“Eddie, I-”

“Don’t,” he stops you, looking you directly in your eyes. You nearly shrink under his attention. Your fury is gone; you just feel empty, “You… You don’t need to say it back. You don’t need to say anything – the bet’s off. I’m not being honest to stop you from leaving,” he admits, every single wall crumbling at both of your feet, “I’m just being honest because you deserve it. I should have told you that night. I should- I actually should have never done any of this. Any of it.”

You remember the girl you once were. In a bar, surrounded by strangers and new friends, with tunnel vision for the boy in front of you. You remember that feeling of coming home, the way you ached for him to let you in and had been fooled for one night that it was possible.

A year later, and he was letting you in, too late.

“Why?” your voice cracks. You should just pick up your bag and go, but you can’t. Not until you stick the final stitches into the wound, seal up this hurt once and for all. For you and for Eddie. “Why would you… Why would you do that? Why would you set out to make me hate you?”

“Because I didn’t deserve you,” he says it like a simple fact, like it doesn’t shatter you apart, “Because I knew if I didn’t create the rift and kept letting you in, I’d fall in love with you. At first, I thought I needed you to hate me to prevent it. Figured you’d be stronger than me about it. If I made you hate me, I was… Honestly, I was saving myself. I’d tell myself it was about saving you, but it wasn’t. I was being fucking selfish.”

You nod silently, swallowing down tears. Tears for what could have been, tears for what you still want so badly that it aches.

“All because of Steve making…” you trail off, head trying to wrap around all the honesty he had just presented you with, “Making some off-handed, drunk comment.”

It was Eddie’s turn to silently nod. To swallow hard and flutter his eyes shut so you couldn’t see the hurt lit within them.

“You said you hated me,” you’re thinking out loud more than you’re properly speaking to him at this point, voice broken and soft, hands fighting the urge to reach out for him. Even after it all. Every reminder of what he had done for you, and now having the pitiful reason behind it all, still couldn’t break what had formed here tonight. Everything has still changed for you, “When I said everything changes, I meant the hate – I didn’t want to hate you anymore.”

“I know,” he bites his lip, as if he’s trying to hold back any careless words. Words that might hurt you, but not for the same reasons as they used to, “That’s why… not much has changed. I never hated you. God knows I wanted to. I told myself I had to hate you, because if I didn’t hate you, I’d love you. And I couldn’t do that again – I couldn’t handle falling in love with someone I couldn’t have. I knew I wouldn’t survive loving you when you’d never love me back. It wouldn’t be fair… to either of us.”

“But you did it anyway,” you almost laugh at the awfulness of it all, terribly irony stacking up between you, “You fell in love with me, you said it yourself. You… you loved me.”

“Love,” he corrects, eyes now wide open, “I love you. It’s not- It’s not some feeling in the past tense. You should still hate me, because I still love you.”

He’s right, you finally realize. You should hate him for all of this.

“And all of this counted on the first part of your plan working,” he has to take a step closer, whether it be subconscious or due to how low your voice has dropped. The physical distance erased aches. Splinters each of your bones and all of your emotions, “Which you never even asked me if it worked, even now. You just assumed.”

He takes a deep, brave breath before he quietly asks you, “Did it work?”

You both already know the answer now, “No.”

But it changes nothing. You know that, he knows that. It’s just as he said – the point of saying it out loud no longer has anything to do with repairing what’s been damaged just tonight. You’re both being honest only because you both deserve it. You both deserve to finally close this tomb.

You don’t know if you’ll ever be able to close it, though. Not truly. Not properly.

“I can’t stay,” you whisper, “I still… I still need to leave.”

Especially now.

“I know you do,” he responds. He’s gentle, understanding.

It doesn’t stop the tear you see break from his lower lashes. He doesn’t draw any attention to it, doesn’t so much as move to clear it from his cheek. As if he’s scared if he does, you’ll notice it if you hadn’t already.

“The bet’s still off,” you continue, unable to meet his gaze as you pick up your bag once more.

“I know it is.”

He doesn’t try to stop you this time. And part of you, this time, wishes he would have as you slip back out the front door of apartment 2C and let the door shut with a quiet click behind you.

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#my writing #twenty four hours #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fanfic #my bad #surprise drop because... i am actually sleeping so peacefully right now haha #also might be more mindful of answering asks with spoilers for this round <3 just to give people a fighting chance to read first!!!#eddie pov truthers please rise because my GOD have i been excited to do this

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naffeclipse · 3 months

Text

Warm Fangs

Naga!Sun x Reader. Sickness.

As you sleep, the fever worsens. Chills hit you with a violent shudder. The heat from the sickness flees under the quaking cold. You moan softly, curling up tighter. A soft hiss shushes you but you can’t find anything warm, anything warm at all.

The smooth brush of scales loosens from around you. The outside cold slips away from your feverish skin but stays within.

“It hasn’t broken yet,” Moon murmurs distantly. Cold fingertips brush your hair, damp from sweat, away from your forehead. A whine leaves you. You hate how pathetic it sounds inside your head.

“Oh, no. I was afraid it might linger with our poor lily pad,” Sun lowers his voice but he’s not as quiet as his brother, holding a stage whisper more than an actual whisper. You might have smiled if you weren’t bothered by the mottled moonlight giving way to a blue-bright early morning sky.

It doesn’t feel warm. The sun is supposed to reheat the earth and take away the frost filling your chest with a shivering revolt.

A few quiet exchanges slip away in your near unconsciousness. Gingerly, you become weightless, lifted into the air like a feather before pressed into other arms. Heat, raw and covering, finally touches your body. You breathe out a low sigh, eyelids fluttering to peek up at the source of the heat. The form softly sways as you’re carried away.

“It’s going to be alright,” Sun hums. He looks down at you, his spiky frills flaring around his head in golden hues before the shadow of the cave eclipses the morning sun. “Don’t move, my water lily, you’re still sick.”

“Hmm, I’m fine,” you half moan. Your eyes fall close again. A tender soreness soaks into every muscle, especially at your neck and your shoulders. The deep, deep ache that refuses to go away.

You shudder with another chill. Sun clicks his tongue in concern, the forked end whipping with a snapping worry.

“You amaze me, truly. Even in the throes of illness, you’re still so stubborn.” He laughs softly, endearing but in a way that almost makes you push yourself out of his steady arms. He doesn’t get to think you’re cute. Not right now, when you feel how sticky your body is and how weak your limbs dangle as he carries you deeper into the cave you’ve made a shelter within.

“Sun,” you softly groan.

“Save your strength to fight the fever, not me.” A soft peck of his scaly mouth touches your temple. You nearly dissolve under his doting command. “You need to rest and do as I say so you can feel better. I don’t like to see you like this.”

You, in a reflective, rebellious instinct, almost try to kick out your feet and find solid ground, but Sun lowers you to the cold, cave floor. You’re seized by another icy torrent of coldness. Hugging your arms, you quietly groan. A soft swell of tears teem over your eyelids. That’s from the sickness, you tell yourself. You’re not crying because Sun and his sweet warmth let you go.

“I’ll be gone for only a moment, lily pad. Hold on for me, okay?” he singsongs.

You want to snatch the heat that had held back the torturous chills. Lifting your heavy eyes, you scour the dimness of the cave, catching sight of Sun’s long body softly slipping over the stone towards the shelves that were chipped into the wall of the cavern. The rich yellow hues of his scales are bright even in the shadows of rocks. The markings along his waist and around his throat are scarlet and vibrant with warning of his venom. You watch the outline of Sun’s defined shoulders move, taking and gathering, collecting a pale pink blossom you can’t currently name.

Pressed against the wall in a sleepy bundle of his scales, Moon watches you, eyes half lidded but attentive. You didn’t hear him enter. His hands open and close, as if to reach for you. He holds back. You frown at his distance but recall his cool scales through the midnight fever, and drowsily, in fitful half-sleep, wait for Sun.

He returns with a skim over the floor. His presence washes over you with hope.

“Don’t cry, my water lily. I’m here,” Sun coaxes with gentle mirth. A crooked finger swipes the leaking liquid from your eyes.

“Not crying,” you grumble, voice croaking like a frog. “Not a water lily.”

“Oh, I’m going to have to disagree and blame your lack of sense on the sickness,” he chirps as if you were simply the most adorable thing he’s ever seen.

You pry your eyelids open for a glare. You certainly are not a beautiful and grandiose flower. Not right now in your freezing weakness.

Moon’s hissing laughter echoes. It fills you with another short burst of irate energy that lasts for only the moment of his humor. Sun tuts and shoots Moon a look before gently cradling you. The golden naga guides you upright with a tender hand supporting your back. He rests your head on his shoulder, his underside a shiny, pale cream color, and the gentle heat of his body burns away the chills holding you down.

He lifts up a small flower, pale pink and pom-pom like on the end of a slender, green stalk.

“Eat this. It’ll make you feel better,” he softly insists.

You eye the flower as if it were a venus flytrap, and you were a particularly weak fly.

“What is it?” you murmur.

“I’ve heard humans call it a sensitive plant, sometimes called touch-me-not. If you had told me you weren’t feeling well early, you could have had this sooner.” The chasiting does not evade your awareness. Sun lowers the plant closer, as if offering a rose instead of medicine. “It will help with your fever and chills.”

“Ugh,” you turn your head ahead. The thought of eating when you have no appetite rears an ugly head within you. “I don’t need it.”

“I disagree strongly, lilypad,” Sun crones in disapproval. “Once you eat it, you’ll start to feel better.”

The soft lift to his tone invades you. You want to squirm, keep turning away from the offered medical plant, but Sun’s warmth surrounds you entirely. Gently, his finger guides your cheek until you face him once more.

“Please, won’t you, for me?” His cornflower blue eyes hold you with his plea. From the corners of his wide mouth, the very tips of fangs glint, but you’re not afraid of his bite. He saved you with his venom, once.

You grimace and force your lips to part. Murmuring praises and coaxes alike in a soft, musical tone, Sun presses the flower head to your mouth until you bite it off, and chew laboriously. It tastes green and dry. He watches you, hawk-like, ensuring you masticate the soft, brittle like petals before swallowing against the vicious dryness of your throat. You gasp after gulping.

His smile grows like a sunbeam at sunrise.

“See? It wasn’t so bad.” He tenderly rubs his mouth against your forehead. “Thank you."

The heat of his affection battles the cold underneath your skin, and when you shiver, he holds you tighter. You fall deeper under his fondness.

"This will pass and you’ll be in tip-top shape again,” he says softly, brimming with heated hope.

Oh, Sun. You want to curse him. You want to tell him that he can’t talk like that, melting your insides and making you nothing but an ooey-gooey mess, but you can’t. You are swept away by his sweet tones.

No one but Sun unbalances you and catches you in the same motion. He’s disarming. He's the only thing that feels right.

You slump against him in another full-body shudder. Softly humming, Sun begins rearranging your limp form, draping your legs across his deliciously warm tail as the dark end wraps your lower legs. The tightness of his coils used to frighten you before you realized how summery and soft he is. He tucks you gently against his arm, lying down to become your personal pillow.

You are so useless. It’s a miracle you haven’t faded away by now—a miracle of two nagas, no less.

“It’s also called humble flower,” he continues with a soft note. “Perhaps you could take that aspect from it as well, my water lily.”

You moan, unable to offer a rebuttal that you are no flower, but his gentle embrace covers you entirely. His chest thrums lightly with a heartbeat you’ve listened to before. A soft hum fills his throat. He continues pressing his mouth against your cheek, the crook of your neck, and the top of your head as if smothering the clammy effect attempting to surface on your body.

“Soon, you’ll rise and we can stroll through the jungle and find more flowers, more flowers like you, and you’ll feel better. Doesn’t that sound nice?” he chatters endlessly.

You can only snuggle deeper against his chest, against his warm, smooth scales, better than any patch of sunlight, and trust in him.

#for when the chills hit and you have a nice warm naga to help you through it #i wrote this late last night again #your girl is going through it #if there are mistakes just close your eyes and don't see them ty #warm fangs #naga au #naga!sun #sun x reader #naff writing #i'll add this to ao3 later too #if i have more energy i might write a third part with a certain someone

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llolianarchives · 7 months

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The Prefect and The Draconia

A short overview of the Ramshackle prefect and their strange (but kind) horned fellow friend: as seen through the eyes of outsiders.

(A/N: #Malleyuu notes with an OC but feel free to project. We're all delulu here ╮⁠(⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)⁠╭ )

His Henchman is crazy.

Or at least, that's what Grim thinks when he's woken up at sunrise to Yue's bizarre ramblings. Something about the time being 1 AM, then fireflies at night, and a tall, horned figure – is what he takes from their babble amidst his own groans and pleas to return to sleep. He'd think them delirious from slumber, mumbling about another dream, if it weren't for the way Yue's eyes sparkled with genuine interest. Grim yields, in the end, for one of the many things he's learned about his reliable servant is that they can be awfully enthusiastic when it comes to this world's curiosities.

“He told me to call him whatever I want,” Yue continues, ruffling Grim's fur dry with a clean rag. Before he could insert magnificent ideas of his own, they beat him to it with a soft smile on their lips.

“I'm thinking of naming him Nyx: the personification of the night. What do you think?”

“What? Because he only shows up at night?” Like some wacky cryptid.

“Yup.”

He hears his henchman forgo the brush, letting it clatter loudly against the table.

“Hm... Nyx, huh...” Grim falls into thought, testing the name on his tongue like premium quality tuna. He doesn't even notice how Yue ties the striped ribbon around his neck. Triumphant, he turns to them with a grin.

“That's not half-bad, Henchman! It's cool and mysterious. Not as cool and mysterious as me, of course, but I'd say it's a close second!”

“Naturally. I wouldn't dare bestow a name mightier than the Great Grim's.”

Despite the stream of praise his henchman delivers (which he pleasantly basks in), Yue eventually derails, returning to speak of the horned man yet again. What Grim's superior brain gathers is this: One, this Nyx guy is super weird. Two, Yue's interest has been piqued like no other before.

He'll demand some omurice as payment for his counsel later on.

. . .

Malleus has made a friend.

The news was dropped onto Lilia's lap rather unceremoniously when one night, the Young Lord—having just returned from another evening excursion, went to sit with him in the Diasomnia lounge. This time, however, the quaintest of smiles adorned his face... It was an unusual sight but certainly not unwelcome. And much like any doting parent, his curiosity led him to ask.

Malleus had replied with a question of his own.

"Lilia, do you know of the Prefect that resides in Ramshackle Dorm?"

"Yue? Why yes, of course. I've spoken to them once or twice. They made quite a show during the Ceremony."

Yue— Lilia soon comes to learn— is completely unaware of Malleus's identity as a prince and a figure of authority, of power. As such, they bear no fear for him, even going so far as to bestow him a pet name, of all things.

(“Nyx? As in the night spirit? How fitting.")

Thus began the pattern of Lilia covering for Malleus's nighttime absence, not daring to ask nor scold when the prince would return in strange and stranger states.

When he would return to the dormitory partially caked with dirt and mud (a consequence of helping the prefect with their little garden of life.) Or when he would return with a box of homemade cake, a pretty stone from their walks, a drawing of him supposedly made by the prefect's beast, and with inquiries of the complexities of human nature.

Sometimes, Lilia can't help but feel a bit guilty, constantly boring witness to Silver and Sebek's searches into the night.

Yet that sliver of guilt fades, in the end, when Malleus smiles more often than before, when he approaches Lilia in the winter with the request of delivering a Holiday Card.

As he watches the magicless human rush into their abode, card in hand, ghosts and Grim awaiting their entrance...

he has never felt prouder and more grateful for fate.

. . .

From a distance, Vil watches.

He watches as the feared Briar Prince lets a small, feeble human talk his ear off, calm and unresisting, a hand on his chin as he ponders along Yue's barrage of words. He gives the prefect full reign of the conversation. He lets himself be taken away by their stories and details. He lets them speak, which they do.

Just after the horrors, highs, lows, and thrills of the VDC, the two chat as if nothing even happened. The onslaught of it all feels like a fever dream to Vil. First, the mental toll of overblotting, then their loss to RSA's nursery rhyme performance, and now the shocking reveal of Yue (innocent, bold, mundane little Yue) and Malleus Draconia's relationship.

He isn't even sure what to make of it. They're clearly friends, yet Vil can't bring himself to chalk it up to just that. His years and years of showbiz cinema has taught him the ins and outs of body language. He watches. He sees:

There's the smiles on both their faces; cheeks raised taut, dimples carved with genuine laughter. There's that glimmer in Yue's eyes and the odd tenderness of Malleus's own, both gazes locked onto one another with an undisturbed focus. There's the fact that Yue had given him an invitation to the VDC, or that Malleus had fixed the stage partially to show off to the magicless human, or that their hands are currently mere centimeters away from each other.

In the end, Vil averts his gaze, weariness crashing into him all at once and he feels a pair of hands grasp onto his shoulders, keeping him standing. Rook smiles, gentle, knowing, annoying. Vil resigns to his whims and lets his Huntsman guide him back to the Pomefiore Dorm, the chatter of Yue and Malleus and everyone else fading away.

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inkskinned · 1 year

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you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.

you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.

instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.

you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.

your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.

because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.

so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.

all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.

#spilled ink #woke up at 530 to write this lmafo #me in a cold sweat:#how do i be normal #edit in the tags:#hey so i've seen y'all talk about like ... wondering if ur ''allowed'' to relate #like if this is about X specific diagnosis #and when i first posted it i really almost labelled it ''please don't assume this is about a specific condition''#because as an artist i am often walking this line of discussing a symptom or discussing my conditions etc #and sometimes yes ! i do want to talk about an experience that is specific to who i am and my condition #but sometimes the effort of the post is about the EXPERIENCE rather than the diagnosis #because yes i am not neurotypical and as a result that influences my work but it is ALSO true that there are many reasons #why someone might experience this particular vague horrible feeling that you are... almost being CHASED by what you ''really'' are.#that you're outrunning your symptoms... that you're not really normal you're just sort of a mockery of a person #.... that's a really isolating and horrible way to feel no matter why you are feeling it. and the nature of this PARTICULAR post is that #it is inherently talking ABOUT that sense of isolation & of feeling not-deserving & of minimizing your own experiences to make urself #palatable for society in a way that others find easy-to-deal-with....#this post is about a certain experience such that my impression is there's a higher likelihood that those who relate #would have more difficulty thinking they ''deserve'' to relate - that it doesn't REALLY belong to them #bc often we are the kind of people who are SO used to being alienated and set aside and ''different'' that we AUTOMATICALLY assume #that things are not ''for'' us... they never have been why would it start now #we are the kinds of people to be ... ''too normal for X diagnosis but too symptomatic to be normal''#[or as this post points out... so good at ''coping''/masking/hiding it that we essentially conform to whatever shape we're poured into]#but i have witnessed others already say in the tags ''thought this was about me but it's about X so it can't be''#and im like ... of course it was about you.#art is not a resource that is diminished by greater appreciation .#you reflect in whatever mirror fits your frame. not just the ones in your bedroom. not just the ones i specifically give you.#there will be - and often are - times that i will talk about my specific conditions... but if you're reading this #regardless of why you're here... we are here together. holding hands through space and time. and i love you for carrying it #and i know you're exhausted. i am too. but i understand. and i see you.

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kaladinkholins · 4 months

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We all already know Mizu and Akemi are narrative foils. But you know what? Lemme just say it, here's what I think:

Taigen and Mikio are foils.

Not necessarily to each other as individuals in the way that Mizu and Akemi juxtapose each other, but mostly in the contrast between their relationships with Mizu.

I've covered specific parallels between Taigen and Mikio in other posts I wrote; but as the number of parallels I'm noticing between them keeps piling up, I'm compelled to just compile them all in one post. So! This is, thus, the post in question.

First of all, let's look at their similarities.

1. Their status in society is the same. They are both samurai who lost their honour and have dreams of reclaiming it.

2. They are also both diligent as they strive to achieve this goal, they both care deeply about their work, but here as they begin to contrast, as the work in question and way they go about their goals is different:

For Mikio, his work is in taming and rearing horses; in order to prove himself, he must tame Kai—a willful and strong horse—and present it to his lord. For Taigen, his work is in sword fighting and martial arts; in order to prove himself, he must kill Mizu—a willful and strong swordsman—and present her dead body to his lord.

In the parallel above, not only are Taigen and Mikio contrasting each other, but Mizu and Kai are placed in comparison as well. And of course, Kai is Mizu's horse, and represents her. Which is why, when later, Mikio sells Kai off, it represents the way he is tossing Mizu (and their relationship) aside.

From there, the rest of the details of their character begin to contrast and juxtapose each other more clearly. So let's look at those differences, shall we?

Their backstory:

Mikio was a great samurai who was banished. A somebody to a nobody. Taigen was a fisherman’s son who rose to the top. A nobody to a somebody.

2. The first time we meet them on-screen:

Mikio is an adult. An older man. Mizu's superior in age. He is Mizu's to-be husband. A love interest. Taigen is a child. A young boy. Mizu's peer in age. He is Mizu's bully. An antagonist.

3. Their maturity and growth:

Mikio is mature, but stuck in his ways. Taigen is immature, but capable of changing and learning.

4. Their overall attitude:

Mikio is generally relaxed, easy-going and unfussy. Taigen is uptight, irritable and severe.

5. How they talk to and conduct themselves around Mizu:

Mikio is aloof, soft-spoken, and serious. Taigen is obnoxious, brash, and sarcastic. Mikio is quiet, speaking only when spoken to, even when Mizu turns to smile at him and shows openness to be near him. Taigen is loud, talking while others are silent, even when Mizu turns from him and shows no interest in conversing with him.

Mikio doesn't show much of who he is to Mizu throughout their marriage, despite their growing affection. Taigen openly shares his traumas and life story to Mizu during their brief alliance, despite their mutual antagonism.

6. Their external vs internal selves:

Mikio is calm, gentle, and considerate on the outside. Taigen is hot-headed, rude, and selfish on the outside. Mikio is cowardly and deceitful on the inside. Taigen is brave and loyal to a fault on the inside. Mikio tells Mizu that he wants to know and see all of her. But he scorns and betrays her, the woman he loves. Taigen tells Mizu that he wants to duel and kill him. But he endures torture to not betray him, the man he hates.

9. Their hair, a symbol of their honour:

Mikio's topknot is untied by Mizu during their spar. This humiliation occurs in private, the two of them alone in a rural location where no one can see them. Taigen's topknot is cut off by Mizu during their duel. This humiliation occurs in public, the two of them being watched by many others in the Shindo Dojo.

10. Their power dynamic with Mizu:

Mikio believes he is Mizu's mentor. He teaches her to throw knives, how to ride and care for horses, and about the tactical benefits of using a naginata. Taigen believes he is Mizu's equal. He views Mizu as a samurai like himself who received all the same teachings he did, and who possesses the same values.

11. Their perceptions of Mizu:

Mikio sees Mizu's feminine side first. He sees her as sweet and gentle, but also clumsy and incompetent. Taigen sees Mizu's masculine side first. He sees her as terrifying and deadly, but also strong and skilled.

12. The way they approach sparring with Mizu:

Mikio only spars with Mizu once. As the fight progresses and she is beating him, he tries to put a stop to it. When she teases/provokes him, he starts taking the fight personally and seriously, finding no enjoyment in it. Taigen spars and brawls with Mizu all the time. No matter how many times Mizu beats him, he doesn't back down. When Mizu challenges him with a chopstick, he is eager to compete with her and gladly rises up to the challenge.

Mikio and Mizu's one and only spar is a friendly match; Mizu is smiling and having fun while he grows increasingly frustrated. Taigen and Mizu's last-seen spar is a playful wrestling match; both him and Mizu are having fun and laughing.

Mikio cannot deal with Mizu being better than him, so he scorns her and walks off, avoiding her thereafter. When Taigen cannot deal with Mizu being better than him, he follows her to observe her moves and continues training in hopes to eventually beat her. After being bested by Mizu once, Mikio leaves her and sells the horse he'd previously gifted to her. After many times losing to Mizu and fighting alongside her, Taigen commends her and admits she is better than him.

13. When Mizu pins them down in a friendly spar:

Mikio sees Mizu's whole face objectively. Taigen stares at Mizu's mouth and eyes.

Mikio gets angry when she kisses him, throwing her off of him and snapping at her, calling her a monster. Taigen gets aroused, apologising, so she pulls herself off of him.

14. Mizu's blue meteorite sword is a reflection of her soul. She believes most are undeserving to face it, let alone hold it. And on that note:

Mikio is the first person (chronologically) that Mizu fights against using her sword. Taigen is the first person (we see on-screen) that Mizu fights against with her sword. Mikio is the first person (chronologically) to ever hold her sword, as she passes it to him, letting him wield it. Taigen is the first person (we see on-screen) to ever hold her sword, as she passes out, and he picks it up and carries it for her.

15. Then, last but not least, in Fowler's fortress, when she is drugged and in pain, she hears Ringo's voice in the dungeon. She then follows it to an open cell:

Mizu first sees Mikio as a hallucination, the sight of him haunting her and causing her to lose her grip on reality. Her eyes glow a surreal blue to represent this. Her Mama appears then and says Mizu's name accusingly.

Mizu then sees Taigen, but he is real, the sight of him a relief and grounding her back to reality. Her eyes return to their normal blue colour to represent this. Taigen looks at Mizu weakly and says her name softly.

Then, later, when facing Fowler, her revenge awaiting her, she instead chooses to follow her conscience (represented by Ringo's voice in her mind), putting aside her vengeance for a time, in order to save Taigen.

So that's basically all the ones I've noticed so far, but even then, I feel there's already so much that forms a contrast between these two.

What makes it especially incredible about these juxtapositions is that Mikio was Mizu's husband, the man she had fallen in love with, the one person she had ever been intimate with, the man who made her begin to accept herself, to put down her desire for vengeance and instead live a life of peace and happiness.

So for Taigen to have so many parallels with him... Do you see what I'm saying here!

Not to mention that Mizu clearly already has some burgeoning attraction to him, as indicated by how she thinks of him when asked about her desires. And Taigen clearly has shown interest as well (see: him getting a boner after their spar, him holding her hand and telling her, "We're not done yet.").

And on the topic of speculating future possibilities of this relationship, this post by @stromblessed has pointed out yet another parallel between Taigen and Mikio:

Mizu promises Taigen to meet him for their duel in autumn. Mizu fell in love with Mikio and duelled him during autumn.

With all that said, I do believe Mizu and Taigen's relationship is definitely hurtling towards something. But whether they will actually end up together in a sustainable relationship and have a happily ever after? Well, that is a whole other story; we'll just have to wait and see.