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astxrwar · 3 months

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drops of blood [1/4]

SYNOPSIS: Bucky Barnes has some wires crossed. He fixates on a barista at a coffee shop near his apartment, and tells himself it's fine as long as he keeps his distance. Except you keep making that distance smaller.

Rating: M

Word Count: 7k

CONTENT WARNINGS: Off-screen violence. Series will enter gray territory in later chapters; angsty guilt-ridden stalking, exhibitionism, consensual-but-not-safe-or-sane vibes all the way down. teehee.

Read on AO3

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When you’re a teenager— no, not even, when you’re a preteen, in middle school— a crew of surveyors for a Russian oil company finds a plane frozen in the Arctic. You’d just finished up the section on World War Two in history class; two weeks ago you’d been sitting in a hard-backed chair with the lights off trying not to fall asleep while watching a Netflix documentary about the life and death of Steve Rogers, the prototypical American Hero, that your teacher put on presumably to get out of having to actually teach. You had to fill out a worksheet about it. You had homework asking about the ways that national ideals of heroism have changed over time. You spent a whole class period talking about that, comparing and contrasting Captain America and Iron Man. You had to write a five-paragraph essay about whether or not you thought the American Hero archetype would even exist without Captain America’s death.

Except Captain America is not dead.

Captain America is alive.

It is 2012, and a lot of things are popular. The Hunger Games. Gangnam Style. The new Batman movie, the one with Christian Bale. A type of teenage and pre-teenage girl exists—has existed, will continue to exist— and while there was NSYNC and Backstreet Boys and whatever the fuck else in the 90s; right now there’s Twilight and One Direction and Justin Bieber.

Captain America comes out of the ice. Captain America is 6’4 and muscular and blond and blue-eyed and unfailingly kind, and then he goes on to join up with a bunch of other people—superheros— and saves the world.

The end result, the one that anyone with a brain could have seen coming a mile off, the one that gets referenced by late-night talk-show hosts and poked at in grocery-store gossip rags and sometimes said outright in interviews with the guy on national television, is that Steve Rogers— Captain America— kind of ends up rounding out the “teenage girl obsessions during the ‘10s” list.

And—

Well.

You were never big on any of that.

Your friends were, though, and so you let yourself be dragged through the onslaught of new Netflix specials and you dutifully and appropriately emoji-reacted to every Battle of New York youtube compilation and Vine edit they sent to you and you even went to the movies to watch the new remastered docudrama about the life and now the not-death of Steve Rogers, and—

You never really liked blonds, so.

His friend, though—

His friend was kind of cute.

Sergeant James Barnes. Twenty-eight, dark-haired and blue-eyed and attractive, in a charming, boyish kind of way.

Fast forward ten years. There’s some weird drama with a helicarrier and some entirely anticlimactic fight at an airport and then an alien kills half the population of the world and then they all come back again, courtesy of Iron Man’s sacrifice and your middle school history teacher one-hundred-percent predicting the future with the whole “the American Hero trope is dependent on the hero’s death” shit that you totally didn’t understand at the ripe age of twelve—

Anyway. Life happens, basically. You grow up. You’re not even friends with those girls anymore. Not uncommon. And that crush on cute little baby-faced James Buchanan Barnes lasted all of something like three months— one of those fleeting childhood infatuations you have on people who are safely unobtainable, like rock stars or fictional characters or guys who are very, very dead— after which time you never really thought about it again.

And now you’re twenty-three and working closing shifts at a coffee shop in Brooklyn while figuring out what your life trajectory is even going to be, adjusting as best you can to your fucking daily customer base having quite literally doubled in the last six months, that part of you that’d read his entire wikipedia page on a phone with an actual physical slide-out keyboard at two in the morning an entire eleven years ago so far away it feels like something even less than a memory.

Except one night in April this guy walks in. He’s dark-haired and blue-eyed and wearing a leather jacket and matching gloves; he comes up to the counter and he makes startlingly unbreaking eye contact that freaks you out a teensy bit— a lot— and orders a coffee, black, and nothing else, and you stare right back kind of temporarily immune to the weirdness of it because you know him, why do you know him—

It clicks as you’re pouring the coffee into a reinforced cardboard cup and it stuns you so completely that you almost overfill it and wind up less than a second away from burning the shit out of your hand.

Sergeant James Barnes.

He looks the same, kind of, but also not at all— you sneak glances at him while you fumble for a lid, the harsher angles of his cheekbones and the wider set of his jaw, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and the lines setting into his forehead and the way he doesn’t really have any of the baby fat left in his face that he had in all the photos you’d seen of him.

“Thanks,” he says, when you give him his coffee.

His smile, or his attempt at it, looks more like a grimace than anything.

You expect him to leave, then, but he doesn’t— he goes over to one of the tables in the lobby, the one by the window in the corner of the room, and he sits there and he drinks his coffee and he stares out at the street. It’s dark already; late November, almost December, the solstice approaching. It’ll be a long while before it’s still light later than 4:30.

He stays there for a long time, and the awareness of him prickles at the nape of your neck as you work, filling orders for a dwindling trickle of customers and starting the long and arduous process of cleaning up everything for close.

Sometime around 9:30 you go into the back to try to get started on dishes; the doorbell chimes when you’re about halfway through, and you grumble under your breath and rinse soap suds off of your forearms and resolve to pretend you hadn’t lost track of the hose and accidentally soaked the whole of your shirt from about the sternum down—

There’s nobody waiting at the counter when you come out, though.

And Sergeant James Barnes is gone.

You expect it to be one of those things. Everyone in New York has one of those things. They’re great party stories. One time I sat next to Denzel Washington on the subway. Michael Keaton bought a phone from me when I worked at Apple in Midtown. I ran into Steve Buscemi at this one mom-and-pop bagel place.

I served coffee to Captain America’s not-dead friend in Brooklyn.

Except next week, same day, he’s there again.

The lady in front of him is getting something stupid complicated and being annoying about it. Two pumps caramel, two pumps vanilla, two creams and two skim milk, three sugars and make sure to melt it first, if you don’t, I’ll know, Jesus Christ, make your coffee at home—

The guy who is maybe potentially Barnes laughs.

You said that out loud, apparently. Mumbled it under your breath, or something, quiet enough that the lady hadn’t heard, just shot you a suspicious look and sipped at her drink and then left without a thank-you, apparently satisfied. It’s just you and him now, your coworker off doing food prep in the back room and the lobby empty.

Somehow, he’d heard you. And he’d laughed. It was a weird sound, sharp and rough and cut short like he hadn’t meant to and like he’d tried to make himself stop; his expression is flat, and he’s not smiling, but there’s something— lighter, about it, than when you’d seen him last.

“Black coffee?” you blurt out, before he can say anything.

He blinks. He’s doing that thing again— the staring.

“Easy to remember,” you say, by way of explanation. “Simple.”

His mouth twitches at the corners, not really a smile, yet, but still— something. That lightness to his expression, impassive as it is, hasn’t faded. “Yeah, just black,” he says. “Thanks.”

You make it for him— ‘make’ is a stretch, you pour it, and that’s all, really— and he takes it back to that same spot by the window in the corner, nurses it as he looks out into the street, the sky cast that bruised purple color when the sun’s gone below the horizon but the light hasn’t faded, yet.

You try not to stare.

Same deal as the last time; he stays.

“Hey,” your coworker’s voice drifts from the back room, “You want to sweep the lobby or do the dishes?”

“Lobby,” you reply, extremely fast, thinking about last time and the hose mishap and how your shirt hadn’t dried until basically the end of your shift, but also thinking about maybe-Barnes sitting by the window and how part of you really fucking wants to know. Even if it’s not him, if it’s just some particularly uncanny lookalike, you wonder if it happens a lot. The being mistaken.

You make it through about maybe five minutes of actual lobby-sweeping before you become physically incapable of resisting your curiosity.

“I always got pretty good marks in history,” is what you tell him. Because saying “are you Seargant Barnes” seems kind of— rude.

He stiffens, and he drums his gloved fingers on the lid of his coffee cup, and he doesn’t look up or say a word.

“Your photo was in a bunch of the textbooks,” you add, twisting your grip on the broom handle, back and forth. It’s definitely him. The haircut. His face. Older, a lot less boyish, but the same eyes. “Sergeant Barnes. 107th.”

He doesn’t look at you. Speaks very deliberately. “Are you going to tell anyone?”

There’s this bright jolt of satisfaction at being right, followed pretty quickly by a pang of guilt at the thought you’d irritated him.

“Oh—um, no, definitely not, I’m sure it’s— annoying, probably, getting recognized,” you say, stumbling over the words. “I— sorry, I shouldn’t have— bothered you.”

He does look at you, then. He stares. You’d been fidgeting, still, but under the force of his gaze every muscle in your body goes tense and still, frozen solid, and nerves prickle up at the back of your neck, raising the hairs there. You have to fight back the urge to shiver.

“No,” he says. “It’s never happened before. Don’t— don’t be sorry.”

You open your mouth. Close it again. Your hands resume their twisting around the broom handle before you abruptly decide you do need to actually finish the chore you’d set out to do.

You tell him one last thing, before you go back to it. You’d always kind of felt weird about saying this kind of stuff; it gets touchy, particularly after Vietnam. Not really a great practice to get into, the whole “thank you for your service” schtick, because a lot of them don’t see it that way, and every war after that was even more complicated and your opinions on those are— similarly complicated. But World War 2– that was different. It wasn’t US military overreach. It was necessary. And he’d been drafted, you remembered that.

“Hey,” you say, very soft. “I just— Thanks. For— you know. Serving, when your numbers came up. It couldn’t have been easy, I mean.” you clear your throat, shift your weight, suddenly feeling very self-aware. “Coffee’s on me, next time, okay?”

Something flickers across his expression, like a ripple over the surface of a lake. Whatever it was, it’s gone before you can make sense of it.

You spend most of the week thinking he won’t come back next Friday. But he does. There’s nobody in front of him in line, this time, and like the time before your coworker is off in the back, which means it’s easy to slip him his coffee and conveniently forget to ring it out.

“Thanks,” he tells you, his voice a lot quieter. Softer, too.

You smile at him. His mouth twitches back, like maybe he’s not sure if he should return it, but wants to.

He takes the seat by the window again.

He keeps coming back. You try to make small talk but it feels stilted and awkward. It kind of makes you sad, a little bit, seeing him sitting there for hours, alone.

On your day off, in early January, you go grocery shopping.

You spend about 25$ in total and you make a split second decision to grab something out of the ordinary that’s on-sale. Dude was raised during the Great Depression, you guess he’s not the most experienced in the realm of the great big world of Weird Things You Can Purchase At The Modern Day Grocery Store. It’s meant to be a sort of peace offering, a look-I-can-be-normal-about-it, let’s-be-friends kind of deal, if he’s going to keep hanging around the coffee shop. You’re not sure if he, like— wants that, friends, or if maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want to be alone, but you figure it’s worth a shot.

Part of it is that he interests you. Part of it is that your job, as much as it sucks less than a lot of other service jobs, is very mundane, very normal, often very boring, and James Buchanan Barnes being a regular customer is easily the most interesting and least boring thing that has ever happened to you at work. Or— ever, honestly.

And maybe that’s selfish, to want to talk to him for that reason, but— whatever.

On Friday, like last week, you get there and you clock in and you try to casually scan the lobby, the floor littered with straw wrappers and crumpled napkins and empty sugar packets, the tables tacky with flavored syrup and coffee stains that you’d need to clean later, chairs around them arranged haphazardly and not pushed in, and—

And in the back corner, sitting low in his seat, baseball cap tugged down and shade over his eyes and fingers drumming restlessly against the side of a paper coffee cup, is James Buchanan Barnes.

The excitement you feel, then, is not really the kind you’d expected to— the last time you’d thought about him had been middle school, and even if it’d been just that three months, you remember with startling clarity that girlish, daydreamy kind of interest, how it felt, pleasant and mild and entirely harmless. Whatever you feel right now is not like that at all. It’s sharp and it’s visceral and it’s real, not a fantasy or the result of your imagination, not directed towards some fiction of a person that functioned as a safe receptacle for the things going on inside your head, but an actual individual human being.

It’s just interest, just curiosity, what you feel— you don’t have a crush on him, it’s not like you’re still in middle school and still interested, like that, in even just the general category of person that crush had represented. And the person sitting in the lobby isn’t the person– the fiction– you’d even felt that type of way about, anyways. You don’t know him, and he’s obviously nothing like the guy memorialized in every Captain America docudrama miniseries on Netflix. No, James Buchanan Barnes is a real human being, a very different human being, one that’s a stranger to you and you think— you guess— probably just as much of a stranger to that other, safer, softer, more boyish version of himself.

You keep thinking about how he looked at you, unbroken and unwavering and eerily fucking precise, how his eyes hadn’t even move at all, focused so intently that it’d made the hairs on the back of your neck raise and goosebumps prickle across the tops of your shoulders and all the way down your arms and your gut instinct yell, loudly, there is something not right about this guy!

You’d read his Wikipedia article again. It’s been updated since; lots of shit came out since 2012. You’d heard about the Winter Soldier stuff, but reading about it in detail— it’s bad. There are probably several things that are not exactly right about him, now. That’s fine, though. The way the world is these days, there’s stuff not right about everyone.

You’re occupied with a steady and annoyingly constant stream of customers until about 8:00, making coffees and sandwiches and trading on and off with your coworker in the back room, where you’re trying to get the brunt of the stocking and dishwashing done before they leave at 8:30. You’d been fucking busy, and you’re annoyed, you got cream from the dispenser machine all up one of the sleeves of your sweater so you’d had to take it off, and there’s fucking caramel sauce stuck to the hairs on the flat of your forearm near your wrist and gluing them to your skin and that grocery bag of fruit is sitting on the back table next to your jacket and your gross sweater and your house keys and it’s staring at you. Accusingly.

Your coworker leaves.

You steal a careful glance over the coffee machines at the lobby, just checking, just to make sure that he’s still—

And he is.

Cool.

It takes you a few minutes to kind of— dredge up the guts to go talk to him, another few more for the last trickle of late-night coffee-getters to start to finally taper out, and then you do it. You gather your resolve and your nerve and whatever else, courage, too, probably, and you go out into the lobby and you stand in front of his table and you wait for him to, eventually, look up from where he’s been staring, kind of sullen-looking, out of the window.

“I looked it up,” you blurt out when he does, before you can think better of it, “Online. Apparently supply chains were really small, in like. The 30s. So people could get stuff, right, but a lot more of it was— local. You know that, obviously, but, um.”

He just looks at you. Unblinking.

“Anyway,” you say, trying to ignore the weird kind of twisty feeling of your nerves in the pit of your stomach; jesus christ, he stares, a lot, “Anyway, I had this neighbor when I was a kid, right, and he was— his family, they were refugees. Immigrants. He was learning English, but I made friends with him by using my allowance to buy things at the grocery store, like, weird things, stuff that he’d never had before. So we could— try it. For– fun. And I thought– well. There was a sale, today, so.”

You gesture to your hand; awkwardly, helplessly, god, this is weird, like ice-breakers on hard mode, if the ice were less like a frozen-over pond and more like one of those miles-deep Antarctic glaciers. A tissue-thin plastic bag, the knotted top of it held in your fist, the lone fruit inside just kind of– sitting there.

He finally blinks, and then he shifts back in his chair, and he looks at you some more, his gaze unwavering and solid and heavy like it has actual, physical weight to it, like it’s pressing down on your shoulders and forcing you into the ground. “Are you— have you been trying to make friends with me?” he says, in a tone that’s kind of incredulous and a lot disbelieving and tells you absolutely nothing about whether or not he’d actually be amenable to that.

Whatever.

Fuck it, you think, and then you lift your chin and you meet his eyes and you make yourself stare right back, stubborn and deliberately unflinching. “Yeah,” you tell him. “I have.”

His expression– it’d been flat, impassive and unreadable, but something cuts right across it for a fraction of a second when you say that, quick and sure as a knife. For that one heartbeat of a moment he looks expressive and alive– you think he might even look stricken, actually, and you wonder far too late if maybe this had been a mistake, if you’d upset him. Done something wrong.

But then it’s gone, so quickly that you think you must have imagined it.

He leans back in his chair, and he looks down at his empty coffee cup as he taps it absently against the table, like he’s thinking it over. When he looks back at you the sum of his features are wholly neutral, except for his mouth, which is quirked up at the corners, just a little– not a smile, not with the way his lips are pressed together, into a hard, unwavering line, but it doesn’t look like something bad, either. It doesn’t look negative.

“Okay,” he says. “All right, shoot.” He jerks his chin towards the bag in your hand. “What’ve you got?”

You tear the side of it with your fingernails and dump the contents on the table. “Pomegranate. Had one before?”

His mouth twitches up more, and this time it does look like a smile, the beginnings of one, like he’s repressing it. He clicks his tongue and stretches his legs out under the table and shakes his head, just a little. “Yep,” he says. “Struck out on your first try.”

“No way Mr. Great Depression is more worldly than me.” You decide you’re going to interpret that as an agreeable reaction. There’s only one chair at his table, so you drag one over from nearby, the legs making this awful grinding sound against the tile floor. “I’ve never had one, so I’m taking half. Only fair.”

You fumble in your pocket for your knife to cut into it. He stares at it, when you pull it out, and then stares at you, “What do you have that for?”

Some nameless tension inside of you unwinds at the realization that he’s not just sitting there in stone-faced silence, anymore.

“Walk home after close,” you reply with an easy shrug; the conversation no longer feels like the world’s most awkward one-person performance or like actually physically pulling teeth, and that’s— pretty cool. Feels like a victory. “I usually finish at like, eleven-thirty. Not super dangerous, or anything, but better safe than sorry.”

Barnes makes a disapproving sound— what you think is a disapproving sound— under his breath when you flick the blade open, and grabs the pomegranate from the center of the table. “Too short,” he says, jerking his chin at it in your hand, “Gonna be a pain in the ass, let me.”

The knife that he pulls from what you think must be a sheath on his boot is a straight blade without a handguard, matte black and tapered to a point and without a doubt longer than four inches. Long enough to halve the pomegranate in one clean cut, sharp enough to bite into the laminate surface of the table underneath, just a little.

“That’s definitely not street legal,” you say, mostly joking.

Barnes stares at you. It takes you a second to realize that’s— new. Relatively speaking.

“New York made anything over four inches illegal, plus butterfly knives and switchblades,” you inform him. “I think in the 50s.”

He makes some noncommittal sound of what you assume is probably distaste, and stows the knife back in his boot.

“Don’t worry,” you say, “I’m not a snitch.”

He doesn’t smile, but his expression lightens a little.

On the table, the pomegranate is split neatly in half, and the little pebbled fruits inside the open skin glint in the warm light from the overhead fixtures. Like flecks of garnet. Or drops of blood.

“Could get these in the fall, sometimes,” he says, looking down at it. “Used to pick the bits out with a sewing needle. Made it last all afternoon.”

Your brain conjures up the image of the baby-faced Barnes, maybe sitting on the curb or the front steps of a building. You wonder what the details of the memory are. You wonder if little scrawny Steve had been there, or if he’d been alone.

You don’t ask.

“I don’t have a sewing needle,” is what you do say, “But—“ your nametag is clipped to your shirt, a flat slip of plastic with a pin on the back, and you unfasten it and slide it across the table.

Behind you, the door hinges creak and the bell chimes and you sigh, long-suffering, and get to your feet with an exaggeratedly affected eye-roll.

“I’ll be back,” you tell him, “Customer.”

You go to take the order and then midway through making it the doorbell sounds again. Midway through making that, same deal. This happens, at night, a trickle of customers just fast enough to keep you working nonstop, now that you’re the only person running the store. It goes on for something like ten minutes, which irritates the shit out of you despite the fact that it is technically your job. It’s nine-thirty at night and you’ve been at work for six hours and what you want to be doing is picking this dude’s brain, not making fucking coffee and bagels.

And also because a part of you is aware that he usually leaves around now.

He’s still there, though, when you come back; on the table there’s the husk of one half of the pomegranate, this pale and washed-out color like corn silk, and a neat pile of seeds on a recycled-paper napkin. Barnes has the other half and he’s poking out little grains of red with the safety-pin end of your name tag and biting the pieces off the tip, breaking the fragile skin between his teeth. He looks— calmer. Kind of wistful.

You realize this must be the first time he’s done this since he was a child, all the way back in a Brooklyn that doesn’t look anything like this one. Living alongside different people. Walking different streets. Breathing different air.

“That’s for you,” he says, nodding at the little bits of red, the empty husk, “I thought— since you’re working.”

You blink at him, and then you smile, a small, grateful one. Something flashes in his eyes, when you do; you aren’t paying much attention to it, still thinking about him, being so out of time. How strange this all must be. How much you really did mean it when you said you wanted to be his friend.

Barnes seems to realize when he brings the pin to his mouth again that it’s attached to your nametag. “Sorry,” he says, stilted and stiff and awkward-sounding, again, “I— you probably don’t want this back, now.”

“‘S fine, you can throw it out, if you want— I have so many.”You slide back into the chair and fish out of your apron pocket a blank one that you’d grabbed from the back, not knowing he’d gone and picked all the seeds out of your half already. “I forget them in my pockets, they keep ending up in the washing machine.”

His expression relaxes, a little. He catches the kernel of fruit at the end of the pin between his teeth and bites down until there’s a burst of red in his mouth. Stabs another, works it free of the shell, the flimsy little white membrane around it wilting in on itself. You watch him do that for a minute, contemplative and silent. His mouth is red. His tongue, too, when it darts across his bottom lip. Makes you think about rocket pops from the ice cream truck in the summer. Makes you wonder if they had those, back then.

“Did all that work for nothing, huh?” he says, after a while. You startle out of your thoughts and blink at him, nonplussed; he glances down at the pile of seeds on the napkin. “Thought you wanted to try it.”

“Oh,” you say, eloquently. “Oh, yeah. Duh.”

The first gem-glittering marble of fruit is softer than you’d expected and ruptures between your thumb and forefinger, staining the pads of them all red. You think about summer, as a kid, when you’d fall and scrape your hands on the asphalt hard enough that they bled. It’s almost the same color.

The second time the seed is firmer and it bursts sharp and tart and faintly sweet between your teeth. “Kind of like cranberries,” you say, taking another.

The pile is gone quickly, leaving just the napkin, the juice, like a dark wine stain. You lick your fingers clean. He’d been staring, the way he kind of always stares, but when your lips close around your thumb, he looks away.

You learn a bunch about food in the 1940s, mostly by accident.

Mangoes were a thing; they’d had some growing down in Florida, and you could get them seasonally. Pineapples used to be so rare that rich people would display the whole fruit as a centerpiece at parties and things, way back in the very early 1900s and up through the Great Depression, too; but by the time the 30s rolled around you could get the canned kind at the store. Watermelon was a thing, too, but they all had the solid, jet-black seeds you weren’t supposed to swallow; somebody’d bred those out of the commercial ones sometime after Barnes had slipped out of time.

“I gotta just go straight for the really fucking weird stuff,” you muse, mostly to yourself. It’s late and it’s quiet in the shop and it’s raining outside, the street slick and black and reflecting the light from the lampposts. He stays later, now, leaves closer to 10:30; you’re kind of proud of that. That he seems to like you, your company. Or at least doesn’t dislike it.

“You could just ask,” he says, sounding just the slightest bit exasperated, “If I’ve had something before.”

“No,” you tell him, deeply serious, “No, that fucking ruins it, Barnes, it ruins the surprise.”

He looks at you blankly. A few seconds too late, you realize you’ve never actually said that, out loud. His name. You don’t call him Sergeant in your head anymore, it seems too formal, but James seems too intimate, and you hadn’t asked— hadn’t wanted to ask, hadn’t wanted to pry— if he still thinks of himself as Bucky.

He doesn’t say anything.

Barnes it is, then.

Gooseberries used to be way more popular, all the way up into the 1920s, even though technically it was made federally illegal to grow them a few years before he was born. It was an attempt to stop the spread of this fungus that’d jump from the bushes to pine trees, killed huge swathes of them up and down the Northeast, decimated the lumber industry. He tells you his Ma used to make tarts and pies from them, in the fall when they were in-season, but eventually the farms upstate started getting shut down, and it was too expensive. The federal ban lifted in the 60s, you learn via Google, but production never really ramped back up again— they didn’t even have them at your regular grocery store, you’d had to go all the way to Trader Joe’s.

They taste kind of like green apples. He’d looked the way he did with the pomegranate, that first time, wistful and softer and like he’s remembering. It’s really the most you’ve ever seen behind whatever practiced and controlled exterior he maintains, beyond flashes of almost-smiles and eyebrow-raises and pointed looks. You want to peel that veneer off like peeling the skin from a fruit, get underneath it, get to the flesh of him; when this thought occurs to you, you bury it immediately, as deep as it will go.

“White pine blister rust,” you read aloud off of your phone, crossing the lobby to his table, coffee cup in one hand. You set it on the table for him and he reaches for it with a mumbled thanks. “That’s what it was called, the fungus-thing. According to wikipedia.”

Barnes blinks at you. He takes a long, slow sip of his coffee, even though it’s still probably a little too hot, not that it matters to him; and then he sets the cup down and frowns and says, “What the fuck is wikipedia?”

You laugh without meaning to.

The skin slips, a little, whatever’s underneath peeking out, bruised and soft and bloody, but then you blink and he’s fine. Watching you, expression light and practiced. Whole, again.

In February something happens.

Your coworker tells you before he leaves, pulls you aside in the threshold of the door to the back room to mumble, “there were some dudes out back by the garbage when I took it out before. I was getting bad vibes, I don’t know, just— be careful.”

There’d been a string of robberies through the borough, all within some convenient distance of the subway line, and the store is probably three blocks away from one of the platforms. The back door is one of those that opens only from inside the store, the other end flat and lacking a handle; you leave it propped open when you run to take the garbage out. You’re not stupid, is the thing. The guys, whoever they are— it could be nothing, but it could be that they’re waiting. Waiting for it to be just you, waiting for the door to open, waiting for the opportunity. You have a knife, but it’s a flimsy ten-dollar gas station piece of shit, mostly for intimidation and not for actual use; you’re also well aware that using knives in confrontations tends to make things worse rather than better. Bring that shit out and you’re asking to get it taken from you. Asking to have it used on you.

You could try to call the cops, but more than half of them have been requisitioned by the GRC, and you know what they’d tell you. Unfortunately at the moment we’re understaffed and can’t afford to respond to predictive calls. Please let us know if and when something illegal occurs. Practiced and perfunctory and something people joke about in your neighborhood, because there’s really nothing else any of you can do. Your coworker can’t stay, either; he can’t afford to pay the babysitter another hour, not on minimum wage.

“It’s okay,” you tell him, “I’ll be fine.”

And it is okay. You will be fine.

Barnes is there.

It’s a Wednesday, so it’s just sheer fucking luck that he’s here at all; he must be able to see it, in your face, when you come bursting through the little swinging gate-thing and out into the lobby, because his hands tighten into fists where they’re resting on the table.

“Oh my god I’m so glad you’re here,” you say, breathless and frantic and very much meaning it.

There’s a flash of something on his face that makes you think of heat lightning or splintering ice of the second right before a pomegranate seed bursts between teeth. You are not thinking enough about things that aren’t your immediate anxiety to register it.

“I need your help,” you tell him.

He grows progressively stiffer as you explain the situation, and when you’re done he says nothing, just stands up and pushes his chair in and says, real low, “I’ll go— talk to them. Don’t worry.”

The bell above the door chimes when he leaves.

You stand there at the edge of his table for what feels like some impossible amount of time, every muscle in your body wound up like a spring, jaw clenched so hard it’s starting to drive the beginnings of a headache somewhere on the top of your skull—

He comes back.

“Are you— did they—“ you break from nervously picking at your fingernails to make some vague and anxious gesture. Barnes looks fine, unscathed, cool and neutral and controlled as ever, but when he looks at you it makes something base and instinctive deep inside of you buzz with— alarm. Or— something.

“They were just— being stupid, just drunks,” he says, and maybe you’re imagining it, the thread of tension in his voice. “It’s fine. It’s all— it’s fine.”

You feel yourself visibly relax. “Oh, god, thank you so much, dealing with drunk guys is— it’s the worst.”

He flinches, when you say the first words, just a little, his eyes almost closing and the muscles around them going just briefly tense, like he’d managed to suppress most, but not all, of the instinct. “You don’t— you don’t need to thank me.”

You study him for a minute, like maybe if you look hard enough that flicker of whatever it was would come back, linger long enough for you to make sense of it.

“All right, fine, no thanks. Thanks rescinded,” you say finally, bemused. “I’m going to refill your coffee, though.”

You say it with your hand already half-outstretched, close enough that he can’t stop you even with his reflexes, and whatever entirely reactive and entirely accidental noise of triumph you make when his hand closes around empty space is— not on purpose.

His mouth twitches, the closest you’ve ever seen to an actual smile.

Something in your stomach flips.

You shove that shit down, too.

When you come back with the coffee he’s sitting back in the chair with his legs stretched out and he’s staring out the window again.

“Thanks,” he says, when you set it down.

“Oh, so you can thank me, but I can’t thank you?”

His mouth twitches again. “Yes.”

You make some entirely performative tch sound of affected annoyance as you retreat back behind the counter; you still have to take the garbage out, clear out the pastry display case, start emptying and scrubbing down the coffee pots you’re not using now that business has slowed to a crawl.

“Are you still coming Friday?” you call out to him, over the hum and hiss of the espresso machine running through the automated cleaning program, the milk foaming wands steaming in pitchers of sanitizer water, all of it loud enough that you’d never be able to hear him over it, something you realize too late, “Sorry, hold on, I should have asked before I—“

“Do you want me to?” His voice is clear and close and you startle reflexively; he’s at the counter, at the register, staring. Always staring. You thought in the beginning you’d get used to it. It’s not uncommon; those with power stare, and those without cast their eyes down and away. It’s the nature of customer service jobs in New York City. You meet a lot of powerful assholes in suits who make more money than you probably will ever handle in the entirety of your life, and they look at you and talk at you rather than to you, like you’re nothing, a rodent or an insect or something even less than that. You’ve never once flinched away from any of their stares, and never so much as felt like you wanted to, either.

James Buchanan Barnes doesn’t look at you like that at all. He doesn’t look at you like you’re lesser. He looks at you like he can see you— like he can see right through you, like you’re transparent, like everything going on in your head is out in the open, visible, vulnerable, or maybe like he just wants it to be. Like he’s looking for a door hidden somewhere in the minutiae of your expression, some way to force himself inside and pull all of your thoughts and secrets out like unraveling a spool of thread.

He doesn’t look at you like you’re not human. He looks at you like he knows, precisely, intimately, exactly how human you are, and that’s—

Kind of worse. Or maybe it isn’t. It’s definitely weird.

You realize with a start that he’d asked you a question, and you’d been silent for way too long. You tear your eyes away from him and focus on pulling all the cup lids out of the tray at the edge of the counter, sweeping the donut crumbs and sugar crystals and coffee grinds out and onto the floor.

“I mean—,” your tongue feels thick and clumsy in your mouth and it trips over the words, the syllables, stumbling and uncertain. “Not if you have plans, I— you don’t have to.”

“I never have plans,” he scoffs, scathingly self-deprecating, and then there’s the steady rhythm of his fingers drumming against the counter and you feel it on your neck, the hairs raising there, that he’s staring at you still, “I just—since I came today, I thought maybe you wouldn’t— I don’t want to bother you.”

You freeze, stack of iced coffee lids in one hand, half-lowered back into the now-spotless tray.

You force yourself to look back up at him.

“You’re not bothering me,” you say, stressing each word, like it’s important. It is important. “You’re— I like you. We’re friends.”

That thing, from before, the almost-maybe-flinch; it happens again, and you feel your own expression do something reflexive in response, your lips part and your brow furrow in the seconds before you can school your features back to composure. Whatever he does, the control he has over his affect; you’re not very good at that.

“Besides,” you say, into the silence, eyes cast back down and focused on filling the lid tray, “I found something you’ve never tried before, this time. And since I paid for it already, you are, in fact, contractually obligated to be here.”

He laughs, the same kind of laugh, the only kind of laugh you ever get from him; the cut-short one, like he doesn’t mean to, like he’d tried to stop it.

Like he couldn’t.

Barnes leaves at about 10:45, and you bring the trash out right before he goes, just in case. You wouldn’t have seen it if it weren’t for the fact that you were still kind of nervous and had your phone in hand, shining the washed-out beam of light back-and-forth across the little fenced-in area by the dumpster, trying to keep the garbage bag at arms’ length to avoid getting some disgusting coffee sludge mixture on your shoes where it’s leaking out of the corners.

The light catches on it. It glitters, captures your attention, red against the sun-bleached gray concrete. Pomegranate seeds. Shards of garnet.

Drops of blood.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #i'm uploading all of the things to tumblr. finally.#fic; drops of blood

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doomspiral · 18 days

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Doom's Movie Rec List

Some of these are bangers, some of these are the worst thing I have ever seen in my life, but I think they are all worth watching and enjoying one way or another. Sometimes the enjoyment is cringe and sometimes its staring at a wall for three hours. <3

The seventh seal (1957)

Classic chess game with Death film, I presume the entire thing is Bergman staring into the soul of the viewer in dead silence until you can read his mind.

The cabinet of Dr. Caligary (1920)

Strange, lurching, I watched this in German without knowing enough to keep up and I believe my confusion added to the experience.

Atomic blonde (2017)

This is my favorite movie. This is the one that I can't stop rewriting in my fics. I can't get the "lies" soliloquy out of my mind. My soul is tied to this fillum. Hot insane woman does a lot of violence, kisses women, beats up a guy who truly deserves it. Iron Curtain Spy Nonsense.

Hackers (1994)

Am I depressing you? Good, watch Hackers to experience child-like wonder and also see a grown man skateboard down a foggy street in the middle of the night to harass the homosexual teenagers (and slim shady) he's beefing with.

The core (2003)

This is not a good movie. But there is a little freak in there named "Rat" who I am obsessed with.

Angel's egg (1985)

This is the kind of movie where you have to not try to figure out what's going on and instead let it take you by the hands, just experience it, just keep your mouth shut and your mind at rest and you can consider the implications afterward when its safe.

Princess mononoke (1997)

I watched this as a child and saw those beasts dissolve into bloody worms and apparently that left a lasting mark on my brain.

Nausicaä of the valley of wind (1984)

I actually read the manga for this one but this is a movie rec list, so please go watch this for the death and rebirth vibes, and some mild foeyay yuri.

Invasion of the body snatchers (1978)

Horror movie that's odd and disturbing and clearly betraying some better dead than red fears, worth it for the horrible despicable freakish noise the guy makes at the end while pointing at the viewer.

Strange days (1995)

Please read up on this before watching it, it revolves around a fictional, then-futuristic critique of the adult film industry, HEAVY focus on the capitalistic dehumanization and devaluing of human life.

Underworld (2003)

Bad asses in leather fighting monsters. Core memory.

Blade (1998)

Bad asses in leather fighting monsters but maybe you need a break from how white this whole movie list is overall. That's okay, I see you, this vampire flick fucks severe.

Fright night (1985, 2011)

The first movie is pretty campy (fun) but the remake dug into my actual stressors and fears and scared the lights from my eyes for a day or two. Welcome... to FrrrighT NighT.

Dracula (1931, 1992)

First movie is a classic, this is thee one with the guy crawling around like a lizard and there's armadillos for no reason. The 90's version has no business being as deranged as it is and for this it is a core personality trait movie.

Fast&furious: Tokyo drift (2006)

Not sure I would say this is peak cinema but it's a racing movie that falls in line with the F&F tradition of being clearly in love with the entire premise, location, and cast. Rent free.

Drive (2011)

I like this movie because it is not about the guy getting the girl, it is about doing the right thing every single time because that's what it takes to be a real human bean. being. whichever. I was so obnoxious about this movie when I watched it with my now-ex gf that I wish I could siphon the memory of it out of her brain, because I kept pointing at actors I knew.

Green room (2015)

This is the best punk parable I can think of. Litany against not reading the room, litany against being the hero when there's no one to save, litany against thinking shared trauma is gonna get you any pussy.

Lords of chaos (2018)

I'm obsessed with the band Mayhem there is no other explanation.

There will be blood (2007)

WILD WEST TOXIC YAOI. I'm not apologizing for this summary and I'm not elaborating.

Butch Cassidy and the sundance kid (1969)

I don't know. I watched this in the wee hours of the morning with my best friend and actually cried about it. Doomed criminals and a famous final stand.

Saw (2004)

I used to watch Saw movies when I lived in the trailer park while hiding from my family in a neighbor's place so I don't know if these movies are good or if I needed to watch tortureporn to relax bcs the roof leaked on my bed when it rained? But I think everyone should at least watch the first movie or how are you going to play any games?

Chernobyl diaries (2012)

I walked out of this movie shaking head to toe and couldn't think about anything else for months. I don't think I'd be as scared now but I can't say if that's because I'm not 16 anymore. Warning against going into a dangerous situation with a guy you met off Craigslist.

Constantine (2005)

Demon hoards, evil angels, catholic bullshit, 9/10.

The neverending story (1984)

Well after all that let's reinstate some whimsy into our souls again bcs this is the Jim Henson Power Hour. This one is just a solid entry point into "puppets are fun and practical effects are my best friend".

The dark crystal (1982)

My babysitters put this on for me as a bed-time story when I was five (5) years old and I do not believe I slept, I think they regretted this and had to tell my parents what they did. But now I will never stop making Skeksis noises at people I love.

Labyrinth (1986)

Y'know the phenomenon of alt teens and preteens dating young adult men who are total and complete losers, including actual band members? It's not that this pre-dates any of that, but I believe it does a good job representing it through the lens of a modern fairy tale. Like when you watch this you have to realize this is wish fulfillment for people who want to be Sarah because their age-gap goth boyfriend in the real world is a manipulative disappointment.

Pacific rim (2013)

Love letter to the mecha and kaiju genre(s). Makes no sense, compels me though.

Eurotrip (2004)

This is the movie "Scotty doesn't know" is from. Some high schoolers fuck off to Europe and have the most misadventure possible. It's somehow exactly the kind of cringe humor you would expect from the 00's without being cruel or overly disgusting. I used to watch a lot of really bad 00's comedies and this is a good one I promise. Scussie.

Hamlet (1996)

Personality point, I think this is the best version on film because the guy actually looks like how I envisioned Hamlet. Ignore your girl! Avenge your dad!

Advantageous (2015)

This movie goes in on the connection between race and class in a sci-fi future where you can change the former through predatory, dangerous cosmetic surgery.

Gravity (2013)

This is my go-to movie when I need to sob like a sick little baby. Space travel as a metaphor for motherhood, spaceships as the womb, scientists are the babies who left their babies back on earth. It's about what you give up in the name of fulfilling your human urge for the unknown.

All clear on the western front (2022)

Thee anti-war fillum. Very well done. I never recovered from one of the final scenes to the point I wrote a final paper on it. Without spoiling it, the Ending gave me the feeling of when you're a kid and you want to go play, but you're grounded and you fall asleep listening to your friends outside in the street. I hope this sentence ruins your life if you watch this movie.

Inglorious basterds (2009)

They lock some nazis in a theatre and set them on fire, good cinema.

Shadow dancer (2012)

Domhnall Gleeson in one of his classically pathetic twink roles but its about British imperial violence and Irish reactionary violence.

Logan (2017)

Good art film, a story about dementia, legacies, and why putting children in cages is fucking evil.

The batman (2022)

Weird art film, next question.

Joker (2019)

I do not care about the opinions of straight men who watch things uncritically, this is a good movie because of the depictions of poverty in the US. I don't believe this needed to be about the DC Joker this should have been a standalone art film about a mime.

Dragonheart (1996)

Medieval era dragon nonsense, I will never be convinced this is a bad movie.

Sleeping beauty (1959)

Personality trait was rooting for the dragon.

Snow dogs (2002)

I'm not defending this one it stands on its own, please watch this movie if you wanna see Cuba Gooding Jr. bite a husky's ear so it'll stop ruining his life.

Luck of the irish (2001)

This movie is genuinely so bad I have considered it some kind of hate crime since the day it came out, because I watched this the day it was a direct-to-TV movie. I think I was too young to feel insulted but I was deeply, deeply bemused.

Black swan (2010)

There is a woman inside her and she is trying to crash the plane. Can I get away with calling this foe-yay yuri also? I'm going to.

I, tonya (2017)

Sufjan Stevens' song "Tonya Harding in Eb major" makes me so unreasonably emotional, so one day I watched this movie and then the film of the 1988 Calgary Olympics in the living room while all of my housemates had to sneak around in the dark. This is just a solid movie about ambition, betrayal, abuse, tragedy, and having to get over it and move on because you're not dead yet.

Phantom of the opera (2004)

Whatever was going on in Labyrinth, this is the adult version. Weird man in a sewer possessing a soprano. I think there's some gender happening here but it gets a little lost under the love(?) triangle.

A knights tale (2001)

Just go watch some more medieval nonsense, it's good for you, its fun.

White chicks (2004)

I'm not defending this choice, it's a good movie. "You were thinking it" "Yeah but you said it" there are some phrases you could use to see if I had been replaced with a body double and this is one of them.

Heathers (1988)

Ouughhgh ough oh. Personality trait. Watched this because I kept listening to the musical soundtrack, love both but agree the themes are much tighter in the movie. This is just a fun schlock to tell teens life is stupid and difficult and bad things will happen, so don't abandon your friends.

Priscilla queen of the desert (1994)

Classic homo fillum, if you wonder why I write Gilbert Like That it's partially because of the mean little fruit from this movie. It's about the Aussie drag scene and who belongs in the queer community.

300 (2006)

I'm not sure that I would call this a "good" movie, but it's a classic as far as I'm concerned. This is the "THIS IS SPARTA" movie.

The foreigner (2017)

I actually don't remember the plot of this one too solidly but the suspense and action were solid, and I enjoyed the setup. Good for if you wanna be really pissed off for two hours.

Conan the barbarian (1982)

Look at me. Look into my eyes. You're going to watch this movie. You're going to think about the wheel of pain and you're going to go wow, this is so stupid. Don't look away I'm not done. You're going to watch this movie and then you're going to get a couple of paper towel tubes and find someone to beat the shit out of each other with the tubes.

Law abiding citizen (2009)

I don't know I think watching this movie changed my brain chemistry in very special ways. Guy fucking loses it and becomes a problem for his local community by kidnapping and torturing people who killed his family. Cathartic and vile.

Black dog (1998)

:D DO YOU WANNA WATCH AN ACTION MOVIE ABOUT AN 18-WHEELER?

The hunt for red october (1990)

Almost forgot this one. Lithuanian Submariner off the shits, goes rogue, I'm not sure what accent Sean Connery is going for, I get the impression he just showed up to gigs and did whatever he wanted.

#long post #movie recs #mein #If nothing else this is just the 'why is Doom like that' list

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shoyoist · 2 years

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Hi rekhaaa! I was wondering on what are the Tokyo revengers boys' quirks r gonna be if they're in mha!! Any thoughts??

𝐓𝐑 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒' 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐑𝐊𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐁𝐍𝐇𝐀

been a long time since i got over my bnha phase but this shows that i'd enjoy giving tr characters quirks and writing spin offs for them LMAO — not proofread, but i had a lot of fun thinking of these <3 (i did say my inbox is closed for reqs) but if you sent me individual characters that i havent done, i'll answer w/ quirks for them too!! short hcs are fun hehe

ぞ | hmmm, TAKEMICHI would have the ability to see glimpses of the near future. if he were the protag of bnha, his story would be that he wasted the potential of his extremely useful quirk by choosing to live a plain, ordinary life without aspiring to become a hero. then something absolutely terrible happens, but he gets the opportunity to turn things around for himself and for everyone else, if he goes back in time and claims the rank of top hero and saves the world. op music starts playing and takemichi starts his hero's journey ☆☆☆

ぞ | MIKEY would have the ability to put people to sleep. not just sleep, actually, his quirk enables him to turn people's systems off and render them comatose. if we're talking side effects, he's just sleepy ♡♡ and falls asleep real quick when he gets tired. he's quiet, a little shady but also very sweet, and whether as a hero or a villain, he'd be super powerful and useful <33

ぞ | i'll do DRAKEN a favour and let him have his motorcycle body. he's a cyborg. like genos from one punch man !! he has to get his prosthetic limbs removed and maintained regularly, and needs oil changes LMAO. imagine being the mechanic that takes care of him though <33 or the scientist that creates new body parts and weapons for him.

ぞ | BAJI is like Four Arms from Ben 10 SKHFHKH, he's big and muscley and has four arms. the perfect person to turn to, when you need a good sukuna cosplay. by the time he graduates hero school, he stands at 6'10" ♡♡ and so popular with everyone. holds fan events and meets, is super fun and friendly, good with kids — and he never turns down those calls asking for help bec a cat got stuck in a tree and needs saving LMAO

ぞ | ok ok KAZUTORA would have blood iron manipulation. realistically, your blood doesnt have THAT much iron so this is leaning towards the fictional side — but yeah, he can control your blood (maybe the flow of it out of your body, after a slash?) via the iron in your blood cells. he would be a hero turned villain <33

ぞ | MITSUYA definitely works in the rescue division. he has restoration abilities. i'm not calling it regeneration because it doesnt work on living creatures or people. it works on non living formations and structures, like stone and all. he's one of the front liners of the rescue teams. they locate people trapped under fallen buildings and such, and then mitsuya carefully restores walls and pillars, fixes cracks in the ground, and creates a safe path to reach the people from. he's also really pretty, a good leader, and skilled at providing guidance and reassurance, so everyone has a lil crush on him <33

ぞ | PAH-CHIN would have super strength. he's a lil like sakura from naruto (are there other sakuras? bec i dont know lol) and he would work in rescue, too, but in the opposite way that mitsuya does, i guess. he breaks down obstructing structures like walls and rubble, and paves way towards the people in need of saving.

ok that's takemichi + the toman ot6 but let me think of some more.

ぞ | of course KISAKI has an intelligence quirk. his ability allows him to make foolproof, precise plans that lead him straight to his goal— the catch being that they're only arranged according to his heart's desire. every step of his vision has to be followed out thoroughly to completion, to reach the end goal. however, some steps are incredibly self indulgent (step four: kill takemichi. LMAO) therefore, he's a loner at work, and more of an anti hero type. he does what he wants, how he wants, by himself. unless he met someone that was fine with doing things all his way <3

ぞ | HANMA can speak to the dead. if you come to him with enough grief and longing in your heart, for someone that's dead, he can summon their soul by channeling the power of your longing, and bring their spirit back to the edge of life for a short period of time. he would be a villain with a tragic backstory that's only revealed much later — and he works as the recruiter for his organization, by scouting people with useful quirks that have lost loved ones. "hey kid, if you do this for me and my boss, i'll let you see your sister one last time." that typa beat.

ぞ | i feel like SANZU would have some sort of energy absorption quirk. he absorbs fear. growing up, he was timid and more afraid of others than others were afraid of him, so his quirk was kept in check. however, once he joined the villains' side, he became ruthless — his gruesome murders, skilled escapes and endless number of successful heists make him his organization's beloved poster boy (which honestly only helps people to recognize and therefore fear him even more u_u).

ぞ | SENJU has a camouflage quirk. she's able to change her body to match the colours of whatever she places both her hands against — and therefore, she's part of almost every stealth mission the heroes carry out. she's leader of her division, and gets invited to a lot of workshops and expos — she's got a million fans, and the bnha universe twitter is full of senju stan accounts i just know it !!

ぞ | KOKONOI has charmspeak. it fits him really well — he's an excellent talker, silver tongued to begin with, so when he applies his quirk and slides in, he's able to coax information out of anyone he wants, and get his way no matter what the circumstances. he would've considered being a hero as a kid, but then he gets strung into a villain organization, where he decides to stay.

ぞ | if i mention koko i must mention INUI, who has a shielding ability. he's able to reflect the effect of quirks off him to some extent, giving him some level of immunity to quirk based attacks — and he uses this alongside physical shields provided to him by the hero association's weapon devs, to be both a physical and a mental shield to himself and any one he partners up with.

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goldsrc-hl1 · 8 months

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RWBY Writing Analysis Number One - Roman Torchwick's death and why it's so good

Hello all.

Roman Torchwick, the glorious bastard of RWBY, is by far my favorite villain in the entire show.

A smooth talking criminal with a sense of humor, a perfect foil to Ruby, and a character who's impact lasts all the way to the present volume. He's got humor, consistent writing, and one hell of a sense of style.

But one thing I've seen many people complain about is his death scene. Many have claimed that it's unsatisfying. I disagree wholeheartedly, as there is a LOT of nuance and messaging behind the way Roman Torchwick dies.

Let's talk about it!

Roman's motivation

First thing's first, let's establish Roman's modus operandi. We can identify his main goal and his motive from a few lines in Volume 3 Episode 11, Heroes and Monsters.

Roman: You're asking the wrong questions, Red! It's not what I have to gain, it's that I can't afford to lose!

Roman: I may be a gambling man, but even I know that there are some bets you just don't take.

Roman: Like it or not, the people that hired me are going to change the world! You can't stop 'em, I can't stop 'em!

Roman: You know the old saying, "If you can't beat 'em-"

He gets cut off, but the "old saying" he's referring to is "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"

Roman's goal is to survive. He'll do whatever it takes to survive, no matter how morally black. Nothing is off limits as long as it keeps him alive.

The writers want to prove his modus operandi / philosophy (being that he'll do whatever it takes to survive) wrong.

Roman's death

Throughout the first 3 volumes of RWBY, Roman aids Cinder Fall in her plan to take down Beacon Academy. This involves hijacking an Atlesian airship and shooting down two other airships, the whole train bomb stuff at the end of Volume 2, providing the White Fang with Atlesian military technology, and stealing dust en masse.

Ultimately, it's him working with Cinder Fall that gets him killed. He helps Cinder with her plan, helps her wreak havoc in Vale all in the name of survival, and how does it end up for him? He is killed by the very Grimm that Cinder herself had unleashed on Vale.

He did everything it took to survive, no matter the cost, and it ended up getting him killed. All that talk about "if you can't beat them, join them" ended up being the very thing that gets him killed. It's ironic, really, and it proves his philosophy wrong.

The Real World

Another facet of Roman's final moments is his last monologue to Ruby.

Roman: You got spirit, Red. But this is the real world!

Roman: The real world is cold!

Roman: The real world doesn't care about spirit!

Roman: You wanna be a hero!? Then play the part and die like every other Huntsman in history!

Roman: As for me, I'll do what I do best: lie, steal, cheat, and SURVIVE!

Although the writers wanted to prove his philosophy of doing whatever it takes to survive wrong, they want to prove him right in this respect - the real world is cold, and the real world doesn't care about spirit.

Despite what he says about spirit, he also has spirit himself. That spirit isn't spent on making the world a better place, however, it's spent on his own survival. And, despite all that effort to survive, he dies a pitiful death at the hands of the very Grimm he helped unleash on Vale.

The world didn't give him a satisfying death. The real world doesn't care that he's a major villain. The real world is cold, and doesn't care about spirit. Roman's death proves him right.

However, that shouldn't stop you from doing the right thing. Roman knows the world is cold, and doesn't care about it. He only cares about himself and Neo's survival.

Ruby, on the other hand, learns that the real world is cold after the Fall of Beacon, in no small part due to Roman Torchwick. However, unlike Roman, she doesn't let this stop her from still doing the right thing.

"that's why we're here, to make it better"

So yeah. To all who say Roman's death is unsatisfying, take a read.

#rwby writing is actually pretty damn good #rwby analysis #rwby #anti rwde #roman torchwick #ruby rose #writing analysis

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siremasterlawrence · 3 months

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Bloody Valentine Part 3

Iron Man is a pain in my ass constantly in a flux going after me only narrow missing me all but today because he found my base in a loud shattering landing on to the cave we settled in.I greet him standing a few feet away from him in defiance of his strength as a hero but I ignore him happily and he stomps his feet causing all of the ground to split in to two like crazy.I snap slip under one heading to my lap as I pound on the wall as the elevator races up to the top floor and I slip escaping to my laboratory because it is the day I bring him down.He shaft hits the ground floor as I walk over to my computer counter typing in a code acountdown begins as the walls beginning yo disappear revealing all of my worriers who ache to fight.They are super protective stepping in front of me in excitement they stood arms cross ready to obey but the best part is Batman and Nightwing weapons in hand as Iron Man lands.Iron man erupts in to the room still floating in mid air arms spread straight forward as missiles launch from his hands, arms, side of legs and shoulders exploding everywhere on him.Captain America rushes in to the field doing a dive in the air freaking flipping in to the air like super cannon he uses shield to block the bombs and then crushes Iron Man in to the wall.He lands with a super hero landing as Bucky walks standing in front of The Bat and lift up his arms in the aid setting it up he unleashes a trigger and sound wave of hitting iron man head on.Iron man thrust in to the wall sliding down to the caves ground as he rolls back and laying on the ground and cap sheds all as he hits him head on and pounding him in to the ground.Batman loses it commanding Nightwing to go to the side blocking me from any harms but enter we go and he shook his head to them but Captain America and The Winter Soldier join him.Batman leaps in to action pinning his foot in to the wall propelling himself ever forward to the next placing small circular devices on all four walls and presses the start button as the cave is wired exploding.The ceiling, all four walls come down onto him covering him a load of rocks protecting him and he is absolutely destroyed getting up as he struggles to make sense of what just happened.Flying erratically he barrels into him as they go shooting in to the sky he holds Batman head on sky rocketing in to the atmosphere and Bruce struggles with him hitting his face in pound.Nightwing’s breaks free typing some code in to his computer sleeves as two missiles lifting through the ground bust upward at him and hit him causing impact as he fell from the sky.Both men coming tumbling down smashing everything in its quake as Batman recovers and Nightwing along with Captain America and Bucky drag Tony towards me as the mask feel off placing my hand on his head.

“Tony! Can you hear me my love?”

“I am not your love”

“I am yours “

“Fuck you !”

“Be careful how you speak to me”

“Why the hell should I”

“Did you point the at me”

“It’s a night life”

“Command prompt one”

“Type in passcode”

“Enslave no. 3”

“I am your Lord and Master”

“Please command me”

“I am at your will “

“Then you will bring me your spider protege”

“Hey kid! I need your help”

“Mr. Stark?”

“Hurry up!”

“Yes Sir”

“How did you get in?”

“Suit up”

“Say cheese “

“What are you …”

“Zzzz”

“Listen to me Peter”

“Yyyyyyyeeeeeessssss”

“Mwahahaha! You will swing with me back to Master’s home.”

“Ugh! Did I fall a sleep? Where are we going Mr Stark?”

“To your new home obviously kid”

“Stark Tower with Bloody Valentine “

Peter blacks losing his ability he slips as his former pal Tony catches him playing a small device on him and dragging him back to yeh base with a evil glint in his eyes he knows it’s his demise.

He lands on to the port of the base dropping the kid as he calls him with smile and he is picking him up and took him to me leaving him on a his knees as he fell to his knees in obedience.

“Bloody Valentine my love.”

“Parker is yours”

“Kiss him”

“He is stirring awake”

“Bloody Valentine”

“Both of you kneel”

“Am I your Master?”

“Yes Bloody Valentine “

“Am I your king?”

“Yes Sire”

“How may we serve you ?”

“You are a team now”

“We are Iron & Spider”

The end

#bloody valentine #iron man #tony stark #rdj #peter parker #spider man #tom holland #evil superhero #hypnosis #mind control #reprogramming #hypno slave #mind control slaves

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consistentsquash · 4 months

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HP Rec Fest - Day 16

Fest - @hprecfest Theme - A fic that made you laugh

Snarry is complicated/messy/angsty. But also funny! Lots of Snarry fics are really funny deconstructions of some super popular tropes during the eras they got written. Today I got ten Snarry fics that made me laugh. Nobody asked me for a list but I made one anyway because Snarry!!!

D for Defender by Amand_r. Bat Snape forever <3

There's a man stalking the Wizarding world. Or a bat. Maybe a Man-Bat. Severus is probably having an affair, Harry's tired all the time, oh, and those drunks out in East Anglia are complaining about the green lights. Again.

The GL, Oder Der Giftige Lautsprecher, nicht wahr? by Rakina. Snape is a dick shaped plant. Literally.

This looked something like a round gourd, bulbous and flushed red. As Harry stared at it he realised the gourd's shape was alarmingly testicular, and the dusting of dark bristles over its surface did nothing to lessen the resemblance.

Better Homes and Dungeons by abstractconcept. Relationship problems because Snape and Harry of course are awful at communication.

“He’s bored with me,” Snape said despondently. “Naturally,” Draco replied, draining his gin and tonic. “You don’t throttle him nearly enough.” He poured himself another glass. “Learn to keep your relationship more exciting. Break out the whips more often.”

Sheer Dumb Luck by rexluscus. Of course the best solution to win the war is screwing Snape. Literally. Also in other ways.

For once, Harry and Voldemort want the same thing, and they want it from Snape.

Fall into Charybdis by Nimori. Dirtybadhotwrong. Also funny!

"Of course." Harry waited until the floo whooshed, then rounded on Snape. "What are you playing at, you greasy prick?" "I think you should call me Dad," Snape said, examining his nails.

Protosnape by suitesamba. Snarry authors also write non dirtybadhotwrong. Sorry if my recs gave you the wrong impression at any point. This one is wholesome and funny!

When WWW decides to add Headmaster Snape to their Wizarding Heroes Action Figure line, Harry begins a correspondence with Snape’s cousin to iron out the details of the prototype. Albert Prince Jr. has some very specific ideas, and Harry soon finds himself counting buttons and measuring cauldron bottoms in a bid to get the action figure to market, and to find out a bit more about this mysterious cousin.

Great Liars, Great Magicians by LoupGarou. BACK TO THE DIRTYBADHOTWRONG.

Dumbledore forces Harry to bond with Snape, who demands an heir, but when Harry announces his pregnancy, Snape doesn't believe him. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but the path to love is strewn with sex, lies, and manipulations.

A Tolerable End to an Unfortunate Situation by who_la_hoop. Of course Snape doesn't stay dead. Of course he is a problem.

When a dead, naked Snape enters the Great Hall – resurrected from the dead and out for Harry Potter's blood – it's the start of a whole new set of problems for the reluctant hero of the wizarding world.

Pink Slip by Cluegirl. Voldemort wins and ofc Harry is tortured. Really tortured :D

It is a long-held tradition for the children of one's enemies to be fostered in one's own household in order to enforce both sides' adherence to a treaty of peace. Harry doesn't find much comfort in the peace that has been bought with his freedom, but he's just a Fosterling in the house of Malfoy -- his only avenue of complaint lay with his Welfare Overseer, one Severus Snape.

Unexpected by Seeker. Snape gets deaged and everybody exploits that. Really exploits him :D

Thirty years as a Death Eater cum double agent and it came down to this.

Recs I made for this fest

#snarry recs #hp #hp slash fic recs #snarry #funny snarry #because snarry can be funny #10 snarry recs #hprecfest2023 #hprecfest2023 squashrecs

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heckcareoxytwit · 27 days

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A preview of Avengers #12

AVENGERS #12

The FALL OF X comes for Earth’s Mightiest heroes! The Avengers have hung in space over the Earth, a sword of Damocles over Orchis, for too long. But knowing they had only one chance to strike, they waited while Iron Man prepared. Now, on his signal, it is time, and the Avengers only know one way to strike: hard!

LEGACY #778

Written by: Jed MacKay Art by: Francesco Mortarino Cover by: Stuart Immonen Page Count: 28 Pages Release Date: April 3, 2024

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youcanseethecosmos · 2 years

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hi i like your dreamling actors au A LOT and i was wondering if you'd share more snippets about them 👀. mainly i would like to see more of dream falling for hob yet being more of an asshole the more he tries Not to be one, while hob is like "why does this guy keep searching me out just to be a dick wtf". idk i just like your actors au alot haha and would love to see more <3333

Hi friend! I'm so happy you love the dreamling actors au as much as I do!! And ofc I'd be more than happy to give a few snippets of Dream and Hob's lowkey one-sided enemies to tentative friends to lovers timeline.

I'll focus more on the start of the relationship here because everything else is a major spoiler for the fic hihi

Lights, Camera, Action posts: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

Dream and Hob's first movie where they played romantic leads was, ironically enough, a queer reimagining of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I'll let you figure out which of the two main couples they played ;)

Dream said to Hob that he took to speaking in iambic pentameter really well for "someone who wasn't classically trained" and Hob took that personally

Meanwhile Dream in his mind is like "that was my best compliment i hope he appreciated that." oh Dream. sweet baby boy no...

Hob meeting Dream was a classic "never meet your heroes" kind of set up. Although he wasn't a rabid fan, he deeply admired Dream as an actor

He still admires Dream. No matter how rude Dream seemed to be, Hob couldn't say that he wasn't good at his job. As long as the cameras were rolling, he could get lost in their little world. Dream knew how to pull you in once the story starts and Hob, despite his dislike of Dream, allowed himself to be pulled in every single time

One time Dream bought donuts for the entire cast and crew of one of his movies with Hob. Whether intentional or by happenstance, Hob didn't get a donut. He knows he shouldn't be petty and upset over a single donut but he IS and he will DIE on that hill

There is a very specific incident that happens about 6 movies in with Dream that changes Hob's perspective of him (what it is Exactly is a spoiler hihi)

Hob has never seen Dream eat or drink outside of filming. Like ever. Even during supposed lunch breaks, Dream spends his time reading and/or taking a nap while leaning against the wall – standing up.

Hob would be a solid 6 minutes in a blooper reel. Dream's never forgotten a line therefore has never appeared in any blooper reel due to his own slip-up. Hob did catch him try to hide a snort behind his coat sleeve once though.

Hope that gave you a nice glimpse at dream aka most awkward man in existence who can sleep standing up like a horse and recite his lines from a script after three passges but can't tell his handsome co-star hob that he miscalculated the amount of donuts he was supposed to bring last time and he would have run all the way to the nearest dunkin' just so hob wouldnt feel left out

save him pls

#dreamling #the sandman #hob x morpheus #morpheus x hob #centennial boyfriends #dream x hob #hob gadling #dream of the endless #lights camera action: sky's dreamling actors au #asks

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midweastindigo · 2 years

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2/2 iron man 3: heroes fall (music inspired by the motion picture)

#iron man 3 #iron man #tony stark #im3 #iron man 3 edit #iron man 3: heroes fall #becs stuff #anthony stark #tony stark edit

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glasskey · 8 months

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THT : A Gothic Fairy tale Pt 3

I’ve been digging down into THT fairy tale themes and tropes and last time I discussed our villains, this time we’ve got the Hero and the Quest. Let’s get started.

There’s no debate sitting around in the Waterfords tower prison can be boring AF, but the view DOES include the resident servant boy Nick who’s a bit of alright, so it’s not all bad.

Nick actually has several roles throughout; apart from lowly serf and handsome prince, he also plays the galant Knight and faithful guide. In classic literature his characters job is primarily to fall in love with, rescue and run off with the maiden. However the real world can be kind of shitty so while Nick does fall in love, it’s with another mans wife. When he tries his best to rescue the maiden it all goes sideways and she refuses to leave. While he dreams of running away with her, he’s trapped and forced to make the best of it.

This destruction of classic idealism and conservative constructs has purpose, THT seeks to portray a reversal of conventional gender roles as a statement against outdated tropes, therefore we’re given a fiercely independent protagonist and a deeply flawed Prince who requires some rescuing of his own. Prince’s are meant to be brave and strong, a “hero” if you will, Nicks not. Far from being the ideal picture of valor, he’s broken and a coward when she meets him, it’s only with her assistance that he gains the mettle required to fight Gilead.

In classic tales this character always undergoes some kind of transformation into a much “better” version of themselves, for example Nick was poor now he’s wealthy, Nick was a servant, now he has power, Nick was a coward, now he’s brave etc….say hello to the hot AF frog ala handsome prince. Fast forward to end of season 5 when THT goes full Sleeping Beauty and Nick does this:

Nicks not the only one undergoing transformation, our “helpless” maiden gradually becomes the bane of her captors existence. June’s mother Holly reprimands her for marrying and not joining the fight against the patriarchy, but the darkness of Gilead transforms our fair maiden into everything her mother envisioned for her: a warrior with iron like fortitude. Traditional constructs would determine that Nick be the hero of this story, but conventional gender roles have been flipped, thus this role belongs to June. Hero’s are usually given a quest, all this one has to do is survive and manipulate the inner workings of a deadly patriarchal right wing authoritarian state, so that she can retrieve her daughters, free her country and be reunited with the love of her life….simple.

Never one to rest on her laurels, June is so diligent in her efforts to retrieve Hannah, that the pseudo parents actually up and leave town, yes that’s right June made a High Commander and his family move house….to the country. Interestingly each of June’s children languishes in separate countries as do Nick and June, a small part of one another for each of them to hold close, like two halves of a heart.

From her red riding hood cape to her Rapunzel locks, June is more nightmare made manifest than fairy tale, to her captors. The red hood used in Red Riding Hood was a metaphor for the beginning of women’s journey into womanhood and sexual awakening. June’s red hood represents passion, death and the cycle of life.

Like most tales, references to things forbidden or hidden find their genesis in existing taboos. June’s hair is part of her physicality intrinsically tied to her consent and freedom. In Rapunzel the maiden lets her hair down voluntarily for her suitor and on demand for her captor and so it is for June. In S1 June takes down her hair and throws it back as she makes love to Nick. At the start of Jezebels her hair cascades down her shoulders freely as she watches him sleep, later Fred takes her hair down himself before taking her to Jezebels and raping her. In S3 as June runs to Nick in the snow, her hair streams out freely behind her. Its forbidden that Nick sees it, just as it’s forbidden he touch her.

In captivity June doesn’t have a choice but to grow her hair, her terms of imprisonment state that she doesn’t have access to scissors. So when Nick hands her scissors and tells her to cut her hair, it demonstrates the beginning of her freedom and not only his role in its realisation but also his understanding of the terms of her captivity. He gives her new clothes, she sheds her handmaids robe and ear tag and burns her hair along with them.

It seems almost inevitable that given the plight of her suitors and the shifting dynamics of our traditional tropes, our protagonist will be busy in the coming season performing some much needed rescuing of her own. The fairy tale theme seems a perfect backdrop to THT as Gilead’s fascist regime is intent on the perpetuation of trad idealism. However June Osborne is the type of woman that leads a nation, incites devotion and kills conventional endings stone cold dead.

#june osborne #hulu streaming #june x nick #nick x june #max minghella #nick blaine #osblaine #elisabeth moss #bruce miller #hulu series #tv series #fairy tale aesthetic #fairy tale vibes #brothers grimm #gothic aesthetic #the handmaid's tale #handmaid's tale #handmaid's on hulu #hulu tv

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froggynelson · 2 years

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THE FOGGY APPEARANCES MASTERPOST

So I decided, after literal years of relying on places like the marvel wiki and comicvine to look for and double check Foggy Nelson's appearances throughout the marvel universe, to go and make a comprehensive list of his appearances outside of the main Daredevil title, counting Daredevil limited series and one off stories, along with cameos and alternate universes. The intention was to streamline the process for myself so i dont have to scour through pages and pages every time I wanna remember which comic that one thing happened, but hey, why not make the process of finding comics easier for people who aren't as deranged as I am? So here I made this post, from a real Fog-head to other Fog-heads out there, listing every issue outside of the Daredevil title (as it is more straightforward to find him, and extremely long to type on this list) he appears in, from barely there cameos to central roles, sorted by whether they are set in Earth 616 or not, and in no particular order. This is simply a list to serve as a guide to find him, it is not a curated list so the quality varies wildly, but I hope you're all as curious as I was to find all the most obscure and niche Foggies out there. Enjoy :)

EDIT 1: The original post had been published without one of my alterations to the draft saving, so if you reblogged it without this edit, the list was missing 14 titles.

616:

Daredevil (1964) Annuals: #1, #2, #3, #4, #8, #9

Daredevil (1998) Annuals: #1

Daredevil: Yellow: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6

Daredevil: Redemption: #1, #6

Marvel Graphic Novel: #24 (Daredevil: Love and war)

Daredevil: Cage Match: #1

Daredevil: Man Without Fear (2019): #1, #2, #5

Daredevil: Dark Nights: #3

Shadowland: #5

Shadowland: After the Fall: #1

Black Panther: Man Without Fear: #513, #521, #522

Daredevil vs Punisher: #2

Daredevil/Spider-Man: #2, #3, #4

Punisher Kill Krew: #2, #3, #4, #5

Daredevil: Battlin' Jack Murdock: #2

Daredevil: Blood of the Tarantula: #1

Daredevil: Reborn: #3, #4

Daredevil: Father: #1, #2, #5, #6

Daredevil/Deadpool: Annual '97

Devil's Reign: #3, #4

Devil's Reign Omega: #1

Elektra Lives Again: #1

Dark Reign: Elektra: #2

Uncanny Origins: #13

Power Man and Iron Fist (1978): #77

The Amazing Spider-Man (1963): #16, #42, #43, #65, #218, #429, #438

Spectacular Spider-Man (1978): #240, #242, #250

Spider-Man (1990): #75

Spider-Man Unlimited (1993): #13

Spider-Man/Kingpin: To the Death: #1

Untold Tales of Spider-Man: Annual '97

Uncanny X-Men (1963): #46

The New Warriors: #21, #23, #24, #25

Marvels: #2

Captain Universe: Daredevil

White Tiger: #1

Marvel Fanfare (1982): #1, #27

Marvel Team-up (1972): #25, #107, #141

Marvel Team-up (2004): #9

Marvel Two in one (1974): #37, #38, #78

Marvel Age: Annual #1

Avengers (1998): #26

New Avengers (2005): #1, #2, #3

Iron Man (1968): #35, #327, #328

Iron Man (1998): #1

Captain America (1968): #234

The Incredible Hulk (1968): #153

Superior Iron Man: #3

Ka-Zar (1997): #15, #17

Over the Edge: #6, #10

Silver Sable and the Wild Pack: #23, #28

Cosmic Ghost Rider Destroys Marvel History: #6

Onslaught: Marvel Universe: #1

X-Man: #21

Fantastic Four (1961): Annual #3

Fantastic Four (1998): #35, #47, #48

Fantastic Four: The Wedding Special 2006: #1

Thunderstrike (1993): #16

Spider-Man/Black Cat: #4

The Marvel Saga: #1, #13

The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Daredevil 2004: #1

Marvel Encyclopedia: #5

The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Update '89: #5

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z: #8

OTHER UNIVERSES:

Daredevil Noir: #1, #3, #4

Daredevil: End of days: #1, #5, #8

Daredevil: Man Without Fear (1992): #2, #3, #4, #5

Daredevil: Season One (2012): #1

Spider Gwen (2015, vol. 1): #1

Spider Gwen (2015, vol 2): #9, #20, #21, #22, #24, #27, #33

Powerless: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5

Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra: #1, #2, #3, #4

Ultimate Elektra: #1, #2

Ultimate Spider-Man (2000): #109, Annual #2

Survive!: #1

The Ultimates 2: #3

Spidey Super Stories: #43, #50

Marvel Adventures Super Heroes: #9

Marvel Age Spider-Man: #15

Not Brand Echh (1967): #2, #4, #9

What the--?!: #3, #11

Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham: #7

Marvel Hostess ads vol.1 #7

Secret Wars, too: #1

Secret Wars: Secret love: #1

Dark Ages: #2

Marvel Knights: 20th: #1

Marvel Nemesis: The Imperfects: #2

Avengers Halloween Special: #1

Contest of Champions (2015): #4

1602: #1

1872: #2

Paradise X: #10

Marvels X: #2

What if? Daredevil: #1

What if? Daredevil vs Elektra: #1

What if Karen Page had lived?: #1

What if? (1977): #8, #35, #38

What if...? (1989): #26, #73, #89, #102, #105

Spider Girl: #0, #17, #63, #74, #82, #85

Spider-Man: Chapter One: #9

Mutant X: Annual #3

Daredevil/Batman: #1

Daredevil/Shi: #1

Daredevil: The Movie Adaptation: #1

Sins of Sinister: #1

#daredevil #daredevil comics #foggy nelson #hooo boy

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embossross · 1 year

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The Devotion of the Girl in the Mirror

Chapter 3 >> Chapter 4 >> Masterlist

✣ Pairing: Rindou x AFAB fem!Reader

✣ Warning: 18+ explicit content, minors DNI

✣ Series: part of the In the Belly of the Beast fic universe

✣ Chapter CW: cockwarming, rough blow jobs, orgasm denial, light asphyxiation, mention of weight gain treated as negative, clumsy assignation of Japanese pet names by English speaking author (I tried 😞😩)

✣ Story CWs: BDSM dob/sub relationship; sex (oral, ptv, pta, etc.); genre typical drug use, alcohol, smoking

✣ Synopsis: A story of two lonely people find love for better or worse. Or, dom!Rindou is sweet on his girl. Or, on paper, you and Rindou have nothing in common. But sometimes chemistry defies logic, and with every conversation, you find yourself more bewitched until all you see, smell, or hear is Rindou.

✣ Word Count: ~6k

The gamy smell of cooking beef floods the space under your tongue. Your eyes track your mother as she turns down the heat to a simmer and tosses a few extra slabs of beef into the pot. For once, you’re home to eat a proper dinner with your mother, and she’s made a special occasion of it, springing for pricey cuts of meat to make sukiyaki.

“The tofu is a nice color,” you comment, hoping to hurry along to the part where your mother serves you a heaping bowl. All you ate today between classes was a granola bar and banana.

“Give it another minute. I swear! You’ve never had any patience,” your mother scolds.

“Not where my stomach is involved,” you agree.

“Have you been eating well? I worry with you always running out the door.”

“I’ve been eating too well. I’m afraid to step on a scale at this rate. I’m not sure there’s a restaurant in Roppongi I haven’t tried at this point.

“Roppongi? Why are you spending so much time there?”

There is no conspiracy to keep your mother out of the loop when it comes to Rindou. Unlike most of your classmates, you always considered your mom more a friend than a strict parental figure. Days and nights alike took your mother out of the house to man cash registers, stock shelves, iron suits, and mind other families’ children as the opportunity presented itself; so, in her stead, you took on the mantel of de facto mother to your little sister, of homemaker for your older brother. Rare nights with your mother at home were often spent debriefing her on the goings on of the household, which created a uniquely female solidarity between you both, a kind of perverse equality that warped the boundaries of parent and child.

You told your mother about your first heart break, first kiss, and every other milestone, so when she asks about Roppongi, you remind her that you’ve been seeing someone and offer up a few details: what he does for work (export/import), where he lives (Roppongi), how you met (a lie about a coffee shop).

“I recognize that look in your eye,” your mother says. “You’re in love.”

“Oh, because I’ve been in love so many times before?” you scoff.

“Exactly because you haven’t been in love before. This look is different. New. But I’ve seen it on other women far too many times. Tell me, what is it about this boy that has you falling in love?”

You slurp your udon, stalling not because you need time to think of an answer but because the answer is too readily available.

All your great heroes are writers, yet you never reckoned yourself one until recently when you started a journal. Great, heaping emotional confessions splay out across the pages as you unburden yourself of the too-big-feelings you harbor for Rindou. His every advantage and grace is captured on those pages, and the only trouble is translating the truth into something less scandalous for your mother’s ears. Because you may be close, nearly friends, but you cannot tell your mother that when Rindou chokes you, in the space between thinking and emptiness, you could make yourself a home.

“Well, he’s always there for me. Even when he’s busy. I know I can rely on him when it’s important,” you say.

Translation: Rindou works without making it his life, placing it lower in the balance of his priorities than time with you. It is a privilege to commit to lovers or even family over work. Your mother’s chapped hands, reddened from nights doused in dish detergent remind you of her sacrifices every time she stirs the pot. Rindou, free from those worries and hardships, strikes you as a fairytale prince.

Only a few weeks ago, he dropped everything to come to your side in the middle of a workday.

You normally answer texts within a matter of minutes, so five weeks ago, when half an hour passed with Rindou’s message left on read, he called you. Brave face on, you tried to answer like nothing was wrong, but sniffling tears warped the words, and Rindou forced you to admit what had happened.

“It’s not a big deal. I just got a really bad mark on my last essay. The professor’s comments are…harsh, yeah, harsh…but I’m okay,” you blubbered.

“What an asshole. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come pick you up,” Rindou said.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Seriously, I’m just being a baby. It’s not like I failed the class. From here on out, I just need to get A’s on all my assignments,” and here you drew a shaky breath as all A’s would be a near miraculous feat, “to pass the class. You work hard, and I’ll see you tonight.”

“Forget that. Tell me where you are now.”

“You said you had an important meeting with investors –”

“Don’t’ be a brat,” Rindou warned, and your jaw clicked shut and stayed there. “You think I give a fuck about this meeting? Compared to you? Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to find the closest froyo or ice cream shop. Go there and drop me your location. Then, buy every flavor with every topping you can imagine wanting. I don’t care if there are twenty bowls, and you take one bite from each. Buy every kind you like. Once I’m there, I’ll cheer you up, baby, but until then, treat yourself on me.”

The day played out exactly as Rindou commanded. You nursed a stomachache that night as Rindou listened to you talk through your anxieties. He treated you so softly as you cried that you couldn’t remember what you were so worried about when morning dawned. He never once checked his phone for messages from work, all his attention on you.

“What else? He’s a great listener. He doesn’t talk as much as me, and before you say it, Mom, yes haha, who out there talks as much as me? You’re hilarious. But, um, he isn’t just not talking, but he’s really listening even when I don’t think he is,” you say.

No translation needed for this one.

Slumped in his seat, eyes hidden by his bangs, sometimes you worry you are talking to a wall when you tell Rindou about your day. The problem is especially painful over the phone, where you can’t search his body language for any clues, and his affirmative noises come few and far between.

You told yourself that he cared, but sometimes, when you were at your lowest, it was hard to believe.

All your lingering worries were relieved shortly after New Year’s, when you broke the seal on staying over at Rindou’s place and began joining him several times a week at his apartment for nights of long, dirty sex. Times not spent in bed together usually found Rindou playing video games or listening to music, while you did your homework in a pile of blankets on his heated floors.

You thought you knew Rindou’s apartment inside and out until one day you dropped an earring on the floor. You lazily tapped around with your feet, but when it didn’t turn up, you dropped to your belly to look under the bed. Your earring shone gold and unmistakable, but your greedy eyes glossed over it to latch onto a pile of books. There were only a couple books in the stack, but as browsing other people’s libraries was one of your greatest pleasures in life, you crawled out from under the bed with the humble bounty in tow.

The first book compiled the short stories of Edogawa Rampo. The paper cover looked uncracked. New book smell oozed off the pages when you pressed your nose against them. You traced the titles on the back, picking out a few favorites like ‘The Human Chair’ to read later.

Impressed as you already were by Rindou’s taste as you long enjoyed Rampo’s uncanny valley explorations of 20th century new Japan, you were equally surprised to find Kani by Kōno Taeko as the next book. You remembered mentioning her work to him a few months ago as something you hoped to make time for outside your studies because while you loved 19th century literature, you also enjoyed the modern classics when time allowed.

The next book after that weighed heavy in your hands, and when you saw the title, you dropped it hard on the floor. Hakkenden. Rindou was reading Hakkenden. A bookmark saved his spot on the nineteenth of ninety-eight chapters.

You had been working your way through the epic behemoth, one of the longest in world literature, for the better part of two years and often brought it up in conversation. Rindou would sit stone-faced and seemingly bored as you talked about the most recent chapter. Yet here was the book. And now that you thought about it, you’d mentioned Rampo to him as well.

“Why are you on the floor?” Rindou’s voice came from behind your shoulder.

“You’re reading the books I talk about!” you squealed, holding the massive tome up in accusation.

Rindou scratched the back of his neck. “Well, yeah, but not all of it. I wanted to read everything you mention, but you read too fast for me. I got through Kani pretty fast in between meetings, but Hakkenden slowed me down way more than I thought. You weren’t kidding about that thing.”

“But just because I mention it doesn’t mean you’re going to like it. I could make better recommendations tailored to your tastes,” you said.

“That’s not the point. I’m reading them so we can talk about them,” Rindou said.

Heat swelled in your chest, and you understood for the first time why ancient peoples believed the heart was the source of all love. You dropped your books to the floor and took Rindou’s hand.

“Rindou, baby, sit down on the bed. I’m going to suck your cock now.”

“Oh, are you?” Rindou scowled, but his voice was light and unoffended, just the hint of the thwarted dom peeking through.

“Yeah, just this once, shut up and let me,” you said.

And maybe he understood how your heart pulsed in your chest, or maybe he just wanted his dick sucked because Rindou didn’t argue. He had, after all, proven he knew how to listen.

Face hot at the memory of what happened next, you fan yourself, hoping your mother will think it’s from the heat of the sukiyaki. Your mother, for her part, nods wisely.

“Listening is good. You do like to fill a silence. But understanding is something else. Some men seem like good listeners but truthfully they just have nothing to say,” your mom says, sage advice stemming from a decade plus of caving to the glorified fuck boy masquerading as a man that was your father.

“No, I know,” you agree. “But I do think he understands. When I dated Sensyuu for a bit – remember him? The guy from the factory? The one with the goatee – well, I thought he was so experienced and smart because he was in this thirties, but I know now that he was an immature idiot. With Rindou…it feels like he’s so intuitive. Like there’s so much about the world and people that he understands and could teach me.”

“Wait, how old is this boy again?” your mother asks.

“Relax, Mama. He’s only twenty-eight,” you reassure her.

“And you’re turning twenty-two in a few weeks…I suppose that’s reasonable. About the same as your grandparents,” your mother allows.

Relieved by your mother’s approval, you take a meaty bite of beef, chewing slowly to savor the flavor. Rindou never fashioned himself as some great teacher with you the pupil. Yet, you do learn so much when you’re with him. Not facts or even opinions, but about yourself. From his example, you discover a confident way of moving through the world, unapologetic of making a scene or breaking some social more that no one could justify in the first place. He shows you how to have fun outside of books, to take risks. And, oh how deliciously he teaches you about the limits of your own body.

Fucking Rindou teaches you about the pleasure of anticipation. Obliterating and ossifying as an orgasm may be, you learn to relish the ascent to the pinnacle, the delights of the journey. Discover that stretching the moments leading to the fall, finding new ways to lengthen that coiling rope inside your tummy, not only intensifies the descent, it is the very point.

Thus, every moment you spend with Rindou’s hands on your skin becomes a kind of pre-climax, like snacking on sweet grapes before a swish of white wine.

Because you are always listening to him, for his words and the subtle language of the body. If he nudges you with a thigh, you leap to correct your position. To his word, you follow. Such ecstasy in obeyance. And in every moment that passes without his direction, you wait and enjoy the act of waiting.

One time, a work emergency popped up, a problem with customs at the shipyard holding up a barge of goods. The call came right as Rindou promised you could cum after an hour of teasing cruelty. Your body was bowstring tight, ready to fire, when cursing to himself, Rindou unwound from your body and set to work. It went without saying that you did not dare cum then.

You tried to regain his permission, petting his arm, thumbing at your own pussy, and crying to soften the coldest of hearts, but Rindou didn’t even discipline you for the brattiness, too focused on his work.

Annoyed when your attempts didn’t let up, Rindou gave you a task of your own, pushing your head into his lap, your throat swallowing up the full length of him, and keeping you still with a submission hold.

Now, you cried in earnest, not just because of your needy pussy but the ugly obstruction that blocked your throat. Intellectually, you recognized that you could breathe through your nose, but your body insisted it couldn’t, that you would die here, suffocated on his dick. And for the next half hour, as Rindou made phone call after phone call, that’s what you did. You choked and whined and cried until your tears mixed with the steady stream of drool that streamed past your overstretched lips and down his balls. The details of Rindou’s phone call went straight over your head as your mental faculties busied themselves with restraining your hands and feet, both of which wanted to kick and claw for survival.

Finally, Rindou hung up the phone. The work crisis handled.

Thrusting up, he managed to choke you on the bare centimeter of his dick not already buried in your wet mouth. A few bruising pumps, and then his cum rushed unimpeded down your throat. Thick and rich, he came with more spurts than he’d ever gifted you before, and your body quivered with it.

Only then did Rindou dip one finger down to your clit and tap. Tiny inconsequential nudges, yet your edged and desperate body answered that knock by throwing open the door of your orgasm. You came like your own personal rapture, sending you first to hell and then to paradise as your body spasmed uncontrollably. Then, Rindou reincarnated you with a kiss to the cheek, and you were whole once again, staring into those velvet eyes.

“Well, it sounds like young love,” your mother says, and you nearly choke on a mushroom as her voice rips you violently from torrid daydreams. “Just remember that no matter how much you love this boy, you should never let him push you into doing something you don’t want. If he threatens to leave, let him. Benefit from my mistakes. Don’t go repeating them. Don’t ever make yourself small for a man.”

These words are delivered blithely as your mother pokes at the simmering pot with a chopstick. Yet she touches her wrinkling neck as if on reflex. You remember once staring up at then supple and unmarred skin with the uncomplicated, admiring gaze of an infant or small child. You were young when you came to see your mother as a tragic heroine, a sympathetic one sure, but one doomed by her narrow choices or maybe by the lessons learnt from her own mother and her grandmother before that. Because there was no shepherding hand to guide her away from unloving men, no strident lessons woman-to-woman about the need for her own money, to never empty her pockets with the trust that some man would fill them. When other girls went through the stage where they became hypercritical of their mothers, picking at faults and laughing at the sad repetitions in their lives, you continued to look at her with that child’s loving eyes. You drink up the words of concern and advice as if she delivers the scripture.

You feel pride in your relationship with Rindou as you can put your mom at ease without telling a single lie.

“The best thing about him, Mama, is I know he isn’t treating me like some easy thing. He never makes me feel silly or inconsequential. He shows me how important I am through his actions, but not just that, he lets me set the tone of things, too. He doesn’t push against my boundaries or pigeonhole me in some box set aside for a girl. I know that he wants me to feel important and safe when I’m with him. And I do.”

A few nights ago, you hooked a calf over his while lying in bd. Half a dozen pillows stacked behind you supported your chest, so you wound your sweaty, just-released lower bodies together. The sex had been intense but not too rough, and he had let you cum, so your brain was half way to shutting down for a deep sleep when you turned to look at him speculatively.

“I think we should come up with pet names for each other.”

Rindou cracked one eye open from where he lounged in his own post-sex haze. “You want me to call you more pet names?”

“We should have ones just for us.”

“Here’s an idea. You can call me Sir, and I’ll call you slut, whore, cocksleeve…I’m tired but I promise to come up with some more in the morning,” Rindou yawned.

You poked him in the side, right below his ribs where his chest hair ended.

“A pet name we can use in public.”

“I’m more than happy to call you a slut in public.”

“A cute one! Like…I’m thinking I could call you…Tanuki-chan,” you said.

Just like that you felt the full weight of Rindou’s attention as he rolled onto his side to stare you down. Rindou exclusively operated on one of two modes: inscrutable stoicism or searing intensity. As he weighed his new nickname, his observation carried the weight of the universe.

“Tanuki-chan?”

“Yes, I thought it fit because of the dark circles under your eye and your two-toned hair. Plus, it’s just cute!” you explained.

Rindou sighed, “Fine, but if you call me Tanuki-chan instead of Sir while we’re fucking, I’ll belt you.”

“Oh, good to know,” you murmured, like you just might try it. Rindou cursed under his breath, rolling over to serve you his back. The thick trapezius muscles there flexed, and a stirring lust rose in you that shouldn’t have been possible so soon after you last took him inside you. “Don’t go to sleep! You have to give me a nickname, too!’

No response came and soon after, you heard his grumbling snores. Only a little piqued, you followed him into sleep.

The next morning, you scrubbed your toothbrush – a second bought just to live on the sink in Rindou’s apartment – against the overnight scum on your teeth, when Rindou entered the bathroom, wrapped two arms around your waist and whispered in your ear.

“Good morning, Mozu-Mozu.”

Peppermint fluoride slipped precariously down your throat as you struggle to respond through a mouth full of toothpaste. “Where’d that come from?”

“You wanted a pet name, right? Well, I thought about it all night. Since you made me a tanuki, I wanted to go with an animal for you, too, and I couldn’t stop thinking you would be a bird because I love waking up to that beautiful voice in my ear. So, what better than the hundred songs bird?” Rindou said.

You spit in the sink.

“You stayed up all night thinking about that?”

“I took my time with it. Wanted to choose the right one.”

True to his word, Rindou slips Mozu into your texts and softer moments now, caressing the word with his tongue like it’s something sinful and secret just for your ears. No man has ever taken you half as seriously.

Your mother has nothing to worry about. Nothing.

Bicycles meander past the shop fronts barely faster than the pedestrians who lazily stroll the street. Shopping in Ginza is intimidating on a student’s budget. The names of the high-end brands fall clumsily off your tongue. Even the Japanese ones taste like a different language.

Hair hastily thrown back with a tie and sneakers tattered from stomping the streets on many a rainy day, you know you stand out in the boutique lingerie shop. The women manning the front of the store appear airbrushed. Poreless and unfairly tall, they tower in watch at the front of the store like Cerberus guarding the gates of Hades.

Akane – one of your closest university friends – flings yet another bra onto the pile in your waiting arms. You asked Akane to join you, yes, but the plan was simply to make a return and then visit the bookstore, not play her personal shopper as she tries on a hundred bras she could never hope to afford.

The lingerie set in your bag consists of a sheer teddy, bite-sized thong, and bra with crisscrossing straps all in the most delicate crème colors. When you wear the outfit, you look like a virginal sacrifice, all contradictions and enticement. But, the bra digs into your chest and leaves ugly red marks in its wake, so you decided to return it.

Rindou has gifted you more than a dozen similarly priced and fine outfits at this point. The gifts make you nervous as you were taught to never trust a man who trades in love for money, but you do trust in Rindou’s eyes when he sees you in a chosen negligee or strip of leather. Trust that these gifts are a treat for him, turning you into a feast for the eyes, rather than an attempt to own you with his wealth.

“Would I look cute in this, you think?” Akane questions, holding up a corset top and matching panties.

“Anyone would look good in that. You’d shouldn’t try it on though. Better not to know how good you would have looked in it,” you say.

“I could spoil myself just this once,” Akane wheedles, like any underwear, no matter how sexy, could be worth a full week’s worth of wages.”

Set on leaving your friend to her bad decisions, you mindlessly scroll Twitter, liking any post that remotely catches your eye. The jangle of the bell announces new customers entering the store. You hope the gorgeous shop attendants might stop staring you down if there are other customers to assist.

“Hey, isn’t that Rindou? Rindou!” Akane calls out, bumping you in the side. “Wait, but who is that?”

Excitement and exasperation compete as you turn to follow Akane’s pointing finger, figuring if Rindou is in a lingerie shop, it is to buy you yet another unnecessary pantie set. He looks particularly debonair, dressed for the office, in a turquoise three-piece suit and matching vest. The color sets off the garish purple of his hair nicely. He looks like the kind of man who can afford to shop in stores like this.

So too does the woman at his side.

Both of them notice you at the same time, following the call of Akane’s voice in the quiet store. Rindou wears a neutral mask, revealing no particular care in running into you out and about on a Wednesday afternoon. The woman at his side, on the other hand, looks genuinely interested.

You scan her up and down. The graceful arc of her body drops to an ironed skirt and towering high heels, everything obviously designer or at least expensively made. She wears her hair in a chignon that would take you an hour to get right, which frames a delicate neck. Tasteful makeup on an already beautiful face completes her daunting impression.

Unsure what to think of Rindou’s appearance with such a beautiful, far more sophisticated woman, you wave. Rindou barely reacts causing your stomach to flip over. Twice.

“Oh, wow, she’s really pretty,” Akane whispers.

“Are you good to try on this stuff alone? I’m going to go return this,” you say, shoving the stack of hangers at your friend. She doesn’t argue at all, eyes glued to the other woman.

As you approach, Rindou whispers something in the other woman’s ear. You watch eagle-eyed at the way his mouth nears her skin, how his breath dislodges a loose tendril of hair. They don’t touch, but their bodies are too close as they commune. Then, the woman struts off to browse a section of the store you already know contains high-end fetish wear.

Rindou turns his attention to you only when the other woman leaves his side. His face is blank.

“Hey, I um, didn’t expect to run into you here,” you greet him. Normally, you would kiss his cheek, nuzzle into his neck, unable to stand any physical space after time apart, but now you keep your distance. Rindou doesn’t reach for you either.

“Yeah, you don’t normally shop here,” Rindou says, voice low. His eyes scan over your head like he’s looking for something, or maybe he’s just avoiding looking at you.

“I just came here to make a return. That set with the teddy doesn’t fit. But then, Akane insisted on shopping around, so I’m keeping her company until she’s ready to leave. I keep telling her she can’t afford this place, but you know Akane,” you explain.

“You’ll have to tell me how it turns out later,” Rindou says.

“Right, yeah, and you’ll have to tell me about your friend.”

You deserve awards for the even tone you manage as you circle the question, like it isn’t driving you crazy to wonder why your lover is in a lingerie shop with an attractive woman. You can feign casual; you’ve done it before with other men. Granted, you didn’t love those men like you love Rindou, but your muscle memory is good as you affect perfect nonchalance, hand on your hip and reassuring smile on your face.

Or, more likely, you radiate awkwardness, but at least that’s better than jealousy and suspicion.

“Not much to tell,” Rindou shrugs, and you wish he would stop speaking before the next words even leave his mouth. “She’s one of the subs I’ve done scene work with for the last few years. She moved to Kobe, but she’s back in town for a bit, so I promised to spoil her for the day.”

“Spoil her? What does that entail?”

“Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow. It’s rude to keep her waiting, and you should go back to Akane,” Rindou says, and the clear dismissal of what you’re feeling somehow hurts worse than the awful, fantastical images that dance through your mind: Rindou zipping this woman into a naughty maid’s outfit, Rindou spanking her in the dressing room, Rindou kissing her with those red lips that should be yours.

“Cool.”

As you return to Akane, who does not argue at all when you insist you leave immediately, return completely forgotten, you don’t feel remotely cool. Not. At. All.

Over winter break, you and your university friends drank shochu until you reached a spectacular level of drunkenness. You swore lifelong loyalty to one another, crying at how thankful you were that fate tied you together in the same major. Somehow, a dirty napkin became the site of an official friendship contract that included provisions for favors. Things like, a friend must assist in helping one of the others move apartments given a week’s notice, or a friend must always pick up a fellow friend from the airport. More importantly, it included a clause instituting that all prior commitments short of finals and family funerals must be dropped if an emergency friend meeting is called.

Now definitely constitutes an emergency.

Two hours after Rindou blows you off in Ginza, you snuggle up beside all your friends on the couch in Akane’s apartment, tipsy on wine coolers and completely losing your mind.

“I say you just break up with him. He’s no good for you,” Naoto says for the dozenth time since he’s arrived.

“You should have seen her! She was freaking gorgeous, like I’d have wanted to hang her picture on my wall as a kid gorgeous,” you moan.

“I disagree. You are ten times cuter,” Akane lies.

“Cute? Cute?”

You stuff your face into a throw pillow and scream. All your friends trade concerned glances. Unsure what to do, they settle on pushing another wine cooler your way. You guzzle until your throat burns on the acidic drink.

“I think we’re jumping to conclusions, and you should give him a chance to explain. He said he was spoiling his ex-girlfriend, and yes, that does sound like he meant to buy her underwear, but that doesn’t mean he wants to see her in it! Maybe she has blackmail material on him. Or, maybe they broke up because he sees her as a sister? You should wait for him to explain tomorrow,” one of your friends, Tsumugi, offers.

Himeka, another friend, scoffs uncharitably. “No man buys underwear for a woman unless he intends to see her in it. Let’s get real. He’s a dog. I can’t believe I liked that cheater! I gave him half my scone at brunch!”

You skipped over the background info about doms and subs when regaling your friends with the story. You told them instead that the other woman was an ex-girlfriend rather than a scene partner. Much like you skated around the truth of your relationship with Rindou all this time.

“I mean, it’s not technically cheating,” you admit ruefully. “We never said we were exclusive. In fact, we basically said the opposite when we first started dating. I just thought…it’s been almost six months! Six months of seeing him like five days a week. How does he even have time to see other people? I sure don’t!”

“He probably doesn’t! Like you said, when would he even find the time? He probably just met up with this woman because of nostalgia or pity, and he’s going to realize he made a mistake and come crawling back. For sure,” Tsumugi says.

“Then, why hasn’t he texted? He knows the impression he left on her. He should be blowing up her phone right now. Besides, husbands find ways to cheat on their wives all the time, and they live together,” Himeka, ever the pessimist, insists.

“Akane, what do you think?” you ask, turning big, pleading eyes towards the only witness of today’s incident.

“I mean…it doesn’t look…good,” Akane stutters, face beet red as she delivers the death knell to your heart. “But like you said, you aren’t official. So, if you have a problem with him seeing other people, you should communicate that. I wouldn’t trust any guy to stick to one woman if he’s not even asked to. For all he knows, you’ve been seeing all kinds of university guys behind his back, too. So, you should communicate with him, and see what he says.”

“I wouldn’t need a woman to ask,” Naoto mutters. As the only guy in the room, he is tasked with bearing the burden of men everywhere.

The tick tock of the wall clock in Akane’s kitchen sounds like a countdown to your personal misery. Rindou promised to call tomorrow, and the anticipation blurs into anxiety. Tomorrow may well be the end of your relationship, and you don’t think you could bear that. But in the same vein, Akane could be right, so you should wish time brought your reconciliation even sooner.

You bite your fingernails as you think through your options.

“What do we even know about this guy? He knows everything about you, but he keeps you at arm’s length from his life. You’ve never met his friends or work colleagues, except for his brother that one time. For all you know he could have a harem of women all over Tokyo. And, you have to admit, he looks fishy. The neck tattoo? The money? The hair? He isn’t some upstanding citizen,” Naoto says heatedly.

“See, that’s your problem, Naoto,” Tsumugi says. “You’re a police officer now. You can’t go around with these discriminatory attitudes assuming anyone who dares to dress like an individual is a bad guy. I honestly expected more from you.”

The two argue back and forth for a few minutes, but their words don’t reach you. A self-defense mechanism slides into place. It empties your brain, protects you from any thoughts that may churn your guts. The wine coolers are doing a good enough job of that already.

“Enough! Nobody cares,” Himeka lectures them before turning to you with solemn eyes. “If you talk to him tomorrow, and he says, yes, I am seeing other women, and I’m going to keep seeing other women. There’s nothing you can do about it. What are you going to do?”

You want to evade the question, but Himeka’s narrow eyes follow yours, and stop you from fading into nothingness. It’s a good question, which is what makes it so uniquely cruel.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to break up if he is. I mean, you were okay not being exclusive before,” Akane points out.

“Wouldn’t that make me, I don’t know, pathetic?”

“It would only make you pathetic if you let him sleep around with as many women as he wants while you wait for him to call like a good little housewife. I say go out and have some fun of your own. You are young and smart and beautiful, and guys are going to line up to take you out. So, why not let them? That way, you’re even,” Akane advises.

The idea of someone else’s touching your body with foreign hands makes you shudder. Yet, Rindou shows no signs of the same revulsion. He can stomach a woman’s hand wandering down his chest, tracing his thighs, palming his cock, and who knows what else? Maybe he even lets them sleep in his apartment, curled up like true lovers, like the two of you. The thought sours the sweet wine in your mouth.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves. I just…need to talk to him. Yeah, I’ll communicate with him, and I’m sure everything will just work itself out. No reason to worry.”

Looking around the circle of sympathetic faces, not a single one of your friends looks like they believe it. And neither do you.

A/N: So be honest guys...am I completely evil?

“In order to induce the process of decay, water is necessary. I think that, in the case of women, men are water.” – Natsuo Kirino, Grotesque

“Is it not because women are so trusting that they are constantly being deceived by men?” – Natsume Sōseki, Kokoro

#tokyo revengers smut #tokyo revengers x reader smut #tokyorev smut #tokyo revengers x reader #rindou haitani #rindou smut #rindou x reader smut

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